The Wilderneath

01

KEVIN’S CO-WORKER lied to him. Had to have lied. A month ago, Leslie told him in confidence that at night, in the middlest of nights, specifically while working overnight store inventory, you could hear muffled voices from beneath the store floor. Kevin told her she’d been tired or high or both. She swore she wasn’t.

But Kevin now stood on the backside of the used book store where he worked at night — well past midnight, actually — and there was no sign of anyone being in the abandoned underground mall that haunted the space underneath the ground-level storefronts. Sure, the windows were boarded up, and the doors were chained. He’d expected to at least see light peeking through cracks in the window boards or something.

A hot, damp breeze whipped up and shuffled through the tree line behind him, tickling the back of his neck. He involuntarily shrugged his shoulders stiff against the sensation. Why had Thomas and Jasmin refused to come out tonight? He checked his phone again to see if they’d changed their minds. Nothing.

Kevin pressed his ear against one of the thick rust-red doors. Unsurprisingly, couldn’t hear a thing.

The sound of car tires turning slowly and kicking up loose rocks on the pavement behind him sent a shiver down his back. Kevin whipped around and pressed himself against the wall. Before he even faced the car, the cascade of blue and red already washed over his vision.

Even though the moon boldly peered around thick clouds, the lack of street lamps in the parking lot behind the strip mall helped obscure Kevin in deep darkness. At least he hoped. Slinking to a crouch, he watched the cop car, lights rotating like patriotic lighthouse beams, creep forward. He swallowed back a ball of something he didn’t realize had risen in his throat.

Hey officer, he rehearsed in his mind. I live back there, other side of that bridge. Was just out walking.

How are you tonight, officer?

Wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Just don’t get out of the car. Keep driving. You don’t even see me.

The patrol car edged to a complete stop, the door swinging open before killing the engine. With the car off and the only sound being the beep of an open driver door, Kevin completely shut off his air supply. He was sure somehow that not breathing was still too loud.

The white-yellow beam of a cold, steel flashlight cut through the dark lot and mingled between the dancing red and blue. A dark silhouette stood and stretched.

Kevin’s ankles and knees were burning hot. He couldn’t feel his hands. Breath was escaping his lungs through his nose despite his best effort. When it was gone, he tried his hardest to just leave his lungs exhaled. That’s when the tickle in his throat threatened a couch. He pressed himself closer to the wall — how wasn’t he inside the wall at this point?

The silhouette with the flashlight took its time moving around the front of the car, boots scrubbing cement and sending small rocks skipping in front of them. The white-yellow beam planted itself against the exposed cinderblock wall of the underground mall, feeling around its surface.

Kevin inched his way toward the remains of splintered wooden crates to his right, only shuffling each time a boot scrubbed the parking lot. The flashlight’s beam whizzed past his head twice, and he thought his heart would just give out from beating so fast. He wasn’t about to spend the summer of his junior year in trouble. If he was returned home in the middle of the night by a cop, he’d be grounded for three months at least.

The cover of the crates settled his nerves — until, through the cascading tango of blue and red in the unlit lot, Kevin saw a second silhouette. Chills swamped him as he witnessed the newcomer’s oversized robe flap several times in the humid summer breeze. Who would be wearing something like that? And why was their face covered by the robe’s hood? They made one determined step after another, stalking directly toward the unknowing cop.

Kevin wanted to speak up, wanted to risk getting in trouble in order to help. He was about to be a hidden witness to a grizzly murder — he just wasn’t ready for that kind of trauma, you know? That was something you lived second-hand by listening to a true crime podcast, not something you just watched for yourself on a random Thursday night.

The cop still didn’t turn around, just kept waving that flashlight around as if enticing a dog with a bone treat. The robed figured was feet away from him and beginning to reach out. Kevin’s stomach flipped twice and spewed bile up into his throat. He had to swallow hard to keep it from ejecting as the figure’s hand reached for the cop’s neck and slit it open with the blade hidden in the billowing —

That didn’t happen. When the robed silhouette reached for the cop, that hand simply clasped the cop on the shoulder, and they exchanged hushed words. Kevin wasn’t witnessing an ID channel special, but was it something worse?

