The Revenant: A Horror in Dodsville

by Brian L. Blank

  Totally confused now, and not knowing what to do, I decided that maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to remain behind to see exactly what was returning. So, I took off running down the left tunnel after the group. I could still easily make out their shouts ahead of me as I shot past the last light and headed into darkness. Pulling the flashlight out of my pocket, I lit the way in front of me. The tunnel made a few wide turns, so I couldn't see the group as they ran ahead of me, but I felt myself gaining on them. Their screaming became louder and more distinct. Finally, I knew I was almost upon them, as I heard them just around a sharp corner in front of me.

  But when I turned the corner, the voices quit--died out--and if it wasn't for a brief echo to prove they had just been there, I would have thought I was hallucinating. Yet, I did distinctly hear the echo, and I stopped cold right where the group should have been. No one was in sight.

  I leaned against the granite wall to catch my breath. "Damn it," I said aloud. "Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?" I knew I had cursed, but I was no longer in the house of God. But I still felt a little natural guilt. Since the floor was now plain dirt instead of the usual concrete, I could make out no footprints. I had no idea if I was heading in the right direction anymore. Sly could be anywhere down here.

  Demurely, I thought of the horror-stricken faces when the white flashing light turned red, and decided it not a good idea to go back in that particular direction. If those fun-loving party people were so completely terrified of what was back there, I didn't want the pleasure of running into it--whatever it was. And I also didn't want it catching up to me, standing here like an ignorant cow waiting for the slaughter, so I sighed heavily and started a good pace down the tunnel in the direction I had been heading.

  I heard nothing of the group that disappeared into thin air, and couldn't help but wonder what had become of them. Or was I losing my mind so completely that I could have conjured them up? I thought not. But what was that saying--if you thought you weren't crazy, you probably were?

  As my heartbeat gradually slowed to its normal rate, and I began to breathe more easily, a sense that I needed to go to sleep began to embark across my brain. The hands on my watch read a little after two in the morning, and my adrenaline was flowing at maximum tide. Sleep, I was sure, would lose this battle. I was too pumped up to poop out. What I did worry about, however, was losing my acute concentration to the weariness. My feet had already trudged across miles of concrete and granite. How much farther would I have to go to reach whatever destination it was I so desperately sought? I didn't even want to think about the trek back out of this horror.

  The narrow passage went on and on, and my legs began to tire at about the same rate the batteries in my flashlight deteriorated. Definitely needing a well-deserved rest, and to let the batteries recharge, I shut the flashlight off and sat back against the granite wall. Something immediately crawled across my hand. I turned the flashlight on for a second and spotted a roach crawling away from me in a hurry. It disappeared into a crack in the wall. I shut the light off again, relaxed, and thought over my plight for the first time since entering the "mirror" back at Wickerman's. Surprisingly, I felt little fear over my situation. The past several weeks in Dodsville had hardened me somewhat, I guessed, and fear had become just another factor in my everyday existence.

  Many minutes later, how many I didn't exactly know as I had slipped off into a light sleep, I woke to a scraping sound coming from the direction I had ventured. It sounded as if someone was scraping the granite wall as he walked along, as if with a knife or rock. Silently I rose to my feet, and any semblance of sleep rapidly met its demise. Soon footsteps became audible, definitely heading in my direction. There was no place for me to hide--no crack wide enough for anything to slip into, other than a roach. And if I ran, whoever it was would surely hear me, and know that I existed. That I didn't want--not yet.

  Remembering the scene back up in the fluorescent room, a chill slid up my spine. The red flashing light was now a warning signal in my brain.

  A bouncing light appeared on the ground from around the nearest corner, and was soon followed by its owner. Behind a flashlight of his own, someone approached--draped in the darkness of the tunnel. Flattening myself against the wall, I prayed he wouldn't notice me until he was right on top of me. Then I would scream and attack, again using the marine recruiter's advice, and bludgeon him to death with my pocket flashlight. My plan wasn't much, I knew, but it was all I had.

