Hellweg's Keep by Justin Holley

Author:Justin Holley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: alien the movie; scifi; creepy stories; science fiction; SF
Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing
Published: 2023-10-02T09:40:31+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Kendra heard Gradius Lent shout from deep inside the shaft of rock. “Come on,” she said. “We gotta find him and see who he found.”

“You sure he found a person?” Zak asked.

“Either that or he’s talking to himself.”

Zak sighed and adjusted both his pack and his trench coat. “I’m not sensing any high EMF, just the low current that seems prevalent here, but that could change quickly. We need to do this smart.”

“As opposed to doing it stupid?”

A puff of air flew out of Zak’s mouth and he covered it. “I didn’t mean…never mind.” He paused, and when Kendra didn’t comment, he continued, “My brothers and I used to crawl around in the sewers of our hometown.”

“Yeah, okay, that is stupid.”

He looked about to laugh at that, but Gradius shouted something unintelligible. Instead, Zak said, “Guess we better find the big guy. Anyway, my brothers and I walked…and crawled sewers. There were so many turns and side passages, we took to marking our way with chalk.”

“Now, that’s decidedly not stupid. Good idea. We don’t have any though.”

Zak took a stone from his pocket that shimmered in the light of the lantern.

“Tell me that’s not a diamond,” Kendra said. “It’s the size of the Hope Diamond…which I hear is cursed.” The guy never ceased to surprise her. Seemed to always have what they needed when they needed it. Resourceful. Like he knew what to expect. The thought could have turned quickly to paranoia but she stepped on it. Zak wasn’t a double-agent or someone sent to monitor her. You sure?

“It is. And this is definitely not it. The Hope Diamond is a blue diamond. This is cubic zirconia. Not worth much but hard as a diamond.” He winked, then reached up and etched a mark above the largest passage. “I’m going to assume we’ll try this one first…because bigger is better.”

Kendra poked her head inside the passage just as Gradius let loose with another unintelligible shout, sounding like the soft rumble of thunder in the distance. “Let’s move. Before he either dies or blows a vocal cord.” She crawled further inside the maw of the passage and could feel the darkness and close proximity push all her emotional buttons.

“You know what they found, years later, under Solomon’s Temple?”

Using a force of will she thought exhausted, Kendra stopped crawling and turned to look over her shoulder. Zak knelt in the opening, backlit by his own lantern, which lay behind him. “Mines? Didn’t he own mines?”

“He did,” Zak said. “Only his mines weren’t under the temple. Caverns. A series of natural caverns.”

Kendra didn’t believe in coincidences but found it difficult to wrap her mind around what Zak Underhill was selling her. She tried to make connections between caverns on different planets, and cults, and demons, in sputtering starts and stops. She crawled forward, lantern in her right hand, and strained to hear Gradius. Nothing. The stone floor hurt her knees but the only way to alleviate the problem was to crouch and Kendra knew from experience her back would give her fits.

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