Modern Rituals (10 page)

The walls vibrated, synchronized to the flickering lights. Tables and chairs moved randomly, racked by an invisible force. Olivia bent her knees and dug her heels into the floor.

Deafening laughter filled the room.
 

The young girl traipsed into the doorway. Musty, jet-black hair dangled in front of her face, flowing downward and twisting into ropes that snaked across the floor toward them. Olivia stepped forward—Keto grabbed her arm, jerking her into now-opened the passage.

The laughter became a desperate shriek. Halogen canisters exploded, spraying shattered glass.
 

James lumbered into the secret corridor and stole one last look: a strand of hair leapt toward them—Olivia slammed the door and shoved her body against it. Thumps and thuds pounded against it as the hair pummeled outside—James prayed the door would hold.
 

It did. The sounds behind it subsided.

James looked around, catching his breath. They stood in a tight passage enclosed by stone walls inset with flaming candle holders an arms length apart. The flames cast a subtle glow illuminating a set of descending spiral stairs.
 

The injured man’s limp body bore down on James, who grunted as he shifted the weight on his shoulders. They descended without losing pace.

“Keep moving. I think it’s gone,” Olivia said.

“Are you sure? My God, what was that thing?” Colette said, her skin pale and feverish.

“I’m not sure, but she just up and disappeared when the passage opened.”

“She…it…whatever it was…that’s what Olivia and I came across earlier,” James said, huffing.

“Yes, we have no reason to doubt you now,” Anthony said, “We must be on guard from here on.”

“Well, at least it appears we’re safe—” James said.

“—for now,” Tomas said.

James made another mental note to smack Tomas’ bald head if he got the opportunity.

“Yes, for now. Thank you Tomas, very insightful,” James said, straining under his passenger’s seemingly lead-filled body.

They descended far beneath the classroom building. James yawned, popping the pressure from his ears.

“I wonder who lit these candles. Was someone here recently?” James said.

“Perhaps we will find out,” Anthony said.

Olivia crossed her arms and rubbed from shoulder to elbow. Colette started to shiver, hugging herself for warmth. James dripped with sweat and welcomed the frosty nip.

“This is quite the set of stairs,” James said.

As they rounded the final spiral, the passage opened to a damp chamber alike in size to the classroom they had just escaped. Wax-red candles planted on the floor, each varying in height from their length of burn, flickered near an altar that rose to the ceiling.

“Whoa, okay… What is that? A shrine?” James said. He lowered his burden to the floor and leaned him against an earthy wall.

Olivia glanced around—she seemed hesitant to enter. Keto, Anthony and Tomas ambled toward the shrine. Colette knelt down next to James as he checked the man’s pulse. Olivia appeared at James’ other side.

“Let me take a look,” she said, “I’m a nurse.”

“Knock yourself out,” James said. He pushed himself up and panted.

Colette stood too and kept herself shoulder-to-shoulder with James.

“You okay, hon? That must’ve been hard, carrying that big guy down God knows how far,” Colette said.

Her southern drawl charmed away his ability to look her in the eyes.

“Oh, yeah, heh, it was nothing,” James said, scratching his head, turning his attention to the shrine.

“Bruises…” Olivia said more to herself than James. She had lifted Horace’s shirt and had begun squeezing and poking him. “Inflamed ankle—no, more likely a torn tendon—seen injuries like this before. Guy must have been through hell but is going to be okay, though his ankle is in terrible shape. I need to secure it until he can get proper medical attention.” Olivia said, her eyes scanning the room. “We need to create a makeshift splint or ankle wrap.”
 

James half nodded to her as if to say, “You’re the boss,” but the shrine area held his gaze.
 

Keto, Anthony and Tomas converged around the altar, blocking James’ view. He squeezed in between Anthony and Keto. The shrine exhibited a distinct naivety, as if a child had slung wood together to mimic a holy artifact. It sat atop a worn, ornate wooden table with gilded edges and rough, splintered wooden feet—likely from having been dragged down the stairs. A pair of doors—now open like a bare wardrobe—revealed a mostly empty inner space.
 

