Mine Zero

A Gore Point novella

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This was a co-written experience, wherein my readers voted on story decisions along the way while I was writing the story week to week.

This story takes place in the world of my book Gore Point. You don’t need to have read Gore Point to enjoy it, and it contains no spoilers. HOWEVER, if you enjoy this, you’ll probably enjoy Gore Point … and it’s more fun to read along if you’re already immersed in the world by reading the main book.

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Jump directly to:

• First decision point
• Second decision point
• Third decision point (FINAL MATERIAL IS HERE)

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Journal of Clara Remik
October 23, 1962

2am. Cole is finally asleep. Like last night, he lost consciousness more than decided to drift off, still mostly upright in his chair by the TV, the thing still on showing fuzz. He’s got a dozen empty bottles dripped down their sides onto the end table but I’m not going to clean them up. Not tonight, and not tomorrow morning. I wish I cared about water rings on my furniture right now. I wish I still cared about anything normal. 

On the six o’clock news, they showed pictures someone took over Cuba showing fuel and oxidizer tanks lined up in rows. I spent the next few hours down in our root cellar, wondering if it’d stand up to some sort of Russian attack. When I admitted that of course it wouldn’t, I started thinking about the mines. When I couldn’t get to sleep, I started reading the Post in bed. When that didn’t make me tired, I got my reports and tried to work a bit. I tried to be as fascinated by Zen Element as I’d been yesterday. I even started a little mantra, like Delores chants when she does her meditation. Mine was, “It makes its own energy. It makes its own energy.” Repeated over and over. 

Yesterday it set my mind on fire, just thinking about the stuff. It was actually discovered five years earlier than is generally known, in ’54, but after five years they still didn’t understand it and I guess that’s when they decided to tell the world and see if the private sector could figure it out. The prospect of self-made energetics, however the hell it’s possible, would solve all the world’s problems. That’s how I felt yesterday: Full of hope. Full of possibility. Despite Vietnam, despite Venezuela and Guatemala, despite predictable race riots as the holdouts are desegregated one at a time, I thought endless energy might solve all the world’s woes.

Now all I can think about is the footage I’ve seen of nuclear tests. This Cuba thing has me flip-flopped, wondering what damage an endless source of power could do if someone made it into a weapon. Which, given history, you know they’re bound to do. 

I probably fell asleep around midnight. I never remember my dreams, but this time I remember every beat. 

I was hanging wash on the line after Cole was away, down in one of those shafts they reopened with his crew, doing the work of home between bouts of lab work because even in dreams my husband never helps. I heard a roar and looked up to see missiles launching all across the fields that surround us. Overhead were the Russian missiles, almost here. I rushed to the mine, like I’d been thinking before bedtime, and down into a shaft just before the first strike hit. The blast shook the world and I fell, breaking the lantern I’d brought. The opening behind me caved in, and I remember watching the spilled lantern oil burn, even smelling it, knowing it wouldn’t burn long without a wick. Then Cole was there in the way dreams are, and so were the rest of them, and he leaned down to use the burning lantern oil to light a cigarette. 

He said, “Bringing fire into a mine? Silly woman. Now look what you’ve done.” 

Now I can’t sleep and the house is quiet except for the static of what used to be NBC. I’ve paced and paced, trying to forget the other thing that happened this week, the thing Cole doesn’t know, but even though the off-air static gives me shivers, I just can’t bring myself to turn the set off and usher in the quiet. 

Almost forty years it’s been, and I still can’t face the darkness. 

.

Journal of Cole Remik
October 25, 1962

Finally went in today. It took less time to reach the area than anyone expected. Not like there was traffic. 

6am and the place is out in the middle of nowhere. Creepy as hell, too. You hear about old gold rush boom towns turned ghost towns, but Tom said that “Fortune,” such as it is, boomed and busted in just three years, and the quickness of it means that everything still feels new — like they all disappeared one day in the middle of breakfast. The report we had to promise not to talk about says that a whole lot of the magnesium and copper mines dug in the area in 59-61 were actually dug for this weird Zen stuff, and most of the miners hired for the jobs were from nowhere near here, hoping they could keep that strange shit quiet from the locals. No wonder we never got the call. 

We were supposed to head from the base in Fortune to the actual mines around 8, but it was almost noon before we heard a damn thing. Tom figured it was because Chuck, our foreman, wasn’t there yet. Like going to a fancy restaurant: They wouldn’t seat us until our whole party arrived.

So to kill time, I walked through the place. The bones of Fortune are like my own neighborhood: curbs, streetlights, curving roads that wind back on themselves and houses that all look alike. You half expect to see kids jumping rope and drawing with chalk on the sidewalks, it’s so perfect. They even keep the grass mowed to cut down on snakes. It’s too quiet, like everyone’s on siesta. 

I tried to call Clara, to let her know that if we were going in late, I might be back late. When she didn’t answer, I tried the lab. She’s always at the lab. Marriage didn’t even slow her down. Half the time she comes home later than me, the house a mess and no dinner on the table. She wasn’t at the lab either, but the kid who works the phone at first didn’t even recognize her name when I asked. When she finally got it, she kind of laughed and said, “Oh, of course. You mean Dr. Carlson.” 

Carlson. She’s using her maiden name again. Or using it already. 

But “Dr. Carlson” wasn’t in. She’d gone away with a man in a suit. The secretary must’ve thought that I thought she was cheating because she told me something I’ll bet she wasn’t supposed to: The man wasn’t some random guy; he was D.O.E.: Department of Energy. Same folks who keep bringing us those mushroom clouds. 

Everyone’s tense for some reason, and having to sit around a creepy government-built abandoned town for four extra hours didn’t help. Tom seemed preoccupied. Would barely look up, just kept playing with his wedding ring. Buck asked him for a cigarette and Tom told him to buy his fuckin own. Buck almost took it personal, like Buck usually does, but instead he let it roll off and started asking everyone about Chuck — pain in the ass after a while because obviously we didn’t know where Chuck was either. None of us knew why he hadn’t ridden to the site with us, and none of us knew when he’d show up. Boris had grabbed a newspaper from the Mart when we set out and just kept reading the international section over and over while we sat in a hot room, listening to him turn those big newsprint pages. Boris also has a new welt on his head. I asked him about it and he wouldn’t say, just brushed me off, but Leila at the pub told me Wednesday that there was a fight the other night around the pool table. Something about some good ol’ boys taking a Ruskie to task because that’s what good Americans do with Ruskies. Leila told it to me like she approved, I guess because she doesn’t know Boris is one of us. 

Maybe this weird assignment is a blessing. Maybe the best place for a Russian in Utah right now is underground. 

They finally took us to the site, but looking back I think they were just playing for time. Our escort — an Army driver named Sam, who looked about sixteen and couldn’t’ve weighed a buck-fifty — looped us around the place in a green-canvas troop carrier like he was giving a tour, always calling it by its official name of Fortune as if it was actually a town. From time to time he’d radio in, or he’d get a squawk on the radio and take it on headphones and whisper so we couldn’t hear what was said, and after enough squawks he finally drove us to the outskirts where we were met by two official-looking black sedans filled with men with soft, unscarred hands who I guess were supposed to know mining better than us.

They walked us past the mine entrances: two shafts about fifty yards apart, each going down in opposite directions. One had a gate across it, and they let us peek through that one. The other — an old-fashioned shaft mine, dug that way for God knows what reason — wasn’t closed off by a gate. Instead it had a huge metal door, and the area between the door and the rock was sealed with some sort of a filler. I asked if there was gas inside — if that’s why the mines were closed. If that’s why it was sealed up so tight, so no gas could escape. It was my only guess but it still wasn’t a sensible one. I’ve never seen a mine sealed up like that. It had chains on chains, and locks on locks. 

Just walking by it, we all flinched back on account of the heat coming off the door. I’ll bet you could light a cigarette on the metal if you pressed it there long enough. 

But the men in suits wouldn’t tell us nothing. Said it was some sort of a “blowback” or “backrush” causing the heat — two words I never heard before and sounded made-up. Said we’d be able to go in once it all dissipated, though he did remind us we couldn’t tell anyone. It made me think of how our home phone has had a weird clicking on the line ever since we got called out here, and how every time I think about driving past the ravine on one side or the greenbelt on the other, there’s always black cars just like these two waiting to follow. 

Once we were back by the troop truck, the older of the government types dropped the bomb he’d clearly known about all morning and had clearly been trying to solve before needing to tell us the truth: Chuck, our foreman, broke both his legs in a car wreck last night. Someone else would be leading us this time, but even after I asked and asked who, they just kept saying it was need-to-know … which I took to mean that even they don’t know what’s coming next. 

I’m starting to feel like Clara: paranoid just a little, like maybe we’re not entirely free to move around, or free to go. We were offered this job like any other … except now that I think back on it, I’m not sure we could’ve said no. 

.

Journal of Clara Remik
October 27, 1962

I woke up to the phone this morning, sometime around 8:30am. I never sleep in this much. I was sleeping so deeply that the sound was an assault. Five rings in I wondered why Cole wasn’t answering, and by about the tenth ring I figured I’d have to do it. Whoever was calling didn’t want to give up. 

I was so dazed, I had to ask the caller three times to repeat himself. He’d only give me the same string of sentences each time, through — some sort of prepared statement he’d been instructed to call me and read verbatim. 

None of those sentences made sense at first. I was still halfway mired the dream I’d woken from, unable to process. In the dream, I was in my family’s coal room again, six years old with that same tottering bookcase fallen against the door to trap me. It’s the only dream I’ve ever had with every sense but sight. I smelled the acrid, earthy scent of the coal and felt the way it dusted off on my hands, so thick in the air I could taste it. I kept hearing the pile shift, sure as I’d been on that day that if I didn’t stay very still, it’d bury me. In the dream, like in real life, I screamed for help. I knew I had almost five hours to wait, because that’s how long it’d taken for Paw Paw to find me, but in the dream the hours stretched on and on and on. I’d be buried alive in there, choking on coal dust and starving pound by pound until I expired. I’d be down there until JFK and Khrushchev’s little tete à tete from yesterday paid off, and the bombs came.

The caller said they needed me, but I’d bet my mother’s fine silver they didn’t actually want me. They’d considered tapping other scientists — and maybe some military types — but for one reason or another none of them could go. I was their last resort. The last thing they wanted, to lead a group of men, was a woman. 

He told me that a man named Charles Foster had been in car crash three days ago, and that before his accident, he’d been slated to lead a group on “a geological expedition of the utmost importance and discretion.” He told me how “the United States government appreciated and required” my own discretion in this matter. If Foster couldn’t lead the group due to his injury — and if all sorts of people who would have been preferable to me also couldn’t lead the group — well, then, it had to be me. I was working with Zen Element already, after all — already clandestine expert to the mission Foster was supposed to lead. Not that the caller had gotten that specific memo. 

Just like before, I didn’t get the sense that I was being given a choice. My “yes” was assumed. 

The man gave me two phone numbers to call. He then assured me (in a way I’d never have thought to ask) that my line was safe to use for this confidential matter — that my phone had been cut away from the party line and I could speak freely to those I called. 

The first person I was supposed to call, immediately, was the boss above Raymond, the D.O.E. man who’s been shepherding my new Zen Element research over the past week. I told him that today was Saturday, but the caller would only repeat the instructions as if Saturdays didn’t matter. Apparently Raymond’s boss doesn’t take weekends off.

The second person I was supposed to call was the second-most-senior man in Charles “Chuck” Foster’s crew, to coordinate my taking charge of our now-mutual hush-hush mission. 

“The man I’d like you to coordinate with is a local miner named Cole Remik,” the caller said. “He lives in town, Dr. Carlson. Do you know him?” 

.

Letter from Boris Petrov to Nadezhda Petrov
Dated October 29, 1962
Intercepted and translated into English on 10/29/62 by D. Muraski, CIA

My dearest Nadezhda,

I now have bad feelings about the job I wrote so excitedly to you about last week. It is hard to describe why. It is simply a feeling in my bones. It is like my heart is too hot inside my chest, and nervous, trying to escape. 

As before, tell none of your friends, nor mama, about what is written here. We are being told that this “Zen Element” is not secret, and that even though the only known deposits are here in America in Utah, the entire world is excited and sharing about it. I am led to assume that includes Mother Russia, even now. Such a substance can do much good for all, so many internationally are studying it. But still do not speak of this. I simply need to speak of it to someone, so I write it to my sister. And even if it is the KGB who opens this and reads it instead, at least it will be out of me. 

I have no real secrets to share. Only a feeling that this is a job I do not want, and I cannot say why, because with it I can provide for you and mama. 

I know only that something is wrong here. The mood is dark and it seems as if all things are converging for ill reasons. Cole is angry that his wife Clara works at all, as she does not make home for him when she is away from it. He is far angrier still that she has now been chosen to lead our team. She is not only untrained, she is also too old and unfit for the rigors. She has never before entered a mine. She is not even geologist. She is scientist, and knows the Element, and between you and me Nadezhda, I actually trust her. But it makes conflict, and that conflict piles atop more conflict. 

We are two days from American Halloween and many are joking about dressing as spirits and playing with the dead, and when I see children joking about it, I chill inside. We are scheduled to enter on their unholiest day, and the crew is already in discord. It fills me with a sense of dread, but it is dread with no specific cause — a dread I cannot find in order to stand and face.

I am trapped in the middle of a cold war in our group, just like the war that is cold between the nations. Tom confessed to me that he knows his wife Lara is having an affair, though he has not yet confronted her. Harold, nicknamed “Buck” who I have mentioned before, has also confessed to me: He is the one sleeping with Lara. Neither knows what the other knows, and both come to me for support I do not want to give. I am seen as safe, because these men are all I have here. I dare not open my mouth in public anymore, for fear of anyone hearing my accent. My entire world is this small group of dirty miners, and yet the group seems soon to explode. 

The job itself scares me. When we visited the site, the mine we are to enter was sealed airtight by a large metal door with many locks. It is hot inside — impossibly hot. We were told yesterday by a man from the government that a fire was the reason the mine was closed. But now the shaft has been sealed for 14 months, with no vents to feed it oxygen, and yet that fire still burns. 

I find myself dwelling on babushka’s silly old superstitions about the kikimora that lived in her home when she was a child. Maybe you are too young to remember. She said it came in through the keyhole and wanted to strangle her in her sleep. They would place brooms by the door to ward her off but still she often came, whistling in the night and breaking dishes when the house was not in order. 

I think of the sealed shaft and I imagine a kikimora of my own trapped inside, unable to reach me because there is no keyhole. But soon we will open that door, and we will face a fire that impossibly still burns. I try not to believe in silly things, my dear sister. And yet I feel bad spirits all around me, everywhere I go … and everywhere I’m soon to go. 

I have requested half my pay in advance from the government men. They did not resist at all, it is kopecks to them. I tell myself that’s all it is: They were willing to pay early because it is not much money to the US government. But I fear it is more. It seemed they gave it to me somewhat out of sympathy. As if they were willing to compensate me because they knew what I was facing. 

I am including all of what they gave me, for you and mama. I do not wish you to worry for me, but it is important that you know what I feel. I cannot shake a sense that if I didn’t send this letter to you now, I might very much regret it. I try not to ask myself why.

I pray, and I ask that you pray for me too. 

Be well,
Бори́съ

.

Journal of Clara Remik
October 31, 1962

It’s now been almost two hours since we were scheduled to enter the mine and still there’s no decision. 

They’ve stuck us in Fortune’s recreation center while we wait for those in charge to decide what to do with us, and with the job. It’s a sad sort of place. Like all things in this little planned town, the rec center is the epitome of “government.” It has an indoor pool, but the ceiling is so low you feel like you’ll hit your head when you get out — a way to save on concrete and cinder blocks, I’m sure. The gym area is still full of weights and medicine balls, but all are dusty and gray. The walls, too, are gray-green. It’s as if colored paint (any hue bright enough to prevent gymgoers from wanting to slit their wrists) might cost extra. 

I asked Raymond for an update a half hour ago and he gave me one without hesitation. Clearly he sees me as the leader that I’m actually not, worthy of privileged information. I haven’t shared what he told me with the men. There’s no reason, and shockingly no expectation from them. They all saw me pull Raymond aside, but no one’s come over to ask what I learned. 

There’s an embargo around me: The single outsider in their tight-knit midst. 

With Chuck gone, Cole is their alpha. Knowing Cole, he may have been the alpha even with Chuck in the mix. Cole hasn’t spoken more than twenty words to me since I told him I’d be heading the expedition, and at least half of those words came right away: curses, protests, cries of emasculation and betrayal.

