by Jason Davis
His flashlight… Hadn’t that gone out on him in the tunnel? The batteries had died. How was it working now?
Because, you idiot, it hadn’t died.
The fog…
Just as it had lifted, he could feel it pushing its way back in as Rob allowed himself to get distracted with more questions. He could feel it, like a weight trying to push against him. He felt the ground around him stirring, the bugs climbing into his pants. He knew they weren’t real. Just like the darkness, they were in his mind.
So what was real? Whom could he trust? He knew he could trust the kid. Okay, so he didn’t know for certain he could trust the kid, but he felt pretty damn sure he could. Besides, he liked him.
He reached out and grabbed the flashlight as he stood. His knees popped, another glorious reminder of the impending age creeping in on him. All of this seemed like so much, and it always just kept going on.
He shined the flashlight around. The kid groaned behind him, but other than a sore ass, he wasn’t hurt. The walls were rough. Rob could see where his head had hit, and while the pain throbbed, that might also be the reason his brain had cleared.
The floor was dirt, packed solid and uneven, and may have once been heavily traveled. Overhead was cut out, rough like the walls, and he could now see it was held up by large, heavy wooden beams that looked relatively stable, even though they’d been down there for years. Not that he knew what the hell to look for if they weren’t.
We’re in a mineshaft. Huh… There really are old mineshafts down here.
It wasn’t really what he would have expected. He shined his light down one tunnel that seemed to go somewhere, probably to some long-ago access that had since been blocked off. It now just disappeared into the black abyss past the point where his flashlight could shine.
When he turned back the other way, his stomach churned.
Bodies. Kids’ bodies tangled upon each other. Their skin was white, all the color drained from them, and their eyes seemed to be looking at him, lifeless. It was something he had hoped to never see again.
His legs threatened to give out on him as he took a shaky step forward. From his count, there were five of them, their naked bodies in a heap and pushed off to the side, thrown there like trash.
Push past it. Push it out of your mind. Don’t focus on it.
He closed his eyes and took a breath, turning away from them. He wondered why he was the one down there. How was he supposed to deal with this? Why him? What was in his power to stop this? This wasn’t some murderer or child molester taking these kids. This was something else, and he was incapable of dealing with it. What was he going to do? Shoot it? Just what made him think a bullet was going to do any good against something like this.
Have faith.
This time, it wasn’t the father’s voice in his head. It was his own. He had to have faith.
He took another step, forcing the flashlight to not shine on the bodies, seeing another separated from the kids. Pastor Amery. His body wasn’t just tossed aside like the rest with no signs of any physical harm. This man was tangled in on himself. His limbs were broken, wrapping around each other, and his genitals had been ripped free and crammed into his mouth. He was surrounded by blood soaking into the earth.
Rob couldn’t help but think about the rumors he had heard about the man. He had just chalked it up to how unlikeable he was. Looking at how the body was broken, though, made Rob think there must have been something to the rumors about this man and boys.
Rob couldn’t feel sorry for him. He just wished he had gotten the chance to hit the man himself. He almost had. He wished he’d taken it.
He moved the light past the man, landing on someone sitting.
“Ally!”
The kid scrambled to his feet and rushed past him to the girl sitting against the far wall where the tunnel came to an end. She had her legs pulled up, her head buried in her knees. She was clothed and alive. Thank God. Rob could hear her crying as he walked toward her.
“David?” Rob heard her say as he neared. David kneeled down next to her, pulling her to him, her head on his chest.
“I got you Ally. I got you,” he said softly. When her tears welled up again, he pulled her tighter and whispered into her ear.
At least something was going right, although Rob didn’t like being down there, didn’t like that they hadn’t found anything else. Should they be afraid of her? Something had done this to the kids. He wondered if maybe she were possessed by it. His life had sure changed where that could be a possibility. He wasn’t sure why he even thought of it. It certainly felt like something that could happen.
He hadn’t realized that as David had knelt down next to the girl, Rob rested his hand on the butt of his revolver, fingering its release, ready to pop the little leather strap and pull it.
Strange. Did I grab it out of the squad car when I had first pulled up? Wouldn’t that have given the state trooper the wrong impression? I didn’t have it back at the flower shop. So when did I grab it? Did I have it the whole time, but something in my head told me it wasn’t there? That seems strange, but I can’t remember when I put it on.
When Ally grabbed David’s shirt, pulling him against her, it was pure muscle memory that had the pistol in Rob’s hand, aiming it toward them.
“David, get away from her.”
The two quickly separated and looked up at him, their fear evident, both staring at him with wide eyes. Seeing the gun, their eyes widened more.
“Deputy?” David asked, his voice trembling.
Rob looked at the girl, then motioned for her to move away. She looked at the gun, not looking into his eyes, and there was a moment of hesitation. She glanced quickly at David, then looked back to the gun and shuffled away.
Rob focused his attention back on David, then motioned with his head for him to get behind him. The kid didn’t move, though, looking up at him, as scared as the girl.
“Get behind me, David.”
His mouth fell open. After a moment, he shook his head.
