The Ruins
“What’s taking you so long? I thought you said this would be a quick score—‘in and out,’ you told me.” The young man leaned over the edge of the rock wall, looking down at his companion who was busily digging through a pile of rock and debris.
“Are you serious, Cole? You’re sitting up there watching and you’re telling me to hurry up? Why don’t you get down here and help? That’d speed things up a bit, don’t you think?”
Walt continued to shift loose rocks off the daunting pile of variously sized boulders and broken concrete slabs. Weak rays of sunlight illuminated half the underground room, leaving the other half shrouded in shadows. Walt’s efforts had disturbed a great deal of dirt and dust, which hung in the air, creating a gritty haze that settled lazily into his sand-colored mop of hair.
“What’s the point? We’ve been here before—lots of people have. There’s nothing new to find.” Cole snorted. “I thought you had actually found something worth exploring this time. And here you take me to the HARP, which is what, ten miles from town?” He kicked a loose rock that went tumbling into the roofless room below.
Disgruntled, Cole leaned back on the room’s ledge and admired the late afternoon sun, a rarity for this time of year. He soaked up what little warmth remained of the day like a lizard on a hot rock.
“Nine miles. Nine point three to be exact,” Walt mumbled from the exposed room below. He paused to remove his glasses for the hundredth time and attempted to wipe the dirt off the lenses. He couldn’t bother wasting further time arguing; it was pointless, he knew. He needed to focus his efforts on what he came here to do, more so now that he didn’t have Cole’s help, which he had been counting on.
Whatever the HARP once was, all that was left were ruins. It was clear that at one time, many centuries earlier, perhaps even earlier, there had been a grand structure standing on top of the hill. Now all that remained was a network of rooms and hallways, buried in the earth, crumbling and decaying yet stubbornly refusing to fade into history.
Walt had always been fascinated by this place. He had made countless excursions to the ruins over the past few years, mapping out the dozens of rooms, chambers, and hallways spreading like a spider’s web within the hillside.
The place had become somewhat of an obsession of his, and he marveled at the sheer scale and craftsmanship of the ruins every time he ventured to the HARP, which was one of the reasons he found himself drawn back to it so often. It was a vast structure, easily bigger than any building in Arkdale. Even though it was ancient, parts of it were still intact, providing a glimpse into the past. A past that was different in nearly every way compared to the present.
Walt had spent numerous hours and days hypothesizing and speculating on what these ruins had looked like in their prime, how grand and imposing the complex must have stood on this hill overlooking the land. He had shared a dozen theories with his friends, much to their amusement, on who built the structure and what its purpose might have been.
“You done yet?” Cole’s voice came floating down. “We’ve been here most of the day and we ain’t found a damn thing. Let’s get out of here.”
“You mean I haven’t found a damn thing,” Walt grunted, as he awkwardly shifted a heavy boulder aside.
“Whatever, little man. Look, I’m sticking around maybe another thirty minutes, then I’m heading back. Up to you if you want to come with or not.” Cole rubbed vigorously at one ear. “This ringing is driving me nuts.”
Walt had unconsciously blocked out the faint, variable tones coming from beneath the ruins. He placed his hand flat against the concrete floor of the room. His hand tingled from a barely perceptible vibration buried deep within the rock. The HARP was not a dead relic from a civilization that had lived eons ago. There was life buried in these ruins, and Walt was determined to discover exactly what that life looked like. He was here to solve the great enigma that was the HARP.
“You don’t like the sound of her music, Cole? I think it’s kind of sweet.”
Cole answered quietly. “This place has always given me the creeps. It ain’t right.” He stood up straight and puffed out his chest. “Just hurry the hell up, would ya?”
For what must have been the tenth time that day, Walt regretted recruiting Cole on this trip. He had never been particularly fond of Cole—he had few characteristics to be fond of in fact. Cole was the kind of person that Walt and his friends tried to avoid; he was arrogant, lazy, and—most of the time—a stupendous jerk.
But he was also the only person Walt had been able to convince to travel to the ruins this late in the Sanctuary months. His friends thought it was too dangerous, not to mention pointless, and had tried talking Walt out of coming altogether.
