Mystery at MacMaster ch.15

Author's Note: It's time for something we've been building toward for a while now. With Swim Camp having offered a long departure from the "Mystery" part of Mystery at MacMaster, it's back with a bang.

I don't want to give anything away, so without further ado....

[story] [more tags below]

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Another week passed after swim camp came to an end, and for the teen conspirators who’d rallied around Millie Nowak’s vanishing, it had proven to be a fruitful one. As planned, hand-held cameras had been rigged with external batteries and hidden carefully around the house at the address Heather Edwards had discovered. The place itself was an unnerving combination of ominous, and deceptively ordinary – a white two-story house in the suburbs, with a garage and a dark green roof. The lawn was ill-tended but not to a distracting degree, and the exterior was otherwise non-descript; no children’s toys or bikes outside, a trash can that never seemed to fill or empty, nothing. Every night, at 8pm, a black sedan pulled into the garage, the lights would come on inside the house, and at 11pm, they would turn off. Every morning, at 12pm, the same car would drive away. Movement was rarely seen through the windows, and none of the footage ever showed who was entering or exiting the vehicle.

Over the week, text messages were exchanged among the young detectives, going over what information had been gathered, gradually trying to come up with a plan. As time went on, though, that plan grew ever more straightforward – they weren’t going to gather any more information without entering the building, and the window within which to do so was extremely obvious. They had eight full hours, quite consistently, between when the car departed and arrived once more… eight hours to the minute.

Saturday afternoon, then. Broad daylight – perhaps not the best time to carry out an operation like this, but there was little other choice. Best to have as much time as possible. The girls then split into two groups, Teams A and B (or, as Kora called them, Team Noonshadow and Team Falconeye), one that would do the infiltrating, and one that would stay behind, surveil the house, and run interference should any become necessary. Team A consisted of Kora, Seneca, and Mica, while Team B consisted of Piper, Luiza, and Heather Edwards. Not perfect all-star lineups, perhaps, but they’d have to do.

“Alright, I scraped together some money to buy us these walkie-talkies, but I only have a single set,” Piper explained as the six girls congregated at two cars, Luiza’s and Piper’s. “So be sure to hold tight to the one I give you.”

“Why walkies? Don’t we all have cell phones?” Mica frowned. “Sort of seems like an unnecessary complication.”

Piper shrugged, handing one of the walkie-talkies to Kora. “Just covering every base. There are plenty of ways to disrupt cell phone signals, and communication’s gonna be key, here. I’ll stay on the walkie, while Luiza keeps an eye on the cameras, and Heather Edwards plays interference against any cops who get suspicious, since she has the most experience dealing with them.”

“While we…?” Mica attempted.

“We infiltrate directly,” Kora nodded. “Break into the building, see if we can find that book… and any sign of Millie.”

“And why am I specifically part of Team A again–?”

“–Team Noonshadow–” Kora insisted.

“–Right, why am I on Team Noonshadow?” Mica looked nervous, reasonably so. “I get you and Seneca are more athletic, but I’m just….”

“You’re the only other one of us who’s seen how to stunlock the old folks,” Kora said. “We need someone who’s seen how it works, in case things go really bad down there.”

“Great,” Mica let out a dejected sigh, “I was hoping things might go really bad.”

Heather Edwards crossed her arms across her chest, gazing out at the rest of the gathering through the shadowy discs of her sunglasses. “Alright, it’s now or never. You know your roles. Seneca, did you bring the… asset?”

“You mean the big iron? Yeah, I got it. Grabbed this too,” Seneca reached under her short leather jacket, withdrawing a knife and tossing it towards Kora. It was of straightforward construction, a weathered-looking Ka-Bar that would serve as well as a tool as it would a weapon. “In case shit goes south, you feel.”

“Right,” Kora inhaled uneasily as she took the knife. The weight of it in her hands made all of this feel more real; this was really, actually happening. “How much damage you think this bad boy does? 1d4? 1d6?”

Ignoring the ill-timed joke, Seneca sat up off of the hood of Piper’s car, starting to head in the direction of the house – or rather, the alley behind the house that had been scouted out ahead of time. There was a narrow path that could be used to get to the next block, offering a convenient means of getting behind the house while out of sight of the main road. Letting out a sigh of disappointment, Kora followed along behind, then an ever more hesitant Mica behind her.