In a way, I understand. He’s wrong that I can’t do this because I’m a woman, but he’s right about a lot of the rest. I’m forty-five fucking years old — eight years older than Cole and nowhere near as strong and in-shape. When they gave us our physicals, most of my results were outside the bell curve. The doctor noted my heart rate, my muscle tone, my blood pressure, and my stress test results as “not what we usually see.” He then said, “Well … close enough, I guess.” 

I’m alone at a table in the lobby area. The men are at another table all the way across the room. They’ve been talking in low tones, eyes occasionally darting my way. 

Cole’s gaze is like ice. Things were already breaking between us, but my becoming his boss (and entering his specialty, where I have little knowledge and no experience) may have broken us entirely. Tom and the smooth-talker, Buck, won’t settle; they keep pacing and fidgeting and sometimes looking at one another like they might fight. Only Boris is kind to me, but even his kindness is limited by his need to conform. He needs the crew to like him and believe that he’s loyal to them and them alone. They are, I believe, all Boris has in this country … and it’s not a country right now that welcomes a man like him. 

I’d chalk a lot of our unrest up to some ill spirit in the air. I’ve read accounts of this place’s former residents, and bad omens were mentioned a lot in those accounts. The mine isn’t far from here, and the area around it has begun to die: trees wilting, flowers absent, even weeds struggling to survive. Beautiful Cecret Lake, inside the park, seems darker now than its water in old photos. Two accounts called the area by the same ominous nickname: “Suicide Flats.” I was afraid to ask why.  

When Raymond and I spoke, he told me the holdup is because there’s a problem with the mine. 

For safety, they wanted to open it before we arrived. We were to wait here until the seal was cracked, any fires were extinguished, and whatever gas was going to spill out had dissipated. From what I understand, the opening crew were dressed more like bomb squad than firefighters: full heat suits with helmets and visors, each with a self-contained air supply. Our gear is almost as intimidating: heat gear, supplemental oxygen, and rebreathers of a type the men say they’ve never used or seen. 

I keep reminding myself: This isn’t any old hole in the ground. Zen Element creates its own energy. It defies the universal law of entropy. Who knows what happens when it catches fire, if that’s what’s happening inside? Is it possible that Zen is the reason the fires haven’t burned away in the past year, but have instead burned hotter? 

Still, fire is fire. No matter how big the blaze or where its energy comes from, fire needs oxygen to burn. When the shaft was sealed, the only known vent (a bit further up the hill) was also sealed to starve the fire, but there must be smaller vents nobody’s found given that it’s still burning. With the front door open and a crew of men with chemical extinguishers going to task, the fire was supposed to be out by now. Then we’d be free to enter — to check the end of the old shaft and see what the original diggers unearthed.

But apparently the fire is in the rock itself. It burns like trick birthday candles, always with a spark beneath ready to re-ignite anything they smother. They put it out, and it lights right back up. 

We’ll be suited to traverse fire. Raymond tells me that a small and secret think-tank called GEN designed our heat suits using Zen Element technology, and they’re far more heatproof than anything used in the wider world. We’ll be able to enter blazing areas if we need to fight fires along the way — something my miner group has, in a limited way, been trained to face anyway. The problem is that nobody can tell how far down the fire at the entrance goes. 

They rolled some newfangled gadgets down the shaft (Zen Element again, I assume) and are somehow sure because of it that the fires aren’t burning all the way down. If we can get past the entranceway fires, we’ll be fine. The problem is that nobody can tell how far the “entranceway” lasts. We might scramble through fifty feet of fire and be just fine. But if it’s a hundred feet of fire? Or a hundred yards? Well, we’ll have trouble then. Worse: Because so much of the original mine was dug in secret, the only maps they have of it are vague at best. Go in through the shaft, and we’re basically flying blind … and burning all the way. 

There is another option. Raymond says that the vent to the mine (also reopened) is completely free of fire. Instead of entering the mine through the front door, we could climb higher up and descend into it through what’s essentially a skylight. We’d have to rappel down — something that terrifies me but something I’m told isn’t very hard or even very dangerous. If we go in that way, we’ll touch down in a natural cave they call “the cathedral” — apparently because it’s thick with crystals and geodes, and sparkles when sunlight enters. 

But there’s a downside. If we rappel in, we can’t take all the gear they wanted us to take. We’ll have to leave behind probably half of the oxygen, a few rebreathers, a cache of what I’m told are specialized tools, and a jackhammer nobody thinks is a good idea to use inside this particular mine anyway. 

Oh. And the mystery box. How could I forget the mystery box? We’ll have to leave that behind if we rappel through the vent, too.

The mystery box is an enormous black case on fat, half-deflated rubber wheels. We’re supposed to take it, but they won’t tell me what’s inside and I’m only authorized to open it if we face a state of emergency. That’s the way Raymond put it: “a state of emergency.” I asked, but nobody would tell me what “emergency” they anticipated, seeing as they stocked us in advance to face it. 

The rubber wheels won’t last long in the fire, but the rock is smooth enough and down-slanting enough that we can slide it on its side if we use the normal mine entrance. It’s too big for a rappel line, though … meaning that if an “emergency” arises, we won’t have what we need to face it. Maybe that doesn’t matter, if the emergency is so ill-defined. 

That’s what Raymond and his fellows are trying to decide right now, I think: whether they should send us down the shaft filled with fire, unsure how deep that fire goes … or whether they should drop us through the skylight on rappel lines, without half of our equipment. 

Wait. Raymond’s looking my way. Now he’s coming toward us, and there’s no look of conviction on his face — meaning he hasn’t decided a damn thing.

I think I know what this is. 

They don’t know which option to choose … so they’re going to leave it up to us to decide. 

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At this point, I put the story to a vote: Should the team enter through the skylight vent without some of their equipment, or should they chance the mineshaft filled with fire? Readers decided to take the mineshaft, so here we go!

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*** CLASSIFIED ***
Report by Raymond Clint
Operative, CIA [believed unacknowledged]
Delivered via secure courier, October 31, 1962
Recovered in internal audit November 14, 1989 following Cecret Lake incident
Presented 1/3/90 as undisclosed evidence for funding of Project “Legion Brigade” and creation of Department of Interplanar Protection
Original recipient unknown

FORTUNE, UTAH — The Fortune mines expedition, as led and verbalized by Dr. Clara Remik Ph.D (no clearance; informed with extreme discretion), has decided to proceed with entry to Mine Zero through the primary mineshaft despite the presence of Zen fire. Signals from Roller probe remain inconclusive. After reviewing conveyed telemetry several times, Specialist Jason Fry (A5) remains able to conclude only that the Roller device arrived at its current resting place intact and functional, and that said resting place registers an ambient temperature of 19C/66F, which is typical for the depth. Fry has therefore logically concluded that although Zen fires are visible as far as the human eye can see from the shaft entrance, the bottom of the shaft is not aflame. He is unable to provide me information on the shaft itself, however. According to the original digging team’s map, Mine Zero’s main shaft is 122 meters long. There is no way to ascertain whether all of that length is aflame or only part of it. 

As instructed by the Director, I have dispatched an operative to enter the mine through the location not selected by Remik, which per her decision is the dorsal vent, known on the map as “skylight.” I have chosen Samuel McCafferty for this task. McCafferty is much younger and less experienced than I’d like, but he has spelunking experience, sufficient training and clearance, and most relevantly has spent several hours driving the team through Fortune during the initial survey on 10/25, listening to the team discuss amongst themselves. Should the primary team require assistance from the secondary operative, McCafferty’s disclosing his presence will, in my opinion, cause less psychological disruption than otherwise might be expected specifically because he is a known face to them. 

McCafferty has also provided me with a brief psychological sketch of the team as a whole, gathered covertly while driving and while the team (minus Dr. Remik) waited for the arrival of prior foreman Charles Foster on 10/25. His relevant findings, as well as my overall mission notables, are as follows: 

CONFLICT BETWEEN COLE AND CLARA REMIK: McCafferty’s analysis is one-sided due to the absence of Clara Remik, but secondary leader Cole Remik, her husband, was for a short period of time extremely vocal to the others about his wife, her temperament and his dislike of it, and what he sees as her disrespect of him. His mood has only grown worse since learning that she would be leading the team. 

My research shows that when the pair married in 1958, Dr. Remik was already a leading authority in bio-energetics and Mr. Remik was, as now, employed by a mining company. Anecdotally, I can’t imagine how they got together in the first place. I suspect — and this is conjecture — that he was originally charmed by her intelligence and independence, then grew threatened by those same qualities when she continued working post-wedding, and was seemingly uninterested in bearing his children at her advanced age. McCafferty does not believe their discord will threaten the expedition, though in my opinion Cole bears watching. Watching him will of course be my job, though I have not yet told the team that I will be entering the mine with them. The “Suicide Flats effect” has made all of them edgy without exception, so it’s my opinion that dropping my part in the mission as a last-minute surprise, instead of telling them early, will create less pushback. 

CONFLICT BETWEEN THOMAS HARPER AND HAROLD CARTER: I am unable to discern whether Mr. Harper and Mr. Carter simply dislike each other as a matter of course, whether their bickering is simply a facet of “the way this group is,” or whether there is something else between these men. They constantly snipe at one another, but eventually passing time or a sense of “brotherhood” prevails to quell their arguing. Cole Remik, who remains the true leader of the group (in spirit if not in official credentials), is usually the one to make them stop. He has a “slap-down” sort of authority over these men. What Cole says goes. But McCafferty also believes that Cole himself feels there’s an unusual amount of fighting and arguing between the two, leading McCafferty to believe that whatever’s between them is new and unknown to the group at large. I will watch this situation as well.

RISK ASSESSMENT OF BORIS PETROV: Petrov, a Russian national here on permanent visa, has been investigated and cleared as essentially harmless, with no history of agitation or sedition. As a precaution, all correspondence from Petrov to friends and relatives in the USSR has been intercepted and quarantined, but neither the NSA nor our mutual bosses believe Petrov to be a security risk. Quite the contrary, in fact. Of the men in the group, Petrov has by far the coolest head. 

PRESENCE OF PASSIVE MISSION RECORD: As instructed, I have included the prototype “micro cassette” recorder provided by Philips (scheduled public release 1967) in the heat-resistant Contingency Box with its microphone positioned near the audio-permissive vent on the side and will, prior to entry, begin recording at 1.2 cm/sec speed to double the cassette length. For the record, I still believe that the compact cassette recorder, also by Philips (1963 release) would be the better choice as it provides longer recording time between tape-flips and replacement, despite its larger size and increased chance of discovery. It will be difficult for me to open the Box to flip or swap tapes in such a tight space without the others noticing. However, despite my recommendations, the Director is content with the hour-long (half-speed) sections of audio that I’m able to provide, even knowing that there will likely be long, unrecorded sections of our mission in between tape-sides. I have been assured that “any record is better than no record,” and that concealment of said record is paramount — hence the reason he does not want to use the larger, longer-duration cassette recorder. That part is definitely true: Nobody can know we’re recording audio during this expedition. There will be trouble if the team learns that the establishment of a survivable record was deemed necessary, even if it’s only a backup in the event of a worst-case scenario. 

Immediately after I hand this report over for dispatch, I will accompany the team back to Mine Zero, which I’m assured has, since opening, been cleared of noxious gasses and is structurally sound despite the Zen fire. It’s my hope that Operative Fry, who has already entered via the skylight and should therefore already be stationed inside the “Cathedral” space, will make himself known to me after an uneventful sprint through a small area of flames. I further hope that Dr. Remik’s decision to enter through the shaft as originally intended will prove the wiser choice, as it allows us to take the full allotment of gear as well as the Contingency Box. If she’d chosen the skylight entrance (and left Fry to enter through the shaft of flame, as our quiet backup), we would have needed to leave much of the gear behind — gear that I would be uneasy to enter this particular mine without. 

Those are my hopes, Sir, but I hope that you will forgive my including my personal misgivings in this report, as follows:

The provided GEN suits are not rated for prolonged exposure to heat as high as that radiated by Zen fire, nor for any (yet undiscovered or undisclosed) decay radiation that may or may not come with it. I keep telling myself that if the Roller drone made it to the bottom intact and unburnt, so will we. But of course the drone is shielded in ways humans cannot be, and the rattling we heard as it descended sounded to me like it was traveling at speeds that will not be possible for us, especially if we’re carrying gear — and with tanks of compressed oxygen (included with and separate from the compact SCUBA) that have a way of exploding when they get too hot. 

Nevertheless I will do my duty to God and country. I wish only that the air did not feel so dour, as if it was trying to suffocate me not just from breathing, but from having any hope at all. 

— S.A. Clint, Raymond
#11743

.

Journal of Cole Remik
October 31, 1962

If I wonder later why my handwriting is so illegible, the first reason is because I can barely see. The only light I’m allowed to read by is dim and green, provided by a stick of glowing liquid courtesy of the government — some chemical thing, we’re told. 

Clara’s asshole boyfriend Raymond, who barged along with us at the last minute, has put himself in charge of everyone. He insists that we use our headlamps only while moving to conserve battery power. I’ve been in mines most of my life and his “protocol” makes no damn sense to me. We’re in and out of this mine, not camping here for weeks. In all the gear they had us schlep along with us, there must be plenty of batteries and bulbs. Why would we need to conserve power? It makes me feel — again — like there’s a lot we’re not being told. 

The other reason my handwriting is so bad is because my hands won’t stop shaking.

We made it down the main shaft of the mine. Kind of. I still feel outside myself right now, like a ghost of me hovering above my body, but I’ll try to remember and record all I can. It’s possible I’m in some sort of psychological shock. I think there’s a chance I won’t remember it all later. 

At first there were no surprises. The entrance was in full flame, the rock itself burning. Raymond calls it “Zen fire” and says it’s due to that Zen Element stuff embedded in the rock. He and Clara had some sort of a tiff about that part of things that I didn’t understand, but the gist I got was that Raymond was the one who said “inside the rock” and Clara corrected him kind of harshly: “No, it’s not. I’ve been studying the stuff and it’s definitely not inside the rock. Sandstone is porous. It must just be absorbed into the top layer.” It sounded like splitting hairs to me, but something about the way Clara said it made me pay attention. I know her. The tone she gave him was the tone she uses when I’m lying and she’s trying to catch me in a contradiction. But I’m curious, too. If Zen isn’t mined from rock, how did it end up absorbed into the walls of the shaft? If Zen isn’t mined from ore, then where the hell does it come from?

I can tell that Clara knows that Raymond knows the answer to those questions, but he’s sharing. What’s more, once he took charge of our mission, Raymond’s entire demeanor changed. I’d thought he was a government desk-jockey: soft, weak, and getting in the way of getting real things done. Now that we’re inside, though, his manner is clipped and final. Like a military man used to giving orders, and used being obeyed. 

Buck entered the shaft first. He didn’t wait to be told. He just barged in after suiting up, then acted like we were all pussies for not doing the same. He’s as edgy as the rest of us, I think, and probably acting out … or just rushing at what scares him to get it over with quickly. 

We all shouted after him, but heard nothing — no report-back, but no screaming either. Then he shout-spoke in that drawl of his, his voice echoey and far away: “C’mon, y’all! I ain’t got all day to be pulling my dick down here!” Turns out the shaft wasn’t only on fire at the top, but it also wasn’t on fire all the way down. There were, in fact, two sections of flame separated by a non-flaming spot about halfway down. That’s where Buck had stopped, safe and sound.

Raymond sent Boris with Clara after that (not that she wanted an escort), then sent me. Tom was next, and Raymond brought up the rear. We met up where Buck had stopped: about 30 yards down, in a section of non-flaming shaft that I’d guess was about 20 yards long. Flames burned above and below us. 

We regrouped, then ran the rest of the way to the bottom one at a time. We were pretty sure we’d be okay  by then. We knew the total length of the mainshaft, and how far we’d already come. There could only be about forty yards left or so. We’d just come safely through almost that much. 

And we were safe, thank God. The heat suits are very good. So are the breathing rigs, which I’m glad we had with us because it’d’ve been hard as hell to draw breath in air that hot. Whenever my helmet shifted, it felt like the exposed skin of my neck was under a broiler. This isn’t like normal fire. I’ve been through normal fire before, and this is something very different. It makes me wonder about Clara’s doubts, and what our new bosses aren’t telling us.

It should’ve bothered me, how easy it all was. Raymond didn’t even need to slide the big mystery box on its side because the wheels on the bottom — which I now think aren’t actually rubber — didn’t have time to melt. The rock was cooler than you’d think in the safe spot halfway down, so Raymond could just dash, rest, and then dash again with the crate rolling ahead of him. There was enough room for all six of us with our packs and the crate in the in-between, so we all got a breather. It was smooth sailing, right as rain. Too easy, as the cliche says.

