Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) (20 page)

It was there in plain site. A statue set on a pedestal next to a faux wall. The
statue was a depiction of Zeus holding a lighting bolt. Twisting the lightning
bolt unlatched a bolt hidden behind concrete and opened the wall like a door.
We stood there ready to fire expecting a legion of soldiers to welcome us
inside their dungeon. There was nothing. The room was small but inside there
was a long stairway. They must have built down into the caves below the
island. These passages would have taken years to carve out. We walked down
the stairs and inside the caves and then we could see around us behind the
dirt and lime were skulls and bones ancient and deformed from time. We
were walking inside catacombs. This place had been an ancient tomb
probably carved out centuries ago when pirates or Vikings discovered this
island. It was damn likely that they had become stranded here and maybe
they had even lived here for a few generations before dying out. Now there
bones were desecrated they were nothing more then ornaments the Black
Sun used to enchant and decorate their base.

We continued for twenty minutes through dark tunnels lit by small
phosphorus bulbs that swayed and hung nailed to the ceiling. Wires were
rigged and taped together and stapled to the walls some even ran through the
eyes of the ancient dead. There was someone down here there had to be after
all they wouldn’t leave the power on for nothing. The tunnel seemed to open
up ahead of us. The Australian was the first to enter the open sanctum. Our

guess had been right. Before us we saw a massive ship from the 16
^th
century
wrecked on the rocks the bottom half submerged in shallow water and muck.
It was a pirate vessel just like something you would hear about during the
time of Blackbeard. The cave must have led outside at some point but
openings always have a way of mending. We wouldn’t put it past Black Sun
using some type of explosives on the outside either. The pirate ship had been
ransacked and deserted. It was nothing more then a landmark now. Swords
and treasures were probably pillaged to fund this base.

The child inside me, hell the child inside anyone would have been jumping for
joy. We found a real life pirate ship. How often does this happen? The truth
was much deeper then this though. There was something about the ship,
something so familiar and yet far away like a dream half remembered. It was
a feeling like déjà vu. We boarded the ship and looked around nothing but
rusted nails and worn out planks. The bottom half of the ship had rotted and
withered parts of it blended to the rock it sat above. This ship wouldn’t last
another hundred years. If there was anything worth finding it was gone. Even
the crew, the bones of skeletons had been taken away. There was a black flag
still hanging on the mast of the ship. It was worn but you could still make out
the dark grey skull that had started fading decades ago. I don’t know why but
I made room in my pack for it. I wasn’t normally one to take mementos from
skirmishes but there was something compelling about it something too
familiar.

We continued through leaving the ship behind. It was a glorious
find but in
the end it was meaningless if we didn’t make it out of here alive or find
whatever the hell the Nazis were keeping hidden here. One of the Brits began
rambling on and on about an ark. Saying he had heard stories before the war
when he was a history teacher. The ark was said to be a chest handed down
to man from God. He spoke about how it contained the very stones that the
commandments had been inscribed on. He spoke about how it had been
taken to Mount Sinai in the Valley of Edom in the 1180s. There it was found
by the knights Templar and taken to an estate in England. It was possible
then that estate had been ransacked by pirates and somehow ended up here
but that was only a theory. There were hundreds of artifacts that could have
been onboard that ship that would be important to Black Sun and all we
could do was speculate.

We crawled through tunnels to try and avoid the wide-open spaces that
appeared deeper and deeper inside the cave. The walls were wet and the
father down we went the colder and thinner the air became. We heard the
mines we placed outside the base explode one after another. They echoed
through the cave signaling anyone alive to our presence. We no longer had
the element of surprise on our side all we had were the shadows. I could see a
glimmer of light ahead of us. For a moment I wondered if we were dead had
we died in this war, maybe we had died a long time ago and this was our hell
to fight for all eternity until our spirits eventually wither and we truly become
ghosts echoes of the men we once were.

