The Acolyte
Copyright 2007 by Mary Harris [aka redplanetes]
Chapter 10
Helen followed the beaten path that threaded through the woods, not hurrying, savoring the walk this time. The innocent, unthreatening night had closed up its seams. In the starlit darkness the little white car shone like a beacon, and the woman found her way back to it easily through the trees.
Mena was inspecting the car, its front bumper shoved deep into the eroded rut in the road. She looked up at the light sounds of Helen's approach, a hesitant pause between footfalls sounding out her ginger gait. The girl stared for a few moments, the feral look still holding her face, then softened as her aunt neared -alone. "Where is... he?"
Helen came to a stop near Mena, and leaned against the car. "Finishing his dinner. He'll be along in a minute or so." She laughed gently. "He was hungry." She saw the wide smear of blood behind the rear door, could just make out the dark bundle lying in the backseat. "And you?"
Mena's teeth appeared behind a thin, sly grimace. "I got what I wanted." She glanced at the still shadow in the car, frowned, and sighed. "But I broke a nail, dammit."
A snort escaped from Helen. "No, really," the girl insisted. "That guy was quicker than you'd think once a fire was lit under his ass. Damn near ripped his own arm off just to squirm loose."
The rough growl of the BEATNGU truck signalled the monster's return. It crunched down the broken road towards them, headlights off, and rolled to a stop a few feet from the stranded car. Their ravenous companion emerged and stomped towards them, carrying a stout old tow chain. The massive hooks dangling from the ends clinked dully. Glancing at them, the dark-coated creature swung one hook with practiced ease under the rear of the car, hitting frame without even having to look.
Helen gestured to the driver's seat, smiling at her neice. "All yours, Maenad." She handed the girl a purse and a flashlight, nodded towards the lifeless bundle in the backseat. "Got the keys?" One side of Mena's mouth pulled up in a dainty sneer as she she unslung her blades and climbed in. "Got 'em."
The truck plucked the car out of its trap without effort, and none too gently. Mena turned it around just as roughly, and leaned out the open window with a disgusted look showing plainly on her face even in the dim light. "What a piece of SHIT," she sneered. "Can I blow it up?"
Helen could well understand the sentiment; the car was one of those described as "sensible, yet stylish" by cologne-drenched car salesmen. By the bristling smile on her monster's face, it heartily approved the method of disposal. It pointed a clawed finger in a line joining the woman and its own truck, growled out, "Follow." Helen's eyebrow twitched up in curious anticipaion - another new place to show us.
She climbed in beside Mena in the crinkled little car. "You have a thing for blowing up cars, don't you?"
Mena laughed joyously as she gunned the motor, tossing up gravel and dust.
* * * * *
They were led down faceless, barren highways for over an hour, no landmarks visible in the farmland now that the moon had set. Helen took charge of the radio, quickly finding the only tolerable local station - a pirate rockabilly station that broadcast most nights from some rebellious farmer's basement. Mena beamed over at her aunt. "I'm having a great summer, Aunt Hel."
"Damn straight, you sly young wolf."
The roads they traveled became broken and neglected, eventually crumbled away into a weedy track. Every so often the hard-beaten track was eroded by grooves and channels, evidence that this road had not been used - much less maintained - for a very long time. The car had to be dragged out of more than one of the ruts.
The rusty hulk before them stopped. They had arrived at the end of the road. Skeletal shapes emerging from the darkness pressed from both sides. An abandoned auto graveyard. Old wrecks picked clean of all salvageable parts, left to rot and settle in rusting heaps. The meager profit to be made from crushing the steel husks and selling it for scrap metal must have become too much trouble. This place was dead and forgotten.
Beyond the truck a thicker darkness loomed; indistinct echoes hinted at a deep empty space. Helen unfolded herself from the cramped little car, relishing its imminent destruction more every minute. Mena followed her to the dropoff faintly visible in the beaten dirt. A wide, deep trench had been bulldozed out of the earth; shapeless clutter filled the bottom. The scrapyard had created their own clandestine landfill to dispose of anything they couldn't sell or recycle. Deep and well-hidden, the perfect place to make a car disappear.