  But his flashlight lit right in my face before he was within fifty feet of me. So much for the best-laid plans of mice and men. Whoever it was stopped, keeping the light directly in my eyes so I couldn't make him out.

  "O'Neal?" the man's voice echoed down the tunnel. "Is that you?"

  I recognized the voice. "Pierce?" I asked back, still suspicious, squinting into the light and covering my eyes. I breathed a little more easily. "How in God's name did you find me?"

  Detective Pierce lowered his flashlight and approached. I, in turn, shined mine in his face to make sure I knew whom I was talking to. It was Pierce, all right. He held an expression on his face that was as relieved as I felt. He didn't relax, or take his eyes off my face, until he stopped directly in front of me.

  "I tailed you and Sly," he said, replying to my previous question. "Where the hell are we, if you don't mind my asking?"

  "I haven't the slightest notion," I replied. "And keep your voice down, for crying out loud. I'm sure any noise will reverberate for hundreds of yards down this blasted tunnel." Since he kept his flashlight on, I turned mine off to save on the batteries. "But I'm pretty sure Sly came down here." I paused. "And I'm also hoping I'll find Melissa at the end of one of these corridors."

  I waited for him to reply, but he only stared at me in disbelief. "One thing I am sure of, though," I continued. "We aren't too safe wherever we go down here." I thought of the flashing red light again. "Did you see anything up in that lit room?"

  "Didn't see anything," Pierce finally replied to one of my questions. "I'm just following you in utter confusion."

  "Well, if you've been tailing me this entire time, I'm sure you saw the procession of zombies that entered Wickerman's shortly after I did." It was the first time I used that particular word to describe them, and I felt silly using it.

  Pierce raised his eyebrows in confusion. "Zombies?" he repeated, and I immediately realized how absurd that sounded. He cocked his head, and that infamous shit-eating grin of his stretched widely across his lower face. "What the hell are you talking about, O'Neal?"

  "OK, OK," I said. "That may sound ludicrous to you right this moment. You'll see for yourself soon enough, I'm afraid. But you must have seen an entire slew of people enter Wickerman's right after I did. They were in groups of three."

  Detective Pierce only stared mutely at me, as if looking upon some idiot child who just claimed to have seen a ghost. "You've been under a lot of stress lately, O'Neal," he said, at length, rubbing the stubble of his beard. "I think maybe--"

  "Then how in God's name do you explain this?" I interrupted, unable to absorb his patronizing, spreading my arms wide to indicate the tunnel.

  Pierce again remained mute.

  "These underground corridors we're spelunking through," I added, "began off the second story of a house." I waited a minute for him to answer to that. "Why don't you explain--"

  A distant groan coming from down the tunnel cut me off. It sounded as though someone had been recently tortured to the brink of death and left behind for the cockroaches to feast upon. The groan lasted for about ten seconds before winding down. Silence then loomed heavy in the air of the tunnel around us.

  "What the hell was that?" I asked at length, giving the groan enough respect to wait and see if it was repeated.

  Pierce perked up and squared his shoulders. "I don't know," he replied, not taking his gaze from the dark hole in front of us. "But I think we should investigate."

  Not waiting for my opinion on the subject, he start
ed a deliberate walk in the direction of the groan. I, gladly, followed, allowing him the lead.

  "Now, what was this you were saying about zombies?" Pierce asked after a few minutes of dead silence between us. He didn't bother turning around to face me, but remained focused on the tunnel ahead.

  I caught up to him and walked at his side. He would need to know, and prepare for, what we were hiking into. He listened, as I told my tale from the very beginning, without interrupting with a question of his own even once. When I finished--fifteen minutes later--he simply bit his lower lip and slowly nodded his head, as if I had just confirmed some theory he had held all along.

  "Does anyone else know about this?" he asked, still not facing me.

  "Just Sly and Julie."

  He nodded again. "And where is Julie?"

  I told him that Sly and I had sent her to Milwaukee, away from Dodsville and its growing horrors.

