“You need to show us whatever you wanted us to see before round two get here,” Aaron said to Heather who still didn’t quite seem to understand what it was that enabled him to shoot through the fog that way. Down here, the white patches against endless black, along with the thick cave walls, made X-ray vision almost useless. But from up there, looking down, he could see well enough there was no chance he would’ve hit one of his teammates.
She huffed, knowing he was right. The ground around them was still littered with bodies, but they seemed to be dissipating somehow, not turning to ash but crumbling, merging into the ground. They stepped over them toward the center of the open area as Heather explained, “They don’t die exactly, least I don’t think they do. I swear I’ve killt the same damn hellcat at least ten times. They just have to go back to their starting point and try again or something.”
“How many of them do you think there are, altogether?” Brandon asked.
“Infinity,” she said, not the answer they were hoping to hear. She stopped in the center of the space, and Aaron turned around, noting there seemed to be at least twenty-five or thirty tunnel openings around them, though it was difficult to tell because even the openings were black. “Here it is.”
She was toeing something with her boot, but it was impossible to see what it was through the steam and fog, so Aaron and Jamie kneeled down to examine it first while the others awaited their assessment.
It felt hard, like metal, and when they brushed off a layer of black dust, it appeared to be bronze or possibly steel. The top was round, maybe the size of a half dollar, and when Aaron attempted to pull it out of the ground, it didn’t budge at all.
Jamie dug down around the edges of it with his knife. “It’s in there pretty deep, whatever it is,” he said.
“It’s like a railroad tie,” Heather noted. “It’s like a spike. I don’t know what it is, but it’s the only thing I’ve ever found in here that’s made of metal. Or anything other than black rock, for that matter.”
“Maybe it’s the key,” Brandon observed.
“It ain’t the key, you knucklehead,” Heather shot back, shaking her head. “It ain’t shaped like no damn key, and if you can’t get it outta the ground, how the hell could you use it to unlock something?”
“It’s definitely not coming out of the ground.” Aaron was certain of that. Even with his strength, he couldn’t get it to budge an iota. It seemed to be anchored to the portal floor—whatever that was. He stood and dusted his hands off, Jamie doing the same. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t the key.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Heather seemed to think they were all nuts.
“Sure, we usually think of a key as a piece of metal that unlocks a door, but that’s not the only definition of the word key,” Jamie explained to her, his tone much more polite than Aaron’s might’ve been if he’d had to reason with the thick headed cowgirl.
“What other kinda key would let a person out of a place where they’re trapped?” She folded her arms across her chest defiantly.
“It could be a key like on a map that points to an exit, rather than actually unlocking it. You said yourself there isn’t a door preventing you from getting out, right?”
“Right.” She seemed to be considering the possibility for once, which was progress, rather than just huffing and deciding she was trapped with a bunch of crazies.
“So... maybe this is more like a starting point than an actual key,” Jamie shrugged
“But them damn Vampires called it a key,” she protested.
“I’m just thinking aloud,” Jamie assured her, beginning to pace a little bit.
Alex had been strangely quiet, and as Aaron pondered what this spike in the ground meant, he saw the soldier counting openings. “I believe there are thirty-six,” he finally said. His eyes trailed around them again, and Aaron watched. “Uh, yes. Thirty-six.”
“Thirty-six tunnels? So what? They all move and shift every time the damn portal opens. And they interlace. Who knows how many there will be next time it goes off.”
“They move?” Dax asked, his phone still in his hand.
“Yeah. Just you wait. It’s gonna be soon. I can feel it.”
“You can feel it?” Brandon had hardly gotten the question out before there was a shift in the air and the same whooshing sound they heard before. Off in the distance, there was a crackling popping sound, but this time Heather didn’t go running.
“Why aren’t you chasing it?” Elliott asked her.
“Because it’s down there.” She pointed down the blackest of tunnels. “And that’s where the hellions come from, the door to hell y’all was asking about. Pretty sure, if you go down that tunnel far enough, you’ll find it. But I’ll take yer word for it.”
Aaron counted from the moment he heard the whooshing sound until the air settled around them again. “Thirty-six.”
“What’s that?” Elliott asked, leaning in toward him a bit in confusion.
“Thirty-six seconds from the whoosh to the poof.” He turned to Alex. “Matches your count.”
“But look! They’ve all spun!” Heather was pointing back toward the tunnel at the back of them, the one she said was the road to hell. It was slightly off from where it had been a moment ago, even though Aaron was certain he hadn’t moved at all.
“Which one did we come out of?” Jamie asked, taking three quick steps back the way they’d originally arrived from. In the distance, howling began again, and it did seem to originate down the tunnel where the portal had opened.
“That one, where Dax’s blood is smeared all over the cave wall,” Brandon said.
“Ha, thanks for that,” Dax said, pulling his eyes away from his phone for a second. When they shifted back to his device, his eyebrows knit together, just as Aaron and Jamie drew the same conclusion about the tunnels. They might’ve shifted, but they didn’t change their order. They simply spun. “Holy hell!” Dax shouted, grabbing Brandon by the shoulder. “I got a text! From Tara!”
