by Dawn Gray
“Neither am I,” Zander replied and reached out, pressing the elevator button. I glanced up at him, and noticed the storm that brewed behind his eyes.
Later that afternoon, with the knowledge that the fiend was not completely out of our lives, Zander and I headed off to the small cemetery that was placed on the side of a very peaceful county road, just before the town line, on the opposite side of Wilton. We rode in silence, thinking of the events of the past few weeks and his hand reached out to grasp mine. I could feel the pulse of his power beneath the gentleness of his hold and I took in a deep breath before giving him a halfhearted smile.
I love you, baby. His voice whispered as it tingled against my mind and the smile widened as I glanced at him once again.
“I love you too, I’m just thinking about the future,” I replied and watched him as he drove. “I wonder if he jumps from town to town, from one Wilton to the other.”
“I honestly don’t know, Sam.” He sighed and glanced over at me. I nodded and turned back to the scenery before me.
The funeral had taken time to plan, my parents had taken it upon themselves to inform Zander’s relatives of the discovery of his body and the note that had surprisingly ended up tucked in his belongings, requesting that he be buried with Samantha no matter where that was or when it happened.
He and I, of course, were unable to attend the wake or the funeral but shortly after everyone had left the plot site, the two of us walked up, joining my mother and father as they stood looking over the burial site.
They smiled at us, looking down at the two freshly buried graves, as we approached. Sam was unearthed once again so that the engagement ring could be placed on her finger where it belonged, and Zander was buried with the cross that he had used to guide us to where he was.
It was then that the phone in my Zander’s pocket rang. He glanced at me as he pulled it out and flipped the cell phone open.
“Smith,” he said sternly. He listened for a moment, his eyes drawing together as if confused and then he sighed. “Right, we’ll be right there.” Once he hung up, he turned to look at the three of us. “You’re not going to believe what they found on the lake road.”
“Wonderful.” I sighed, rolling my eyes and the four of us moved to climb into our car.
Military vehicles, construction equipment and a large vehicle that belonged to an excavation company crowded the lake road site. The four of us walked carefully down the path that lead to where the others were waiting, and Everett glanced over our formal attire.
“Not exactly the right kind of clothing to go tramping through the dirt with,” he mumbled passed the cigar. With annoyance, I ripped it out of his mouth and tucked it in his pocket. He scowled at me, cleared his throat and turned towards the tunnel without another word. “There’s something inside you might want to see.”
Holding my dress shoes in my hand, I moved inside the dimly lit cave. I was getting tired of being underground no matter what the reason, until I came upon the spot where Everett had stopped. There on the wall before us, was a drawing, depicting a figure with electricity surrounding them, and one with fire, both battling some strange looking demon, a body on the floor between the three.
“What the hell?” I whispered, reaching out to touch the painting. Zander grabbed my wrist, holding me back from making contact, and he shook his head. He seemed to be getting the same strange pulse that I was and I took a step back. “If we leave here, does that mean that we lose them?”
“We had them before we came here,” he whispered, pulling me back into his arms. “Remember when we were younger, we both used them.”
“What does this mean?” I questioned, shaking my head.
“There’s more.” Everett sighed. “I’m not going to take you all the way there, especially given the way you’re dressed, but look.” He pointed a flashlight to a tunnel carved into the pyrite of the mountain, a tunnel that wasn’t made by modern machines. “It goes directly to the house on Miller’s Point.”
“That would explain all the activity.” My father nodded, acknowledging the paranormal influences that something like this may have. “An Indian burial ground right below the house, even if not directly beneath, but connected too, would stir up a lot of strange sensations, voices, apparitions, and certainly would create a portal to the other side. I would like to study this more, if I could, Captain.”
“If you feel the need to tear up your own basement, Mr. Ricketts, please don’t let me stop you,” Everett said, shaking his head.
I glanced at Zander, wondering if he could feel the draw the tunnel entrance was giving off, making it completely impossible to ignore the urge to explore. Something was up there, something that needed to be seen and quickly. I handed my mother my dress shoes and took the flashlight from Everett’s hand.
“Sam! Wait!” Zander begged as I took off into the darkness of the tunnel by myself. I could hear him cursing in my mind but he never broke our connection and then he was right behind me. “What are you doing, woman?”
“Can’t you feel it?” I whispered, as we moved up into the blackness before us. The cave inclined, bringing us deeper into the iron pyrite, and bringing the feeling of the pulse and fire closer to the surface and I began to feel my body burning. “It’s so hot in here, I could strip.”
“Yeah well, don’t get any more ideas about that, I have a feeling the team won’t be too far behind,” Zander said. I stopped to turn and look at him, and watched the lightening flash through his eyes. My heart jumped as the storm began to swirl within them and gently I touched his cheek. “This is very dangerous, Sam.”