“David, trust me. Get up and get away from her.”
“David?” When she reached out to him, Rob gave the gun a gentle shake for her to move away.
It took another moment of them all staring at each other in the silence before David finally found his voice. It sounded weak and confused.
“Deputy Alletto?” He spoke slow, pronouncing each syllable. The unsteadiness growing, he worked against it and stood, putting himself in front Ally.
“David, get over here…now.”
David looked at the gun for a long time before he finally looked up to meet Rob’s eyes. Rob would never know what he saw there, but whatever it was made the color drain from his face.
“Officer, please.”
“It’s not her.”
“Officer.”
Rob looked past the kid to the girl. With the boy’s back turned, he had almost expected her to morph into something else, to show a new face. Her eyes would be black, and Rob would smell something he had feared smelling for nearly six months. A smell he had hoped he would never come across again.
And you still haven’t.
There wasn’t anything wrong with her. She was just some girl, looked like late high school, maybe early college. She might be a little nerdy, although it was getting harder and harder for him to tell with kids nowadays. She was dirty, her hair a mess, her face covered in soot of some kind, but it was definitely a girl.
She had grabbed David’s shirt, but her grip wasn’t like she was trying to take him, to do something with him, but just holding him. David had grabbed her, too. They’d been happy to see each other. How would he have grabbed Robyn if he had gone down into a hole to find her? How would she have pulled him to her? He had to imagine it would have been very similar.
But he had been fooled by a pretty face once already. Could this be another trick, something getting into his head again?
“Officer, please, put down the gun.”
How could he know? How coul
d he know if it were the real girl or something else?
What does your gut say?
His gut told him it was her. It had to be. There was no way something could do such a good job of looking normal.
And, my God, there are so many bodies. Please, let us find one alive. Please let the girl be okay. I need to save at least one of them.
He lowered the gun, watching it as he did, his eyes falling to the ground. At the rate he was going, there would be no way he could continue as a cop. Not if this was the way he’d handle every situation. He couldn’t go on, especially in a small town, if he was going to pull his gun out all the time. That wouldn’t go over well. Eventually, an accident would happen.
He was too scared of even his own shadow lately. Maybe Robyn was right and he should seek help. Would he ever admit that to her? God no. He would never live that one down.
“Officer?”
He heard the tremble in the kid’s voice, but thought it had to be concern. Then he felt the cold surrounding him, the dimly lit room getting darker. Rob knew that any chance they had of getting out safely was disappearing with the light.
CHAPTER 32
Rob didn’t turn around. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see what was behind him. He had already seen the bodies, but now he knew there was something more. He felt the same feeling in the flower shop. It was that same darkness swirling around him. He already knew what was there. He wasn’t ready to face it again.
Instead, he rushed forward into the little remaining light and grabbed David and Ally, pushing them up against the wall.
“Get low, stay quiet,” he said, pushing them down. Right now, he didn’t know what he was doing. It was more that he was going by instinct and the desire to protect the innocent. He pushed them down behind him, not knowing what else to do.
He had to face it. Turn around and face what was behind him. The evil that had tried to get inside him. The thing he had been trying to avoid seeing was now there. Every time the darkness came, the evil stayed hidden. He had to turn. He had to face it.
He wasn’t ready.
He didn’t think he would ever be ready.
Behind him, he heard something large and heavy plop against the bodies. It wasn’t a hard thump, but more like the soft sound of flesh meeting flesh. Pictures of dead bodies piled on top of each other, bodies thrown on other bodies, entered his mind.
“Shit,” Rob said under his breath as he heard the other two gasp.
“That’s Tina,” Allison whispered.
“Oh no,” David said.
Rob glanced at them, seeing they looked behind him. They had seen a body fall onto the pile, obviously knowing who it was. Rob wasn’t sure who Tina was. There were quite a few he had met in town, but it didn’t really matter.
Rob followed their gaze, relieved at not seeing anything. There was nothing to see because there was nothing there. Everything was dark. Farther than a few feet in front of him, all he saw was a void.
He took an involuntary step back as he saw it moving toward them. It wasn’t moving quickly, but he could see it slinking past a rock in the ground, slowly crawling over it, wrapping itself around it.
He didn’t see any of the dark tentacles yet, but knew they could reach out for him at any time. He’d seen them once, had felt their icy touch. Not that it mattered. They were all trapped with the presence.
He took another step back, taking a brief glance over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t going to trip on the kids. He thought about the gun at his side, now feeling like a dead weight, making his arm go numb. It was useless, a relic of some other world that seemed archaic and pointless in the sight of true evil.
He holstered it as he took another step back. He could now feel the presence of the kids behind him. He didn’t have to turn to see that they had stood back up. He could feel the warmth of their breath on the back of his neck.
“What is it?” David whispered.
“Mikey?” The girl’s voice trembled.
Rob looked over his shoulder at Ally. She was afraid, they were all afraid, but there was something more. She was crying.
“Mikey?” she said again, a little louder than the soft whisper that had barely escaped before.
