A high school senior heads to Boston to visit his sister for Halloween. A twist of fate reveals something they would never have admited alone... and it proves to be the one thing that may keep them alive when the best laid plans of a group of college students are lain waste by a force of terrible evil and corruption that has thrived for centuries... Can Charlie Kane be strong enough to live? or will the River of Shadows claim yet another victim...?

The image that lay before me was not one that I could have possibly imagined: Dank service tunnels with dripping pipe laden ceilings, to Aztec temples, but the sight that met my eyes was not one I will easily forget.

Before me lay what looked like an elevator door. They were half open, and somehow… a light still burned inside. I stepped forwards into the narrow corridor leading to the door, drawn by the light.

“Hey Charlie!” Hannah called as I stepped into the gloom. The corridor was dark, but soon I stood in front of the elevator doors at the far end. The light from within radiated outwards, and lit the small area immediately ahead of the door.

There were no markings; not that I would have known what to look for. It seemed like an ordinary elevator door… but it wasn’t. The doors didn’t open to a metal car, or lift shaft, but through to another set of similarly jarred open metal doors. It all seemed eerily alive…

I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped; turning I came face to face with Kyle,

“Hey, don’t go running off like that.” He said with a pained expression, “You just vanished without a word… really put the shits up me you know?”

I nodded absentmindedly as the others made it to the door.

“What you think this is?” Andy asked kicking the metal door with his foot. The clang one would have expected from an elevator door told us that these were most likely not of that purpose. The solid metal barely made a sound other than the muted curse that left Andy’s lips.

“I Don’t think we should be in here.” Heather whimpered quietly; her inquisitiveness quelled by the expanding weirdness of our new world.

“It looks like blast doors.” Dominic said examining the double doored contraption ahead of us. “Jammed open by the looks of them.” He muttered. “Lights on,…. Someone’s probably home, as the other doors in this way seem like they haven’t been used in a while, its likely there’s another way out.” He added smiling with the last statement.

Light meant activity… activity meant a way out, whether we were allowed to be here or not.

Dominic stepped between the first doors and looked around, as if looking for something, then turned and waved me forwards as he continued on through the second pair.

“What is this place?” I asked uncertainly, ducking under a drooping cable between the sets of doors.

“Don’t know, but could guess.” Dominic said as he glanced around the room on the far side of the door. I passed between the last set of doors and came level with him.

The room before us was strange: A ramp ahead of us led down to a circular area in the centre of the room that was sunken roughly a meter bellow our feet. Taking up the majority of the room, the circular depression contained an emblem on its stone tile floor and corridors branching off in different directions.

Placing my hand on the guard rail at the side of the ramp, I slowly walked down till I was standing by the crest.

It was military, but beyond that I was fairly clueless. It seemed like one of the plethora of regimental badges that armies found interesting and meaningful.

“298th Weapons Division….” Dominic read over my shoulder. “Interesting.”

“Is your ROTC training going to pay off now?” I half teased, “Know anything about this 298th group?” I asked nudging the emblem with my booted foot.

“It’s not a group,” Dominic said to himself, as if lost in thought.

“pardon?”

“It’s a division not a group.” He said again, “I remember mention of the crap we got into during the cold war; each side developing new weird and wonderful crap. 298th was reputedly the name of the US army division that was in charge of US special weapons research. It’s like those bond movies; They made all sorts of stuff.” He said thinking aloud. “It was disbanded in early nineteen eighties rather abruptly before the end of the cold war. It was rather bizarre,” he mused, “The Russian equivalent continued well on into the mid nineteen nineties….”

“You sure know your oranges.” I said to nobody in particular

“Boring facts are the ones you remember.” He replied.

The other guys caught us up and told them what we had found on the floor.

“So this is some sort of secret army bunker?” Kyle asked sceptically. “Isn’t that a bit science fiction?”

“Don’t know what this is for.” Dominic said blankly, “Place looks a bit unused.”

“So why are the lights on?” Paul asked slowly, doubting the question before he asked it.

“Not sure.” Dominic shrugged. “Either someone was here recently, or it’s got a damn big bill from the power company.”

“Where do you think the way out is?” Heather asked, her eyes flitting from hallway to hallway.

“I guess we will have to look around.” Dominic replied frowning. “It would be faster if we split into pairs.”

“But everyone does that in horror movies!” Hannah blurted taking a step back.

“Come on, you don’t believe in that crap do you?” Andy asked with a look of mild distain. “It’s not real… ghosts don’t exist, and we aren’t going to get eaten… nobody’s been here in years.”

“I don’t like it ok?” Hannah replied crossing her arms. “I don’t like being alone.”

“That’s fine.” Andy shot back, “You can go with Kyle.”

“Any real reason why we can’t go together?” Heather asked tentatively.

“None,” Dominic shrugged. “But it will take us three times as long to get out of here.”

“Fair point,” added Kyle. “I want out of here as soon as possible.”

“So who goes with who? And what do we do about getting lost?” Andy asked cautioiusly,

"Pay attention," Dominic replied bluntly. “Remember where you’ve been. And we all meet back here in Thirty minutes… just a quick look around nearby. Kyle, you take Hannah. Andy, you and Heather, and I’ll go with Charlie ok?”

