Crown of Serpents

by Michael Karpovage

  Joe couldn’t resist a jibe. “All hail the porcelain God.”

  Jake snickered then turned the old doorknob and let himself in. He took a few steps before starting down a short flight of concrete stairs. At the bottom was a small closet-like room made out of gray cinder blocks. A rusted porcelain sink and crude steel toilet were the only furnishings. The bathroom door opened from behind. More light filled the room as Joe entered, whistling, looking up.

  “Watch your step,” warned Jake.

  Too late. Joe tripped on the first step and fell.

  His flashlight and sledgehammer tumbled through the air. Then his large frame slammed down hard against the concrete steps with a groan. Something cracked. His shotgun jammed against the wall, the barrel bent. Joe rolled down another step and banged his wrist, got hit in the elbow with his sledgehammer, and then turned his ankle before coming to rest at the bottom of the steps. Jake was already at his side holding him steady. Joe moaned through fluttering eyes.

  “It’s my fault,” apologized Jake. “It’s my fault. I’m so sorry. Oh man, what have I done?”

  34

  Below the Depot.

  PRISONER RAE HART noted that the slippery, winding cave passage was remarkably clear of obstructions as she led Nero’s entourage further below the surface of the earth. A half hour into their subterranean trip, the rocky trail remained in a northerly direction even as it increasingly sloped downward. Rae took her time to carefully illuminate the way ahead as the group descended deeper into the dark new world. Although never losing focus on a chance for escape, she became somewhat fascinated as the journey progressed. It was clearly evident that the route had been maintained over time as larger boulders, shale, and debris had been moved off to the side, allowing a clear avenue on the uneven stone surface. They experienced tight crevices and ceilings so low they were reduced to a crawl. Remarkably, the temperature was much warmer than the outside air. It seemed a constant fifty degrees or so but very damp.

  Rae gingerly pushed onward, making sure not to twist an ankle or worse, run across any ancient anti-intruder booby traps. Crumbling shale cave walls soon changed to a smooth yet wet limestone surface marked with ancient man-made images. At several intervals along the way she had even observed the notorious white deer and snake symbol painted on the walls. Nero and Stanton stopped the group whenever these symbols appeared. They consulted an old map in a protected cover. Rae could only assume this as being some type of cave map with the symbols acting as an ancient wayfinding system.

  The passage then started revealing actual artifacts of the past Indian culture. Rae stepped beside rotted cornhusk baskets, old wooden boxes, clay pottery, and used fire pits.

  After ducking under an outcropping of rock, she emerged into a narrow chamber the size of a tennis court. She panned her dual helmet lights up the rising ceiling and held her breath as the room towered fifty-feet above her. The rest of the spelunking party pushed in behind her amid bouncing flashlight and helmet beams. They stood side-by-side under the vaulted ceiling, Anne Stanton to Rae’s right and a coughing, sweating Alex Nero on her left. A slight draft of air pressed against their faces.

  Stanton gasped. “My God, look at this place. It’s beautiful.” Mr. Makowa echoed her thoughts as he moved passed her, mouth agape.

  The ceiling was adorned with a half dozen icicle shaped stalactites formed by dripping calcium salt deposits. Directly below the tapering spears were stalagmites protruding up from the floor surface in a hardened wax-like flow of sparkling colors. Two of the forms had actually connected into a petrified-like column of flowing minerals. Makowa stepped over and ran his hand up and down the column.

  Transfixed by strange shapes dancing in the shadows of his helmet light beams, the other guard, Mr. George, walked over to a wall. “Mr. Nero,” he asked. “You want some more additions to your scalp collection?” The group turned toward George. He held his helmet beams on a wall completely covered with scalps of hair. Each scalp had a White Deer Society symbol painted over it. What that meant, nobody had a clue.

  “Don’t touch a thing,” ordered Nero.

  Stanton and Nero proceeded down the slippery cave floor toward the center of the room. Their eyes went ablaze as their lights panned over a marketplace of ancient Iroquois weapons. The overwhelming inventory scattered about revealed war fighting bows and feathered arrows, blood-stained war hammers and chipped tomahawks, spears, daggers, swords, muskets, and powder horns. Stanton even spotted what appeared to be a Viking helmet.

