The Forgotten

by R. L. King

  Jason and Verity nearly ran into him. “What?” Jason whispered, but he didn’t have to ask. Looking over Stone’s shoulder, he saw another hole in the side of the tunnel, this time on the other side and about twenty feet down in the ocean direction from the tunnel from which they’d just emerged. This one wasn’t lit, which is why they’d almost missed it. “Another one?”

  “It appears that the club and something else are connected via these tunnels,” Stone said. He was looking grim now. “And look—I was right. The sewer exit out to the ocean is blocked.” He pointed, and his companions looked. The end of the tunnel was covered by a formidable-looking metal grate, the spaces between the bars so narrow that nothing bigger than a large rat or a small cat would be able to make it through. Most of the lower part was choked with garbage, seaweed, and other debris. They could hear the sea lapping beyond the opening, but it didn’t reach this high.

  Verity glanced from the opening to the new tunnel. “Did anybody even notice what was next door to the club?” she asked.

  Both Stone and Jason shook their heads. “Probably another warehouse,” Jason said. “But I didn’t see. I was too busy looking at the club.”

  “Same,” Stone said. “We could go outside and look, but I don’t think it’s wise. I’m not sure I could get us past that door again if we let it lock, and it’s too risky to leave it open.”

  Jason nodded. “Yeah…I think we better just move forward.” He was troubled. A large part of him wondered what the hell he was doing, leading his sister into something like this that was almost certainly dangerous. He knew there was no point in going without her—she was the only one among the three of them who had a shot at ending the Evil’s hold over this area—but that didn’t make him like it any more. He pulled a small flashlight from his pocket, switched it on, and moved forward with the others into the second concrete tunnel.

  As they expected, there was another door at the end of it, similar to the one in the other tunnel. “What if it’s locked too?” Jason whispered to Stone. “Can you pick locks with magic?”

  “Not one that formidable.” He put his finger to his lips and moved forward, putting his ear to the door. He listened for almost a full minute, then turned back to the others. “I don’t hear anything,” he told them. “Of course, that doesn’t mean much. We’re going to have to take a chance again. That’s assuming the door is unlocked. If it’s not, we’ll have to wait for someone else.” He reached out to the door handle. All three of them held their breath as he turned it.

  It turned easily, and he swung the door minimally open.

  Jason let his breath out. This is it. Only half-conscious of what he was doing, he slipped his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his knife. Then he nodded to Stone.

  The mage slowly opened the door a bit more. It appeared quite heavy, but moved silently on well-oiled hinges. When he saw no movement inside, he pushed it open the rest of the way and motioned for the others to move in fast. When they were all inside, he swung the door closed with a soft click.

  They were at the foot of another metal stairway like the one inside the club. Moving slowly, they ascended it and found themselves in a long, narrow hallway only about four feet wide that stretched off to their left. The wall on the near side was solid; the other one was wooden and looked more temporary. Both were painted with years’ worth of faded graffiti. Another naked incandescent bulb illuminated the area.

  “Do you smell something…weird?” Verity whispered.

  Stone nodded, looking grim. “Something’s died in here, I think,” he murmured back.

  “Oh, man…I hope it’s just a rat or something,” Jason said, glancing around.

  “Shh,” Stone said. “We have to get out of this hallway. It’s too narrow—even with the spell up, we’re sitting ducks if anyone comes in.”

  They walked quickly to the other end. Jason tried to look everywhere at once, afraid someone would ambush them even though Stone’s magic was concealing them. His gaze settled for a moment on the graffiti—it was a mishmash of gang symbols (all of them DMW), crudely painted horror imagery like severed heads and fanged demons, and obscene words and drawings. What he didn’t find was any Forgotten code symbols. Not even one. “I’m starting to wonder if we’ve found the DMW’s gang clubhouse,” he muttered. The idea did not appeal to him in the slightest.

  At the end of the hallway was another door, but this one was much less substantial than the heavy metal one at the entrance. It was made of wood and had a cheap-looking knob without a lock. The smell was getting worse; whatever had died here had probably been here awhile. The putrid stench mingled unpleasantly with the odors of must, mildew, and far-off seawater. Stone stopped and listened at it again. “Put your light out,” he whispered, then turned the knob.

  Again, the door opened easily. This seemed odd to Jason—if they were hiding something (or someone) in here, why leave all the doors unlocked? Maybe the magic door in the dungeon is the only way in, he decided. No point locking the place up if they’re the only ones who can even find it.

  They paused for a moment to orient themselves. Directly to their left, along the same wall, was a large, heavy pair of double doors. These were firmly closed and locked with a thick chain and a padlock the size of a man’s hand. “Nobody’s getting in that way,” Jason whispered.

  “Or out,” Stone agreed.

  Verity was looking in the other direction. “What is this place?” she asked, pointing. Off to the right was a large open area; it was dimly lit by another of the ubiquitous incandescents, this one hanging high above them. Scattered around were what looked like broken racks and fixtures, along with a significant amount of trash and debris. Directly in front of them were several wooden workbenches built into the wall. They too were covered with broken items and more debris. Occasionally they heard the faint skitter of rats or mice moving around.

