The Legend of the Firewalker

by Steve Bevil [paranormal/YA]

  Malick had a perplexed look on his face. “Cavern wall?” he asked. “And who is Dr. Helmsley?”

  Jonathan’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, excitedly. “I am leaving out the best part!” He leaned over and placed his notebook into his backpack. “I’ve been assisting Dr. Janet Helmsley, a professor of Archeology at the university, with the excavation of one of the Cahokia Caves,” he said pointing towards the cliffs overlooking the lake. “I’ve been helping since I first arrived to town.”

  He paused; positioning his backpack close to his side. “Dr. Helmsley is also the Director of Archeological Studies at the university,” he continued. “I first learned about the new excavation site after reading an article she had published in my dad’s journal.” He smiled; lightly chuckling to himself. “Well, technically it’s not his journal. My dad is the editor of the Oxford Journal of World Archaeology.”

  With his index finger, he slid his glasses back to the bridge of his nose again. “Dr. Helmsley believes that behind the wall is a hidden chamber that might provide more insight into the northern tribe’s culture,” he said. “It is truly exciting. We really don’t know what we will find. Dr. Helmsley said that I will definitely share the credit in the discovery and that in itself is amazing – I might even have a byline in the article!”

  “That really is great!” Nathan said to Jonathan with a smile. “Umm – congratulations – with your discovery.” He glanced at Malick and couldn’t help but notice he looked distracted or in deep thought.

  “Yeah, congratulations,” added Malick, finally coming back to life. “So, when do you expect to get a peek at what’s behind the wall?”

  Jonathan paused for a second and gazed into the fire before speaking. “Well – it probably will be at least a couple weeks,” he said. “I was thinking that Nathan might want to join us when we first enter the hidden chamber.”

  Angela stopped grooming her curly blonde hair and passed her hairbrush to Alan. “Now, that is even more exciting,” she said. “Let’s all go!”

  Alan glared at the shiny purple hairbrush in his hand and placed it in Angela’s lap. “I am not holding your hairbrush for you,” he said, rolling his eyes. “And why on Earth would I want to go inside some grubby cave?”

  “Come on, Alan!” she whined, tossing her hair. “It could be fun. Where is your smell of adventure – your taste for history?”

  “Yeah,” commented Erin. “Lord knows nothing exciting ever happens around here.”

  Lafonda laughed. “Your smell of adventure?” she asked, teasingly. “Your taste for history – where did you get that one, Angela?”

  Alan looked anxious and crossed his arms. “Whatever,” he said, flippantly. “I’m not going.”

  Angela gave Alan a devious grin and then smiled happily.

  “Whatever, Angela,” he protested. “You are not going to convince me.”

  Abruptly, Erin sat up straight and glared at Jonathan. “So – a few weeks?” she said. “Does this mean we can expect more unexplained disappearances and more tardiness from a distracted Jonathan Black?”

  Everyone laughed.

  Jonathan’s cheeks became flushed and almost matched the redness in his eyes. “Sorry,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “I promise to work on my communication. It’s just that I get so excited but it is not an excuse.”

  Erin grinned. “It’s cool, Mr. Indiana Jones,” she said. “Just don’t forget us little guys when you become famous for all your discoveries.”

  He smiled. “Thanks,” he said.

  “But hold on,” cautioned Erin. “We still are going to talk later about some things.”

  “Understood,” nodded Jonathan with a smile.

  Angela cleared her throat; her eyes more bright and her voice bubbly. “Hey,” she said. “Have you tried researching on the Internet – you know, for that symbol?”

  Jonathan stared blankly at her and Alan tried to hold back his laughter.

  “What?” she asked with a shrug. “It’s worth a try.”

  9

  PREMONITION

  Nathan opened up his eyes slowly as they adjusted to the darkness. He had a view of what appeared to be the night sky. His head was cloudy and he was a little confused. He continued to blink his eyes while his mind tried to focus. He could clearly see what looked like the stars and the moon, but they were a lot more vivid then he remembered. They appeared almost animated; brilliantly colorful, but without color. The stars and the moon appeared to flicker playfully with each other.

