by Heath, Joel
Spencer stopped to take notice.
“You’re right.” Jessie noticed. The ship
might be breached in more than one place.” “The other breach must be in one of the
forward sections.” Spencer guessed.
Jessie noticed a diagram of the ship hanging on
the wall and pulled it free.
“There is main stairwell down the
corridor.” Jessie said. “It should take us to the
lido deck.”
“Then let’s go.” Spencer said.
Jessie headed down the corridor and soon came
to a stairwell.
Spencer took point and moved up the
stairs, after fifteen decks they came to a severe
blockage, one of the watertight doors had closed. “Is there any other way up?” Spencer
asked.
Jessie examined the ship diagram for a few
moments.
“Yes, we go down three decks there will
be a corridor that will let us bypass most of the
watertight doors, but we’ll have to hurry.” Jessie
explained.
Spencer turned around and charged back
down the stairs three decks and stopped in the
corridor which stretched off in both directions. “Which way do we go from here, Jessie?”
Spencer asked.
Jessie pointed and they were off, running
down the corridor.
After a hundred feet, the ship bow pitched
down by thirty degrees. It was another two
hundred feet before anybody realized their
situation. The front half of the ship was
submerged and sliding into its dark watery grave. Spencer moved to the water’s edge which
was moving quickly toward the stern.
“How much further is the way up?”
Spencer asked.
“We may have to swim thirty feet.” Jessie
replied. “Are we actually going into the water?”
Vince asked.
Spencer stepped into the water which now
sat at his upper thighs before he turned back to
Vince to briefly answer.
“This is the only way forward; the choice
has been made for us.” Spencer plunged into the
water; Vince was quick to follow, Jessie put the
ship’s diagram within the pages of the book and
tucked the book in the back cuff of her pants. The water was freezing as the group
eased in and swam, and to everybody’s dismay,
the distance was greater than the thirty feet Jessie
estimated, it was closer to double that estimate. It was a grueling seventy feet, their swim
took them into the stair well but soon Spencer’s
head broke the water at the top of the stairs, he
was joined by Vince and then Jessie.
“I’ve got it!” Jessie exclaimed climbing
out of the water.
“What are you going on about?” Vince
asked following her.
“The book sayslet nobility be your
savior, what is nobler than the captain going
down with the ship?” Jessie asked
“If that’s true where should we be when
this bucket goes down?” Spencer asked. “The bridge?” Jessie suggested.
“That IS where the Captain would be in
an emergency." Spencer agreed.
"How do we get there?” Vince asked. Jessie pulled out the book and continued
to study the diagram, she ran up the stairs with
Spencer and Vince at her heels.
“Up seven decks then we have to run for
the bow of the ship and hope it’s still above
water, or we’ll have a swim we may not survive.”
Jessie directed.
Spencer charged up the stairs and soon
came to a sign indicating they had arrived on the
main deck, Spencer found a door and charged out
to find the deck. Spencer raced over to the side
he looked over the edge and found the sea level
was just a few feet down, the good news was that
the ship was now level and the bridge was still
above water. The bad news was that the sea was
lapping onto the deck.
“This way.” Jessie directed, she had
found the route to the bridge, it was a door
another fifty feet way.
Racing down the deck Spencer was the
first to reach the door, and pull it open. Inside
there was a corridor that crossed the ship and a
stairwell in the middle, the corridor was not quite
a hundred feet long.
They hurried up the stairs and burst
through the bridge hatch. Inside there were only
two other doors, one one the port side and on the
starboard side.
"Which door do we take?" Jessie asked. The boys each hurried to a door and
pulled them both open at the same time to reveal
the encroaching sea which was starting to spill into the bridge, Spencer and Vince quickly closed
their doors.
Vince managed to seal his before he
discovered Spencer was having a problem. The
door was jammed and the water was rushing in.
Vince had to swim over to his friend to see what
was stopping him from closing the door; the
water sat three feet off the floor and rising fast.
Vince slipped under the water to diagnose the
problem, there was an obstruction. Vince reached
for it, a large clump of wiring and pulled it clear
of the door before helping Spencer to close the
door.
All three tried to surface but something
was barring their progress, it was the ceiling of
the bridge, the rising water had already filled the
bridge, there were no air pockets.
