Marc Zicree - Ghostlands

An accompaniment.

Low and throaty, and every bit as intricate and skilled. The two formed elaborate harmonies and counterpoint, danced and built upon each other, driving the flame back.

He could feel its hellish warmth retreating. He dared to glance behind him, saw the churning wall of rainbow fire folding back.

And impossibly, emerging out of it and walking toward them, a man …

Playing a saxophone.

They had reached the portal now and plunged through, into daylight and fresh air. Doc saw that they stood on a broad landing set high in the rock face, a twisted stairway descending from it.

They were all out on the landing now, the sax man included, a cool wind blowing their hair. From within the corridor, the flame still swirled and pursued them.

The sax man stopped his playing. “Close that door, sweet girl,” he said to Christina.

She glanced up at a boulder above the doorway, and with her mind brought it down. It landed with a resounding impact, squarely sealing the door.

The old bluesman smiled then, turned white, cataract eyes toward Enid Blindman. “Am I glad to see you, son.” His voice shook, and held such a depth of emotion that Doc realized there was something profound and unspoken, a mystery there.

As if remembering himself, Papa Sky addressed the others, adding, “Mighty glad to see the rest of you, too.”

Which was a figure of speech, of course, because of all of them, he alone could not see where they were.

On reflection, Doc couldn’t say whether that was a blessing or a curse.

But regardless, the old man could certainly hear it.

Above them, at the summit, a geyser of incalculable power shot up from the heart of the mountain through an opening that had undoubtedly been blasted out of the rock itself months ago, at the exact moment of the dark miracle called the Change, the Storm, the Megillah….

That miracle was clearly continuing. The dazzling geyser of energy pierced up into the sky, into twisting, undulating black clouds that rippled out to the horizon in all directions. A reverse whirlpool, a centrifuge throwing off power to the four corners of the world.

And it was clear, too, that the first eruption of this force must have been horrendous, for the rock face all about them had melted and reformed, into appalling, grotesque new shapes.

Even so, they could all still recognize the summit nearest them for what it had once been, and at last they knew exactly where they were.

“My God,” murmured Larry Shango, and it occurred to Doc that he had never heard the man so shaken.

Once, the massive portraits had been distinct and recognizable, shaped lovingly with jackhammers and dynamite, each grandly resplendent in their various accoutrements of powdered wig, beard, pince-nez….

But since then, the four gigantic stone heads had melted, oozed together, lost all definition as individuals, and resolidified into one loathsome visage that was a tumble of gaping mouths and horror-filled eyes.

“Mount Mushmore, Goldie would have said,” Colleen remarked, and there was loss and pain in her voice.

Helping the old blind man along, they made their way down the stairs and onto the rubble field, descending to the sacred Black Hills beyond.

“Them’s some powerful riffs you got there, Old Man.”

The first words Enid Blindman uttered once the group of them had cleared the shadow of the ruined, disfigured monument were addressed to Papa Sky. The next were to no one in particular.

“This is one scary-ass place.”

True enough on both counts, Mama Diamond reflected. But the statement of more burning urgency was clearly the latter.

Because everything was bound and determined to kill them.

As they struggled their way along the melted and reformed face of the mountain and down the rubble field (the stones of which still bore the jackhammer gouges made when Rushmore was first carved, sixty years ago and more), great ragged boulders tore clear and pounded after them. Blasted, burned vestiges of ponderosa pine came alive and snatched at them with blackened branches like spearpoints.

Her companions fought back the onslaught, shattering rock and shearing wood with light, and sound, and blades of keenest metal.

But the party was just getting started.

It’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature….

Only this wasn’t Mother Nature. No, she and Mama Diamond had enjoyed quite a cordial relationship over the last seven decades, as Mama sought out a good deal of the fine lady’s bounty, prying it lovingly from earth and stone and riverbed.

No, if Mama Diamond was to understand the information Cal Griffin and Agent Shango had shared with her, this was Dr. Marcus Sanrio at work-Sanrio and whatever else held sway there inside that mountain.

Mama Diamond had thought until now that dragons and their little gray workforce were about the worst this world had to offer.

Old Woman, you had no idea….

They’d reached a roughly level area now, a broad expanse of cracked concrete with a big oozy bowl shape at the center. Mama Diamond saw that it had once been an amphitheater, before-as with the mountain itself-it had melted like an ice-cream cone and then resolidified.

Beyond the flat expanse lay a collapsed structure that Mama supposed had been an information center, a museum and a gift shop, but that now was so much fused wreckage of stonework, girders and glass. And out past that, rows of scorched granite stumps that (she knew from photos Katy and Samantha had sent from their vacation back in ’98) had once been tall, ordered pillars like something out of that movie she’d seen on public TV, what was it called?

Triumph of the Will…

There’d been a triumph of the will here, all right, but it wasn’t the U.S. government or Nazis, or anything particularly human anymore.

The shards of glass and tortured sharp metal and smaller hunks of rubble quivered and launched themselves careening at them. Christina screwed up her face in concentration, extending her forcefield to encircle Mama Diamond and the rest. Enid and Papa Sky played duets for all they were worth, while everyone huddled inside the blazing halo.

“We are still within the Source Project’s sphere of influence,” commented Doc.

“I’d say you’re not gonna lose any bonus points on that one, Viktor,” said Colleen.

“What the hell is the Source Project doing inside Mount Rushmore?” Howie piped up.

“Originally Rushmore was conceived as a far grander project,” said Cal. “The Presidents were supposed to be full figures, not just faces, and there was going to be a huge museum and repository carved out of the inside of the mountain.”

“How in the name of fried green tomatoes do you know all that?” asked Colleen.

Cal shrugged. “Tina did a social studies paper once. Anyway, supposedly all they ever actually blasted out was the Hall of Records.”

“That tunnel with the porcelain plaques,” said Doc.

“Yes,” Cal answered. “But in actuality they must’ve carved out the rest of the mountain secretly…and put in the Source Project.”

“Let’s hear it for American ingenuity,” said Colleen.

“How far to the periphery?” Cal asked Shango.

“I’d reckon fifty miles, as the crow flies.”

“I hate to break this to you, Larry, but we’re not crows.” Colleen had to shout now over the din of the rocks and glass and metal crashing against the barrier. “More like paper targets, or soon to be chalk outlines.”

“Really, Colleen,” Doc chided, “I wish you would try to be more positive.” His eyes smiled, and Mama Diamond saw some of the tension ease out of Colleen’s shoulders as she accepted the taunt.