  Pierce stopped, looking at me now, rubbing the stubble on his face again. I thought I discerned a slight frown form at the edges of his lips, almost as though he were displeased at Julie's departure. But this mood only lasted a few seconds, as Pierce started forward again, turning his attention back to the tunnel in front of him.

  "That's good," he said a full minute later. "No need for her to get involved in this mess."

  Still perplexed at his initial response, I asked, "You didn't want her to leave Dodsville?"

  "No, no," he replied. "I was just concerned if she got out of town safely."

  I nodded, though still not quite satisfied with his answer.

  After walking another ten minutes, and a half a mile deeper into the unknown, the sounds of someone speaking reached us from ahead. I was about to say something to Pierce, but he put his index finger to his lips for me to remain silent. Then he pointed ahead. "Let's surprise them," he said, that shit-eating grin forming on his face.

  We both turned off our flashlights and continued in darkness, feeling our way along by groping at the granite walls at our side.

  The voice gradually became louder, and soon it took on the form of a chant. Several persons ahead of us were chanting, in a language I wasn't familiar with. Another tunnel broke off the one we were walking down to our right, and since the chanting emanated from down that one, we broke off the main tunnel and started after it.

  Lights almost immediately became visible ahead, and soon fluorescent lights, like the ones back at the dance, lined the ceiling in front of us. We stopped while we were still hidden in the darkness of the tunnel. The end of the tunnel was now in sight, and a well-lit room lay in front of us. I couldn't make out any movement from where we stood, but soon a woman in a black dress that reached to her ankles floated past the opening. She disappeared a second later on the other side. In her hand, she had carried a lit candle.

  "Did you see that?" I whispered to Pierce, who only smiled at me in return. "She was floating a good ten inches off the ground. You have to believe me now."

  The chanting changed beats, picking up its pace. The same woman in black floated back across the opening, carrying the candle in her other hand.

  "I think Sly's in trouble," I said to Pierce, who was still too awestruck to respond. I hoped silently that he would snap out of it soon. He would be needed. "We have to get in there. Sounds like they're performing some black magic bullshit on Sly."

  He finally relaxed and nodded. "I'm right behind you," he said, not taking his gaze off my face.

  "Well, at least take out your gun," I said, feeling not quite right about the way Pierce was acting. He looked almost like he was simply patronizing me again.

  His smile disappeared. "No need to tell me my job," he replied, though much too loudly. I was sure his voice carried down the tunnel and into the room.

  "Shh," I whispered, but with emphasis.

  Pierce pulled his gun out of his pants, and promptly pointed the barrel directly at my forehead.

  "What the hell are you doing?" I asked, in a voice slightly above a whisper now. I thought he still believed I was the guilty party and behind all of this. "We have to act like a team. They will--" I stopped short, for Pierce grabbed me by my good arm--and his touch was icy cold. A shiver immediately shot down my spine and through my soul.

  "My god," I said, stunned.

  He was one of them.

  "Just march forward into that room," he instructed, motioning forward with the gun. The chanting had stopped. "And please don't try to break away. I really don't want to have to shoot you. Plans have already been made in your honor."

  As I walked out into the lights and toward the room at the end of my journey, Pierce's gun pressed forcefully into my back, the sensation that I was only living through a dream again washed over me. And I welcomed it. My clenched teeth loosened, and the gray matter in my skull slid back into their appropriate slots.

  I cleared my throat as we approached the room, and more and more persons donned in black became visible. They formed a semicircle in front of me, patiently awaiting my arrival. "Where's Sly?" I asked Pierce.

  He chuckled briefly before replying: "You'll be with your dear pal before long."

  I stepped out of the tunnel, down one short step, and into the room. "How long have you been a zombie?" I asked, trying to keep my mind occupied. The room was about fifty feet wide and thirty feet deep, painted entire in a bright off-white color. The semicircle in front of me reached from front corner to front corner, arched up against the back wall. A single door in the rear led out of the room, but it was presently closed.

