Trent continued trying to make sense of the night as he walked along. He wondered if the dark thing that Zana had seen sprouting from his neck was actually real. Had some animal spirit followed him back from Alaska, possessing his mind and his body, or had some hidden, savage part of his own self simply emerged to protect him from the horrors of the night that he had just survived?
As Trent lumbered down the tunnel, now in full control of his mind, he suddenly felt hollow and worn, and for once, all too human.
He knew that Zana was somewhere behind him, but he was not yet ready to talk to her.
He had one last thing to set right—something from which he could not and would not hide.
By the time Trent collected the body of the Troll’s son and dragged it back through the tunnels to the Troll’s lair, he knew that the sun had long since risen above the town of Las Vegas.
With strength that he was not sure he still possessed, he pushed the body of the young creature up onto the top of the hay-strewn platform.
He positioned the body next to that of the Troll’s and looked down on them both for a few moments before covering them in the hay from the floor.
Trent didn’t know whether these creatures had deserved their fates or not, but he did know that they did not deserve the lives they had lived.
Chapter 52
TRENT HEARD ZANA approaching from behind him as he sat next to the two giants covered in hay.
She walked up to him cautiously, but he turned around to greet her.
“It’s OK,” he said. “I’m back to normal…whatever that means now.”
“Trent, the dark spirit that was clinging to your neck…”
Trent looked up at Zana.
“Is it gone?” he said, with a weary smirk.
She shook her head.
“I can barely see it, but it’s still there. I’m sorry.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry, Zana. I had no idea any of this was going to happen. Most of the night was like…it was like I was watching everything in a dream that I still can’t remember all the details to.”
Zana sat next to Trent and gently touched the back of his neck. She ran her fingers lightly over the circular brand on the back of his neck and then did the same to the one on her own neck.
They both knew that regardless of their future together, they would always be connected by these marks.
“Is the Hunter dead?” Trent said.
“He won’t be preying on anyone ever again.”
Trent turned away from her.
“Zana. The things I did tonight. I don’t know how I can live with them.”
“You didn’t do anything to anyone who didn’t deserve it,” she said. “The Hunter and the Troll had been killing people down here for years.”
“The Troll and his son…” Trent said. “They were manipulated. Used.”
Zana looked away, but did not respond.
“How are you doing physically?” Zana said.
Trent laughed quietly.
“Other than being shot a couple of times, and beaten half to death, I’m doing great. Seriously though…I’m not feeling that bad, somehow. It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s like my metabolism is so cranked up even now…I’m healing a lot faster than normal.”
“We should still get you to a hospital,” Zana said.
Trent shook his head as he forced himself to stand with a groan.
“Hospitals have to report people who check in with gunshot wounds. Besides, I think I know someone I can go to if you can help me get to her place.”
“The psychic?” Zana said.
“Doreen,” Trent said. “She has herbs for healing, and she’s connected. She might have a friend who’s a doctor.”
“That’s our first stop then,” Zana said as she stood up next to Trent.
Trent turned around, and picked up one of the many bones buried just under the hay.
“Almost forgot,” he said, as he smashed the lens of the recently repaired video camera mounted to the wall behind them.
With a sigh, he dropped the bone, and the two of them eased their way off the platform and down onto the floor.
After they walked out into the tunnel, Trent and Zana pushed with all of their strength and were just able to move the concrete slab back into place, sealing the Troll’s chamber, hopefully forever.
They both meandered slowly, headed for the manhole through which Trent had entered the tunnels the day before. The street entrance wasn’t far from the psychic’s shop, and he hoped that Doreen would be available, capable, and willing to help.
Somehow he thought that she would be.
“Tell me,” Zana said as they walked slowly, loosely holding hands. “What did it feel like to have the animal spirit take over like that?”
Trent stopped and turned to look at Zana.
“I don’t really know what the hell happened to me tonight. I’ll give you that much. But I do know that I wasn’t possessed by anything. Just the thought of that offends my disbelief in the supernatural.”
“Well, something happened to you,” she said. “What did that feel like?” Zana said.
Trent started walking again.
“It felt like I was a young child watching a horror movie with my hands covering my face, peeking through my fingers occasionally when I was either brave enough or stupid enough to watch what was going on around me. I was just a spectator, observing a more basic, primal part of me operate this alien body that looked like me, but that acted like someone—something—completely different.”
“I know you’re not going to like this, but I’m jealous,” Zana said. “The power you must have felt. I saw the things you were able to do.”
“Don’t be jealous of anything that happened to me tonight. At best, I was in shock for most of the night. At worst, I may have experienced a complete psychotic split. I don’t believe in the supernatural, but I do believe in psychology. Conditions like dissociative identity disorder are real. People can create entirely distinct personalities to protect them from horrible experiences like this. The other personalities can have different memories, different physical traits—even speak different languages. If that’s what happened to me tonight, I could have a serious problem.”