Cole treated Walt like he treated all orphans: like he was a scar on a beautiful face. But Walt knew that Cole would be willing to look past this ugly fact and take a few risks if there was the potential for a large reward. Unfortunately, he had to lie to Cole by telling him he’d found previously undiscovered rooms to explore. A twinge of guilt bubbled up inside him for the lie, but it was half-true. He was confident he had found something undiscovered in these ruins, or at least there was a solid probability of finding something of real significance.
Walt wasn’t convinced like everyone else in Arkdale that the ruins of the HARP had been completely scavenged over the decades and that there were no secrets left to be found. He had been compiling facts, notes, and any clues he could scrape together for years, and he knew he was on the verge of a new discovery—one that would change all their lives in ways he couldn’t predict.
Admittedly, he had been wrong once or twice on his theories in the past, which may be another reason his friends declined his offer. But this time, he had been positive he’d find what he knew was here, hiding just below the surface. Well, mostly positive. At least he had been when he first started excavating this site earlier in the day. Now he was dirty, exhausted, and getting frustrated at the slow realization of yet another empty dig.
“Hey, Wilt,” Cole yelled down into the room. “You’re missin’ a killer day down there stuck in that hole digging like a gopher.”
Walt bristled at Cole’s jab. It was true. He was missing one of the rare decent days they were likely to get in some time. But hearing Cole’s favorite nickname for him was what really got his blood boiling. Wilt. Cole thought of himself as clever, so it was his mission to give everyone he knew a nickname. For Walt, that was rather easy. Cole simply had to ridicule his small stature and lack of physical strength; thus Cole branded him “Wilt.”
Walt hated the name and fantasized forcing Cole to stop using it. Of course, that would never happen. Cole was three or four years older than Walt, and as if to compensate for his lack of mental fortitude, he had been gifted physically. Even though he was only in his midtwenties, Cole was one of the most imposing men in Arkdale, and he wasn’t afraid to remind everyone of this fact. If he had to use his fists to emphasize his point occasionally, then so be it.
“You want to throw me some water down here?” panted Walt. “I don’t feel like climbing up there for another drink.”
“What’s wrong? Is Wilt shriveling up down there in the dirt?” Cole laughed at his own joke. “Yeah, in a minute. This is just too nice to pass up.”
Walt sighed and sat down on a pile of rubble, sweat dripping from his shaggy hair. This was harder work than he had anticipated. He had envisioned a typical cold and overcast day as well as getting help from the self-proclaimed strong man he had brought with him. Instead, the weather was surprisingly warm with the sun making a rare appearance. Walt had ditched his coat hours ago, and Cole had given up on the physical labor after about an hour of not immediately finding the “loot,” as he had put it.
Walt removed his glasses to wipe a streak of dirt off the left lens, which only succeeded in turning the streak into a smudge. As he attempted to rescue his glasses, Walt absentmindedly followed a wavering ray of sunlight down to an odd-looking rock in the far corner of the room.
A metallic glint reflected the revealing ray of sunlight from within the cracks of the rock. Walt inhaled sharply and froze, afraid to move, terrified that if he did, this magical creature staring back at him would flee, like a rabbit bolting into the brush after being discovered. Then his excitement took hold and he pounced from his perch, practically diving headfirst into the rubble.
He tore into the pile, tossing aside loose rocks with renewed vigor. An excited giggle tumbled out of his mouth as he tried to shift a particularly heavy stone, his emotions as raw as his hands from digging. He knew when he set out to come here that his data was accurate and that he was sure to find it. Yet, at the same time, he couldn’t believe that he had. In the dying afternoon light, a small patch of metal winked seductively back at Walt through the cracks in the mound of boulders.
“What’s going on? What’s all the racket down there, Wil…” Cole’s voice trailed off.
Cole jumped up and ran to the corner of the pit where Walt was working. It was about a twelve-foot drop to the room’s floor. Walt had tied a rope in the corner to let himself down. Cole ignored the rope and lowered himself over the edge and dropped into the weathered room.
He hurried over to Walt and helped roll the heavy stone off the pile. “Hell yeah! We found it? You think this is the stash we’ve been looking for?”
“It has to be. We need to clear this rock while we still have the light.”
“What do you think it is?” Cole asked as he enthusiastically shifted rocks aside. “I saw metal but couldn’t tell how big it was. Do you think it’s a locker full of ancient stuff? Gotta be.”
