Hole in a Field, Chap 7

A little while ago I wrote a short story for the L. Ron Hubbard "Writers of the Future Contest".  I did not win, and I know why, my story is really more horror than Science Fiction or Fantasy.  But I decided that I will post each chapter here on my blog.  There are 37 very short chapters, for a total of 15,000 words, about a fifth of a modern novel.  Here is the start.

Chapter 7:

One could see a very large hole in the logic of actually approaching the carnival.  One might also state that approaching a carnival in the current circumstances actually had no logic, that the sanest course of action would be to walk back down the dead-end cave, lean against a poorly lit wall, and chat, while waiting for starvation and thirst to take their toll, allowing a gradual death free of the logic-less course that passed into the carnival.  The White Hats, having experienced logic-less courses of action in the past, and having so far had relative success with them, decided to be illogical, and visit the ticket booth.  Confident that in doing so they would at the very least then be able to clearly discern their location… they would be at the ticket booth.

“Anyone here?”  Maxwell cupped his hands over his eyes against the glass of the booth and peered through, choosing to ignore the prominently posted ‘back in five minutes’ sign that hung in the window.

“While I admire your desire to offer payment for entry,” said Wilton, “I am fairly certain we can get over or around the turnstile without difficulty.”

Maxwell looked back at him with a perplexed expression, “We aren’t going to try to anyone here?”

“Max, do you really want to find someone down here?” Clair looked at him with the sort of look that says ‘you wouldn't really want to live in the wild west, there were lots of guns and STDs, and very little gold in spite of what the movies lead you to believe.’  The look made Maxwell feel foolish, realizing that finding more people down here would be a sure indicator of other people not being able to get out.

Wilton had climbed to the top of a turnstile and was surveying the surroundings.  “Personally I would be very happy to just walk through this scene from a Lewis Carroll story without incident or contact of any kind.”

Maxwell shrugged, and walked with Clair to the turnstile where Wilton helped lift them up and over before jumping down after them and once more taking the lead.

As Wilton began to take a closer look at the various empty game stands and store fronts, Maxwell asked, “Do you guys think we should maybe look for something to defend ourselves with?”

Wilton looked back at him with raised eyebrows. “That is a good idea.”  He stepped over to a game stand, sat on the counter and swung his legs over into the booth.  He began searching through loose bric-a-brac, including a heroic pile of stuffed animals.  He eventually pulled out a pair of baseball bats and tossed one to Maxwell.

Clair, seeing she needed to provide her own weapon, walked over to a Strong Man Hammer Strike Game, picked up a mallet, turned and struck the launcher plate at the base of the bell slide.  The ring that quickly followed drew and impressed whistle from both the men.  Clair struck a Rosie the Riveter pose and then slung the mallet to her shoulder with a cocky head jiggle.  “Not exactly a Kit-provided weapon, but it still has a sort of ‘God of Thunder’ appeal to it.”

“Clair, your appeals are numerous,"  said Wilton.  "And hardly limited to your choice of weapon.”

The three continued into the Carnival, winding their way deeper into a place they would never have expected to be in.

Hole in a Field, Chap 6

A little while ago I wrote a short story for the L. Ron Hubbard "Writers of the Future Contest".  I did not win, and I know why, my story is really more horror than Science Fiction or Fantasy.  But I decided that I will post each chapter here on my blog.  There are 37 very short chapters, for a total of 15,000 words, about a fifth of a modern novel.  Here is the start.

(This is also when the story goes full on bananas...)

Chapter 6:

As mentioned before, innocuous things (in illogical enough context) can trigger fearful reactions.  Maxwell was about to experience this.

Maxwell turned the corner, moving past the other two to take in the full sight, and was shaken by it.  His nerves were not rattled by the insanely massive dome of hewn stone that the cavern had entered into, that was a perfectly reasonable underground structure, what was not perfectly reasonable was what covered the ground floor under the dome.  What covered the ground, and as was quickly deduced to be the source of the light, was a carnival.  “Are we looking at--?”

“Yes,”  Milton answered.

“How--?” Maxwell started again.

“I would like to know myself, Max.” Clair stood not exactly squinting, and not exactly glaring at the scene, as if hoping to will it away.

“Any ideas as to… this!?”  Maxwell spread his hands out in a gesture to the whole of the cavern.  Mentally, he had reached his depth, and then found himself immediately out of it.