If not for this war I would have a wife.
I would be a loving husband. A father even.
If not for this war I would be wrapped in the arms of a woman that loves me.
My last letter I told her to move on to leave me.
My last letter I let her go.
No longer am I the man worth waiting for. No longer am I the righteous soul
that vowed to take her hand and walk her down an ail.
War has changed me.
Taking the life of another man has become my second nature.
My hands have become cold and calash. I don’t even feel pain the same
anymore. Before the war a scratch or bleeding wound that would have made
me go see a doctor is now nothing more then a tickle. I have scars down my
side cuts from barb wire laying in the muddy trenches. Bruises come and go
each day my as heart pushes me further and further. Violence becomes me.

Each of us timed our shots accordingly. We were good. We didn’t even have
to speak to each other anymore as we communicated with eye contact and
hand signals. We could see two to three moves ahead just by glancing in each
other’s eyes. Our souls were twined together in battle. Each mission molded
us closer and closer brothers in arms, a family of foreign outcasts.

We crawled out of the darkness. The bodies of the occult lay dead before us.
Blood covered ruins they had carved on the wall. It was a familiar scene. We
saw around us the bones that belonged to the crew of the pirate ship. They
still wore their long dark coats and tunics. Some even still had rusted swords
hanging down their sides tied to belts that had been torn and broken and tied
together again. A part of me wondered if we had stumbled upon another
human sacrifice. What demon were they trying to conjure now? There were
no sacrifices though. Instead in front of us there was only a single door. Black
knight armor stood on both the right and left sides. It was medieval looking.
The Templar cross was etched into the chest plate on both pieces. This cave
was feeling more and more like a museum the longer we stayed.

Two of our men guarded the door while B1 and B2 looked around studying
the manuscripts and papers scattered throughout the small chamber. I went
to investigate the door and see what was behind it. My first mistake was
going alone. My second mistake was being me. I opened the door and stepped
inside my head began to fog up. For a moment I saw a flash of light. I was
standing on a bridge but it wasn’t like any bridge I had ever seen. There was
a city that looked much like New York but much bigger surrounding me on
both sides. It was immaculate. I couldn’t move my body, I couldn’t move my
hands or turn my head. All I could do was fall. It would have been less than a
minute before I hit the water. It probably only took a few seconds but it felt
like an eternity. I knew fighting this war that I could die. I had made my piece
with that a long time ago.

Before I hit the water the strangest thing happened. I saw in the dark river a
face staring up at me. A face that wasn’t my own. Then everything turned
white again and I was holding a rifle inside a trench. I was back in the war
only this time it wasn’t my war. Strange ships filled the sky firing blasts of
light out from the wings on their side. The ground we fought on was rocky
and reminded me of the frontline. Again I couldn’t move or control my body.
It moved for me. I felt like I was drowning. I wanted to breath but couldn’t. I
could only watch and listen. I couldn’t even close my eyes or scream to wake
myself up. A giant beast came over the top of the trench. It was a worm like
creature with teeth that must have been several feet long. Then it was gone. I
was back in my body staring at into the darkness.

It was only for a moment but there I was back in the cave standing in the
dark. I was holding some kind of black rock; it couldn’t have been any bigger
then a baseball but it was oddly shaped almost abstract. It looked no different
then something you would see walking in the woods or near a riverbed. I was
holding it but my eyes were lying to me. It was looking at myself from the
Australian’s point of view. Several more visions passed before my eyes. I was
onboard the pirate ship I overheard someone call it the Devils Saber. I saw
through the captain’s eyes as he fought an English fleet to the death sinking
their ship but at the same time costing them their own sails and forcing them
to come ashore to this island. It wasn’t the ark that they had stolen from the
Templars. It was a crystal ball. These visions were from the past and future.
All of it mixed together blending before my eyes. I had become an oracle, a
seer. None of my team had visions like I had. None of them were cursed the
way I was. They were lucky. The last vision I had before blacking out was the
worst…

