The Pit in the Woods: A Mercy Falls Mythos

by Nathaniel Reed

  She inched closer. Blake shot her.

  “Whaaa…?” she said, mouth and eyes opening with shock. Blood blossomed between her breasts.

  “You know that won’t kill me,” Vivien said.

  “I know, but I think I made my point.” It wasn’t one of the silver bullets or she’d have been incapacitated. She dared to move an inch closer, and then stopped. She saw something in his eyes, something she didn’t like.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” Blake said, “But I will. I’m giving you a chance to walk away. Let us take care of our business here.”

  Vivien raised an eyebrow, “Which is…?”

  “To kill the ones responsible for turning Betty, to free the prisoners, and possibly… you.” He bowed his head.

  She laughed. “I am free.”

  “No, not until I kill the ones who made you. Then maybe…”

  “You know it’s too late for that. I’ve already fed, countless times. There’s no turning me back now.”

  “I suppose, but I will have my revenge.”

  “Aaaah, noble Blake.” She threw herself at him, catching Blake and the rest of them by surprise. He instinctively shot off a round. And then another. Both slugs hit her in the shoulder, as Vivien knocked the stake away from his other hand. She was atop him, taking another round in the gut, until he dropped the gun too. She was in pain, having taken at least one of the silver rounds, but she squeezed his head between her hands.

  The others, having little time to react were sure she was going to crush his head, and then realized she was turning it forcibly to one side, in order to sink her teeth into his neck.

  Johnny grabbed the nearest torch off the wall and jabbed it into her side. She caught fire immediately, screaming as she rose and spun away from Blake. Her teeth had barely pierced his skin, a slow trickle gathering at the twin puncture wounds.

  “No!” Blake shouted. Vivien screeched and whirled about in a daze, her body becoming engulfed by the flames. “No!” It seemed as if Blake wanted to put the fire out, but she was wild, literally fanning the flames. Her screech ear piercing, Vivien’s mad dance made it look as if she were made of fire. It wasn’t long before her body keeled over, the last of the flames licking the charred body.

  Blake removed his coat and threw it over her, smothering the fire. When he lifted it from her, her clothless body, bald head, and blackened skin looked as if it were made of centuries old paper, peeling and crumbling away.

  Fulton Blake fell to his knees before her, crying, “No, no, my Vivien.” He cradled her paper doll head in his arms, and that was when the body caved in on itself; her chest, her head, sinking into her corpse, turning to dust in his arms, sifting through his fingers, as if she had been mere sand. Blake was wracked with sobs. There was nothing, nothing left of her. He looked at the piles of ash, shaking his head in disbelief. Blake got up slowly, slipping his arms into the sleeves of his coat, more out of habit than anything else. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, including him. Nothing seemed real.

  “Blake,” Staci said softly.

  “Blake,” Johnny said, putting his hand on Blake’s shoulder, “I’m so sorr…”

  Blake turned and socked him in the face. Johnny reeled, almost falling backward.

  “You don’t get to say you’re sorry!” Blake said heatedly. “I’ll never forgive you for this!”

  Johnny wiped the back of his hand across his bleeding lip and aching jaw. Blake moved into the next catacomb, through the next open archway, not waiting for anyone to follow. And for a moment the five of them did just stand there, not following. After some hesitation they finally did. Where else were they to go?

  5

  They moved along in silence, Blake at the lead, the rest at his back. Above them, the rain sounded more and more like distant tribal drums. Those left outside found their way indoors. The streets were empty but for the water collecting on them. Too much coming down too fast for the sewer drains to catch up. Where there were dips in the road the rain created small lakes, and where the streets themselves were at a lower level they were inundated ankle deep, had there been anyone left to wade through them.

  “Blake,” Staci called behind him, “We should look at your wounds.” He was holding his hand to his neck where Vivien’s teeth had punctured it.

  “I’ll be fine,” he said, charging forward, not bothering to look at her.

