Immediately, Amanda and Ray helped him.
“Angle the hole so it points down the slope,” Balenger said. “I need to see the receiver from down there.”
Amanda and Ray made the hole a couple of feet deep. Balenger noticed that Amanda’s hands started bleeding again. He saw too that nervousness made her tremble when she set her GPS unit into the hole.
Once more, Balenger peered toward the sky. “Game Master, if you’ve got a problem with this, tell us now.”
The voice remained silent.
“This could be the last moment we know we’re alive,” Ray said.
“I prefer my positive attitude.” To the sky, Balenger said, “It’s awfully lonely being God if you have no one to talk to. You enjoy our conversations with us. Why end the entertainment when there’s more to the game?”
The voice continued to remain silent.
Balenger picked up his rifle. “Then let’s do it.”
Rocks clattered as they descended. Needing cover, they went to the largest pile of wreckage.
Balenger waited until Amanda and Ray lay flat. “Put your hands over your ears,” he told her. “Open your mouth to relieve the pressure.”
He shoved the Kleenex wads in his ears, then knelt on his good knee and aimed the rifle. The gun’s stock was solid against his shoulder. But the GPS receiver was difficult to see, gray against the rocks. The shadow of the mountains didn’t help.
“Problems?” Ray asked.
“Just making sure.”
“Let me try.”
Balenger squeezed the trigger.
The roar of the blast jolted him, its concussion shoving him back. He dropped to the ground, landing on his right side, holding the rifle off the ground. Debris pelted around him. He felt the impact of a rock landing near his head. Despite the Kleenex wads in his ears, he heard ringing. Dust blew over him, acrid with the smell of detonated explosives.
The echoing rumble lessened. He looked toward Amanda, relieved to see that she wasn’t injured. She rose to a crouch and peered toward the slope. Ray came to his feet. So did Balenger, who surveyed the slope, pleased to see a huge opening. He took the Kleenex from his ears and stepped from the wreckage.
Amanda hurried toward the slope. “I see a door!”
They scrambled up the rocks and reached the opening. A barrier of old gray wood was visible at the end, jagged from flying rocks.
Balenger saw hinges, a handle. “Yes, a door.”
The force of the explosion had knocked it askew. They stepped over rubble and pushed, toppling it inward. Dust made them cough.
Amanda and Ray leaned inside.
“Can’t see much,” Ray said. “Let’s widen this opening.” He shoved boards away.
Daylight probed twenty feet into the tunnel. Railroad tracks went down the middle. Posts held up roof supports.
“Looks solid,” Amanda said.
Balenger aimed his flashlight, revealing more of the tunnel. But deeper inside, darkness confronted him. Closed spaces, he thought with a shiver.
Ray hesitated. “Do you think it’s safe to go in?”
“Do we have a choice?” Amanda asked.
Balenger studied the walls and saw a small video camera attached to a roof beam. “We’re in the right place. The tunnel’s monitored.”
“I don’t see any container, anything that might be a time capsule,” Ray said.
Balenger gave Amanda the flashlight. “Stay just behind me and point the light. I’ll take the lead.”
He ejected the magazine from his rifle, pulled a box of ammunition from his knapsack, and again reloaded.
LEVEL NINE
THE SEPULCHER OF WORLDLY DESIRES
1
The temperature cooled. The air smelled stale. Balenger’s boots made scraping sounds on the rock floor as he shifted forward through shadows.
“When I was a kid,” Ray said, “a couple of friends and I explored a cave.” He sounded like he was trying to distract himself.
“Find anything interesting?” Amanda asked.
“I got stuck.”
“What?”
“My friends bicycled for help. I was in there ten hours before an emergency crew got me out.”
“I’m not sure that helps me keep my positive attitude,” Balenger said.
“Hey, I got out, didn’t I? Can’t get more positive than that. Quit complaining. Wait. Stop. Shine the light to the left. There. On the floor.”
Amanda pointed the light in that direction and revealed two dusty rounded objects.
