The Hole (24 page)

Weemean.

“Shouldn’t we be going up?” Sarah whispered.

Fred didn’t answer. He was remembering an earlier conversation with Charlie, back before everything went to hell. Charlie had been talking about old man Hopman.

He had some kind of operation going on down at the deepest level.

“I think I know where Charlie’s heading,” he finally replied. “But I ain’t too sure we’re going to like what we find there.”

23

Janet stayed close to Big Bill as they headed down. It was getting warmer, and drier. The air tasted like stale smoke, tickling at the back of her throat. The flickering beam of the rifle-mounted flashlight started to give her a tension headache behind her left eye. She looked down, concentrating on the ground underfoot, following the parallel tracks. They were clearer here, as if used more recently.

It seemed that Charlie was following the same route. Every direction he gave always had a set of tracks at their feet. Janet saw signs that they were in worked tunnels; shoring timbers, tool marks on the rock, and even a small pile of ancient cigarette butts against the wall. And it became even more obvious when they passed through a completely timbered section and walked past an overturned cart that was too rusted up to move.

“Nearly there,” Charlie called out. “Just keep moving.”

Nearly where?

The chanting behind them seemed farther away now, as if whatever had attacked them had given up the chase. Now that there was some distance from the event, Janet’s thoughts turned from immediate survival to trying to rationalize what happened. But no matter how much she wanted it to make sense, a solution continued to elude her. Matters did not become any clearer when they arrived at the destination Charlie had been leading them to.

She knew they were there when Bill stopped suddenly, and swore loudly.

“Shit, Charlie. Where have you brought us?”

They looked out over a larger chamber. The far side was dominated by what looked like a recent collapse. What little light there was came up out of the hole, red and flickering, as if there were flames burning in the deep. Charlie and Ellen Simmons joined the other four at the tunnel mouth, looking out. The older man pointed to the left. There were two further tunnels there.

“The left one is a bunker, I think; old man Hopman’s bolt hole. The right one leads to a storeroom, then up and out to daylight. That’s the way we go.”

“What was over there?” Fred Grant asked, pointing at the smoking hole.

“That was where the old man dumped all the chemical shit. We shouldn’t go anywhere near it.”

Janet almost laughed.

“I wasn’t about to,” she said.

Big Bill looked up the tunnel behind them.

“You take the lead this time, Charlie. You know where you’re going. I’ll watch our backs.”

Janet hung back as the others moved out so that she could stay beside Bill.

Charlie led them around the wall of the cavern. He walked past the leftmost entrance without a glance. When Janet passed it, she glanced into the tunnel mouth. There was indeed a heavy iron door there, less than six feet away. It was closed, and despite her curiosity, she felt no immediate desire to see if it was locked. With Bill at her back she followed the others into the right-hand tunnel.

* * *

The walls flickered with dancing shadows on a shifting red background, like a disco in a nightmare. Charlie raised a clenched fist, and went still. The rest took their cue from the older man and stopped. The only sound was a distant crackle of flames.

Then they heard it, coming from straight ahead, the now-feared chant, coming from a multitude of voices.

“Weemean.”

The chant got closer.

Charlie looked around.

“Fight or flight?” he asked. He held two flares in his spare hand, the rifle in the other. “This is all we’ve got.”

“I can’t go back the way we came,” Ellen Simmons said, a note of pleading in her voice. “I just can’t.”

“And for once, I’m with Ellen,” Janet said in reply. “We’ve got to keep going forward.”

Charlie looked to Fred, who in turn looked to Sarah. The girl nodded.

“We girls need to stick together. Onward and upward.”

Bill laughed.

“You heard the womenfolk, Charlie. Lead on.”

Charlie threw Bill a salute.

“Just be ready to fall back if I say so,” the older man replied. “This ain’t the time for heroics, and I ain’t in a hurry to see any more dead folks.”

Without another word Charlie turned and started up the tunnel. Janet was surprised to see Ellen Simmons follow him, almost close enough to touch.

Something has happened there.

She wasn’t given time to think about it. Charlie led them into another open chamber. This one was a storeroom, and one that had been in use up until recently. There were dozens of large barrels of water, stacked containers of gasoline, and boxes of canned and dried food.

“What is this shit?” Fred Grant asked in a whisper.

Charlie turned back.

“I told you. Old Man Hopman had a bunker down here. And it looks like the family kept it stocked over the years since then. I guess paranoia runs in the family.”

Or madness
.

She didn’t say it, for just then the chant rose again, coming out of the only other exit from the storeroom. Heavy footsteps, many of them, came closer at a run.

“Weemean.”

“Here we go,” Charlie said. “Get ready to run.” He stepped forward and flooded the tunnel ahead with light. As the first demon appeared he gripped the string on one of the flares, but didn’t pull it. More demons joined the first, then more still until a mass of them started to flood from the tunnel mouth.

“For God’s sake, Charlie!” Ellen Simmons shouted. The old man grinned, blew her a kiss, and pulled the string, in the same movement lobbing the flare into the approaching creatures.

Janet remembered to look away and close her eyes. She still got a bright yellow flash against her eyelids and a blast of heat on her face. There were no screams; no sound from the attackers. But when Janet opened her eyes, there was only an expanding puddle of
gloop
on the floor.

“Run!” Charlie shouted, and headed for the tunnel. The others didn’t need a second telling. They followed the old man, splashing though the remains underfoot.