Dilapidated Japanese scrolls pasted to the shrine’s interior depicted macabre scenes of death and portraits of worshippers prostrated before them. A solitary item centered within the shrine disturbed James: a petite, wooden statue of a woman. In contrast to the altar, the statue showed delicate and precise detail carved by a master hand, and—given the size—designed for a child. But those factors did not alarm James. Rather, the statue’s body language unnerved him: she huddled on the ground, her gaze forced backward (from what?), her face compressed with anguish. One raised arm protected her head, while the other steadied her body.
 

James glanced at Keto, who stood motionless, scrutinizing the altar with quiet eyes. James turned back to Olivia—she’d torn the man’s sleeve free and repurposed it to bind his ankle—nice work for having limited means. He and Olivia’s eyes met as she made her way to him. Colette had already joined the group.

“What the hell is this doing in the basement of a school?” Tomas said.

The question hung in the air.

It’s definitely out of place,
James thought.

“Keto, what do you make of this?” Anthony asked.

 
Keto folded his arms and placed a hand on his chin. He stroked its smooth surface, eventually digging his fingers deep into the recesses of his cheeks, creasing his skin into doughy little folds.
 

“I do not like this,” he said, taking a step back, averting his eyes from the altar. “This is a butsudan. Very common in Japan. It offers a small sanctuary for worship. This is devoted to Amida. Judging by the characters and scrolls, the person who stood here was desperate, if not mad. Parts of the structure are well made, perhaps borrowed, but the rest is haphazard, as if constructed by a child.”

“Is that common in Japan?” James said.

“It’s not unheard of. Most parents have their children partake in some form of ceremony,” Keto said.

“Worshiping the God of Death?” Anthony said.

“No, that would be unlikely. I would estimate that this is the work of a child on his or her own,” Keto said.

James had run with a few goth kids in his teenage years and on a couple occasions had been tempted to throw on white makeup and drab black liner himself, but he’d chosen other ways to defy society—ways that wouldn’t destroy his chances of getting laid by depressed girls. He’d stuck to the regular kind of crazy: daddy issues, societal pressure and the like. He'd maintained friendships with those who had happily joined the ranks of the living dead, however, and with them he’d attended parties where death metal blared in ultraviolet caves fogged with bong vapor. James understood the young and angry, but the tableau before him made his goth friends into purring kittens.

Olivia reached down and picked up the wooden statuette. She turned and bounced it in her hands, then examined it more closely, running a finger over its fine edges and grooves.
 

“This is remarkably well-crafted,” she said, turning the statue over, her eyes widening as she investigated the base.

“Hey, look at this! The statue has a Japanese character etched into it. It’s rather deep,” Olivia said.

She held the statue like a flashlight and pointed its bottom at the group. Gilded edges outlined an octagonal base, similar to the contour of the butsudan’s cabinet and doors. Keto bent toward it and squinted.

“The inscription says ‘Mother,’” he said.
 

A chill crawled up James’ spine as a dreary stillness fell upon the group. He looked toward the ceiling—thick wooden rafters ran its length. They disappeared into walls of compacted earth, which enclosed the entire room as if it had been cut into the ground with a monstrous chisel. The walls, far from naked in the dim light, featured intermittently recessed and slatted wood panels that covered their entirety, reminiscent of an Edo period Japanese household.

Olivia seemed as interested in the chamber as James and he watched as she also took in their surroundings, consternation on her face as she tilted her head, scrunched her nose, then turned her ear to the altar. She moved two steps. One more. She crouched, peering beneath the butsudan. He followed her lead and knelt beside her.

“What’s up?” he said.

“Shhh—do you hear that?” Olivia said.

James cocked his head, placing one hand on the ground to steady himself. He couldn’t hear a thing.
 

“You’re either hearing things or you’re superwoman,” he said.