The flapping robes with legs marched up toward the door, closer to Kevin than was comfortable. Had Kevin been holding his breath for an hour? Surely. The hood took a deep breath, inhaled, held it, and slowly exhaled it. Cleared their throat.

Kevin shot a glance at the cop who had returned to his car. The uniformed figure disappeared by the vehicle for a moment, and then everything disappeared for a moment as he flipped the red and blue lights off, casting the whole area into a thick darkness. Even the beam from the flashlight died. Kevin heard the car’s trunk pop open, then quietly shut moments later. He strained his eyes in the direction of the cop to see anything, movement, a clue to what was happening.

The robed figure at the door turned toward that blackness that had enveloped the cop. Kevin’s eyes adjusted and focused as a second hooded figure stepped in front of the door next to the first. This second robed and hooded silhouette still held the long metal flashlight in his left hand. He produced a ring of keys in his right and proceeded to unlock the heavy-sounding chain barring the old door.

A piece of wood from Kevin’s crate barrier snapped, and so did his sanity. He hadn’t done it; he’d been as motionless as the wall itself. Something else had moved and snapped the wood. He felt gazes on him, saw the robed cop lift the flashlight toward the rubble.

An opossum sprung from crate, skittered across Kevin’s right hand and darted past the two figures.

“Shit!” the cop hissed, stumbling back.

The opossum’s scurrying faded away on the far side of the building. The cop stepped back up in front of the door to remove the chain, ignoring a verbal jab from the first robed person. Kevin wished he could have made that out at least. The door opened with a long creak, and the two disappeared within the mall.

The very moment the door thudded shut, Kevin bolted from his hiding spot, around the cop car and toward the end of the lot where a small bridge led to his apartment complex. Though his eyes were accustomed to the complete darkness by now, he misjudged where a thick section of slippery mud almost always lay. His foot hit the mud, and he was looking straight at the night sky before his next breath.

A moan wafted from his mouth as the pain crawled down his neck and shoulders. Dammit! Get up, dammit!

Kevin rolled over, feeling like a block of cement covered in mud goop. With a glance back at the door — which remained shut — he scrambled for the bridge that disappeared into the treeline. He forced his brain not to think about that the hooded silhouette had emerged from this very treeline. The trees that separated the shopping center’s parking lot from Kevin’s apartment complex. Was one of his neighbors a night freak?!

In the cover of the trees, Kevin stopped on the bridge to steal one last look back at the underground mall’s cinderblock wall. He blinked twice and squinted, blinked again.

Shit…

Two more flapping robes were walking, backs to Kevin, toward the unchained door.

There’s no way they didn’t see me. Fu—

Kevin spun around and ran across the bridge, no longer caring about stealth. He just needed to get home.

There’s no way they hadn’t seen him.

02

THEY THOUGHT Kevin was lying.

“You’re lying, man,” Thomas said.

“Totally.” Jasmine tossed popcorn into her mouth.

See?

Kevin shifted to the very edge of the movie theater stadium seat. “Why would I lie about almost dying to a cop, to a cult person, and then to a cult cop?!”

“Do you remember his original story mentioning almost dying?” Jasmine asked the other boy.

“I could have if they saw me!” Kevin grabbed a handful of stresscorn. The bag was a vague silhouette in the gray light of the movie screen illuminating an otherwise dark, empty theater. “Plus, if either of you’d actually shown up like you said would, you could’ve seen for yourself.”

“So you wish either or both of us had also almost died,” Thomas returned. “Cool, cool.”

“Would you rather die to the cultist or to the cop cultist?” Jasmine asked.

“I was thinking about getting my face chewed off by the opossum,” Thomas said.

“Fair.”

They looked at a silent Kevin. “Are you done?”

They both pretended to consider the question. Kevin fell back against the seat, staring at the movie they’d talked over for the past forty minutes.

“I do actually believe you though,” Jasmine said after a minute.

“What?!” Both boys said it in unison, one out of surprise, the other from incredulity.

“Totally. Why wouldn’t I? First, saying that some weird shit is happening in Mural City isn’t the most surprising thing every. Second, there’s churches everywhere, I read tarot for people multiple times a week, people manifest shit from the universe all the time — why wouldn’t there be a cult to satan or something in an old, abandoned, underground mall?”

