Through the Gates of Hell

Chapter Four

Maggie stared into darkness and wondered just what in the hell she was doing there. Everything seemed to have happened so quickly. One moment she was in town looking for work, and the next thing she knew, she was riding out of town in a posse to rescue some kidnapped folks and a little girl. How in the world had she let herself get talked into something like this?

She looked at the three people she had joined up with. The only one of them she trusted was Robert. He seemed like he knew what he was doing, and his shotgun would be very effective in the enclosed spaces of the mine. Right away, Maggie intended to stay as close to him as possible.

The other two people in the posse, Walt and Eleanor, were more likely to get in their way than actually do anything useful. Walt looked unhappy to be there in the first place, although to be fair, Maggie wasn’t exactly thrilled about it either. Eleanor the nun, on the other hand, was absolutely obsessed with their mission. The entire ride to the mine, she had not shut up about her faith in God and Jesus and the Lord and all that, and how determined she was to save the innocent and destroy evil. Maggie had been sorely tempted to tell her to just be quiet rather than listen to the woman ranting about the depths of her faith.

Maggie believed in God and considered herself to be a good Christian, but she had her limits. Eleanor was probably a nice person and she clearly meant well, but her religious fanaticism was grating to say the least, and Maggie worried she might run off into danger without thinking. Religion made people do weird things.

Without any further instructions, Robert walked forward into the mine and the others followed. Maggie walked to his immediate right, with Eleanor directly behind them and Walt a step behind her. Eleanor held up the lantern to shine its light between Maggie and Robert, keeping the mine tunnel ahead of them well illuminated as they stepped beyond the reach of the sunlight at the entrance.

The floor of the mine was mostly loose dirt and crumbled stone, and the walls were roughly cut and scraped into the rock by miner’s tools. Maggie had never been inside a real mine before, but it looked much like she imagined it would. The ceiling was just a few inches over Robert’s head, and the tunnel was braced and supported with thick wooden beams at regular intervals. The tunnel went generally straight ahead and gently downward, or so it seemed, but it turned abruptly a few times, zig-zagging down into the earth.

None of them spoke. The only sound was the soft crunch of their boots on the dirt under their feet. As they descended deeper, there seemed to be a lingering haze of dust in the air, almost like a very faint mist, and Maggie could taste grit in her mouth. She had to squint slightly to see clearly, trying to see as far as she could into the dark. All she could think about were all the terrible stories and rumors she had heard, and Robert’s vague descriptions of the things that lurked in these mines. Maggie found herself flinching at shadows and imaging all manner of horrors jumping out at her. She aimed her pistol into the dark and forced herself to breathe calmly and relax. With Robert’s shotgun and her twin pistols, they should be more than a match for anything that might be down here.

The mine tunnel slowly grew narrower, making the walls close in on them. At the entrance, Maggie had at least a foot of space on either side, but now she was pressed almost shoulder to shoulder with Robert and the uneven wall scraped at her right sleeve. Eleanor’s lantern was turned all the way up, but the light still wasn’t enough, and Maggie could barely seen ten or twelve feet in front of her. The air was stale and hot in her lungs, but she felt cold, unable to stop from shivering occasionally. She preferred to believe she was shaking from the cold and not from fear.

Fear – not just a sense of being scared for a moment or two, but true primal terror down in the very core of her being – was not a sensation that Maggie felt very often. It was an inescapable sense of dread and gloom surrounding her like a blanket, creeping into every thought and action. In fact, she could only think of one time she had felt that way before. That time, things had gone very badly for her, but this time was even worse.

She forced herself to look ahead as they made their way deeper under the ground, deeper into the cramped and claustrophobic space of the mine. At one point she stole a glance at the other members of the posse, just to see if they were as terrified as she was. Robert, his shotgun braced against his shoulder, looked utterly determined, and there wasn’t a trace of fear on his face. Maggie supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised by that. Robert didn’t seem like a man who let fear get the better of him. But neither Eleanor or Walt seemed afraid either, at least not that Maggie could tell. Eleanor seemed in the throes of religious rapture, her eyes wide and glimmering in the lantern’s yellow light, her mouth slightly open as if she was in the middle of whispering her prayers. Walt, bringing up the rear, merely looked angry about something.

Was it possible that Maggie was the only one of them who was afraid? If so, then she didn’t feel ashamed about it. Fear was a perfectly reasonable emotion to feel at a time like this. In fact, being afraid seemed like the proper thing to do. If the others weren’t afraid, then they were wrong.

Walt’s voice was barely a whisper but they all heard it loud and clear. “There’s a chamber just up ahead.”

