by Josh Hilden
Elliot grunted with irritation but stopped and set his pack down on the ground, which was much drier now that they were so far up. She had to hand it to Elliot, he may be old but he was carrying his share of the gear with less complaint than the stooges--who had not stopped their grousing the whole time.
They collapsed onto the ground. For several minutes the only sounds were those of heavy breathing. Followed quickly by the sucking and gurgling sounds of water being consumed by the gallon. In contrast Elliot took measured sips from his canteen but did not sit down. His gaze was fixed on the top of the small mountain that was obscured by the dense foliage.
Sandra wanted to talk to him and ask him any of the hundred questions that were racing around in her mind, but before she could they all froze. The moans that they’d first heard when they set foot on the beach had subsided as they penetrated deeper into the islands interior. Now they’d returned with an increased ferocity that seemed to be trying to make up for the absence.
The stooges all jumped to their feet, and one of them, she thought it was Moe, unsheathed his machete and held it out like a Roman Centurion. He whipped his head back and forth searching for the source of the unearthly wail. They all looked as scared as she felt.
“Mr. Ericsson,” Elliot said to Moe, “kindly put that fucking thing away before you hurt somebody. I dare say it would most likely be yourself.” Elliot sounded amused to Sandy’s ears.
Larry and Curly both had their hands on the hilts of their machetes and were in the process of releasing them from their leather and wood scabbards. None of them seemed inclined to do what the Professor wanted. For that matter Sandra half drew her own blade when the moaning started. Shee hastily returned it to its resting place so as not to draw Elliot’s attention. Something wasn’t right and Sandra wanted to keep all eyes off of her for the time being. The old internal triggers that warned her to lock her bedroom and bathroom doors when she was a kid were screaming now.
“I must insist, gentlemen, that you put those away.” He spoke with the same casualness that he used when ordering in a restaurant, but what Sandra saw him draw from beneath his vest was unexpected. One moment Elliot’s hands were empty, but in the next he was holding the biggest revolver that Sandra had ever seen.
“Drop them gentlemen.” He said.
“Professor, what the fuck …” Moe began, but before he could continue there was a loud bang and a bright red spot appeared in the center of his chest. Moe dropped to his knees and stared at the quickly spreading red patch. He looked up at Elliot one last time and then dropped over dead. Sandra was sure that the young man had been aware of everything.
“Now, gentlemen, and Sandy, I really do need you to drop those blades and pick up the equipment. I am afraid that you will have to distribute Mr. Ericson’s gear out amongst you.” He chuckled and slid the revolver in the waist band of his pants.
Nobody argued against the order.
4
At The Summit
5:15pm EST
When they finally broke free of the humid embrace of the jungle and onto the summit of the mountain Sandra, wanted to shout with relief. Any sounds that might have emerged were immediately stifled by the sight that greeted them. The cracked dome of the ruined vine covered building would have done a Major League Baseball stadium proud.
It all looked familiar and wrong to Sandra. The walls should have been polished white marble and the dome skinned in burnished copper. This relic spoke of age and sadness.
“Elliot, what the hell is this?” Sandra asked. She was unable to tear her eyes away from the faded and crumbled majesty of the impossible building.
“This was the Temple.” He said. Eliot turned and looked her square in the eye, “But you already knew that, didn’t you, Sandy?”
She wanted to tell him he was being ridiculous, and that it was impossible for her to know that but she did. She also knew that that was not the whole name. She could not stop her body from speaking in a near whisper.
“It’s the Silver Temple, the Western Gateway.”
“Very good my dear, I knew you were more than easy on the eyes when I first met you.” He laughed at the confused and vaguely hurt look that flashed across Sandra’s face before he continued. “You feel the connection of your blood over all the millennia that have passed. Since your kind imprisoned my master.”
“What are you talking about?” She asked.
He ignored her for a moment and turned to Larry and Curly, “You have no more need for your blades gentlemen, if you would be so kind to throw them into the trees.” He said all of this politely. His hand remained firmly on the butt of the revolver that killed Moe.
The men reluctantly unbelted their machetes and tossed them away.
“Thank you, now onward.” He gestured toward the ruins.
Larry and Curly groaned and then set out again with Elliot and Sandra following from behind. In the distance the moans continued and grew louder.
“Now, Sandy, I will answer your question. I dare say that at some point in the dim and forgotten past you have a witch in your genealogical closet.”
“A what?” She asked. She had not expected that answer, although if she had been pressed she could not have told anyone what answer she had expected.
