by Indi Martin
Descending:
A Gina Harwood Novel
by
Indi Martin
The second novel in the Gina Harwood Series
following Behind the Veil: A Gina Harwood Novel
Presented by:
Tortoise & Hare Creations
PO Box 605
Funkstown, MD 21734
Follow at: www.facebook.com/tortoiseharecreations
Store: http://tortoiseharecreations.blogspot.com
Copyright©Indi Martin 2014
1
All rights reserved
Printed & Bound by CreateSpace Publishing February 2014
Kindle Edition released simultaneously. First Ebook Edition February 2014
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, telepathically, telekinetically, or by wishing really, really hard without written permission of the author. For information regarding permission, write to Tortoise & Hare Creations at the address above or visit the sites listed above to obtain an email address.
Cover design by Indi Martin.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, undead, or otherwise, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. I mean, unless your parents decide to name you after one of the characters in the book. I guess that wouldn’t be coincidental. It would be pretty cool, though.
ISBN-13: 978-1495201622
ISBN-10: 1495201627
Written in the United States of America
Dedicated to Charles & Beth Odle,
both for their support,
and because they always enjoy scary stories
Descending:
A Gina Harwood Novel
Book Two in the Gina Harwood Series
Never feeling feelings that I couldn’t be without
Never stealing meaning from another’s point of doubt
Never having reason that I couldn’t cage within
Take this trembling tiger-heart and let me roam again
Drove me to burn
See these eyes closed to slits tracing cloudy dunes of lies
And these falsest waves of laughter hiding violent silent sighs
See the fadeless phantom fears that color all you say and do
Drove me to burn
Let me fall to hungry wolves that chase me past the hot away
Let me bleed upon the sordid snows and laugh at being prey
Let me find my flawless truth behind your sameness and decay
It’s you that drove me
Drove me to burn
Down the hot wet streets of the faceless, nameless city
Down the sewer-seeming tunnels of forgotten inhibition
Down the raving, twisting bodies there together for the fall
Down the slick sweat-heat, trace your fingers down my body
Down the steaming, breathing floor, find your way to no escape
Down the endless, voiceless halls of twisted flesh and screaming metal
It’s you that drove me
Drove me to burn
“Burn”
Brothers of Abaddon
Written by Nathan Jones
1
Gina Harwood tried to calm her breathing, which was teetering on the edge of hyperventilation. Her heartbeat pounded heavily in her ears, a nonstop drumming flurry that caused her to clap her hands to her ears and squeeze her eyes shut, counting in her head to quiet herself. Experimentally, she cracked one eye open again and peered across the room at the hole that had suddenly appeared in her wall. Her strawberry hair was slick with fear-sweat, dangling limply in her face and partially obscuring her vision, but not enough for her to miss the hellish black void that didn’t belong. She peeled her hands away from her ears and ran them roughly through her hair, pulling the damp locks away from her face. Forcing her trembling hands down to the recliner arms and her other eye fully open, she glared at the blackness that stood beyond the peeling plaster. Anger boiled inside her, shoving her fright aside, but re-quickening her heart.
That shouldn’t be there, she thought, quite logically. It wasn’t there before and it shouldn’t be there now. She nodded. That seemed true.
Standing at the edge of the hole, she looked back at her recliner, wondering briefly why she didn’t remember padding across the hardwood floors. Looking back into the abyss, she noticed a dull yellow glow emanating from deep below her. As she watched, the light expanded slightly, revealing edges that seemed to shimmer sickly, as though covered in some viscous liquid. She realized she was peering down a staircase.
Startled by the discovery, Gina took a few involuntary steps backward from the precipice.
“This is a dream,” she murmured weakly, wincing at the smallness of her voice. Steeling herself, she cleared her throat. “This is a DREAM,” she announced, clearly and strongly.
There was no indication that her surroundings cared a whit about her announcement. Her apartment still looked real and normal, except for the unwelcome portal that looked as though it had erupted forcefully from behind her wall. Unwilling to turn her back to it, she minced sideways until she reached the kitchen bar. Reaching over, she flipped the switch up. Cold white light immediately illuminated the room, blinding her, so she turned it back off again. Gina was not a total stranger to lucid dreaming, even lucid nightmares, and she stared in surprise at the switch. Light switches usually did not work, at least not as expected.
Frustrated, she grabbed her cell phone off the counter. “This definitely won’t work,” she whispered, glancing sidelong at the dull glow emanating from the hole in her wall. At her touch, the screen flickered on, reading 2:09am on October 10th. Gina’s eyebrows shot up in surprise and she brought the phone to her ear, tapping the speed dial as she did so.
She heard a faint click as the line went active.
A thin spiderweb of grey cracks started pulsating out from the hole, sending bits of drywall and paint flakes into the air.
She heard the first familiar ring in her ear, frozen.
The cracks accelerated across her walls and ceiling, seeming to burn her scant pictures with invisible fire. Gina heard herself gasp as she watched one curl up and blacken to ash in an instant.
