Passage Graves

by Madyson Rush

  Keeping his head down, David stayed close to the row of beds lining the wall. He spotted an old man by the windows, his back to David. His hands traced invisible shapes over the glass. Spirals that wound inward, tight at the center.

  David ducked and scooted across the room behind the man. He placed one hand on the man’s shoulder. The man looked back with a toothless smile. His eyes were white with cataracts. He curled his finger, motioning for David to lean inward. He moved his lips but no sound came out.

  “I can’t hear you,” David whispered.

  The man tried again, still with no voice. He was mouthing “Asor”. He pointed down to the end of the room.

  Two familiar black eyes stared back at him.

  The man from Brenton’s Polaroid stood in the shadows. Daylight failed to brighten his corner of the room. Gloom stretched out like a black cloud of tangible desolation. His darkness blotted out the sun. His shadow, as if alive, elongated across the length of the floor. The chill crawled up David’s spine, an eclipse permeated his mind.

  There was a scream—a horrifying scream. The cry he heard at Stenness and buried in the recesses of his mind. He could not stop it. He could only listen.

  The noise separated from his mind. Suddenly displaced, it spread across the room.

  In the blink of an eye, Asor was at David’s side. He grabbed David’s arm and dug his fingernails into his flesh.

  “Tsaw-lakh’ saw-ar’ paw-rawsh!”

  The old man lurched forward. His eyes rolled back into his head.

  One by one, the patients in the room faced them. The catatonic came alive.

  They joined Asor’s whisper, rolling their tongues as if the strange vernacular was their own. “Tsaw-lakh’ saw-ar’ paw-rawsh!”

  Security guards stormed the room.

  There were no other exits.

  The men stopped at the door as the clamor grew louder.

  Discord echoed off the walls in a confusion of noise. David could hear the screams of Stenness. He grabbed his ears. The room began to spin. Images flashed into his mind: Brenton’s corpse, Thatcher lifeless—everything that mattered destroyed. The walls of the asylum began to vibrate. With a terrible crash, the windows burst outward. The floor splintered, and a crack spread down the center of the room. The guards fell aside as the floor split between them.

  Asor pulled David out of the room.

  Chapter 61

  SATURDAY 5:20 p.m.

  Lothian, Scotland

  Dettorio stared at Ian in the rearview mirror. The man’s coarse features made him look like a Neanderthal—a protruding forehead, a square, bony jaw, weedy eyebrows. Even his joints were misshapen, his knuckles like marbles. Probably from years of inflicting pain.

  “Here we are,” Javan said, an unnerving twinkle in his eye.

  They pulled into the driveway of the Lothian Post.

  Javan unbuttoned his suit coat, unclipped David’s handgun from his shoulder holster, and removed the cartridge. The chamber was full. Nine rounds. He reloaded the clip and offered the gun to Ian.

  Ian didn’t move.

  “Take it.” Javan forced the weapon into Ian’s hands.

  The sidearm was heavy, volatile in his hand. He could kill both of them, and this could be over.

  Javan pushed Ian’s hand aside so the gun was pointed at Dettorio instead of himself.

  “There’s an elderly couple inside.” He nodded at the post office. “Learn where David has gone and then dispose of the witnesses.”

  Ian’s mouth went dry. “You want me to kill them?”

  “If you fail, my aid will tidy things up.”

  Dettorio looked more than happy to oblige.

  A vile taste filled Ian’s mouth. There was a way around this. He could think of something.

  Javan’s eyes lit up with pleasure. He pulled off his black leather gloves and handed them to Ian. “You’ll want these.”

  ****

  The counter bell rang for the second time.

  The old man turned down his television set. “Sherry! Customer!”

  Ian tapped the bell again.

  The man cursed under his breath, rolled out of the lounge chair, and slowly hobbled over to the counter. He looked up at Ian, a priest in full cassock, bruised and bloody. He shook his head. “God Almighty, what a day. We’re closed, Father.”

  Ian kept the gun at his side. “I’m looking for my brother,” he said. “He might’ve been here recently?”

