Night Creepers

by David Irons

  The tight man-made tunnel ended, fanning out into a wide cavern, a place where the constant breath of wind turned into a full gaping gale, deflecting from wall to wall; streaming ghosts of white mist were highlighted by more sporadically placed neon strip lights.

  Stopping dead in their tracks they looked around the cavern. Tall scaffold structures stood around the room, their latticework dull and decaying, making them look like ancient mechanical spider webs.

  Looking around, they saw a small human sized corridor, a hole into the earth looking no different from the other dirt corridors they had been running through.

  'There!' Matt yelled. And to their left was possibly the thing they had been looking for. Hollowed out from the earth was a twenty foot round tunnel — the source of the cold piercing wind.

  They peered into its cavernous, dark oblivion; saw a distant, pale bleeding light. Hidden in-between the slicing breeze were vague banshee-like cries, distant pained wails that may or may not have been human. But with the discovery of the strong wind and distant light, a trembling eeriness befell them.

  Not just immediate fear, but something more instinctive: more primal.

  Now, rather than a sense of relief or salvation, a wariness seeped through their bones, making them alert and on edge. Gooseflesh rose on their arms; shivers drove down their spines like arctic cold ice sabres. There was something down there, something… not good.

  Jennifer's devil projected a cold beam inwards; hitting her bones and making her whole skeleton shake with an arthritic tremble.

  Standing in silent unison, silhouetted by the distant light, they forgot in that instant the horrors they had bolted from. This could be the way out; the origin of the chilling draft could be the freedom to the outside world. But now facing their potential prize, not one of them made a move forward to claim it.

  'What the hell is this place?' Jennifer wondered.

  'It's a way out…' Alison answered, her voice trailing off.

  'I don't know,' Matt replied.

  'The wind, it's coming from somewhere down there,' said Kristi. 'That's what we've been looking for, a way out: this has to be it.'

  'I don't know, something doesn't feel right...' Kelly grabbed her mother's hand tighter.

  'We can't stay here any longer.' Kristi considered the structure of the tunnel, the scaffolding that seemed to be keeping the ceiling in place. 'If those things can burrow through the goddam ground, we've got to move.'

  'We haven't been able to trust anything down here so far,' Jennifer reasoned. 'If what we've seen is anything to go by, I doubt there's anything good down there.' She reached with her left hand to the Devil tattoo, digging her dirty nails into it as an itching twitch tingled deep through her nerve endings.

  Kristi turned to the rest of the group, 'So, are we gonna check this out, or what?' her old menacing attitude grating back to the surface.

  Matt looked at her sternly. 'Yeah, we are. But I'm not letting you dictate what happens now. We're already two down, so let's just think straight before we do anything stupid.'

  Kristi stepped towards Matt, looking him straight in the eye, silencing and mesmerizing him with a determined look. She came even closer, her eyes never breaking from his, her proxy more personal than he liked. Staring back at her, tranced out in her gaze, he could do nothing as with a swift sharp movement, dropping her shovel; she grabbed the gun from his hand with a furious bobcat swipe.

  'Screw this male hero shit!' she cried out, clicking back the trigger hammer and pointing it at Matt's face, before swinging it around at the rest of the group.

  'Mommmm!' Kelly screamed in disappointed panic.

  'We haven't got time to fuck around down here! There's one thing I have to do and that's take care of the kid and get her the hell out of here. That's not going to get done standing around!'

  She looked at Jennifer, waving the gun between Alison and Matt.

  'Come on, Red! You're with me. Let's blow this pop stand, now!' Kristi bellowed, steaming with anger.

  'Kristi, let's just do this together. We all want out, but we don't know what's down there… something doesn't feel right…'

  'The wind!' Kristi yelled. 'The wind is a way out; you said it was a way out! You can feel the cold! No more games, I'm not waiting for those things to come in here and strip me to the bone. My fucking face is my fucking face. I ain't sharing it with… some bug! This outfit needs a leader and I'm telling you now, we get down there and we're out!'