The creature was rummaging around in the back of its truck, clanking and shoving heavy objects around. It reemerged with a narrow wooden ammo box under one arm, brought the box to the hood of the doomed car, and motioned for Mena to see. Not bothering with a key, it dug sharp claws under the rim and ripped the lid free of its hinges. "Oh hell yeah!" Helen crowed. The long cylindrical sticks inside, bright orange in the reflected headlights, could be nothing else. Mena laughed nervously, her eyes wide, breathing quickened. "Dynamite!... oh shit, I think I love you!" The monster's wide smile and glittering eyes laughed with her.
The car was maneuvered around the truck, up to the brink of the trench, where the ruts led over the edge. Mena stepped back, and the creature carelessly tossed the ammo box into the front seat, much to the women's consternation. A jury-rigged fuse trailed from the box; a gnarled hand offered it to the girl. She took it gleefully, as though she couldn't believe a dream was finally coming true - a whole box of explosives, hers to set off. Her free hand patted her shorts, her shirt, but the absence of the lump she was feeling for dawned on her quickly.
"Uhh, lighter?" she said to her aunt with a sheepish smirk. Helen fished hers out and clapped it into Mena's outstretched palm.
The girl took a deep breath, flicked the lighter, and held the little flame to the fuse. It sputtered to life immediately, hissing and flinging sparks as the flame traveled along, and Mena dropped it to avoid being burned. The car lurched forwards a foot, the monster had one huge boot on the rear bumper and gave it the last shove it needed. With a pathetic squeak the car rolled over the edge, and began bouncing and floundering down the steep decline, gaining speed quickly.
Headlights parted the darkness in its path, then it abruptly reached the floor of the trench and slammed head-on into a tall mound of ruined transmissions, knocking a couple off the top. One rolled onto the car's hood and smashed a shallow crater, half a second before the gout of flame and noise erupted into the air.
Helen was thrown back and to the ground by the unexpected force of the blast. The first flash of the explosion had seared a blue afterimage into Helen's eyes, but she watched with riveted awe as the fireball expanded outwards; flame, shrapnel, great clods of dirt ripped loose - flew in all directions from the source of the outrage. She looked over at Mena, also lying askew a few feet away, propped up on her elbows, face agape in stupefied triumph. "Wow... oh wow! That was fucking amazing!" The girl's voice sounded muffled; the blast had offended her ears enough to make them ring.
A transmission struck heavily into the ground between them, its weight pressing it deep into the hard earth. Helen stared at the smoking meteorite for a moment, feeling a more than a little lucky. "Heh...I think we used enough dynamite..." Watching the last of the fading mushroom cloud drift up, the monster chuckled, then gestured for them to return to the truck.
Helen and her protege clambered into the cab. It was like returning to a familiar fortress after living in a souped-up cardboard bungalow; not terribly comfortable, but at least it didn't stink of plastic and vanity. The truck roared into the night, sweeping them towards another unknown destination.
Of that, Helen was sure - they weren't heading remotely in the direction of the schoolhouse.
Her eyes were becoming heavy by the time they turned onto a pair of barely-discernable tracks. They jostled alongside a fallow pasture for a mile, passed a line of trees, then followed a curve around a shallow rise. As the swell of earth passed behind them, she began to make out large shapes in the distance, squared shadows, too regular to be natural. A building, alone in an unwanted wasteland.
A few hundred feet from the building, they passed between a pair of massive stone pillars, the barred gates hanging useless from broken hinges. Remains of a sign could be seen on the lefthand pillar.
"What is this place?" Mena breathed out softly. Her eyes were wide as she tried to identify the branching shapes along the side of the crumbling structure.
"Catacombs," the creature croaked, lips pulling up in a grin at the end.
"Wha...? - catacombs...?" she asked, not sure if she'd heard right. A puzzled look to her aunt, who was ready with the unravelled answer. "He names his places - he's got a few." She briefly described the other ones she knew of as they pulled up to the front steps.
Helen climbed out after the others, stood with her hands on her hips, gazing at the decrepit ruin rising before them. Half of the stone entryway had collapsed, and many parts of the building leaned drunkenly. "Though this place looks a bit shaky." She glanced knowingly over at her dark companion. "Guess that's the idea, huh?" The unfriendly atmosphere of the building bore down on them. Definitely not the kind of place where anyone comes snooping. Ever.
The creature led them up the imposing steps, through a blank gap of doorway not blocked by rubble. It was pitch black inside; what had been merely dark outside was tangible in here. Mena flicked the lighter, held it up to cast a weak illumination around her. The monster emerged from the blackness, and held something in the flame. A torch, which sputtered and flared brighter, settling into a steady blaze in the scaly fist. The light and the creature holding it aloft turned and headed directly for an empty doorway. A second after it disappeared, a regular clanging stomp began, drawing away, downwards.