  “It doesn’t look like a factory or a warehouse,” Jason said under his breath.

  “Doesn’t smell like it, either,” Verity said. The stench was getting stronger, beginning to overpower the mildew and must.

  “I think,” Stone said slowly, as if talking to himself, “it’s some sort of theater.”

  Jason stared at him. “Theater?” He looked around, confused. “Here? This is the warehouse district.”

  Stone shrugged. “We just came from a nightclub. It’s not uncommon to repurpose old warehouse or factory buildings. I think we’re in some kind of backstage or workshop area.”

  “I think he’s right,” Verity said. She pointed up. “Look at all the catwalks and rigging and stuff up there. It all looks pretty messed up, but—”

  “Come on,” Stone said. “Let’s keep moving.”

  “Wait!” Verity whispered. “I think I heard something!”

  Instantly all three of them went quiet, fading back until they stood with their backs to the padlocked double doors, as far from the door in which they had entered as they could manage. For several seconds they heard nothing but the rustling of the mice, but then off to their right came the sound of voices. The three watchers strained to hear what they were saying.

  There were two speakers, both young and male, and they were coming from a shadowy area directly in front of the watchers. “Gotta get back,” one was saying. “Got another pickup in an hour.”

  “Good,” the other one replied. “These ones’re gettin’ boring. Ain’t got much left in ’em.”

  The first one laughed. “Yeah—need to figure out how to make ’em last longer.” They were approaching now: ahead of Stone and the others was a short stairway, and the two men were descending it. As they reached the ground it was clear that they were the same two DMW gangers who had gone in ahead of them. They made a left at the foot of the stairway without noticing the watchers, headed straight for the door where they had come in. They went quickly through and closed it behind them.
>
  Stone and the others stayed where they were for several more seconds to make sure they were gone, and then Stone pointed toward the short stairway. “I think that’s where the action is,” he whispered. Jason and Verity both nodded.

  Moving slowly, they crept along the wall. Jason’s head was on a swivel again, trying to see everywhere at once. The light in here was dim, and it would be easy for someone (or multiple someones) to be hiding in the shadows waiting to ambush them. He brought up the rear of their little procession while Stone took point; if Verity noticed that she was being protected from both sides, she didn’t say anything.

  The stairway was skeletal and made of metal. Stone pointed upward. “Backstage area, most likely,” he whispered, and began ascending. It was impossible to be completely quiet on these stairs, but they did the best they could.

  When they emerged at the top, they found themselves in a sparsely-lit, wide-open area. Stone had been right: this was the backstage area. Like the workshop, it was strewn with debris, broken objects, ripped clothing, and similar objects that had survived whatever ransacking the place had experienced at some point in its history.

  They couldn’t see out very far, since there were no lights on in the auditorium. Again they stopped and listened. They didn’t hear anything for several seconds, but then something came from far on the other side of the building: a faint sound that could have been a heavily muffled yell or scream.

  Jason stiffened. “Did you hear that?” he said.

  “Shh,” Stone murmured. “Yes.”

  Verity poked Stone’s arm. “Take off my block,” she said. “Just in case.”

  He turned back to her, put his hands on either side of her head, and stared into her eyes for a few seconds. “There,” he said. “Remind me to put it back up when this is over.”

  Jason was impatient. “Come on. Somebody’s hurt over there. Let’s go see what’s going on.” As scared as he was, the thought of action energized him. All this sneaking around in the dark made him more nervous than if he just had something to punch.

  “Easy.” Stone held up a hand. “Don’t lose your head now.” Jason could see he was looking grim, too.

  Verity, meanwhile had spotted something off to the side, in the shadowy backstage area off to their right. “Is that—a body?” She pointed into the dimness, grabbing Jason’s arm with her other hand.

  “What? Oh—probably just a pile of debris,” Stone said, though he did head that way a bit to investigate the bundle. He stopped before he reached it. “Or…” he added in an emotionless tone, “It’s a body.”

  “Holy crap.” Jason came up next to him. He tried to shield Verity from the sight, but she was having none of it. She moved in alongside of him and stared down.

  The body was that of a man of indeterminate age, with the wild beard and ragged clothes that clearly marked him as someone who’d seen hard times. From the look of things he hadn’t been dead that long. “Forgotten?” Verity whispered.

  “No way to know,” Stone said. He looked up, his gaze sweeping the area around him. “I don’t like this at all. Come on—let’s keep going. We can’t do anything to help him now.”

  “Why would they just…dump a body in the hallway like that?” Jason asked whispered.

  “Perhaps they didn’t,” Stone said. “There’s always the possibility he died of natural causes, or a drug overdose.” Jason gave him a ‘you can’t possibly believe that’ look, and he shrugged. “I didn’t say it was likely—I said it was possible. Now hush. I think we’re getting closer.”