Ray hurried to them and picked one up. “Lanterns!” He blew dust away, then rubbed the curved glass with his sleeve. When he shook the lantern, something splashed inside.
“My God, it still has fuel in it.”
Balenger frowned. “The fuel didn’t evaporate after more than a hundred years?”
“How could it evaporate? The cap to the fuel tank is tight,” Ray answered.
“The fuel could evaporate through the wick.”
Ray pulled up the glass sheath and studied the wick. “Maybe the wick acted as a plug so the air couldn’t get at the fuel. What difference does it make? The point is, we can use this thing.” He pulled out his lighter.
“No,” Balenger said.
Ray put his thumb on the lighter’s wheel.
“Don’t!” Balenger grabbed Ray’s hand.
In the flashlight’s glare, Ray’s eyes darkened. “Let go.”
“Put away the lighter.”
“I’m warning you.” Ray’s voice was hoarse. “Let go.”
Balenger took his hand away. “Just listen.”
Ray put the lighter in his pocket.
“The Game Master didn’t object when we used the GPS receiver to blow our way in here. That’s not like him,” Balenger said.
Ray set down the lantern.
“Are we supposed to believe that we impressed him with how resourceful we are? I don’t think so,” Balenger continued.
With a scream of fury, Ray grabbed the stock and barrel of the rifle. Balenger felt a jolt when Ray shoved it across his chest and rammed him toward a wall. Balenger’s boot caught on a railway track. As he fell, Ray dropped with him, landing on him, squeezing the rifle across his chest. Balenger’s hands were pinned under the gun. He struggled to push back, but the pressure of the rifle made it difficult to breathe.
“Keep your fucking hands off me!” Ray shouted.
Balenger strained harder.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Ray’s face was twisted with rage. He was surprisingly strong, his movements a frenzy, pressing the air from Balenger’s lungs.
“Stop!” Amanda screamed.
Squirming on the tunnel’s cold floor, Balenger couldn’t free his hands. He tried to knee Ray in the groin, but Ray’s legs pinned him down. Abruptly, Ray slammed his forehead down on Balenger’s nose.
Balenger felt an excruciating crack. Blood spurted from his nose. His mind dimmed.
“Damn you, stop!” Amanda yelled.
Peering up through double vision, Balenger saw Amanda charge into view and tug at Ray.
“Get off him! Don’t you understand what he’s trying to tell you?”
Again, Ray slammed his forehead onto Balenger’s nose. Balenger groaned, seeing gray. He fought to breathe.
“The lanterns are a trap!” Amanda shouted. “The GPS unit! Why didn’t the Game Master complain?”
Ray’s eyes were slits of rage. He pressed all his weight on the rifle across Balenger’s chest. Amanda pulled at his shoulders.
“He wanted us to get into the tunnel! He wants us to feel confident and let our guard down!”
Amanda put an arm around Ray’s throat. He jabbed his head back, smashing her face. She staggered away.
“The lanterns might explode!” Amanda shrieked. “Or a flame might set off gas in the tunnel!”
Balenger felt lightheaded, his nose filling with blood, his lungs unable to draw air.
A shadow rose behind Ray. Balenger’s gray vi
sion made him think he hallucinated. The shadow held a rock with both hands. The shadow slammed the rock down so hard that Balenger felt the shock go through him. Ray’s head sprayed blood. The shadow struck again. The crunch of bone was accompanied by a liquid sound.
Balenger saw Ray’s dark eyes widen. They rolled up. The shadow struck a third time, and now the sound was hollow.
Ray trembled, wheezing. It seemed that the strings on a puppet were snipped. At once, he dropped onto Balenger, his dead weight adding to the pressure on Balenger’s chest.
Balenger’s mind sank. Blood clogging his swollen nostrils, he felt as if something heavy forced him deep into water. The weight suddenly left his chest. Hands pushed Ray’s body away and turned Balenger face down in the tunnel. Blood drained from his nose.
“Breathe!” Amanda shouted.