  Pierce sighed. "There you go using that egregious word again," he said, as we stopped in the center of the semicircle. "It makes us seem so ridiculous. Nonsensical. We live O'Neal." He moved to my side, now jabbing the gun into my ribs. "We are so alive."

  Swallowing hard first, I asked my last question of him: "Is Melissa still all right?"

  The door in the rear of the room opened with a slight creak, and a man pushed his way between the two men in front. Pierce lowered the pistol, walked back to the entrance of the tunnel, and stood there mutely, obviously guarding the exit. The new arrival smiled as he approached me.

  And I recognized him from my past.

  "Hello, Reed," I said, more calmly than I thought possible. "What's going on?"

  The chanting started again, in what sounded to me like Latin, though much quieter than before. They spoke in a voice an octave above a whisper.

  Reed Price floated the remainder of the way to me, his smile broadening at my having recognized him so readily. His eyes were no longer innocently and eagerly searching the world around him; evilness had penetrated them, and he now held the look of one who knew all the answers.

  I took an unconscious step back and my right foot slipped into a hole. Losing my balance, I fell to one knee. I pulled my foot back out and stood, trying to keep a face of dignity. Between my feet was a square hole about ten inches wide and two feet deep.

  Shaking his head, Reed floated down to the ground and was now on eye level with me. The scent of burning rubber reached my nose, and I flinched slightly. "How's it going, Stephen?" he said, at last, and it was the same voice I remembered from the past. "Haven't seen you in a hell of a long time." He raised a hand to rest it on my shoulder and I flinched, awaiting the chill that would shoot through me.

  But he was warm. And a new wave of confusion shook me.

  I forced my lips to form a friendly smile. "What have you done with Melissa and Sly?" I asked. No use in going through any formalities here.

  The smile vanished abruptly from Reed's face. Letting go of my shoulder, he grabbed onto my bad left forearm--and squeezed. I could almost feel the bone rebreaking. I cringed, but didn't cry out. Tears of pain, though, welled in my eyes.

  "I'm going to teach you a valuable lesson tonight, my friend," he said, and he released his grip. The warm smile reappeared above his chin. He turned to face the chanting semicircle, and the voices stopped. Reed raised both his arms above his head, as if in triumph. "Bring in t
he prize for my good friend," he shouted to the rear of the group.

  The same two men that parted for Reed only a few minutes ago did so again as the door behind them reopened. What I saw coming over the threshold almost caused my bowels to discharge. I hadn't yet relieved myself from when I first felt the tug on my groin back in Wickerman’s bathroom, and now I seriously wished I had. Four men entered the room, carrying with them a large wooden cross--the perfect size to crucify a man my height. The somewhat pleasant sensation of being in a dream fleeted me like rats from a burning building--and reality set in to take its place.

  I was in deep shit.

  I had frozen where I was, and Reed pushed me away from the opening on the floor. The four men, with black hoods almost completely hiding their faces, approached me. In the far reaches of my mind, I had the faint hope they would keep on walking, into the tunnel and out of my life. But luck was not to be an ally tonight. They lowered the front end of the beam and slid it into the hole by my feet. Once the cross was raised, one of the men shook it to make sure it was securely in place. Then utter silence ruled the room. The four men stood to the right side of the cross, facing the semicircle.

  "You can't be serious," I said calmly to Reed, who was still smiling broadly. None of this is happening, I thought. Give me back my dream.

  Reed looked up to the top of the cross. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" he said. "I've been waiting for this moment for quite some time now, Stephen." He lowered his gaze to look me in the eyes again. "I wanted you to see it before you were in too much pain to comprehend the beauty of the night." He raised his hands, motioning to the cross. "Look at it, Stephen. Look at your punishment." He paused briefly. “Look at your destiny.”

  "This isn't you, Reed," I said, holding my gaze straight ahead, refusing to turn and face the cross. "The Reed Price I knew would--"

  "Enough!" A grimace of hatred replaced the smile on his face. "This is your fault!" he shouted, and pointed to the cross next to me. "You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you, my friend. You had to go for the grand prize. You had to fuck everything up!"