  'You don't know that mom!' Kelly wailed. 'You don't know that! You always have to try and take over everything, to rule over everyone. I'm sick of it!' Long pent up tears rolled down the little girl’s face. She had always been privy to her mother's selfish whims, vulgar diatribes and temper tantrums. Always slipping off into the depths of her own mind for escape, avoiding any interaction with the woman's out of this world attitude as much as she could. But now, she couldn't take it anymore.

  'What are you trying to prove? Are you trying to prove something to me? Can't you feel that? Can't you tell something down there just feels wrong?'

  Kristi paused, listening to the girl's words. She knew what she was saying was right. She knew deep inside the cold breeze and that sinister glowing light somehow felt off.

  She stared at their frozen faces, and then rather than acting rationally, she reacted. 'Kelly! Get over here and let's just go down there together!' The girl slowly shook her head, her face full of thunder. 'I'm telling you now, that's the way out! So, let's just leave! Now!'

  Kelly was silent. Kristi turned red with embarrassment. Not from her daughter's insubordination but with the realization of her own obtuseness.

  'Andale! Andale!' She screamed at the girl, waving the gun slightly to one side, gesturing for her to join her.

  'No, Mom. No. What are you trying to prove? You've bossed me around for years. I know what I am to you — a meal ticket! A meal ticket! You want me out of here so you can cash dad's checks! That's it!'

  'I want you out of here because I... I…' She paused. That word. A word she associated with weakness. A word she would say right now to her daughter and mean it, but it was a word that she was unable to speak aloud. A word she connected with the conning of wealthy men. A word used to dupe cash from saps just asking for a case of heartache.

  Kristi froze, staring at her daughter's hardened features; staring into her dark eyes and seeing the same unswerving, adamant sternness that she possessed.

  A part of her knew she had done the child wrong, always had and probably always would. Cornering herself into this standoff situation, she was letting her conceited personality get the better of her. Normally, she liked all eyes on her; now, being put in place by her own daughter, she decided to do the one thing she knew she could: her big exit — one last time.

  'Okay,' she said meekly to Kelly. 'I get it… Just wait here and I'll check this out.' She backed up a few steps, keeping the gun swaying over the group. Kelly's big eyes beamed at her as a sharp feeling in Kristi's stomach made her realize for a moment she was doing the wrong thing.

  Kristi snarled, trying to repel the look her daughter gave her. Arrogance washed through her decisions. She never wanted to lose face; she never wanted to lose, period. People were a thing that had one place in her world, and that was in the palm of her hand. With the gun, she could make the rules, and right now, she and Kelly were going to get out of here on her terms.

  'Wait here, kid,' she said with a wink to Kelly, ' look after her,' she nodded to Jennifer. Then turning on the balls of her feet, with the gun held up with both hands to one side, she ran into the tunnel towards the eerie aura.

  'Jesus Christ!' Kelly screamed wildly.

  Her voice rattled through Jennifer's bones as she grabbed Kelly to stop her making a break to follow her mother.

  'Come on, let's go after her,' Matt said in a gruff voice.

  'Kelly, stay with me.' Jennifer held on tight to the little girl's hand.

  'No!' Alison screamed, 'let her go
!' She reached out with a vice-like claw, yanking Jennifer's shoulder, spinning her around.

  'What the fuck are you doing?' Matt shouted at Alison.

  Ignoring the pitiful arguing of the people she deemed less than her, Kristi strode forward, cutting through the oncoming breeze, side-stepping past the scaffold platforms. Her eyesight adjusted through the mists that streamed into her face. She could just about make out something in the near distance, something that made terror leap along her spine.

  There, running towards her, looking straight into her eyes and mimicking her every action was her doppelgänger. A woman just as angry, just as scared, just as impeccably dressed, and with a demented, determined scowl. Had the things somehow taken her identity without eating her? Instinctively she raised the gun, ready to unload into the figure that mimicked her movements. But as she did, an unseen strand of red laser fired from a hidden lens — an electronic trip wire — was broken. It was a lens like its cousins upstairs, all connected to a simple main brain — a computer — one that, with the freshly triggered laser beam at Kristi's ankles, set off a defining blast of C4 around her.

