Beneath the Mall of Madness (A Jaspar Windisle Mystery Book 1) (24 page)

“They could be prehistoric creatures whose only remaining viable habitat just happens to be above a portal,” Fiona said

“Then this was a waste of time, wasn’t it?”

“Just wait,” Mordecai said. I watched as vines began to snake down the walls, reaching for us and the portal penguins.

“Wait for what?” I asked. “To see if they can dig through rock to get to us?” The portal flashed again, and I lost sight of the radish monsters in the glare. Multiple thumps and squawks heralded the arrival of more portal penguins.

Sparks abandoned his position under my chin, and as I watched him flutter away slimy tentacles wrapped around my neck.

Before I could do more than scream, Gregory had undone the top button of my shirt and climbed inside. I agreed with the sentiment, but if you’ve never had a squid wrapped around your waist at a stressful time in your life I envy you.

I looked up again, trying to see what had frightened Gregory. Of course, he could have been upset by the portal penguins. I think real penguins eat squid in the wild. Something shifted on the other side of the portal.

“Holy shit,” Mordecai whispered. “How big is Gregory going to get?”

Then I saw it. The dark mass rising above us was a group of tentacles. It was hard to see exactly what was going on, but the vines that moments before had been reaching for us were disappearing.

“I guess the adults like the taste of chupacabras too.”

“Come on, Gregory,” I said, “this is your chance to go home.” If anything, Gregory held on tighter. I couldn’t blame him. Mordecai seemed sure that thing was a grownup land squid, but for all I knew it was their god or some other dimension’s generic squid monster with a taste for sentient vegetables. Or Gregory came from a Squid World and his species was on the bottom of the food chain. I checked the exit again, and it seemed clear of otherworldly appendages.

“If that was your entire plan I think we should go,” I said.

“Yes,” Fiona agreed. “That should be fairly permanent. We can try to get Gregory through later.”

I didn’t think Gregory wanted to go at all, but I wasn’t going to argue with her.

Zebulon looked relieved when I was the first one through.

“From the noise I was sure you were being killed,” he said.

“There was a lot going on,” I said. “The other two should be coming.”

Mordecai looked very pleased with himself. I suppose as mayor he didn’t care if the mall was built as long as the threat was eliminated. I suspected Jesticorps wouldn’t be as happy with the results. Steve might not be too happy either. At the rate this group traveled, he was going to see the giant squid long before we got back into cell phone range.

“I think we should get a little farther away before we sleep,” Mordecai said.

“Yes,” Fiona agreed. “We should get farther down the tunnel before those creatures find the exit.” She sat down in the wheelchair. “Have you got all your fish?” she asked me.

“Not that it matters, but yes.”

“Then let’s go.”

As we went down the tunnel, we were followed by an alien cacophony, and the sound of grinding rock.

“Maybe we should just keep going,” I said, even though I was exhausted. “We can carry Fiona and leave the wheelchair for later.”

“No way,” Zebulon said. “It’s past midnight already. We’ll just fall asleep in the marsh if we get out tonight.” We went maybe half a mile before calling it a night. I didn’t sleep well. The fish never stopped moving, and knowing what was behind us made it difficult to relax. That and having a squid crawling around under my shirt. I tried to get him to go back to Fiona, but he refused. I think he was mad at her.

I dreamt of the bronze gate again. This time it was ajar, and black mist was pouring out. With no food around to distract me, I reached out to pull the gate open further. The hand that stretched out before me wasn’t mine. I tried to pull back but the hand wasn’t under my control anymore, and the gates were flung wide.

I screamed. I tried to call for Steve, but the name that came out of my mouth was Sparks. Instead of the specter, my amber moths appeared a thousand times their real size, fluttering around me. The black mist damaged their wings, but they managed to shut the gate for me before disintegrating into ash. If there was any more to the dream I don’t remember it, thank God.

When I woke up, everyone else was already awake. Fiona was pacing back and forth, occasionally swearing. Mordecai looked like he wanted to go back to sleep as he drank canned coffee. Only Zebulon was in good spirits.

“Are you ready to go?” He asked me.

“Don’t I get breakfast first?”

“Of course,” Mordecai said. “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve finished mine.”

“And I need to stretch before I get back in that chair,” Fiona said.

