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...?

Chapter Seven — Bump in the Night.

It took us nearly twenty minutes to calm Heather down and get her to explain what had happened to the two of them. The girl had been in a near catatonic state when she had stumbled back to the rendezvous spot. Hannah was talking quietly to her friend, helping her clean up, while the boys looked awkward and pensive. I could tell they were scared too, even if they didn’t show it.

I never understood that about men… the stoic refusal to show emotion when you can clearly tell they want to talk about their fear… Dominic was standing quietly off to one side, keeping an eye on the whole scene. His steadfastness was a virtue to our ragtag group. Without him to guide and rationalise, we would be in serious trouble. Although I suspect we’d still be here, still in the same problem, it would just have taken twice as long without a clear leader. I suppose that was Dominic’s lot; the calm one. As much as I had gleamed from snippets of conversation with him, I still didn’t know the boy. I found myself wanting to…

When Heather had recovered sufficiently, she began to talk more about what had transpired between herself, Andy, and the mysterious force she spoke of. She and Andy had searched what had turned out to be a level of laboratories and store rooms. The stores were full, and most of the equipment scientific. The laboratories had been where they found the bodies: Scientists, no military uniforms. Dismembered and some appearing untouched.

They had been searching deeper into the laboratories, discovering the cages full of long dead test subjects… primates mostly. Whatever the people here had been doing was likely not legal, or publicised.

The pair had been searching towards the rear of one laboratory when a door had slammed behind them, trapping them in the room. A dark heavy mist had seemed to roll out of the aircon and coalesce on the floor in the far corner of the room. Slowly, the form had risen up and rushed Andy as he knocked Heather to the floor. The force of the impact had covered Heather in blood and sent Andy’s body crashing back into the room. In her adrenaline fuelled state, Heather had fled.

“There was nothing you could do for him honey.” Hannah soothed, stroking the hair out of her friend’s eyes. “You were scared, it was only human.”

“But I left him!” Heather wailed, tears streaming down her cheeks after her tale.

“If it helps, we can go back and check?” Kyle offered softly, looking over at our defacto leader, Dominic.

Dominic nodded. “Sure, we really need to check that way now… “

Hannah looked immediately uncomfortable, “Uh Dom… not to rain on your parade, but what’s the point in going back towards the unstoppable killing force?”

The mention of killing drew a small sob from Heather as they stood in silence looking at Dominic.

His hands on his hips, he looked down at the floor for a moment before raising his head and speaking.

“We are up against something we know nothing about. We found nothing of value but death anywhere else…. The fact this… thing is that direction means its likely guarding something important or the way out…. Either way, we get past it, or we stop it.” He said resolutely. “I don’t know what the fuck this is… but if I can, I’m going to fucking kill it.”

“How?” asked Kyle dumbly. “How do we kill what we don’t understand? Fuck man, I’m just a kid….” He almost whined. “I don’t know where to begin… this thing… it killed Andy in one swoop… what fucking chance do we stand?”

“It’s better than doing nothing at all.” Dominic shot back. “We can either sit here and wait to die, or we get the fuck out of here.”

Dominic’s speech seemed to instil something that had been missing so far. We had direction, even if it was an ominous one.

Slowly, we retraced Andy and Heather’s route through the winding corridors they had explored less than an hour before. There was an uneasy silence between us as we cautiously progressed; nobody wanted to be the first to admit their fear.

We eventually reached the lab rooms where Heather told us the thing had attacked. Cementing his role as our leader, Dominic stepped forwards wordlessly and entered the room.

Within a few short seconds, he came back, his expression masking a look of distaste. “He’s dead.” He said flatly. “At least the bits I can see.”

Heather moaned quietly from Hannah’s shoulder as her friend squeezed her comfortingly. “What next?” Kyle asked raising his eye.

Dominic shifted his weight and looked around the group, “There were huge conduits on the roof in the main corridor. I expect we find something of importance if we follow them.”

“How do you know it’s not the other way?” Kyle asked with a twinge of annoyance. “It might be nothing, or it might be the damn laundry.”

“Unless we can pass through walls, I don’t expect the other direction will help.” Dominic answered. “Whatever it does, draws a large amount of power.” He said pausing for effect, “And what draws a lot of power in a place like this, will hold some form of answer, or exit.”

“Why are you so confident? You’ve been here as many times as we have.” Spat Kyle. “You’re just lucky, and one of these days you’ll be wrong and get us killed.”