Walt stood up and took a deep breath as he let Cole go to work. He didn’t want to discourage Cole from his efforts—the man was clearing the pile twice as fast as Walt had been—but he was certain that they hadn’t found a mere locker. If it was, Walt would have to start over on his search, for that wasn’t what he had come here to find.
It took Cole and Walt—mostly Cole—another half hour to clear the debris away from the metallic object.
Cole let out a low whistle. “Well, that sure ain’t no boot locker.”
Flush against the floor of the room lay a four-by-four-foot square. The surrounding floor of the room was made of hard concrete, but the square appeared to be composed of a very different material. Walt knelt and ran his hand along the surface of the object. It was dark gray, but it obviously wasn’t stone, nor did it feel like metal for that matter.
In the exact center of the unusual square sat an indentation, roughly two inches deep in the shape of a hexagon, approximately the size of Walt’s fist. Embedded in the door directly below the six-sided shape sat four dials. Each dial had a different symbol, which Walt could not decipher.
A rock slammed down on the square near the center hexagon with a cringe-inducing wham.
“Cole! What are you doing?!”
“What does it look like I’m doing? Looks like a safe to me. Maybe we can crack the thing open.” Cole leaned back, holding the rock in both hands, ready to deliver another blow to the mysterious square hatch.
Walt lunged clumsily into Cole, knocking the rock from his hands. “Don’t be stupid!” Walt’s face flushed red with anger. “That’s not going to do anything. All you’re going to do is damage it, and then we may never be able to open it.”
Cole shoved Walt off him with ease. “You got any better ideas, genius?”
Walt knelt close to the floor to examine the hexagon and four dials closely. Surprisingly, there wasn’t the smallest scratch from the rock marring its surface. Walt touched the first dial gingerly, tracing the symbol with his finger, and felt the dial tremble slightly.
“Look at this.” Walt motioned for Cole to lean down. “The dials, they rotate.”
He rolled the first dial down and a new symbol appeared. The symbol was as unknown to Walt as the first had been; however, he had seen similar symbols in his research. He knew these symbols held power and had seen them on ancient artifacts over the years.
“Huh. What’s that mean?”
“Well, I can’t be sure, but this could be a combination lock of some sort.” Walt shifted the dial a third time, revealing another new symbol.
“A lock? Man, there’s got to be some epic artifacts in there.” Cole’s eyes gleamed with desire in the setting sunlight. “So, what’s the combination? Open it up already.”
Walt glanced at Cole, who was pacing back and forth like a caged animal. “I don’t know how.”
He studied the dials, straining to see in the dying light. “I’ll need to copy this down, all of the symbols on all of the dials.” Walt was talking to himself now. “And then there’s the hexagon, not sure the purpose of that yet, but I’m sure it’s not simply for decoration.”
Cole grabbed Walt by the shoulder and spun him around. “You telling me you can’t open this thing? You told me we were going to hit it big!” Cole barked.
“Cole, settle down.” Walt put his hands up defensively and cringed from the towering figure above. “I told you I knew where we could find a new site and possibly new relics. And this,” Walt gestured toward the mysterious door, “is unlike anything anyone’s found. This has the potential to be incredibly important to Arkdale. But I’ll need some time—”
Cole tossed Walt roughly out of the way and fell on his knees before the dials. “Shut up. I’m getting this safe open tonight, one way or another.”
Cole roughly flipped the dials, forming random patterns without success. He paused to hammer on the door with a rock every so often, all with no effect to the seemingly impervious door. Walt glanced up at the sky. It was getting dark—the sun had nearly set. He hadn’t noticed how late it was with all the excitement.
“Cole, it’s almost dark. We need to get back to town. We should’ve left an hour ago.”
“Ha!” Cole snorted sharply. “You can go back; I’m not leaving until I get what I came for.” Cole was trying to wedge a flat rock in between the faint seams of the square and the floor surrounding it, but the square was so expertly crafted that it provided no points that would allow it to be pried open.
Walt was getting nervous. “Cole, listen. We’ll head back, sit down, and figure this out. Then we can come back—you and me—and open this up together. But it’s not going to happen tonight. Cole, it’s getting dark; you know we shouldn’t be out here at night.”
“Yeah, right. If we go back, you’ll be yapping to anyone who’ll listen about what I found. Then everyone will be coming out here to crack this thing open and steal what’s mine, especially the DDC. And that ain’t happening.” Cole showed no signs of stopping, no matter Walt’s objections or the fact that night was quickly spreading her wings.