“Let me just put it all together,” Wilton began.  “We are in an underground passageway, stripped of our gear, and left to wander toward a giant underground carnival event.  There seems to be only one conclusion in my mind.”

Milton paused for a period of time that left the other two in a bit of suspense.

“Would you care to elaborate?”

“Certainly, Max.  I have come to the conclusion that I am in some sort of dream state after having fallen down a hole in a cornfield, and now, I am dreaming of a carnival.”

“Wilton," said Clair.  "I think I see some holes in your theory.”

“Yes, Clair," said Wilton.  "What is it?”

“Wil… Do you ever dream of carnivals?” said Clair.

“No.”

“Ever been to a carnival?”

“No," said Wilton.  "I do not believe I have.”

“Have you--?” Clair said before being interrupted.

“Wait, let me try one," said Maxwell, deciding to get in on the dream analysis front.  "Wil, have you any idea why you would be dreaming of a carnival now?”

“No, Max.  I don’t.”

“So,” Maxwell continued, “why do you think you are dreaming?”

“I don’t really,” Wilton conceded.  “But honestly, I really do not want to be awake and looking at a subterranean carnival.”

“Wil, honey, I have some bad news.”

“What is that, Clair?”

“You really are looking at an underground carnival, in the most literal sense possible.”

After Wilton sighed, rubbed his head and said, “Yeah, I know,” silence and confusion returned to the party as they each internally wondered what the next move should be, each with more than a little bit of fear nestling up inside them, but none wishing to burden the others with their individual concerns.

"At least my headache is gone," said Clair.

"Well," said Wilton, pausing and sort of half-shrugging in defeat of his better, saner judgment.  "That's good."

Then the silence returned, leaving each to collect their thoughts.

Wilton was out of theories.  He had never read anything similar to this, and had not run into anything so off-the-wall before.  He had met some people and things which were not normal by any means, but this was backward.  Shouldn't, having fallen into a pit, he be greeted by a more traditional vision?  A big door made of fire or pearl maybe.  This was akin to entering a hotel and finding out that it was actually a hanger for fighter jets without a transition in between.  This did not fit into his mental filing system.

Clair looked the place over and found that she couldn't see a back end of the cavern or a clear horizon to where the carnival stopped existing and the darkness started again.  It simply went on forever.  She sank back again into her haze, trying to tempt from the shadows some intuition that would tell her what was going to happen next, but the more haze she tried to cover herself in the more her head just started hurting again, so she backed off, rubbing her temples again.  Had she looked at her fingertips she would have seen a red sheen as her scalp was seemingly bleeding from an unseen source.

Maxwell decided to stop giving anymore thought to it than they already had and broke the silence with the simple inquiry, “So… Who wants to go see if it’s open?”

Hole in a Field, Chap 5

A little while ago I wrote a short story for the L. Ron Hubbard "Writers of the Future Contest".  I did not win, and I know why, my story is really more horror than Science Fiction or Fantasy.  But I decided that I will post each chapter here on my blog.  There are 37 very short chapters, for a total of 15,000 words, about a fifth of a modern novel.  Here is the start.

Chapter 5:

Fear is an interesting affliction of the soul.  It has numerous effects on the senses via chemical reactions in the subject: it can boost strength, make rapid one's thought, and more often then most would like it can end constipation rapidly and without regard to one's surroundings.  However, regardless of the circumstances, fear is easily abated by maintaining a level head, and so long as the world progresses in a logical fashion, so long as two and two maintain being four, fear can remain on the back burner.  It is, however, rather easy to encounter in a stressful situation something so unexpected that regardless of the usually harmless connotation it usually possess its unusual appearance causes extreme instantaneous fear.

The three White Hat members had progressed for some time down the cavern (which presumably led back to the hole at some point) and aside from a desire to see a break in the consistently boring underground landscape, that contained not even a stalagmite, they saw nothing unusual and felt no fear as a result.  All the while they grew ever nearer to the location wherein light was emanating and allowing the cavern around them to progressively approach the state of well-lit.  Currently they remained in a portion of the underground that seemed only describable as “blue lit,” the sort of darkness that appears in cartoons, in which a character turns out a light, and the room does not so much get dark as turns blue and black.

“This place is mildly haunting," said Wilton.  "But honestly, I was expecting a bit more."

“How’s that, Wil?” said Maxwell.

“When Clair and I went some five years back into a previously unknown pueblo village carved majestically into the side of a mountain, we met a man who had been living there for what he claimed was two centuries, and yet he appeared to be in his mid forties.”