They followed the torchlight and descending footsteps into the darkness. One flight down, two flights, then through a wide passage, and they emerged into a chamber. The distant echoes of their scuffling feet suggested a vast open space. Two stories down - that would make us under ground level here, Helen mused. Another light flared, and she began to make out the surfaces illuminated.
A huge wall of ancient industrial dials, switches, and levers rose above them; a dust-softened sign here and there reading "PRESSURE ABOVE RED LINE MUST BE DIVERTED TO SECTOR G", and "ADJUSTED CAPACITOR OUTPUT". As the creature lit a kerosene lantern, more of the surroundings emerged from their tomb of shadow. A railed catwalk ran around the circumference of the room halfway up, at what would be ground level, though the windows along the front wall were stoutly boarded over.
Plainly this was a control room, for whatever this place had once been. The monster's name for it had yet to make any sense, though.
A crackling of sparks drew Helen's attention. The creature was crouched beside the car batteries it had brought in, and was wiring a makeshift cable to them. After a sputtering buzz, weak light began to glow from caged bulbs along the walls. Mena turned slowly in place, gazing at the intricate equipment now fully visible. She glanced at her aunt to remark on the palace of lost power, then did a double take and stared blinking at Helen, a disbelieving smirk crawling up her face.
"Oh, my god, Aunt Hel. You are so dirty!" The last words ended in laughter.
Helen feigned sheepish pride. "Aw, gee... I try..." She knew what the girl was seeing, however; the effects of being a monster's frenzied obsession.
Only now that light came steadily from all around did the great smears of blood and dirt show. Helen realized she had been practically rolling in gore and mud recently; though she'd wiped the worst from her face. Her clothes were hopelessly soiled, and putting a hand to her hair, she felt the crust of drying ooze. "Yeah, I must look a fright, huh?" The girl nodded, holding back a derisive laugh. "Well, nothing to be done about it, unless there's a lovely bathtub here, too?" She turned to raise an inquisitive eyebrow at her grey friend, who was striding now towards a passage at the far end of the room.
Anemic yellow light trailed into the passage from the caged bulbs, and the monster beckoned them to follow, eager to show thehidden treasure of its latest secret. Whether it was ignoring Helen's wish for cleaning up, or indicating the desired bath was to be found further in, she couldn't tell, but it never had failed yet to be both thoughtful to her needs and full of intriguing surprises. Whatever was down that passage was certain to be interesting.
The passage ended in a T within a few feet; in either direction an arched brick service tunnel led straight as far as could be seen, irregularly lit by dim caged bulbs. Along the ceiling and one side of the tunnel were electrical conduits of varying sizes, and a few loose cables strung along amid the pipes and lights. The creature turned, a mischievous sparkle lighting its wrinkled face, and gestured for them to keep up.
Every hundred feet or so, they came to an intersection of tunnels, all exactly the same, all leading off into the distance. Some of the intersections included a circular hole in the floor, partially enclosed by a safety rail, a steel ladder descending to the next level. Every intersection sported a junction box through which all of the electrical conduits passed; cracked gauges stared blankly as they passed.
"It does look like catacombs!" Helen said wonderingly. "Or a labyrinth. And complete with a minotaur, of sorts." She poked playfully at the monster's cloaked shoulder. The creature peered over its shoulder, winked. "I could definitely get lost in here without a map." Turning to point at the conduits and approaching junction box, the creature's rusty voice filled the narrow passageway. "Map." It laid a great gnarled hand on the pipes. "Map..." it said again.
Helen looked at her niece, questioning. Mena shook her head, she didn't understand either. They'd have to figure out the code of the conduits later.
A waft of moist air reached Helen's senses, shortly the sound of running water joined in. They came to an intersection, and the monster led them down into a level not lit by the electric bulbs. The noise of water was distinct here, and close. The kerosene lantern cast a feeble glow only a few feet ahead and behind them, impenetrable darkness closed in beyond. About twenty feet along the tunnel, a huge pipe crossed overhead, its corroded valve leaking enthusiastically.