“I’m not ordering you; I can’t.” Dominic shrugged. “I’m used to the way military places are set out, and I use my brain for more than scoring girls.” He added raising his eyebrows at Kyle. “You’re free to fuck off if you like.”

Kyle withdrew at Dominic’s challenge. Even at a time like this, it was amusing to see the pack behaviour develop within the group. We bowed to Dominic’s leadership and calm, but Kyle wanted the crown. I wish he’d picked a better time for a power move.

“Let’s get going, I don’t like it here, do you?” Dominic asked pulling open the door to the corridor. Kyle was the first out.

We followed the conduit that Dominic had noticed. It was large and obviously an addition since construction.

The conduit led us deeper into the facility; bland corridor led to bland corridor. I wasn’t sure I could remember the way back.

Eventually we reached a larger area after following the conduit down two levels deeper into the heart of the facility. The corridor around us widened into a large foyer. Towards the end, a flat faceless wall like all the others, but this wall contained a pair of steel doors, much like the ones we had passed through to gain access in the first place.

“A way out?” Heather asked hopefully, seeming to slip back from her near catatonic state. “Do you think it’s a way out?”

Dominic shook his head. “Doubt it.” He said quietly.

A quarter of the cables in the conduit seemed to split off and vanished through the wall above a door off to the side of the widened corridor. Unable to move the heavy steel of the closed main doors, we hoped that our exploration would provide greater insight to the purpose of the sealed room.

The door revealed a set of stairs leading up. Unsure of what we would find at the top, we climbed in silence. A second door marked the top of the flight, and opening the door, we found ourselves in a long curved room with monitors and banks of computers.

The wall to our left was glass, but shuttered with steel on the outside. Whatever the room held, demanded protection.

Most of the monitors in the room were alight, clearly they had never shut down. I lent forwards and examined a bank of switches and lights on the far wall. ‘CONTAINMENT’ ‘BLAST SHUTTERS’ and ‘ACCESS’ Glowed green on the panel.

“Hey Dominic.” I called, not removing my eyes from the panel. “You might want to take a look at this.”

Feeling his presence behind me I pointed at the lit panel. “This might help.”

“You’re right.” He mused quietly. “I think we ought to raise the shutters, see what’s inside first.”

I nodded quietly as he reached past me and lifted a plexi-glass cover over the switch bellow the blast shutter panel. A clanking and whirring sound filled the room as the shuttering over the windows began to lift and cracks of light began to spill into the room drawing our attention to the mystery beyond.

The room came into view slowly as the old mechanism lifted the heavy steel shutters. The room was nearly circular, and its walls rough cut stone; it was more a cavern than a room in actuality.

As foolish as it may have been, we all gravitated towards the glass to gain a better view of the room bellow. The floor was roughly ten meters bellow the room we stood in. Rough rock gave way to ancient stone tile towards the centre of the room where the ground had been excavated. The centre was most perplexing of all.

In the very centre of the cavern was a large circular pit, at least, to my eyes at first, it seemed a pit, but the longer I looked, I began to realise it wasn’t darkness I saw, but the perfect reflectionless still surface of black liquid.

“What’s that?” breathed Hannah quietly almost to herself.

“Fucked if I know,” shrugged Kyle dismissively.

“The river of shadows,” Heather said aloud from behind us.

The group turned to her; she had not moved forwards to the window as we had.

“It’s the River of Shadows,” she repeated with a neutral expression, her lips twitching upward into the hint of a grin at our confusion.

“What the hell are you on about Heather?” Hannah asked looking nervous.

Heather shook her head slowly. “You were half right about hell,” she purred, the twist of a grin spreading across her face in an inhuman way.

“Knock it off Heather, this is a bad joke.” Kyle added stepping forwards and placing his hand on her arm.

Heather looked down at the hand on her skin and slowly traced it back to its owner’s eyes.

A veil of mist seemed to grow around heather as her eyes became blank and hollow.

“Death.” She said calmly, before Kyle was propelled backwards against the glass with enough force to smash the armoured material and leave his broken form to ooze blood on the cavern floor bellow us.

From the Author:
Hey kids! Thankyou to those that voted for me, As promised, i'm continuing to the end on this one, especually to thank those that loved the previous 6 chapters. I'm writing as fast as i can, but with not being in them od often, and my studies takin a lot of time, its hard, but I'll finish for you folks :) (and me, i'dl ike to know the ending too soon )
Alyssa,