“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or if you’re leaning into the joke,” Kevin said slowly. He hadn’t truly expected either of his friends to believe his story. Thus, even he’d surprised himself with how defensive he got when they didn’t believe him. So if one did, he’d be in uncharted territory…

“I can’t either,” Thomas said. He brushed fallen popcorn crumbs from his David Cinemas black and red uniform.

“For real though, that’s the part that I’m really curious about — what are they a cult for? And why haven’t I heard about them?”

“I didn’t know you were shopping for cults,” Thomas said.

“I’ve been in the mood to sacrifice a—” She burst out laughing. “Couldn’t bring myself to finish that. I’m not shopping for a cult. But my fam at least knows about a lot of the fridge spiritual stuff in town.”

“Does a cult count as spiritual?” Kevin asked.

“Wait, what if it wasn’t even a cult,” Thomas cut in. Was he actually giving into the idea? “It could’ve been a frat initiation. Or choir recital. Or, or a judge’s convention.”

Nope, still an asshole.

“I wonder if we could get into the mall ourselves,” Jasmine said. “I’ve been curious about that place for a while, and if it meant stumbling on the lair of a practicing…group. All the better.”

Kevin couldn’t keep the grin from his face. He of course wanted to go down there, had all throughout his sleepless night. But, again, he didn’t think either of them would be curious — or bored — enough to go too. “So y’all want in?”

Jasmine looked from one boy to the other. “Was I on mute the past few minutes? Uh, yeah.”

“Thomas?”

Thomas had gotten sidetracked by the movie, actually paying attention to it for the first time. “Oh, we’re still talking about cult stuff? Yeah, I’ll at least get some b-roll for a film I’m working on.”

“When could we go?”

“Are we all off work on Thursday?” Jasmine asked.

They nodded. Kevin glanced at Thomas. “Wait, when was your lunch break over?”

The other boy literally jumped to his feet. “Shit!”

Kevin smirked as Thomas sprinted for the back of the theater, popcorn trailing from his polo shirt and the bag he clutched in a flailing hand.

Jasmine settled back around and munched on another handful of her own popcorn. “Now we just need a way down there.”

Kevin poked around in his popcorn bag. “I think I’ve already got that. Pretty sure, yeah.”

<><><>

Kevin couldn't take his friends into the underground mall and risk getting them wrapped up with whatever cult was using it as a base of operations. He thought he wanted someone down there with him, but the more he thought about it, the more he knew he couldn’t do it.

He dropped the mop in the yellow wheeled bucket and pulled out his phone. Ten minutes until the store closed. No inventory tonight, so everyone would be out of the store shortly after close. The only problem with Kevn also leaving with everyone else is that he needed to get back into the store. He couldn’t do that if he were in the parking lot getting into his car.

That’s why he’d cleared it with the shift manager for him to leave at ten ‘til close. He wheeled the bucket out of the bathroom and toward the back washroom. Giving the bucket not Kevin’s most focused, detailed rinse, he tossed it into the floor sink. The others will just have to deal because Kevin had to get out now if this were going to work.

A hallway branching off the back room led to a door opening to the same back parking lot where Kevin had seen the cultist the previous night. The strip mall where Chuck’s Used Books & Games called home was built on top of the old underground mall. In fact, in some parts of the store, you could feel yourself standing on a floor with nothing under it. Felt like elevator settling. Something you just got used to after a while.

Kevin quickly opened the back door and slipped a small piece of paper where it clicked shut, and slowly closed the door onto the paper. He didn’t hear it click. He pulled on the knob without turning, and the door shoved open.

He rushed toward the front of the store.

It’d be easiest if he could just be the one to “check” the back door for the night, but that was no guarantee. Also, if the door opened after the store closed, it would trip the alarm systems, codes which management didn’t dole out to sixteen year olds working part time summer jobs. So he had to do it now.

“Laura, I’m leaving,” he called at the front checkout counter where the shift lead was counting money out of the drawers.

“Hope you’re mom gets better! ‘Night!”

Huh? Oh, yes… Hopefully his mom did “get better.” Kevin kicked himself for already almost failing the simplest but most crucial part of his ploy. “Thanks, g’night.”

