Crimson Falls (The Depravity Chronicles) (11 page)

“I know you’re
not sleeping,” the voice said. “Don’t worry, man, you’re safe,” he said.
Michael finally recognized the voice.

“Jake?” Michael
said, his voice hoarse. “Jake, is that you?”

“Who else would
it be?” Jake laughed. “Now, let’s get you out of here.”

“Oh, thank God.
Where are we? What’s going on? How did you find me?”

“There, there,
Michael. It will be okay,” he said.

“Jake?” Michael
said, fear filling his belly. That was not something Jake would say unless he
was mocking him. And it wouldn’t be like Jake to do that in a life and death
situation.

“Shhh,” Jake
whispered as he closed in on Michael. He wrapped his arms around him and licked
the wound on his neck.

“You taste
so
good,” he whispered into Michael’s ear. His hands slithered ravenously across
Michael’s body. They both shivered, but for very different reasons.

Michael began
trying to lift his legs to kick at his attacker. He knew it wasn’t Jake. But
all he could manage to do was wrap his legs around the backside of the
murderer. He squeezed as tightly as he could, hoping to dish out a little pain
before he was killed.

“If I didn’t
know better, I would think you were enjoying this,” the Jake-like voice said.
He began thrusting himself against Michael, who began to whimper as he fought
helplessly against his assailant.

“Please, just
kill me,” Michael begged. “Kill me now.”

“Oh, Michael,”
he answered. “I have no intention of killing you. We’re just getting started!”

“Fuck you,”
Michael hissed. “Burn in Hell.”

“Why be in Hell
when Crimson Falls is so much more exciting,” he said as he laughed. “And I
prefer the cold. Perhaps if Hell had a better climate, I might spend more time
there.”

“You’re a
demon,” Michael accused, believing something from Hell had managed to find its
way to his small town.

“What do you
know of demons?” he shrieked. His voice had changed. Now it sounded like
someone else Michael knew, but again he couldn’t place it.

“I know enough,”
Michael said as he tried to straighten his body in defiance. He still couldn’t
see a damned thing, straining to find any sign of movement in front of him.

The demon
laughed. “You know
nothing
. I am not a demon.” Suddenly a light appeared
from under his face, as if he were about to tell a scary story. But Michael was
living that story.

Michael was
speechless. He couldn’t understand how this man was standing in front of him.
He managed to find words. “But – but you’re dead,” Michael said in disbelief.
“I know it. I saw you. Dead.”

“Things are not
always what they seem,” Alan Brickton said. “But soon. Soon you will
understand.”

“Understand
what?” Michael asked. Pain, exhaustion, and fear began taking its toll on his
mind and body.
None of this is real
, he said to himself.
I am
hallucinating. This isn’t real
.

“Oh, it’s real,”
Alan replied, hearing Michaels’ private thoughts. He wrapped his arms around
Michael again. “And so is this,” he said as he leaned in and began feeding on
his neck.

* * * * * *

3

Matthew and Amy
crawled through the opening and into a dark room. Matthew felt around the wall
behind him, searching for a light switch.

“Anything?” Amy
asked as she searched the wall beside him.

“Not yet. Try
directly above where we just crawled out,” he suggested.

A light
illuminated the room. “And God said, ‘Let there be light’,” Amy said as she
turned away from the wall and toward Matthew. They both gawked at what stood
before them.

“Whoa,” Matthew
murmured. He walked toward the giant totem towering over them. “This must be at
least twenty feet high,” he said as he whistled.

“And at least a
few centuries old,” Amy added. “Do you know much about these?”

“From what I
understand, totems like this one represent different clans among the Ojibwe
people.”

“You mean the
Native Americans that lived here before we decimated their existence?” Amy
asked sarcastically.

“Unfortunately,”
Matthew said with a dry laugh.

“Do you know
what the bear represents?” Amy asked as she studied the totem. The top few feet
of the totem was carved into the shape of a bear’s head.

“No, not off the
top of my head,” Matthew said. “But it is magnificent. Tell me, do you know if
the Brickton family has Native American ancestors?”

Amy thought for
a moment. “Now that you mention it, I do remember him saying something about
that. In fact, his great-great grandfather was a chief. Alan had said that he
took a White woman as his wife, which angered many people in the tribe. He said
it was an attempt to make peace with the American government.”

“And we all know
how that turned out,” Matthew said sadly. “Do you think he was telling the
truth? That sounds like one of his infamous stories.”

“He had no real
reason to lie,” she said in his defense. “And, quite frankly, most of his ‘infamous
tales,’ as you put it, were actually true. There were good reasons why he lived
the way he did.”

“I’m sorry,” he
said sincerely. “I meant no disrespect.”

“Whatever the
story,” Amy continued, “it seems like the family had power.”

“Indeed,”
Matthew agreed. “And not just with the Ojibwe people. I assume the White woman,
Alan’s great-great grandmother, was a woman of influence and affluence.”

“She was,” Amy
agreed.

“Do you know
anything else about his background?”

“Just the war,
his PTSD, stuff like that. Nothing about his ancestry or family history,” Amy
shrugged.

“This is
interesting,” Matthew said as he looked behind the totem. Additional shelves of
books boasted several volumes on Native American history, specific to Minnesota
and other tribes along the Mississippi River.

“Like I said, he
was an avid reader,” Amy said. Matthew took out a book and showed her the
cover. On it, a large, somewhat menacing owl stared at them.

“I think he
preferred nonfiction to novels,” he said.

“What does the
owl represent?” she asked as she pointed to the book in his hand.

“Well, it
represents several different things. I can’t remember which, but I know it is
one of two things.”