  “Some sort of weapons cache,” Nero surmised.

  Stanton knelt beside an old wooden crate and extracted a tattered French infantry officer’s blue uniform jacket and white sash. It came complete with the French Army symbol of the Fleur de Lis. She ran her eyes up the brass buttons and found a hole in the chest with a dark red stain. She placed the coat back in the box. “A weapon’s cache that would never see the light of day,” she mumbled.

  “Explain,” said Nero.

  “Well, white deer were sacred and supposed to be protectors of peace for the tribes within the confederacy. So maybe whoever brought these items down here also despised war, the instruments of war, and trophies of war. Maybe this chamber is a place where Iroquois war items were hidden for good, to never be used or celebrated again.” She shrugged.

  Nero cocked his head at her, coughed, ignored her and continued on toward the far end of the chamber. Two dark cave openings appeared. Above each was a wooden false-face mask. Each was painted a dark red, eyes bulging, nose bent, mouth smiling. “Get over here,” he gruffly ordered. “We’ve got a fork in the trail and I can’t tell where it is on the map.”

  As Nero’s party explored the room, Rae remained alone near the entrance, drinking water and buying time. She had kept her eye on Nero’s top enforcer Kenny Rousseau, who had also remained slightly back. She caught him in her peripheral vision viewing some cave paintings. Rae realized this was the first good chance she had at escaping back up the passage to the surface — and freedom. She took a quiet step backward, hoping to ease her way back out without being noticed. That also meant killing her headlamp beams. As she reached up on her helmet to switch off her lights she caught movement from Rousseau. She glanced over. His light beams lit her up, his sawed-off shotgun leveled at her head.

  “Go ahead. Give me a reason,” he taunted.

  Rae sighed, her first attempt foiled. A large paw soon clutched her around the neck, shoving her forward. “Move it, pig!” grunted Rousseau.

  “Hey, check this out!” shouted Mr. George from behind several thin stalagmites, which formed prison-like bars. He moved his cigarette lighter over the end of a long stick jutting out from the wall. It was bunched up with rolls of dry grape vine. Flames spread quickly over the wood coils, casting one side of the chamber in an eerie orange glow. “We’ve got ourselves a torch!” He pulled it out of the wall and held it in front of him.

  “Looks like they’re all over the room. Light this place up,” ordered Rousseau. He looked around, found Makowa rummaging through a basket, and barked an order for him to help out. He pushed Rae ahead to meet Nero and Stanton at the far end of the chamber. They were trying to decide which route to take next. Rousseau shoved Rae against the wall and joined his boss.

  “Left or right passage?” asked Rousseau, looking up at the false faces over each tunnel entrance. He glanced down at the cave map over Nero’s shoulder.

  “Haven’t the foggiest,” replied Stanton, as the room lit up behind them. She looked back and noticed a half-dozen flaming torches lining the walls.

  “I’m thinking we just follow the terrain and keep heading down,” speculated Nero.

  “The left passage seems to climb up, while the right descends,” added Stanton as her helmet beams penetrated into each cave entrance.

  Suddenly, a low boom emitted from the right cave passage, followed by three more cannon-like rumbles.

  “What the hell was that?” shouted Makowa.

  George chi
med in, waving his burning torch. “Sounded like thunder.”

  “It’s not thunder, you ass,” chided Rousseau. “We’re a good one hundred and fifty feet below the surface.”

  “It’s the spirits of underworld warning us not to come any closer to their prize,” said Nero.

  “You’re so full of shit,” retorted Rae, leaning against the wall, her arms folded across her chest. “That’s what the locals call the Seneca Lake guns. We hear them all the time. It’s nothing more than your evil spirits having a case of natural gas build up and letting one loose!” Her dirty, bruised face revealed a white, full-toothed smile and a taunting rise of her eyebrows.

  Stanton held back laughter. Nero caught her quivering grin. Rousseau, George, and Makowa also snickered at the remark. Embarrassed at the cop showing him up in front of his minions, Nero lashed out at Rae with the back of his hand. She tried to duck, but he was too fast. He caught her in the mouth with a crack, instantly drawing blood on her already fat lip. Makowa sprung up next to her with a drawn Glock, trying to make good for his boss.