  The others were listening to the sounds of the echoing rain

  above them. Jeremy noticed a couple of small holes in one of the cavern walls where water was leaking out of. Myron seemed to sense his concern and looked at him.

  “Blake?” Myron said.

  “Yes boy,” he replied, still not turning.

  “How far down are we would you say?”

  “Roughly?” Blake said, “Eight to ten miles.”

  “And how close would you say we are to the dam?”

  “What is it with these damn questions?”

  The others looked at each other and smiled.

  “I’d say we’re headed in that direction, fairly close to the river,” Blake said.

  Myron was afraid to ask the next question but did. “What would happen if say, that dam overflowed while we were still down here?”

  Fulton Blake did turn around this time, eyes wide open. “Well, if there are any cracks or weak points in the cave’s structure we could conceivably…”

  “Drown?” Tony finished.

  “Drown,” Blake affirmed.

  6

  “What is that?” Johnny said.

  Jeremy said, “Sounds like screeching.”

  They entered a wide corridor, and found out soon enough. At least twenty, maybe two dozen vampires were rushing toward them bent on vengeance.

  “Oh crap,” Tony said.

  Without hesitation, Blake rushed toward them, stake in his right hand, pistol in his left, cutting a path between them. He staked the first one on his right and fired off several rounds into the first vampire’s skull on his left. He did the same with the next two. It

  seemed he’d go on like that, running and blasting his way through

  them in a fury, but the next vampire to his left managed to grab his gun hand, pulling it up over his shoulder before it could be fired again, and almost wrestling it away from him.

  “Blake!” Staci shouted, and shot an arrow into the vampire’s eye with her crossbow. It staggered away, clawing at the point. The rest of the group rushed the vampires. Having been distracted by the one on his left, the vampire to his right was now attempting to wrestle the stake from Blake’s right hand. Johnny ran up to him and blasted him in the face with his .45.

  Jeremy yelled, “Blake, duck!”

  Fulton Blake dropped as Jeremy’s whip whooshed over his head, just before the next vamp attempted to tackle him. Jeremy’s whip became a strangle cord as it wrapped around the vampire’s neck, hissing turning into gargling as Jeremy yanked with all his might. The vampire’s eyes bugged open and his mouth gaped as its head popped off. They ran into the fray, staking, cutting, and shooting their way through. Myron staked one, and smashed a vial of holy water into another one’s face. Tony staked and sliced his way across throats with his hunting knife. Staci and Jeremy stayed just a step behind, giving Jeremy room to lash at the ones that got anywhere close to inflicting harm on the rest, while Staci carefully picked them off with arrows. Blake and Johnny staked and blasted their way through with their respective guns. They worked as a cohesive team for the first time, jumping into the melee, covering each other, giving the vampires no quarter and no time to counterattack.

  The vampires had rushed in willy-nilly, sure that there sheer numbers would prevail, and Blake himself had rushed in impulsively, but the group had his back, and that made all the difference. In the end the six of them were left standing, no new wounds to speak of, with a trail of dead bodies behind them.

  They smiled at one another, despite the gruesomeness of the task.

  “That, that, that…�
�� Tony said, “was…”

  “Incredible,” Staci finished.

  Blake beamed. “You’ve all done well, but there will be more.” He stopped for a moment, pondering.

  “What is it?” Myron inquired.

  “I almost forgot my boy; we must check the bodies for the keys to the prisoners.”

  No one liked the sound of that, but they did so. It was a matter of seconds before one that had been lashed by Jeremy’s whip several times, shot in the chest, and doused in the face by holy water rose up to a sitting position and grabbed Myron by the throat.

  Staci screamed. Johnny rose up from the vampire he’d been inspecting and rushed to Myron’s aid, shooting the vampire in the back of the head. As it plopped back down on its back, releasing Myron, Johnny drove his stake into its heart. “And stay dead fucker!”

  For some reason Tony found that funny and chuckled. Myron was gagging and wheezing.