“Testing, testing, this is Falconeye,” Piper called in over the walkie-talkie once Team A was out of earshot, assuring that the device worked as planned. Her voice was someone tinny and strained through the little hand-held talkbox, but clear enough to be heard.

“10-4 on that test, Falconeye, this is Noonshadow testing back, over.” Kora said back through her own walkie, visibly having more fun with this than she should.

“Confirmed, Noonshadow.” With their connection established, Kora, Seneca, and Mica continued to creep closer to the building’s rear side. There was a back porch that had a door of its own (and, according to the cameras, never saw any use), making it the perfect point of entry.

“Yo, one of you give me your shirt,” Seneca said as the three (somewhat stealthily) approached the back door, which had a sizeable window at its upper end.

“Aww, man, I like this shirt,” Kora griped quietly, looking down at the sleeveless black Masters of the Universe shirt she had on.

Mica rolled her eyes in response, slipping out of her little green blouse, under which she still had a white undershirt. “Here. Try not to ruin it.”

“No promises,” Seneca shot a smirk back, wrapping the blouse around one hand and promptly ramming her fist through the window, reaching through to deftly unlock the door. “Not my first rodeo. Here ya go.” The teen delinquent tossed the shirt, now torn and embedded with bits of broken glass, back to Mica, who let out a sigh of disappointment as she tied it around her waist.

With the door unlocked and opened, the three girls slipped inside, keeping their eyes out for anything suspicious, or… anything at all, really. The room they entered from the porch appeared to be a large, spacious kitchen, one that had seen no use whatsoever in who could say how long. The sink and counters were empty, as were the cupboards, and inspecting the refrigerator revealed a single, opened box of baking soda, and nothing more. A thin layer of grimy dust coated everything, from the dark, slate gray tiles of the floor, to the mottled tan of the countertops.

“Not, uh… not foodies, I guess,” Mica said, audibly uncomfortable. The bad feeling bubbling up in her stomach was growing stronger and stronger, forming into a tight knot of genuine regret. If she’d just kept what she’d learned to herself, she could be sipping daquiris next to a pool somewhere, instead of… this.

“It’s like nobody’s ever lived here at all,” Seneca confirmed, peeking from the kitchen into the living room, which showed an equal state of disuse. A hideous green couch, covered in plastic. Wood panel flooring, caked in dust. A bookshelf with no books on it, an entertainment stand stationed near a clump of loose wires, but no television in sight. “Like someone bought the place but never furnished it. Shit.”

“Don’t hear anything, I guess that’s good,” Kora piped up. “Oh, check this out – the carpet’s a little darker heading out from the door, like a trail!”

“Right, clearly someone’s going in and out, so they must be going somewhere. They don’t just disappear.” Seneca made her way toward the garage door, crouching near it and trying to make out exactly where the trail of darkened carpet led. “And I’m really glad you pointed this out so I didn’t have to, there’s no way I’m opening myself up to an ‘indian tracker’ joke.”

“Wait – you’re native american?” Mica blurted out. “I always thought you were like… I dunno, hawaiian or something.”

Seneca furrowed her brow. “Honestly, I’m surprised you’re not further off. Vanessa thought I was italian at first.” Shaking her head, she let out a muted chuckle. “No, I’m cree. And…” she pointed a finger towards a hallway at the living room’s east side, “we’re headed that way.”

Along the hallway were three doors. One led to a supply closet, which was empty. One led to a bathroom, which was so unused the toilet didn’t even have water in it. The last led to what appeared to be a master bedroom, though it was quite bare beyond a single impressive decoration at its center – a massive hole, around eight feet in diameter. It wasn’t smooth by any means, its edges ragged and misshapen, bits of tattered carpet hanging down in shredded strands. There was no light coming from below, but a rickety metal ladder offered means of descent into the darkness.

“Alright, no, no fucking way, I’m out, fuck this,” Mica threw her hands up, backing away, but not letting her eyes leave the pit. “Nowak’s gone, we don’t need to know why, right? That can’t be that important?”