He coughed and managed to get his lungs working. Air moved along his raw throat. On the cold floor, he heard the echo of Amanda’s own raspy breathing. Slowly, he managed to sit up. Dim light from the tunnel’s entrance showed her standing over him, her back against a wall. She slid down next to the flashlight on the floor. Its glare made her face look stark.
“Is he…” She couldn’t finish the question.
“Yes.”
“The son of a bitch,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I feel sick.”
“Violence will do that.”
For a while, the only sound was the continuing echo of their breathing.
“He didn’t give me a choice.”
“That’s right,” Balenger agreed. “Keep telling yourself that. He didn’t give you a choice. If you hadn’t stopped him, he’d probably have killed me.” But he knew that no matter how much he tried to assure her, it wouldn’t matter. She had something else to add to her nightmares. “How bad are you hurt?”
“My cheek’s swelling where he banged his head against it. You?”
“My nose is broken.”
Balenger pulled off his knapsack. His back hurt from the indentations the ammunition boxes made when he fell on them. He poured a palmful of water from his canteen and wiped it across his face, trying to clear the blood. Then he got his first-aid kit and tore open an antiseptic wipe.
“Let me.” Amanda crawled toward him and gently wiped his face.
Balenger tried not to react to the pain. “I hope you don’t mind rugged features.”
“I always wanted to live with a man who looks like a boxer.”
In the flashlight’s glare, Balenger studied the bruise on her left cheek.
They held each other.
“Thank you,” Balenger whispered.
He didn’t want to let go. But then he looked over her shoulder toward Ray’s body. “The tunnel. The Sepulcher. Midnight.”
Amanda nodded. “If we don’t meet the deadline, all the Game Master needs to do is blast the tunnel and bury us. We’ll never get out.”
Balenger turned toward a camera on a post. “Game Master, did you enjoy seeing Ray die?”
He listened for a response, then realized that the headset and his hat had fallen off during the struggle. He put them back on, waiting for the Game Master to speak.
“Maybe the radio signal can’t penetrate the tunnel,” Amanda said.
“Oh, it penetrates,” the voice said abruptly. “Don’t worry about that.”
Balenger gave three aspirins to Amanda and three to himself. They swallowed the pills with water. Balenger’s nose continued to bleed. He put cotton batting into it, ignoring the pain.
“Ready?” he asked Amanda.
“Ready.”
She picked up the flashlight.
He put on his knapsack and reached for the rifle.
They continued along the tunnel. Abruptly, Balenger went back through the shadows. He grabbed one of the lanterns by its handle and gave it to Amanda.
“Why?” She studied it with suspicion.
“Not sure.” He overcame his revulsion and groped in a pocket of Ray’s jumpsuit, pulling out the lighter. “We never know what we might need.”
Again, they proceeded along the tunnel, the flashlight partially dispelling the darkness.
“It’s colder,” Amanda said.
They turned a corner.
“My favorite quotation comes from Kierkegaard. It’s appropriate for a time capsule,” the voice said through Balenger’s headset.
They approached a small chamber.
“What’s the quote?” Keep him talking, Balenger thought. Keep him relating to us.
“‘The most painful state of being is remembering the future, in particular one you can never have.’”
“I don’t understand.”
“It refers to someone who’s dying and what it feels like to imagine future events that he or she will never experience.”
The air got even colder. Amanda’s hand trembled as she scanned the flashlight across the chamber. “Looks like we found it,” she murmured.
2
In the shadows, a man faced them. He was tall and gangly with a beard that made him resemble Abraham Lincoln. His dark hair hung past his shoulders. He wore a black suit, the coat old-fashioned, its hem reaching down to his knees.
Balenger almost fired, but the man’s posture didn’t pose a threat, and Balenger’s police training took control. As his instructor at the academy had said, “You’d better have a damned good reason for pulling that trigger.”
The man stood straight, holding something close to his chest.
“Put up your hands! Who are you?” Balenger shouted.
The man didn’t comply.
“Damn it, put up your hands!”
The only sound was the echo of Balenger’s command.