“He was really that old?”

“No,” said Clair coming out her haze having heard Wilton say her name.  “It turned out he was a local guide who had followed us from an Indian reservation we had stopped at.  He wanted to claim squatter’s rights on the artifacts in the city.”

“My point,” Wilton continued, “is that there was something there, and someone to try and keep it from us.  So far all we have discovered in this hole is more hole, clean and dry underground, and enough light to keep us from tripping over ourselves; ourselves being the only thing to trip over.”  At this point Wilton had turned around a corner of the underground passage, stopped walking, and began rubbing his forehead.

“What is it, hon?”  Clair stepped around to get a look, and paused.  A look of pure confusion crossed her face, followed by a blank stare, a slack jawed squint, and lastly a “jibby-wha?” escaped from her lips.  She wanted to ask an informed question, but her mouth didn't work quite right.

Maxwell remained the only one of the three not to turn the corner and confront whatever it was that was making them hold position.  He asked politely, “Do I want to look?”

Hole in a Field, Chap 4

A little while ago I wrote a short story for the L. Ron Hubbard "Writers of the Future Contest".  I did not win, and I know why, my story is really more horror than Science Fiction or Fantasy.  But I decided that I will post each chapter here on my blog.  There are 37 very short chapters, for a total of 15,000 words, about a fifth of a modern novel.  Here is the start.

Chapter 4:

The area was dimly lit.

“Well that sure as hell was perilous, ominous, creepy, foreboding… oh, hell, if I had my thesaurus it would be a great many things.”

“So you’re saying it sucked, Wil?”

“In a manner of speaking, Max.  Clair, are you all right?”

“Yes.”  A weary-eyed head rose up from the ground.  “I guess.  Little dizzy, kinda sick, really hard to focus.”

"Did you hit your head?"  Said Maxwell.

"I'm guessing we all hit something," said Wilton.  "Clair, just sit still.  Try and get your bearings.  When your head feels clearer maybe try to do some of that voodoo you do so well with your premonitions."

“Anybody have any thoughts as to how we aren't dead?”  Max was remembering the fall and the amount of gear he had been carrying, and looking around he saw evidence of neither.  "Or where all our stuff is?"

“I don't know, Max.”  Wilton looked up, expecting to see the hole they had been descending into, but instead finding only a cave ceiling in the shadowy area.  “Though it might be related to why we are currently in a cave, rather than a hole.”

It was at this moment that Clair's head stopped throbbing, fading down to a dull ache in the back of her eyes.  She began to take in her surroundings, finding that while the area around the group was a dead end, it was a dead end only in three directions.  The fourth direction appeared to taper off into a winding cavern from which the little light that was present seemed to be coming from.  “I think we need to go that way,” Clair said, pointing down the cavern.

“Well of all the ways there are to go, that would seem to be the one that actually exists,”  Wilton said, picking himself up and brushing himself off.  Then he held out his hand for Clair, who took it and had to be almost lifted off the ground, steadying herself on Wilton afterword.

Max lazily stumbled to his feet to follow Wilton and Clair.  They then proceeded down the clean and dimly lit cave.

“So… any theories?”  Maxwell queried.

“None,” answered Wilton.

“Any psychic premonitions?”

“Sorry Max, no,” Clair responded, one hand on Wilton's shoulder, the other hand switching back and forth between massaging her temples and her eyes.

“Anything I should do?”

“We’ll let you know,”  Wilton answered, trying, between Maxwell’s question marks, to gather his thoughts.

As the group proceeded down the brightening and presumably subterranean area they each in turn allowed theories to bounce around in their minds.  Max was mentally a doomsayer, recalling various bits of story that he had heard about the Underworld.  He held it together by peppering the air with inane questions like "Do you suppose this cave was dug, or is it natural?" and "If someone left us without our gear here, why not leave us with something else aside from our clothes?"

Clair's mind worked differently.  Rather than trying to grasp harder at her surroundings, she tried to let them become more fluid and insubstantial.  She didn't talk and instead entered into a haze, her eyes glazing over and faraway ethereal echoes touched her mind's ear.  Clair counted the steps they took and kept time with Wilton's swaying shoulders, allowing herself to be as close to meditating as she could while still walking; she was nearly hypnotized.