“It’s important to me,” Seneca responded, reaching into her jacket to withdraw the gun she’d bought, a Taurus 44 that looked absolutely monstrous in her hands. “I’m going down. You want out, run back to the others, I ain’t gonna stop you.” Without another word, she lowered herself onto the ladder, starting to carefully climb down while Kora fumbled around for a flashlight.

“For real, if you don’t wanna come, you don’t have to,” Kora followed up, a bit more gently, clicking on her shiny metal flashlight and shining it down into the hole, revealing that it wasn’t as deep as it might have been, only about one floor down. “But… yeah. I’m going too.” She continued to shine the light for Seneca until the other girl reached the bottom, then went down after her, leaving Mica alone and anxious in the bedroom.

Mica squirmed nervously for a few moments. She didn’t have a real duty or responsibility to participate here, but she had promised she would. That, and… her thoughts wandered back to that night with Mrs. Vinke, the way she’d frozen, the way she’d reset. Something wrong, something unnatural, was happening, and it would keep happening if someone didn’t stop it. Finally, she swallowed hard, and raised her voice as loud as she was comfortable with: “W-… w-wait for me! I’m coming down!”

A few moments of cautious descent later, all three girls were on the ground floor of this lower level. It was more cavern than basement, clearly not a part of the house’s original floorplan, though the means with which it had been dug were unclear – the walls were rough, roots and stones protruding from bare earth, and the ceiling had been reinforced with decaying lumber. The floor, though, was smooth concrete, extensively discolored by stains of brown, red, and dark green, with streaks and grooves suggesting that things had been moved or dragged along it, likely with some regularity. The prior silence, too, was now dispelled, with a low, rhythmic thumping felt under the girls’ feet, barely audible somewhere in the distance.

“Alright, we’re veering into horror movie territory a lot faster than I expected,” Kora breathed, drawing the knife Seneca had given her and clutching it tightly, aiming her flashlight ahead with her other hand. There was only one way to go, forward, the cavern leading deeper and deeper into the darkness. “Guess we, uh… guess we go on? Seneca, you wanna take point, since you have the… gun, and everything.”

“Right, yeah,” Seneca nodded, then looked uneasy for a moment. “Skoden.” She was brave, sure, and undoubtedly the person here who’d gotten into the most scrapes, fights, and conflicts. But there was a difference between defending some kid from a bully or running away from cops, and walking down a long, unlit cavern beneath the earth, at the end of which was… well, who knew what. Something fucked up was happening here, something dangerous, and something very much unknown.

Nevertheless, Seneca steeled herself and mustered her courage, aiming the revolver forward and beginning to slowly advance. The cavern continued for some time, seeming to very gradually descend, that rhythmic sound growing… not louder, but deeper, more a sensation than a sound at all. A beat, a pulse. Something from far beneath them, but that they were growing ever closer to.

“Holy shit – light!” Mica said in a frantic hush, pointing ahead from just behind Kora. Indeed, the thin white glow of Kora’s flashlight was no longer the only source of illumination – coming from somewhere ahead was a wild, orange light, licking and ebbing, creating lurid, shifting shadows against the increasingly rough texture of the cavern walls. “Not a very… friendly light, but….”

“Yeah, more of a ‘why do I hear boss music’ kind of light,” Kora said with a grimace. Taking a deep breath, she brought the walkie-talkie to her mouth. “Falconeye, this is Noonshadow, do you copy?”

A moment passed. Then, Piper’s crackled voice, “Copy Noonshadow, this is Falconeye. Where are you?"

“Tunnel beneath the house. It’s deep, hundreds of feet. Firelight up ahead. If I don’t say anything in like, ten minutes or so, well…” Kora took a deep breath. “Call the fuckin’ Ghostbusters, I guess.”

There was another moment of silence, then Piper responded, her voice sounding… resigned. “Copy that. Over and out.”

“You two done with your little XCOM roleplay or can we get on with gettin’ ourselves killed?” Seneca said, uneasy.

“Hey, I thought I was supposed to be the one that makes the video game references,” Kora frowned, but then nodded, fingers tightening around the knife she was still clutching tightly to. “But… yeah. Let’s do this, I guess.”