“What you did tonight was a miracle. That thing—the Troll—killed my best friend and a lot of other innocent people who live down here. And the Hunter was a lunatic who gambled with human lives. Tonight, you saved the lives of a lot of people who are just trying to survive down here.”
Trent didn’t respond. He knew that there was always more than one side to a story, and he could see Zana’s point. He wasn’t proud or happy about what he had done, but in the end, he probably had saved a lot of lives.
He had done what Zana had wanted. He had eliminated the Troll and put a stop to the killings.
After a while, they arrived at the manhole that led to the surface.
Before they started up the metal rungs, Zana broke the silence.
“Remember when you hypnotized me, and I acted like a bear?” Zana said. “I know the audience was afraid when I lost control, but I loved how it felt. I mean I really loved it. It made me feel strong—like nothing could hurt me. Things were simpler—more black and white. The world made sense.
“I want to feel that strong again, Trent. And not just when I’m hypnotized. I know you think that you’re just crazy, but I know you’re not. I can still see that dark spirit attached to you and the power it gives you. I know what happened to you tonight, even if you don’t want to admit it.”
Zana grabbed one of the steel rungs and started up the shaft.
“You know, Trent…one of the greatest things about this, is that in the end, no matter what you think or what I think, it doesn’t change what happened. Doesn’t matter whether you were possessed by a dark avenging spirit or you weren’t. I know your logical brain will agree with that at least.”
Trent almost smiled at her reasoning. He really did like this woman, he
thought to himself, as he followed her up the rungs.
“You know, after we see your little psychic friend, I think we should head back to your hotel room.” Zana said.
Trent grimaced. He had totally forgotten about the hotel he had abandoned and the shows he had missed. Trent’s agent and the owner of the Lucky Imp were probably pissed beyond belief.
“We can do that. If the hotel hasn’t given away my room yet,” Trent said.
“We’ll figure something out,” she said. “We can always check in somewhere else.”
As Trent shimmied past Zana to help her open the manhole cover, he allowed himself a moment of self honesty.
He would never admit it to Zana, but the truth was that he really wasn’t sure that something genuinely supernatural hadn’t happened to him last night.
Back in Whittier, he had wondered if the townspeople were insane or if there actually had been some shard of truth to their superstitious beliefs. In the tunnels under Vegas, Trent had doubted his own sanity, and even now, he couldn’t put his finger on the real truth of what had happened to him.
He also couldn’t help noticing and liking the way Zana kept referring to the two of them as we.
But as much as he liked her, Trent knew that he couldn’t stay with her in Las Vegas for long.
He had a lot to figure out about what was going on inside him.
And that meant two things.
First, he needed to talk to Christina again, even if it caused friction between him and Zana.
And secondly, he had to go back to Alaska and once again visit the strange and horrifying town of Whittier.
###
BURIED IN ALASKA
A Trent Walker Supernatural Thriller
By Michael W. Layne
Copyright © 2015 by Michael W. Layne
“What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes.”
Harry Houdini
Prologue
HIS NAME WAS THE HUNTER, but tonight he was the one being hunted.
His pursuer was more than a man. He had seen how it moved—not like a human at all, but like an animal—fast, strong, and using all of its senses to track him through the tunnels under Las Vegas.
He’d heard of such a creature once before, when he was a child with his father in Alaska. His father told him stories about the humans that he had seen as a young man growing up—men possessed by the spirits of ferocious animals, turned into aberrations of nature.
The monster chasing him had forced him to go on the run—to leave the lucrative gambling operation he had created far below the city of Las Vegas—to flee for his life.
Sound traveled in strange ways down in the tunnels, but he swore he could hear quickening footsteps close behind him.
The Hunter sighed in relief as he came to an exit, leading up to the surface.
His elation was cut short, and he cursed under his breath.
The way out was blocked by a dozen homeless people armed with makeshift weapons. Even at his strongest, he couldn’t take all of them on.
He dashed away, suddenly aware that his pursuer was funneling him into a trap.
He passed another guarded exit with only a sideways glance.
With only one path left to follow, the Hunter allowed himself a brief moment of hope as he saw light from the approaching dawn in the shape of a bright square at the far end of the tunnel. He was headed for the main tunnel entrance, where the hundreds of miles of storm drain tunnels began before branching out beneath Las Vegas and eventually emptying into Lake Meade, the city’s main water supply.
He ran as fast as his heart would allow, but as he drew closer to the exit, he saw what he feared he would find all along.
A mob of homeless denizens waiting for him.
The creature had led him into this trap, and even as the Hunter stopped in front of the crowd, he heard the abomination move in behind him, blocking his retreat.
“I can make you all rich,” he heard himself say, but his voice sounded weak and unconvincing.
