I Am Chosen

Tremors

Down, down, down they went.

The air took on a weight, a stifling heaviness that hampered Hollis's movements. He felt as if he struggled against something that wasn't there. And then, there was the dizziness as he descended backward. More than once he had stumbled and nearly fallen on his ass. To his left, he could hear J.D.'s labored breathing. He turned to see the younger man's exhalations fogging before his face, as were Hollis's own.

Looking over his shoulder, Hollis could see that J.D's light barely illuminated five feet ahead as they finally reached level ground. Here a constant, breathy keening sound grated against his ears. This was as far as he and Kacey had gotten their first time around; this was where he had been forced to turn back. Hollis maintained a mental vigilance, wary of any intrusion on his psyche, but none came. The quartz seemed to be working its own particular kind of magic.

They continued on, until the spools finally ran out. There they stopped and began new spools, intertwining the old wire with the new. Each spool was five hundred feet. Hollis wondered how much further they would have to go. As they resumed their journey, the air had turned even chillier; a pervasive cold that cut straight to the bone.

The earthen corridors became more cramped, the walls rougher. The high-pitched gusting gave Hollis a pounding headache. His muscles had begun to stiffen and he was prepared to tell J.D. that they should stop and rest when the other man said: "Here we go, we've intersected with the mines."

The passage they were in connected to a proper mining tunnel-old, rotting timber lined the walls and ceiling as J.D. lowered the wheelbarrow over a small ledge-about six inches-onto the floor of the new passage. Hollis heard a splash, and as he backed up and stepped down, his shoes encountered about an inch or so of water. There were rails and ties as well, illuminated by J.D.'s flashlight when he held it low. The tracks ran in the center of the floor and would have been used by the mining cars to haul coal. "This way," J.D. said, leading them splashing through the gangway, around a turn, then around another. Finally he stopped before a side passage and said. "I think this is it; the first tunnel leading to the face where the miners stopped."

Even as he said this, another tremor hit.

Thus far, there had been no complications. The man who had been Hanson looked once again to the Twilight Convocation. Their voices rose steadily in pitch and volume, their bodies swaying, growing more and more emaciated; cloudy eyes now staring out from sunken sockets. With each passing second, their true and only purpose was being fulfilled. Beneath his feet, the structure shivered.

The awakening was nearly upon them.

The entirety of Kacey's surroundings shook, and dusty particles descended into her flashlight beam. She grabbed her radio and hit the talk button. "Guys, update," she said.

For a moment there was only static. Then, a voice. J.D.'s.

"I think we've found it," he said. "Hang in there."

They had proceeded past two small side alcoves (five-feet deep, and empty) to where the passage simply ended at what looked like a wall. J.D. lowered the handles of the wheelbarrow and stepped around. As he approached the end, stepping over and around black stones of varying sizes, his flashlight beam dimmed. Holding it just inches away, the glow barely illuminated what appeared to be not so much stone, but more of a roughly textured hide.

"Don't touch it," Hollis advised, standing sideways and still holding the spools.

J.D. realized that with his other hand he had reached out to do just that. Withdrawing his fingers, he went and retrieved a five-foot section of rebar. He had brought the generator and drill, still plugged in, prepared to drill into what he had figured would be solid stone, but now...

He held one end of the bar and with the other, he prodded the "wall." It gave, just slightly, like a leather seatback. If this thing had been "stone" or at least stone-like at one time, which J.D. suspected was true, it had now become... something else. He unslung the rifle from his shoulder and walked it over to Hollis. "Keep watch," he said, then returned to the wheelbarrow and grabbed a second, smaller sledgehammer than the one they had left with Kacey. "I think I can just pound the rebar in."

Hollis set down the spools, thinking about the water only at the last second. The way he understood it, there would be no electricity anyway, until Kacey pounded the rebar on her end. And even when there was, J.D. had said that it was very low. What was important wasn't the electricity itself; it was the power of the quartz channeled through the copper.

Or at least that was his theory.

Hollis stood and held out his flashlight toward the passage entrance, its beam falling dead just a few feet away. The chill air had invaded his core, and he tried without success to suppress shivers throughout his body. Behind him, over the screeching of the wind that didn't exist, he heard J.D. pound on the rebar.

The tunnel shook again.

With each strike, the passage trembled. And the wailing wind rose in pitch.

"Bring me a spool," J.D. yelled.

Hollis complied. J.D. cut the copper with wire snips and wound it around the bar. "Done! Next one," he said.

They made their way out to the main passage and down the gangway to the final tunnel, J.D. pushing the wheelbarrow and Hollis playing out the last spool of copper. They entered and passed two more side niches which J.D. determined to be empty, and here, once again, they found the tunnel's end.

J.D.'s fingers had begun to freeze. He flexed them as he examined the second wall. It was similar to the first-a kind of skin that resembled whale hide but far coarser. Once again J.D. retrieved rebar. As he went to place one end against the material, it shifted just slightly. The ground beneath his feet rocked; water rippled and he barely caught his balance. With renewed determination, he put one end to the hide and began striking the other with his hammer, flashlight clamped between his teeth. And all the while he noted a parallel in his physical exertions to those of Van Helsing pounding a stake through a vampire's heart. He tried to remember: did Dracula die in the end of Bram Stoker's book? Or did he kill the heroes?

The entirety of their surroundings rumbled and shuddered. J.D. drove the bar to a satisfactory depth and turned around. Removing the flashlight from his mouth he yelled "Ready for the last spool" to Hollis.

The older man had been facing away, holding the mag light and rifle toward the entrance. He set the light down, turned and knelt to grab the spool one-handed. As he did so, a black, multi-limbed form descended silently in the faint flashlight glow.

"Behind you!" J.D. shouted, even as rock and pebble exploded from the alcove halfway between them on the left. J.D. pointed his own light and could barely make out the form of what he thought to be Declan Crowe, emerging and charging straight toward him.

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We're closing in on the final chapters! Thanks everyone for sticking with my story; it truly means a lot!!