  “Who the fuck asked your opinion?” Nero boomed at Rae. He then grabbed her by her long auburn hair, twisted her head, and shoved her forward inside the right side passageway. Her helmet banged against rock. “Get going through there!”

  Rae stumbled through the dark hole, tripped over a rocky hump, and fell to her knees. She tried getting up, but Makowa had followed right behind, booting her hard in the backside, telling her to get moving. Rae squealed in pain and tumbled ahead, busting her knees again on the rocky surface. As she fell face first, she unknowingly severed a thin fiber cord triggering a crude mechanism hidden in the sidewall.

  Makowa again stood over her, waving the Glock. “Get your ass up.”

  He caught the full force of the booby trap as three crude spears from each wall sprung out and punctured him through his upper body. Suspended in mid air, Makowa looked down in shock at the six razor sharp spear tips penetrating his coat and pants.

  Rae rolled onto her back and looked up as blood squirted down onto her. Shocked that it could have been her skewered on the trap, she lay frozen at the sight above. Makowa screamed down at her, then lost the grip on his pistol. Rae snatched it up, realized it was her very own service-weapon they had taken from her earlier. She squirmed forward out from underneath his legs.

  Flashlight beams and a torch flame moved inside the tunnel entrance. Nero and his gang ran in, stopping before the booby-trapped barrier Makowa had formed.

  Rae rose to her feet and dashed ahead as the chainsaw ripping of an automatic submachine gun burst out from behind the screaming cage of death. Bullets ricocheted off the limestone walls in a shower rock fragments. A shotgun blast then rang out as Rousseau joined in.

  Rae instinctively ducked as an explosion of rock blew out next to her head. Another blast from the shotgun and the top of her helmet caught a spray of buckshot knocking the helmet forward over her eyes. She banged into the wall but managed to raise her re-acquired Glock behind her and fired off three wild shots to keep her attackers at bay. Their return fire stopped.

  Taking cover around a corner in the passageway, Rae bent over and caught her breath as Makowa’s wild screaming continued. She felt a sting on her upper thigh. Was she hit? She stood up and patted her thigh for a wound. Nothing. She slipped a hand inside her pant pocket and was completely surprised when she felt what was causing the pain. Pulling out the Cranberry Marsh silver broach, she smiled. She had totally forgotten she stashed the broach when the control tower blew up. And it had even slipped past the frisking Nero’s thugs had given her. She placed the little good luck charm back in her pocket and ejected her service weapon’s magazine clip, checking to see how many rounds she had left. Thirteen.

  Another blast from Rousseau’s shotgun smacked the wall next to her. She switched off her helmet lights for better cover just as Rousseau yelled out a prison-yard obscenity.

  For the next twenty agonizing seconds all Rae could hear was Makowa’s throes of agony until finally his cries became a whimper. She stole a glance back from around the corner and saw Makowa’s head bow down on his chest, his light beams shining on a pool of blood at his feet. Rousseau and George were busy trying to dismantle the body from the booby trap in order to get by. Nero barked orders at them to hurry up.

  After an unwitting escape, Rae was happy to be alive and armed once again. But she also realized she was stuck ahead of Nero’s group and had no chance of getting back topside. She flicked her helmet lights back on and turned down the unknown passageway.

  To her dismay, she almost stepped into a deep hole. Steadying herself against the walls, her helmet beams revealed a wide shaft about fifty-foot deep with a corn-fiber knotted rope ladder leading the way down. She had no choice but to go in and to make it fast before her would-be killers overtook her. Hoping the ancient rope ladder still had enough strength left she grabbed a knotted rung and stepped into the abyss.

  Same time. Bunker A0101. Sub-level six. Toilet room.

  “What are you thinking? I can’t just leave you here,” said a distraught Jake. He had just finished a makeshift splint for his uncle’s ankle and a sling for his arm and wrist. Joe simply moaned as he sat against the toilet room masonry wall.

  After the fall, Jake had diagnosed all of his uncle’s wounds. He had injured a rib, probably broke his wrist, smashed his elbow, a high ankle sprain, and a very sore back. Plus, his shotgun was useless as a weapon.

  “I can’t go on, but you must,” Joe insisted.

