by P. W. Child
Gretchen lit a short candle that barely filled its makeshift tin holder on the old sink. With this and Nina’s lighter they approached the black square hole at their feet where the steps waited in silence. In the dark below there was no sound but the thrashing currents of the mouth ominously inviting the ladies into its moist cavernous home.
“Look at that dark pit, Nina. I must confess to being quite scared shitless,” Gretchen admitted as they started down the dark steps.
“You and me both, Gretch,” Nina answered, secretly concerned for Sam’s welfare. A dreadful feeling of loss filled her in anticipation of discovering Sam, Paddy, and Richard in scattered butchery after such a powerful explosion.
As they sank deeper with every step in the flimsy yellow flicker of their light, the atmosphere felt thicker with electrical activity. It made their hair stand on end, almost like walking down a dark corridor after a goodnight ghost story.
It feels as if something is waiting for us, Nina,” Gretchen implored, tugging at Nina’s shirt to pull her back to the steps. Nina swirled around with an irritated frown, “Can you not say shit like that?”
“But it’s true.”
“I know it’s true, Gretchen. I was trying to ignore that! Now come. They could be anywhere in any condition and I don’t even want to entertain that thought. They should not be so quiet,” Nina said, as she turned to stalk nearer to the rushing water of the well where the men were last. Their light was too slight to discern anything before they had come right on it—an added reason for nerves.
“Sam!” Nina called out, her dark eyes very reluctantly searching the blackness for him. “Sam!”
“Ladies,” a voice came from where the mouth was gurgling and gushing, almost drowning it in the din.
“Richard?” Gretchen asked. “Where are you?”
“We are at the edge of the mouth, ladies,” Paddy said plainly.
It appeared the men were unscathed, yet their strange serenity was disturbing. On inspection, Nina and Gretchen found Paddy and Sam on one side of the mouth and Richard seated on the opposite side.
“Our flashlights have died. The battery power was sapped completely!” Richard mentioned, his voice thrilled and exhilarated at the same time.
“What the fuck just happened?” Nina asked. She sounded exasperated, more from shock and relief than actual vexation.
“You won’t believe us if we tell you,” Sam added, his eyes still resolutely fixed on the restless pool of water in front of him. “You had to have seen it, else you’d think we were daft; completely fucking nutters.”
Paddy nodded in agreement.
“Tell us anyway,” Nina insisted, while Gretchen sat down next to Richard’s pale frame. For the first time since they had met him, he looked cheerful, even flushed.
“Well,” Richard exclaimed, surprisingly the loudest and most talkative of the three, “it worked.”
“What worked?” came the question from both women.
“The theory of inter-dimensional travel appears to be more than mere hypothesis, it seems. From what just happened here, this is indeed a portal to another time-space continuum, but the conundrum presents itself in that it is unclear what activates it,” he rambled, deep in thought, though maniacal his words came rapidly and precisely.
“Bodies? Perhaps?” Sam suggested in his snide way, ashen and horrified. Paddy said nothing. He simply stared into the well in the feeble candlelight that barely stayed alive in its frantic dance for the subterranean air rush.
“When we dropped the bodies into the water . . . ” Sam tried to explain to Nina, but the words failed him from there.
“The big bang happened,” Paddy added blankly without moving a muscle. Sam nodded.
“I venture to guess that the water is merely a conduit to another barrier, otherwise this . . . bang, and . . . this . . . light, would happen all the time. No, it was definitely something about the dead men’s corpses that excited the physics of this place,” Richard spoke with wonderment, almost reciting his words like a man in a trance. There was no doubt that he admired the science at work here, sinister as it might have been.
“But, how? And what precisely was the clap about?” Gretchen inquired. She looked at Nina and reached out to run her hand over Nina’s black crown to console her, calming her nerves somewhat.
“You know that when the sound barrier is breached, there is a similar clap,” Richard explained.