  “Aye, a man was here not thirty minutes ago.”

  Ian felt a weightless sensation from head to foot. “Do you know where went?”

  “To visit the nutters. The Lothian Asylum.” He pointed outside. “Do you need directions, Father?”

  A gasp interrupted their conversation.

  The men turned to see Sherry in the doorway. A box of glassware dropped from her hands and shattered on the linoleum.

  She stared at the pistol in Ian’s right hand.

  ****

  A gunshot sounded from inside the post office.

  Javan smoothed out each crease in a new pair of black leather gloves. The fit was snug over his fingers.

  He smiled as a second shot rang out across the countryside.

  Ian appeared at the door. His body trembled as he stepped inside the limo. The gun nearly dropped to the floor as he handed it back. “David is up the coast at the asylum,” he managed.

  Javan’s eyes deadened.

  It was too simple: Ian’s cooperation.

  Ian reached behind his neck and unfastened the collar of his cassock. He folded the white band in his lap.

  Javan signaled to Dettorio. “You heard the man.”

  The car pulled out of the driveway and headed north.

  Chapter 62

  SATURDAY, 6:04 p.m.

  Eilean Donan Asylum

  Near Dornie, Highlands, Scotland

  Men blockaded the hallway to the main entrance. Bullets swarmed like bees crowding a hive. There were a dozen terrible thumps followed by a crack as flesh and bone absorbed lead. The slugs tossed Asor’s fragile body up into the air and then slammed him to the floor. In a flash, it was over. The last man in the Polaroid was dead.

  David crouched against the wall in shock, protected by an old bookshelf. The bullets quickly chipped away at the wood but he couldn’t move. Why the hell was an entire uniformed force shooting at them?

  The dead man grabbed his foot.

  David retracted in horror.

  Asor pulled himself across the floor behind the recess of the bookshelf. Using the wall as a crutch, he managed to stand. There were holes in his flesh, but no bloodstains. His uniform jumpsuit was pierced and tattered. It was as if nothing had happened. He pointed at a window across the hall. Termite gunfire had already consumed half the shelf. They had to move fast. Reaching for a nearby chair, Asor tried to pick it up. He doubled over. The injuries had affected him. The chair fell into the hallway and ammunition pulverized the seat.

  David shielded his eyes. He caught another chair leg with his foot and tossed it out the window. Gunfire drowned the sound of shattering glass.

  Asor dove across the hallway first. He jumped out the broken window without a second thought. One moment he was agile and the next a hunchback with scoliosis. He perched outside on the ledge and waved for David to join him.

  Ammunition whizzed past David’s head.

  This was insane.

  His mouth was dry. At some point, he had lost the ability to swallow. Gripping what was left of the bookshelf, he tipped it sideways. The heavy shelf shook off balance and then crashed to the floor. As it toppled, David dove behind it and slid to the window. He paused to look over their escape route. His stomach reeled. Forty feet down was a stone courtyard.

  Ahead, Asor sprang from the windowsill and landed on the top of a narrow arch, a bridge that connected their building to another wing of the asylum. The stonework blended with the ground below, creating a dizzying illusion. The archway was almost invisible. Davi
d could only see it because Asor had just landed there.

  Slugs ricocheted off the wall. The shooters were getting close.

  David climbed onto the windowsill. His legs wavered. Staring at a spot on the arch, he dropped. His feet hit the stone, and he tumbled to one side. He caught the ledge with his fingertips. Clinging to cracks in the masonry, he pulled his body back up onto the arch. He looked down again. Twenty feet below, metal spikes of a wrought iron fence reached toward the sky wanting to skewer his flesh.

  Bullets deflected off the arch. Security had reached the window.

  David scrambled across the beam, as Asor kicked out panes of glass from a window in the other wing. David jumped inside behind him, falling through the opening. He dropped onto the linoleum floor. Gulping air, he tried to catch his breath. His body twitched with adrenaline.