  It erupted just behind her, its noise taking her by surprise. She initially thought that her firm grip had fired off the gun's hair trigger. Then, feeling a reversal of the wind that had drawn her into the tunnel, she realized that the loud bang wasn't the weapon in her hand, but a detonation behind her. The face of the woman running straight towards her dropped too. In fact, the woman ahead duplicated her movements with an almost reflective, supernatural accuracy. Then she understood: it was her own reflection in a giant mirror in front of her. And as the discharge behind her unfolded, dirt and debris blew across her back with a quick whiplash of heat, throwing rocks and stones up against her skin. The giant mirror was struck and her doppelgänger splintered into a web of cracks. The part of the tunnel she, only a few seconds ago had run through, ignited, its ceiling collapsing in, the scaffolding buckling to the floor, cutting her off from her daughter and the others. A fast rush of down-pouring earth pushed her to the ground.

  And as Kristi disappeared behind a flaring cloud of dust and debris, which made Kelly, Matt and Jennifer gasp; Alison flickered a sly smile over her face, watching the woman she had always hated buried under a ton of exploding earth.

  CHAPTER 25

  The explosion reverberated around the cavern; its blast sent a cloud of dust and stone back into them. Its heat radiated their cold skin. Kelly screamed anxiously, still trying to pull away from Jennifer. With coughs and splutters, everything began to settle around them.

  There was a high-pitched whistle in each of their ears, the image of the open tunnel before them now replaced with a black pile of earth and rubble.

  'That son of a bitch booby trapped anything he could,' Matt coughed, reaching for his phone; turning on its flashlight, hovering its beam over the floor as they slowly moved forward, searching for more unseen trip wires that Kristi may have missed.

  To his right, strewn on the floor was an old workbag. Opening it up he found various wires, metallic pins, a hand trigger, and small paper-wrapped bars. Moving his light to see what they were, he read in plain printed letters, 'C4'.

  'I think we know what caused the explosion,' Matt uttered, wiping dust from his face, taking the bag and throwing it over his shoulder.

  Stopping by the pile of freshly overturned earth, Jennifer called out, 'Kristi!' Her voice echoed around the tunnel as if a doppelgänger mimicked her. Matt called her too, his deep tones bouncing around the claustrophobic walls. Kelly was crying, her voice shifting from a whisper to a murmur, unable to articulate the sadness and terror that incubated inside.

  Alison's face was a mask of forced stark terror. 'What are we going to do? We have to keep moving.'

  'No, we need to know if she's still alive,' Matt said, his eyes considering Kelly.

  'Kristi!' Jennifer screamed with a shrillness and pitch that could wake the dead, and possibly, it did. From the other side of the caved in mound of dirt, a muffled cough, a muffled splutter and muffled reply emerged.

  'I'm okay,' the woman distantly wailed, 'I'm fine!' Undecipherable expletives seeped through the dirt mound, noises that indicated all too well that Kelly's mom was indeed alive.

  The girl laughed, 'I don't think anything can kill her!'

  Alison flashed her eyes at this remark. Somehow Kristi's larger than life attitude morphed her into an unstoppable, supernatural being, a force to be reckoned with when cheating death in the girl's eyes. One that — like a killer from a slasher film — would never die, always ready to pop out for another sequel.

  Still brandishing a shovel, Jennifer lunged forward, digging into the dirt, tearing away at it as fast as possible; Kelly jumped in beside her doing the same, using part of a broken board from the scaffolding to dig. Matt joined them as Alison paused for a second, looking behind her, aware of the creatures locked away by a lousy single bolted door, all too aware that these things seemed more adept at boring through the ground than any worn out work shovel could.

  Jennifer turned and looked at her, her brown eyes flashing like shiny marbles from her dirt encrusted face. 'Well come on!' she screamed at the dilly-dallying woman. But before she could say any more, Alison had raised her shovel and brought it down into the earth, half-heatedly mimicking the movements of the others.

  'Stay there Kristi,' Matt bellowed, 'we're digging you out!'