“Hey, we did not drop them in at Mach 1, pasty,” Sam objected to the ludicrous idea from the man he dubbed in disdain of his pale complexion. To Nina’s surprise, Dr. Richard Philips was entirely unfazed by the epithet. She reckoned he was such a social outcast that someone going through the trouble of giving him a pet name was a compliment. She shook her head at Sam so that Philips would not note her reprimand, but she was smirking slightly, amused by the old Sam’s streak revealing itself briefly. It made Sam feel good to see the feisty beauty appreciate his jest, even in this horrid situation of confusion and impending trouble.
“Yes, Mr. Cleave, but this is not about sound. It is rather a penetration of the wall between completely different spaces that happen to run on wholly separate frequencies,” the bland academic described with more animation than he had exhibited in hours. “From there the clap, an entry from one consistency to another; a transition from one plane of existence to another, if you will. Of course, now that we know it is plausible and possible, the question of danger is undeniable. Such a transition into an unknown molecular structure could be catastrophic . . . at least!”
Sam tried to follow the gibberish of the thin man, but ultimately it did not matter that much to him how this happened, as long as they survived it. Paddy got up and dusted himself off.
“I have to leave or else I’ll fail to make my appointment with my superior tomorrow, Sam. Is there any other way out of here that does not involve police, press, or people?” he asked.
“Aye, Patrick, over here,” Nina said, gesturing for him to follow her to the rotten and rusted doors fixed in the stone wall of the back of the basement, those that she discovered the first time she came down here to view the place with Mrs. McLaughlin.
“Now listen, Sam,” Paddy told Sam and Nina, “get Nina out of here pronto, right? I don’t want anything left here for my agency to discover when they sweep this place. I was never here. But if Roodt is connected to McLaughlin, you can bet your last shilling MI6 knows about this cozy Reich house, eh?”
“How the hell are we supposed to get out of here?” Sam asked him with an urgent whisper, but Sam was not as quiet as he had thought. From the well, the snobbish voice of Dr. Philips set things straight, “That’s quite all right, Mr. Cleave. We’ll get out of here totally undetected, I assure you.”
Sam frowned at Richard, but Paddy grabbed his arm with reassurance, “He is right. Don’t fret about that just now, old boy. Get all the books upstairs, so that Nina’s assassin has nothing to take home. Find the Library of Forbidden Books and whatever Roodt is up to, MI6 will handle it. You lot take care of the Black Sun’s goons and stop Purdue from completing the plan.”
He tapped his best friend on the shoulder before leaving through the decrepit exit into the noisy night outside before he could be seen. As soon as he was gone, Nina bolted the hideous contraption behind him and returned to where Gretchen and Richard were conversing under their breath. Outside the house they heard rotor blades as helicopters with news teams arrived.
“Come!” Richard urged. “Quickly, get the books in the attic so that we can leave before they break the doors down.”
Chapter 23
On Dunuaran Road, the night was lit with colored lights mounted on emergency vehicles and overhead white lights of cameras, illuminating the gathering of countless townspeople who had come to look. The news spread like wildfire about the Nazi house from the 1950s and the peculiar incident that left many injured and some unaccounted for. The local police service had a time of it to keep the public at bay from the premises
of Dr. Nina Gould’s property. Next they would have the unpleasant and rather perilous task of investigating the scene of the strange event.
Most people stood and looked on to see if the new owner was home when it happened, and if so, to find out if she had survived. Oh, the story she could tell them of how it happened! This was what bled in the waters of the journalists and reporters. What exactly had happened in the house would be a scoop to end all, especially in the paranormal and occult communities—scientific journals and biblical texts would be categorically contested. A luxury sedan crept slowly up the street to where the crowds gathered, but the lights were off and the engine drowning in the ruckus of the circus up ahead in front of the Gould property.