“But something that has to be done,” I answered and turned back in the direction I was headed.
As I stepped forward, the solid rock below my feet gave way to nothing but air and I felt myself falling, bruising against the strange slide that I had landed on. It felt slimy, as if water had run across it in the past, but at the same time, when my flashlight finally hit the walls, I could tell it was smooth. I could feel Zander not far behind me, possibly having stepped into it the same way I had, totally by accident.
When the bottom gave out one more time, I fell into a deep pool of water that lay beneath the opening. I could hear Zander screaming and swam a few feet out of his way, just before he crashed down into the water beside me. He came up quickly, gasping for air as his arms flailed out, looking for something to grab and finally he relaxed as he clutched my hand.
“Jesus, what the hell is it with all of the Goddamned water!” He cursed, as the two of us pushed for the small beach that surrounded the liquid. He lay down on the gravel, his hand over his heart as his chest rose and fell quickly. “I hate water, hate it with a passion, and if I wanted to be a fish, I would have joined the damn Navy!”
“You’re fine, you big baby!” I laughed and looked around. “Where the hell are we?”
“Damned if I know,” he muttered, and I slapped him on the side of the leg. “Ouch!”
“Cut the swearing and help me find a way out of here,” I scolded, and smiled as he slowly sat up and looked around. He sighed and studied the walls of the cavern with the same unsure look I had on my face. “We can’t just pick a tunnel and walk out of here. I don’t want to be roaming around inside a mountain all day.”
“There has to be a way out.” He sighed, and rubbed his chin. “What is this place anyway?”
“I don’t know, but can’t you feel that?” I whispered, looking around. “It’s like it’s alive, like something is around us.”
“Yeah, I can feel it, like a heartbeat inside my head,” he replied, standing up. I watched him raise his hand out in front of him and start to walk around the pool, as if feeling for something that was just out of reach. Then he stopped, in front of a tunnel entrance. “Here, Sam, the beat is strongest here.”
I stood and walked over, feeling the fire begin to burn within me as the tunnel grew closer. I glanced at him as he took my hand and we made our way into the darkness, Zander
leading us as we moved along. I felt as if I was burning up, and it became hard to breathe. With a quick movement, I found myself sitting down on the tunnel floor.
Zander squatted down in front of me as I took in deep breaths and shook my head.
“I can’t move.”
“You’re eyes are glowing, Sam, what’s happening?” he questioned, getting down on his knees as he held my cheeks with his hands, staring into my eyes. I swallowed hard and fought to keep them open.
“The fire, it’s too much,” I whispered, my eyes rolling back into my head. “All I want to do is go to sleep.”
“Come on, I have to get you out of here.” With gentle ease, he lifted me and started to walk on the way we had headed.
My mind was completely aware of my surroundings but my body didn’t want to move and slowly I drifted in and out of consciousness as the sleep began to take over.
I heard them, the beats of the war drums, lightly in my head and I opened my eyes just wide enough to look into the dark tunnel behind us. The red mist was forming, taking up the width of the tunnel, glowing like the demon’s red eyes, and heading right for us.
Zander! Run! I ordered, panic in my voice as I gripped his shirt tightly.
He picked up the paced, making it out of the tunnel just as the glowing form was upon us. Together we fell to the moss-covered floor of the small, illuminated cavern. My eyes were wide as the mist formed the ghoulish face of the monster, complete with its red blazing orbs and it opened its mouth as if to devour us. As it hit the light of the cavern, I heard the terrifying scream in my head and cringed as the mist suddenly dissolved.
“What the hell was that?” Zander questioned, as he looked down at me.
I shook my head, still quite unsure of my voice, and I glanced around the cavern we now sat in. The heat inside me was gone, and I found that I could breathe easily. The walls were the same as the others, glistening with the color of iron pyrite, but carved within the stone were small tombs, and I found that I couldn’t take my eyes off from them. They covered the entire circumference around us and the beat that flowed through the room was calming.
“This is where they buried them,” I whispered, taking Zander’s hand. He still sat there, watching my pale face as I gazed in wonder. “The Ute, they knew the demon was in the area, so they buried their dead in here, it’s why he couldn’t come in.”
“The drawing then, what did it mean?” he questioned, and glanced around.
“The troops aren’t coming,” I replied, shaking my head. “Not to here anyway.” Looking down to our joined hands, I smiled. “They had people like us, and only those few were able to bring the dead down here. Their powers protected them, just like they protected Zander.”
“So how do we get out of here?” He sighed and glanced at the small pool before us. “Oh, great, more water.”
I laughed aloud and shook my head as he ran a hand through his hair. I glanced around the room and watched as small orbs floated towards the furthest wall from us, and slowly formed what looked like a person.