They didn’t get far. The tunnel took a sharp turn ten yards in, but even before they reached the turning they heard the chant coming down from above them, and more heavy footsteps on the rock. Charlie strode forward, pulled the string on the last flare and lobbed it round the corner. He turned back almost immediately.

“There’s no way out that way. Back the way we came. It’s our only hope.”

They retreated back as far as the cavern with the smoking pit, only to find that way too was blocked, as more demons streamed out to the tunnel they needed to take.

Charlie immediately moved to the only option available to them; the entrance leading to the iron door.

“What if it’s locked?” Ellen Simmons said.

‘Then we fight,” Charlie said grimly.

“Whatever you’re going to do, make it fast,” Bill said, as the six of them crammed into the space in front of the large door. Bill kept his weapon trained on the opening. The chant from beyond got louder again.

“Weemean.”

Charlie turned the handle on the door. Iron creaked and complained, and for a long second Janet thought it wasn’t going to open; then Charlie put his shoulder into it and the door swung open. They all but fell inside, slamming the door shut behind them just as the first of the demons slammed against it from the outside.

“Light. We need light,” Janet shouted.

Bill obliged by lighting up the door. A demon showed its face in the portal window and just as quickly dropped away as the beam hit it.

“Got it,” Charlie shouted. There was the sound of a switch being flicked, and suddenly everything got so bright that Janet’s eyes took seconds to adjust. When they did, she got her first look at Hopman’s
bunker
.

* * *

When Charlie had mentioned a bunker, Janet’s first thought was of a concrete subterranean dwelling, like a nuclear shelter, with maybe some retro-styled fittings from the Cold War era, but at least with some creature comforts.

What was in front of her was far from modern. It was little more than a modified cave, lit by neon tubes overhead. There were several alcoves; one with a camp bed, one with a basic stove and sink arrangement, and one with a writing desk and bookcase. But the floor space was totally dominated by the carving etched directly into the rock. She had to stand back to get a sense of what she was seeing, and her heart sank as she understood.

More of Bill’s demonic shit.

It was a pentagram, straight out of a Hollywood fantasy of satanic ritual, a five-pointed star with two external circles carved in a Cyrillic script Janet couldn’t read. Skulls, all too human, sat at each point of the star, and thick wax candles sat in the valleys between the points. The whole diagram was some ten feet across.

“What the hell is this?” Bill said.

“
Hell
is the right word,” Charlie replied, and spat on the floor. “Looks like old man Hopman found what he was looking for. I guess we know where he got his money.”

Janet looked over at the older man.

“You’re serious?”

Charlie didn’t smile back.

“After what we’ve seen these past few days? Are you not?”

He’s got a point.

“First things first,” Charlie said. “We’ve got light, for now. Let’s see what else Hopman has squirreled away down here.”

Over the next five minutes they found that they wouldn’t starve; Hopman, the younger, had kept a well-stocked larder behind the stove, mainly canned and dried foods and a large supply of coffee. Ellen Simmons surprised them by taking charge of the stove.

“The menfolk need to be fed,” she said, and smiled, straight at Charlie.

Something definitely happened there.

Fred Grant and the girl had already appropriated the camp bed, sitting side by side and sharing a cigarette. Bill and Charlie were off in the farthest corner of the cave, checking out the generator and ensuring the area was secure, leaving Janet feeling like the fifth wheel on the cart.

She headed for the writing desk, more in curiosity than any search for information. An old habit led her straight to a perusal of the books on the shelves at the back of the alcove. The titles meant nothing to her—
The Mysteries of the Wurm
,
The Twelve Concordances of the Red Serpent, The Sigsand mss
and many others; esoteric tomes from a bygone age that should have stayed gone.

The writing desk itself was a handsome piece of furniture of some vintage, the sort of thing Janet might wish to have in her own home, had it not been so obviously infested with mildew and rot. There were only two things under the roll-top lid—a ballpoint pen, and a thick leather-bound journal, filled with scrawled writing in several distinct hands. She started reading a passage near the middle of the book.

“Still no joy. I’ve had them digging twenty-four hours a day. I know it’s there. The Cree said it was, and I’ve felt the power for myself. Last night I performed the Saamara Ritual in the barn out back. The Old One came to me again, asking for release. He promises much, but that will all be for nothing if I do not find the Gateway. It is there. It must be there.”

It was dated: August 23, 1973.

She skipped to the last entry, a crabbed, hard-to-read paragraph in a tight-spaced hand.

“I can’t control it. God help me. God help all of us. It’s free. After all this time, it’s free again.”

It was dated two days ago, and signed, Tom Hopman.

24

Fred looked up as Charlie and Bill returned from the rear of the chamber.

“Anything happening outside?” Bill asked, and Fred realized that nobody had even bothered to check while the two men were away. He stood, with Sarah as ever moving like a part of him at his side. He looked out of the small window. The glass was thick, obscuring some of the view, making it blurred and unclear. But he saw enough to know they weren’t leaving anytime soon. The pit glowed red and orange. Around its rim, tall figures danced. They were mostly just dark shapes framed against the fiery glow behind them, but they were defined clearly enough that horns, tails and even talons were clearly visible.

First ghosts, then bears, now fucking demons?

Fred turned away, looked to Charlie, and shook his head. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The older man nodded in reply.