“Hey,” Walt spoke gently, as he would to a frightened lost dog, “how about I help you cover it back up with some of these rocks? Then no one will be able to find it. Besides, no one is coming up here this close to lockdown. No one’s going to find this place, Cole.” Walt reached out and touched Cole’s arm, trying to get him to listen to reason.
Cole knocked Walt’s arm aside and spun angrily on him. He took a step toward Walt threateningly. “You better hope no one finds this place. Go ahead, run home, but if I find out you told anyone about the safe, including your friends, I’m coming lookin’ for you.” Cole paused long enough to make sure Walt got the message, then spun back and searched for a larger weapon to assault the door with.
It took Walt a few seconds to gather himself. He hadn’t expected Cole to react this way. He thought about telling Cole that the door they’d found wasn’t a safe, but he didn’t think he could convince him of that now, even if it were the truth. Cole was obsessed with breaking through the door, futile as his efforts appeared to be, and nothing Walt said or did was going to change that.
He turned and headed for the rope in the opposite corner of the room. He wasn’t going to stick around to watch Cole bang a rock against the door; he might as well bang his head against it for all the good it was doing. There were risks to being outside the town walls at night, and each night those risks became greater.
Odds were they’d be fine if they stayed the night, but Walt didn’t like playing those odds for the fraction of a chance they would find a way to open the door. He climbed his way out of the room with some effort, then turned and looked down at Cole, who had resumed randomly flipping the dials, cursing as he did so.
“Once I figure this out, I’ll find you in town,” Walt stated loudly to Cole. “I won’t open the door without you.” He heard a snort in response from the silhouette within the pit.
Walt zipped his coat tight against the sudden cold in the air which the sun had been keeping at bay. He shrugged his pack over his shoulders. If he hustled, he could make it back to Arkdale in about three hours, probably closer to four with his limp.
They would have the gates locked by the time he returned to town, but they would still let him through at night during the Sanctuary months. In a few weeks though, the town would be on lockdown, and then no one would be allowed in—or out, for that matter.
He didn’t think he’d have all the answers to the riddles of his discovery before the lockdown was put in place, but that was alright with him. He could spend the Darkness researching and have a solid plan laid out. Walt found it better to be overly prepared than to run headfirst into a problem, hoping it would all work out. Impulsivity was usually a weakness and one that he avoided. Cole’s irrational behavior and futile efforts reaffirmed his beliefs in this approach.
Bright stars had begun to wink to life in the night sky. It would be a clear night, which Walt was thankful for. It would make it easier to follow the forest path back to town. He made his way as quickly as he could down the steep hill away from the HARP. He was slowed by a slight hitch in his stride, his left foot slightly twisted.
Walt had been born with a “special” foot, as his den mother had told him when he was old enough to notice he couldn’t keep up with the other orphans. It didn’t cause him pain—most of the time at least—but it did slow him down, and of course it was a focal point of ridicule growing up with boys like Cole. Still, it didn’t bother Walt; he just had to plan for it on occasion, like tonight when hiking back to Arkdale.
He had descended the hill and was now in the fields surrounding the HARP. The wild grasses and shrubs swayed in the cold night breeze. Thick blades of grass licked against Walt’s arms and legs as he strode quickly away from the hill and its ancient ruins. He remembered the dry golden color of the grass from his hike that morning. The earthy smell of the fields and fallen leaves from the trees were stark reminders of the lateness of the season.
Muffled bangs rang from the ruins behind him. Walt was surprised by how clearly the sound carried through the thin night air. It made sense, though, once he thought about it. The ruins were situated on top of a hill after all, and there were no trees nearby to dampen the sounds rolling down to the plains below.
Walt cringed. He wished he could run back to the ruins and yell at Cole to shut up. Instead, he quickened his pace as best he could, nervously scanning the darkness of the path ahead as the sharp sounds of hammering chased him forward.
An uneasiness built inside Walt as he made his way farther from the HARP, a sense of foreboding that bubbled up from deep within his core. He tried to brush it aside, telling himself that he was spooking himself, but the ominous dread would not be calmed. Its cold hand gripped his stomach and squeezed, forcing him to come to an abrupt stop. Walt tried to take a deep breath, fighting the sudden panic that crept to the surface.