“Zander. Look.” I gasped and watched as he turned in the same direction. With a start, he jumped back, unprepared for the sight of an old, crooked woman smiling down at us. She pointed to the small shaft of light that flowed through the opening just under the surface of the water and her grin widened. “It’s a tunnel.”
“How do you know?” he inquired and looked at me as I smiled.
“I can hear her,” I replied and moved towards the opening.
Slowly, I slipped into the warm water, surprised at the temperature and turned to look at him, waving him over with my hand. He shook his head, sighed and slipped in behind me. With a deep breath, the two of us sank into the water and swam down and through the small-submerged pathway, until we saw the light breaking through above us.
With a gentle push on the wet, heavy settlement, we broke though to the pond above, quickly swimming to the surface. I looked around as Zander helped me from the water and smiled. Things were beginning to make perfect sense now.
“That’s why they put him in the pool,” I whispered and brushed my hair back from my face as Zander fished his cell phone out of his pocket. He looked at me, unsure of what I meant, and I nodded to the rock ledge before us. “That’s where Zander landed after the car accident, where they moved him into the icy pond.”
“This is where we found the engagement ring.” He sighed and shook his head. “They really were protecting him.”
“The demon couldn’t get him because the cavern of their dead is right below us, right under the rock that he landed on.” I smiled and felt a shiver run though me. “This whole river is sacred to them, that is why when they moved him. They followed the river and down to the cave, where we could find him, because there was no way we were going to get him out of where we just came from.”
“We have to stop the excavation,” he mumbled, flipping open the phone. I couldn’t believe it was still working, but this was army technology that we were talking about. He glanced at me and smiled. “This is Smith; we’re up stream at the accident sight.”
With a breath of relief, I started to relax against the warmth of the rocks behind me.
I looked up at Zander, as I sat on the hotel bed, after having changed into some sweats and a tee shirt. He smiled at me, closing the door behind him and winked.
“What do we do now?” I asked as he moved closer to me. He grinned and shrugged.
“I put in my resignation with Everett,” he answered and watched the shocked reaction on my face. “It’s what I want, Sam. I want to be with you, not tramping all over the country searching for ghosts.”
“But what will you do?” I questioned and watched him shrug.
“Live a life I never thought I would have.” He smiled, leaning down to kiss me on the lips, and the two of us fell down on the bed, arms and legs wrapped tightly around each other. He pushed the hair from my face and sighed. “I think I’m going to start tonight.”
“Start what?” I giggled.
“Living,” he replied and kissed me heatedly on the lips.
The pulse flashed through me and I felt the fires in me start to burn.
Epilogue
The phone rang in my ear, waking me from the nap I had slipped into while taking a break from painting. With drowsy eyes, I looked around at the light blue walls of the room and shook my head. The noise vibrated through me once again, and I reached over and grabbed it from where it sat on the floor.
With a drowsy voice, I answered. “Hello?”
“Hey, baby!” Zander’s voice flooded my senses and I smiled. “Were you sleeping?”
“Napping,” I replied and sat up, looking around the room.
“How’s the reconstruction going?” he questioned as the thumping of drums caught my ears.
“The house reconstruction is going good, the basement destruction is terrible. I can’t get rid of the war drums in my head!” I scowled and sighed. “Why did I let you tell my father about everything that happened to us in the other town, including the archeological find in the basement?”
“I wanted your dad to like me,” he answered, laughing. “Is he still locked down there?”
“Yeah, working on some sort of tribal artifact that he found while walking the tunnel,” I sighed. “I just wish I could get them to stop.”
I walked down the spiral staircase from the second floor bedroom and into the foyer, where the beat grew louder. With Zander still on the phone, I opened the door and looked down into the dark stairwell of the basement.
“Dad, tell them to turn it down a notch!” I hollered, and listened to the thumping in my ears. “DAD!”
Instantly the drumming stopped and I smiled. Zander laughed on the other end, knowing that the beat had ceased.
“We should be home tomorrow, this ones taking just a bit longer than I thought.” He sighed.
“How are the boys?” I smiled, and felt the frustration from him. “That good huh?”
&nb
sp; “Yeah, well, I’d rather be home with you!” He said softly. “How’s our boy doing?”
I placed my hand on the bump under my shirt and smiled, feeling the small life move within me. “He’s doing just fine, but misses his daddy reading him stories every night.”
“Well, I was thinking about that, and I’m not sure ghost stories are good for him.”
I laughed and shook my head. “But considering his parents, they’re perfect.”
“All right, got to go.” He sighed. “I love you!”
“I love you too, Zander,” I whispered and listened to him hang up the line. With a stretch, I moved into the living room and lay down on the couch. It struck me then, that it was such a crazy turn of events that after running from my childhood, that I would be raising my own in the house on Miller’s Point.