Raymond wanted to go first on the second sprint: just him with the box, nobody else following until he yelled “safe” from the bottom. He didn’t yell right away, though. I could hear him rustling around down there, probably dealing with that drone thing they sent through the shaft ahead of us … or maybe something else. I thought I heard him whisper-yelling, too. Not to us — more like he was trying to find someone else. The Zen fire was almost soundless, so everything carried including his footsteps. He kept muttering, and when Tom yelled down to ask if we should join him, he hesitated. It sounded to me like Raymond felt something wasn’t right, and he was considering pushing us back to the surface instead of going on as planned.

But then Raymond yelled to come on down, and so one by one we rechecked our suits and ran. I went last, so I heard everyone react to something I couldn’t see as each reached the bottom. I learned what it was when I reached it, too: We were supposed to end up inside a big, high-ceilinged cave, weren’t we? That’s where the skylight vent was supposed to go, and the shaft was just another way to it, wasn’t it?

But that wasn’t how things turned out. Instead, the bottom of the mineshaft turned out to be a chamber about the size of my bedroom, with a ceiling low enough that Buck had to duck to not scrape his helmet. There was a waist-high tunnel out of the chamber at one end, as well as a pool of water in one corner. I figured the tunnel was our next step — our way to enter the Cathedral space as planned. 

But before I could get to the bottom to see any of it, another thing — a thing I feel stupid writing down, but that’s still making my hands shake — happened in the safe spot, after the others had reached the bottom and I was all alone.

It was creepy being between those walls of flame all by myself. Zen fire isn’t as bright as wood fire and I had my lamp off, so everything around me was dancing shadows. It was hard to see. Maybe I didn’t see what I thought I saw. 

Except that’s a lie. I’m sure I saw it. Surer than I want to be. 

Suddenly, light seemed to shine from behind me — orange and yellow like a bonfire. I turned, curious because the Zen fire was mostly blue and green. I thought I’d find that something new had burst into flame: an old wooden brace caught fire now that the mine had reopened and given it fresh air, maybe. 

Instead, I saw a shape like a flaming eye. It was on — no, IN — the rock face. It hadn’t been there before, hanging right in front of me like a living poster. It was about three feet tall and a foot wide — not the sort of thing you miss. In addition to the fire around its edges, the thing was giving off waves of multicolored light that reminded me of the aurora we saw when we visited Alaska. 

In its center, where the rock wall should have shown through from behind, was what looked like a window into another place. 

Looking at that weird flaming gash in the rock was like peering through a ship’s porthole, seeing what was inside. The “inside” looked like Utah desert (rock formations, expanses of dead sand), but the landscape was entirely red. It smelled of sulfur, like eggs gone bad. Superheated air was wafting out of the thing and right into my face. I could hear the light whoosh of it, but the sound I heard most was a low grumbling … almost like a growl. 

Then, I saw eyes. 

That’s all I remember: eyes. They glowed and flickered. My mind won’t show me what contained those eyes as I think back on it now. I know only that they were the only solid things inside a moving shadow.

I don’t know how long I stood there, staring into that fiery porthole. I only know that when I finally became aware of the team yelling for me, it sounded like they’d been yelling for a while. Clara’s was the voice that got me. It struck me worried — and worry, especially for me, isn’t something I’ve heard much from Clara. 

I startled, snapping away from the thing in the rock face. It felt like coming out of a trance. When I looked back, the flaming eye was gone. 

It took a while to get myself moving again, but when I finally started, I moved like never before. The guys broke my balls about taking my time and then hauling so much ass when I reached them. They were even laughing about it — everyone but Raymond. Again I got the feeling that Raymond knew something he wasn’t letting on. He kept staring right at me, inspecting my face as I removed my helmet. 

If I can get Clara alone, maybe I’ll tell her what I saw up there. Maybe. Now that some time has passed, I’m starting to doubt I saw it at all. Maybe it was a trick of the light. Maybe there was a problem with my rig and I wasn’t getting enough oxygen, making me lightheaded. Maybe Zen fire puts off hallucinogenic gas. Because really: How could there be a flaming hole in solid rock one minute, then nothing the next? And why did I see it when nobody else did? 

I’m writing this entry away from the others, tucked into a recess like a reading nook. From now on, I’m keeping this journal inside my underwear, right next to the family jewels. I’ll tell them I’m writing company reports if anyone sees me scribbling — anything but the truth. But I feel the need to protect what I’m writing. When this is over, I get the feeling I’ll want a record that’s mine and only mine. 

Closing now. Raymond seems to want everyone’s attention. 

He’s been poking around in that short passage to the Cathedral, and I assume this is our time to go — and in my mind, the sooner the better. 

.

Microcassette record of expedition into Mine Zero
Tape 1 / Side 1
Beginning time index 41:14
Ending time index: tape-side end at approximately 60:00
Beginning truncated for relevance
Transcribed by D. Matthews. Emphasis added to reflect vocal inflection.

R. CLINT: Okay, listen up. There’s a change of plan. The recon I was given on this space isn’t entirely accurate. I was told this shaft led into the Cathedral. To be clear, it likely still does, but there seem to be a few antechambers along the way that nobody recorded. So we’re going to need to— 

H. CARTER: Likely?

CLINT: Yes, likely. I don’t know for sure. I’ve been trying to make sense of what’s on file about this excavation and I think we may have been given a different-perspective map of this mine, or maybe even the wrong mine altogether. The map I have might be of the mine with an entrance across from this one. Now, it’s— 

[Mixed mumblings of protest and irritation]

CLINT: Listen up! It’s not a concern. 

CARTER: Sure as shit sounds like a concern to me. So, what? We go back up, grab the right map?

CLINT: This is the only map. Records from the initial excavation are scattered and incomplete. If this map isn’t right, a “right” map doesn’t exist. But it’s not a problem. We know—

[More protesting mumbles]

CLINT: [louder] We know the vent we were considering rappelling through drops right into the Cathedral, the floor of which is 40 meters down. This shaft goes downward at 15-20 degrees, is 122 meters long, and has its entrance zero-point-two kilometers from the vent, pointed right at its base. You can work out on the back of a napkin how far the— 

CLARA REMIK: Jesus. 

COLE REMIK: What?

CLARA REMIK: Fucking idiots. 

COLE REMIK: What?

CLARA REMIK: Nothing. It’s just that our overlords don’t know how geometry works. Christ’s sake, Raymond — you didn’t notice that your hypotenuse is shorter than the one of the sides? 

CLINT: Yes, and that’s why I said— 

CARTER: Hypot-what-the-fuck?

B. PETROV: Hypotenuse. Learn some school, redneck.

CARTER: Oh, fuck off, commie.

COLE REMIK: Knock it off. Clara? Tell us what you mean.

CLARA REMIK: The depth of the Cathedral and how far away the vent is is from the shaft entrance are two sides of a right triangle. The last side — the diagonal, called the “hypotenuse” — shut up, Buck — has to be longer than the others. Raymond’s expert calculations didn’t consider that a 122-meter shaft isn’t long enough to reach the Cathedral. In fact— 

CLINT: Which is why I said there must be a few chambers in between. It’s probably right through that tunnel over there.

PETROV: Probably, he says. 

CLINT: It’s pointed in the right direction. Come on. You’re big boys. I’m sure you’ve been through tight spaces before. It’s not even that tight. Look; I can roll the crate through it. This is no big deal. The records left by the men who cut this shaft are incomplete, like I said. I’m sure it’s—

PETROV: Why are the records incomplete? 

CARTER: Because it’s government. Your tax dollars at work. Well, not yours, commie.

COLE REMIK: What the hell’s that mean?

CARTER: Well, Cole, you see, taxes are this money we pay to the government, but since Boris is a commie, he— 

HARPER: Raymond. That’s a good question. Why are the records incomplete? The Zen mines were dug under supervision of the Army Corps of Engineers. Obviously something as official as that would— 

CARTER: The fuck you know the Army was involved?

HARPER: Learn to read. It’s public record. 

CARTER: You sayin’ I’m stupid? 

HARPER: Not necessarily stupid. Just illiterate. 

[Short scuffle]

COLE REMIK: Knock it off! I said knock it off! [Then to someone else, presumably Raymond Clint] We’re on a contract here. That contract stipulates a specific flight plan, not “probably.” If you change your mind about where we’re going, that’s a breach. 

CLINT: This isn’t a change in the flight plan. It’s just an oversight. No big deal.

CLARA REMIK: Hell of an oversight. We’re at least 80 meters short. You guys at the top managed to misplace a third of the distance we’d need to cover to get to the Cathedral.

CLINT: The vent isn’t in the center of the Cathedral, Clara. 

CLARA REMIK: Okay, Ray. How far from the outer edge of the Cathedral is the vent? You tell me how many yards I should subtract. You tell me just how far we have left to go.

[5 seconds of silence]

CLARA REMIK: Great. 

CARTER: What? What’s going on? 

CLARA REMIK: They don’t know. This mine and the associated cave are unexplored. 

CLINT: They’re not unexplored. “Incomplete” doesn’t mean unexplored.

CLARA REMIK: Okay, fine. Then show me a map. Show me the soundings. Show me the geological report. [To the others] See? Unexplored. 

HARPER: Well, does it matter? We’re not here to explore. 

CLARA REMIK: Except that we basically are. Raymond told me before that— 

CLINT: Careful. Our conversation was confidential. I’ll remind you— 

CLARA REMIK: —that we don’t actually have a set destination. They want to know why the fires are still burning. “Why,” not  “where.” They want to know what happened down here with the original party. I just didn’t realize how blind we’d be flying.

CARTER: Wait. What do you mean, “What happened with them?” 

CLARA REMIK: Ask him. I’m not sure I’m right. What do I know; I’m just a broad. But even little old me can read between the lines. Tell me, Raymond: Why didn’t you flinch when I corrected you up top? When I clarified that Zen isn’t inside the rock itself, but has instead soaked into it from the outside?

CLINT: That’s classified.

CLARA REMIK: Is it because there’s no such thing as Zen ore? I guess you thought I wouldn’t look at the samples you gave me, huh? Tell me one mineable mineral with hydroxyl groups. Go on; tell me. 

COLE REMIK: What the hell are you talking about?

CLARA REMIK: Zen Element doesn’t come from rocks. It might be on rocks, or soaked into rocks, but that’s not where it comes from. Is it, Ray? It comes from something living. 

CLINT: We— 

COLE REMIK: Living?

CLINT: Let’s keep the speculation to a minimum. 

CARTER: I’ll get right on that. [To Petrov] Hey, commie — you keep this shit under your hat and don’t tell the motherland, okay?

HARPER: Shut your mouth, Buck. [To Clint] I’m with Cole. This violates contract. I—

CARTER: How ‘bout you shut my mouth for me, shitter? 

CLARA REMIK: What’s this really about, Raymond? What’s the real report on this place say? Do you know? Or is it above your pay grade?

CLINT: We’re here to ascertain whether or not the mines can be reopened. Why they’re burning, how to stop them from burning, where the points of potentially-dangerous faults might be, how— 

CLARA REMIK: Oh, bullshit! There are a bunch of scratches around that passage behind you, but I can see from here that the opening itself is natural. What do you guys think? Did miners cut that corridor?

[Realized mumbling, murmurs to the negative]

CLARA REMIK: The chamber we’re in right now was preexisting. The miners didn’t cut their way into the Cathedral; you just know they got there somehow. Tell me. You didn’t expect to find a cave system in here when you first mined into it, did you? Hell, it was the 50s. Leap first, look later. Did anyone do any kind of a survey at all, or did you just trip all over yourselves trying to grab as much as possible of one of the most valuable substances the world has ever seen? 

CLINT: You’re out of line. 

PETROV: I do not understand. What do you say?

CLARA REMIK: I’m saying that I’ve studied and studied Zen Element, and it doesn’t make a goddamn bit of sense to me. It creates energy. Nothing creates energy. Energy has to come from somewhere. It has to be converted from another form or be taken from another place. Where’s that energy coming from? I’ll bet if we asked Albert Einstein, he’d have some ideas. Some unconventional ideas. 

CLINT: Now wait just a—!

COLE REMIK: Shut your fucking mouth, Raymond. Clara, say what you got to say. 

CLARA REMIK: You know what I think? I think they know where it comes from, even if they don’t entirely understand it. That sound about right, Clint? It’s what I’ve been thinking for a while. Coming down here, seeing this bullshit you’re trying to pull … that just proves it. 

CARTER: What do you mean, Clara? [Seemingly to Clint] And you just stay quiet. Or I’ll make you stay quiet. 

CLARA REMIK: I think they discovered something in these mines. Something they didn’t expect to find. Maybe something they didn’t want to find. They found Zen Element up top, then dug and saw that it’d somehow seeped through the rocks and dirt, but I don’t buy for a second that anyone thought it came from rocks. Not anyone who has any geological or biochemistry background, anyway. So they dug, and they kept finding it deeper and deeper. 

HARPER: So it spilled at the surface, and it just trickled that deep? What kind of spill does that?

CLARA REMIK: It may have trickled a few feet at most. The rest was … just here.

COLE REMIK: What’s that mean?

CLARA REMIK: I sent some of the samples they gave me out to be carbon dated. Ore samples with Zen already soaked into the porous surface and fossilized. 

COLE REMIK: Fossilized? Like the dinosaurs?

CLARA REMIK: Like something that’s been going on for a very, very long time. A lot of Zen’s been spilled here, but it’s happened over the course of forever. This rock right here? [Sound of slapping rock] If it’s got Zen soaked into it, that Zen was spilled … what? A few hundred million years, back when this rock was on the surface?

COLE REMIK: You knew this and you didn’t say anything? All the times we talked and you didn’t—?

CLARA REMIK: Please, Cole. Let’s not pretend you give a shit about my work. Let’s not pretend you’d’ve listened. 

COLE REMIK: But— 

CLARA REMIK: I just knew it was old. I knew they were lying. Now that we’re down here, I suspect more than I wish I did. You know, Raymond, I looked for information on why the mines were closed, and all I found were reports saying the walls kept catching on fire. So I got curious. I tried to find the names of the crews sent down here. Any record of them at all. But you know what I found? Nothing. It’s like you hired ghosts to come down here. Or hired men, and they became ghosts.

CARTER: Hang on. If you’re sayin— 

CLARA REMIK: My recommendation? We go right back up that shaft. Now. 

CLINT: Aborting the mission is a breach of your contract. If you try to leave this site without my authorization, I’ll— 

CLARA REMIK: I don’t give a shit about your contract. I used to believe in my government. I used to trust it. I used to think that what our leaders decided made sense. Now, I say fuck you. What did they find down here, Raymond? What really happened in this mine? 

COLE REMIK: Goddamn right. For once I agree with my lady. Fuck you, mister. By my count there’s five of us and one of you. You wanna stop us leaving, you just try it. Try it and see. 

CLINT: Then I’ll just ask you nicely. 

[Gasps, mutterings. It’s believed at this point that Clint drew his concealed sidearm.]

COLE REMIK: Hang on. What the fuck. Just settle. Just— 

[Intense rumbling. Audio clips as microphone input levels exceeded. Shouts can be heard, then session ends.]

.

Journal of Clara Remik
October 31, 1962

The decision has been taken out of our hands. It’s 4:16pm by my watch, and about twenty minutes ago there was a bright, soundless flash from the mineshaft above and then the entire passageway collapsed. The conspiracy part of me wants to believe that someone was listening in and that Raymond’s cohort up top did this to us on purpose, but I doubt it’s true. Explosives make noise. This made a whoosh if anything, and from the corner of my eye I’d swear something burst into orange-and-yellow flame just before it all fell in. It was hard to tell. We were all focused on the gun Raymond was pointing at us. 

That’s another reason I don’t think his people did this, by the way: Raymond was taken off-guard as much as everyone else. More so, really, because the rock scree that came tumbling down at us got under his feet and knocked him down, kicking the gun from his hand. Cole has it now, tucked into the back of his jeans now that everyone’s taken off their heat suits. I don’t like the idea of Cole with a gun, but I’m going to carefully choose my battles from here on out. Right now, Raymond and his people are the enemy. That puts me and Cole — and all the others — on the same side. 

We’re okay for the time being. I think the air is breathable and will stay that way for a while. Nobody was hurt other than a few bruises. We thought about tying Raymond’s hands, but without a gun it really is five against one. They’ll handle him plenty if he gets out of line. 

Raymond still won’t come clean, but I’m confident in my analysis of our situation. This mine didn’t so much as show up on the maps and reports I saw, and it was the only one that was sealed so tightly. A lot of other Zen mines in the area are on those maps and reports, but not this one. The mines are numbered: 33 shafts dug near Fortune alone, all inside a rough circle corresponding to the area on the surface where grass and wildlife have begun to die. They’re numbered from 1 to 32, with 32 being the last on record. This one, apparently, is Mine Zero. 