From inside the car Janet McLaughlin leered over the steering wheel, accompanied by her receptionist and secretary, Helen. McLaughlin had not heard back from her men, but they still had much time to carry out their mission. Now she had no idea if they were inside still, if they had dispatched Nina Gould, or if they were all killed in the crossing. This was what the Black Sun scientists coined the transference of an entity to another dimension. In fact, the crossing was precisely what Himmler and his dogs attempted to achieve during the Second World War. It was their aim to facilitate the invasion of the world by their dark gods through the use of religious relics in occult practices that humankind was never allowed to carry knowledge of.
These terrible beings of incalculable intelligence and rich knowledge were seen as gods, but to the less esoteric of mind, they were simply great and malevolent life forms from another dimension. In effect they were capable of traversing the universe, or the innerverse, of any existing cosmos, by simply utilizing yet unknown principles of physics. Before the Nazis, there were many like-minded theories, but such heinous literature was considered blasphemous and obscene, thus promptly banished and destroyed after discovery.
Now, after centuries in hiding the disciples of these beings—those said to have brought humankind to Earth in a time predating all literature or scripture—were prepared to topple all world governments at the same time by means of already implemented technology and information intelligence. Thereafter the planet would be culled of the inept, the weak of mind or will, and those who were not genetically desirable to harvest a new human race of super beings.
“Can I help you, madam,” a loud voice rasped next to her window, jolting her back to reality. “Oh, I see it’s you, Mrs. McLaughlin! Sorry ’bout that,” the traffic officer chuckled. In such a small place most people knew each other and the estate agent was no stranger to most of the later arriving inhabitants of the town. She had sold most of them their houses and they knew her as a trusted member of the community, as most psychotic killers with destructive agendas usually operated.
“What is going on, James? I heard this huge bang . . . ” McLaughlin gasped, complete with a hand on her cheek to look more flabbergasted in her role.
“Oh, yes. Seems like them old wives tales rang true then, eh?” he sighed, leaning against her vehicle’s frame and looking up at the eerily quiet house. “Now we are waiting for the spooks to come see what all that was about.”
“Spooks?” she asked innocently.
“Aye, government X-Files folks. Scientists and hazmat geeks have to make sure there are no contaminants or little green men in there,” he explained, at first sounding quite serious, but then giving in to hearty laughter that McLaughlin was grateful for. As long as the masses believed this all to be bullshit, the better for people like her to get their assignments done without obstacle. It was when everyday people began to believe that the job got difficult. People who saw what was really happening, like Nina Gould and Sam Cleave, got in the way of business. They stopped progress toward the New World Order.
People who noticed that random shootings in schools were orchestrated by governments to perpetuate judgment and sway the public toward a specific opinion, those people vexed McLaughlin and her colleagues. Those reckless types who had no interest in reality TV and talk shows, who were not blinded by celebrity and media misdirection could not be dumbed down or blinded to the truth, making them exceedingly trying to control or track.
Without social media accounts, a lot of free thinkers fell through the grid and off the radar of the New World Order’s eye. There was simply nowhere to get their personal information and location from. Those with old cell phones, if any, could not be picked up by the satellites of the Order of the Black Sun and its affiliates. Such citizens were dangerous. But James, the traffic officer was not one of those worms. McLaughlin liked him. He had various social media memberships and a posh phone with a darling microchip in it, perfectly traceable and accessible by the software the Black Sun had engineered.
“Well, best you don’t drive on to the house, Mrs. McLaughlin,” he suggested. “There is just too much goin’ on up there and the emergency vehicles need to have the road open, you understand, right?”
“Absolutely, James,” she replied and began to reverse. As the traffic officer joined the others in the madness, he forgot about the friendly estate agent. Two male figures, dressed in hazmat suits appeared from the second house away from Nina’s.
“They are here,” Helen informed her boss. McLaughlin backed her car into the nearest driveway out of the hotspot radius of activity. She looked at Helen, “Make sure she is dead.”
“Yes, Mrs. McLaughlin.”
