“We have to keep moving,” Scott whispered without turning around, his chest still heaving mightily.
“I think… I’m ready,” Harry panted.
“Then go. I’m right behind you.”
Standing upright, Harry burst into a sprint, his heavy breathing dissipating into the wind that ripped through the tunnel. Scott stayed a few feet back, glancing over his shoulder as he ran. They passed the small entrance to the tunnel leading back up through the ground toward the Cavenaugh House, but they knew that if whatever was in that tunnel with them caught up to them in the cramped quarters of that small tunnel, that it was all over for them. Their only chance was to run straight through the opening down by the river, and hope, pray, that they made it out into the daylight alive.
The trailing edges of dim rays of light pierced the thick darkness ahead of them, glowing like a gray cloud in the tunnel ahead. Their legs burning and hearts throbbing on the verge of seizing within their chests, they dashed toward the growing mass of light, the overhanging branches of the evergreens on the bank above hanging like arms from the top of the exit to the tunnel.
Bursting out of the tunnel and into the light, Harry stopped his momentum barely in time to keep from tumbling headfirst into the ice-marred water of the river, Scott hot on his heels. His feet skidded on the gravel bank, a mass of pebbles tumbling across the frozen bank and into the deep blue water. He turned around, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes and freezing slowly as they trailed down his cheeks. And although he couldn’t see anyone standing there in the pitch black of the tunnel, he could tell that there was someone there, watching him intently from within that same darkness. The eyes of the unseen watcher weighed heavily on him, tearing straight through his own gaze and into his brain.
“Are you all right?” Harry asked, barely able to form the words through his heavy panting.
“Yeah. You?”
“I’ll live,” he wheezed, a dry chuckle bursting from his heaving chest.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“I’m way ahead of you,” Harry said, heading down the bank to where it lowered enough to climb up the hill.
Scott started down the bank but then stopped. An icy line of goosebumps raced up the back of his arms, settling at the base of his neck. His limbs seemed to become heavier as he slowly turned, the wind ripping the snow in droves straight into his face. He stared through the sheet of flakes into the darkened tunnel.
He could see the outline of a figure, barely darker than the rest of the tunnel, enshrouded in shadows. His eyelids batted back the flakes, keeping them from landing atop the bare surface of his eyeballs. Staring through the darkness, he could see that blackened form standing there, motionless, its intense glare fixed so deeply upon him that it felt as though it singed his flesh.
He turned to call to Harry, but he was already scrambling up over the bank and into the field above, nearly to the lake. Glancing back, his heart rising into his throat, he peered back into the darkness, but there was no one there.
Furrowing his brow, his eyes pinched tightly, he peered into the darkness with everything that he had. But all he could see was the unending wall of shadows that seethed like a mass of squirming tentacles, beckoning him to step back into the darkness.
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THE BLOODSPAWN
Michael McBride
© 2004 Michael McBride. All rights reserved.
PART NINE
Section 9
Chapters 11 and 12
XI
Monday, November 14th
5 p.m.
Scott sat down at the kitchen table, staring out across the lawn at the reddened storm clouds, the sun sinking behind the mountains, staining even the falling flakes a bright hue. The coffeepot began to whir, a thin stream of the black fluid trailing onto the bottom of the pot as it slowly filled. The sound of running water from the flushing toilet below in the family room filled the walls, humming. The door opened and Harry’s footsteps were evidenced, clambering up the stairs. Staring down at the cloth-bound diary, still clenched tightly in his grasp, he set it on the table in front of him, hoping that whatever was contained within in those hand-scrawled words was going to be able to help them.
The stack of folders rested on the table to his right. Harry hopped up on the stool in front of them, pulling down the top one. He gave a glance to his right at the pot that was now nearly half-full; the dark fluid pouring down from the thin hole in the white plastic guard that housed the filter full of the ground hazelnut beans. Turning his attention back to the stack of files in front of him, he pulled the first one down, opening it in front of him. Peering up before throwing himself into the reading, he stared at Scott, who still clung tightly to the book, staring out into the darkness as the red faded from the clouds, the blackness swarming around them. The long shadows from the trees across the center of the snow-covered lawn were swallowed along with whatever last remnants of the light lingered before the night devoured them whole. Only the fluttering flakes, which flashed beneath the dim light that crept from the inside window, were visible against the wall of darkness that pressed right up to the house.
“Shall we?” Harry asked, holding up the first folder.
Nodding, Scott hopped from the stool and to the coffeepot atop the counter. The last of the slowly falling drops of the murky brew dripped from the saturated filter, sizzling onto the circular heating pad beneath the pot. Pulling it out of the machine, he poured the hot liquid into the two mugs he had set on the marble counter top next to it. Steam poured from the tops of the nearly-full mugs as he walked them back to the eating bar, setting a dark blue mug labeled simply “JAVA” in front of Harry, and a plain white, brown rimmed one in front of his stool. He climbed back up and opened the floral-patterned, cloth book.
Peeling back the first couple of pages, time sealing the inked pages together as if with some sort of glue, he stared at the thinly lined, hand-written pages. He had a hard time deciphering the words. The lines were almost excessively loopy, the ink expanding into the page from the pen.
“To all who must bear witness,” it began, his eyes moving from left to right as he tried to absorb every word. “This is my testament of the evil that walks the Earth in human form, of the dark one that has eluded our order for centuries. I feel that for the first time, we are one step ahead of the beast, that we are in a position to thwart his advances, be it only for this one time. I have been led here by the footsteps of the demon from my last assignment in the county outside of Johannesburg, South Africa.
“We were late in arriving as the cycle had commenced long before we had any knowledge of his whereabouts. Two hundred men and women were slaughtered in the night as they were being led from the city under the guise of night. The bloodspawn, a wealthy diamond mine owner named Clayton Van Den Mueller, had them mown down by machine gun fire as they trespassed across his land to flee the persecution that followed them from Johannesburg.
“It was that night when I first saw the monster that masquerades as human. He appeared to me as an apparition standing outside the window of the reformatory, smiling up at me, mocking me. How we had not known of his location in South Africa, I am unsure, but by the time we were situated, the end was a foregone conclusion.