  Asor led him through a maze of corridors. The doors of the patients’ rooms had been left open. The drawers and beds were empty. This building had already been evacuated.

  They turned down a hallway and stopped at a dead end.

  Asor’s gnarled fingers brushed over the stone wall. He pressed against the masonry, searching for something. He found a small, loose brick at eye level. Pulling out the brick, he reached into a hole and twisted a rusted crankshaft.

  The wall began to move.

  Scraping the floor, the hidden door slowly became visible. Mortar crumbled between the separating bricks, and the passage opened. Within seconds, the doorway had retracted enough for them to squeeze through sideways.

  “Where are we going?” David followed Asor inside.

  The old man didn’t answer.

  They moved quietly down the spiral staircase enveloped by the dark. The steps were rounded and crudely shaped, some wide and some narrow. They formed a corkscrew stairwell that twisted around and around, descending into perfect black. The air was chalky and stale. He could taste a tangible powder dust on his tongue. Asor’s shallow breaths echoed along the steep descent. He looked back at David for a moment, and a spectral glow exuded from the white matter surrounding his pupils.

  A sudden slit of daylight cut through the darkness.

  David braced himself against the wall as Asor struggled with the exit. It was much harder to find an invisible frame in the shadows. Crevices along the surface had reformed together, erasing the cracks that outlined their doorway. Asor clawed at the mortar, digging his fingernails into each rift and breaking apart the sandy particles that had resealed them.

  “Let me try.” David threw his entire weight into the wall. Debris dislodged around the frame, revealing the crank shaft.

  Asor pulled out the brick and twisted the shaft. The door separated from the wall, this time moving outward. The opening widened, and they slipped out onto the grass near the parking lot.

  Special Forces vehicles were everywhere. Armored trucks surrounded David’s rental car, trapping it.

  Who the hell were these people?

  David hid behind the curved parapet as a limousine drove across the bridge and stopped a short distance away.

  Javan stepped out of the car. In the middle of a cell phone conversation, he walked to the end of the parking lot and overlooked the sea.

  David slid further behind the parapet. What was Javan doing there?

  Asor pointed at a minicar parked between the limo and a bus. Before David could find an alternative, Asor sprinted across the field and behind the grill of the Goggomobil.

  David gritted his teeth. You’ve got to be kidding. They couldn’t outrun Scotland’s Special Forces in that thing. He rushed across the field and crouched beside the hood.

  “This isn’t going to work,” he whispered, twisting his fingers through the grill to unlock the engine bonnet.

  The engine roared to life.

  David fell backwards onto the gravel.

  Asor crawled over the side door and rolled into the backseat just as Javan finished his conversation. His footsteps came back through the gravel. He stopped and scanned the parking lot, his back to David.

  David’s heel caught the rocks. He squeezed his eyes as the stones crunched together. The noise was awful. Certainly, Javan had noticed.

  David peaked over the hood. Javan was halfway up the hill to the asylum entrance. Scrambling over the door, David plopped into the driver seat. He pushed in the clutch.

  Ian stepped out of the limo, his mouth open in surprise.

  There was an awkward pause.

  Two minds racing.

  Ian’s eyes squinted as he spotted the stone ring hanging from a chain around David’s neck.

  David threw the car into reverse. The Goggomobil sped backwards, twisting wildly to the left and colliding with the limo. Shifting into first, he accelerated across the parking lot. Rubber skidded over loose rock, caught hold of the pavement along the bridge, and squealed onto the highway.

  Gunshots rang out from behind. Javan and his men were running to the parking lot.

  The bullets climbed up the trunk, tearing the fiberglass shell. Shrapnel bounced over David’s shoulder and hit the windshield, puncturing the glass. He floored the gas, accelerating to 120 kph. The minicar disappeared between the sloping hills. David searched for another road. A turnoff, a byway—anything. Highway stretched on for miles. There was nowhere to go.

  “Get off the road!” Asor yelled from the backseat.

  The microcar couldn’t navigate over the choppy greensward. That was suicide.