  “You all right buddy?” Johnny asked.

  Myron nodded, trying to catch his breath, unable to talk yet.

  “Good,” Johnny said.

  They finished their inspection of the bodies. No keys were found.

  7

  Blake was sweating profusely. He sat against the next cavern’s wall, and the others followed suit. “Let’s rest.”

  They had already had it in their heads that was a good idea. They were all exhausted. They sat down on the stone, propped up by the cavern walls, in a circle. They sat in silence, except for their heavy breathing, and that too died down eventually.

  “It’s too quiet,” Jeremy said.

  “They’re regrouping, just like us,” Blake said, “Wondering what their next move will be. Be ready, and don’t fall asleep.”

  “What time is it?” Myron asked.

  Blake lifted the cuff of his coat, and looked at his watch.

  “4:03.”

  That announcement was greeted with a universal gasp, followed by more silence. Blake’s head seemed to drift downward, as if from exhaustion. Perhaps he was nodding off.

  “Blake,” Myron nudged.

  He didn’t answer, at least not with words. He was making some strange choking sounds, as if he were gasping for air.

  “Blake?” Staci said, concerned. She was next to him on one side, Myron on the other. She was reaching for him, but Myron stayed her arm. He felt the waves of sorrow coming from him. He wasn’t choking or going under; he was sobbing, trying to stem the flood of tears threatening to consume him. In that he’d failed. He looked up at them, tears streaming down. The look of anguish on his face was almost too hard to bear, nearly impossible to watch.

  “I’ve done things,” Blake said. “I’ve had to do horrible things.” He slowly started to shake his head, alternately bowing, and raising his head, over and over. “But never, never did I have to kill a poor, defenseless little girl, and… and… and my own daughter!! My own flesh and blood! Can you begin to guess, can you appreciate what this feels like?”

  Myron nodded, and looked away. He could feel everything that was inside Blake, the raw emotion, and he began to cry too, cry for Blake.

  “I killed my own daughter,” Blake said.

  “Well, technically,” Johnny began, “I…”

  Blake paused long enough in his pain to give Johnny, who sat across from him, the evil eye, stopping him cold.

  Staci realized Johnny didn’t say things to be mean. He merely lacked tact, and lacked the filter that most people used to stop from speaking out loud what one thought. He mostly spoke truth, but truth, whether in jest or in seriousness could often be unnecessarily painful.

  “You did what you had to do Blake,” Staci said, this time reaching her arm over his shoulders, across his back, holding him to her side. “We all did what we had to.” She looked at Johnny, shaking her head in disbelief. Johnny didn’t understand. He’d been trying to make Blake feel better.

  “I can’t live with this,” Blake said, “I’ve nothing left to fight for.” He lifted his firearm to his head.

  “Blake, no!!!” Staci screamed, knocking it out of his hand just in time.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Myron said. Blake was wracked with a powerful wave of sobs then. They couldn’t believe what had just happened.

  Staci lifted his head so that Blake was looking directly into her eyes. “It’s not your fault. That girl wasn’t a little girl anymore, and that wasn’t your daughter either. You didn’t kill anything that wasn’t already dead, do you understand that?”

  Blake nodded, sniffling. Then she did something none of them expected. Her emotions were too erratic for even Myron to read, but he understood what followed. Staci slapped him hard across the face.

  Now she was crying. “How could you kill yourself?! You brought us down here! We followed you, believing we were doing the right thing! You’re our leader! You can’t leave us alone down here with these monsters! You were going to leave us alone down here! How could you?!” She slapped him again. She was bringing her other hand back up to strike him again, but the first two slaps had woken him up considerably. He grabbed her wrist before she could land the blow. He brought her hand down gently to his face, and kissed her open palm.

  “I understand,” Blake said, “I’m sorry dear girl.” She collapsed on his chest, burying her head in his shoulders, and they embraced. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated. “You’re not alone.” The other four got up, gathering and kneeling, holding Staci and Blake, huddling together. Johnny insinuated himself there last, and was not turned away. When they at last separated, Blake raised his head, resolute, and got up from where he’d sat.