Wilton mostly just tried to use Maxwell's questions as jumping off points for his own theories, and started recalling the caves he had visited in Egypt and that shadowy thing he had talked to in those catacombs.  He thought back further to his own childhood and the stories he had read about survival and cave diving and geology and anything else he could dredge up that would make this situation somehow more manageable, but this wasn't same old same old, and that made him grouchy, and his answers became more biting toward Maxwell, and nothing came of either's speculation.

"Max," said Wilton.  "Let's talk about something else aside from this cave."

"Doesn't this kind of demand our full attention?" asked Maxwell cocking an eyebrow and pursing his lips.

"I am a big believer in the cross-polinization of ideas," said Wilton.  "Unrelated ideas and fields can link up in unexpected ways, give you new approaches."

"What?"

"Someone looks at something for too long," said Wilton, "they can't see a bigger picture.  If they allow themselves to take a step back and get some perspective on the whole thing, they might see a fresh approach."

"Okay," said Maxwell.  "That makes some sense.  How about...  What were the White Hats like when it first started up?"

"Hmm, well I wasn't one of the first guys," Wilton replied.  "But I met them before they went online.  I had just graduated and was working in a rare book library.  They came in to see an original copy of 'The Hammer of the Witches' for reference.

"Turns out that book had been stolen.  I helped them to find the local loon who was using it to identify, torture, and kill local people he thought to be witches.  We were in the newspaper, my coworkers and I were then fired for the book having been stolen to begin with, and I decided to work with the original guys who started things while looking for a new job.  Turns out we didn't need it because the paper got us sponsorship.  We worked as antiques appraisers and private detectives in New England for a while.  Then we went viral with our website."

"That is awesome," said Maxwell.

"Thank you," replied Wilton.  "A little while later I recruited a friend of mine who used to be a cop and he introduced me to Clair."

"What?" said Clair, blinking quickly and focusing on them.

"Nothing, Clair," said Wilton.  "Just talking with Max.  Feel free to keep poking around."

The group continued on in quiet for a while longer.

Hole in a Field, Chap 3

A little while ago I wrote a short story for the L. Ron Hubbard "Writers of the Future Contest".  I did not win, and I know why, my story is really more horror than Science Fiction or Fantasy.  But I decided that I will post each chapter here on my blog.  There are 37 very short chapters, for a total of 15,000 words, about a fifth of a modern novel.  Here is the start.

Chapter 3:

            The White Hat organization has not existed since time immortal, nor has it existed for centuries. For that matter, it has yet to exist for decades.  The White Hats began in 1997 in a small college town.  Spreading through social networks and the Internet, the club that started out to study various strange occurrences, unique artifacts, and secret histories in a small (and possibly haunted) New England town grew because for some reason the Internet had made magic and the occult fringe cool.

            Today the White Hats, having taken their name from a popular fantasy television show, are a rather massive academically-minded organization that combs the world for the bizarre, both for learning and for profit.  Collectors and scholars run the White Hats, each taking the time to catalog and preserve the grand and shadowy history of the world, and simultaneously eliminate falsehoods from record.  Regardless of the evidence they collect they remain fringe, forced to keep an online reference site that catalogs the missing information of the world's Encyclopedias that Britannica refuses to acknowledge as having happened or actually existing.

Very recently the organization has found itself more and more the first line of defense for communities, and at least one time the whole of the world, against the movements of the various unusual threats the supernatural coughs up when so closely perused.  Some more noble minded individuals throughout the White Hats have claimed that the furious speed of growth to the organizations ranks, the instantaneous locating of funds, and the growing level of conflict are all signs of a cosmic need for the group. This theory has done little to sell t-shirts or a cartoon series based on the organization’s efforts.

The White Hats have few tenets, but those that they do emphasize preparedness and safety.  Unfortunately those rules are being neglected more and more by the growing number of thrill-seekers within the White Hats, and frequently, they are outright forgotten by the less focused members.

Hole in a Field, Chap 2

A little while ago I wrote a short story for the L. Ron Hubbard "Writers of the Future Contest".  I did not win, and I know why, my story is really more horror than Science Fiction or Fantasy.  But I decided that I will post each chapter here on my blog.  There are 37 very short chapters, for a total of 15,000 words, about a fifth of a modern novel.  Here is the start.

Chapter 2:

            The decent would be later described as perilous, ominous, creepy, foreboding, and any number of other adjectives Wilton saw as necessary to say that the venture downward was not pleasant.  However, they could not be described as ill prepared for the journey. Light sources, rope, food, communications equipment, tools, camping equipment, and the Whit Hat Preparedness Kit carried into the field by the investigators at all times.  Sometimes the equipment taken into the field was not completely understood until the circumstances that call for them present themselves, but it should be known that a weapon is always on the inventory list for the Kit.

