A large bookcase sat in the doorway behind them, its shelves lined with books that appeared to be older than time, their splitting spines exposing the thick pages within. For whatever reason, it had been shoved against the door leading out into the tunnels within the hills, and judging from the enormous pile of dust against the bottom shelf from where they had pushed it into the room, it had been there for quite some time.
On the right side of the room there was a roll-top desk, a feather quill pen protruding from a small crystal cube filled with deep black ink. There was a cloth-bound book in the center, lying open, the writing on the pages buried beneath a layer of dust. A hand-crafted wooden chair lay on its back on the floor by the desk, the intricately-stitched seat cover, its loopholes still attached to the frame, sprawled over the back.
The cracked walls littered flakes of paint onto the wooden planks lining the floor, cobwebs stringing clear across the room. Water dripped from the ceiling in one of the corners of the room, splashing lightly into a small puddle of sloppy dust before flowing through the cracks in the floor, dampening the earth beneath.
Harry studied the map on the wall, his finger tracing a line between the numerous pinpoints. Scott walked over to the desk, setting the lantern down on the formerly highly-polished surface. Lifting up the book, he tapped the spine on the tabletop, the dust falling from the pages into a small pile. Holding it to the light in an attempt to read the handwritten words, he stared at the gracefully curving arcs of the ink on the page. The writing and strokes were exquisite.
“Check this out,” Harry said, holding up one of the folders that had been atop the filing cabinet. “These newspaper clippings are from 1889.”
Closing the book and tucking it beneath his left arm, he lifted the lamp from the table and carried it across the room to where Harry held up the file, his face buried within. He strained to read in the dim light.
Something moved in the shadow-filled corner of the room behind Harry. Unable to see much more than a tuft of dust glimmering at the edge of the thick darkness, Scott stopped dead in his tracks and watched, his breath freezing in his chest.
“Harry,” he whispered, the whites of his eyes expanding around his brown irises as his eyelids peeled back. “There’s something over there.”
Whirling, Harry stared deep into the shadows, his eyes trying to penetrate the veritable wall of black.
“I don’t see anything.”
The flames of the candles atop the mantle fluttered, the light flickering throughout the room, changing the shape of the shadows along the walls all around them.
“I think we need to go now,” Scott said, his eyes unable to turn from the corner of the room.
“But I just found these files from—”
“Take them with you.”
“We haven’t had a chance to—”
“Now,” Scott said, grabbing him by the arm and turning to guide him toward the bookcase that covered the entrance back into the tunnel.
A cold gust of wind swirled through the room, the candles flickering madly before fading into a smoke filled darkness. The flame within the glass shroud in Scott’s hand bounced mightily, the yellow flame blowing nearly straight sideways, but managing to stay lit.
There was another sound in the room, just beneath the whistling sound of the sudden and swirling gust of air. It was a dry, scraping sound, almost like the death rattle of the last gasp of air passing through the dry mouth into the lungs as they filled with fluid.
Quickening the pace, Scott pushed Harry in front of him and through the gap between the wall and the bookcase, out into the piled insulation on the damp stone floor. Glancing back, he could see a shape within the shadows, a deep black outline against the swirling, dust-filled shadows. The flame in his lamp flickered, the crackling yellow deepening to a dark red. His fingers burned, seeming to catch fire themselves as the metal handle on the lantern heated beneath his flesh, causing him to drop the lantern.
It shattered on the wooden floor, shards of glass bouncing in every direction. Kerosene splashed out in a large pool on the wooden planks of the floor. The deep red flame swelled like a wave atop the flammable liquid, spreading across the floor at an unheralded speed. Yet still, the shadow pressed further into the room, the flames lapping at its feet as it rapidly closed the gap between them.
Breaking his gaze from the room, Scott slipped past the bookcase and into the tunnel, Harry’s outline barely visible in the tunnel in front of him against the bouncing glow of his flashlight. Fighting for traction on the slick ground, Scott forced his legs to run. Panic began to settle into his chest, nearly causing his heart to pound right through his ribcage, his lungs refusing to draw any air. The red, flickering light from behind the bookcase lighted the thin channel around him, the shadows lengthening all around him momentarily, before the red glow finally dissipated, the flame burning itself out. Watching Harry’s light turn to the left into the main tunnel, he could suddenly feel the palpable darkness, pressing in tightly from the sides as it tried to squeeze the life from him, the sound of the heavy breathing echoing from all around him.
Tears swelled from the corners of his eyes, running in small streams down his dry skin, leaving a trail in the dust that had settled into his stubble. There was no feeling in any of his appendages as he sprinted, his own footsteps pounding the ground. He burst from beneath the stone archway into the main tunnel, the beam from Harry’s flashlight bounding up and down in the hallway ahead.
Following the light, he urged his legs on, faster and faster, sensing that whatever was behind him was gaining. His footsteps pounded on the thin layer of frozen ice in the center of the tunnel, snapping and popping. It was all he could hear as he just focused on Harry’s light ahead of him, slowly gaining in the blackness.