It was strangely quiet as they sat treading
water looking for a way out of the ship, Jessie
started to lose consciousness and then a light
started to glow on the floor of the bridge, then the
water started to drain. The water level lowered by
only a couple feet. Spencer took one of Jessie's
hands, Vince took the other one and they swam
for the surface.
As their heads broke the surface, they
quickly realized that they weren't on board the
ship anymore. Surrounding them were stone
walls and a stone staircase that emerged from the
water and went up a narrow corridor. The room
was fifteen feet across and twenty feet from the
stairs to the back wall.
“What is this?” Jessie asked.
“I think it’s a cistern.” Vince guessed. Spencer moved for the steps to get out of
the water.
“We’re deep in the circles of hell, so keep
your eyes peeled, there could be anything lurking
down here.” Spencer advised.
Climbing out of the cistern, they next
climbed the stone steps and emerged in an
ancient looking city that resembled a seaside
metropolis found along the Mediterranean Sea,
complete with a labyrinth of buildings and
merchant shops, but the city was empty. Many
wares were lying around as though the
shopkeepers had simply left, but Spencer innately
knew that they would not be returning.
Spencer stood on a minor road just off of
a main road as he scanned the immediate area,
taking it all in. There was a to
wer to the west; the
tower stretched upward for what looked like
several miles, touching the darkening sky, the
tower only looked to be a few blocks away. The
moaning that seemed to come from everywhere
and nowhere, seemed to be much louder than in
previous circles of hell.
“Jessie,” Spencer began, “What does the
book say about getting through this one, I don’t
want to spend anymore time here than we have
to.”
Jessie looked up the appropriate
information.
“The way forward is though the lair of the
one who is many.” Jessie replied.
“I have a bad feeling about this.” Vince
commented.
Spencer pointed at the tower.
“I think we’ll be able to get a better view
if we can get to the top of that tower.” Spencer
guessed, but as they began their quest toward the
base of the tower, the sound of wailing began to
fill the air. It was barely audible at first, but grew
to a very distracting, and almost frightening
sound of despair.
“What is that?” Jessie wondered. Spencer’s worry quickly began mounting. “Jessie, let me see that book.” Spencer
demanded and Jessie handed the book to Spencer
who then began to flip through the pages, and
finally stopped, when he did a look of sheer panic
bubbled to the surface.
“Spencer, what did you find?” Jessie
asked.
Spencer remained quiet, almost not
hearing Jessie’s question. Vince peeked over
Spencer’s shoulder to see what Spencer had read. “Dangers of the nine circles of hell.”
Vince began, and then skipped down to the
eighth circle of hell. “Those who venture into the
eighth circle of hell, beware of the sirens and the
banshee. If the banshee sees you she will chase
you, if she catches you then your quest to hell
will end and you will be trapped with that spirit
for all eternity.”
“Then I suggest she not catch us!”
Spencer suggested.
A wailing sound came from around the
corner. Vince headed for the corner.
“Vince, get back here!” Spencer
demanded.
Vince ignored Spencer and peeked
around the corner to see a very beautiful woman
wandering down the street, he stared at her for
several seconds before he realized that her feet
did not touch the ground.
Her face was one of fair skin that framed
a beautiful pair of rosy lips. Locks of dark brown
hair topped her head, an exquisite green gown
flowed down her body toward the dusty street.
The eerie part was that her mouth hung open in a
sorrowful wail and her face lacked all expression. She seemed to be wandering, looking for
someone. Her head scanning the street. As her
head turned toward Vince, it stopped. The
wailing grew in volume, her eyes and her whole
face changed. Her face now looked devilishly
angry, and her eyes glowed with a deep sea green
as she changed direction to come right at Vince. Vince backed away he turned to Spencer
and Jessie.
“I think she saw me.” Vince said causing
Spencer and Jessie to turn and lead Vince down
the road to a bazaar where several merchant
stands offered a potential hiding place.
As the spirit-woman came around the
corner, she scanned the area for Vince, not
knowing that he had not come alone. She scanned the marketplace as she passed through
and eventually moved on.
Though the woman was gone, the three
remained in hiding and stayed quiet for several
minutes before finally speaking.
“What the hell was that?” Jessie asked. “If we were not on our way into the
lowest level of hell, then I might say she’s a
banshee.” Vince offered.
“We should probably keep away from
her.” Spencer guessed before checking to see if
the way was clear.
“Let’s go, we need to reach the tower.”
Spencer said.