I am far from calm. The effort I’m putting into analyzing and discerning and deducing is all that keeps me from losing it. When the rockfall came, most everyone dropped their glowing sticks and we lost them under the rock. I’d been looking right into Raymond’s headlamp, which broke. The dark was sudden and complete. I was instantly a kid again, hearing the rockfall not as rocks, but as the sound of a bookcase falling against a coal cellar door. I smelled dust. I tasted it in the back of my throat. I felt it coming off of my hands. I was sure, in that moment, that I’d gotten lucky the first time, and that now I’d be here forever. 

The feeling didn’t last long. Cole’s headlamp bulb hadn’t broken, and he turned it on within a minute. Then others turned on their lamps, and we saw that the space we were in was mostly unperturbed. Some rocks had rolled down the shaft at our feet, but for the most part the chamber itself was unaffected. 

Cole took charge immediately. For once, I was glad. He sent Tom to check the passage toward the Cathedral, assuring everyone that it was fine; they know we’re down here and must have heard the cave-in, and they’d be able to retrieve us through the Cathedral vent. But Tom’s report made nothing better. He returned to say that what we’d thought was an exit was actually a dead end. I’m now far from convinced that we can reach the Cathedral, or that the initial expedition ever did. I pulled Boris aside and asked him what he saw, from a miner’s perspective. He said that clearly the skylight vent was natural, like the Cathedral and the space we’re in now. The only man-made incursion into this area was the mineshaft we came through. Boris guesses the first crew broke through into this place, then found a damn good reason to bug out … or, in any event, not to go further, no matter what happened next. 

I’m not sure what comes next. My dream from last week keeps coming back to me: Cole and me trapped in this same mine system, with the light dying, but safe somehow from the hostile outside. 

I half wish bombs were falling. If it were war outside, this creeping feeling that we’ll die here might not bother me so much. 

.

Journal of Cole Remik
October 31, 1962

Interesting development. We opened their “Contingency Case” against Raymond’s protests because if this isn’t an emergency situation, I don’t know what is. 

I was expecting spare lantern bulbs. Flashlights. Batteries. Climbing supplies like ropes and ATCs and harnesses. I thought maybe there’d be a bit of explosive in there, which would explain why nobody wanted to tell us what was inside. Rolling explosives through fire is insane, heatproof box or no heatproof box. I figured they’d stock us with extra water and food just in case the expedition went long. 

Instead, the box is filled with long metal objects that look like oversized hybrid axes, each wrapped in padding to keep them from clattering. They’re about four feet long. The handle end, along which there are wrapped grips for holding, is pointed like a spear. The other end is half broad axe, half enormous fork on opposite ends. They look like weapons, if I had to guess. 

I asked Raymond what they were. 

“Rollards,” he said. 

But he wouldn’t tell me what that meant. Or what they were for. Or why they were lighter than they should have been, as if they were made out of something as strong as iron but without the weight of iron. Buck said he’d get Raymond to talk, but I told him to lay off. For right now, it doesn’t really matter what a “Rollard” is, so I’m not going to torture our best source of information to find out. We may need Raymond. If we have to beat something out of him, I’d rather wait until we truly need what he’ll tell us. 

Tom is fascinated by them. His brother is some sort of a broadsword enthusiast and has all these old weapons hanging on all his walls, so Tom knows the feel of a sword. That’s what these things feel like, he says, only they’re perfectly balanced and engineered in a way that makes them extremely easy to swing very quickly and very hard.

Clara keeps pressing Raymond, using sugar instead of the vinegar Buck wanted to beat him with. She keeps saying that Raymond’s orders and confidentiality doesn’t matter for shit now, and that we need to work together. “Why did you send these things with us?” she’ll ask, but Raymond just stares straight ahead. If you ask me, he doesn’t look resilient so much as he looks scared. I don’t think he’s keeping quiet out of duty. I think it’s possible he just doesn’t want to admit what’s really happening here. Even the way we’ve been closed in seems somehow unsurprising to Raymond. It all means something to him. If I have to eventually beat the truth from him, I will. But our number isn’t up yet. 

My mind keeps spinning back to what happened in the safe part of the passageway, as if some deep-down part of me believes it and our current situation are related. But how could that be? How could they even be related, if they somehow are? What — did that figment of my imagination cause the cave-in? Did those eyes see me, and decide they wanted me gone? 

Hang on. Tom’s yelling something from over by the pool of water in the corner, crouched low by it, his right arm submerged up to the shoulder.

“Bring me a mask and one of the waterproof flashlights,” he’s saying. “I don’t think this is a pool. I think it’s a sump.”

.

Letter from Harold “Buck” Carter to Lara Harper
Written in carpenter’s pencil on the inside of a white McDonald’s bag

Dear Lara,

Honey, I’m fucked. I’ll just break the ice and start there. Figured I should write something down if I’m this fucked, so at least I don’t die with a whisper. 

Chances are you’ll never read this because something tells me we ain’t getting out of here and that means probably neither is our shit, but maybe I’m writing just for something to do, like I see Clara and Cole doing sometimes. The short version is that you know that mining shit your handsome hubby was sent on on Halloween of 62? Well, it’s not going to plan. We went down one of the old Zen mine shafts and ended up at the bottom basically lost, like they lied about where the shaft went next or didn’t know. Then the thing caved in. The folks who know where we are might try to dig through the rock to get us out or they might not. Government. Top secret. And the way Cole talks, he acts like something’s out there that might not LET anyone get us, like maybe we’re trapped on purpose. There was supposedly another way in that could’ve maybe also been our way out, but turns out that way doesn’t connect to where we are now like it was supposed to, or at least we ain’t found out yet how they connect or where. I sure wish we’d rappelled in instead of running through the shaft of death. Might not be this fucked if that’d happened. 

Tommy Boy is making himself manly right now. Walking around like he’s got a ten-inch dick, when you more than anyone know it’s tiny. He’s just telling people to do shit, even Cole. I want to knock him down. Tell him who’s really boss. Tell him about us, just to do it. I can’t die with him so fucking smug. 

Maybe we’ll make it, who knows. Hubby did find out that the little pond in this room is actually a sump, which basically means an underwater passage between two chambers. He scoped it with a torch already and I guess it’s not a long one and not too tight, and that means we can get a lot of the gear through just in case it’s worth doing. We had these bulky heat suits we’ll have to leave, and we got these oxygen tanks that only really work with the suits so we’re leaving them too. The air seems okay, must be a vent somewhere we can’t see, but we still got some small oxygen things with masks on them so we’ll take those, and the climbing gear can go, and the food and water we got of course, put inside waterproof bags. The worst part about a sump is going through it yourself. I went through one once, when I was in Colorado hanging out with some cave explorers. Not much call for diving in normal mining, but I guess I suspected when they sent these little SCUBAs with us that we might have to use one. 

But who knows — they also sent these weird axe-like things called Rollards. Someone’s fuckin with us, darlin. I just know it. 

The sump’s about ten feet long, and it’s cold as balls and gonna be really really dark even with one of these glowing sticks we got. Worst thing about a sump is feeling like maybe recon was wrong, like maybe there is no surface at the end. You’re deep in the earth’s gut and here you are going underwater too where probably nobody’s ever gone before, unless the miners before us did it. But they ain’t around anymore, so who knows. For all I know they’re still in here, trapped like us or dead like we’re maybe gonna be. 

Weird stuff’s going on here, Lara. I keep seeing little flashes of light, like pops of quiet firecrackers. I think Cole seen something, but he ain’t talking about it if so. Every time light pops up, he chases it. Like maybe he knows what he’ll see. Like he thinks it’s a threat, or someone watching us. 

The guy in charge, Raymond, knows more than he’s saying too. This mine isn’t what they said it was. It looks to me like they had a plan, then hit this cave system and didn’t go no further. Clara, Cole’s wife who’s supposed to be in charge I guess but mostly just walks around looking at the rocks like a scientist, thinks those first folks found something they didn’t expect. Something bad, but she can’t say what or how or why, or what the fuck we’re supposed to do about it. 

Nobody’s talking. Everyone’s worried. Tom’s gone through the sump once already to scope it, then went again with flashlights to look around. That time he came back all scared-looking. He talked to Cole, though nobody’s said shit to Boris and me. They sounded like they didn’t want to go through the sump after all, then spent a lot of time trying to find another way out. There’s none, so I guess we’re going. 

***

Okay, I just talked to that guy Raymond. Tried to be smooth and learn something but he wasn’t talking. Wouldn’t say even one word. Just scared shitless, sitting on the rock, staring like he’s in a trance. But then some weird shit happened. Tom came back marching around like John Fucking Wayne and said that we’re all going through the sump, so pack our shit. He said what we could take and what we couldn’t. 

When they all started moving toward the sump, Raymond finally spoke up. 

“Take the Rollards,” he said. “Trust me.” 

***

Jesus fuck, Lara. You know you ain’t seen me scared much before. Don’t usually get that way, and when I do, I kick it aside and handle what I can handle. 

But I’m scared, honey. I don’t mind saying so. 

We crossed the sump. The first part was easy. Tom swam to the far side and sat in it, and Cole sat on our side, and then they handed each other gear under the water including those weird metal things. We pushed the Raymond guy through, and Clara and Boris went, and I was last. We had one big bag of stuff that couldn’t get wet and it refused to be handed off underwater, so I said I’d push it along ahead of me when I crossed. 

Halfway through, it snagged on an outcropping. I pushed, thinking it was just stuck, and my hand slipped through this harness thing on one side and locked it in place. When I tried to pull free, the whole works with a bunch of air inside rolled back on me, and then I was stuck. Like stuck-stuck, hand caught in the binding and with the bag twisted up and wedged all around me. I started to panic. Really freak out. I hadn’t thought to ask someone to pass me a glow stick, so all I had was a spot of lantern-light ahead in the exit pool, and the bag was blocking it. I couldn’t see, couldn’t figure out what to twist or bend to get my hand out, couldn’t see where the bag was caught or how I could get free. 

In the end it was Tom that dragged the bag, and me with it, out the other side. 

He took my hand and pulled me upright, then looked me hard in the eye, like he knew I’d been writing to you, like he could read this letter right through the cigar tube I put it in before diving deep. 

“Remember that I saved you,” he said, “when I could have let you die.” 

I’m looking at him right now. Smug shit. Staring right at me. Walking at me like

[Concludes unfinished]

.

Microcassette record of expedition into Mine Zero
Tape 1 / Side 2
Beginning time index 12:22
Ending time index: 13:56
Beginning and end truncated for relevance
Transcribed by D. Matthews. Emphasis added to reflect vocal inflection.

Transcriptionist’s note: It’s believed that team leader Raymond Clint moved the recorder from the case and carried it inside his clothing inside a waterproof bag prior to flipping the tape and re-starting recording. 

COLE REMIK: Tom? Tom, what are you doing. Tom!

H. CARTER: Oh, look at the big man comin’ right at me. Guess you caught me, didn’t you? “Shoulda let me die.” Yeah, fuck you, maybe you shoulda!

COLE REMIK: TOM! Don’t!

[Scratching sounds, urgent footsteps]

CARTER: Oh, I see. Finally scared enough that you need someone to fight. Okay. You know who I’m writing a letter to right now? You know who, Tom? You know whose pussy I’m getting wet with my fancy ass words right now, you fucking stiff? Oh, what, you gonna—?

[Tackling and fighting sounds. Many shouts of protest. Duration 0:14]

[Indecipherable shouts in Russian]

[Scuffling. Shoving]

COLE REMIK: Fuck you two. No. Stay down. I’ll break your neck, I swear it. 

CARTER: He started it. All I did was fuck his wife. 

[More indecipherable shouts in Russian from Boris Petrov. Devolves to screams, some believed to be Clara Remik as she joins Petrov.]

[Sounds of running, then shuffling to a stop.]

COLE REMIK: Oh my God. Was that … Was that a person?

B. PETROV: Oh no. I think it is … It is Sam. 

COLE REMIK: Sam who? S— You mean Sam McCafferty? That kid who drove us around Fortune last week? [To Raymond Clint] Why the fuck is Sam here, Raymond? I SAID WHY THE FUCK IS SAM HERE AND DON’T MAKE ME BEAT IT OUT OF YOU!

H. CARTER: Shit. What the— Back off Tom; I ain’t done with you yet. What the hell happened to him? 

R. CLINT: He … he rappelled in. Through the vent. As a failsafe.

CLARA REMIK: The Cathedral vent? 

COLE REMIK: So it does connect. If he got here, we can get there. Maybe we can get out. 

CARTER: Excuse me, but does anyone even see that he don’t look so great? I wanna find a way out too, but first maybe we talk about why he looks like he been attacked by two bears at once. 

CLARA REMIK: Raymond? Where you going, Ray?

CLINT: We need to get out of here. 

CLARA REMIK: Put that down, Ray. What are you going to do with that? 

CLINT: Whatever I have to. If you’re smart, you’ll do the same. I know this space. I saw pictures of it in the records recovered from the first expedition.

CLARA REMIK: Okay. Okay. Just calm down. What did the first expedition say about this room? Did they say if there’s a way out?

COLE REMIK: Read between the lines, sweetheart. The first expedition didn’t say anything. Did they, Raymond? He said “recovered.” Like a salvage operation. Paints a pretty picture of what happened to them, doesn’t it?

PETROV: Wait. What happened to them? 

CLINT: They mapped this room. I didn’t know it was just past the sump. Or that there was a sump. But I … Yes, I recognize that formation there. There’s one way out. One other than the sump. 

COLE REMIK: Okay, so the choice is easy. 

CLINT: You don’t know easy. Nothing’s about to be easy.

CARTER: Shouldn’t we at least cover this guy up? What is that? Heart? Intestines?

[Rumbling sounds. Chattering.]

COLE REMIK: Raymond? The lady asked you where you think you’re going. 

CLINT: Back through the sump. Don’t you hear that sound?

HARPER: What is that? Do you see something moving over there? Raymond, where’s the exit? Raymond?

CLINT: That is the exit. 

[Running. Tackling. The recorder is impacted but continues recording.]

COLE REMIK: The fuck you think you’re going? What, you wanna find out if a gun can fire after it’s been underwater? 

[Sound of pistol cocking]

CLARA REMIK: Cole! Put that away!

COLE REMIK: Just trying to get some answers. I’d like some answers, Mr. Clint. You know what did that to Sam, don’t you? How’d he get here? Where’s the Cathedral?

CLINT: I don’t know! Through there somehow!

HARPER: Are those … animals? Or people? Who’s got a flashlight?

CLINT: WE HAVE TO GO! DON’T YOU HEAR THEM COMING?

HARPER: Guys? We … uh … 

COLE REMIK: What the fuck is that? Tom? Do you see what I see? [To Clint] WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS, YOU FUCKING FUCK?

[Metal-on-metal sounds, presumably as one or more team members grab Rollards]

HARPER: Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit …

COLE REMIK: WHERE’S THE WAY OUT? TELL ME!

CLINT: From there! From where they are!

COLE REMIK: I’ll kill you right now. I swear to God I will, if you don’t—

CLINT: We have to go back! I know what the other chamber is now that I know what this one is! That passage has a thin wall! It’s in the soundings! Maybe we can break through it! 

CARTER: Break through solid rock? With what, our hands!

CLINT: Maybe three-four inches! With the Rollards! Maybe we can punch through!

COLE REMIK: This your first time around rock? You can’t “punch through” a three-inch rock with a metal pole!

HARPER: Uh, Cole? 

PETROV: God. There are hundreds of them. 

CLINT: We have to try! There are only six of us! What, you want to fight them all?

CLARA REMIK: Oh my God, Cole. It makes sense. The energy had to come from somewhere. It had to come from some other place. I just … I couldn’t … 

HARPER: It’s your call, Cole. We can stand and fight … or we can run and try to break through. 

CLARA REMIK: I’ve seen them before. In all of my nightmares. 

HARPER: COLE? What the fuck do we do?

---

At this point, I put the story to a vote: Should the team stand and fight the coming creatures or try to retreat through the sump to the thin rock wall? Readers decided to try breaking through the wall, so here we go!

---

Attempted reconstruction of events following the fiend incursion into Chamber Two of Mine Zero on 10/31/62 at approximately 17:00
Supporting transcript on file: Microcassette record of expedition into Mine Zero; Tape 1 / Side 2
Reconstruction by D. Matthews

RECONSTRUCTIONIST’S NOTE: The coherent portion of Tape 1 / Side 2, as pertains to the official mission record, ends at approximately the 16-minute time index, when Thomas Harper shouts for Cole Remik to decide whether the group should stand and fight a large and oncoming group of fiends presumably from the deep rift, believed mostly to be halfskulls and hellhogs (Dorn class) … or to retreat through the sump into the mainshaft terminus in an attempt to breach the wall at the end of a natural corridor that had been left untouched by the original miners.