“And those would
be?”

“Good news or
bad news?” he asked.

“Good news,
please,” she said wryly.

“In some
cultures it represented protection.”

“Well that
didn’t work out well for Alan, did it? What’s the bad news.”

“Well, it could
also represent death and evil.”

“Shit,” Amy
mumbled.

“I hear ya,” he
said. He put the book aside as they continued looking around the room. Although
the ceilings reached more than twenty feet, it was a relatively small room.
Other than the totem, shelves of books, some smaller totems and various
woodcarvings, nothing really caught their attention.

“Do you think
this is it?” Amy asked, almost hoping it was.

“I seriously
doubt it,” Matthew said from the opposite side of the room, sounding a bit
distracted.

“Did you find
something?” As Amy asked the question, she heard the loud creaking of a door.
She turned and saw him pushing a bookshelf open. “Oh, great. Another secret
passage.”

“I suppose,”
Matthew half agreed. “But it was already partially open. I noticed that it
wasn’t sitting evenly with the other shelves.”

“I guess he
figured there wouldn’t be many people crawling under tables and through wooden
panels,” Amy joked.

“And check this
out,” Matthew said as Amy joined him in front of the makeshift door. He grabbed
a large torch that was leaning against shelf.

“I smelled that
when we first got in here,” Amy said.

“Yes, and that’s
because it has been recently used,” he said as he smelled it. “And how
convenient is this?” he laughed as he picked up the lighter that was lying
beside it.

“What an
accommodating host we have. Guess it’s a dark hallway,” Amy said nervously.
Matthew lit the torch and crossed the threshold separating the secret room from
the secret hallway. He pushed the torch in front of him and they both looked
into darkness.

 “And God said,
yet again, ‘Let there be light’,” Amy said with a grin.

“I feel a bit
like Indiana Jones,” Matthew laughed as they began walking.

“What’s that on
the wall there?” Amy said, pointing to something that looked like a sconce.

“It’s a lamp,”
he answered. He lit the oil-based lamp. “Let’s hope there are more of them.”
They walked a little further and found another lamp. They continued lighting
them as they passed, each of them approximately ten feet apart.

“Do you notice
the slight descent we’re making?” Amy asked as she glanced behind them.

“Figuratively or
literally?” Matthew grinned.

“Uh, both, I
think,” she said without returning his smile.

“Are you okay?”
he asked her.

“I think so,”
she said, finally managing a smile. “This is all a bit surreal,” she said.

“Tell me about
it.” Matthew put his left hand against the dirt wall as he lit another lamp.
“Did you notice that we’re underground?”

“Yeah, it
changed from paneling to dirt about a hundred steps ago,” she said
matter-of-factly.

“Are you
actually counting your steps?” he asked in surprise.

“Not really,”
she answered. “But I walk every morning and I have a step counter. So I’ve
gotten pretty good at guesstimating how many steps I’ve taken.”

Matthew just
laughed in response. As they continued walking, the lamps were further apart.
Although not totally dark by the time they would reach the next one, their
surroundings were only dimly lit.

“What do you
think is down here?” Amy asked, curious. “And how long do you think it’s been
here?”

“Both good
questions,” Matthew nodded. “This house is at least two hundred years old.
Perhaps older. I’m sure they kept secret slaves down here, especially during
the war and the beginnings of Reconstruction.”

“Slaves?” Amy
asked. “I heard about that last year. A professor at St. Cloud State University
unearthed records of slavery in states along the upper Mississippi River.”

“Exactly,” he
agreed. “But I can’t imagine this could go too far into the ground,” he said,
looking at pieces of rock along the wall. “Too much rock.”

“People can be
ingenious,” she said, looking ahead of them at the handmade passageway. “And
people can be horrifying,” she said, referring to slavery.

“Very true,” he
said. They lit another lamp and continued walking. It progressively became
darker, but no additional lamps were in sight. Soon the only light came from
the small torch Matthew was carrying. “We’re running out of light,” he said as
he pointed to the small amount of kindling remaining.

Suddenly a
strong breeze blew through the tunnel, snuffing out the torch.

“And darkness
fell across the land of Egypt,” Matthew said.

“Still feeling
like Indiana Jones?” Amy asked humorlessly. They both sat in wonder as to the
origin of the wind. But they both knew where it had come from.

“That felt
wrong,” he said after some length of silence.

“Do you think
the lights from the lamps went out, too?” Amy asked, already believing they
had. “Maybe we should think about heading back to the library.”

“That’s what it
wants us to do,” Matthew said. He reached into his pocket, pulling out the
lighter. He lit the torch again. Amy put her hands on her hips as she watched
him.

“You could have
lit that a minute ago,” she grunted.

“Sorry,” he
mumbled.

“And what do you
mean, ‘it?’” she asked, again already knowing what he would say. He didn’t
answer.

“Let’s go,” he
said. “We’re getting close. Otherwise it wouldn’t have tried to frighten us.”

“Just so we’re
clear,” Amy began, “you’re talking about a demon.”

“I can’t be
sure.”

“Do you think it
might be a spirit?”

“I think it
could be any number of things,” he said. She nodded in agreement. “But we
really won’t know anything until we find out where this leads.”

“And find what
this presence doesn’t want us to discover,” she added.

“Indeed,” he
said. As they continued to walk, the passage took a U-turn to the left. To
their relief they came across another group of lamps. As Matthew lit the first torch,
another breeze traveled past them. This time, however, each of the lamps ahead
of them became dramatically engulfed in flames. As the fire settled, the lamps
remained lit and revealed the entrance to another room in the distance.