Walk With Me In Hell

Chapter Eleven

“We could go back to town,” Helen said, her voice weak. “Inform the sheriff about these … these people.”

“And tell them what?” Burt asked.

Louisa angrily shook her head. “They would never believe us. Never.”

Burt kept fiddling with his gun, so he stuck it in its holster to get it out of his hands. “Even if you convinced the sheriff to send men down here,” he said wearily, “all they’d find is a group of miners who had been shot to death. And we’re the ones who shot them.”

Helen stared at him, aghast. “You can’t mean … Do you think the sheriff would accuse us of murdering them?”

“Easier to do that then face the truth, don’t you think? But it don’t matter, because they won’t send anyone down here. And if we go back to Haventown and start telling people that the mine is full of dead people coming back to life, they’ll throw us all in an asylum.”

“So what do we do?” Helen asked.

Teshenah was standing at the entrance to the next tunnel. He had his tomahawk in one hand and his rifle resting on his shoulder. “We continue on,” he said. “We finish what we came here to do.”

Louisa said, “I agree with Teshenah.”

Burt didn’t want to go any further into the mine, but at the same time he knew they couldn’t just give up and crawl defeated back to town. They had seen too much already. How could any of them just go on living a normal life after their experiences down in this hellhole? They had no choice but to keep going until they reached the end. It was the only way they would achieve a sense of closure, a belief that they had accomplished something. Either that, or they were all going to die, and no one in Haventown would even notice.

They all took a few moments to prepare. Louisa checked their lantern and confirmed that they still had adequate oil left. Teshenah and Helen reloaded their rifles and Burt did the same with his pistol. By some miracle, none of them had actually been injured in the fight with the dead miners, but they all checked each other for scratches and cuts just in case. Burt didn’t even want to think about getting some kind of infection or disease due to a simple scratch.

“How many bullets do you have left?” Helen asked.

Burt closed his pistol, cocked the hammer, and then slowly lowered the hammer back down before returning the gun to its holster. “A few,” he said. “Enough for one more reload.”

Louisa said, “I used my little gun on one of those people. That was my only shot.”

“I have no more extra bullets,” Teshenah said.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and find some more,” Helen said, but none of them believed that.

Once they were ready, they entered the next tunnel. This time, Helen and Teshenah went first, and Louisa agreed to be in the back. She still held the lantern and raised it high so it shone over Helen’s shoulder. The tunnel dipped down at an incline, steeper than before, and when it leveled out again, Burt felt that the air had gotten colder. He exhaled and his breath came out in a wisp of cloud. The others noticed it too, but no one said anything.

They continued onward, following the mine shaft as it swerved and twisted so much that they were not longer what direction they were even heading in. All they knew was that they were going deeper and deeper underground.

Time ceased to have meaning. The air got colder and thinner, and at times the lantern seemed to flicker uncertainly, despite Louisa’s insistence that there was still plenty of oil remaining. At one point, they came to a fork in the tunnel, and Teshenah, after short consideration, selected the right fork. Even though they had only had to pick a direction two times, Burt wasn’t sure if he could even find his way back out of the mine if he had to. Sometimes, he had to fight the urge to look back, as if to make sure that the tunnel wasn’t closing up behind them.

Finally, after what felt like hours of pointless marching down an endless tunnel, they came to another chamber. The floor under their feet was solid rock, and the walls were no longer chipped and scraped by shovels and picks. The mine seemed to have inexplicably changed into some kind of natural subterranean cavern without them even noticing.

As they emerged from the tunnel into the chamber, strange yellow lights seemed to light up in the distance, seeming to come from far way, making the chamber appear larger than it really was. Teshenah, in front of Burt, hissed a breath and raised his rifle. Burt instinctively drew his gun, even as the yellow lights began to hover towards them.

They weren’t lights. They were eyes. Sharp, triangular yellow eyes belonging to hulking, malformed beings with diseased blue skin. They had stubby legs and oversize arms ending in massive gray claws. They looked like some alien breed of gorilla, except that their faces were anything but human, with a huge slash for a mouth filled with sharp gray teeth.

They were demons, like Teshenah had said. Demons straight out of a nightmare.

Helen and Teshenah immediately opened fire, Helen dropping to one knee while Teshenah leaned near the wall and fired over her shoulder. Louisa screamed in fury and rushed them, waving her machete over her head. These beasts, or something very like them, had been among the creatures that struck the Goldline Tavern. Burt had no choice but to run out after her, firing with his pistol. His bullets struck their thick hide and barely slowed them down.

“Burt! Louisa!” Teshenah cried. “Take cover!”

He turned and saw Teshenah lighting one of the sticks of dynamite. Its fuse came alight with a sparkling flame, and then Teshenah hurled the stick into the center of the crowd of monsters. Burt ran and grabbed Louisa, who was hacking at one of the beasts. She struggled against him and he yanked hard, pulling both of them to the ground.