“I thought you were morning people,” Zebulon said.

“I am a morning person,” I told him, “if I’ve had a good night’s sleep. Sleeping on bare rock while listening for monsters doesn’t count.” I left out the nightmare. I’d thought the dreams of the gate were connected to the hotel. If I was still having them when I left this town, I was going to be pissed.

If the others noticed me behaving oddly, they didn’t say anything. The canned coffee was far too sweet for my tastes. I drank it anyway. Gregory finally cooperated, crawling out of my shirt to eat breakfast. I put him on Fiona’s lap and left them to settle their differences.

On a whim, and to dispel the last traces of my dream, I checked my amber pendant. It was clouded with black ash. I held it up to the nearest light. To my relief, I could see the moths still inside if I squinted. Did that mean my dream was partially real? I wished the moths could speak and tell me what had happened to them. I held the pendant tightly for a moment and moved it to my breast pocket. Not like that could protect my pets from a dream. It couldn’t hurt, either.

Eventually, we were all ready to go. We took turns pushing the chair. It seemed like harder going today, probably because we were all tired.

Along the way, there was another tremor. It didn’t seem to have any effect on the tunnel, but it I was relieved to get to the exit.

When I opened the door, it was to find Agent Steiner pointing a gun at me.

“Come out with your hands up!” He said. I put my hands up, dropping the hex key as I did so. It bounced, and landed on his foot. He yelled, jumped back, and his gun went off. For a moment, I thought he’d shot me. Then my heart started beating again.

“Oh, shit!” Agent Starr said.

“Goddammit!” Agent Steiner said. He dropped his gun. Zebulon scooted out from behind me and picked it up. He put the safety on, unloaded it, took off the slide assembly, and tossed it to the side. I thought that last part was excessive.

“What the hell was that for?” he asked.

“Did anyone get hit?” I asked.

“No, it went above our heads,” Mordecai said. He was sprawled across the wheelchair, covering Fiona with his upper body. We stayed where we were for a while, staring at each other and waiting for the adrenaline to subside. Steve and the sheriff were there too, as well as some men I didn’t recognize who were wearing hard hats.

“What are you doing here?” Mordecai asked when the ringing in our ears died down.

“A bunch of you Whateleys disappeared with a guy who’s new in town, and suddenly there are strange things happening,” Agent Steiner said. “We thought there might be a connection.”

“They thought you were going to be sacrificed,” Steve told me.

“To what?”

“Whatever the giant tentacles are attached to,” he said.

“What?”

“At the mall,” he said with deceptive calm. “There are tentacles, longer than the trees are tall, writhing out of the ground. Well, they would be taller than the trees, but there aren’t any trees within reach of them now. They’ve eaten them all.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Don’t be,” he said. “They haven’t eaten anybody, and I don’t have to come up with an excuse to halt construction now. I can just show footage of the giant tentacle monster, and that will be that.”

“I hope so,” Fiona said.

“So,
did
you sacrifice anybody?” Agent Starr asked.

“No,” Zebulon said. “We didn’t even shoot anything, unlike
some
people.”

“Sorry about that,” Agent Steiner said. He did sound sorry.

“Were you waiting for us all night?” Fiona asked.

“Not waiting, exactly,” Sheriff Warren said.

“We tried to tunnel in from the side,” Steve said. “We didn’t make much progress.”

“Why would you do that?” she asked.

“We didn’t want to ruin the door,” Agent Starr said.

“Some of us didn’t want to ruin the door since we knew you were all innocent,” Sheriff Warren said. “Some people were in favor of blowing it up.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Mordecai said, “since we weren’t planning on sacrificing anyone.” He glared at the sheriff. “I wonder how
anyone
could have got the impression that we meant Mr. Windisle harm.”

The sheriff and Mordecai helped Fiona get her wheelchair out of the tunnel. Agent Starr tried to look past them.

“So where does the tunnel lead?” he asked.

“Underneath the construction site,” I said.

“Really? Could the killer have used it?”

“That depends on what you mean by use, and which killer you’re talking about,” I told him.

“Then we’d better check it out,” he said.

“I’m not going back,” I said. “I want to take a shower and get some sleep.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Fiona said. “Between the earthquakes and the giant squid this tunnel is becoming very unstable.”