Kevin had minutes to get around the building. Seeing his co-worker Vin walking back from the dumpster and waving him down, Kevin ducked into his car rushed through cranking it. Took him two tries, but he got it and pulled through the spot in front of him, speeding through the large lot. He imagined Vin’s hand still raised mid-wave.

When he rounded the end of the last store of the strip mall, he cut his head lights. With the lack of street lamp in the back lot, his unlit car felt invisible. He angled directly for the back of Chuck’s, disregarding any decades-old lanes or parking spots.

What was he exactly expecting to find inside the underground mall? He hadn’t even thought that through fully. He was infiltrating it earlier in the night on purpose — so hopefully he wouldn’t run into the cult itself. But if they weren’t there, what would be? Does a cult leave behind a mess, or do they dedicate a few members to keep its facility clean and tidy?

He took the concrete stairs leading to the rear door he’d rigged two at a time. He lunged at the door but then just barely pressed against it to hopefully open it. His heart almost stopped as it slid forward. If there was someone on the other side, his ploy would be over. Thankfully, the others were still taking care of tasks up front. There was still one minute before the store actually closed.

Now to hide. He’d thought about this all day, and he thought he had the perfect spot. Which, thinking about it now as he was moving toward it, was kind of a terrifying prospect. If a store had any perfect hiding spot, what would stop a creep from doing this? Instead of lingering on that thought process and deciding if he were the creep, Kevin entered the storage room where the store kept its supplies.

He’d made sure earlier in the evening to take some time in here and arrange the stock of toilet paper and paper towels in a way where he could reasonably crawl underneath the stack at the base of the wall. There would be enough stock above him that even if someone came into the room to retrieve some, there’s no way they would need enough to uncover a Kevin squatting after hours (in as non-creepy a way possible).

Uncovering two packs of 36-roll toilet paper revealed his crawl space. He stared at the manmade tunnel into a pile of paper products. Well, this was his life now. At least it wasn’t a life of crime.

Wait, was this a crime?

Maybe a little late in the game to ask that. Sorry, mom.

Kevin shimmied his way feet first into the hiding spot, making sure his phone was in hand before descending into the darkness. Imagine not being able to look at anything while waiting out the next half hour. Or forgetting to silence a random alarm and leaving the phone in your pocket to go off, send you scrambling to fish it out, and knock down the fortress of two-ply in the process. Not a path to success.

Phone in hand, Kevin replaced the two headstone pieces which concealed him from the room. If management ever needed to review security footage of this night, they were in for a treat. Maybe they would just laugh their asses off and not pursue punishment? Kevin was trying to think happy thoughts from his cramped paper fort.

The cracks he’d ensured between packages provided a surprising amount of cool fresh air, mostly hitting him in the face. The other cool stimuli came from the tile floor. After a motionless minute, Kevin, although admittedly cramped, felt relaxed and chilly. He calmed his breathing and his heart rate. He focused on stillness, ignoring random urges to scratch his knee or forehead.

He let his mind drift.

And, unintentionally, — really unintentionally — he let himself drift to sleep.

<><><>

Kevin's eyes flew open. Oh god, oh god! What time was it? He shifted his arms so that he could see his phone.

11:45 p.m.

The store closed more than two hours ago. He was only supposed to hide for half an hour at the most, wait until all the lights in the building shut off, and then emerge. But two hours?! It’d been after 1:00 a.m. when the cop and cultist showed up the previous night, so surely they weren’t already down there, but there was no way to know for sure.

He paused for a moment, trying to resettle his pulse, to listen for any movement. Which was stupid because no one would be in the building two hours after close when it wasn’t time for inventory. Well… except for Kevin.

As light no longer peeked through the air shafts above him, he felt confident the lights in the rest of the store would also be cut off. Pressing upward, he removed the two headstone packages of paper and began wiggling his way out. He was more successful before getting past his shoulders, and after getting his elbows free of the crawl space, he accidentally punched one of the walls hard enough to bring the whole construction down.

Great…

Someone else could deal with that on Kevin’s days off the rest of the week.