Heading out to the main road the tower
loomed at the far end of the street, but there were
no stairs, an elevator went straight to the top. Spencer reached the base of the tower and
stepped onto the elevator, Vince and Jessie were
right behind him. They bent their knees and
steeled themselves for an unpleasant ride. The
elevator was nothing more than a platform. Once they were on the platform it started
to raise. The world started to shrink the closer the
elevator got to the top of the huge tower. The elevator slowed as it reached the top
level. They stepped off and walked to a large
table which housed a high-resolution digital
topographic map of the city, the city sat
surrounded at the end of a long, low canyon. A river flowed down the valley floor as it
into a cave at the far end over the valley. Spencer peered out over the city to see a
volcano, and it was erupting, there were two lave
floes that slid down the mountain and into the
water that flowed into the cave.
Spencer turned back to the map where he
noticed several blinking indicators along the
river.
“I wonder what these are.” Spencer
wondered.
Jessie found some controls near the map,
they were not able to do much more than zoom in
and out and display information.
“Looks like those are the worst parts of
town.” Jessie began, “Sirens,”
Spencer noticed a small device attached to the
console, it appeared to be a miniature version of
the map device. So Spencer detached it from the
port it was plugged into.
“Let’s go.” Spencer said and loaded onto
the elevator.
The elevator descended more slowly than
it climbed, Spencer used the opportunity to
investigate the small map device he found. After
figuring out how the device worked, he
investigated the first blip on the river.
“Sirens.” Spencer read. “The sirens sing
weary travelers into a false sense of security
before they strike.”
“Sounds like we want to avoid them.”
Vince guessed.
“No, the canyon walls are too steep; we’ll
have to punch through if we want to get to the ninth circle of hell to say nothing of getting
beyond that.” Spencer corrected.
“First, we’ll have to get to the edge of the
city.”
The elevator finally reached the ground
level and came face to face with the wailing
banshee.
“SPLIT UP!” Spencer shouted. “Meet
down at the riverfront.”
Vince and Jessie took off in separate
directions, but rejoined at the last second causing
the banshee to follow them. Spencer used the
distracted banshee’s attention to his advantage
and ran in the other direction but turned back at
the last second.
“Hey!” Spencer shouted causing the
/>
banshee to return her gaze to Spencer, and then
give chase.
Spencer took off running down the street
as fast as he could. After about a mile he came to
an intersection where four other streets met with
the street he was on. Without stopping, Spencer
veered left and came to a dead end three hundred
yards later.
Spencer turned back to see the banshee
floating down the street. Then he saw a doorway,
Spencer would have to back track and hope that
there was another exit to the building or he would
be trapped.
Spencer ran to the door and entered with
the banshee ten yards back, he looked around and
found himself in a sort of ancient studio apartment, but there was an exit; Spencer would be forced to climb a spiral staircase to an upper
floor.
Spencer started up the stairs and soon
found himself on a balcony five floors above the
ground, there was a roof two floors down, there
was a street three floors beneath that.
Spencer started to look for something to
help him down to the roof below but the wailing
from the banshee was coming up the stairs.
Spencer realized he had only one way to go, as
soon as Spencer could see the eyes of the
banshee; he leapt over the edge of the balcony
and to the roof below.
Spencer hung in the air for three seconds
before hitting the roof which was not as sturdy as
it looked, Spencer fell though the roof landing on
a table in the next apartment down, a spiral
staircase lead the way to the ground floor where
Spencer burst out onto the street and almost ran
over Vince and Jessie.
“Where’d that thing go?” Jessie asked,
Spencer pointed upward to a balcony where it
was clinging, looking for them.
“Where is it, I don’t see her.” Vince said
looking up to the balcony, “VINCE!” Jessie
shouted when the banshee emerged from the wall
and tried to grab Vince.
Jessie barely pulled Vince out of harms
way before she pulled him down the street
toward the river only a mile away, with Spencer
in the lead.
Spencer arrived at the riverfront to see a
severely dilapidated dock with a sturdy boat
moored at the side of the dock. Water lapped at
the pilings that supported the dock.
A cloaked figure stood in the boat.
Jessie hesitated.
“Jessie, what’s wrong?” Spencer asked.
Jessie pointed at the oarsman.
“I don’t think like the idea of riding down
the river Styx, that’s all,” Jessie admitted. “You don’t have to go with.” Spencer