  They continued picking their way through the backstage area, mindful of the debris on the floor and looking even more carefully than before to make sure they didn’t stumble on any more dead bodies. All three kept glancing out into the stage area and the auditorium beyond, even though they couldn’t see anything and no one could see them if Stone’s magic was holding. Jason couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody up there was going to pin them in a spotlight any minute now, revealing that the whole place was crawling with DMW and other Evil, just waiting for the chance to pick them off.

  That didn’t happen, though. They made it across without incident and found another metal stairway, a mirror of the one they’d just come up, leading back down on the other side.

  “Part of this place has to be underground,” Jason whispered, pointing at the stairs. “This thing goes down too far to just be ground level.”

  “Partial basement,” Stone agreed. “Too dangerous to build real basements around here, with the earthquake potential.”

  As silently as they could, the three of them crept down the staircase. The light was brighter here, but still high up. Ahead at the bottom was a closed metal door; off to their right, down a short hallway, was a second, less substantial one.

  “Which way?” Jason asked.

  Stone was about to answer when another sound cut through the silence: a low moan like the one they’d heard before. Directly in front of them this time, it was a little louder than the previous one, but clearly still muffled.

  Jason pointed wordlessly toward the door. “I wish we had a way to know if there’s anybody in there,” he whispered.

  Stone put up a finger and glided forward, motioning for them to come along. Once more he put his head against the door and listened. There were more moans now; even those who weren’t directly listening could hear them. And then, suddenly, a scream of agony. Still muffled. Whatever was going on in that room, it was heavily soundproofed. “Clearly they don’t want whatever they’re up to in there getting out,” Stone said grimly.

  “What do we do?” Jason asked. “We can’t just bust in. We have no idea how many of them are there. It might be a trap.”

  “Wait,” Stone said, again flattening back against the wall. “Let’s see if anyone comes out.”

  Jason was sick of waiting, but he didn’t see any other option. Reluctantly he followed the mage to the wall, and Verity came along with him.

  After about five minutes, though, nobody had come out. The sounds continued, however: moans, screams, the sound of someone sobbing, all damped by whatever soundproofing they had in the space behind the door.

  Jason fidgeted, becoming more and more driven to do something with each passing minute. Finally, he let his breath out in a rush. “I can’t do this, Al,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Something’s going on in there—it sounds like they’re killing people. I can’t just sit here and wait.”

  Stone took a deep breath and nodded. “All right. Let me try something.” He pointed over toward the underside of the backstage area—the space beneath where they had come down the metal staircase. “You two hide yourselves there, so they won’t see when the door opens. I’m going to try to open it magically if it’s unlocked, and see if we can flush them out. Be ready, though. Depending on how many of them there are, I might not be able to deal with all of them on my own.”

  Jason and Verity crossed the hallway and hid behind some debris under the stage, both focusing hard on the closed door. Stone, his concealment spell still active on himself, moved behind the stairway, where he had a good view of the door. “Ready?” he whispered.

  Jason nodded, clenching his fists, his entire body feeling like a spring ready to uncoil. He felt Verity standing tensely next to him. “Go.”

  Stone raised his hand. For a few seconds nothing moved, and then the heavy door flew open and slammed into the wall behind it.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Several things happened simultaneously at that point—the first was that the corridor was flooded with light from the room beyond. The screams and moans, which had been attenuated by the closed door, grew immediately louder and more urgent. And they were joined by more sounds—cursing and harsh yells of surprise. “What the fuck—?” Then came the sound of running feet and the hallway was suddenly full of leather-jacketed figures.

  Jason, glad
to finally have something to do, launched himself out from cover and smashed into one of the figures, slamming it into the wall and reveling in the satisfying melonlike thunk as the ganger’s head hit the concrete, and he dropped.

  They made surprisingly short work of the remaining gangers—there were actually only four, though the narrow hallway had initially made them look like more. Stone dispatched two with magic, and Verity took out the last one when he tried to ambush Jason, concentrating for all she was worth and pushing with her mind until the glowing ball of Evil was ejected violently upward from his body. The ganger dropped in a boneless heap, and the shimmering ball erupted into nothingness.

  The three of them stood puffing in the hallway. “What are we gonna do with the rest of them?” Jason demanded. “We can’t just leave them here. They might wake up. Verity, can you—” he put his hands to his head and mimed an explosion effect.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not when they’re unconscious.”

  “Help us!” came a desperate scream from inside the room. “Oh, God, please, help us!”

  “Drag them inside,” Stone ordered. “At least we can keep an eye on them in there.” He grabbed one of the smaller gangers and began following his own order.

  And then he stopped, halfway in and halfway out the door, as increasingly panicked screams echoed around them. “Bloody… hell,” he breathed.

  “What?” Jason dropped his ganger and poked his head around the doorway, past where Stone was blocking it. He too stiffened and stopped moving. “Shit…”

  “What’s going on?” Verity didn’t have space to shove past the two of them, so she couldn’t see.

  “Please!” The screams from inside were near-hysterical now.

  Jason shoved Stone bodily inside and the two of them for a moment could do nothing but stare. Verity moved in next to them and gasped.