by Spencer Baum
“Down the hatch,” Tom said.
Amy and Jackie crawled into the hole. Kevin stood still. He felt like he was going to throw up. He would almost prefer to stay and face the demons rather than go even deeper into the bowels of the earth.
But going down was still the only option. In the glare of Lou’s flashlight, Kevin got his first view of the entire shaft. The rounded floor curved into wide, sloping walls, stretching to the top in a smooth, continuous shape. High on the walls and surrounding the shaft were more stainless steel showerheads, no doubt ready to pour on another dose of insecticide. Lou had constructed a giant, underground pitcher plant, and they stood at the bottom, having lured the entire line of ants inside.
“Better get going now,” Tom said, and Kevin followed Jackie down the ladder. Tom came next. Joseph and Lou flew inside half a second before the chain of demons crashed to the floor. Using a handle on the underside of the manhole cover, Lou slammed the hatch shut and yelled, “We’re safe!”
The demons screamed. The sound of it turned Kevin’s blood to ice. Lou began to laugh. It was a crazed, high-pitched laugh, nearly as terrible a sound as the demon scream.
“This time they won’t get out,” Lou said between cackles. “Closing this hatch has released the rope from the ceiling and triggered another insecticide shower, and this one won’t stop until they’ve drowned! They cannot climb the walls of that chamber. It’s shaped like a pitcher plant. We’ve done it!”
A crash sounded above them, shaking the ladder.
“Don’t worry,” said Lou. “The bottom of our trap is lined with a foot of hardened steel. This manhole cover is made of titanium and is sealed shut with an electromagnet. Our escape is at the bottom of this ladder. The demons are finished!”
The curved spike of a demon’s jaw poked through the manhole cover and began slicing through it like a can opener.
“Oh, Good Lord,” said Lou.
“It’s a short way to the bottom!” Amy yelled. “Jump for it!”
Kevin didn’t hesitate, and as he let go of the ladder, he heard the demons tearing through the manhole cover as if it were tin foil. He landed on hard, wet ground in total darkness. Underneath the sounds of cracking concrete and chaos, Kevin heard running water. His eyes unable to makes sense of things in the dark, he found his ears making a picture for him. The demon scream coming from above bounced off the floor and spread in all directions, running up the walls and across the ceiling.
They were in a cave. There was a river flowing all around them.
But the smell threw him off. He had never been in a cave, but he didn’t expect it to smell like this. It was a rich, aromatic scent.
In his mind, he saw his dad’s Tingley 2000 machine, its display saying, “Be your espresso. Sweet-smelling, strong, and full of life.”
Tom landed next to Kevin. Joseph flew down with Lou on his shoulders. The arrival of Lou’s flashlight allowed Kevin’s eyes to confirm what his other senses told him.
They stood on a small island of jagged rock in the middle of a wide underground river. Stone walls rose on both sides, curving into a high stone ceiling. All around them, the underground river bubbled like a boiling pot, stirring up black gunk from deep below. In front of them, tethered to the concrete island, was a small motor boat.
“Into the boat,” said Lou. “Underwater jets are filling the river with espresso. If we can get a lead on them, they won’t be able to track our scent.”
Lou sat at the helm and turned a key to start the boat’s engine. The group crowded into the boat, six people into a boat made for three. The boat was equipped with two wonderful, beautiful, bright headlights, that came on and illuminated a long, open stretch of cave. Even with imminent death behind them, the brief moment of light in the darkness brought comfort to Kevin.
“We’re too heavy,” said Tom.
Ignoring him, Lou untied the boat from its docking station and put it in gear. The first demon burst into the cave as the boat lurched forward.
“We have to go much faster,” Jackie said.
“This is as fast as we go,” Lou said quietly, resignedly.
A demon crashed into the river. A second and third piled in behind it.
Jackie pushed past Kevin to the back of the boat, and locked her gaze on the nearest monster. It screamed in response. The demons behind it pushed ahead. More were piling into the cave. In just a few seconds there would be more than Jackie could hold back.