Elliot seemed irritated, “A Witch. A Sorceress. A Wizard. Someone like Harry Fucking Potter! Do you understand that?!” Elliot never raised his voice to her in the years that they were lovers. Now he was screaming. When Larry and Curly stopped and turned to look at them, Elliot drew his revolver and motioned them to continue.
“That’s just make believe. There is no such thing as magic.” Sandra said.
He loosed a full throated laugh. “You can believe whatever you want, but you can’t change reality.” The moans from the jungle were getting closer.
They entered the Temple and the temperature dropped twenty degrees the moment they passed the threshold. Goose bumps erupted on Sandra’s skin and her nipples became as hard as marbles.
Elliot had them break out the flashlights and they walked down a dark vaulted corridor. They soon emerged into a huge chamber. Light filtered through the cracks and breaks in the dome far overhead allowing them to see the standing stones arranged around the still pool in the center. To Sandra it looked like Stone Henge before the ancient stones had been toppled and broken.
“We have important work to do.” Elliot said and then laughed as he took off his pack and began to give orders.
5
7:10pm EST
They had assembled the portable podium that Elliot had packed. Then they painted arcane symbols around the pool in an order and style that was meticulously dictated by Elliot. He watched on, holding the revolver and never dirtying his hands. Candles were lit, and Elliot said that they were ready to begin.
Sandra stood fascinated after they had finished. She felt that she had been here before and had already done this very thing but that was crazy talk! She looked at the pool and for an instant she saw that inhuman shape again. It floated ghostly over the pool.
Larry picked that moment to act. He charged Elliot and managed to catch him unaware. The gun flew from his hand and Larry began punching him over and over. In the Chaos Curly ran and picked up the fallen gun.
“I’ve got it!” He yelled to Larry who got up and ran over to his friend.
“Sandra let’s go!” He said.
She ignored him. In that moment she was under the thrall of the temple.
“Forget her let’s get the fuck out of here!” Curly yelled at him.
Sandra knew that the moans were louder than ever. But that was to the side. She began to walk toward the dark and smooth pool.
Elliot stood back up and watched the remaining stooges run to the entrance of the temple.
As Larry and Curly reached the entrance of the temple they were greeted by an old friend. Moe stood there with vacant eyes looking at them. And he was not alone. There were easily two dozen people in various stages of decay standing by him. They had fou
nd the source of the moaning.
Sandra heard first gunshots and then their screams echoing down the stone passage of the temple. And then there were only the moans, but she still looked at the pool.
6
7:25pm EST
Sandra stood at the podium looking down at an open book. It was incredibly ancient with yellowed paper bound in cracked, black leather. First she was looking at the book and now looking at the pool unable to move. But she didn’t want to move. This was where she wanted to be, where she was supposed to be. She believed she could hear the sound of a dozen people chanting far in the distance, and yet close by.
The runic symbols on the cover and the interior of the book should have been unintelligible to her when she looked she saw two sets of writing. One of them was a ghostly image superimposed over the other. The superimposed text was clearly English.
She had/hadn’t been here before, had/hadn’t done this very thing once before, hadn’t she?
Elliot walked over to her and opened the book to a spot marked with a red and silver ribbon. She had seen these words before.
“Read,” he said to her.
She was about to start reading when she realized, if she read this bad things would happen. When she had/hadn’t read from this book before it had been to prevent this from happening.
“No” she whispered.
Elliot smacked her so hard that she fell to the ground. Tears rolled silently from her eyes. Still, the half trance was not broken. “You bitch. It has taken me more than half my life to find one with blood as pure as yours. If I could have done this myself without being driven mad, I never would have needed you.” He seethed behind the steady words. “You will do as you’re told, or I will put you in the well. Then you can see just how forgiving my Lord is of failure and cowardice.”
Fear crept into her mind as the sickly dark sight of the well filled her. The smell of stagnant water and rotted matter saturated her nose and the far off sound of chanting filled her ears. She could not, must not, touch the waters of the well.
That way lay madness.
She picked herself up from the ground, ignoring the fast swelling and sharp pain of her face. Vaguely, she thought that she probably had a broken cheek bone and maybe a broken nose. She walked back to the podium.
She began to read. Her mind was reading in English, but what came out of her mouth was a wet and clotted language full of gurgles and far too many consonants. If she had heard somebody else speaking this language she would have thought it a trick. No human mouth should have been able to make these sounds.