Kora switched off the flashlight as the three moved, quietly and solemnly, forward toward the firelight. The tunnel angled slightly, a slight curve obstructing their view of the imminent chamber until they were ultimately upon it – but the sight of that chamber made it clear just how far down into the earth the tunnel had brought them.

Before the three girls was a… space. Not something that could be classified as a room, or even truly a cave. It was monstrous in size, perhaps half the length of a football field and vaguely round, its unworked floor flat, and ceiling domed. It was the ceiling that made it feel so utterly massive, nearly a hundred feet in height, and only barely sufficient to contain the chamber’s primary features – five pillars of outstanding size and implausible material, appearing at a glance to be wrought from a twisted black coral, their ‘roots’ still buried deep within the earth beneath them. They were arranged in a vaguely circular pattern, with four nearer to one another and the fifth somewhat separate, and within the shape they formed was a stone dais that appeared to have been raised from the ground itself, dirt still clinging to its sides. In a larger ring surrounding the five pillars were large, standing torches, their fires casting the light that the girls had seen from the tunnel – and within the pillars, surrounding and facing the dais, were several hunched figures in white robes, their hoods obscuring any sort of identity or even shape.

“Holy fucking shit,” Mica breathed, eyes widening as she tried to take in more detail, but the sheer size of the place made it hard to take in much more – in the distance, the entrances to more tunnels could be spotted dotting the cavernous walls, implying that this place lay somewhere beneath the city itself, and its tendrils reached into many different parts of town. “What do we do, what the fuck do we do?!”

Seneca drew the hammer back on her pistol, taking in a deep breath. “Well, the whole point of this was to get some answers, right? So… let’s start asking questions.” Without another word, and with the gun still pointed forward, she started making her way into the cavernous opening, directly toward the strange dais and those cloistered around it. “Alright, you shit-asses! Someone start explaining what’s going on before one of you Klan-lookin’ fucknuts eats lead!”

“Oh, fuck,” Kora whispered, keeping close behind the gun-toting bad girl (with Mica trailing behind her), nervous but alert. The robed figures – of which there looked to be five, one for each of the dark coral spires – turned away from the center of the dais to look toward the three intruders, and it was only now that their not-fully-human nature seemed clear. Each of them was hunched over, hands barely visible beneath voluminous sleeves, though crooked fingers could be seen to be tipped with long, curled claws.

“The young come to us,” one of them whispered.

“They offer themselves willingly,” another said.

“Take of the young.”

“Take of the young.”

“You come to learn,” the closest of them crooned, their voice raspy and thick, like they were choking on wet sand with each word. “Let us teach you.” While all five were encroaching, abandoning the dais, the one in the forefront was the first to be obviously aggressive, lunging toward Seneca with both withered arms extended – an act that earned them a single shot to the chest, then a second, each round staggering the robed entity. It stumbled back, dark crimson blooming out from the front of the white fabric, but the creature didn’t fall. “You think this will save you, child? That striking any of us down will change what is soon to come? You think that the life of one girl is where any of this began, or where any of it will end?”

Seneca swallowed down a lump in her throat, hands trembling on her revolver as the entity lowered its hood, the other four lowering theirs in unison. Each were only vaguely individual, not visibly male or female, and only fully human once upon a time – thorough mutilation had taken their eyes, ears, noses, and lips, their grim removals far distanced from the practiced hand of a surgeon. No, these were the work of an unsteady grasp, though whether the ultimate culprit was the mad certainty of self-sacrifice or the brutal carving of an uncaring malefactor remained unknown.

“Maybe not,” the waver in Seneca’s voice diminished as she summoned a second wind of iron will. “But I know where you end.” She adjusted her aim, putting a third bullet in the disfigured assailant’s head – a bullet that finally caused it to fall, silent, to the unworked earth floor.

With the foremost of the five creatures fallen, the other four lunged into action, the one farthest back drawing an item from the top of the stone dais: a sword. As they attacked with claws (or blade) extended, the three girls scattered, Seneca trying to line up a fatal shot while Kora ducked toward the dais, and Mica tumbling backwards, far more eager to flee than to enter the fray – she was unarmed and unprepared for their amateur sleuthing to turn so suddenly into a melee.