He emerged from the storage room more casually than he expected. After the tense race to get back in the store to hide, he’d anticipated feeling stressed traversing the store after hours. Once his eyes adjusted to the dark, though, he walked out onto the sales floor with boldness. His plan had succeeded.

Except for the part where he fell asleep on the job. He’d overlook that small detail.

On the sales floor, Kevin angled for the back of the store where a wall of books was stacked, each book lying horizontally on top of the one beneath. The store logo also hung affixed to the cutout in the wall housing the book barricade.

On Kevin’s first time in the store as a kid, he’d asked the question most first-time patrons asked when walking in the store: what’s behind the stack of books? The question was prompted because when you walked past the books, there was sometimes an obvious draft wafting from behind the books. If you stopped long enough, close enough to the book wall, you could even “hear” the stillness of a large room on the other side. It was faint, but it leaked through enough to garner the attention of dozens of customers every few months.

As the employee being asked the question, Kevin got to relay the information his mother had bestowed upon him as a kid. The store that predated Chuck’s featured a large stairway leading down to the underground portion of the mall. The book stack with the suspended store logo in front of it covered up that entrance.

Kevin had never needed to be interested in the other side of the book stack before now. Sure, working in a place that you knew was operating on top of an underground space that had been abandoned for more than four decades was interesting. It was interesting in the same way that learning about and being fascinated by the Egyptian pyramids was interesting. You liked thinking about it, liked hearing stories about it, even liked playing around the back parking lot as a kid. But the idea of actually descending down into it just…never weighed heavily in Kevin’s mind.

As he carefully nudged one of the columns of books, the weight of that idea — that need — settled in Kevin’s chest.

For the most part, the right-most column moved as one, but about a dozen or so books sat midway between it and the adjacent column. Kevin clamped his teeth together as he also began nudging the second column, which also had books bridging to the next column. He had to start pivoting both columns inward, swinging them like a door. He didn’t need a lot of space, just enough to squeeze through.

After an agonizing few minutes of shifting the two towers of books fractions of an inch at a time, Kevin made the space he needed. He put one leg over the logo’s metal connector and pushed his way past the books and into even more darkness. And heat. And…not a lot of space. He flicked on the flashlight of his phone and shone it directly into a padded partition. It spanned the entirety of the cutout entrance’s width, but it wasn’t tall enough to seal off the top of the entrance. That’s how the draft snuck through.

It also confirmed to Kevin there was something on the other side.

Pushing against the partition, he noticed the seam down the middle was less a seam and an actual break between two smaller partitions. If he could swivel one back far enough, he should be able to squeeze between them.

Before attempting it, he turned to shove the columns of books back into place. Being more cramped on this side, he was not as steady with his effort and watched as the top of the right-most column wobbled and spilled ten to fifteen books on the store’s floor. Kevin nearly panicked but stopped himself. He was this far — he had to stick to the plan and not worry about a messy execution at this point. Someone would restack the books tomorrow.

And check the tapes…

Can’t think about that.

Kevin pushed the rest of the book columns back to their former place, enclosing him further in the sauna between the books and partitions. He worked his fingers between the partitions and pulled on the left one. It was heavy, but it wobbled back and forth on Kevin’s first try. He steadied himself to make sure he didn’t fly backward and send the rest of the book wall careening into the store. He gave another pull. This time, there was less wobble and more of a shift, metal scraping on cement.

Four more pulls created enough room for him to once again squeeze his body through. Before attempting, he pointed his phone’s flashlight into the other side.

He couldn’t see much. About ten feet inside stood what appeared to be a concrete wall.

Kevin’s demeanor deflated. He’d gotten this far — it couldn’t end with a concrete wall in his way.

He perked back up slightly when he remembered the draft of air. That had to come from somewhere. He sidestepped through the partitions, shining his flashlight in front of him. His heart leaped when the light fell onto a separation in the floor and the concrete wall. He stepped up to a ledge that dropped the distance to the floor. A quick scan around the area revealed that the concrete wall was actually a gigantic pillar.

If there ever were a staircase down to the underground part of the mall, it wasn’t here anymore. Instead, the concrete pillar would have to serve as Kevin’s way down. He shoved the partition back into place and flicked the phone flashlight off, returning him to the complete darkness.