The dynamite exploded with a thunderous boom that practically deafened them. A cloud of dirt and dust blossomed up and filled the room, and they were pelted with bits of dirt and stone. The beasts howled in agony, proving that they could feel pain at least.

Burt rolled over, coughing with all the dust. His ears were ringing, and he couldn’t see anything, as the lantern had rolled away and was now shining its light on the far wall. Louisa squirmed her way free of him and got to her feet. She yelled something unintelligible, half furious scream and half miserable sob, and ran towards the beasts that were still standing.

More gunshots rang out, and Burt blinked away the dust and aimed his pistol. A few of the monsters were shuffling toward Helen and Teshenah. At least four of them were dead on the ground, killed in the explosion. Burt shot one of them in the back, pulling the trigger until his gun clicked empty, and it teetered and flopped over, gushing thick purple blood.

Louisa was smashing her machete into another beast as it howled and swiped at her with its claws. She shrieked in pain and staggered back. Burt aimed his gun but it was empty, so he tossed it aside and drew his lasso out. With an expert flick of his wrist, he swept the rope into the air and immediately got it spinning, and then hurled the loop at the beast. The loop settled perfectly around the monster’s shoulders, and Burt pulled back as hard as he could. The monster howled and pulled against him, and he had to dig in with his heels to hold it back, but the stone floor left little for him to dig into.

Two more monsters were attacking Teshenah, who defiantly held them back with his tomahawk as Helen continued firing. Burt pulled backward and dragged the monster away from Louisa, who was down on one knee, holding her arm tightly against her side. Even in the dim light, Burt could see the blood shining on her skin.

Teshenah went down under the claws of the beasts, and Helen screamed as she fired at them at point-blank range. Her rifle boomed and the last of them finally collapsed to the ground.

“Helen!” Burt shouted.

Helen racked her rifle, but it was empty. She had fired her last shot. Rather than try and spend time reloading, she dropped the gun and grabbed Teshenah’s tomahawk. The beast caught in Burt’s lasso growled and rushed at him, and Helen met it halfway, swinging the blade right on top of its head and cleaving its skull in two. Blood gushed from the beast’s mouth as it dropped to the ground. Frantically, Helen and Burt looked around to make sure the rest of them were dead.

“Help me with Teshenah!” Helen cried.

“Louisa’s hurt too,” Burt said. “Let me check on her first.”

Louisa was on her feet, her face stretched in pain. “I’m okay, I’m okay,” she said breathlessly, clutching her bloody arm. But the look on her face was evidence that she was anything but okay.

“We got to get you bandaged up,” Burt said. Louisa’s legs wobbled and she nearly fell over, so Burt scooped her up in his arms and carried her over to where Teshenah was laying. Helen grabbed a handful of bandages and pressed them against the bloody wound bubbling on his chest.

Teshenah groaned and clenched his teeth, his skin pale and covered in a sheen of sweat. The monster’s claws had sliced deep gashes from his shoulder down to almost his stomach, shredding his shirt and opening up long bloody gouges in his skin. His entire chest was already covered in blood. Burt right away knew that the wound was a fatal one unless they could get him stitched up as soon as possible. Otherwise he would bleed to death in a few minutes. But none of them were physicians, and they didn’t have the supplies to properly care for him. Helen was trying to get his wounds wrapped with minimal success. Her hands were smeared with Teshenah’s blood, and tears were streaming down her cheeks.

Burt made his choice. In times like this, it was better to help the person that could actually be saved. He laid Louisa back down and took a strip of bandages. Louisa held out her slashed arm and Burt did his best to wrap it tightly, even though blood seeped through the cloth. The wound was bad and would leave a scar, but Louisa would make it. She also had a bad gash right on her hip, but there was little they could do about that, so she held a small wad of bandages against it for now.

As soon as her arm was wrapped up, Louisa crawled over to Teshenah. She sat down and cradled his head in her lap, gently brushing away strands of hair and whispering soothing words to comfort him. Burt took out his pocket knife and cut away the rest of Teshenah’s shirt, and then he and Helen methodically used up the rest of their bandages to wrap his chest and cover up the bloody slashes as much as they could. Teshenah blinked and his breathing settled down, and in a weak voice he asked for some water. Helen let him drink all that remained in her canteen.

“We have to get him out of here,” Burt said. “I think he’s stable, but he can’t go any farther.”

Teshenah shook his head and made an effort to sit up, but Louisa was having none of it. She held him down and continued to caress his brow and whisper gently, as if her words were some kind of magic spell that could heal him. He let Louisa do her magic, but grunted and said, “No, we are not leaving yet. Just give me a minute to rest and we will keep going.”

Burt shared a concerned look with Helen, but then he shrugged. “All right, Teshenah. But if you can’t walk, then I’m going to carry you out of here myself.”

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