  Jake shook his head. “That’s crazy. This thing is over. I’ve got to get you to a hospital. Maybe we can start up one of those motorcycles and I can ride you back up?”

  “I don’t need a friggin’ hospital. I need you to bust down a wall to see if this damn cave even exists.”

  “What if it does? Then what?”

  “If the cave is there then you need to head in — alone — and not worry about me. I’ll mess around with one of those motorcycles and see what I can do by the time you get out.”

  “Really?” said Jake. He stood up with hands on hips. “And what if I screwed up and there is no cave?”

  “If there is no cave behind these walls,” Joe tapped with his knuckles. “Then I suppose our next bet is to get you back down into the Cranberry Marsh well.”

  “Agreed.” Jake pulled out his crumpled bunker floor plan. He flipped the page over and read the construction crew report one last time to verify which wall supposedly held the cave void behind it. He nodded, stuffed the paper back in his pocket, and grabbed the sledgehammer. “If there is a cave, then I’ll continue with the mission only after I get you to a hospital.”

  “Fine. Just hit the damn thing!”

  Jake swung his demolition tool about knee high. It hit with bone-crushing force. A masonry block cracked in half. Joe covered his eyes from the shower of concrete fragments that sprayed all over him. Jake swung again, blasting more of the block away. As the dust cleared, he noticed solid limestone in its place. He cursed.

  “Go a little higher,” directed Joe.

  Jake hit the wall at waist level and crunched through another block. Two more swings and the block disintegrated, inward. To his astonishment the limestone surface was absent. Instead, he peered into a dark void. With a racing heart, he stood up and hammered away at a half dozen more blocks at waist and chest level. He blasted away a hole large enough to stick his head and shoulders through. White dust swirled in the dimly lit room as he stuck his head in and inspected what lay beyond. Just as the construction crew from the 1960s had reported, there, on the floor among the masonry chunks were several shards of broken pottery and an arrowhead. He panned around the walls with his helmet mounted light and found some strange cave paintings on the stone wall. Jake pulled back into the toilet room and looked at his uncle with a smirk. “The cave exists. There’s Indian paintings on the wall.”

  Joe grinned, then sighed with relief.

  And from the void they suddenl
y heard the terrifying echoes of a man wailing in death. They froze, chills shuddering through their bodies. Their smiling faces changed to looks of horror. Was it a ghost spirit? A burst from an automatic weapon then echoed from deep within. A shotgun report followed. A firefight was raging. More gunfire. Silence. Another shotgun blast echoed their way.

  Jake moved quickly, demolishing more blocks to widen the hole. He stuffed his backpack, Halligan tool, and M4 rifle through, then squeezed his bulky frame in too. He told Joe to hold the fort — that he was going in to check out what was happening.

  “Jake, if you come across a young lady with blonde hair, named Anne Stanton, please make sure you protect her at all costs. She’s one of us.”

  Jake shook his head and bit his lip, pissed that his uncle held back on him again.

  “She’s the mole inside Nero’s organization,” Joe added. “I’ll explain everything once you get back.”

  “Fine,” Jake said, firmly. He the disappeared into the dark unknown.

  35

  In the caves.

  THE ROPE HELD fine as Rae jumped down onto a rocky surface. The impact of her boots echoed across a darkened area she perceived as very large. She peered ahead with her helmet beams as an enormous cavern opened before her eyes. She held her breath. Directly in front of her was a tall row of connected stalagmites and stalactites forming a glistening forest of solid columns. Beyond, the cavern widened into a maze of rolling limestone humps, flowstones, and more icicle-like cave structures.

  She heard a noise up above her in the shaft. Peeking up she noticed a faint glow of light spreading. They were coming down.

  She moved quickly down a worn path, carefully shuffling her way between the natural columns and limestone outcrops. Her head was filled with questions. Were there more booby traps? Was there another way out of here? She only had one set of batteries in her helmet, a container of water, a gun, and no food. She couldn’t keep running forever. As soon as her helmet light gave out she was all but done. She kept her head down on the trail, trying to determine clues of past visitors to make sure she headed in the right direction. Hell, any direction away from Nero. She felt dampness and cool air upon her face, then shouting from back at the shaft entrance. Nero yelled her name. She turned, a feeling of panic welled up inside of her. Tears tugged at her eyes.