I stood on a boat holding a cross in my hand. I was mumbling some kind of
prayer. It was all too fast to make out. It was too dark to see anything very
well but the sun was on the rise. It must have been around 8:15 am in the
morning. I was surrounded by several men both army and navy. The sky was
clear as if God himself had moved the clouds, birds, and looked away leaving
only an empty sky. Everyone was silent. The only thing that could be heard
was a small faint whistling sound from a plane only a few miles above our
heads. I recognized it. It was a B-29. It was a sound I had become familiar
with fighting the war. There were two other bombers flying beside the first.

Not a moment passed before the sky lit up with
fire. It must have risen over
40,000 feet. Smoke and fire crept up the side of mountains It looked like a
volcano had erupted. What was once a city had now become covered by a
bubbling mass of purple-gray smoke with a red core. The city that stood there
had melted together. Shadows imprinted buildings and anything man made
was turned solid to liquid.

It was in that moment I knew what I saw. I heard stories about the weapons
we had been building I had even caught a glimpse of the rockets and
projections we had stolen on our earlier missions. This was the end of the
war.

After that vision the rock stopped working for me. I wrapped it in the black
flag and packed it away placing it inside the backpack that I knew would
never leave my side again. Everyone asked what happened to me. I couldn’t
explain I had apparently only been out for a few seconds. One of the Brits
said it was probably the stale air from the chamber that made me faint or
black out. Perhaps mold had made me hallucinate. There was a logical reason
behind everything but this rock.. this was magic. This was the darkest kind of
magic. If one knows there future they can control it maybe even change it.
With this as a weapon we could control the world turn the tide of war and
politics in any direction we wanted so long as we could find a way to see the
right thing.

I served my country proudly. Please tell Anne I am gone that I passed away a
war hero. Please bring her a flag and tell her I loved her and I KNOW she will
be happy. Reward me with a heart a medal in death and let me run. I know you
trust me. I have yet to let you down about anything. I told you we would win and
I promise you we will win this war and that my part in it is now over. I delivered
the Black Suns into your arms and let them all burn. By the time you get this I
will have disappeared. Please don’t consider me a deserter. I am doing this for
my country and for the allies as a whole. I have found something not even you
can get your hands on. If you chase me I will know. I will stop you. If you hurt
my family I will know and I will kill you. All you can do is let me run. Don’t
speak a word of this to anybody. I have already discussed this with my team and
they all agree this is for the best. You will never hear from me again. Years from
now maybe I will no longer need to hide but until I know for certain all I can
say is I give you my word everything will be alright.

“What the hell happened to you in there?” it was Balkava’s voice. She
was screaming at me. I was on the floor in the white room; beside me the
visor on the floor was broken, smashed to pieces. I had white spit and blood
hanging from my mouth. My throat felt like it was tearing itself apart. I
coughed up blood again and for a moment felt my body spasm. I thought I
was going to die. The chair I was sitting in hours earlier was bent twisted into
an anamorphic shape. It looked like an abstract piece of art. The room that
usually had no recognizable smell now reeked of melted wires, metal, and
blood. The worst was behind me lying on the floor. Broken into tiny stones
there was the nexus. It was broken. What was once our link to the past and
future was now nothing more then a heap of small stones… worthless black
rocks.

I was interrogated for hours. I didn’t hold anything back. I told
Balkava and her team of scientists everything. I told them about Joseph
Everett, the Black Suns, the visions inside my vision. That was a first. No one
had ever used the nexus while inside the nexus. Perhaps it was too much of a
paradox. Whatever it was that shattered the nexus no longer mattered. I
didn’t see anything important about our future. We had reached Eden at a
terrible cost but our journey was over. We didn’t need the nexus anymore. I
heard a few of the guards say that I should be punished but Balkava stood up
for me. They let me go when there was nothing more I could give them.