            “Do we really need this much stuff?" asked Maxwell.  "Sure the Kit and the gear, but camping equipment?  This doesn't strike you as just a bit too much?”  Maxwell was young, and while he did not whine or complain, the tone in his voice made his inquiries a little abrasive to a group whose frustrations were only seeming to fester as they rappelled ever deeper into a hole that seemed to be reaching that often unwitnessed depth at which a bright sky could not be seen with a direct glance upward.

            “Max, we are Investigators," said Clair.  "If the opportunity presents itself for investigation and exploration, we need to be prepared.”  Clair’s succinct answer seemed to answer the question well enough.

            “But--?”

            “Max, can you ask yourself this: which is the greater inconvenience?  Schlepping this stuff or having to turn back and go get it?”  Wilton was a little more poignant in his response, which led to the much desired state of silence emanating from Maxwell.

            “Okay, let me ask this then: what was the name of the guy who fell in?”  Maxwell paused waiting for the answer while Clair and Wilton looked at each other with puzzled looks on there faces which slowly transitioned to guilty looks on their faces.  “Did you forget?”  Maxwell followed up his question.

            “Well, Max… I… it’s not that I don’t-” Wilton was cut short.

            “Wil, Max, do you hear something?”  Clair was getting a bad feeling, and heard a faint sound. She couldn't identify it yet, but it seemed to be approaching.

            “Clair, I haven't heard anything aside from talking and the repelling rig.”  Wilton was suspecting that there was in fact, no sound.

            “What do you hear Clair?”  Maxwell’s inability to detect the sound confirmed Wilton’s previous inclination toward anxiety.

            “I don’t know," said Clair.  "But if you two aren't hearing it, then the sound might not be a sound.”

            “Are you getting a psychic thing?”  Maxwell asked, summing up Clair’s most often ignored resume qualification.

            “I think so," said Clair.  "This isn't good."

            “Clair, what is coming to you?  What is about to happen?”  Nervousness slinked its way through Wilton’s tone; his past experiences with Clair’s ability never preceded something good.

            “I think we are in for a rather harrowing descent.”  It was at that moment that the strange sound Clair had heard was heard by all three.  It was a chorus of screams; the group’s descension cables had all given out.

Hole in a Field, Chap 1

A little while ago I wrote a short story for the L. Ron Hubbard "Writers of the Future Contest".  I did not win, and I know why, my story is really more horror than Science Fiction or Fantasy.  But I decided that I will post each chapter here on my blog.  There are 37 very short chapters, for a total of 15,000 words, about a fifth of a modern novel.  Here is the start.

Chapter 1:

            The hole was new, as the farmer had evidently not noticed it before driving his tractor over the edge and disappearing into the maw of the thing.  Unfortunately, any other feature that would denote newness or method of construction was distinctly absent.  Were it not completely impossible it could be concluded that the hole had fallen from the sky and made itself at home in this particular field.  Then having fallen proceeded downward in the way holes tend to, such a thing being in their nature.  Those riddles of the nature of most holes aside, this hole’s nature remained entirely and wholly in the unknown category.  Sent to discover the origins of this thing was a group that currently stood some dozen feet from the hole's mouth, among the untrimmed corn that filled the non-hole portions of the field.

            “Well?  Does anyone have any thoughts about this thing?”  Maxwell was not the team leader, or really all that key a person to the function of the investigation, but he was good at asking questions and that skill did tend to denote a great potential for growth in the investigative arts.

            “Aside from how it got here, we know everything we really need to about this particular phenomenon for the moment.”  Wilton was the sensible one, never failing to put things as simply as possible, and was the senior man on the field.  “One, it is a hole; perfectly round, nearly 6 meters in diameter, that extends to an unknown depth into the earth.  Two, it is a new and distinctive feature that quickly drew the attention of the White Hats.  And three, there appears to be no immediately evident supernatural thing about this geographic feature beyond its inexplicable existence.”

            “And why are we here looking into this hole?”  said Maxwell.

            “Because it’s weird and that is the sort of thing we look into,” replied Wilton.

            “Yeah, that sums it up," said Clair.  She knew what they had to do next.  "Except for what we are going to have to do next.”

            “Do I have to ask?”  Maxwell, not-quite-cringingly, asked.

            “It is time we went spelunking.”