He had seen a little boy in the flower shop earlier, one he vaguely remembered. He had looked so damned familiar, but Rob couldn’t place him. Of course, he had never seen the boy alive. He had only seen the pictures when he helped look for the boy last year.
It hadn’t been the first missing kid he had searched for in this town. There seemed to be a rough history with kids going missing, although from a city perspective, it wasn’t that unusual. But this one was different. There were stories around town about abusive parents, the pastor, and an older brother who liked to torture him. The kid had multiple broken bones throughout his early ears and, according to the stories, it was a “take your pick” of potential people who caused it.
So many suspects, but when Rob had looked at pictures of the kid, he seemed so innocent and sweet. It was a younger version of Jake. That smile… Different hair color, different eyes, but that smile… It was so pure and gentle. At the time, Rob had thought he could picture the kid holding the door open for him as he went in somewhere.
The apparition he saw standing in the midst of the dark void may have once been that child, but the innocence was gone. There was no smile. The eyes were recessed, black pupils hidden in the shadows. He was gaunt, the clothes hanging in tattered remains.
“Al-ly,” it said slowly, the voice creaking as it spoke with a high-pitched whine…along with a dark growl. Two voices spoke, working together but against one another to make the words.
“Oh, Mikey.”
Rob didn’t turn, feeling her move up next to him. Just what the hell did she think she was doing? Was she really thinking about getting closer to that thing? She had to realize that whatever it was wasn’t her brother.
No, he should know better. She'd been through a lot and was probably irrational. She'd been missing her little brother for over a year and had never given up hope. He could see that in the way she looked at the apparition. On any given day, she was probably a rational, run-of-the-mill college girl figuring out word problems and explaining away the strange. Today was not a regular day. The brother she had been desperate to find now stood before her. Rob had seen it before. He hoped he was wrong, but knew otherwise. She wasn't in her right frame of mind.
When she took another step forward, he reached out to place a gentle hand on her shoulder. It was enough to shock her and pull her out of her trance. She turned back to look at him.
“He’s my brother.”
Rob shook his head. “Whatever that is, it is not your brother.”
“Look at him.” She looked back at the thing in the dark. “Look at him! He’s just been trapped down here. He’s been all alone.”
Sure, the bodies were now hidden by the darkness, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Could she really just forget about what she had been near when they found her? Damn, how was he going to get through to this girl?
She started to take another step when David stepped up next to Rob and reached out, putting his arms around her waist and moving up close behind her. It was subtle, but Rob thought he saw David pull her back a little. She seemed to pause for a moment before sinking back into him. Her eyes closed, a tear breaking free to leave a soot trail down her cheek.
“Al-ly,” that wretched voice said again. It was hard to instill emotion on a sound that mangled upon itself, but he thought he recognized the subtle tone of a little boy in there. That soft voice calling out for a loved one. It was folded in on the sound, but he was fairly certain it was there.
Rob took a deep breath. “What do you want with her?”
The thing kept its soulless gaze on Ally, so Rob took a step to the side to get in front of her. He got closer to where the border just went off into nothing, and he couldn’t help but take a quick glance at it. There was maybe a foot of ground befo
re everything else was just gone.
“What do you want with her?” Rob repeated, forcing the nervousness out of his voice, sounding like a cop.
It slowly turned those black orbs on him, and he was lost in the endless darkness where there should have been eyes. It stared at him, through him, and he couldn’t tell if he even existed in that gaze.
Something was wrong. He looked at those orbs, seeing no light in there. This wasn’t some little boy anymore. This was pure evil in the shape of a child. So why was it acting like one? Why was it trying to talk to the little boy’s sister?
This didn’t make any sense…unless the boy was still in there somewhere. He guessed that made some kind of sense. Why else would it use the body of someone who had died nearly a year ago? It was almost like that creature he had faced years ago. What had it been called? Someone had told him the thing had been a Wendigo, but that never made sense to him. Since then, he had researched what was known about them. There was talk about possession, but nothing like what he had seen.
That was something completely different. That was taking a long-dead soul and using it to come back to earth, using it like an anchor. It used the soul and took life through it, but a Wendigo, from what he had read, possessed a living soul.
What happened then was much like now. A dead boy, his soul being used. That had to be what was happening now.
Rob had gotten lost in his own thoughts, not realizing he had stumbled out of the way of the child-like thing. He was no longer blocking its view of Ally, so its attention was now back on her.
She had to be the reason it hadn’t killed all of them yet. It had some kind of bind to her.
Okay, the boy had been abused, maybe even sexually. What kind of monster did something like that to such a young child? That didn’t matter right now. Focus. Boy was abused, then dies. His soul was given a way of coming back to… What? Get revenge? It made sense. He had one hell of a rough life. The spirit thing that possessed people allowed him to come back and get his revenge.
But how do thoughts like that get into such a young child? Michael…or Mikey, as everyone called him…was said to be one of the sweetest kids to have ever graced the town. How did that become this? How did a sweet, innocent child call to whatever this was and make a deal for revenge? And why wait a year?