A second ring. Her hand gripped the phone to her head with such force that it made her ear ache, but she was only dimly aware of the pain. Her apartment tore itself apart around her. Deep, thunderous cracks sounded as her hardwood floor panels split and burst up into the air.
“...Hello?” Gina’s eyes widened as Snyder’s familiar but groggy voice answered the phone. Fear was finally fully loosed from its bonds, shooting ice water through her veins as the apartment destruction suddenly quieted around her, as though mindful that she were on the phone.
“Muh... muh...” she stammered with lips that felt too thick, trying to force her voice into a whisper, thoroughly unnerved by the sudden silence.
“Harwood? What the hell, it’s two in the morning, are you ok?”
“Morgan,” she managed. “Help.” Her voice was still barely more than a whisper, her tongue fighting against forming words.
An animalistic keening sound erupted, loud and alien. Startled, Gina dropped the phone with a loud clatter, watching helplessly as the battery and backplate skidded across the floor and the comforting screen light blinked out of existence. “SHIT,” she cried, noticing with frustration that h
er voice had no issues being loud and clear now. The cry sounded out again, a long whine following by an inhuman click-hiss. Gina whipped her head around, scanning behind her for the source of the noise, while her feet propelled her backwards toward the hole.
BAM! She heard the sound and saw the bedroom door reverberate from the force of whatever hit it. BAM! Turning her head, she saw her front door also straining against something trying to force its way in. Her body hit the wall with a soft thud and her fingers ran their way along the portal’s nearest ragged edges. The air beyond the wall was neither warm nor cold, nor thick as she’d expected from the impenetrable blackness. It felt like nothing at all.
The creatures outside her living room threw themselves against the doors in a strangely syncopated rhythm. She heard herself shriek as the handle of the front door was ripped out by something awful and nameless, some sickly oozing thing with claws and suckers that moved in twitches and undulations. Unthinking, Gina leapt through the hole, surprised to be standing on something that seemed solid enough. She could barely make out the faint edges of the black staircase, but threw caution to the wind as she bounded down the steps toward the yellow glow. Keening cries of anguish followed her descent, floating eerily down through the hole and seeming to dissipate in the darkness.
Gina slowed a bit as she could see the staircase’s end, a torchlit platform with two ornately carved, massive stone doors. Two cloaked figures stood guard in front of the gate, heads down under ponderous, heavy cloaks whose stitching seemed to dance at the edges of her vision.
“Gina...”
She stopped in her tracks, confused.
“Morgan?” she called out tentatively, though she knew neither man was her partner. The two figures raised their heads to reveal ancient-looking men with long, braided beards and clouded white eyes. Their faces were etched with age, but their expressions were blank. She shivered.
“Harwood, wake up.”
She awoke with a start, eyes flying open, to see Morgan Snyder squatting in front of her. He was gently shaking her arm. Gina shook her head and looked around, fighting off an intense feeling of wrongness. She was sitting on her recliner. There was no hole in her wall. Her pictures still hung, safe and sound, and not charred to ashes. She shook her head again. “What the hell?” she whispered slowly.
Snyder sighed and stood up. Gina saw that he was wearing only boxers under a long brown coat and grinned, some of the shock and confusion floating away as reality reasserted itself. “That’s what I’d love to know,” he muttered, following her gaze and whipping his coat shut. Gina noticed he was slightly flushed in the soft lamplight. “You call me in the middle of the night sounding scared off your head and when I get here, you’re dead asleep.”
Startled, Gina noticed her phone sitting on the end table next to her. Swiping her finger across the screen, she viewed her call log, frowning. “Huh,” she said. “I did call you.” She looked back up at the current time. “Damn, you got here fast.”
“Oh? Even after the long drive and the stop for donuts?” he retorted, faintly mocking. Since inclusion with the Unit, they’d been provided their own cushy living quarters on “base.” It had taken some getting used to for her, as she’d been living independently since she was sixteen. Now she knew virtually all of her neighbors and saw them nearly every day, unless she or they were on assignment somewhere. His run over had taken him three minutes, according to the logs. Even so close, he’d have had to be moving like lightning. “It’s not exactly far,” he finished, tiredly, eyeing the door.
“No, I uh... I guess not,” she stammered, feeling suddenly exhausted as the adrenaline started to wear off.
“If you’re okay...?”
Gina nodded, eyes down and embarrassed.
“Good. I’m going to try to rescue what’s left of my sleep then. You can tell me what this was all about in the morning.” Belting his coat up, Snyder strode across the room to the open door.
“Morgan, please stay,” the words escaped Gina’s lips before she knew what she was doing and her mind fumbled around for something to undo the sentiment. “...safe,” she finished lamely, clamping her mouth shut to prevent any more damage. ‘What am I doing?’ she thought, confused.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “I think I’ll be alright in the next five minutes, and then I’ll be in bed,” he replied without much edge to his voice. He took a half-step back towards her. “Are you sure you’re okay? I could...”