Robert nodded but said nothing, but Maggie was surprised that Walt could know something like that. He obviously knew more about mines than she did, but could he really tell there was a space ahead? Maybe it was just his prospector’s intuition. Or had he been in this particular mine before?

The light ahead of them spread out as the tunnel expanded into a wider space with a roughly flat roof of chiseled stone. The middle of the room had a huge piece of lumber supporting a crossbeam that reached almost from wall to wall. The support beam had nails driven into it, from which hung coats and jackets, which were now coated with dust. As the group entered the chamber, the light from the lantern illuminated the whole area.

Like the tunnel they had just come from, the air in this room smelled foul and unpleasant. The right side of the rear wall was dug out unevenly for a space of about fifteen feet, and there were piles of excavated rock and dirt all over. Off to the left there was another tunnel entrance that reached into darkness. There were a few barrels and small tables near the forward wall to their immediate left.

But those other objects did not attract their attention. Lying on the floor in the middle of the chamber was a body. Its clothes were tattered and ragged. It was face down, sprawled in a tangled posture, arms and legs twisted in unnatural angles. One glance was all it took for Maggie to know that the person was dead.

She froze in place, and then jerkily swung her pistol around the room, aiming at shadows. Robert hurried over to the body and knelt down, and Eleanor followed quickly after him.

“Oh my,” she muttered, “Oh, is he …”

Maggie overcame her fear just long enough to step closer, as Robert took the shoulder of the body and turned it over. As soon as the corpse’s face was revealed, Maggie staggered back and covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a scream. Even Robert jerked backwards in shock, spitting out a curse.

The man’s face was shredded and punctured with dozens of tiny holes and slashes, until the skin hung in bloody strips. One of his eyes was missing, and his lips had been torn away to reveal a bloody skeletal smile.

Eleanor made the sign of the cross and slowly stood up. “May God have mercy on his soul …” she said in a solemn voice.

Walt scratched at his beard and looked over Maggie’s shoulder. “Maybe God should’a had some mercy on him when he was still alive.”

“Walt, do you recognize this man?” Robert asked.

With a shrug, Walt said, “Hard to tell with his face lookin’ like that, but I reckon that’s old Elijah.”

“One of the missing men?”

“Yeah. Used to be a prospector like me, ‘til he turned into the town drunk.”

“What did that to him?” Maggie blurted out, her voice on the edge of panic.

Robert shook his head and stood up straight, cradling his shotgun in his arms. “I don’t know. One of the creatures that took him.”

“The other victims,” Eleanor said. She took a deep breath and seemed convinced of something. “If this poor man died and they left him here, then the others must still be alive. They must be alive or else they would have been left here with him.”

Robert glanced at Maggie and Walt, gauging their reactions. He nodded and rubbed at his chin. “That makes sense to me. He might have died of a heart attack, and those … injuries happened to him after he was already dead.”

“But what …?” Maggie said, feeling helpless and foolish. “A wild animal or something?”

“Yeah, or somethin’,” Walt said.

Robert looked at Walt and pursed his lips in disapproval. Maggie wished someone would just tell her exactly what they were up against. Robert’s vague statements about the creatures being “beyond description” didn’t help her very much, and they certainly didn’t make her feel better. Walt and Robert clearly knew more about what these creatures were, but they wouldn’t – or couldn’t – put that knowledge into words. Were the creatures in the mines like wolves or bears? Or maybe like gorillas or lions, or another less common predator? Or something else entirely?

Robert said, “All right. We can’t do anything for this man here. Eleanor, have you prayed for him or do you need more time?”

“I’ve commended his soul to Heaven,” Eleanor said. “It’s in God’s hands now.”

“Should we … bury him?” Maggie asked, although she knew the answer.

Robert shook his head. “No time. We have to keep moving.”

The four of them took stock of their situation. There was nothing else in the chamber that they could use, and no reason for them to delay. Maggie checked her gun once more, even though she hadn’t fired it. She got the strange feeling that she might pull the trigger and find the chambers empty just the same. It never hurt to double-check.

They walked over to the next tunnel, which was at the far left corner of the chamber, half-concealed in shadows. Like before, Maggie walked with Robert in front, while Eleanor and Walt followed close behind. When the light from Eleanor’s lantern illuminated the start of the tunnel, Robert suddenly stopped and Maggie stopped a split-second after.

“What the …?” Robert muttered.

Hanging from the ceiling of the tunnel, and connected from wall to wall like a ghostly curtain, were delicate grayish threads. They were like cobwebs, but Maggie had never seen cobwebs like that. They were almost blue-gray when the light hit them just right, and they seemed heavier and denser than regular ones, although still flimsy enough to push your hand right through.