Seneca fired another three bullets towards one of faceless creatures, the last three she had loaded, missing two but landing the third right where it needed to go, getting the headshot and reducing the number of cultists from five to three, one of which now had its clawed hands clasped tightly around Kora’s wrists, bearing the swimmer down to the ground, pinning her while Kora tried to push the thing’s face – and its cracked, browning teeth, permanently bared behind the ragged gash of its lipless mouth – away from her, angling the tip of her knife toward the side of the thing’s skull. “Taaake… of the yoooung…” the creature rasped, its withered muscles straining against Kora’s, the two deadlocked for a moment that felt like a lifetime… until Kora twisted to the side, grabbing her own wrist and using the increased strength to two-hand shove the knife into the creature’s temple, gasping for breath as she rolled it over and scrambled back to her feet, leaving it lifeless.

“Holy fuck,” Kora said under her breath, drawing the knife from the thing’s skull and moving toward the dais after catching a quick glimpse of Seneca in a similar grapple with one of the robed creatures, repeatedly pistol-whipping it. There was one more, right? The one with the sword, seemingly guarding the dais – and exactly what it was guarding quickly became clear as Kora approached. Atop the risen stone pillar was a plain, worn book, bound in a purplish-red leather, frayed at the edges, its title unclear. The fucking book. It was here.

Alright. Knife vs. Sword. Not a great matchup. Fortunately, the usage of analog weaponry was something Kora actually had a framework of knowledge in, letting her strategize ahead of time while the faceless thing sized her up in turn. She took a fleeting moment to admire the weapon the creature wielded – it was actually quite beautiful, single-edged but straight-backed, lacking a crossguard or quillon, likely around thirty inches overall. More a long, slender knife than a proper saber, but its lean build and light weight would made it deadly fast. The sword would also have far better reach than Kora’s Ka-Bar, making any kind of proper duel idiotic; the only real advantage of a knife here was being lighter in weight, and more pragmatic in close quarters. She had to close the distance.

“Someone’s stealing the book!” Kora shouted, pointing with her free hand toward the dais behind the creature. A pure bluff, but just what she needed to make the creature turn and look, even for just an instant, giving Kora an opportunity to charge forward and ram into its back, wrapping both arms around it and tackling it to the ground, trying to shove the knife into the hooded figure’s side. The thing twisted and writhed in place, the sword clattering to the ground as it brought its steely fingers to Kora’s arms, razor-sharp nails slashing into the teen’s wrists. Kora grit her teeth, groaning in pain as she tried to get a solid blow with the knife, blood now streaming down bare arms as the creature wrestled against her. “Mother… fuckin’… piece of…!”

The two rolled on the ground, constantly vying for position, the faceless cultist a bit stronger, but Kora just slippery enough to hold her ground. The knife finally fell from bleeding fingers, sliding away across the ground, completely out of reach – but the sword was not. With a roar of adrenaline, Kora broke the grapple completely, kicking the creature away and reaching out for the blade, scrambling up onto her knees and lashing out with a single swift, decisive blow, one that drove the sword’s tip straight into the withered black socket that had once been the creature’s eye. It twitched, wheezed, and finally went still, giving Kora a much-needed moment to catch her breath.

Only a few feet away, the sound of gurgling blood from one of the robed conspirators was only eclipsed by Seneca’s wild, raucous war-cry as the girl pummeled the thing’s head to pulp with the butt of her revolver, only ceasing her frantic downward smashes when it finally stopped moving. Caked in blood and bits of skull, she finally stood up from her full straddle, standing uneasily and sprinting over to Kora at the dais. “The book’s here?”

“Yeah,” Kora breathed, the sword still in her hand, coated in its own thick layer of gore. “It’s right on the stone thing, I’ll grab it–” Stepping over the body of the cultist she’d just slain, Kora rushed to the dais, getting a better look at the book, though closer inspection wasn’t as helpful as one might have expected. The words of the title were indecipherable, not like they were a different language, but like they were blurred and scrambled – as if she was looking at it through squinted eyes, or trying to read something in a dream. As she reached out to take it, she felt a strange, intense pull, the sword humming in her free hand. What was inside the book, that Millie had been so obsessed with? Someone had to find out, right? Someone had to know.

