I didn’t bother asking her how she knew, I simply trusted she did.
But Hill snorted. “You can’t really believe that!”
Ellie didn’t respond, didn’t seem to think it worth an argument.
The hole wasn’t finished, it kept growing, more and more of the meadow crumbling into the abyss as people ran for their lives.
I heard a terrified cry and looked in time to see one of two inebriated young men who had stepped to the edge for a better look tumble into the pit. More ground gave way, taking the second. A passerby almost lost his own life in a futile attempt to save the latter.
“Maybe we’d better back up,” I said, eyeing the volleyball courts behind us.
The hole had expanded to three hundred feet and was still growing.
“It will stop soon,” Ellie said.
And she was right. The diameter reached four hundred feet or so and stopped.
“Come to the edge,” Ellie said.
I hesitated, then followed. Hill stayed a couple of feet behind me. Ellie stood on the very precipice. Hill and I halted a few paces back. I felt a breeze against my nape. Air was flowing down into the massive hole. I saw no sign of the floating man whom Ellie had called “the One.”
“I don’t get it,” Hill said, indicating the emptiness stretching before us. “What’s the point?”
Ellie stared into the depths as she spoke. “This is the first of many. Wherever a signal strikes the Earth, a hole like this will soon appear.”
“But again,” Hill said, “what’s the point?”
“They will unleash the Change.” With that, she turned to me. “This is where I leave you, Mother.”
“What? No!”
“Neither of us can stay here, but for different reasons.”
I knew I’d been in denial. I’d sensed this coming all along, but hadn’t been able to face it. Still, I was stunned speechless.
“You have to gather up Bess and go home,” she said. “First thing tomorrow you two must be out of town and on your way back to Missouri. There will be no safe place on Earth, but that storm shelter Dad built might give you a chance.”
We’d all laughed at Ray when he dug that shelter and filled it with survival supplies.
I found my voice. “What are you saying? The shelter should be our home now?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“But—”
“The daylight hours will shrink to nothing, Mother, and I won’t be there to help you in the nightworld that’s coming.”
Nightworld…how could one word carry such menace?
“You’re staying here?”
“No.” She pointed into the abyss. “I’m going down there.”
“You can’t!” I said through a sob.
“There’s no place for us here.”
“Us?”
Just as I said that, those things, the little horrors she called her “kiddlies,” ran down the back of her legs and scurried toward the hole where they crowded along the edge.
Hill recoiled, muttering, “Jesus!”
I couldn’t help it, I began to cry, huge wracking sobs from the deepest part of me.
“Oh, Mom!” Ellie cried as she threw her arms around me, and right then I knew—I knew she was Ellie again, the real Ellie, my lost child. “Don’t cry!”
I crushed her against me and cried harder.
“It’s got to be this way,” she whispered. “I have no choice. It’s out of my hands.”
And then she pushed away and her voice changed again. “Good-bye, Mother.”
The spider legs sprang from her back then, and their tips poked the ground. They raised her off her human feet and walked her to the edge and over. The kiddlies followed.
I cried out and ran to the brink and might have fallen in had Hill not grabbed my arm. Reflected moonlight lit the upper reach of the smooth-walled shaft and I saw her walking surefootedly downward on her eight spindly legs.
I wanted to jump, truly, I did. And if she’d been my only child I would have done just that. Gladly. But I had Bess to think of.
Ellie quickly passed into the inky shadows and was lost from sight.
“I can’t…” Hill began, then swallowed. “I can’t believe that’s the same girl I carried from the park back in December.”
“She is and she isn’t.”
I needed to get away from this place, needed to find Bess and cling to her and convince her to come home where, according to Ellie, we might have a chance.
…I won’t be there to help you in the nightworld that’s coming…
Part of me screamed to stay, but I knew if I listened I might lose it and jump in after her.
I thrust out my hand. “Mister Hill…thank you for your hospitality today.”
“Oh, that penthouse isn’t really my place. I’m just living there for the time being, but I think I’ll stay on awhile longer and keep an eye on things down here.” He didn’t release my hand right away. “I’m sorry about Ellie. I don’t know what—”
I pulled my hand free. “Neither do I. Good bye, Mister Hill.”
I was barely holding it together. Kind words of sympathy would reduce me to a blubbering puddle.
He nodded and we walked off in opposite directions, knowing we’d never see each other again, even if we both survived the coming Nightworld.
<the Secret History concludes in Nightworld>
The Secret History of the World
The preponderance of my work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. I've listed them below in chronological order. (NB: “Year Zero” is the end of civilization as we know it; “Year Zero Minus One” is the year preceding it, etc.)
Scenes from the Secret History is FREE on Smashwords
The Past
“Demonsong” (prehistory)*
“The Compendium of Srem” (1498)
“Wardenclyffe” (1903-1906)
“Aryans and Absinthe”* (1923-1924)
Black Wind (1926-1945)
The Keep (1941)
Reborn (February-March 1968)
“Dat Tay Vao”* (March 1968)
Jack: Secret Histories (1983)
Jack: Secret Circles (1983)
Jack: Secret Vengeance (1983)
“Faces”* (1988)
Cold City (1990)
Dark City (1991)
Fear City (1993)
“Fix” (2004) with Joe