As she spoke she felt as if she were being divided. Half of her stood at the book and chanted the ancient lines while the other half stepped away and walked toward the well. A very tiny and almost nonexistent third sliver of Sandra Sutton watched all of this and wanted to scream at both of them to stop! She tried but it was as if she was trapped in a sound proof bubble and nobody could hear her.
She watched the Sandra that approached the well with an icy sickening in her groin. Something was happening to the pool. It was flashing red and silver, the lights filling the chamber like a fireworks display and the water boiling. Then Sandra saw the image of the monster again. Except it was more solid and rising from the water instead of hovering over it. She knew that none of this was really happening, that it was only in her mind. But it looked, felt, smelled, sounded, and tasted real.
The real Sandy that stood at the altar noticed none of this.
The Sandy heading for the water reached the edge of the pool and stepped on the lip preparing to jump in.
Drum beats and chanting exploded from the very stones of the chamber.
“NO!” The tiny Sandy watching from above screamed.
Then the thing from the depths of hell looked at her. She was frozen in terror, it could see her and she thought that maybe more terrifying than anything else. It could see into her and it knew her.
“You cannot stop this from happening this time.
You cannot stop me from returning this time.
You tried before when your soul was younger and your form was other and you failed. Your time has passed and now all the children of the light will be the meat and the shells for my children. The streets and the avenues of men will be the highways of the Dead. All will be consumed and none but the chosen few will be left to tell the tale.”
It spoke directly into her mind in that same language that the real Sandy was chanting in. Then the monster laughed and the world shook. The sound would have driven all sanity from Sandra if she had not been split into three. Still the laugh tore through her mind and pushed her to the edge. A chaotic barrage of images filled her mind.
She saw thousands of the Risen Dead as they walked down an American interstate herding a tidal wave of panicked people before them. She saw as the small, the elderly, the weak, and the fat were picked off from the sides and rear of the herd to be devoured by the swarm. The newly dead then rose again to join the swarm and continue the hellish cattle drive.
She saw a small group of survivors holed up on the roof of a New York City sky scraper. The Empire State Building was visible in the distance. They were out of food and the water was going bad. The sounds of the Dead trapped in the building were driving them mad. They passed around a hat full of numbered pieces of paper. The person with the lowest number would have to shoot them all in the head. A small child cried as it clung to its mother’s legs.
She saw a group of living, black clad warriors. They wore death masks and accompanied thousands of the Risen Dead. They were assaulting a small walled off town on the shores of an inland sea. The people there had held their homes against wave after wave of the Risen Dead, but this group of vile traitors wielding the weapons of a fallen humanity would spell their end.
She saw a view from above the earth, dozens of mushroom clouds erupting on the surface. These were the final desperate actions of the former rulers of the world--the annihilation of the dead cities of mankind. New York, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Beijing, New Delhi, Moscow, Berlin, Alexandria, Paris, London, Cape Town, Nairobi, Buenos Aries, and Rio all die in an instant followed by many more.
Still the dead continued to rise and walk and feed.
Her screams filled her mind and the chamber. The strength of her terror was such that even Elliot and the real Sandra seemed to notice. In that moment of connection with Elliot and her own corporeal shell she saw into him and understood.
Elliot Preston was not his birth name, and he had been born long before he claimed. The son of a Priest in the Church of England, Elliot Maynard had joined the Royal Geographic Society in 1892 at the age of 31, after mustering out of the Royal Navy with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Having always been intrigued with the stories of lost civilizations he joined the society to exercise his interests.
He’d been part of many expeditions and been friends with the likes of Colonel Percy Fawcett, the famed South American Explorer. It was his friendship with Fawcett that lead to his attempt to penetrate the jungles of Central America. On one expedition he found an ancient temple abandoned long before the rise of the Mayans, or even the Olmec Civilizations; it had been the last haven of the people who fled the Island. It was there among the ruins and stone tablets that he became a devotee of Death.
She saw him in later life as a wizened old man conducting a forbidden ritual high in the mountains of the Andes. There he sacrificed three children and opened a small portal to the home realm of his master. Through this micro opening he gave part of his soul and pledged his life to the service of the immortal monster. In return he was granted power, knowledge, and long life.
Her visions were broken as the Monster laughed and reached out to the Sandra that had come to him.
The Sandy watching from above knew what was about to happen. She should, it was the prize she had offered many times in her life. She tried to look away but the gaze of the monster never left her. She was the scared rabbit caught in the headlights praying tha
t the thing bearing down on her would pass her by.
“But this isn’t really happening.” She told herself, knowing deep down that in a very fundamental way it was.