Kevin wiped a trail of sweat dribbling down his forehead before sitting down at the edge of the floor. He pressed his feet against the pillar and slid over the ledge, using leverage against the pillar to pin his back against the descending wall. Slowly lowering himself, he reached the floor. Sweat pooled above his lip, and he choked back the taste of dust.

His feet dropped to a brick floor. All was quiet except for his heavy breathing. He retrieved his phone’s light once more and took a moment to survey his new underground surroundings.

Rounding the pillar, he was greeted by a hallway running to his left, ending in boarded double doors. Old store fronts lined each side of the hallway. Another hallway reached out before him, low archways framing the path into another area of the mall.

All was still, quiet, and dark. Until it wasn’t.

At first, Kevin swore it was his imagination. But, hiding the light against his pants, he could in fact see a faint pulsing glow beyond the arches ahead of him. And he heard the faintest of sounds. Like the combination of tiny metal and large wooden wind chimes.

What the hell?*

Heart racing, Kevin stepped toward the arch.

03

AS HIS foot stepped beyond the threshold of the arch, the light disappeared and the sounds waned. Was Kevin crazy? Wait, was he still asleep in the storage room? No, he’d seen…heard… He continued down the hallway.

Beyond another arch, he could see through the light of his flashlight that the hallway spilled into an open area. He could also see what looked like a knee-high fence of sorts in the middle of that open room.

As he neared, he also noticed a small figure standing motionless on the other side of the fence.

Kevin froze. Heart in his throat.

The figure didn’t move. Kevin wiggled his light like that would make the thing flinch or something. No reaction. Kevin forced his nerves down and took another step forward. Immediately, he felt foolish as he looked closer at the figure which was a marble figure, a statue, fixed in place within the fenced enclosure. The fence surrounded a fountain, cut into the floor.

A marble fountain fixture stood in the middle, where water had presumably once trickled into the tiled pool bottom. Kevin could almost hear that trickle now. Could hear a trickle now, right?

Two other figurines stood affixed in the pool around the fountainhead. The tiled floor of the pool reflected a glow back at Kevin from his flashlight.

The trickling sound seemed so airy and almost non-existent that it tickled the base of Kevin’s skull, right above his neck and sent a shiver through his arms and legs. He shifted the light from the first marble statue to the other two.

But the other two weren’t there anymore.

Kevin’s heart stopped again.

This he definitely hadn’t imagined. They’d been there, and now with the light directly on them, they definitely weren’t. This was real.

Before he could shift the light again, he felt two…things pass him in the darkness just beyond the field of light from his phone. Another shiver passed through him. He darted his eyes from left to right and swear he saw shadows, or a silhouette, or a ripple in the air… He didn’t know how to describe it, but he had seen it!

Now, his light was bouncing this way and that, careening off store fronts and brick walls that lined the surrounding open area, centered by this fountain and pool. As his light bounced off glass and old, rusted metal, he searched for the two shadows, whatever had been in the pool one moment and then not in there the next moment.

He heard the memory of small laughter just behind his ear. It tickled like the trickling water had. Kevin spun around and almost tripped over his own feet. His light revealed more stores, more dark rooms, but no other figures.

Kevin tried to slow his breathing, clamping his mouth shut with force, but it only forced the breath in and out even harder through his nose. He was starting to feel light headed. And he’d spun around and around more than he’d noticed, bringing on dizziness as well.

All this time that he’d shown his light back and forth in the room, looking into storefronts, lighting up the low ceiling that was missing more tiles than remained, Kevin had not noticed until now that the pool, inside the old metal fence, had continued to glow at him. He froze mid-spin. He felt his mouth hang open, tasting dust on his tongue.

His light was shining off to the right, now touching an inch of the fountain area, and the pool lining the floor beneath the fountainhead was glowing on its own. It was as dull as a green glow-in-the-dark sticker, but it was definitely lit. Not lit in an electrical sense — Kevin could see no bulb. It was illuminated though. And the light shifted back and forth, as if the light itself was water.

Kevin lost all ability to calm his heart rate. He stumbled forward as he tried to stay upright on legs that suddenly felt hollow. The laughter was back, just behind his ears, but Kevin couldn’t spin around this time.

