From Night On: Sacred Grounds

Chapters 7-8

Chapter 7:

Storming the Castle

"What do you need, my friend?" Marcus responded.

"I need you to get to me as quickly as possible," Terry answered in a panic. " They have my dad and a group of refugees and they're demanding that I turn myself in."

"Of course," Marcus began, "I will be there right away, but I'm not sure what help I will be."

"I'm making a plan, but this is going to be dangerous," Terry said as he felt the guilt of almost pulling his friend into a situation without full disclosure.

"Yes," Marcus responded, "we must make certain not to jeopardize the lives of those held against their will."

"That goes without saying," Terry responded, "but there's more." The image of the fallen undead flashed before his eyes. "They can kill us and I don't know how."

"Do you mean that they have the power to end us and our cemetery brethren?" Marcus asked with some surprise.

"Yes," Terry answered, rubbing his face as his mind raced over what he could possibly do to save the people without endangering more. "There's a man here," he explained, "and I can't describe him. When I saw him, there was this sense of dread and darkness all around him. I felt fear just by looking at him."

"My friend," Marcus said, "you sound scared at this very moment, so allow me to rendezvous with you and we, together, can approach this calmly."

"Thank you, Marcus," Terry answered. "Can you borrow a GPS from someone there?"

Marcus, still unfamiliar with modern technology or the acronyms associated with them, instantly turned to the others in the room. "Could I possibly borrow a Gee-Pee-esS from someone?" Terry heard through the phone. There was some slight commotion as Dr. Bond handed Marcus her cellphone and began to explain the tech. "This can tell me where anything is on the earth?!?" Marcus responded in shock and excitement. "My goodness!"

"Terry," Dr. Bond called out, "what are your coordinates?"

Dr. Bond took the information and put it into her phone, teaching Marcus how to use the app, so he could use it when he needed to. "Well, I AM a bullfrog whistling Dixie. Terry, what are you doing so far north? Never you mind. I'm sure you'll fill me in at a more convenient time." There were some words spoken just to where Terry couldn't hear them. "WE will be right there."

"We?" Terry blurted out. "Who's 'we'?"

There was no response. Marcus had ended the call and whomever was included in "we" was on their way. Hours passed as Terry formulated his plan. He walked and paced as he ran over the details he knew. No matter what plan he thought of, it would all have to come down to speed: hit hard, hit fast, and then run. The more he thought about the possibility of failure, the more worried he became about the others, but that only strengthened his resolve to create a foolproof plan.

Here directed his panic into a calculated rage as he dug into the dirt to create a model of the compound. As before, his fingers sank into the ground effortlessly, but, as he tinkered with the dirt to create his diorama, the earth itself appeared to move. Not just to the pushing and digging with his fingertips, but to his will. Small grains of dirt and tiny pebbles moved before they grazed his skin and placed themselves as his mind imagined the sculpture. Terry became wrapped in the fascination of what was transpiring and, before he knew it, he had created a masterful, to scale replica of what he saw and more. The buildings within the walls of the compound were not defined, but their foundations were. The places where they rested on the earth were clearly lined.