Following Harper’s shout, the audio is close to unusable and suitable only for speculation. What follows is my best guess at bridging the knowns prior to the incoherent gap and the knowns from Clara Remik’s journal as written after the incident was over. Remik’s journal, though far from objective, is regrettably all there is to mark the conclusion of these events. We have neither a precise time span nor direct post-incident information (specific dialogue, etc) from the microcassette record beyond index 20:11 because the tape was stopped during the incident and does not resume until much later, in an entirely new context. It’s believed this is because the recorder’s “Stop” button was impacted as a result of the altercation. That particular tape was recovered only partially wound, not completely used to its end.

To make my reconstruction of the time between the last coherent sentence on the cassette (Cole’s response to Harper’s question) and the time at which Remik wrote her journal entry, I have relied on the following: 

1. Audible clues. This portion of the recording is composed mostly of shouts, grunts, and other noises of exertion, plus sounds of movement: Raymond Clint’s clothing brushing the recorder’s microphone, boots scuffling on rock, the clang of Rollards against rock, and a thick but papery sound believed to be Rollards striking their fiend targets. I have used these sounds and post-incident knowns to build a potential picture of the actions of the group, but most is guesswork. It is difficult to tell who shouts when, who screams in pain or fear, and who is wielding the Rollards as they do battle. If it is of interest, I have filed a sketch along with this report. The sketch is my own, made for my own use as I built this reconstruction, in an attempt to keep track of who was where at which times. 

2. Knowns from Remik’s journal entry and other records to follow. I have done my best to match the things we know to be true, as recorded in other records later, with the soundscape provided by the cassette. We know, for instance, that Harold “Buck” Carter received a puncture wound to his abdomen, so I have done my best to guess, from sound evidence, when that wound occurred. 

3. On-scene evidence. Following the Cecret Lake incident in 1989 and the subsequent formation of the Legion Brigade (which became the modern Brigade system after the development of Stitching resin and the employment of Stitchers), a third incursion was made into Mine Zero with full armament. At that time, the deep rift was found to be mostly dormant and only a few soldier fiends were discovered and dispatched by the Legion corps. After Stitchers closed the rift and the mine was cleared, on-scene attempts were made by forensic biologists to further reconstruct earlier happenings in Mine Zero. The presence of Zen Element spray was inconclusive (the entire cave is thick with it), but human blood was still detectible by fluorescence and other means. This forensic analysis is, as with all other evidence, incomplete, but it does at least give us some idea of who bled where, at which points human wounds were inflicted, and the severity of the wounds. I have included this information on my filed sketch. Said sketch also includes the believed original location of Samuel McCafferty’s body, noting that the remains themselves were not recovered. Speculation holds that at some point between then and the 1990 mission, McCafferty’s body and others were dragged into or at least toward the rift, where such bodies were either disposed of or consumed. The presence of dragging trails and partial organic remains (believed to be bodily detritus such as spilled pieces of organs) support this theory.

FORMAT NOTE: On instruction from my superiors, I have written the reconstruction that follows in narrative format, discarding the formal objective tone typically appropriate to these reports. Prior to this final draft, I submitted a technically-worded account of the incident but was instructed to redraft it using a less formal structure in order to better capture what happened. Director Jacks in particular said she did not feel that a technical recounting properly “reconstructed events,” which would at the time have been chaotic instead of technical. So in this final draft, she instead told me to call on my earlier ambitions to be a novelist instead of the federal writer I became, and to write the reconstruction that way. 

In an attempt to fully comply with her instructions, I have made many, many small guesses at details within the incident. I’ll ask future readers to understand that my intention was to capture the mood as well as the major beats of the incident, and as such I have speculated wildly on specific actions, moods of those involved, and overall atmosphere. Director Jacks encouraged such extravagance, indicating that unless my report allowed her to feel like she was there, it would be of little use beyond the already-known facts. For those interested in a report with more objectivity and less flair, those “already-known facts” are listed bullet-point fashion in an attachment to this shamelessly dramatic retelling. 

Apologies to those who feel the informal mood and speculation of the report below is disrespectful to the subject matter or to the dead. It may be trite, but I’ll say it anyway: I’m only following orders. 

***

PROSE-STYLE RECONSTRUCTION FOLLOWS:

“COLE? What the fuck do we do?” Harper demands. 

Cole pauses. He looks up, seeing the onrushing creatures clearly for the first time. There are hundreds of them. Possibly thousands, unknown for sure because their number retreats into the gloom of the passage beyond. 

Blood throbs through his veins, hands tightening involuntarily on the strange weapon he’s holding. They can all see the way the wall opens up behind the creatures: a high-ceilinged arch that maybe, just maybe, leads toward the Cathedral. Cole’s eyes dart to McCafferty’s shredded body, open at the torso with intestines and organs piled atop like some grotesque sauce. If Raymond was telling the truth, McCafferty entered through the Cathedral, possibly rappelling right into whatever killed him. He may have landed, untethered, and then immediately have been surrounded by … by things. It’s what makes the most sense: He entered the cave, he was ripped to pieces, and for unknown reasons his killers brought him here.

Two things seem clear. The first is that if they’d entered through the skylight and McCafferty had been sent through the mainshaft instead of the other way around, Cole and his crew might be the ripped-apart ones right now. The second thing is that there is a way out, if the Cathedral is ahead. The only problem are all the long-clawed creatures between their group and the exit. 

Another few moments pass. The cave echoes with the sounds of approach. The others behind him titter in partial words, wanting an answer. 

But Cole can’t speak. He sees them clearly now. The things massed ahead walk like stooped humans, bent slightly at their approximation of a spine. They’re grey-skinned, long-limbed, and have sharp claws that somehow gleam in the light of his headlamp, as if they’re made of polished steel. Their heads, though, are the hardest for Cole to comprehend. The creatures’ skulls seem to have been cut cleanly in half on a diagonal from just above their chattering mouths to the crowns. He can only assume that the writhing, wet mass visible in the center is a brain. Two ventricles, like twin dead spaces inside those brains, seem to stare at him like eyes. 

Flying between the things with the cut-open heads — visible now, hearable now — are what he can only think of as fat, flying pigs. They buzz on tiny wings like oversized bumblebees, fanged mouths agape. 

“Through the sump,” Cole mutters more than says. Then he musters and says it louder: “Get back through the sump! NOW!” 

He turns, finding Buck behind him, and shoves. Buck hesitates, eyes straight ahead, watching the things come. They all see what they are now … or possibly what they’re not. They’re not people. They’re not animals. They’re not even mutants, left behind from some infernal Hiroshima. Nobody wants to say it, but they know deep down what remains. What comes from the deep, with teeth and fangs, inhuman and impossible, come from flames and smelling of sulfur? 

Demons. 

But he can’t say the word. Won’t. Still, his skin knows it. It’s trying to bunch and cower at the back of his neck. Tightening as if trying to squeeze Cole out of this place — anywhere else at all. 

When Buck refuses to move, Cole pushes past to leave him behind. For a while Buck stands like a sentinel: A refusal to the creatures that says You shall not pass. But finally Buck breaks too, and follows the group ahead to the sump. 

Clara, Boris, and Raymond are already through. Someone is screaming but Cole can’t tell where or who. He sees blood; one of the grey-skinned things has gotten ahead of the others and is to one side, teeth gnashing above its exposed brain with gore down its front. 

Again someone yells. Maybe Tom? He can’t tell. Someone ahead of him was hurt but escaped; he can see blood in the water of the sump when his light — one of only two lights left in the room, swings toward it. Everything is confused. Shadows whip and dance with the light, making it impossible to see everything he needs to see at once. 

He turns back to the sump, feeling the approach of death. Then he re-trains his light on the nearby creature and focuses, trying to forget the hundred rest of them. How much time has passed? Seconds, maybe. Time is different now.

Tom steps in front of him. Cole’s nearly forgotten the Rollard in his hands, but Tom has not. 

Time snaps back like a rubber band. Three men remain: Cole, Tom, and Buck. Tom pushes Cole toward the sump, muttering something about how the others need him. Cole should go — wants to go — but he can’t leave his men behind. 

The creature in front of Tom lunges. Without thinking, Tom pivots and slices it in half, moving like the swordsman his younger brother always wanted him to be. It cuts the thing like butter — far easier than it should. The thing falls into a heap and Tom is left gaping: shocked that demons, too, can die. 

“Go, dammit,” Tom says to Cole. 

But before Cole can even consider it, a front wave of creatures peels away from the rest. The chattering of their rotted teeth, now that they’re nearly atop the men, becomes a soundtrack like rolled bones. Buck’s headlamp goes out; he slaps it loud enough to hear over the din before throwing it angrily aside. Tom’s lamp has broken. Now there’s just one beam in all the darkness. 

The wave comes. The men fight and slice, clearing a circle around themselves. The creatures seem mindless: They just keep on coming. But soon the air lights with the pop and snap of tiny firecrackers. Minute flashes in the din. 

An involuntary sound escapes Cole. He’s seen this before. In the passageway: The opening of that flaming eye, like a rift between his world and another, with something inside watching. Maybe it was the owner of those eyes that collapsed the passageway: to seal them inside like food on two feet. He’s seen similar flashes since, and in those flashes imagined more eyes. It’s hard not to see it all as reconnaissance. Something’s been waiting for them to come here, so it’d know when to release all these nightmares. 

Cole mutters at the others: Something about going through, getting out of here. In this room, there are many watchers, he feels. And not just the things around him now. 

Rollards swing. Creatures fall. Tom winces as something opens a gash on his shoulder, and Buck shouts in pain. When Cole turns, he sees why: one of them has run Buck through with tented fingers, turning several claws into one big one. He’s heaving for breath. Cole spears it with the back end of his Rollard, and the creature falls as well. 

Sense returns. Tom is still pushing, so Cole dives for the sump. He’s through in seconds. On the other side of the wall, sounds are muffled as if not there at all. 

Tom and Buck don’t follow right away. Cole looks back at the pool, the sump, but Clara grabs him by the arm and shakes her head. They’re standing guard. Giving the others time to try and escape. 

He suddenly notices a sound that’s already there: something he should have heard the second he surfaced: it’s the clang-clang of metal on stone. He claws toward the passage. Raymond is already deep inside, at its end, holding a Rollard steady with its sharp, pointed end against the rock. Clara is behind him, heaving a rock from the cave-in against the weapon’s top. With every strike, chips jitter to the floor from where the Rollard’s point sits. 

Seeing it, Cole feels a spark of hope. The rock in here is sedimentary, layered like sandstone. The Rollard’s tip is impervious, not blunted at all from the impact. With the two of them working together to use Rollard and rock like a hammer and chisel, breaking through might actually be possible. 

Back in the cave, Buck swings and swings, ignoring his wound. He has no idea how badly he’s hurt. Adrenaline has made pain and injury irrelevant. They both back toward the sump, forcing the oncoming things into somewhat of a bottleneck. It allows them to hold their ground, but no more. There’s no way to dive in without exposing themselves. Without the creatures falling on them all at once. 

“Get in the sump,” Tom says. Then, after cutting another demon in half, he pushes something into Buck’s hand. It’s Raymond’s gun, picked up by Cole and then apparently dropped by Cole some time in-between to be appropriated by Tom. “You’re hurt. I can hold them off better than you. So get in, and use that to cover me.” 

Buck takes the gun. Ducks behind Tom as Tom does battle. 

“Shoot them! Make me some room!” Tom yells.

So Buck shoots. He shoots Tom through the ankle. 

Then he dives. Even underwater, he can hear Tom screaming in pain but still swinging his Rollard, still holding them off. He’ll buy them time. Tom’s a tough bastard, and Buck could almost thank him for keeping them from following for a minute or two. Almost. He’ll be useful even after they kill him, Buck knows. He’s right over the sump. They’ll have to extract his body before they can come through it as well. 

Buck surfaces on the other side. Boris makes an involuntary sound, possibly of relief or maybe just surprise. Cole gasps, then extends a hand to pull him up. Behind them all, Clara continues to punish the Rollard with her bashing stone, pecking through the wall as Raymond holds the point. The sound, around the clanging, seems to change. Maybe it’s a change in the echo, though Cole doesn’t want to raise his hopes. Maybe it sounds that way because they’re getting through, and the sounds now have somewhere new to go. 

Cole waits by the pool. Buck puts his hand on Cole’s shoulder, and when Cole looks over, Buck shakes his head. 

“No,” he says. 

And then Cole watches as, under the light of his headlamp, the sump’s water turns red. 

Shouts from behind. Cole scrambles to look and sees that they’ve chipped most of the way through the wall, though the opening is only a foot or less across and there’s nothing but darkness behind. Wouldn’t the Cathedral be lit by the skylight? Although: Does he even want the Cathedral anymore, knowing what happened to McCafferty? 

Buck, dripping blood from his stomach, crawls forward and pulls Raymond from the tunnel. Clara, knocked aside as he passed, starts to say something but then stops when she sees his wound. Then it’s Buck with the Rollard Raymond had been holding, no longer bothering with the hammer-and-chisel bit but instead smashing with the sharpened point alone. As he swings, bloodflow from wound increases, flying and spattering everything. 

The sump behind them bubbles. Creatures begin to claw their way up, nails scratching across the stone. Buck’s dismissal has sent Raymond closest, so he and Cole grab two Rollards and begin stabbing at them. When their skin is pierced, the blood they leak is black, not red — and thick like bile.

Then Clara gasps. She’s seen the way the black blood glows in the light of a glow stick. 

“Oh my God. It’s in their blood. The Zen. It’s in their blood!” 

Raymond’s head whips toward her. Then something has him by the leg, pulling him in. Clara shakes off her revelation and reaches for him, but when she pulls his arm, it comes off in her hand. Raymond’s screams don’t last long. Within seconds the things have pulled him under. 

Clara tosses the severed arm, fearful but somehow not panicked. She’s got a precise mind, and knows that panic will kill them for sure. She makes a grim calculation: Raymond’s corpse has jammed sideways in the sump, blocking it. They must escape now. Not thirty seconds from now, but NOW. 

“COME ON, COME ON!” someone shouts. 

She turns her head, wanting to obey, but something inside her is warring with this sense of urgency, of peril, of life and death. Her mind is spinning. Her scientific, logical mind. There’s something here she can almost see, but hasn’t seen yet. 

Someone tugs her ankle. She looks back to see that it’s Cole. Darkness yawns in the passage, now cleared enough to exit into … into wherever it goes. Buck and Boris are nowhere to be seen, but what she can see are intermittent flashes from the other side. They’re presumably through the newly-cut hole, she thinks, and waiting. 

“CLARA! WE HAVE TO GO!”

But there’s a flaw in Cole’s thinking. Yes, the hole has been cut. Yes, they can escape this chamber. But what then? Already creatures are climbing out of the sump, and with a Rollard handle in her hands but no room to swing it, all Clara can do is bump them in their half-heads. Once the creatures enter this small chamber, anything inside it will die. Unless the next chamber is much bigger (and she guesses from Boris and Buck’s lack of echoes that it’s not), moving into a second smaller space will only delay their deaths … assuming there aren’t more creatures already in that other place, waiting on the other side. 

And all of this wars, in the space of seconds, with what her mind keeps trying to tell her. 

About the creatures’ black blood.

And the way it glows in the light of a glow stick. 

And the way, she’s sure, that it’s their blood, not the ore, that’s the source of Zen Element. 

It’s in their blood. It’s organic. It produces its own energy. It makes her think of the news. Of the missiles facing off between the U.S. and Russia on that little offshore island south of Florida. Of mushroom clouds. Nuclear weapons don’t produce their own energy; it comes by fissioning uranium-235. Or plutonium-239. But Zen is its own thing, siphoning from another place, drawn from beings from another place … and no matter where its energy comes from, she can’t help but feeling that this time she might be in a deep-earth bomb shelter with the bomb itself. 

“Clara!” Cole yells, tugging now. 

But Clara holds her ground. She moves toward the whole, but measuredly. The things are out of the sump, coming for her as if they can see her, though it seems more likely that they smell or hear her instead. They come slowly, matching Clara’s pace. It’s a game they’re playing: Red Light, Green Light, where getting tagged means dead. 

She gives Cole a nod, then walks backward with him behind her. She’s the last through the new hole.

She reaches into her bag. Takes her time unzipping her small kit of Zen-testing reagents. She’s never worked with fresh Element before. Never subjected it to her chemicals and tests. 

The creatures in the lead are bleeding from their half heads, thanks to her earlier hammer blows. Dripping all of that energetic, powerful Zen Element on the floor of their cut-through passage. 