“He isn’t moving,” Amanda said.
They stepped warily forward, the flashlight providing details.
“Oh, my God,” Amanda said.
The man had no eyes. His cheeks were shrunken. The fingers that clutched the object to his chest were bones covered with shriveled skin. Dust filmed him.
“Dead,” Amanda murmured.
“A long time,” Balenger said. “But why didn’t he rot?”
“I read somewhere that caves have hardly any insects or microbes.” Amanda’s voice was hushed. “And this tunnel’s deep in the mountain. The ice.”
“What do you mean?”
“Another clue the Game Master gave us, but we didn’t realize what it was. He said, in the winter the town harvested ice from the lake and stored it in the mine. The tunnel was cold enough to preserve the ice through the summer. The town used it to keep food from spoiling.”
“The cold mummified him,” Balenger said in awe.
“The object he’s pressing against his chest looks like a book. But what’s holding him up?” Amanda stepped closer.
Now it was clear that the corpse was tilted slightly back against a board supported by rocks at its base. Ropes at the knees, the stomach, the chest, and the neck secured the mummy to the board.
“Who tied the ropes?” Balenger shivered and not just from the cold.
“The knots are in front. Maybe he did it himself.” Amanda moved the flashlight up and down. “He could have kept his hands free until he tied the final rope around his chest. Then he could have shoved his right hand up under the rope to press the book to his chest. Next to him, we see how the illusion works, but at the entrance to the chamber, he looked like he was greeting us.”
“Meet Reverend Owen Pentecost,” the Game Master said. But this time, the voice didn’t come from Balenger’s headset. Instead, it came from speakers in the walls. The echoing effect was unnerving.
“The bastard had a sense of drama,” Balenger said.
“You have no idea,” the Game Master replied.
“I suppose the book in his hand is a Bible.” Amanda tilted her head to try to read the title on the spine. When that didn’t work, she set down the lantern, hesitated, then directed a finger toward the book, reluctantly intending to nudge it and ex
pose the title.
Balenger grabbed her hand. “It might be booby-trapped.”
In the flashlight’s beam, the bruise on Amanda’s cheek contrasted with her sudden pallor.
“Iraqi insurgents loved to hide pressure-sensitive bombs under U.S. corpses,” Balenger explained. “As soon as the bodies were lifted or turned, the explosives would detonate.”
Amanda pulled her hand back.
“It’s not a Bible,” the Game Master said. “It’s called The Gospel of the Sepulcher of Worldly Desires.”
“Not exactly catchy,” Balenger said.
“Pentecost wrote it in long hand. It predicts the evils of the coming century and the need for people to understand the truth.”
“So, what’s the truth?”
“See for yourself.”
Amanda aimed the flashlight toward an opening in the wall behind Pentecost. Ready with his gun, Balenger stepped forward while Amanda guided him with the flashlight. They went through the opening and entered a much larger area.
Amanda gasped.
Balenger tasted something bitter. “Yeah, it’s a sepulcher, all right. Worldly desires.”
3
A cavern loomed. Stalactites and stalagmites partially blocked what Balenger and Amanda stared at. Because of the limitations of the flashlight, it was impossible to see everything at once. Amanda needed to move the light from object to object, place to place, tableau to tableau.
Corpse to corpse.
The citizens of Avalon awaited them. They wore what might have been their Sunday go-to-church clothes, now dusty and drab after more than a century. Like Pentecost’s, their faces, too, were sunken, cheekbones made prominent by withered flesh. Mummified in the tunnel’s preserving cold, they looked tiny. Their clothes hung on their bodies like shrouds.
The group nearest Balenger and Amanda consisted of four men, who sat at a table, playing cards.
“Remember not to touch anything,” Balenger warned her.
The men were tied to the chairs, but unlike the ropes that secured Pentecost, these were concealed. The cards were glued to their hands. Their bent arms were nailed to the table. A pile of money lay before them.
At another table, men sat before a whiskey bottle and glasses covered with dust. Ropes and nails held the corpses in place.