  “Am I dreaming?” he asked himself

  His thoughts were coming together now and he was becoming aware of his body. He could tell that he was lying on his back but on an unfamiliar surface. There were little prickles of something underneath him. He stretched out both his hands to sit up and immediately noticed something bendable and soft pass through his fingers. It almost felt like plastic.

  Nathan looked down to examine what was between his fingers and paused before looking all around him. “Where the heck am I?” he wondered. “This can’t be grass.” He was sitting in an open field that was surrounded by small and large trees. There was a stone road to the left of him that ran alongside a series of small hills.

  Nathan blinked his eyes several times and held his hand to his head. “I might need to be on medication or something – or maybe I already am on drugs. Because everything is like – grey – there is no color.”

  He looked down at his hands again and then at his clothes. Whew, he thought. I can see the color in my skin and in my clothes – for a second I thought I was going colorblind.

  He hoped one of the campers hadn’t put something in his drink. “Because this is not funny. – It better not be Jonas.”

  Nathan turned his attention again to the grey-looking grass that was all around him. It’s like – frozen, he thought. And it feels weird – like plastic.

  He stood up and continued to look around him. The trees were motionless and the air was humid, but stagnant; no breeze, no sign of animals or people, and no sound.

  He quickly clapped his hands together to test his theory and was relieved to hear the sound of his hands clapping as it echoed back at him. He was caught off guard when a small branch beneath his foot snapped with no sound.

  Cautiously, he picked up the branch and examined it. Next, he picked up a rock from the stone road and tossed it, but again there was no sound. “This is definitely strange,” he murmured. He was relieved that he could hear himself. “Everything, but me seems frozen – lifeless – muted.”

  Nathan glanced up at what he thought was obviously the night sky and was amazed how brilliant the stars and the moon shone, considering that his entire view, apart from himself, seemed shrouded in grey.

  He crossed over the stone pathway and climbed up one of the larger-sized hills. Almost to the top, he froze. A cold shiver ran down his back. The silence that gripped the entire area was abruptly broken. The sound was all too familiar to him – everything was; the sky and the lifeless trees.

  He heard the sound again, this time it lingered amongst the trees. “Somehow – I know I’ve been here before,” he mumbled to himself. “And that was definitely a scream and I am pretty sure it was Leah.”

  Everything flooded Nathan’s mind at once; his dreams about Leah, her face as she fought in desperation against an unknown attacker, the speckles of blood on her pale skin, and the scratches on her arms and legs.

  Nathan’s heart pounded against his chest. He was definitely frightened for Leah as he had always been but this time was different. This time, he actually felt like he was there. He wasn’t a spectator watching everything unfold and this time, dream or not, he planned to do something about it.

  In a matter of seconds, Nathan was down the hill. Frantically, he headed in the direction of Leah’s screams. If it weren’t for the sudden tingling in his hands, he probably would have kept running recklessly towards the screams.

  “Okay Nathan, calm down and think. If t
his is like all the other dreams, then Leah is in trouble and she is being attacked.”

  His hands felt warm like they had at Lafonda’s birthday party. He looked down and saw that they were red. He clenched them into fists. “I don’t have time to think about my hands right now!”

  Cautiously, he continued down the stone pathway towards the direction in which he thought he’d heard Leah scream. I need a plan, he thought. I need to find something to fight with. He thought about stopping to look for something, but every time he did, his stomach twisted in knots. He couldn’t bear the thought of wasting time to look for something when Leah’s life was in danger.

  He considered going back and picking up a tree branch he saw along the way, but he came across a large oak tree at the end of the pathway. “I’ve seen this tree before,” he said to himself.

  His eyes quickly caught the first line of the all-too-familiar words carved at the base of the tree. “De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” said Nathan. “Speak no ill of the dead.”