“I don’t like this,” Maggie said. Her gun trembled in her hand, and she fought to still it.

She could feel a strange breeze coming down the tunnel, rustling the webs, and with it came an acrid, stinging odor that made her eyes water. Walt stood directly behind her, his hand on her shoulder, and she glanced at him to see that his eyes were as wide as saucer cups. He stared at down the tunnel and then backed away.

“No, we got to get outta here …” he said.

Robert leveled his shotgun into the tunnel. “What is it?” he snapped, keeping his gaze locked forward. “Is this a spider web? What kind of spider is it?”

“They ain’t spiders!” Walt shrieked. “We gotta go now!”

“We’re not leaving!” Robert commanded.

Maggie was frozen in place, half by fear and half by a deranged sense of curiosity. The webs continued to gently wave, and she felt hypnotized by it. With her left hand, she reached out and gently brushed some of the webs aside. At her touch, they broke apart like they were made of smoke.

“Damn it, woman!” Walt screamed. “Don’t touch ‘em!”

From deep in the mine shaft came the sound of chittering and clicking, like pebbles rolling across a slate board. First a few, and then a torrent, echoing down the tunnel like pounding drums. Robert held his ground fearlessly, raising his shotgun to his shoulder like it belonged there. Maggie felt so afraid that she didn’t even know what to do, but she aimed her pistol down the tunnel and placed her finger on the trigger, ready to fire. Walt was screaming unintelligibly, backing away and waving his pickaxe before him as if fighting off invisible ghosts, while Eleanor held the lantern high and began to pray out loud.

“God, protect us from evil! May your light shine in this darkness! Give our hands strength to fight the servants of Satan!”

What emerged from the depths of the darkness were things out of a nightmare. They were spiders, but not like any spiders that grew on earth. They were huge, the size of dogs, with pale white flesh and long sharp legs that ended in red points. They flooded out of the tunnel, swarming through the webs and crawling on the walls and ceiling with incredible speed. Ten, then twenty, then thirty, then Maggie completely lost count.

Robert’s shotgun boomed and Maggie’s gun followed a split-second later. The blast obliterated the webs and exploded the body of the first spider to come in view, splashing the others with foul-smelling purple slime. Maggie fired as fast as she was able, sliding her left hand across the back of the gun to strike the hammer over and over without needing to even pull the trigger. The pistol spat bullets and each one struck home, blasting through the spiders’ soft white bodies.

But there were too many. They swarmed around the mouth of the tunnel and rushed past until Maggie and the others were surrounded. Up close, the spiders looked even more hideous and alien. Their mouths were actually on the underside of their ghastly bodies, circled with a row of curved fangs that dripped venom.

Maggie’s gun seemed to move and fire of its own volition. When she ran out of bullets, she drew her other pistol and fired with her left hand with equal speed and skill. Each bullet hit a spider, and her shots seemed to hit them in their weakest spot, doing the most damage. She fired into a whirlwind of snapping legs and biting fangs, and her aim was unerringly perfect.

Walt was howling like a madman, smashing his pickaxe into the spiders as they swarmed around him, the heavy steel blade punching through them one after the other. Beside him, Eleanor was swinging the lantern and batting away spiders with her large metal cross. “Begone, demons!” she wailed. “Back to Hell with you!”

Robert blasted his shotgun so quickly that it sounded like he was shooting with both barrels at the same time. He flipped the gun open, ejected the spent cartridges, and popped in new ones faster than anyone Maggie had ever seen. Maggie had to reload her pistols twice before the shooting was done, both pistols hot to the touch from all the gunfire.

Together, the four of them shot, blasted, and smashed into pieces the vile swarm of demonic spiders, but just as they thought they were finished, even more of the terrifying creatures came from the mine shaft, their eyes glowing red and their fangs spurting venom. And then, just as soon as the onslaught started, it was done, leaving piles of spider carcasses scattered all around them.

“Damn you! Damn you!” Walt shouted, smashing the bodies into a pulp, tears streaming down his grizzled cheeks. He fell to his knees and looked around in a daze, and Eleanor gently placed her hand on his arm to calm him. Her own black dress was splattered with spider blood, and the cross in her hand was covered in it.

Maggie just stared around in disbelief, letting her arm fall to her side. Smoke wafted from the barrels of her pistols. The entire tunnel and chamber were covered in the gory remains of dozens of the giant spiders. A few of them were still twitching, legs curling in death, and the whole mine reeked of their putrid purple blood.

“Jesus Christ,” Maggie said.

Eleanor looked at her and frowned. “Please, Miss Carmichael. Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”

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