The water running from the pipe smelled like river water - rich, lush, and untreated. Must be a diverted line from a river, somewhere around here. She put her hand under the flow, noting how chilly the water was. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers. "It'll do fine," she said gratefully. "You gonna keep me company, Maenad?" The girl was watching expressionless as the monster tied something to a nearby pipe. "Yeah, I could stand to clean up a bit, too," she remarked wryly, holding up her bloodstained hands.
Its work finished, the creature stood back, held up a spool of wire which it had tied to the conduit. It retreated into the darkness the way they had come, letting them see the wire now trailing along; a guide back out of the tunnels. Helen laughed heartily as she stepped under the flow and began scrubbing sticky filth away, remembering the story of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur, and the spool of thread that helped a couple of young Greek heroes to escape.
She'd decided not to bother undressing for her shower, since she had no clothes to change into, and what she was wearing was desperately in need of a wash anyway. Getting back into sopping wet clothes is no easy task. She stood shivering, wringing excess water from her hair, while Mena rinsed her arms clean of blood. "There's a draft coming from this way," the girl said. "Can you feel it?"
"Mmm hmm, all too well. But let's save exploring for another time, I'm freezing."
Helen picked up the lantern and ran fingers along the wire which would lead them to the control room. It would come in handy until she deciphered the 'map' of conduits. If she hadn't seen the creature unspooling it, it would seem like just another line leading nowhere. A secret guide, yet open to full view, the wire led them easily back to the ruler of this subterranian maze.
As they reemerged into the control room, warm flicking firelight greeted them. The creature had built a small bonfire -surreal and incongruous among the technical surroundings - in the center of the vast room. The top of the chamber held a filmy layer of smoke, but most was being visibly drawn out through a dark doorway off the catwalk.
Helen drew close to the welcome warmth, peering around for her friend. In the shadows near a wall was a stainless steel table of the sort the monster favored, many unlit candles crowding the ledges provided by oversized dials. A few homemade items were scattered around, and some items obviously borrowed from elsewhere, but the creature was nowhere in evidence. A dark smudge on the floor near her foot caught her eye. It was writing, a message in charcoal.
GONE FoR SUPpLies
LoOK iN OfFiCe
"Where's the office?" asked Mena, noticing the writing.
"Hmmm..." Helen gazed around. "Whichever room is most accessible to the main controls, I'd guess." There was a door near the monster's table; a wide window in the wall beside the door, obviously for supervising operations in the work area. "That looks promising," she said, pointing.
She turned the steel doorknob, opening the door into darkness as Mena peered over her shoulder. The window was too dirty to allow enough light in to see. "We're gonna need that lantern. I can't see shit." Mena handed the lantern up.
Piles of stuff. That was the first impression, and the pertinent one. Clothes, purses, backpacks, transistor radios, blankets, bags of groceries, cd players, guns of every shape and size... there was even a broken oar leaning against the wall.
"Holy shit!" Mena blurted out.
"Bo-nan-za," was Helen's response, whispered through a grin. A storeroom of leftovers, stashed by a creature who had little need of it, but reasoned it might come in handy someday.
Mena grabbed a .44 pistol, opened the magazine. "Damn. Empty." She tucked it in her waistband anyway, and reached for another, a shotgun. A frown shadowed her face as she found it empty as well. So was a .38 automatic. And a .22 rifle. "What. The. Fuck."
Helen looked up from the slightly bloodstained sweats she was stepping into, having peeled off her sodden jeans.
"They're all empty. What is this, another sick joke? A fucking thousand guns and no ammo?" The petulant indignation on the girl's face challenged her aunt, in the absence of the real culprit. Helen bit down on her lip to keep from bursting out in laughter.
"Mena, this is all stuff taken from victims. Stuff they had on them."
"So...?"
"So, anybody with a gun on them most likely unloaded it into our friend."
Mena rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh, understanding.
"Don't worry," Helen said, eyeing the rifles. "Looks like there were hunters on the menu a few times, and they always carry ammo. There'll be some boxes of shells somewhere in here. Look for a vest with a lot of pockets."
They continued to rifle through the treasure trove eagerly, exclaiming in triumph whenever something of value was uncovered. Mena pulled out a large boombox and a small backpack full of cd's. "Are the batteries any good?" Helen asked, curious. The girl pressed a few buttons, and music blared from the machine. "Guess so..." she shouted as she turned the volume down, and peered at the display. "Not that good, though. I'll have to find some fresh ones soon."