  Just about everyone in town knew the saying because it was carved in the large tree that stood right outside Grimm Cemetery. “I must’ve awoken in Lynn Field. But how in the world did I get there?”

  He rubbed his head and stared again at the familiar words, trying to make out the second line of words but he couldn’t because someone had scratched through them. No one in town could make out the second line either and no one knew who had removed it.

  Nathan looked up and then back at the big oak tree. He caught a glimpse of the glaring moon before it disappeared behind a wisp of grey clouds. “How could this be? Besides my funky grey vision and the psychedelic sky, everything seems so real.” He glanced up at the grey branches and leaves of the big oak tree and shook his head. “This has to be a dream.”

  He froze. A cold shiver ran down his back again and another scream filled the air. Yeah, he thought, and Leah is supposed to be in a mental hospital right now, but yet, here I am running towards her outside of Grimm Cemetery.

  He made his hands into fists again, but they trembled uncontrollably and felt like they were on fire. “Dream or not, I have to save Leah,” he said.

  Grimm Cemetery looked the same as it always had. The only noticeable difference was that everything had a grayish hue to it. It was almost like looking at a black and white photo. Nathan approached the stone and iron-gated fence to the cemetery and paused. He was surprised that even the plants that wrapped themselves around the black iron gate were grey.

  The black iron gate was supported by two stone columns; one on each side. Carved in stone on one column were the words Grimm and on the other Cemetery. Nathan was familiar with the urban legend surrounding Grimm Cemetery, but regarded it as such and didn’t want to waste time even thinking about it. He wanted his thoughts focused on finding Leah. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I have no idea what’s waiting for me in there,” he said to himself.

  A leaf from one of the plants enwrapped around the gate grazed him across the neck, causing him to spin around quickly. Startled, he tripped over a loose stone and flew head first into the gate. The gate swung violently open and slammed into one of the stone pillars.

  Nathan wiped his brow. “Whew,” he said. He was relieved that the absence of sound also applied to the iron gate. “This lack of sound may actually work to my advantage.”

  The plot of land that was Grimm Cemetery gradually elevated up three levels. As soon as Nathan entered the gates, he saw the top of the large obelisk towering on the third level. He quickly darted past the rows and rows of battered, old headstone crosses and hid behind some of the taller gravestones and monuments that were sprinkled here and there among the sea of headstone crosses. Carefully, he made his way to the stone steps that were at the end of the pathway. His heart pounded so loudly against his chest that he swore it was probably the only sound that could be heard for miles.

  The stone steps, like the stones that made up the iron black gate, were badly weathered. Pieces of stone crumbled beneath his feet with each step. Before he reached the top, he paused. He could hear the sound of voices a little way off in the distance. It almost sounded like someone was conducting a ritual or chanting. Nathan continued carefully up the stone steps to the second level. He could now see the array of mausoleums that decorated the landscape. He had never ventured this far into the cemetery before and in the past had only visited the cemetery to play games of chicken with friends.

  As he had on the first level, he cautiously made his way to the stone steps at the end of the pathway. Nathan compared the many mausoleums to the cemeteries of New Orleans. He had visited New Orleans once with LaDonda and Lafonda during one of LaDonda’s trips to visit family. Just like in New Orleans, it truly had looked like a city of the dead.

  Slowly, Nathan approached the stone steps that led up to the third level. The voices grew louder and he could definitely tell there were multiple voices. It sounded like chanting, but Nathan couldn’t decipher what it was. He strained his ears to hear more, wondering what language it was. It almost sounded Latin.

  At the foot of the stone steps to the third level, he was close enough to see much of the tall white obelisk that stood at the center of what looked like a memorial plaza. He crept up the steps; trying to catch a glimpse of who was doing the chanting.

  There was the faint sound of crying beneath the chanting voices and someone whispered softly, almost peacefully. He dared to inch a little closer to the top and that’s when he saw them; three hooded figures dressed in long red cloaks.

  Quickly, he took a step back and crouched down again; his heart beating frantically against his chest. “What the frig is going on?” he murmured.