When the thing in the lead lunges, Clara kicks it in the brain, causing more trauma, more bleeding. The thing recoils, and Clara scuffles back into all the darkness with the others. 

Buck removes a gun from his waistband and aims. 

“Stop,” Clara says, “and stand back.” 

She throws a bottle from her zipcase at the rock, dripping reagent into the black pool of demon blood. As it bubbles, she watches, pushing the men back, throwing rocks to keep the lead creature exactly where it needs to be. 

Bubbling. 

Reacting. 

Changing that tiny sample of unrefined Zen Element in the blood, and making it pure. 

The men try to shove forward with their Rollards, but Clara checks them back and shakes her head. 

Then the first drop of purified Element destabilizes, releasing all its energy at once like a tiny fission bomb. 

.

Journal of Clara Remik
October 31, 1962

We have to conserve our light. That’s okay, because I don’t love seeing what I’m covered in. For a few minutes after the Element blew and the hole we’d cut caved in, I was sure that I’d mishandled the bottle. That I’d accidentally spilled some of Item 9 on my hand, which I suspected — but couldn’t see — was covered in that Zen-rich blood. But nothing happened. I didn’t feel it bubbling and reacting on my skin … and most tellingly of all, I didn’t blow up. 

I wish I’d brought more reagents. I wish I’d known. Most relevantly, I wish they’d told me what they’d discovered. I guess I’ll never be sure what Raymond knew, but he knew at least that Zen Element isn’t mined from ore. Whatever those terrible creatures were, Zen lives in their blood. 

Potentially millions of years, they’ve been visiting our world. As impossible as it seems for me as a scientist to commit this to paper, I have to believe that’s what’s happening here: Creatures from some other plane of existence have been visiting our plane. It’s all that makes sense. The laws of thermodynamics can’t be subverted. Energy has to come from somewhere, and there’s no explanation for Zen Element if Earth is all there is. 

So what are they? Here in the dark, lit only by glow sticks, I’ll call them what my fear calls them: demons. 

We could argue semantics, but that’s all it is: semantics. They come from somewhere else. They have claws and teeth and rip people to pieces. They smell like sulfur and brimstone. Their brains are exposed and yet they live, and even those flying pig things with them will give me nightmares forever. 

I can’t let myself trust this chamber we’re in now, even though the things can’t get us here. It’s not the Cathedral. It’s not attached to the Cathedral in any obvious way — maybe no way at all. I fear now that the only path to the Cathedral and its potential way out is the path I’ve just cut off with my improvised explosive. Raymond said the passage the creatures were coming from, when we were all in the big room on the other side of the sump, was the way to the Cathedral. Where we’ve ended up is nowhere. We’re off the map now, more lost than lost with no way out. And there’s no way of knowing if there are more of those terrible things right around the corner, waiting to spring like Jack-in-the-boxes in the dark.

I have to hope there’s still a way out or I’ll go crazy here and now. Cole wanted to scope ahead through the now-only way out of here to see, but I told him to wait so we can all go at once. I told him I don’t want to separate, lest we be picked off one by one. When I said it, Cole nodded and did not protest. He’s listening to me now. After what just happened, maybe he’s finally seeing my knowledge as worthwhile instead of the pain in the ass it’s been. 

But I’m not sure that traveling in a group matters. No matter what, I still feel like Dead Woman Walking. 

I don’t have any more Item 9. The government’s secrecy kept me from deducing how valuable it could be until I actually needed to use it. All they needed to do was tell me the truth. If they’d told me we might face demons (assuming I’d’ve come at all, which I wouldn’t), I would have made the connection sooner. Zen Element is raw and “dirty” in its natural state. In the blood, it’s combined with other bio-compounds that impede energetic reactions like the one I just demonstrated — the one that collapsed the tunnel and either saved or doomed us. Item 9 (a reagent used to purify Element for testing purposes) reacted much, much faster in a live fluid than the old, dried, and often fossilized samples I’ve been given in the past. When the bottle I threw broke, the reaction created a tiny pellet of pure Zen. Without a stabilizing matrix, it did its entropy thing and let go of all its energy at once. Having Item 9 in my testing kit made for a nice improvised weapon … but if those assholes had talked straight, I would have brought more so I could use that weapon again. 

Now we only have those metal weapons — the things Raymond called Rollards. The fact that we were secretly equipped with them proves everything. They knew we might find creatures here; that’s why they sent weapons and probably why they sent Raymond. They knew we might, but hoped we wouldn’t. 

I suppose I should be easier on Raymond, seeing as he’s dead now. Besides, I saw his face when it all fell apart. He didn’t look smug or prepared when the demons came. Instead, he looked as shocked and scared as I was — as surprised at finding what they’d feared we’d find. 

We’re almost out of supplies. Our food and water were left in the last chamber after our rushed and explosive exit, along with everything that wasn’t in someone’s hands or pocket. Buck, who’s caved before, had a few iodine pills in a prep kit, and we’ve used one of them to make a pool of disgusting cave water safe to drink. Still, I worry that dying of thirst was the least of our worries. The air is okay for now, but what if in order to get out, we have to go deeper into the caves? What if we have to cross long sumps to get through, now that we’ve left our SCUBAs behind? What if there’s more Zen fire? We no longer have heat suits or helmets or self-contained ways to breathe. Right now we still have breathable air thanks to some sort of natural ventilation, though there’s no surface light to go with it. We only have one headlamp with one bulb between the four of us, glow sticks, a Rollard each, and a few useless odds and ends. 

Buck is hurt. Bad. His bleeding seems to have stopped (there was First Aid in his prep kit), but it’s likely that he’s septic or soon will be. He’s moving okay, and he’s not as pale as I’d expect, though that might just be the light in here. The look in his eyes, though, bothers me a lot. I think something back there made him snap. When I asked what happened to Tom, he said that Tom covered him so he could escape, then was supposed to follow before those things got him. So maybe that’s it: Maybe Buck blames himself for Tom’s death. Or maybe it’s something else. 

I’m not sure why, but something about Buck disquiets me above and beyond the disquiet I’d expect right now. My instincts are screaming even louder than my claustrophobia where Buck is concerned … and it bothers me beyond measure to see that somehow, Raymond’s gun has found its way beneath his belt.

.

Journal of Cole Remik
November 1, 1962

I think it’s morning. That’s what my internal clock says, though nobody still has a working watch (water, fire, and running into rock walls will do that) and there’s no other way to tell. But it feels like morning to me. It feels like I just woke from a long nightmare, and I call that nightmare “yesterday.” 

If Clara, Boris, or Buck slept, they’re finished now and are moving around without speaking. There’s a groggy “don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee” vibe in the cave that might actually be funny if we weren’t all sure we were going to die. There’s very little light. Between us, we only have four of those glowing sticks left unused. The first ones cracked — one clipped to each of our clothes —are still glowing a little bit, so we’re saving the others until the last of this feeble light dies. I’d guess they last for 12 hours or so. That’s about how long it’s been, and the first of them are on their last legs. If they all last that long and if we only use one of the remaining sticks at a time, we can count on at least some light for the next 48 hours. We’ve got one light bulb left too, but I’m calling that a bonus rather than something to count on. Without our waterproof bags, I don’t see that bulb crossing another sump — or even surviving too much cave condensation undamaged. 

With only dim green light, the cave is a quiet horrorshow. I half-expected Buck to die in the night but he’s still kicking, now with an acre of dried blood across his chest dried as black as the walls behind him. Clara had a lot of those things’ blood on her too, but she washed it off in a pool away from our treated drinking water because she says it’s dangerous to leave on her skin — “mutagenic” was the word I think she used. But her clothes are still thick with it, and so are parts of mine, and the others have spatters. Black as velvet, it is. We can see, but only barely. 

It’s better than nighttime, at least. Between the two halves of my sleep, I woke needing to piss and thought I’d gone blind. Everyone had either rolled onto their glowing sticks or lost them in loose clothing, so I couldn’t even see my hand if I held it an inch from my face. I dug my glow stick out to do what needed doing, but a brief wave of freezing panic came first. I was caught in scattered dreams and the childish fears that come in the night, and the caves had gone quiet as a crypt. I wanted to beat the walls with my fists until they turned to bloody stumps — anything to break out of this prison, or at least die trying. 

I’m losing my mind inside. I won’t show it (Boris and Buck see me as a leader, so I owe them some leading), but it’s happening just the same. I feel feeble compared to the oddly cool and calm way Clara looks. It might be the situation playing with my head, but she’s beautiful to me in here, like when we met. She’s always been strong. Always been competent. I think now that one of the reasons we fight so much is that one thing was clear from the start, and it’s that she didn’t truly need me. 

But even now, as I panic, a beaten-up ghost of that strength remains in her. She’s remembering herself, I think. It took horror and death to bring it back out. I have so many questions, but for now I’m holding them back. I know why I want answers, and it’s not just to have them. I’d ask because I want to hear certainty. To feel comfortable with someone knowledgable among us, and hope because of it that everything will be all right. 

I do have something to show her, though. Something that shouldn’t wait much longer, now that everyone is stirring. 

.

Journal of Clara Remik
November 1, 1962

When one of those things grabbed Raymond’s leg and dragged him toward the sump — when I rushed to save him and ended up holding a severed arm — it turns out he dropped something. It was a wrapped-up waterproof parcel the size of half a sandwich, jostled from his inside pocket. Cole picked it up, and gave it to me just now.

He hadn’t opened it. He said he wanted my eyes to be the first ones on it, after we rested enough to get our wits about us. He saw that it was something electronic wrapped up with some papers, but it took opening the thing to see exactly what it was. 

It’s a tape recorder, but a smaller one than any of us have seen before. Instead of using normal tapes, it uses tiny little ones. Those tapes turned out to contain a partial audio recording of what happened, probably so Raymond’s bosses would be able to analyze whatever we found (in secret, of course) once we returned. Or possibly through salvage, after we all died. 

The tape itself was pointless, seeing as we’d lived what was on them and therefore knew it all. The papers wrapped in with the recorder, though, were interesting indeed. 

Raymond had a map, for one, although he’d been telling the truth; the map and recon were “incomplete” at best, just like he said. What Ray didn’t say was that even though the map is useless in terms of navigation, something was mapped — just without context. 

What I’m about to say is speculation, but I think it’s pretty close to right based on a few notes someone made in the margins. 

I think the first expedition went in mining for Zen, just like they did with the rest of Fortune’s mines. They knew it wasn’t from the rocks, but that didn’t matter. It was there, and it went deep, so they started digging. But in this mine, unlike the others, they broke into a cave system thicker with Zen Element than the others. So they went through the sump like we did, to explore and hopefully find more, but they didn’t run into the same horde of demon-things that we did. They were able to go deeper, following trails as the deposits of Zen became more and more abundant. 

But something happened. I think the so-called “Suicide Flats effect,” which we all felt before entering and are feeling again now that the adrenaline has worn off, got to them and messed with their heads. The map seems to reflect some sort of madness. There are missing sections and sections drawn off by themselves, without connecting to other chambers. Notes on those chambers (words like “dark” and “unseen”) make me think they were, at times, completely without light. Maybe nobody had these glowing sticks yet, and their headlamps were buggy in all the humidity. 

I imagine them stumbling blindly through long passages, getting disoriented as they grew slowly psychotic, soon enough losing all sense of direction. That happens in places like this. The human compass is highly fallible. Without landmarks to guide them, studies show that blindfolded people will literally walk in circles even when asked to walk a straight line. 

From all of the map’s unjoined sketches of chambers and passages and accounts of felt atmospheric pressure, there are a few things I now feel fairly sure of. 

First, their trend was downward. The further they explored, the deeper into the Earth they went. 

Second, the cave system is highly interlinked. Based on their notes about a rock formation that we’ve discovered a few chambers ahead of the one we’re in now, I think they came very near to here, before or after discovering the Cathedral and its skylight vent. I’m wary of the Cathedral if Sam McCafferty rappelled into it before being ripped open (it was probably full of the things that attacked us), but it’s still the only way we know to maybe get out of here. Sam wasn’t carrying a rope, so he probably left it tied topside so he could re-ascend it if needed to. If we find the Cathedral, chances are we’ll find that rope. It’s been a long time since I climbed a rope in gym class, but Cole is strong and I have no doubts he could get up there, then call help for the rest of us. Buck is certainly in no state to shimmy up a rope. The map makes me think there’s still hope — that we’re not so cut off from the exit that we’ll never reach it. The only question is if we’ll have to go through Hell to reach it. 

The last thing the map tells me is the oddest and most daunting. 

They found something here, in the deepest part of the cave system, that nobody expected to find. I fear our best chance of finding the Cathedral is to find that place, then re-trace whichever of their steps to it from the Cathedral that we can decipher. 

In that deepest place, our unknown mapmaker drew something like a huge flaming eye, with a small stick figure man beside it for scale. Whatever that eye-thing buried somewhere beneath us is, it’d drawn at least twenty feet tall. 

It’s labeled as Rift.

And beside it, an unsteady hand wrote one other word: Beautiful.

.

Journal of Clara Remik
November 2, 1962

I want to feel something like relief at having at last reached something, but it’s been too long now to feel relief, or even to be sure I’m in my right mind. I think it might be delirium, making me think I’ve seen what I haven’t seen at all. 

What happened to the first expedition, I think it’s happening to us. Everyone is either quiet or arguing, and about the most petty things. Buck in particular, maybe because sepsis is setting in. I catch him staring at me like something hollowed-out and dead: a ghost of himself, with a mind half gone.

I’ve read accounts of people in dark spaces suddenly seeing light, or imagining breeze where there is no breeze. It’s something to do with our brains needing input, or maybe it’s cells in the retina firing off like little fireworks, making us see light that doesn’t exist. So I don’t know if I’ve seen what I’ve seen. It feels too complex for me to have imagined (it’s far more than “little pops of light” or garden-variety hallucinations), but you never know. 

None of us are ourselves anymore. 

I’m writing this entry just over 24 hours since my last. The light of our current glow stick is almost gone and now only two will remain once it’s finished. Cole fashioned a waterskin out of the lining of his jacket of all things, and although it leaks a lot, we’ve at least been able to carry some water and spare the rest of Buck’s iodine tablets. It’s been two days since anyone ate, and we’re growing weak because of it.

We’ve spent most of those past hours following passage after passage, always trending deeper into the Earth. Each new chamber we find — none of which we’ve been able to match to Raymond’s haphazard map — makes the decision to move into the next one easier. Nobody wants to say it aloud, but we’ve all resigned ourselves to the same thing: We’re more lost than lost already, so why sweat getting lost some more? 

All we have left is forward motion. It can no longer be called “progress,” just “motion.” We move on because there’s nothing else. There aren’t even decisions to make. Every new cave gives us exactly one option — one way out unless we want to turn around and go back, where we know for sure we’d meet a dead end. All we’ve done is plot on and on, figuring that now that we’re in for a penny, we might as well go in for a pound. 

It bothers me, the way these caves line up. 

I thought at first that the system was natural. Now, I’m not so sure. It’s possible that some of it was formed by the usual forces that make caves, but the single-pointed directionality of what we’ve walked in the past day feels far too focused to me. Maybe humans didn’t dig these deep-down passages, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t dug. What was my guess earlier — that Zen’s been soaking into rocks down here for millions of years? That’s more than enough time for dug-out edges to round out and appear natural. 

Now that I’ve seen what’s ahead, I have a theory that I don’t plan to share with the men. I think most of where we are was excavated by demons. I think they came from the source in the big chamber — the so-called “rift” — and took their time clawing through solid rock to the surface. 

It’s not blind guessing. I’ve walked at the rear of our group as much as I can, so I can inspect the passages covertly. I see footprints — not human footprints — on the floor of these passages, as well as a shaped groove that suggests this is a well-worn path for them. Zen Element, fluorescing in the glow of the glow stick, is everywhere. Maybe they battle amongst themselves down here and bleed because of it, or maybe their life cycle works differently than ours. For all we know, they may simply … fall apart as they age and die. Instead of dying and then decaying, maybe the latter happens first: sloughing into blood and tissue as they still walk on. 

We’ve seen no more live ones. A trail of fresh demon blood makes me think they came back this way after their battle with us. Around every corner, I expect an ambush. And I hear them. We all hear them, echoing a zig-zag course through the tunnels that are already behind us. They never approach, but they still feel right behind. 

Cole’s given us a theory about it that I don’t like at all. He said he saw something earlier — a miniature version of the big rift ahead — and felt sure something inside it was watching him. Maybe waiting for him. He thinks that whatever was inside that smaller rift collapsed the mainshaft in order to trap us. “They fought us on Halloween because we fought them,” he said, “but if we hadn’t fought, maybe what they really wanted was to drive us.” 