The light stopped ahead of him, fluttering for a moment before pointing straight at the ground. He could only barely make out the outline of Harry bending over, his hands on his knees, as he fought to regain his breath. Coming up fast, the blood in his veins burning as though it would eat straight through the vessels, spilling out beneath his flesh. He reached out, prepared to grab Harry and carry him out of the tunnel if that was his only option.
Stopping, his back leaning against Harry’s, he whirled, shining the light into the darkness behind him, but there was nothing there. He could feel an ice-cold breeze blowing straight into his face from the endless darkness. The frigidity stinging his tearing eyes, he batted his eyelids, fighting to see whatever had been following them before it was upon them. Visions of Brian being torn in half, and Tim liquefied on the path in the early morning sunlight, tore through his brain, his heart pounding in anticipation as he prepared to fight for his life should that be the only way out of the tunnel.
The wheezing sound that came in bursts from his own chest bounced off the walls around him. He tried, without even the slightest bit of success, to silence it long enough to try to listen. Stifling a cough, he flashed the light from one side to the next, over and over, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever was back there. And even though he couldn’t see anything, he knew, with ever fiber of his being, that they were not alone in that cavern.
“We have to keep moving,” Scott whispered without turning around, his chest still heaving mightily.
“I think… I’m ready,” Harry panted.
“Then go. I’m right behind you.”
Standing upright, Harry burst into a sprint, his heavy breathing dissipating into the wind that ripped through the tunnel. Scott stayed a few feet back, glancing over his shoulder as he ran. They passed the small entrance to the tunnel leading back up through the ground toward the Cavenaugh House, but they knew that if whatever was in that tunnel with them caught up to them in the cramped quarters of that small tunnel, that it was all over for them. Their only chance was to run straight through the opening down by the river, and hope, pray, that they made it out into the daylight alive.
The trailing edges of dim rays of light pierced the thick da
rkness ahead of them, glowing like a gray cloud in the tunnel ahead. Their legs burning and hearts throbbing on the verge of seizing within their chests, they dashed toward the growing mass of light, the overhanging branches of the evergreens on the bank above hanging like arms from the top of the exit to the tunnel.
Bursting out of the tunnel and into the light, Harry stopped his momentum barely in time to keep from tumbling headfirst into the ice-marred water of the river, Scott hot on his heels. His feet skidded on the gravel bank, a mass of pebbles tumbling across the frozen bank and into the deep blue water. He turned around, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes and freezing slowly as they trailed down his cheeks. And although he couldn’t see anyone standing there in the pitch black of the tunnel, he could tell that there was someone there, watching him intently from within that same darkness. The eyes of the unseen watcher weighed heavily on him, tearing straight through his own gaze and into his brain.
“Are you all right?” Harry asked, barely able to form the words through his heavy panting.
“Yeah. You?”
“I’ll live,” he wheezed, a dry chuckle bursting from his heaving chest.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“I’m way ahead of you,” Harry said, heading down the bank to where it lowered enough to climb up the hill.
Scott started down the bank but then stopped. An icy line of goosebumps raced up the back of his arms, settling at the base of his neck. His limbs seemed to become heavier as he slowly turned, the wind ripping the snow in droves straight into his face. He stared through the sheet of flakes into the darkened tunnel.
He could see the outline of a figure, barely darker than the rest of the tunnel, enshrouded in shadows. His eyelids batted back the flakes, keeping them from landing atop the bare surface of his eyeballs. Staring through the darkness, he could see that blackened form standing there, motionless, its intense glare fixed so deeply upon him that it felt as though it singed his flesh.
He turned to call to Harry, but he was already scrambling up over the bank and into the field above, nearly to the lake. Glancing back, his heart rising into his throat, he peered back into the darkness, but there was no one there.
Furrowing his brow, his eyes pinched tightly, he peered into the darkness with everything that he had. But all he could see was the unending wall of shadows that seethed like a mass of squirming tentacles, beckoning him to step back into the darkness.
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THE BLOODSPAWN
Michael McBride
© 2004 Michael McBride. All rights reserved.
PART NINE
Section 9
Chapters 11 and 12
XI
Monday, November 14th
5 p.m.
Scott sat down at the kitchen table, staring out across the lawn at the reddened storm clouds, the sun sinking behind the mountains, staining even the falling flakes a bright hue. The coffeepot began to whir, a thin stream of the black fluid trailing onto the bottom of the pot as it slowly filled. The sound of running water from the flushing toilet below in the family room filled the walls, humming. The door opened and Harry’s footsteps were evidenced, clambering up the stairs. Staring down at the cloth-bound diary, still clenched tightly in his grasp, he set it on the table in front of him, hoping that whatever was contained within in those hand-scrawled words was going to be able to help them.