  He inched up again to take another look. “They’re not shrouded in grey,” he thought. “They’re in color!” He paused to wipe the sweat from his brow. “It looks like they’re performing a ritual, but for what?”

  The red-hooded figures stood with their backs towards him; their hands stretched out in the air. It looked like they were praying or worshipping something. Around each figure’s waist was a decorative gold rope and golden tassel that hung from the hip and stretched out to the ground.

  Nathan followed the trail of gold with his eyes. The golden rope and tassel shone brilliantly against the deep-red cloaks. “What’s that on the ground?” he wondered, while straining his eyes to see.

  He gasped. At the foot of each hooded figure lay several bodies strewn across the brick and mortar floor.

  A sick feeling gripped his stomach. So far he had gone unnoticed and didn’t want to chance being seen, but he had to see their faces. Nathan swallowed hard and then dared an inch closer. “Leah!” he gasped.

  He clenched his fists again. “What are they doing to her?” he muttered. “And the others – who are the others?”

  Nathan looked on as Leah continued to lie face up on her back. It looked like she was saying something to the person lying right next to her. Her pale face somehow looked peaceful but her clothes were worn and tattered. Blood stained her white shirt and strands of brown hair laid strewn across her face. Slowly, she reached out her hand to the hand of the other person.

  Nathan gasped again, this time, almost losing his balance. “Jonas!” he cried softly, through clenched teeth. “B – but how?” It felt as if his entire body was trembling. “How did they get Jonas and what do they want with him – or Leah?”

  Suddenly, Nathan’s thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of laughter and giggles. He thought the voice was familiar; it was definitely a female voice. He looked around towards the center of the plaza.

  It was near the tall white obelisk that he saw her. Her back was towards him so he couldn’t see her face. Her long white dress floated seamlessly as she laughed in the arms of a tall, red-hooded figure. Slowly, her fingertips traced her partner’s face causing her sleeves to hang delicately off her arms.

  Nathan noticed that this figure’s red cloak and hood appeared different from the others performing the
ritual. The tall man’s cloak was intricately ornamented in gold and the silver rope and golden tassel that hung from his waist was thicker and longer. His skin was luminous; like the long strands of white blonde hair that hung from underneath his hood and down to the crest of his cloak. Abruptly, the woman stopped caressing his chiseled chin and he released her. Nathan watched as he seemed to vanish right through one of the tall white archways surrounding the plaza.

  The woman dressed in white gracefully walked past the bodies lying on the ground.

  Nathan’s eyes followed the woman in white closely. “What is she up to?” he murmured softly.

  The woman in white seemed to glide across the floor; the long train to her dress flowing behind her. At each archway she passed, she nodded. There were more hooded figures, but they were not dressed in red, they were in black. There was a black hooded figure in the shadows of each archway. The dark hooded figures blended in with the shadows so well Nathan almost didn’t see them.

  The woman in white stopped in front of Jonas and Leah. Nathan’s eyes were fixed intently on Leah’s face. To his surprise, Leah still seemed calm. He didn’t see an ounce of fear. The woman in white knelt down, her long curly blond hair falling in front of her, making it impossible for him to see her face. She was very close to Leah now and her hair seemed to caress Leah’s face.

  Nathan shifted his shoulders. His hands still trembled and they were very warm. “What is she doing?” he said in a frustrated whisper.

  Suddenly, the woman in white grabbed Leah’s arm and Jonas’s hand fell to the ground. Leah didn’t flinch but Nathan saw the fear swell in her eyes. A black hooded figure emerged from the shadows of the nearest archway and stood beside the woman holding Leah’s arm. Desperately, Nathan strained to see his face, but couldn’t. He looked around the plaza to the faces of the other hooded figures and couldn’t see them either. The woman in white casually stretched out her hand and the black hooded figure gave her a small silver dagger. Quickly, she plunged the tip of the blade into Leah’s arm; violently piercing her flesh. Leah screamed as her attacker slowly proceeded to drag the blade downward.