Instead of grabbing the book, her fingers touched only on the front cover, slowly flipping it open, laying her dark eyes on the first page, and finding madness within. Knowledge so profound and profane that to understand it was to taste oblivion. All at once, Kora shut out the world around her as she was absorbed into wild glyphs and patterns, words that did not exist, imparting information through shape and nature alone. Not knowledge of this world, or the next, but of things far before and beyond.

Everything seemed to happen in an instant for Kora, but Seneca stood only a short distance away, watching as the swimmer girl opened the book, her jaw going slack and eyes dilating an instant later as the pages took hold of her. “Yo!” Seneca shouted, ramming into Kora’s side with a tackle that broke the connection, the book slamming shut on its own as the tether to its reader was cut. “What the fuck are you doin’?!”

“Nothi– I, uhm… I just… fuck…” Kora blinked repeatedly, shivering, sitting up, quickly grabbing the sword again. “Sorry, thanks, I… shit. Q-quick, grab the book and we can get out of here–”

A blood-curdling scream pierced through the stale air like a bullet. Seneca and Kora whirled in place to find the source of the sound, finding it all too quickly: one of the faceless, the first one Seneca had shot, had risen to life once more, taking hold of the knife Kora had dropped… and shoving it between the ribs of Mica Bell, blood now burbling past her lips as the thick, durable blade was pushed and twisted into place.

Seneca broke into a sprint, smashing her weight into the robed creature and bowling it back to the ground, but it was now clear that this was not a battle that could be won – all around them, the faceless were rising back up, no matter how thoroughly they’d been dispatched. Mica slumped to the ground, a few wet, wheezing coughs escaping her before she finally fell still, blood pooling out around her and seeping into the earthen floor beneath. “They’re getting back up!” Seneca bellowed. “Mica’s gone, we have to go! Get the fuckin’ book!”

“We can’t–” Kora paused, swallowing hard, grabbing the book and tucking it underarm like a football. “We can’t leave her!”

“We don’t have a choice! Come with me or I’ll fuckin’ leave you here, too!”

There was no real room for argument. All five of the creatures were on their feet again, as if the fight had never happened at all, their white robes stained with dark, brackish blood. There was no way to carry Mica back… and it was clear that there was no benefit, beyond pure sentiment, to doing so. She was dead.

“Ngghhaaaaah… fuck!” Kora screamed, running after Seneca as the other girl headed back the way they’d came, into the tunnel that would eventually bring them back to the house and out of this place. They had the book, now… but at what cost.

While they may not have been able to out-fight the robed conspirators, the two teenagers were very much able to outrun them, sprinting back into the tunnel and into the darkness, neither pausing to switch on a flashlight. They ran without stopping until they saw the light of the room above, clambering up the ladder and making their way back toward the kitchen door, their group one member fewer. The sounds of bestial howling came from the tunnel behind them, indignant shrieks of anguish and rage at the loss of the book – they were unlikely to stop chasing after the girls until they were well out of town.

“Falconeye… this is… Noonshadow…” Kora panted into the walkie-talkie when they were finally back in the alleyway outside, struggling to catch her breath as she continued to hustle toward the place where the cars were parked. “Requesting immediate evac. Man down. I repeat… man down. Over.”

“You really have to do that nerd shit even now?” Seneca hissed, a look of disgust on her face as she tucked her pistol back under her jacket.

“I don’t know, okay! I don’t know what to do! You think I’m ready for any of this? I just– I… fuck.” Kora gritted her teeth, choking back a hot wash of shame and grief that threatened to manifest into tears.

“Yeah… yeah,” Seneca sighed, not having a good response, though the bluster had certainly been taken out of her attitude. She’d led a hard life, done a lot of difficult and violent things, but this… this had been different. She could only imagine what it had been like for Kora, her fingers still in a death-grip on the handle of that sword like she was waiting for another attack.

Bedraggled and blood-drenched, the two staggered, exhausted, back toward the two cars. Luiza rushed out to grab Kora in a quick, strong hug, Piper looking stunned when she realized which of the three hadn’t made the return. Only Heather Edwards remained stoic, arms crossed, gazing through her circular glasses at the only thing that mattered, the thing still tucked beneath Kora’s arm. The thing they’d done all this for, what Mica’s life had been sacrificed for.

That fucking book.

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[action/violence] [horror] [death]