"...ohhhh, yeah." Helen was bent over a crumbling paper grocery sack, from which deep clinking sounded. She straightened, holding a fifth of whiskey in one greedy hand . "Heh heh, we're talking fifty-year-old scotch here. And it was good scotch even back in the seventies." She smiled mischievously at the girl. "We got the makings of a party here - bonfire, booze, and boombox. See if any of that music is tolerable. I'll rustle us up some grub..." Bending over the grocery sack again, she pulled out a family pack of twinkies. Mena's face twisted into horrified disbelief, though Helen defended her find. "Hey, they never go bad."
"They were bad to start with, Aunt Hel."
"Fine, I'll eat the twinkies and you can have the granola shit in that hiker's fanny pack."
Half an hour later, the control room reverberated to the heavy beat of an old rap song. The two stomped around the dying fire, passing the scotch back and forth as they shouted along. "You never know where she'll come from - she walks softly but she carries a big gun." A strip of jerky hung from one corner of Helen's mouth, chewed like a cheroot since it was so dessicated as to be nearly inedible. Mena swung a huge revolver from one hand, empty but comforting just the same. Helen couldn't help laughing when she noticed the irony; her girl was doing anything but walking softly right now.
As the song continued, the music began pausing every few seconds. Mena snarled and leapt onto the boombox, jabbed at it furiously until she realized the cause of the disruption.
"Batteries ran out, Aunt Hel."
"Aw, fuck it. We still have voices." With that she leaned back and began a rising howl, letting it draw out into an ululation of savage delight. The echoes wove their way back through hidden paths for several seconds, both woman relishing the unexpected chorus.
Mena took a deep breath, her howl forming a low growl which rose in pitch and volume, becoming a cry of unrestrained rage. It was straight from the soul, and stiffened the hairs on the back of Helen's neck. And I was worried about this girl? The echoes rose and fell eerily through the building.
"You're a natural born screamer, you are." Helen said, nodding in approval. Mena beamed with wild pride.
A coal popped softly in the fire, then a distant howl reached them; a chorus of gutteral screeches and shrill bellows. Not one of their own echoes. It grated and faded while they stood listening; moments of silence elapsed before a raspy chuckle bubbled up as an encore. Helen blinked groggily and smiled like a moon emerging from behind a cloud. "He's back!"
Minutes later the creature slid into the room from the tunnels, dragging half of a corpse by the foot, grinning from ear to ear. A secret entrance...? Helen thought through her whiskey-washed fatigue.
The monster passed through the room and back out the door to the stairs, returning in a minute with arms full of miscellany. It made many trips back and forth, bringing more items in, and as Helen watched she felt the weight of exhaustion settle over her. It had been a very long day; so much had happened she could barely believe it. In a sleepy haze, she pulled several of the blankets into a pile.
Mena gave her a disparaging look. "What, giving up already?" though she appeared ready to fall over, herself.
Helen pulled her boots off wearily. "You've blown up two cars today, made a sword - hell, a whole armory, and gone on a hunt. You can't tell me you're not worn out too."
The girl sighed deeply, visibly surrendering to the total depletion of her energy. Body and mind were used up, like the batteries that had given out a few minutes ago. "Yeah, you're right. It just... it's all so exciting, I hate to waste any time on sleep."
"I know what you mean. But we humans can only go so far." Helen took a deep drink from a canteen of tinny-tasting water, tossed an armful of blankets at the girl's feet. "Here. Make yourself a nest and park your carcass." She laid back on a pillow of wadded up sweater. "Sweet dreams..." she mumbled as she slid into a deep sleep.
* * * * *
She walked down the tunnels, far down, knowing instinctively where she was headed. Down a few ladders, into the dark, but it wasn't too dark to see. Severed body parts appeared every so often, strewn along the sides of the tunnel, sparce at first, then more thickly as she walked on, until the floor of the tunnel was buried. A delicious aroma hung in the air, indefineable and complex, like an expensive incense from an ancient temple. A distant sound of screaming came from all directions, fading, changing; she was soothed by the musical harmonies. The body parts became even deeper, piled up high on both sides. They ended abruptly at a huge gap in the tunnel wall, where chunks had broken away to reveal a cave mouth. Inside nothing was visible - it was velvet black as though a curtain hung across the opening. She reached out a hand to feel that darkness...
End of Chapter 10
The Acolyte and illustrations Copyright 2007 by Mary Harris [aka redplanetes]
~plagarists will be flayed alive~
redplanet@trinidadusa.net