The young woman with short black hair and porcelain skin was at the front of the mob as it advanced on him. She was the one the creature was protecting. She was the one who wanted him dead the most.
The Hunter looked over his shoulder one last time at the abomination that had brought him to this. The thing still wore black suit pants like a man, but his torso was bare and his face was set in a snarl that left no doubt in the Hunter’s mind—if he tried to flee, he would not live.
Just as he turned back around, the first of the crowd descended on him. He was immediately pinned to the concrete tunnel floor as his attackers struggled to get close enough to take their turn at him.
They punched, kicked, and gouged, with their sticks and their fists. The Hunter’s blood began to flow and his insides turned soft. The pain was unbearable, and even though he considered himself to be a man of little fear, it was only moments before he heard himself scream in terror.
No matter which way he tried to turn his face, there was another hand or pole striking at him or ripping his clothing from his body. His head snapped from one side to another, and he felt his teeth break into pieces as he struggled to hang onto life.
Somewhere deep inside him, his instinct for survival told him that the only hope he had was to attack.
The mob was acting as one, led by a common fury, but they were still only a group of individuals, each with his or her own survival instinct.
The Hunter pooled all his remaining strength, reached up, and grabbed the man nearest to him by his collar.
He pulled the man in and lunged at his exposed neck, sinking what was left of his teeth into his carotid artery and pulling with all his might.
The results were horrific and spectacular as hot blood gushed out of the man’s neck and he struggled to free himself from the Hunter’s grasp.
Suddenly, the crowd backed away, stunned by the sudden burst of violence against one of their own. The Hunter lunged at the legs of a woman who stood too close, and she started to scream.
He had turned the tide as the crowd began to lose its cohesiveness. Some of them ran off into the daylight, while others milled around in confusion as if suddenly awakened from the berserker madness that had compelled them only moments ago.
The Hunter started to laugh, thinking he had escaped death, but suddenly felt his head snap back with such force that his vision went black before coming back on line again.
The black-haired woman was on top of him with a pipe, slamming the metal tube into his body and then his face again, and finally, the Hunter knew that he was lost.
He tried to speak, but heard only a slight gurgling as pink froth fell down his chin and his world started to dim.
As he sunk into the comfortable darkness, he could feel a single spark of life still smoldering inside him, fanned by a single desire—to make the creature known as Trent Walker pay for what he had done to him.
Chapter 1
2 Days Later
MUSIC FROM AN old Nirvana CD filled the inside of the rent-a-car as Zana sang along to a song that had come out before she was born.
Her short dark hair flapped in the wind from her window that was cracked, despite the chill weather that was settling in.
Trent glanced at her with affection. In the bright daylight, she didn’t look as Goth as she did at night. Her porcelain skin made her almost glow as they drove along the interstate, on their way to Whittier, Alaska.
He had wanted to fly, but after not showing up for most of his gigs back in Vegas, he was short on cash, and buying two round trip tickets wasn’t in the cards, so to speak.
“Can you still see it?” he shouted above the grunge music.
Zana turned the volume down. Her smile faded as she studied his right shoulder.
“It’s not quite as black as it was before…but it’s still there.”
Trent nodded.
A month ago, he would have ridiculed the notion that the spirit world actually existed. He was a
professional mentalist and made a living at convincing people that he was in touch with the world of the supernatural, but in reality, he knew it was all sleight of hand and mental prowess.
But with everything he had seen and experienced recently, he had no choice but to believe.
He still wasn’t sure of the details, but according to Zana, he was possessed by a dark, vengeful spirit of an animal.
A piece of him still resisted her explanation, but if he wasn’t possessed by a spirit, then the alternative was probably worse, and likely involved him suffering from multiple personality disorder and losing his mind.
He’d take a supernatural spirit over insanity any time.
He snuck another look at Zana.
From the first moment he saw her, he should have known he was in for a dark, but wild ride. She had shown up at one of his mentalism shows off the Las Vegas strip. Besides being beautiful, to him at least, she was one of the most unique women he had ever met—independent, strong, caring, resourceful, and a little dangerous. She had also called the storm tunnels under Las Vegas her home, along with almost a thousand other people.
At first, he had been wary, but at least she held down a job, and she tried to do the right things in life, which was more than he could say for a lot of people who lived above ground.
She was further along the evolutionary ladder than the rich asshole who called himself the Hunter, who ran a gambling ring under Las Vegas, where high rollers bet on secret hunts with homeless people as the prey.
Trent and Zana had spent an exhausting and terrifying few days down there, trapped underground and running from the monster of a man the Hunter had sent to kill them, but together they had survived.
And with the help of the spirit attached to Trent, they had made the world a slightly less evil place in which to live.
Zana was singing along with the next song on the CD, while Trent fingered the small, polished silver disc that hung from his neck. It had been a gift to help him remember a woman—Christina.
The Whittier Trilogy Page 31