“And for once, I’m with Ellen,” Janet said in reply. “We’ve got to keep going forward.”
Charlie looked to Fred, who in turn looked to Sarah. The girl nodded.
“We girls need to stick together. Onward and upward.”
Bill laughed.
“You heard the womenfolk, Charlie. Lead on.”
Charlie threw Bill a salute.
“Just be ready to fall back if I say so,” the older man replied. “This ain’t the time for heroics, and I ain’t in a hurry to see any more dead folks.”
Without another word Charlie turned and started up the tunnel. Janet was surprised to see Ellen Simmons follow him, almost close enough to touch.
Something has happened there.
She wasn’t given time to think about it. Charlie led them into another open chamber. This one was a storeroom, and one that had been in use up until recently. There were dozens of large barrels of water, stacked containers of gasoline, and boxes of canned and dried food.
“What is this shit?” Fred Grant asked in a whisper.
Charlie turned back.
“I told you. Old Man Hopman had a bunker down here. And it looks like the family kept it stocked over the years since then. I guess paranoia runs in the family.”
Or madness.
She didn’t say it, for just then the chant rose again, coming out of the only other exit from the storeroom. Heavy footsteps, many of them, came closer at a run.
“Weemean.”
“Here we go,” Charlie said. “Get ready to run.” He stepped forward and flooded the tunnel ahead with light. As the first demon appeared he gripped the string on one of the flares, but didn’t pull it. More demons joined the first, then more still until a mass of them started to flood from the tunnel mouth.
“For God’s sake, Charlie!” Ellen Simmons shouted. The old man grinned, blew her a kiss, and pulled the string, in the same movement lobbing the flare into the approaching creatures.
Janet remembered to look away and close her eyes. She still got a bright yellow flash against her eyelids and a blast of heat on her face. There were no screams; no sound from the attackers. But when Janet opened her eyes, there was only an expanding puddle of gloop on the floor.
“Run!” Charlie shouted, and headed for the tunnel. The others didn’t need a second telling. They followed the old man, splashing though the remains underfoot.
They didn’t get far. The tunnel took a sharp turn ten yards in, but even before they reached the turning they heard the chant coming down from above them, and more heavy footsteps on the rock. Charlie strode forward, pulled the string on the last flare and lobbed it round the corner. He turned back almost immediately.
“There’s no way out that way. Back the way we came. It’s our only hope.”
They retreated back as far as the cavern with the smoking pit, only to find that way too was blocked, as more demons streamed out to the tunnel they needed to take.
Charlie immediately moved to the only option available to them; the entrance leading to the iron door.
“What if it’s locked?” Ellen Simmons said.
‘Then we fight,” Charlie said grimly.
“Whatever you’re going to do, make it fast,” Bill said, as the six of them crammed into the space in front of the large door. Bill kept his weapon trained on the opening. The chant from beyond got louder again.
“Weemean.”
Charlie turned the handle on the door. Iron creaked and complained, and for a long second Janet thought it wasn’t going to open; then Charlie put his shoulder into it and the door swung open. They all but fell inside, slamming the door shut behind them just as the first of the demons slammed against it from the outside.
“Light. We need light,” Janet shouted.
Bill obliged by lighting up the door. A demon showed its face in the portal window and just as quickly dropped away as the beam hit it.
“Got it,” Charlie shouted. There was the sound of a switch being flicked, and suddenly everything got so bright that Janet’s eyes took seconds to adjust. When they did, she got her first look at Hopman’s bunker.
When Charlie had mentioned a bunker, Janet’s first thought was of a concrete subterranean dwelling, like a nuclear shelter, with maybe some retro-styled fittings from the Cold War era, but at least with some creature comforts.
What was in front of her was far from modern. It was little more than a modified cave, lit by neon tubes overhead. There were several alcoves; one with a camp bed, one with a basic stove and sink arrangement, and one with a writing desk and bookcase. But the floor space was totally dominated by the carving etched directly into the rock. She had to stand back to get a sense of what she was seeing, and her heart sank as she understood.
More of Bill’s demonic shit.
It was a pentagram, straight out of a Hollywood fantasy of satanic ritual, a five-pointed star with two external circles carved in a Cyrillic script Janet couldn’t read. Skulls, all too human, sat at each point of the star, and thick wax candles sat in the valleys between the points. The whole diagram was some ten feet across.
“What the hell is this?” Bill said.
“Hell is the right word,” Charlie replied, and spat on the floor. “Looks like old man Hopman found what he was looking for. I guess we know where he got his money.”
Janet looked over at the older man.
“You’re serious?”
Charlie didn’t smile back.
“After what we’ve seen these past few days? Are you not?”
He’s got a point.
“First things first,” Charlie said. “We’ve got light, for now. Let’s see what else Hopman has squirreled away down here.”
Over the next five minutes they found that they wouldn’t starve; Hopman, the younger, had kept a well-stocked larder behind the stove, mainly canned and dried foods and a large supply of coffee. Ellen Simmons surprised them by taking charge of the stove.
“The menfolk need to be fed,” she said, and smiled, straight at Charlie.
Something definitely happened there.
Fred Grant and the girl had already appropriated the camp bed, sitting side by side and sharing a cigarette. Bill and Charlie were off in the farthest corner of the cave, checking out the generator and ensuring the area was secure, leaving Janet feeling like the fifth wheel on the cart.
She headed for the writing desk, more in curiosity than any search for information. An old habit led her straight to a perusal of the books on the shelves at the back of the alcove. The titles meant nothing to her—The Mysteries of the Wurm, The Twelve Concordances of the Red Serpent, The Sigsand mss and many others; esoteric tomes from a bygone age that should have stayed gone.
The writing desk itself was a handsome piece of furniture of some vintage, the sort of thing Janet might wish to have in her own home, had it not been so obviously infested with mildew and rot. There were only two things under the roll-top lid—a ballpoint pen, and a thick leather-bound journal, filled with scrawled writing in several distinct hands. She started reading a passage near the middle of the book.
“Still no joy. I’ve had them digging twenty-four hours a day. I know it’s there. The Cree said it was, and I’ve felt the power for myself. Last night I performed the Saamara Ritual in the barn out back. The Old One came to me again, asking for release. He promises much, but that will all be for nothing if I do not find the Gateway. It is there. It must be there.”
It was dated: August 23, 1973.
She skipped to the last entry, a crabbed, hard-to-read paragraph in a tight-spaced hand.