  *

  On the opposite side of the cave in, Kristi brushed herself down, cleared dirt from her blurred eyes, and ran her rough hands through her hair. With a test pattern ringing in her ears, she brought her forearm up to smear her hot-red lipstick further across her cheek. She checked the floor around her, looking to see if the most important things survived the blast: her designer shoes and the gun. She picked up the shoes, stuffed them back inside her jacket, and then reached for the gun.

  Fuck this place, she thought, fuck it all to hell, cursing the blast that had ruined another chance at a big exit. If the end of the tunnel turned out to be what she hoped it to be — an exit, a means of escape — she would have played a role she never had before — the hero.

  Yes, she had to hijack the part — a blatant stick-up job. But if all had turned out well, that was redeemable. If she had found a way out, she would have been the lead role in all the stories that followed.

  "Yes, I'm the one who found the way out, I'm the one who saved my own daughter, and I'm the one who saved everyone else — ME!"

  She knew people, she had followers on social media, she would get the story out, and then she would be back in the limelight. Looking up, rubbing her eyes, trying to focus, she realized she was musing to a repetitive audience of herself on the shattered giant mirror ahead. Why was this down here? Why was there a huge framed mirror embedded in the earth wall? On the floor among its blistered shards, torn and ripped clothes; clothes she recognized… they were Blitzer's.

  The cold wind she had followed to freedom now felt colder as it filtered around her body, its whistle filled with louder, sinister far off cries. She staggered backwards, disorientated, shuddering as the wind picked up. Her blurred eyes finally cleared, seeing her shattered reflection clearly, her pale skin covered in a layer of dirt. She turned to find where the huge blast of wind was coming from.

  Her heart sunk, her eyes grew in their sockets; a cold feeling lurched through her body, seeming somehow to probe her soul. She stared into a putrid yellow light that projected from a long deep tunnel; one almost forty feet in circumference that reached down endlessly into the earth. The foul-smelling wind reached up from its bowels, rose out of its stench filled entrance and emitted an icy chill that made her entire body pucker. Its dirt walls pulsed with illumination from its yellow core, making them glisten in its subterranean wetness like a phlegmy gullet or a rotten fallopian tube that's ovaries were impregnated with something other worldly and repugnant.

  To either side of the hole forged in thick ancient iron, sat a pair of gigantic open d
oors, both arched in shape and framing the unholy sanctum beyond; both clawed and beaten from top to bottom on their inside by the hands of unimaginable things. To the right was an oversized, equally archaic winch and chain system; both looked unlikely to still work, in their browned, rusted, unkempt state.

  All the other tunnels they had entered looked nothing like the hole before her. The others were all man made, but this dank hole looked as if whatever lurked in its cold soulless depths; whatever dwelled in that ethereal yellow glow, had dug it out itself.

  A black chill ran through her body. Above, she had seen places she would describe as hellholes around LA; had lived in such places, struggling to get her break in the business. The bad end of Echo Park: robberies, drive-by shootings, murders, and muggings an everyday occurrence. That was a place she would have described as a hellhole.

  But now, as a timbre of fear spread down her spine, she knew the space she was looking at wasn't the metaphor of hellhole she had used in the past, this tunnel was the real thing: a literal hole leading to some underground place no human being should ever enter. Maybe even, the only hellish place such a hole could lead to.

  Like a cat cornered in an alleyway, she stepped backwards, alert, filled with trepidation and fear. Used to her feet sinking slightly into the wet earth around her, she felt a chill as the ground's texture changed to a hardened coldness. Her eyes flickered to the ground where, replacing the brown dirt, were scuffed black and white floor tiles.

  She swung around, looking behind, realizing she hadn't properly scoped out her surroundings. Stopping and staring, this was something as unexpected as everything else she had seen down here. Somehow, she was now standing in a make shift lounge.

  Old threadbare tapestries hung from the walls, dangling into nothing but a sequence of poorly joined threads. Each of the fading pictures on them featured the grotesque faces of the same things in the cubed images in the mosaicked room. A chaise longue with dirty sheets sat at the space’s centre; a small fridge sat open, the food inside rotten and spoiled; a make-shift toilet in the corner, a bucket and soiled rags. It looked like a room where a junkie would go cold turkey.