Something splashed into the water behind the boat, startling Kevin and bringing a shriek from Amy. Joseph’s head emerged from the dirty water with a determined look on his face. Extending his arms, he flew into the back of the boat, coasting across the surface of the river and pushing them on their way. With Joseph’s help, the boat more than doubled its pace. Between Joseph and Jackie’s efforts, they started putting distance between themselves and the demons.
The river dug a steady downward path into the cave, gathering speed as it went. At the front of the boat, Lou was throwing the steering wheel back and forth with exaggerated, crazy movements. They were far on the right side of the river when they came to a fork in the tunnel.
“Left! Left!” Lou shouted.
The river, gurgling with espresso, had become brownwater rapids, and neither Lou at the wheel nor Joseph at the rear could get them to the left end of the fork in time. Behind them, the demons had lost their footing in the deep river and now were swimming on the surface. The leader crashed into the rocks that divided the cave into left and right tunnels. The impact caused a cave-in, massive chunks of rock broke from the ceiling, soaking everyone in the boat with a cannonball splash of river water and espresso. The rockslide continued until the tunnel was full of sediment from floor to ceiling. A wave surged from behind them, carrying them far from the cave-in. The wave passed underneath, and the rapids slowed to a calm.
The cave-in had blocked out the demons and most of the riverflow. On the other side of the rock, the demons let out one more terrible scream, and fell silent. Lou turned off the engine. Joseph flew out of the river, coasting behind them awaiting instructions.
“What are we doing?” Jackie whispered.
“I…our exit was on the left side of that fork,” said Lou. “I don’t know which way to go now.”
“How about straight ahead,” said Jackie, “far from the monsters on the other side of those rocks.”
“Right, right,” said Lou, reaching for the key.
“Let me push,” said Joseph. “At least we won’t make so much noise.”
Lou looked back to Joseph, a teenager flying behind his boat. Lou collapsed into the driver’s chair, unable to say anything.
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Jackie said. “Let’s go as far as we can, as quietly as we can. When they break through, this place is going to flood something serious.”
Joseph pushed them along the quiet river. The silence of the cave was a shocking contrast to the screams and chaos of the chase that led them here. In Kevin’s ears, the hum’s resonance swelled to fill the emptiness.
Tom was the first to speak, his slow Southern drawl announcing what they all were thinking.
“They’ve stopped chasing us. They know we’re trapped in here so they’ve left us to die.”
Tom’s voice echoed in the cave and faded into the hum. Kevin could sense the soundwaves of Tom’s words traveling ahead of them, funneled by the narrow walls and absorbed into the water below.
“Great!” said Jackie. “Just great! Are you all proud of your giant ant trap? What was the point of all this?”
“I’ve shared my story in full,” said Lou. “It’s the three of you who have some explaining to do.” Lou pointed his flashlight at Joseph, coasting on the water behind them and pushing the boat like a silent motor.
“He’s the only one who can fly,” said Jackie.
“What were you doing to slow down the demons?” Amy asked.
“I was pushing them,” said Jackie. “I can do that. It’s a long st
ory.”
“I fear we may have time for long stories. No one has ever mapped these caves,” said Lou. “The idea was that we’d go down the left tunnel, and if by some miracle, there were still demons chasing us at this point, the water would push them to the right, where they would be lost forever.”
“Why did we have to be involved?” said Jackie.
“You didn’t have to be involved,” said Lou. “I was only trying to help. I called to warn you that the authorities had your names. I feared that she was intercepting the same radio transmissions I was, that she would hear your names and come after you. When Joseph told me on the phone that you knew who blew up the mountain, that it was a woman, that you had broken into her house and found a Shuberville newspaper – I was certain you were already antfood. But I invited you here anyway. I couldn’t bear the thought of more innocent death, so I tried to protect you.”
“Turns out you were the ones who protected us,” Amy said.
“Did you know these kids had these…powers?” Lou asked Tom.