“No, I’m fine,” she chuckled mirthlessly, scrambling for words. “I’m sorry I woke you. I don’t really remember doing it.” This was a blatant lie. She remembered the dream as clearly as any she’d ever had. In fact, it felt more real to her than Morgan Snyder standing in her door with only his underwear on, offering to... ‘stay? Was he going to offer to stay?’ she mused foggily. An ache started in her belly and worked its way up through her body and she observed it clinically. Did she want him to?
“Okay.” His face hardened back into the all-business visage she was so used to seeing on her partner’s face, and she winced. She opened her mouth to call after him, but he’d already walked out the door and was closing it behind him. “Lock up,” he ordered gruffly, and then he was gone.
2
“Calm down, let’s just hear him out, yeah?” Luke turned back towards the white-haired man with a smile and a nod. The younger man waved his friends away in frustration, eager to hear what the old man had to say. “Tell me more, man. I’m intrigued.”
“It’s stupid to lose our deposit,” muttered Danny, exhaling sharply through his reddened nose.
The old gas station attendant picked some dust off his shoulder and looked bemusedly between band members before continuing. “Sure the Wilson place is nice, I’m sure it would be a ...pretty... video.” Danny huffed, but the man ignored him. “I’m just saying, if what you say you actually want is spooky, you cain’t do no better than the old Locke place. That’s the real deal, there.”
“What do you mean ‘the real deal’? Is it like a murder house or something?”
The elderly man stroked his grizzled chin and furrowed his brow. “Not exactly, nah. It’s just weird. Spooky, like I said. We used to go up there as kids just to look at the place when I still lived around there. Never got no nearer.” He shrugged. “Just thought I’d mention it.”
Luke could tell the rest of his friends were mostly losing interest, starting to shuffle their feet and looking back toward the van. Except Nathan, of course. Nathan was hanging back but his large, brown eyes were bright and interested. “Well, who would I talk to about checking it out? Do you know?”
Danny hissed air through his teeth. “DEPOSIT.”
Luke waved him off.
“Like an owner? Nobody, I don’t think. Old Mrs. Locke lived there but she kicked the bucket decades ago. Sometimes I hear word that some church groups go out there and give the place a once-over, their occasional useless good deed, I guess. Been a while though. But no one’s ever tried to claim the estate that I’ve heard of so...” The old man shrugged. “Out there it sits.”
“What’s the address? I can put it in the GPS.”
The elderly attendant looked confused. “Address? No idea. It’s just out in the gamelands by itself.” He scratched his chin again and a cloud of dandruff snowed onto his grey coveralls.
“Could you at least write down directions?” Luke handed over his map as Danny and Chris both huffed in synchronized irritation and skulked back to the van. “It won’t hurt to LOOK!” he yelled after them. He turned back to see the gas station attendant tracing a path on the map. “Thanks, man.”
The old man shrugged and handed the map back to him. “Take care now.”
Luke ran and hopped into the driver’s seat, ignoring the flurry of irritated voices around him. He caught Nathan’s eye and saw his friend nod once, almost imperceptibly, his long dark bangs falling into his eyes. “This is supposed to be an adventure,” he announced as he revved up the ancient engine and eased it o
ut of the gravel parking lot. The girl next to him giggled, her long legs propped up on the dashboard, leaving toe marks on the windshield. Luke winked at her and allowed himself an appreciative look at her smooth thighs.
“Adventure!” echoed the girl, throwing up her arms and clapping over her head. Her blonde hair cascaded around her shoulders, bouncing with her excitement, and she rewarded him with a dazzling white smile.
“No, it’s supposed to be a goddamn music video,” muttered Danny as the van disappeared once more into the forested highway.
3
“You do not look so great.”
Gina glared as hard at Victor as she could manage through the haze of sleepiness that hung over her. “Thanks,” she answered dryly.
Victor seemed to consider this response for a moment, his silver eyes narrowed in thought. “Oh,” he chirped, mouth drawing down into a handsome frown. “I did not mean it that way at all. I mean you look like you’ve not slept well in quite some time. Sleep is important.” He smiled slowly. “You are always beautiful, Ms. Gina.”
She felt her cheeks get hot and knew she was flushing a deep red. Gina Harwood wasn’t used to compliments from men such as Victor. If one could call him a man, she corrected, allowing herself to meet his unusual gaze again. She shivered involuntarily and smiled at him. “Thank you, Victor.”
He looked relieved that her offense wasn’t permanent. “Ok, we will start slow today,” his voice vibrated through her head until she wasn’t sure if he was actually speaking aloud or not. “Just some simple exercises and we will put off the harder stuff until you have had a nap.”
Gina did her best to assent in her head, something he’d taught her to do wordlessly by focusing on positive images. It didn’t matter what the images were, as long as they evoked feelings of happiness or agreement. At the moment, it was a bit of a struggle keeping the reasons behind her sleepless nights below her conscious level. She tried to concentrate on the curves of a single cherry blossom; frustrated with her inability to do so, she expanded it to a flurry of cherry blossoms blowing in the wind down a wooded path. This was slightly easier, but still shaky.