Meaning into the Earth, like the first expedition. Meaning right to the threshold of that horrible flaming eye. It doesn’t feel wrong. It would explain why we haven’t been attacked again, if we’re headed where they want us to go. 

Why? I can’t say, but in this dark and damp place my mind has spun some horrible theories. The low-grade claustrophobia I felt when we entered is nothing compared to the banshee shriek inside me now. I’m afraid all the time now, without respite. Everyone is. 

But in that state, I almost wonder if the reason we may be being driven toward the rift is because as much as those paper-skinned creatures wanted us near the surface, something inside it wants us even more. 

We felt the rift before we found it. The thing exhales hot air, and already the air was growing warmer as we descended into the ground. The huge chamber it resides in is all stalactites and stalagmites, but up close it feels like a thousand degrees. Even where we’re resting now, we’re sweating. Light inside the chamber is no longer a problem, and for now — as long as we stay within a few chambers of it — it’s making our waning glow stick irrelevant. In all that light, when I peek into the big space, can see particulate matter in the air, and from its movement can see just how hard a gale is blowing out of the thing. Whatever’s on its other side is a very, very hot place to affect a blast like that. 

Somehow, we still have no trouble breathing. It’s all that keeps me going, because breath this deep only comes if a very large opening exists somewhere ahead. The rift’s hot breath is probably helping things along: stirring the air down here like forced-air heater. I’m convinced now, after studying the map and watching our progress, that the rift is the place where we turn around and start our way back up toward the Cathedral — or ideally toward an exit that’s much better. I think that if we’d been able to cross the chamber where we found Sam’s body and exit the way Raymond said we could, we’d have reached the Cathedral and possibly another exit quickly. What we did, by breaking through and then re-sealing a wall, was to enter the system from another point to take the long way around … with the rift room as our midpoint. 

My tired, dark-adjusted can’t look at the rift for long, though I keep creeping from our resting place to the big chamber to see it again and again. The map wasn’t wrong. It’s beautiful. Terrifying, yes, but beautiful just the same. It just floats in the chamber’s middle, about a foot off the floor of the cave, with nothing behind it. Despite that, I can see right through it to another place — a place of barren red rocks and emptiness. Its outer edges undulate with multicolored fire. It radiates waves of an aurora, like the borealis up north. 

I’m not sure what comes next. Our group is falling apart, all of us dealing with the “impossible” of our situation in our own ways. Boris is as quiet and curious as always, but he seems more spellbound by the rift than the rest of us. He visits the chamber even more than me: four or five times in the hour or two we’ve spent resting here, trying to summon our energy and nerves. Buck just sits and stares, and I fear for him more and more, as the twin forces of infection and psychological stress do their work. Cole, however, has become less volatile instead of more. He’s still and contemplative with none of his trademark defensiveness, passive-aggressiveness, or temper. I catch him looking at me. Looking at nothing, lost in thought. 

I suspect the next step is to explore the rift room and try to find the other exit I feel increasingly sure is there, but I can’t make myself — let alone all of us, as some sort of lame duck leader — do it. The rift feels … well, “otherworldly” is all that comes to mind. It feels like maybe we should kneel before it. Praise it. Offer it sacrifice. The absence of demons does not feel fortunate to me. It feels like a warning, as if they too are aware of its sacred power. 

The coast is clear, though — no reason other than superstition to stay where we are and wait to slowly starve. 

As soon as Boris returns, we should probably gather what remains of our bravery and do what we must.

.

Letter from Boris Petrov to Nadezhda Petrov
Dated November 2, 1962
Discovered undelivered
Translated into English on 12/14/90 by R. Davis, CIA

My dearest Nadezhda,

Apologies for the material of this letter. All I have for writing is this fabric. Cole, who you know, used the lining of his jacket to make a pouch for us for water-handling and this was the discard. It is difficult to write on so I will be brief. 

It is too much to explain, where we have gone and why we are here. You know from my last letter that we were to be sent into an old mine. It is collapsed, to be blunt, and we are trapped inside. And deep inside, we have discovered soldiers, and her home. 

The kikimora, from the tales of babushka. 

It is not actually, of course, but the Americans call the things we see “demons” without shame so I will say kikimora because as for me, it has a feel to you. I wonder now if there was always evil, and true evil in the shape of a thing that can visit and do harm, but that such things have hidden in the modern world. People here say that we, Russians, are evil for the Cuba, and to you in the Motherland maybe you hear the same about the Americans. But this is maybe where it begins — here, in this deep and dark place. 

I have visited the door with its massive keyhole that my “kikimora” haunts many times now. I can only go to it and stare until my eyes water and become sore. I feel that she speaks to me. No I am not ill in the head. I speak about a feeling I have, that something inside this huge circle of fire. It is a feeling with a clear course of action, and if we do not take the action she wants, we will never be allowed to leave here. 

She wishes a sacrifice. Only patience keeps her hand from closing her minions around our throats. We have faced them before, and yet now they stay at bay. Why? It is because it is test. Because we are sent here perhaps because the kikimora or whichever the Americans say is curious about us. It wants to know what we are, as the likes of them have never been seen before, or at least if they have, none have lived to tell the story. 

But I can feel it, as I look into the keyhole between our world and hers. 

There is nothing senseless here. There is a mind, not mindless “animals” or “creatures” as Cole says they are. I know it for true. Cole would have us rush past — to try to skirt the fiery keyhole in this room and find a way out and up. But I ask you Nadezhda: Would anything with the power this thing has simply allow us to pass, if so clearly it has been waiting for us? If so clearly it has been steering us from the surface to this room, so that it can get a closer look at us? 

We can deny it, yes. That is what Cole and Clara would have us do. But I know for certain Nadezhda — if we try, if we fail to honor her as sacrifice to her curiosity about us and our kind — she will not lie quietly and we all will die instead of only one. 

I will be their savior. I will do this, maybe not just for our group, but for the world above that does not know this power survives below us, just biding its time. 

Do not mourn me. What I do, I do for you.

Be well,
Бори́съ

.

Microcassette record of expedition into Mine Zero
Tape 2 / Side 2
Beginning time index 20:24
Ending time index: Undefined (tape runs until end after abandoned)
Truncated for relevance
Transcribed by D. Matthews. Emphasis added to reflect vocal inflection.

CLARA REMIK: Will you stop playing with that thing? You’re going to erase something. 

COLE REMIK: So what? 

CLARA REMIK: Just … don’t, okay?

COLE REMIK: [Into the mic] Testing, testing. [To Clara] I’m only recording on the blank part at the end. I’m not erasing anything. 

CLARA REMIK: Do you even know how … Wait. Is this yours?

[Shuffling sounds]

CLARA REMIK: No, it’s— 

COLE REMIK: [At the same time] Yeah. Because I speak Russian. I wrote you a love letter. In Russian. Nadezhda.

CLARA REMIK: Where’s Boris? 

COLE REMIK: Where do you think?

CLARA REMIK: He’s still not back? How long’s he been in there? I was … 

COLE REMIK: Who cares? He wants to stare at the big flaming pussy, let him do it. [Tone changes] What? What’s wrong?

CLARA REMIK: This was under a rock. He left a letter to his sister under a rock. 

COLE REMIK: Is there somewhere he was supposed to leave it?

CLARA REMIK: Buck, did Boris say anything to you? Did you see him leave?

COLE REMIK: What’s going on here, Clara? You’ve written things down here. Me too. So what?

CLARA REMIK: Buck? Where’s Boris? BUCK.

COLE REMIK: Look. I think we’re all getting a little edgy. If you’ll just— 

CLARA REMIK: DON’T PATRONIZE ME! I’M NOT HYSTERICAL! BUCK! ANSWER ME!

COLE REMIK: Then maybe tell me what the fuck the problem is!

CLARA REMIK: He left it behind. Weighted down by a rock. Look, Cole — isn’t that where you’d leave something you wanted someone to find? Later on? 

COLE REMIK: What are you doing? You can’t read Russian. 

CLARA REMIK: There’s a lot about me you don’t know. My college roommate. Julia. She was from southern Ukraine, and … Oh. Oh, no. 

COLE REMIK: WHAT, shit!

CLARA REMIK: Why are you smiling? Buck? What did you say? He said something to you, didn’t he?

[Rustling, scraping sounds, then a clatter as presumably the recorder is dropped. REMIK and REMIK move farther from the microphone]

COLE REMIK: Answer her, you fuck!

H. CARTER: She knows. She reads Ruskie. Don’tcha, sweetheart? 

[Thick sound, like a punch]

COLE REMIK: Clara! CLARA!

H. CARTER: [Wheezes] Go on, tough guy. [Coughs] Go chase your lady. 

[Sounds of rushed footsteps running toward the rift chamber. Shouts continue, growing more distant: parties calling for each other by name]

CLARA REMIK: [Screams loudly in the distance] Run! Where did they all come from! BORIS! We have to run!

CARTER: [Alone, muttering] See? Now you gonna do some dumb shit like stop him and get us all killed. 

[Slow sounds as Carter rises and plods away from the microphone, feet dragging in a limp]

CLARA REMIK: [Extremely distant, barely audible, shouting to be heard over blast-furnace exhale of the rift] BORIS! They’re not going to let us pass just because you—!

B. PETROV: [Also shouting to be heard] It must be done, Clara! One of us dies or all of us die! Trust me! I have seen it in my dreams!

[Distant yelling, unintelligible. Other chaotic noises, also unintelligible in the far distance]

[Tape runs without content until its ending]

---

At this point, I put the story to a vote: Should the team let Boris sacrifice himself, try to sacrifice someone else (like Buck, but Buck has the gun), or try to run or fight the demons in their weakened state? Readers decided to allow Boris’s sacrifice, so here we go!

---

** CONFIDENTIAL **
Interview with [NAME REDACTED]
Conducted by Special Agent J. Dixon, Spread and Containment
August 21, 2024, following detainment of primary subject in psionically secure facility
Fortune, Utah
Report censored November 11, 2024 following incursion incident. Original on file (Director’s eyes only)
Truncated for relevance

DIXON: So it’s like dreaming. Like … you’re in your bunk, and then you see [redacted] swinging on a hellbringer’s horns, and then the queen brings you tea. The old queen. The dead one. Because it’s a dream. Right?

[REDACTED]: I thought you believed me. 

DIXON: If I didn’t believe you, you wouldn’t be here. You’d be on leave, telling the Brigade shrink about your mother. Stop being a pussy, [redacted]. You want Graves doing this interview instead? At least I’m charming. 

[REDACTED]: [Grunts]

DIXON: Okay. Look. We’ve known they can get in our heads since pretty much the beginning. The first prospectors who found Zen Element ore back in the 50s  got it all over their hands and died, but the second round, once they finally figured out not to touch it with bare skin, still died early. By their own hands, within weeks of finding it. Too much exposure, too much of the depressive radiation or whatever-the-shit. But get this: After that — after people finally got some idea what they were dealing with, and that “zone of inhibition” you said she told you about started to really die off around the Gore Point, it barely affected the people who worked with it every day. Do you know why? You’ve seen enough, right here in this facility, to know what could easily change the way Zen Element reacts and how people react to it, haven’t you?

[REDACTED]: Are you talking about intention?

DIXON: Exactly. Once people started to get an idea what Zen Element was, it’s like it knew what we were. They knew what we were. After that, whatever boogie-boogie made those first coots slit their wrists was gone, and it just started being a big fucking bummer. Enter the name “Suicide Flats.” So yeah, [redacted], obviously I believe it’s gotten its thoughts into your head, or you’ve just got a hangover from the big shebang and that’s what’s in your head. The question isn’t if it’s gotten to you. The question is why it’s gotten to you more than just about anyone else, including your own blood. So: Patel and the others? We’re only here right now because they want to understand. 

[REDACTED]: They want to understand why it affects me? 

DIXON: Yes. But right now, let’s focus on how. So again: Is it like a dream, when you have these … these … episodes?

[REDACTED]: Sometimes it’s actual dreams, but influenced somehow. I dream about [redacted]. I dream about my [redacted]. But other times, like the thing that happened right before we came here, in my apartment? That’s more than dreams. When that happens, it’s like I’m awake, but not all the way. It’s like ….

DIXON: … like you’re on shrooms or LSD or something?

[REDACTED]: Well … 

DIXON: And you think this is coming to you from the dreadnought. The dreadnought is putting these “dreams” into your head, whether they’re waking dreams or the normal kind?

[REDACTED]: I think it’s exposure to the dreadnought. I don’t know if it’s coming from it. At least not directly. Sometimes it feels like … like the other plane is trying to explain something to me, but my human brain is in the way. Or my brain is an interpreter. So everything comes through my own filters, like it’s being seen in the context of my experiences … even if that’s not the way it’s sent. 

DIXON: [Sighs] Okay, let’s see where that goes. Tell me again what you dreamed last night. 

[REDACTED]: Again, this time it wasn’t entirely a dream. It’s like I was there. That’s why I kept telling Patel she needs to call someone and check the mines, because the people I saw— 

DIXON: You’re just going to have to trust me that it’s not an issue. Not right now.  Nobody’s trapped in a mine. Nobody’s been in that mine for for like sixty years, except for a salvage team that went in in the 90s. I read through the records from the salvage expedition — the ones they’d let me see, anyway — after Patel told me what you told her. From what I can tell, the salvage team found chambers just like you described, but they didn’t find a rift. But not finding a rift isn’t really surprising given what’s happened in the last few months, is it? There used to be a rift in that mine; they know that much. It was discovered by one doomed mission, then discovered again by the next doomed mission. That much is clear from resonance traces in the rock, clearly indicating rift energy. 

[REDACTED]: And that means … ?

DIXON: It means that what you saw happened in the past, not right now. 

[REDACTED]: You think I saw back in time?

DIXON: I think you saw a memory. Their memory. 

[REDACTED]: Why would it show me one of their memories?

DIXON: I don’t know, [redacted]. Why would it [redacted] when it did? Why did it let us [redacted]? Why, when it had us by the balls, do you and [redacted] think it [redacted]? So how about you help a handsome special agent out and tell me what exactly you saw, whether it was in a dream or whatever-the-fuck, so that I can get back to my Sudoku game? I’m getting pretty good, you know. Work just gets in the way. 

[REDACTED]: Well, I saw the man I told you about when we first sat down. The Russian. He was standing near the exit, all by himself. 

DIXON: How do you know he was Russian?

[REDACTED]: Because he had an accent. I couldn’t tell what magnitude the rift inside the cave was (I just know it was Dorn class because all that came out was halfskulls and a few hellhogs), but it had to be huge because its exhale was as loud as a jet engine. The people had to yell to hear each other. When the man yelled, he had an accent. Besides, she called him “Boris.” 

DIXON: And he called her … ?

[REDACTED]: Clara. The man with her was Cole. And the third was … Bob? Bill? 

DIXON: Was it “Buck”?

[REDACTED]: Buck. Yes. Are these real people, Dixon? Do you think what I saw really happened? Are you that sure it’s actually a memory?

DIXON: From what I read, four people with those first names, plus some other people, went into that mine in ’63. The brass only knows how it all turned out, not everything that happened along the way. I’m told nobody’s been able to put this one piece together — the part when they were actually in that chamber, face to face with the rift — until now. All they have are journals that don’t tell the full story and a tape record that got left behind for the final act. So did it really happen? Let’s just say it’s one hell of a coincidence if it didn’t. So: Boris was near the entrance. And where were you? Where were you seeing all of this from?

[REDACTED]: I’m pretty sure I was seeing outward. From inside the rift.

DIXON: Inside? 

[REDACTED]: Well, that makes sense considering the source, doesn’t it? If I was looking out from the perspective of someone or something inside the rift — and if what I saw really happened — then who else’s memory could I possibly be seeing?

DIXON: Jesus. 

[REDACTED]: No. Not his. 

DIXON: You think the dreadnought was there? In the mine? 

[REDACTED]: My perspective was high off the ground, like I was seeing through something very tall. If this “memory” was originally seen through an average fiend’s eyes, I’d’ve been a lot lower down. I don’t suppose you’ve asked Carl about any of this?

DIXON: Right. Carl. Carl’s got half a brain. I might as well ask Graves. Although he’s probably only got a quarter brain, so maybe that’s a win. So, okay: The Russian is standing there in front of the rift, just outside the burn radius. Then the others run in. Right?

[REDACTED]: Clara first, then Cole right behind her. Buck took a while. 

DIXON: And then what?

[REDACTED]: Boris had decided that the group needed to make a sacrifice in order to survive. He— 

DIXON: Yes, we know this part. He left a letter for his sister. Go on.

[REDACTED]: Well, I think Boris was right. The fiends did want a sacrifice. Just not in the way he thought. 