The stack of folders rested on the table to his right. Harry hopped up on the stool in front of them, pulling down the top one. He gave a glance to his right at the pot that was now nearly half-full; the dark fluid pouring down from the thin hole in the white plastic guard that housed the filter full of the ground hazelnut beans. Turning his attention back to the stack of files in front of him, he pulled the first one down, opening it in front of him. Peering up before throwing himself into the reading, he stared at Scott, who still clung tightly to the book, staring out into the darkness as the red faded from the clouds, the blackness swarming around them. The long shadows from the trees across the center of the snow-covered lawn were swallowed along with whatever last remnants of the light lingered before the night devoured them whole. Only the fluttering flakes, which flashed beneath the dim light that crept from the inside window, were visible against the wall of darkness that pressed right up to the house.
“Shall we?” Harry asked, holding up the first folder.
Nodding, Scott hopped from the stool and to the coffeepot atop the counter. The last of the slowly falling drops of the murky brew dripped from the saturated filter, sizzling onto the circular heating pad beneath the pot. Pulling it out of the machine, he poured the hot liquid into the two mugs he had set on the marble counter top next to it. Steam poured from the tops of the nearly-full mugs as he walked them back to the eating bar, setting a dark blue mug labeled simply “JAVA” in front of Harry, and a plain white, brown rimmed one in front of his stool. He climbed back up and opened the floral-patterned, cloth book.
Peeling back the first couple of pages, time sealing the inked pages together as if with some sort of glue, he stared at the thinly lined, hand-written pages. He had a hard time deciphering the words. The lines were almost excessively loopy, the ink expanding into the page from the pen.
“To all who must bear witness,” it began, his eyes moving from left to right as he tried to absorb every word. “This is my testament of the evil that walks the Earth in human form, of the dark one that has eluded our order for centuries. I feel that for the first time, we are one step ahead of the beast, that we are in a position to thwart his advances, be it only for this one time. I have been led here by the footsteps of the demon from my last assignment in the county outside of Johannesburg, South Africa.
“We were late in arriving as the cycle had commenced long before we had any knowledge of his whereabouts. Two hundred men and women were slaughtered in the night as they were being led from the city under the guise of night. The bloodspawn, a wealthy diamond mine owner named Clayton Van Den Mueller, had them mown down by machine gun fire as they trespassed across his land to flee the persecution that followed them from Johannesburg.
“It was that night when I first saw the monster that masquerades as human. He appeared to me as an apparition standing outside the window of the reformatory, smiling up at me, mocking me. How we had not known of his location in South Africa, I am unsure, but by the time we were situated, the end was a foregone conclusion.
“So, it is today, August 27th, in the year of our Lord 1972, that I find myself at the base of the Rocky Mountains, outside of the city of Colorado Springs, barely a year after my failure in Africa. I can feel his presence. As I know that he can sense ours, lingering within these hollow hills, silencing the birds in the midst of their morning song as I wander the grounds of this compound, knowing that somewhere, beneath the shadows of the foothills, he lies in wait, watching our every move. And I know, for every fiber of my being cries out, that this will be my last assignment. My death seems to be a foregone conclusion, but whether or not I am successful still seems in doubt.”
“Look at this,” Harry said, interrupting Scott’s reading as he laid an old, yellowed newspaper clipping atop the diary.
“June 19th, 1942,” was scrawled in pen across the top of the shred of torn paper. There was a picture in the center, a mass grave, the earth still piled at the lip of the hole, a mound of charred bodies piled atop one another as a group of what appeared to be soldiers leaned over the edge.
“It says they found this grave east of the Rhine in northern Germany, but unlike the other mass graves found during World War II, the bodies inside were not limited to being Jewish. Check out the uniforms on the soldiers on the side of the grave. Those aren’t allied clothes, I can tell you that much, and you can bet that in 1942, there was no way that w
e had any intelligence within the borders of Germany.”
“I can’t understand any of the words,” Scott said, staring at the newsprint that was written in the native tongue.
“It’s been close to half a century since I was in a classroom learning this stuff, but I think I was able to get the gist of it,” Harry said, pointing down at the page. “It says that the people found inside were not all Jewish, some of them even members of the Nazi party. And while the Nazis generally shot their victims before burying them, these showed no signs of bullet wounds, in fact, they appeared to have been burned to death in that very hole, which for some reason was never covered.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look here,” he said, pointing to the third paragraph in the yellowed story. “It’s saying that they are looking for the faction responsible. They think that it might be an allied installment that sneaked across the border, but they aren’t entirely convinced. The Third Reich, it says, has even offered a large reward for anyone with any information on the mass killing.”
“That doesn’t make much sense.”
“Exactly. With the Nazis controlling the press, the only way they would have allowed this story to run was if they were convinced that not only did they have nothing to do with it, but that they also had no idea who, in fact, had done it. And how two hundred bodies had been found in a similar condition to those disposed of by the Nazis without anyone having any idea as to where they came from…”
“Did you say two hundred?”
“Yes, exactly two hundred.”
“That’s weird, because I’m reading over here in this diary about two hundred people who were killed in South Africa.”
“Odd,” Harry mused, opening the second file and submersing himself within the contents.
The Bloodspawn Page 21