Tom shook his head.
“So what else can you do?” Lou asked Jackie.
“We’re all stronger and faster,” Jackie said.
“Stronger and faster than what? Or is it when?” said Lou. “When did you acquire these abilities?”
Jackie looked at Kevin, a flash of memory shared between them. It seemed so long ago, but it wasn’t.
“Yesterday,” she said.
“Yesterday? The explosion at the mountain,” said Lou. “It’s related, isn’t it? You were there. That’s why the feds are after you.”
There was a hint of hysteria in Lou’s voice, inflections that were well-rehearsed from years of dramatic storytelling. If this were a radio broadcast, he had reached the moment when he could reveal the secret that brought everything together.
“I don’t know,” said Jackie. “Kevin should tell the story.”
Kevin’s name was like a morning alarm clock. Even as his ears listened to the conversation in the boat, his mind had been somewhere else. In the quiet of these underground caves, the hum loomed in a way that Kevin could lose himself in it without even trying.
“You alright, Kevin?” Jackie asked.
“Yes. It’s the hum. I don’t know why, but I feel like I need to listen to it now. You should tell the story.”
“The hum?” said Lou. “You’re a Hearer too?”
Kevin nodded.
“Somebody, I don’t care who, please start at the beginning, and leave nothing out,” Lou said.
“Alright,” said Jackie, “it started yesterday morning at Blackstone Park.”
Chapter 17
Kevin’s arrival at Blackstone Park with his black eye, the elm tree, the sap, the butterfly, the mountain – when Jackie came to the part of the story about the crystal, Kevin pulled it from his backpack and gave it to Amy, who passed it around. Kevin listened to Jackie’s story, a piece of him in the boat, re-living the events of the past two days, another piece of him soaring through the cave, riding on the waves of the hum, going far in all directions, seeing the tunnels in his mind.
“Astounding,” Lou said as he handed the crystal back to Kevin. “So many amazing facets of your story, clearly there is a connection between it all. It is beyond coincidence that your life and that of The Demon Queen are so closely intertwined.”
“There are no coincidences,” said Amy.
“Too true,” said Lou. “What surprises me most is that Gretchen lived so out in the open among you and your family. Our picture of her was taken a good twenty years ago. I’m amazed she hasn’t taken steps to mask her appearance.”
“It’s not her appearance so much that makes me know,” said Kevin.
He paused. His words sunk into the hum. His brain, already in two places at once, went to a third. He imagined spiral shapes, in Gerrard’s book, on the document a young Cassandra held in her hands, in his mind.
“May I see the picture?”
Tom pulled the black and white photograph from his breast pocket and gave it to Kevin.
“Flashlight,” Kevin said. Lou handed it to him and Kevin shone it on the picture. He looked in her eyes first. Cassandra D’Antonia. Gretchen Brinkley. The Demon Queen of Shuberville.
“Even then, you knew what you wanted,” Kevin said to the photograph. “Why have you waited so long?”
Kevin’s words echoed in the darkness.
“Waited for what?” said Jackie.
The boat slowed. Joseph had stopped pushing and floated up next to Kevin to look at the photograph.
“See this document in her hands?” Kevin asked.
“Peter Gerrard’s letter to Julius Adams,” said Lou. “Property of King’s College in Bristol, England. Officially lost when on a tour of museums and university libraries in the American South.”
“These waves and spirals all over the letter look like aimless doodles,” Kevin said. “They’re not. There’s more to them.”
Kevin pulled Gerrard’s manuscript from his backpack. He opened it to the pages of doodles in the back.
“When I look at these drawings, the hum changes.” Kevin held up Gerrard’s manuscript for the others to see. “It’s like Peter Gerrard used these drawings to capture ideas in the hum.”
“What ideas?” said Jackie.
Kevin listened to the soundwaves of Lou’s voice, following the rest of this conversation into the caves.
“A map,” Kevin said. “Gerrard has been in these caves before. He’s mapped every inch of them.”