  “Let’s finish this.”

  8

  Unfortunately for any of their parents, Missing Persons wasn’t a top priority at the moment. Keeping everyone indoors was. The cops adamantly adhered to the “Must be missing for twenty four hours in order to be considered a missing person” rule, primarily because they couldn’t expend the resources to venture out into the powerful storm. The group of parents whose teens were down in the pit wasn’t the only ones concerned for their children. There were those whose children were staying over friend’s houses or had gone to the movies or the mall, and never come back. Not all parents got calls from their children reassuring them, because many phone lines were down. 911 was inundated with calls of this nature. There were slips and falls inside people’s houses where water had gotten in. Some were caught in floodwaters just outside their homes. Ambulance drivers dispatched to these calls feared for their own lives. In some cases they weren’t able to get to the victims because the water levels were too high. It was a bad situation all around. Some broken bones would never heal properly; a few deep lacerations and head wounds would have to be tended to by their owners. But in the long run things could have been worse. At least no one died.

  9

  Wherever it was they were, they knew they were nearing the end. They would either make it out of this alive, or not at all. But either way they would go out fighting. Blake remained in the lead, gun and stake raised; the others behind him with weapons ready.

  “Eyes and ears peeled,” Blake said. “Be prepared for anything.”

  Currently they navigated a narrow tunnel, forcing them to walk single file, and with no lighting of any kind. The LED lights strung around their necks proved useful, although it didn’t cast much more than a muted red glow in the absolute pitch; just enough to see the back of the person in front of them, and a faint outline of the walls to either side of them. It wasn’t long, however, until the faint glow of a not too distant light began to penetrate the darkness. The silence in the cave, disturbed only by the thrumming rain above was eerily disquieting in that darkness, and moving toward the light only filled them with the expectation of new horrors. They wouldn’t be disappointed on that account.

  The light appeared to be getting much brighter, and flickering, but it was more than just torch light. It was too intense to be just that. When the narrow passage opened up and they were able to spread ou
t, they saw the cause of the overly bright light. Dug into the middle of the floor was a huge trench, like a gaping hole in the rock. Piled into the hole, overtopping it by about ten feet were bodies, stacked one on top of another, flung this way and that, but all in a giant heap, tossed on like sandbags, until they formed a sort of pyramid of corpses that had been set alight. A faint scent of burned meat lingered where there was any left. Most of the bodies were burned down to the bone, ashen skeletons black with heat and soot.

  “Dear God,” Blake said. There had to be at least a hundred of them. “So this is what they do with the bodies once they’re through with them.”

  Myron nodded, in a daze, speaking as if from a galaxy far far away, “Because they cannot bury them, and they cannot let them rot, and they cannot bring them to the surface… All the missing persons…”

  “And our love becomes a funeral pyre,” Blake said.

  “What?” Tony said.

  Blake shrugged. “Just an old song.”

  “Who knows how long they’ve been doing this. Years?” Blake said.

  “I don’t care,” Staci stated. “Can we please move along? I think I’m going to be sick.” Admittedly, she did not look well.

  “Yes, lets,” Jeremy agreed,

  “Those poor bastards,” Blake said, “whose families will never know peace.”

  10

  “It’s almost time,” Marcus declared from his throne, “Gather around me.”

  They did, all one hundred plus of them, Lucio his son at his right hand side, Arianna at his left. They gathered around both sides, filling the room, facing the entryway where the group would have to enter. It was the only way in and out. Marcus Brindisi was in the open, elevated above them all on a platform, his throne of rock and bone, mortar and skull. The sheer volume of his minions before him would ensure that his intruders would not get far. The unimportant ones, the newbies, the expendables, were at the forefront. His backup, his knights and rooks were dead center, and the royalty occupied the back, beneath his throne. He did not have to tell them where to go. They simply knew their place.