As Walt tried to calm his nerves, he listened for the danger that his body was telling him was near, his senses alert and straining in the settling darkness. The night breeze had ceased; a dull heaviness hung in the air. The tall grasses were still and expectant as if holding their breath along with Walt. And then it came.
The creature did not come for Walt from down the path or burst out of the surrounding wild grasses. It came from above. Out of his peripheral vision, Walt watched it descend through a lonely patch of clouds. It was a ways off but heading in his direction.
He watched with growing dread as enormous black wings beat angrily against the night sky as if the clouds themselves were its enemy. A flash of white penetrated the blackness, the creature’s eyes perhaps.
He snapped his head up to watch his impending doom, but all he saw was an undulating inky blackness. Where the sky had been filled with stars just a moment before, it was now obliterated by a deep, black, pulsating cloud that flew steadily toward him.
Walt’s terrified mind couldn’t comprehend this transformation. It was too busy screaming at his body to move, to hide. Yet, he was mesmerized by the image of the approaching blackness and stared for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, Walt’s instincts took over. The will to survive forced his body into action; he had to get off the path. With a lunge, he sprung off the packed dirt and scrambled into the waist-high grass.
He lay on his back and stared into the night sky above, not daring to move. He waited, helpless, for the creature to swoop down and devour him. At first there was nothing, just the stars and the stillness of the night. A faint, distant thump echoed from the ruins on the hill, the only sound brave enough to cry out.
The seconds crept by. The muscles on Walt’s neck were locked tight. He could only stare through his smudged glasses into the night sky above. Each crash that rang out from the HARP caused Walt to shrink further inside himself. He silently pleaded for Cole to quit his madness.
A heavy, slow beating of the air pounded in Walt’s ears. The flapping of huge wings. Then the black cloud drifted lazily into his field of view. Out of the corner of his vision, Walt saw bat-like wings and blazing white eyes.
The creature flew within the vibrating cloud of blackness, shrouded one moment, visible the next. Walt was buffeted by a cold blast of air from the powerful beating of its wings. A sickening stench dropped over him like a wet blanket; it smelled of rot, decay, and death.
He was petrified. His body refused to move no matter how loudly his mind urged him to bolt from his cover and run. He tried but couldn’t force his eyelids to close. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes and blurred his vision. He was cruelly forced to stare and wait for the inevitable.
Slowly, the nightmare passed overhead. Out of his peripheral vision, Walt saw the beast briefly break free from the black cloud. Matted dark fur covered a massive frame in large patches. Where the fur was absent, black skin stretched tight against the creature’s skeletal frame. Gray bone jutted from the ragged skin in numerous places. Huge, leathery wings supported the beast’s immense body. A black humanoid figure rode upon the beast’s back. The entity’s white eyes burned and stabbed through the blackness.
Walt could not breathe. He lay shocked, numb, terrified, but thankful to still be alive. The beast had not swooped down on him and torn him to pieces. Had it truly not seen him hiding in the grasses?
Perhaps it was waiting for him to jump up and run before swirling down from the sky for the kill. Over the years on his trips to the ruins, Walt had seen hawks use this tactic in these very same fields, talons crushing unsuspecting rodents as they tried to scurry away.
And then Walt heard a sound that made his stomach churn. The faint crash came from the ruins on top of the hill, and he understood he was not the only prey on this night.
He fought the urge to leap up and scream at Cole to run. The creature was coming for him. Walt’s frantic mind screamed back that doing such a thing would be suicide.
There was little chance that Cole would hear him, but he was certain the creature would. He had to do something though; he had to warn Cole somehow. He couldn’t just let the man die.
Surprising himself, he scrambled to his feet and turned toward the hill behind him. He took a deep breath, ready to cry out a warning. Maybe by some miracle Cole would hear; maybe he’d have time to run or hide.
A grating shriek pierced the stillness of the night, echoing eerily across the plains. A cold tremor ran up Walt’s spine as he watched the pulsing blackness hover over the hilltop. Black wings dropped out of the night and fell upon the hill, casting the silhouette of the ruins into utter darkness.
A second inhuman shriek blasted out. Had he heard another scream mingled with that shriek as it rolled down the hillside? He didn’t wait to find out for certain; his mind had finally convinced him he must run if he wanted to survive. Walt had never in his life cursed his crippled foot more than he did at that moment as he ran toward Arkdale.