“It looks solid to me,” Agent Starr said.

“Still not going back,” I said. I walked past them. It was hard to walk towards the forest, but I only needed to get around the crowd. It seemed harder today than yesterday like the air was thicker. That chilling effect was back too.

While they argued behind me about exploring the tunnel, I stared into the forest. Something caught my eye, and I looked more closely. At first I thought it was an elk until I realized there were too many antlers. After another, longer look I realized it had to be a mask. I was staring at the skull of some large creature stuck at the front of a ball of antlers.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m the king of road kill, so I’m familiar with the appearance of the skull of just about every animal in North America, but I couldn’t place this one. The giant antler ball was supported by something dark and amorphous. Pseudopods formed from the darkness and solidified into hands. Each hand pointed up and away from the forest. I can take a hint, so I turned back to the group.

“We should all leave now,” I said.

“It’s our job to investigate,” Agent Steiner said. “You’re free to go though.”

“No, we all need to leave,” I said again. “I’m uh . . . I’m picking up negative psychic emanations. Strong ones.”

“Oh please,” Agent Starr said. “You aren’t really psychic.” I looked back at the bone puppet. Black arms still pointed up the hill.

“Fiona?” I said. “Would you mind leaving the wheelchair for another time?”

“No, I can come back for it,” she said. “I have to walk across the marsh anyway.”

“Then let me help you up.”

She stared at me suspiciously.

“Sure.” When I got to her, she whispered “What’s wrong?”

“When you look at the forest, do you see anything odd?”

“No, it looks just like it did before . . .” Her eyes narrowed.

“Now that you mention it, there is something odd about it. It looks like the air beneath the trees is boiling.” She turned to the others and then to me. “You’re seeing something else, aren’t you?”

“We need to get out of here.”

“Very well.” She pushed through the brush and began crawling up the hill. Zebulon joined her.

“One of you has to stay behind to take us into the tunnel,” Agent Starr said. Sheriff Warren looked towards the forest.

“I think it can wait,” he said.

“It looks like we won’t be doing any more work here gentlemen,” Steve said to his work crew. He knew better than to argue with me. “Take what you can carry now and we’ll come back for the rest of it tomorrow.” I looked at the forest again. The hands seemed closer than before. Sparks left my jacket and flew up the hill, the goldfish following closely behind.

“I’m not staying,” Mordecai announced. “I’m tired too. Besides, it isn’t a short trip. You won’t be able to make it there and back before nightfall, and we don’t have any supplies left to lend you.”

“You’re awfully keen to keep us out,” Agent Starr said. “What is down there?” The hands were definitely coming closer.

“Maybe I believe in spooks,” he said. “I’m going home.” A familiar warble saved me from trying to convince the FBI agents to run.

“What’s that?” Agent Starr asked an instant before he was bowled over by a portal penguin.

“Holy shit!” Agent Steiner said. “How many of those things are there?”

I looked down the tunnel.

“More than there used to be,” I said. “And more are coming.”

“Okay, running away seems like a good idea now,” Agent Steiner said. He wrestled the portal penguins off Agent Starr and pulled him to his feet. We shoved our way through the remaining brush and started climbing the hill.

“I’ve got the key,” the sheriff said.

“Great,” I said. “Not that it matters. I don’t think anyone’s going to wade through those guys to get in.”

“Maybe, maybe not. When they leave, we can seal it back up.”

Climbing the hill was made more difficult when the portal penguins followed us. They were just as eager to climb as us and had no problem using us as stepping stones on the way up. I caught up with Fiona and tried to keep them away from her. This was easy since the damn things preferred to climb on me. We were the last two up. The portal penguins dispersed into the marsh, and I looked back down the hill. The dark mass filled the valley now, the skull in the middle tilted up to look at us. A few dark hands rested against the side of the hill but didn’t move further. I got the feeling that
this
thing, whatever it was, was what made the forest seem so unwelcoming. It also reminded me of the dark mist from my dream. I put my hand over my amber pendant protectively. Steve joined me at the edge of the hill.

“What’s going on down there?” He asked me.

“What do you see?”

“I see a mirage; the entire valley is shimmering, and I can’t make out the ground. How about you?”

“I see darkness,” I said. “Let’s get out of here, and I’ll tell you what happened in the cave.”