DIXON: Yes, yes, we know that, too. It’s just like with certain other teacher’s pets the fiends have had over the years. The eggheads keep using the word “curious” even though it’s not very scientific. The fiends were curious about [redacted], curious about [redacted], curious about your [redacted], and are now super curious about you and [redacted]. I wouldn’t use the word “sacrifice.” This isn’t some pagan ritual with pentagrams and goat blood. Leave that to the freaks who live in the forest with the teardrop trees and all the other what-the-fuck. 

[REDACTED]: Right. I think that what they really wanted was to see Boris’s mind. See what made him willing to do what he was willing to do, when nobody else had the same idea. 

DIXON: Okay. Then what happened, exactly?

[REDACTED]: Clara rushed in, yelling for Boris not to go into the rift. He wouldn’t listen. He was all the way across the chamber out of her reach, and so every time Clara tried to intercept him, he’d take another step toward the rift. I could see … God, I could see his clothes starting to smoke. I can only imagine the heat. Clara saw it, too, so she raised her hands, promised him that she wouldn’t come any closer, and begged him to back up.

DIXON: So Clara Remik tried to talk him out of it?

[REDACTED]: I think so. This part was really fuzzy. If it really was a memory, I guess the dreadnought didn’t bother trying to recall it all because it probably saw the discussion as irrelevant. The dreadnought I was seeing through, if that’s really what was going on, wasn’t out in the open. It was inside the rift, possibly half-formed and definitely making an effort not to be seen until the time came. 

DIXON: Then what? 

[REDACTED]: Clara kept inching forward, trying to talk Boris down and moving toward him like she was trying to convince him that she just wanted to comfort him, not stop him. Makes sense. I’m sure he didn’t want to walk into a rift, so he was at least a little convincible. But then her husband Cole came in, and when Cole tried to talk to her she just yelled at him. Said she was a scientist and she could think for herself, and that he didn’t know everything all the damn time so he should stop trying to convince her he did. I remember that part. It hit pretty close to home for me, obviously.

DIXON: And?

[REDACTED]: And Cole grabbed her arm. She didn’t like that. Everyone started yelling, and once the Remiks were really into it and distracted, Boris started walking toward the rift again. Toward me; toward where I was seeing all of this from. 

DIXON: Why do you think you saw all of this, by the way, if it really was the dreadnought’s memory? Do you think the dreadnought was showing it to you on purpose, or did it leak out on accident and you just happened to pick it up while you were sleeping?

[REDACTED]: I think it was intentional. It felt like they were trying to teach me something. It felt like, “This is what we do. These are the people we select. This is what’s tested, what’s worthy, what’s punished, and what suits our curiosity and our needs.” 

DIXON: Wait. If that’s what it was telling you of all people, do you think it was trying to explain what happened with—? 

[REDACTED]: I don’t know. I also don’t know if I want those things to be true. I spent my life believing that rifts were things to fight with rollards and Paulson Rifles and Goms and then to stitch closed, or to run away from. It’s hard to believe anyone would ever walk into one willingly. Not Boris, and not … not anyone else.

DIXON: Or that it’s even possible without a heat suit. 

[REDACTED]: Or Frog. 

DIXON: Wait. What’s Frog got to do with it? Frog wasn’t even invented back in— 

[REDACTED]: All I know is that Boris’s clothes kept right on smoking when he walked toward the rift the second time, and that when he got close, they caught fire. But he was smiling. He wasn’t even blistering. Like he’d dosed. Like he’d been protected. Is that possible — that they … changed Boris somehow? Frog came from the other plane, right?

DIXON: It’s made from Zen Element, but made by GEN. I’ve never heard of the fiend plane being able to [redacted] with humans.

[REDACTED]: Maybe. But don’t you remember how [redacted] and I ended up [redacted], even without Frog? I think they can protect us, if they want to. 

DIXON: So Boris just walked right in?

[REDACTED]: From what I saw. He seemed to become more content and less afraid as he got closer. Clara didn’t see that part. Couldn’t, because she couldn’t see his face. Even if she’d seen it, she’d’ve probably thought it was delirium — that Boris had lost the rest of his mind instead of somehow deciding he was right and everything would all be okay. 

DIXON: And was it? “All okay?”

[REDACTED]: I think it could have been. Clara was shouting and crying and trying to run forward to stop him, but it was way too hot for her to get very close. So Cole held her back, and when she slipped away from him and rushed toward Boris, Cole tackled her and pinned her down. Not that she looked happy about it. The fiend I saw all of it through watched their faces very carefully, so I saw how wrecked they both were. Both shouting and crying, but Cole clearly willing to be the bad guy because he’d read the situation correctly. 

DIXON: “Correctly” meaning … ?

[REDACTED]: Remember, the burn radius around that rift was filled with halfskulls. They had to push backward to let Boris through — that’s how thick they’d lined up. Cole understood. The fiends wanted to know what Boris was made of, and by extension what all of them were made of. If the others had stopped Boris, the fiends would have stopped the others. His sacrifice, if that’s what you want to call it, is all that kept those halfskulls in place. And you should have seen the way those humans looked, Dixon. They could barely stand up. The bad energy in there had them all by the throat. They looked like zombies. They’d never have been able to run away if the halfskulls changed their minds, let alone fight. 

DIXON: But nobody came out of that mine. So it wasn’t “all okay.” 

[REDACTED]: Well. From what I saw, that was Buck’s fault. 

.

Journal of Clara Remik
November 2, 1962

Weak. Hard to write. I’m bleeding badly now, and I don’t think I have long. Still, I need to write down what I can. I owe it to anyone who finds this — but even more, I owe it to the memory of Boris Petrov — to try and explain what happened down here. 

After Boris disappeared, all the soldier demons started to turn around and re-enter the rift. They were emptying out, as if the show was over and we could go home now. The heat from the thing even died down a bit, like it was cycling from active mode to something more quiescent. 

Before that, though, I tried my best to save Boris but Cole wouldn’t let me. I was furious. I kicked him off of me, then punched him in the stomach. But then I saw Cole’s face, and all the anger left me. It was like time had rolled backward and I was seeing the old Cole again. The Cole from when we first met. He didn’t want Boris to die any more than I did, but he believed that it had to happen … and as much as I hate to admit it, he was almost surely right. We’d never have survived a fight against that many demons, and we’d never have outrun them. Boris’s intuition — and maybe that dream he said he’d had — seemed to have been correct: If someone went into the rift, they’d let the rest of us go. I get now that if it wasn’t Boris, it would have been all of us who’d died. Cole shouldered the burden of making sure that happened, even if it risked my hating him more than I already have been these past years. Even if it risked him hating himself for the rest of his life, however long that could have been. 

After Boris was gone, everything immediately began to settle. As much as those things without eyes could look at us, they did when it was over. I swear I felt knowledge pass between us: them saying, “It’s over now. We’re square, you and us.” 

But then Buck came limping into the chamber. In the light of the rift, he looked demonic himself. He was wan, strangely gaunt, and his eyes were vacant with far too much pupil in the center. It was the sepsis, doing him in. The claws of the thing that stabbed him introduced plain old Earth-side bacteria, his blood half-poisoned by it after two days without treatment.

He pulled the gun from his waistband and aimed it at the rift. When he did, the demons that hadn’t yet exited turned around to face us. All of them. They turned, and they watched as if mildly interested. 

“Stop it,” Cole told him. “Put that away.” 

Buck smiled, then fired directly into the rift’s center. A spot of blue flame burst from the impact point, but beyond that there was nothing. The demons kept watching us, unmoving. 

“I said stop it! You’re going to get us killed!” 

To that, Buck said a strange thing: “Don’t matter to me, boss. I’m dead already.” 

Cole argued that doctors could still save him if we could find the Cathedral with its skylight vent. Antibiotics were a thing. 

But Buck didn’t care. He fired the gun again, this time clipping one of the demons in the exposed brain. It fell, dead. The others did not move. 

“Stop it!”  Cole shouted.

But Buck just said, “It is what it is, boss.” 

Cole grabbed Buck’s arms. Buck whipped away, not so much as faltering with the gun. He spun back to Cole, who fell to the ground, pointing the muzzle down at him now. His gaze went from dazed and empty to deadly cold. 

“So maybe this is what it is, boss,” he said, “seeing as it is what it is.” 

That’s when something hit me. It hit Cole, too. Buck’s not a serene person, prone to “letting it be.” The second time he said “It is what it is,” I heard the statement for what it really was: Not something he felt, but something he’d heard over and over and over again from someone he had no business hearing anything from. 

“Lara,” Cole said, looking at Buck with realization. “That’s a Lara Harper expression. That’s what was between you and Tom, wasn’t it? Are you and Lara—?”

“Shut your mouth,” Buck said, tensing on the trigger. “Don’t you fucking talk about her.” 

Buck’s face was twitching. He kept blinking deliberately, as if trying to force himself to see straight. 

“What happened with Tom, Buck? What happened on the other side of the sump?”  

“It was what it was,” Buck said, dry as gravel. 

“Buck?” I said. “Come on. Think about that later. We can still get out of here. We can get you some help, but we have to hurry.” 

But Buck didn’t flinch. “Ain’t no way out, boss,” he said. “We all goin’ to Hell.” 

Cole tried to stand, but the gun fired. I think it was an accident — Buck’s twitchy finger jabbing the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the rock six inches from Cole’s head. Buck wiped his brow with his free hand, standing over him like an unsteady monolith, but it was enough distraction for Cole. When Buck startled at the misfire, Cole grabbed his leg. They tussled, Cole rising to tackle Buck against the cavern wall. 

They were pressed tight to one another when the gun fired again. The fighting immediately stopped, Cole frozen in place. I saw blood bloom on the back of his shirt, the bullet passed right through. 

Cole slouched down, Buck still gape-mouthed above him. I dove at Buck then, completely unaware of my actions and helpless to stop myself. I was furious, despondent, panicked, filled with a sense of abject unfairness. But I was weak, too — weaker than I should have been. I couldn’t knock the gun from Buck’s hand despite his state. I didn’t understand. What was wrong with me?

That’s when I noticed pain beginning in my side and I realized he’d managed to shoot me, too. The bullet had gone right through Cole and into me. 

Reality dawned. My hands fell slack. I could suddenly feel the wound I’d missed before: a hot dagger in my side. I wasn’t sure if he’d hit anything important, but it hardly mattered. I had an underground hike ahead of me through God knew what, and already I was bleeding like a faucet. 

“I … I …” Buck stammered, his face shocked. “Clara, I’m …” 

I summoned the strength I had left. I stood tall and said, “Fuck you.” Then I tried to run, as best I could. I’d get out. I swore it in that moment. I’d find a way up, I’d climb Sam’s left-behind rappelling rope even if I was dripping a river of blood, and once on the surface I’d tell anyone who’d listen to cuff or kill the next thing that came out of the skylight. Forget about demons. Murder was afoot. 

Buck must have seen it in my eyes. He grabbed me within five paces, not even halfway toward the second passage out of there. He slammed me into the rock face, then put the gun to my head. I felt the cold press of steel against my temple. 

“Ain’t no way out, sweetheart,” he growled into my ear. “It’s Hell in there.” 

But then he backed away … or at least that’s what I thought happened. As Buck’s weight came off me, I stayed where I was with my eyes closed for a few more seconds. But then I heard him begin to scream, and when I finally opened my eyes I saw the pistol laying harmless on the rock floor with Buck ten feet behind it. A dozen or more of the paper-skinned demons had him by the arms and torso, dragging him away. 

Where there’d been relative cool, there was again heat. The rift behind him roared, growing larger, brighter, and hotter. More demons joined the ones holding Buck, dragging harder while he thrashed and fought. Then some of them began to scratch him, drawing blood. Others began to nibble, taking chunks from his flesh. 

Buck’s eyes fixed on mine, suddenly clearheaded again. His daze and delirium vanished, and he was just Harold Carter again: “Buck” to his friends. 

He screamed. And screamed. As they pulled him closer to the rift, something happened that hadn’t happened with Boris: He — his flesh itself — burst into flame. 

It went on too long, like drawn-out torture. He went blessedly quiet twenty feet or so from the rift, and ten second later, he was gone. 

And then they left. The room emptied. The rift re-dimmed, heat and light falling to a simmer. I could only stand on unsteady feet for minutes afterward: bleeding and empty, unable to so much as fall after all the horror I’d seen.

I was just about to turn and leave — no rush now — when I felt the rift pulse one last time. 

I turned my head to see the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. An enormous red creature with thick, curved horns emerged from the rift. It came only halfway through, probably because despite the cavern’s size, there wasn’t enough room for it to stand. 

Its eyes were fire. Those eyes met mine, and for a while we just stood there facing one another. I didn’t try to run. If the Devil wants you, he’ll get you no matter where you go. 

After a beat, the great thing’s head moved slightly in a knowing nod. After that, it retreated through the rift and was gone. 

.

Journal of Clara Remik
November 2, 1962
Final entry
Recovered in Chamber 6-A, approximately 220 meters from Rift Chamber

I’ve done all I can. I’ve gone as far as I’m able. This new tunnel I’m in terminates at the Cathedral and the way out; I’m sure of it. Still, I don’t have it in me to go on. I’ve painted a trail of blood from the rift room to wherever I am now. I can’t tie the wound off because it’s in my abdomen, and I can’t staunch it well enough to stop it. I feel bones grating inside, stabbing something vital. It’s getting harder to breathe. I think the bastard clipped my lung. 

But it’s okay. Given all that’s happened, this is okay.

I went to Cole’s side after the huge demon disappeared. He was still breathing, but didn’t last much longer. When he spoke to me, it took all the effort he had. His last words came out wet, as if bubbled through blood. 

He said, “You deserved better.” 

I wanted to tell him I’d had better, with him. Once upon a time, I really had. Years ago, we’d been good together. We were as mismatched as two people could be, but for a tiny while we’d fit like yin and yang. 

I tried to tell him so, but he was already gone. 

So I started walking. Then crawling. I crossed chamber after chamber, each taking so much longer than it should have to traverse. At one point in the journey my last glow stick died, and it took me a while to remember I’d been saving the last headlamp bulb for when it was most needed. Before that hit me, I just kept crawling in the darkness. It was total and complete, draping me like velvet. The passage narrowed and I could only tell it by feel. I squeezed through passages that felt impossibly narrow. I got stuck, freeing myself only because all the blood made me slippery. I crawled in the dark for a good half hour, unable to see anything. 

But through it all, I can say this to whoever finds what I’ve written:

Through all that darkness, I was not afraid. 

.

Undiscovered report
Author unknown
English translator and translation purpose unknown
KGB/Kremlin eyes only

14.1.63 — Moscow
Still no word on escaped subject. Quarters have been re-examined and no exits discovered. Facility remains locked down, all roads closed, grounds searched. He is simply gone from this isolated and secure place, no trace at all. 

All familial leads have been explored again to no avail. Nadezhda Petrov and Julia Petrov are not at any known addresses. Furthest exploration with full knowledge of KGB intelligence has turned up nothing. I have sent requests to the Party and intelligence communities but am not optimistic. It should not be possible to leave a cell here, let alone the building or grounds. I can only conclude that Boris Petrov either climbed into an inaccessible section of wall or subbasement and expired without odor … or he’s become a ghost. 

Comrade Techev says it does not matter. All that the subject had to tell us has already been extracted through the means at our disposal. He has, says Techev, done us a favor because now we no longer wonder what to do with him. As long as Petrov does not appear later and open his mouth, his absence will not matter. I think we all feel that our returned countryman, who at least had sense to return to the Motherland after his ordeal, has paid enough dues to the collective good of the People. 

His findings have given us much to think about, and traces of what the Americans call “Zen Element” found dried on his clothing have given us much more. Our enemies across the ocean do not wish to share what they have discovered? Who cares? We have it now anyway, with all glory to Mother Russia. 

I am told that our chief scientist, Comrade Morova, has made a breakthrough thanks to the information Petrov was able to give us and all she was able to deduce from the strange substance covering the clothes he wore into the Utah mines. She was at a dead end for so long, but suddenly she says it’s like the Element itself decided to cooperate: She intended it, and it became so. 

Construction continues. 

The rift she prepares to open is almost ready.

THE END

.

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in co-creating this story with me by voting along the way!

If you’d like to read more in this world, there’s plenty:

• Gore Point (book 1 in the core Zen Element trilogy) is available here on my store (where it’s cheaper) or here on Amazon, B&N, Apple, Kobo, and all the other places.
• City of Fire (book 2) will be released in a Kickstarter campaign on July 24th. (You’ll be able to get special editions of Gore Point in this campaign as well, if you missed the Gore Point Kickstarter earlier this year.)
• Or, if you’re not into Kickstarters with their early access and pretty special editions, you can pre-order the City of Fire ebook here (public release December 10th.)

Thanks so much for reading!