Olivia ignored his jest and squinted, pursuing the sound. James tried desperately to tune into her phantom noise—he pressed his hand against the floor to lower himself. The floor, coated in a thick mire, deposited filth underneath his nails, which in turn set the hairs on his back to vibrating like nails against a chalkboard or chewing aluminum foil. A tingling in the tips of his fingers wouldn’t quit. It was as if the floor…

That was it—the sensation originated not in his hands but the floor. It vibrated—discreetly, almost imperceptibly.
 

James asked Olivia for her hand, to which she gave him without apprehension, much to his surprise, and he held it against the floor.

“Feel that?” he said.

“Yes—that’s it! It’s like the thrumming we heard outside,” she said.
 

There’s more to this altar.
James lay on his back and wriggled his way under the cabinet under the butsudan. He choked on a swirl of dust.
 

“You okay?” Olivia said.
 

“Yeah, fine,” James said. “Can you grab me one of those candles? It’s dark as hell down here.”

Olivia placed a worn candle into James’ extended hand.
 

“Thanks,” he said, carefully positioning the candle to provide enough light without setting the underside of the table on fire.
 

“Well, I’ll be…” he said.
 

A circular extrusion the size of his palm flickered in the candlelight. It resided center of the table’s belly—and happened to be identical in shape to the statue’s bottom.
 

“I found something!” he said. “Olivia, can you hand me the statue?”

She did. Feet gathered round the table. Olivia scooted under the table beside him.
 

“The statue is a key, and I think I just found the lock,” James said. “I’m going to try it.”

The statue’s bottom slid onto the extrusion with ease. James turned it clockwise, and was rewarded with a crick, a creak and a whirring hum.
 

Nothing happened.

He continued to turn until a loud pop stopped him and the area beneath the altar gave way, dropping Olivia and James into the dark.

7

Theo was a gargoyle perched atop a gothic tower surveying a crumbling city.

“Trevor. Go. Now.”

8

James heard Olivia groan, felt pressure on his chest. His back ached, his breath was ragged. He lay blinded—save for a dim glow some ways away.

“James…?” Olivia said. “James, are you okay? Ugh—my leg.”

James took stock of himself.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, running his hands over his chest in an attempt to find what was crushing it. It was Olivia—Olivia’s leg.

During their tumble down to God-knows-where, Olivia had somehow straddled James sideways, resulting in an awkward, entangled position. James arched his back, allowing Olivia to free herself.
 

“Well, that solves that. Where in God’s name are we?” James said, getting to his feet and… “—Ow! What the holy… Careful, the ceiling isn’t more than four or five feet.” He gingerly prodded a lump on the back of his skull.

“We didn’t fall for long. We must be directly beneath the others,” Olivia said. “Actually, I think I can hear them talking above us.”
 

James stood still and held his breath. Sure enough, a ruckus of muffled sound filtered through the unrelenting head-masher of a ceiling above.

James’ eyes adjusted to the darkness. The room (or rather, the crawlspace) was dark but for a glint of light seeping from the ceiling’s perimeter. James attempted to make his way to the edge, but tripped on a tattered, clackity thing.

“Um, Olivia. I don’t think we’re alone,” James said, fumbling onto his hands and knees.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said.

His eyes adjusted and confirmed his suspicion: next to James sat a dusty mass of human remains. Its flesh long decayed, its hollowed face stared from a disjointed neck, all bone and jagged—a screaming horror with slacked jaw. He scurried away until his back slammed against a wall.
 

He looked up. The light entered through grated holes that ran along the ceiling’s outer border.
 

“Hey! Anyone, can you hear me?” James said.
 

A shadow filled the holes above him.
 

“James! Is that you?” Anthony said.

“Yes! We’re okay. Too bad we can’t say the same for someone else we found down here,” James said.
 

“Do I want to know?” Anthony said.

“Nope. Listen, we’re going to look for a way out. Stay put—cool?” James said.

“Yes, of course. Be careful.”
 

James looked back at the dead body, now accompanied by another hunched-over shape: Olivia had begun examining it.

“This body has been here for a long while,” Olivia said.
 

“Let’s make sure we don’t end up the same. Can you tell how they died?”

“No, it’s too dark.”

Olivia rummaged through the corpse’s clothing.