Instead, he unlocked his phone. He had to wiped his hands on his pants multiple times for the screen to respond to his taps and swipes. The dust from his pants still muddied parts of the screen. Kevin couldn’t worry about that in the moment. He opened his messages, and clicked into the option to video call Thomas and Jasmine.

His entire body began to shake as the sound of their phones ringing echoed through the underground atrium.

Jasmine picked up, glancing down at her phone as if it were on her desk.

“It’s a little late, yeah?” She didn’t sound sleepy in the slightest. She squinted closer to her phone. “Is your camera covered? I can’t really—”

“I don’t have time to explain,” Kevin blurted out. “Do you see this?”

He clicked the option to switch the video call to his rear camera, aiming it at the still glowing pool.

“I kinda see something lit up, but everything is so dark. Where are you?”

Kevin stepped closer to the fountain than he had so far. He could swear the light was rippling back and forth like water.

“Yeah, seeing it better now. Where is that?!”

“I’m in the mall,” Kevin said, a raised whisper.

“Why are you in the mall?! Also, the mall hasn’t had a fountain in a few years.”

“No! Not that mall. I’m in the one underneath Chuck’s.”

“The cult one?!”

“Yeah.”

“We were supposed to go down there Thursday! What the fuck!”

“I know, but I couldn’t wait.”

“How did—”

“It doesn’t matter. You see this, right?”

“Yeah, how’d you get lights on?”

“I didn’t. This is…it’s just glowing!”

Silence. Kevin watched her stare just off to the side, as if deciding if he were pranking her.

“Look.” Kevin moved the phone around to show the rest of the atrium, its storefronts, broken brick floor, fallen tiled ceiling.

“And, the fountain is glowing.”

Kevin didn’t know if it were a question or statement. “Yes, feels really weird down here. Like weird shit.”

“You probably just think that because of the cult stuff.”

“Doesn’t that make sense?!”

She smirked. “Get me closer to the fountain. Do you feel any heat from it?”

Kevin now stood next to the metal fencing. “No, everything feels hot down here, but it’s not like this light is creating any of it. Do you see the light moving back and forth?”

“Not really?”

Kevin swore the closer he approached the fountain, the stronger the light shown. It now illuminated the walls of the pool and the entirety of the first marble statue. It was an angel child. He almost preferred the laughing ghosts…

The chimes returned. For the first time, the light in the pool also splashed upward.

“Oh shit, I saw that,” Jasmine said.

The light splashed again, this time in the middle of the pool, at the base of the fountainhead. When it hit the first marble bowl of the fountainhead, the light stuck to it. A random splotch of glowing light emanate from the bottom bowl and began to spread.

Something loud roared down the hallway, echoing throughout the atrium.

“What the hell was that?”

Kevin fumbled with his phone to take Jasmine off speaker. “Shit!” He swallowed through a sandy throat.

“What’s going on?!”

He successfully switched the video call to just audio and put the phone to his ear. “I think a door just opened.”

“How do you know?”

“Well I don’t.” He heard the scraping of a heavy metal door. “Okay, I do. It’s a door.” Fuck, shit, fuuuuuuck!

“Get out of there!”

Kevin moved his hollow legs without knowing what to do. The storefront nearest him still had big glass windows framing it, and a sliding glass door that let him in easily. He nearly went to the floor as he crossed the threshold. Sliding the door shut, he peered through the glass in the direction of the echoes. He saw a beam of light bouncing of the ceiling and walls.

“Dammit, I think it’s the cult.”

“Of course it’s the cult, Kevin. You’re in the cult’s meeting place in the middle of the night. Why aren’t you running?!”

“I’m hiding,” he whispered.

“You’ve got to get out of there!”

“I should be fine in here. I’ve got to hang up before they see me.”

“Kevin, don’t you—”

He pressed the red button and cut her off. He wanted to stay near the window to keep an eye on whoever was approaching, but he also didn’t want to look like a deer in headlights on display either. He turned to crawl into a dark corner, but he tripped over something. It was like a stack of cardboard boxes or something.