  The steering wheel spun underneath his hands. David fought with the wheel, nearly flipping the car. The vehicle exploded off the embankment, clearing the ditch along the road. There was a terrible groan as the chassis hit the grass.

  Asor shrank in the seat.

  The car slowed and its navigation was restored. There was a flock of sheep gathered in the gulley.

  David downshifted, forcing the car into the herd.

  It was genius.

  “What are you talking about?” Javan yelled into the radio. “There’s nowhere for them to go!”

  A man’s voice cut to static and then came over the radio again. “What are your orders, Chancellor?”

  Javan slammed his fist against the car seat. He searched the horizon through tinted glass. “They couldn’t have gone far.”

  “Do we go back, sir?”

  “No, dammit! Tell half the men to continue north, and the other half to go south. They’re on A896. There’s no other place for them to go!”

  Javan sat back in his seat and tried to regain his composure. He rubbed his eyes, avoiding the open scar oozing along the side of his face. The wound had reopened during all the excitement.

  His cell phone buzzed. He unclipped it from his belt. “What?”

  He looked up at Ian with disappointment.

  Sweat trickled down Ian’s neck.

  “Take care of it.” Javan tossed the phone to the floor. He reached into his pant pocket and pulled out a silk scarf. “You forget that I clean up your messes, Ian.”

  Unfolding the fabric in the palm of his hand, he removed a small silver vial from his breast pocket and unscrewed the lid. “What a shame, all your nobility has to be wasted.” He dowsed the handkerchief with a few drops of liquid from the vial. “They were hiding behind the counter when Dettorio found them. They thought you had saved them. They were praying for you.”

  Ian clasped his hands together. His fingers intertwined and whitened at the knuckles. On the floor mat was his discarded collar.

  “Does God hear their prayers?” Javan saturated the cloth. “Does He hear yours?”

  Javan sprang forward, thrusting the scarf over Ian’s mouth and nose.

  Noxious fumes filled Ian’s lungs. He struggled to free himself. He tried to hold his breath. The chemicals burned his sinuses. Every nerve ending was singed. Sputtering, he slumped against the car door. The poison spread to his lungs. Bubbles boiled in his throat, acidic and scalding. Blisters fizzed along his esophagus and tongue. Foam erupted from his mouth, scorching his lips a
nd burning his chin. He could no longer breathe. He closed his eyes, succumbing to the pain, begging for grace to embrace him.

  One final prayer—a flickering act of resilience.

  God save me.

  He heard Javan laughing.

  Memory evaporated into immaculate miasma. This was chemical absolution.

  His world was lost in vapor.

  Chapter 63

  SATURDAY 7:26 p.m.

  Stenness Basecamp

  Orkney Island, Scotland

  Marek’s eyes blurred with fatigue. He no longer had the discipline to refocus them.

  After uploading the Hebrew language program into his soundex, he waited for the computer to initiate another language check. It was a simple program. One he could write in his sleep. Every word within a given language was encoded with a numerical sequence that could be compared to the numerical sequencing of the noise recorded inside Maeshowe.

  That was the gist. Matching numbers to numbers. Theoretically simple. Statistically probable.

  But goddamn frustrating.

  It was taking forever.

  The computer beeped every few seconds as it unscrambled new word orders and determined old deadends. A box popped up onscreen with each beep: NO MATCH.

  “No match, no match, no match,” he mimicked the voice of a computer.

  The beeping stopped.

  Marek sat up in disbelief.

  A red box flashed over the screen: MATCH.

  He reached for the keyboard and pressed enter.

  The computerized voice pronounced the matching lexicon. “Tsaw-lakh’ saw-ar’ paw-rawsh.”

  He double clicked to translate, and the computer processed the Hebrew to English.

  WORKING…

  WORKING…

  WORKING…

  He leaned closer to the monitor.

  His mouth fell open.

  COME MIGHTILY

  COME WITH HORROR

  MY HORSEMEN

  “Holy shit.” Marek noticed the reflection of another person in the computer screen. He turned excited. “You’re not going to believe this—”