The young secretary exited the car and slipped the hazmat helmet and breathing apparatus over her head to join her two accomplices, who both branded false identity cards and semi-automatics under their suits. Under premise of government agents, the three Black Sun operatives neared the still, dark house. The crowds grew more quiet as they walked up to the front door, the anticipation building among them to see what would come pouring out of the demonic domicile.
***
Inside, Nina and Sam had come stumbling down the queer staircase and made their way swiftly along the dark corridor, arms brimming with loose books and heading for the kitchen where they could disappear under the floor before anyone breached the front door. But it was too late.
The door was slammed open, the lock picked expertly and quickly by someone who knew what they were doing. Nina and Sam stared at each other in the light of the two little flames they each had to light the way after Gretchen’s candle expired.
“Move!” Sam whispered loudly, pushing the petite woman forward under the force of his books. She had no time to be annoyed at him for it. They had to get past the lobby doorway to get to the kitchen and whoever came in would see them pass. Three figures stood in the lobby, their sinister outlines like savage aliens from a lab in the stars come to claim the fleeing historian and journalist they had come to kill. Nina stopped in her tracks just before they crossed behind the open doorway and Sam rammed right into her. Three of the books in his embrace nearly tumbled to the floor, but Sam acted rapidly, scooping them up before they landed on the wooden floor and betrayed their presence there.
“Go look in the bedrooms. I’ll check the front part and the kitchen,” a woman ordered the other two larger male frames.
“Oh, Jesus!” Nina whispered where she pushed up against Sam’s body, leaning as close to the wall as they could. He hushed her as the first figure stalked past them toward the back of the corridor to check the bedroom with the odd iron framework. They actually stood in plain sight, had the man bothered to look behind him or toward his left, before turning right into the hallway, away from them.
Nina could feel Sam’s heart hammering his chest where her head rested. For some reason she was momentarily more concerned by the position of the repulsive spider book with its ghastly hair and skin binding than the living human tissue bearers hunting her and Sam in the dark. Oh, God, if I feel that smelly dead mask against me, I’m going to scream, she thought.
“Nina,” Sam whispered, his breath and voice so close that she felt him inside her head. She closed her eyes at the sensation of his scent and his body heat here in the
darkness. “I’m going to waste that big lad. Can you take the girl?”
“Are you insane?” she snapped as quietly as she could while the intruders walked with heavy boots to obscure their conversation. “They are here to kill me, Sam. She obviously has a gun.”
“Yes, but you know the house in the dark, remember?” he reminded her. “They are going to find us if we don’t move, and I’d rather take on one bloke than two.”
“Sam . . . ”
“Aye.”
“I’m scared to death.”
“Oh, come on, Dr. Gould, where is that feisty bitch I love so much?” he asked.
Nina’s body ached with adrenaline, both the fight and flight but with a strong surge of the other kind coursing through her body. That he loves so much . . . not loved . . . loves, her mind replayed. As she reached for Sam she found nothing but a wall under her touch. Disappointed, she waited for the female to pass her into the kitchen with her LED flashlight ahead of her. Nina crouched down and put her books down quietly at her feet. In the basement she could hear Gretchen and Richard scuffling ever so slightly, probably preparing to defend themselves against whatever came down the stairs.
When the female shape neared the open trapdoor Nina sprang to action. Just a few feet off Sam pummeled one of the males and a furious thump rattled the floorboards under them, prompting the woman to call out, “report!” About to shine the light on Nina, she sprinted as fast as she could as to reach the woman before she had time to turn and find her. Knowing she would surely shoot Nina in her tracks was incentive enough to abandon her fear. Just as the female turned to see what the commotion was all about, Nina rammed into her full force, propelling her body backward. The woman screamed as she lost her footing on the edge of the square hole and tumbled head first into the gaping trapdoor.
“Nina! Come on! Bring the books! We have to have the books!” Gretchen screamed from under the floor. “Richard has a way out! Hurry!”