William Meikle: The Hole

“You hit her?” Sarah said. The shock was clear in her voice.

Ellen Simmons laughed and turned back from where she was working at the stove.

“No, dear. He kissed me. And right properly at that. I’m staying kissed.”

Charlie looked sheepish.

“I didn’t have any other choice. It worked though. She got quiet right quick.”

He took a long drag from the cigarette, smiling to himself. Fred gave him a nudge.

“Okay, enough about your love life. How did you get out of there?”

“I’m an old hand in tunnels,” Charlie replied. “You know that. I kept going right and up, where we could, hoping to find a way to the surface. I was half expecting to find the same tracks you found. Instead, we found more death.”

He went quiet again, and when he spoke, it was in a whisper.

“Ain’t gonna be much of a rescue for us,” he said. “At least not for a while. We found what was left of the CDC folks in a new hole—a big hole. There were trucks and trailers piled over and into each other. And bodies. A lot of bodies.”

A thought suddenly struck Fred.

‘The injured? The ones that were with us last night?”

Charlie nodded, and a single tear ran from his left eye. He wiped it away angrily.

“Them too,” was all he said in reply before continuing.

“Ellen was a rock. She helped me search the wreckage. Ain’t no survivors. And there’s worse. Some of the bodies looked melted, as if something had been at them, eating them.”

Fred was remembering the burn Doc had taken outside the bar as Charlie went on.

“Anyway, to cut a long story short, I found the gun, the flares… and a radio. I hoped to get somebody up top, somebody to rescue us.”

“And you got us instead,” Fred finished. “Your run of good luck is holding.”

Charlie sucked the last smoke from the cigarette and ground it out underfoot.

“We can’t stay here,” he said. “Not for too long. If I know the military mind, they’ll be bombing the shit out of the town before too long. For all I know the order’s already given.”

“Surely that’s a good thing?” Sarah asked. “They’ll kill them all… all the bears.”

“You ain’t thought it through, girl. We’re sitting on the edge of the source of the problem. Where do you think them bombs will target?”

“And there’s something else we need to think about,” Doc said. She walked across the floor, skirting the edge of the pentagram, deliberately not stepping on the lines. She carried a battered leather journal.

“You need to hear this.”

“Food first,” Ellen Simmons said. “Ain’t no sense making decisions on an empty stomach.”

“I’m not sure I want to eat, after what I just read,” Doc whispered, but they all took a bowl of hash when offered, and there was silence as they ate.

“So, what’s so important, Doc?” Charlie asked as he put his bowl down. “I take it you’ve found something that explains the mumbo-jumbo?”

It was Big Bill who replied.

“Mumbo-jumbo is right. If I’d known what Hopman was up to, I’d have thrown him in jail years ago.”

“Charged with what?” Fred asked, pointing at the pentagram. “Being deluded ain’t a crime.”

“No,” Bill replied. “But murder is. And Charlie… you ain’t gonna like this. At least one of them skulls belongs to a man you knew.”

Fredisdead .

It came as a whisper, from some corner of the cave they couldn’t identify, and it wasn’t repeated, but all six of them were on edge as Doc started.

“This is a record,” she said, holding up the journal. “A record of a family obsession that goes back nearly a hundred and fifty years.”

“Them grooves in the floor are older than that,” Charlie replied. “I know my rocks.”

“I’ll get to that,” Doc said. “But first, there’s this.”

She read from the start of the journal.

“Two hundred dollars the land cost me; everything I had and then some. But it will be worth it if the Old One is there, where the Cree say he is buried. Riches and power beyond the ken of man—that’s what they say he promises. We’ll see. But first, I need to find the Gateway. Myth and legend is all I have to go on. But if it’s there, I’ll find it.”

Doc looked up.

“It goes on in that vein for a long time. That first entry is dated in the 1870s, and signed, George Hopman, who I think must be the great-grandfather. And twenty years later, he was still searching. He’d started digging by then; the first of what would be many mineshafts. There’s a lot of frustration in his writings. Until we get to the nineties. That’s when things start to get really strange.”

“He has started to whisper to me, in the shadows, in the dark. He asks for rituals, for obedience, for sacrifice. And he is getting stronger. I have sent to Boston for advice. Maybe the Brethren can help.”

“The Brethren?” Fred said, interrupting. “What’s that all about?”

Doc shrugged.

“I don’t know. I’m guessing at some kind of esoteric secret society… the late part of the nineteenth century was rife with them. But that’s not the important thing. Listen.”

“I still cannot find the Gateway, and fear I will be too infirm, and too short of sufficient funding, to complete the task. I leave this journal in the hands of my sons, to do with what they will, in the hope that they will complete the task and raise this family back up to where it once was.”

Doc looked up again.

“There’s a twenty-year gap. In the early twenties, it’s taken up again, in a different hand, signed James Hopman. I believe he might be the father of the one Charlie calls Old Hopman. And it’s with him that the mumbo - jumbo starts in earnest.

“The book is full of what I would have called nonsense before now; magical symbols, details of rituals performed and discarded as not working, recipes for potions and instructions for binding demons; the sort of thing I thought we’d left behind in the Dark Ages. And once again, the writer’s tone is one of frustration, over the course of many years. This is from the forties.”

Just as she bent her head to read again, Fred heard a whisper, from the alcove above the stove.

We are with Fred. Fred is dead.

None of the others showed any signs of hearing it, and once again it was not repeated, but he now only had half his attention on what Doc was saying, and he kept his gaze on the shadowy corners, ready to move at the merest hint of attack.

“Twenty years we’ve dug. He’s stronger than ever, and it takes the Saamara Ritual to keep him out of my head. But I ain’t been able to get him to do my bidding. Sacrifice is what he demands, and I’ve given him chickens, pigs, even cattle. But it ain’t enough. He wants more… more than I am prepared to give him. He says it will all be different when we find the Gateway. ”

Doc stopped.

“His father might have quailed at the demands. But Old Hopman wasn’t so squeamish. You might want to prepare yourself, Charlie. This will be rough on you. We arrive in the early seventies, and Old Hopman takes up the writing.”

“They found it last night. Fred made the breakthrough into the chamber, so it was only fitting that he was the first to be given enlightenment. Who knew a man had so much blood in him? The Old One was pleased though, and hungry. He took the other two, and then together we hid the way so that the morning shift would not find it. It’s mine now, and mine alone. He says it will not be long until he is strong enough to lift himself up, and that I will have to feed him. But I ain’t stupid. The Samaara Ritual keeps him down, and any food he gets will only be whatever I chose to dump down there. I aim to thrive, and I can only do that by using what he gives me, and keeping him in the pit. I ain’t about to go down in history as the man who brought hell on earth.”