“How do you know that?” asked Lou.
“I can hear it,” Kevin said. “I can hear where our voices are going after we speak. These caves twist and turn, winding in the same spiraling shape that Gerrard drew on his letter to Julius Adams.”
“Can you use this map to find out where we are?” asked Lou.
Kevin nodded.
“So how do we get out?” asked Amy.
“Gerrard only mapped one exit,” Kevin said.
“On the other side of the cave-in,” said Lou. “We are trapped.”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Kevin. “There’s a new way to escape now. It was created yesterday.”
No one said anything. Kevin stared at the open pages of the book. So lost in the hum, he was barely present in the boat.
“The drawings on the letter to Julius Adams are a map to a specific place. Gretchen saw it in the letter. I can see in her eyes that she already knew it when this photo was taken. She had already decided then, however many years ago, that she was coming to Turquoise. It’s why she blasted open the mountainside.”
“What are you talking about?” said Lou. “What is it?”
“There’s a treasure under Turquoise Mountain. Gerrard wrote about it in this manuscript. He spent years looking for it, but he must have failed, because it’s still here. I can hear its presence.”
“A treasure?” said Lou.
“These caves will lead us there. We’re all going to the same place, but she’s approaching from the top, and we’re coming from the bottom.”
“Kevin, what treasure?” asked Lou.
“It’s…I can’t describe it,” said Kevin. “It’s the reason Hearers are drawn to the mountain. I don’t know what it is, but I know why she wants it. It’s power. It’s the source -- Joseph and Jackie, our abilities – Cassandra, her army of monsters. We’re all just tapping into it. We’re all touching the surface of it. If someone were to have it--”
“It would be disastrous,” said Jackie.
The memory of a demon’s scream echoed in Kevin’s ears. It mingled with the hum, twisting together, growing. Merely thinking about mixing the sounds felt dangerous. The demons had such a malevolent sound in the hum, and the mountain held so much power…
“Maybe she already has it,” said Amy.
“I don’t think so,” said Kevin.
“You’re not suggesting that we seek out The Demon Queen, are you?” said Tom. “If there’s another way out
, I think we should take it and get far away from here.”
Kevin looked over the crew packed into Lou’s tiny boat. Super powers, an expensive underground trap, years of Lou’s planning, and they still found themselves trapped underground, fleeing for their lives. Tom was right. Trying to stop Cassandra from getting what she wanted was a crazy idea. They needed to focus on getting out of here, on staying alive.
“We’re coming on a bend in the river,” Kevin said. “We need to veer left. We’re going to a cavern deep under the mountain. I don’t know what we’re going to find, but if there’s a way out, it’s through there. Cassandra blasted a tunnel from the outside of the mountain and dug straight to that cavern. We use that tunnel to get out, and we’ll just have to hope we don’t run into her on the way.”
Chapter 18
They traveled the underground river in near silence, Kevin occasionally asking Joseph and Lou to turn the boat and follow this channel, to jog it this way and avoid this turnoff. As they floated, Kevin read Gerrard’s manuscript by flashlight.
I’ve long suspected that there is more to this noise in my mind than the frailty of age or some natural phenomenon, Gerrard wrote. The natural tendency is to ignore the sound, to try to go on with one’s daily life and hope that the incessant ringing of the ears does not hamper one’s work. Today I tried the opposite approach. Today I sat in the grass of the alpine forest, closed my eyes, and listened.
“We’re coming on a fork ahead,” Kevin said. “Go left.”
At first, my mind brought forth terrible memories and associations that are a necessary part of this occupation. The dual sounds of Turquoise Mountain, one noble and one malicious, are in constant struggle inside the Hearer’s mind. Today the malicious sounds came forward first and I felt a desire to seek distraction and move away from the hum. But I continued to focus, and within the bad sound, I found hint of the good.
“Kevin?” Jackie asked.
“Straight,” he said. “The tunnel on the left is a dead end.”