Everyone agreed on the proposed plan, and checking watches, we split off, picking corridors at random.

Dominic’s confidence made me feel good: I felt safe with him. As cheesy as Hannah’s fear was, we were in a strange situation, and having someone so unflappable with me was comforting.

We walked along featureless corridors for a time before reaching a junction.

“Which way?” I asked, looking down the bland corridors.

“Left I guess.” He shrugged. “Seems like a wider corridor… means there’s more important stuff maybe.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked with surprise.

“My old man was in the army,” he admitted. “Stationed on more bases than I can count.”

“Learned to navigate military architecture,” he shrugged.

“Oh,” I admitted. “My Dad’s an Engineer, and my mom is a teacher.” I offered, hoping to spark some conversation to keep things from returning to oppressive silence.

“You go to school here?” Dominic asked trying a door in vain.

“No, High school senior back home.”

Dominic turned to face me, “You’re in high school?” he asked incredulously. “You look a lot older… and act it.” He added shaking his head.

“Thanks… I guess.” I muttered softly.

We walked around another corner in the corridor, and came face to face with a set of double doors.

Pushing one open, Dominic peered inside. “Jackpot,” he murmured stepping inside.

I followed him through the doors and stopped in my tracks.

I stood looking at the large open room. Sloping down towards the front, were desks, computers, screens and tables covered in paper; we had found the command centre… if my rudimentary knowledge of military movies was accurate.

Dominic stepped around a railing and began to walk down the steps looking around himself. I walked further along the top of the room and began to make my way down the second set of steps.

Apart from the dust, the place could have been abandoned the day before…

I stepped over a fallen chair and reached out to steady myself on the table to my right. The table shifted as I placed my weight on it, and I slipped. With a squeal, I landed on my chest next to the table leg. Recovering enough to start to pull myself up, I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye.

I turned my head slowly to resolve the shape I could vaguely make out.

I screamed and scooted backwards till I was pressed against a guard rail, panting heavily; my eyes fixed on the body under the table.

“Charlie? Charlie are you ok?” Dominic yelled as he jumped down next to me and reached out to grab my hand. “You ok?” he asked a second time.

I shook my head weakly and nodded in the direction of the thing I hadn’t taken my eyes off.

The body was old…. Decayed, but still relatively human looking… the tomblike quality of the place must have slowed decay. The faded dusty uniform looked military. The corpse was stretched out, one arm further forwards as if crawling.

“Jesus.” Dominic breathed. “That must have given you a fright.” He offered squeezing my hand.

“I guess nobody’s around then.” I said quietly, my eyes still fixed on the corpse.

Dominic helped me to my feet, and guided me away from the body beneath the table.

“Why did they leave him here?” I asked looking back as if expecting the remains to come to life once more.

“They left in a hurry.” Dominic said quietly, mirroring my thoughts.

“But what made them leave though?” I asked rhetorically, knowing I’d get no answer.

We searched the command room further, and my decayed friend wasn’t alone. There were five more bodies strewn around the room. We found one body in several pieces towards the bottom. His cause of death was slightly easier to discern.

“Whatever made them leave,” Dominic said remembering my question. “Is a good reason for us to follow suit as quickly as possible.

There was nothing specifically describing the facility’s purpose, or any maps. Either they had been taken, or never existed.

We returned to the meeting point after thirty minutes had passed to wait for the others.
Hannah and Kyle were stood cautiously looking down the various corridors and checking their watches.

“You guys look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Dominic called by way of greeting.

Hannah and Kyle looked at one another before Kyle spoke up. “We found… dead bodies,” he admitted sheepishly, the cockiness gone.

“We did too.” Dominic replied matter of factly.

“They were all lying there….” Hannah added numbly. “Just on the floor…”

I walked over to my sister and hugged her softly. “I know sweetie.” I soothed, “me too… I nearly fell on one.”

“Why?” she asked gazing at me with a look of innocence lost.

“I don’t know Han.” I replied honestly. “I don’t know.”

“Where are Heather and Andy? Dominic asked breaking our emotional moment. “It’s been nearly forty minutes.”

“I don’t know Dom,” Kyle replied with a shrug. “They might be lost?”

“Which way did they go?” Kyle asked looking over at Dominic.

“That way.” He pointed looking down the corridor the two had departed along.

Should we go look for them?” Hannah asked cautiously. “If they are lost… we might find them?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Dominic said, catching everyone’s attention in a heartbeat.

Heather staggered back along the corridor, her arms folded under her breasts. As she stepped out of the shadow at the mouth of the corridor, the harsh strip lighting picked out the blood splatter covering her from head to toe.

“Heather!” Hannah screamed, rushing to her roommate’s side, “What happened? Are you ok? Where’s Andy?”

Heather mouthed wordlessly. The amount of blood on her was astounding… a splattering blood of covered her dress and exposed skin. The shocked girl hadn’t even wiped the droplets from her face.

“Where’s Andy?” Hannah asked again realising the significance of the blood covering Heather.

“It killed him…” she muttered quietly looking at the ground.

“He’s dead?” Kyle asked uncertainly. “What happened?”

“Force…” she muttered absentmindedly. “Dark cloud… he just…. Oh god.” She sobbed pressing her hands to her mouth stifling a cry, “Oh god.”