Kevin went sprawling over the boxes, and he felt his phone slip from his hand. As he hit the floor, he heard his phone thud against the glass of the door and then clatter on the brick floor. He lay in silence, convincing himself they couldn’t have heard that. Between the distance, their own footsteps, and being behind a closed door, he should be fine.

As gracefully as a could, Kevin rolled over the debris that had caught his fall. It made way more noise than he’d wanted, but after a moment, he was free of its grasp. He crawled to the glass door on hands and knees. He felt around for his phone, but couldn’t feel it.

He crawled to the very edge of the door, most of his body obscured by the wall beside the door, only his head peeking around. Two silhouettes darkened the glow of the pool. One was looking down into the glow. The other was shining his flashlight around the room. These were the two from the previous night in the parking lot.

Sweat dripped down Kevin’s neck and joined the caked dust and dirt on his clinging shirt.

The cultists were talking to each other in voices louder than Kevin expected. Did he think they’d only talk in insidious whispers? He couldn’t make out words because of the shut glass door, but it sounded like an argument. Or excitement?

Kevin heard the vibrating before he saw the light flash next to him. So many words flashed through Kevin’s mind to swear — words of panick, fear, anger — but none of them came out. He thrust he arm toward the phone’s screen that was now completely lit, announcing an incoming video call — a friendly, ignorant, innocent, stupid return call — from Thomas.

The second round of vibrating went from bad to worse as it not only buzzed on the brick floor, but also against the base of the glass door.

Kevin grabbed the phone, but one look out the window confirmed it was too late. The flashlight beam was already swinging around toward Kevin’s tomb of safety.

Phone in hand, Kevin dove toward the back of the room, his only hope that maybe they didn’t actually see him.

Before he even reached the back wall of the surprisingly big room, Kevin heard the sliding glass door whoosh open and footsteps barrel into the room behind him. Shouts. Swearing. Kevin stumbled again. His cheek hit old tile.

When he scrambled to get up again, he couldn’t. A weight pressed against his back.

His pulse pounded so hard in his ears, he didn’t even hear a pair of boots step up next to his face. The figure knelt, robe swishing dirt into Kevin’s eyes.

“Easy,” the voice said. “I said easy, Daou.”

Kevin felt the weight lessen by a fraction.

“It turns out that the others were right, and I should have taken time to see who was spying on us last night.” The speaker grabbed Kevin’s phone. Kevin struggled to keep it, but the opposing vice grip was too much, prying it away. “I’m impressed to see you down here, honestly. But I’m more impressed by what I see out in that fountain. Daou, how long have we been meeting here?”

“Almost a year,” a deeper voice towering above Kevin said.

“Almost a year that we’ve sensed a closeness and have met here. Not once has the other side responded. And not due to lack of prodding on our part.”

In his periphery, Kevin saw the speaker motion for the other man’s flashlight. The speaker shined the beam directly in Kevin’s face. At the edges of the light, Kevin could make out gray outlines of a man peering down at him. The man’s hood hung discarded around his shoulders.

“And the moment you break in somehow, we find a connection. I don’t claim to be a genius, or a detective, or a puzzle master, but I’d say that’s too great an occurrence to be a coincidence. How did you do it?”

“I…don’t know…” Kevin forced words but couldn’t catch his breath.

“Daou, up with him.”

Iron hands gripped Kevin’s shoulders and the weight against his back lifted. He was picked up to his feet. He flinched as if to attempt an escape maneuver, but the thumb of his captor pressed slightly into a spot just behind his shoulder, and Kevin nearly went back to the floor in a heap.

“Your friends seem concerned about you,” the speaker said.

The man held Kevin’s phone in front of him. Kevin thought he was showing him a message from one of his friends, but realized the man was unlocking the phone. Too late to look away. The man swiped up, and was in. So much for a secure face lock.

“Let’s assure Jasmine you’re okay. She seems to worry more than Thomas.”

Kevin could hear the speaker tapping away on the screen. The man walked toward the glass door, and Daou led Kevin behind him.

Out in the atrium, the pool and fountain still glowed with the rippling green and blue light. Kevin was led right next to the fence overlooking the pool beneath.

“In my mind, if you are for whatever reason the key, I see no reason to waste this opportunity.” The speaker handed Daou the flashlight. “Let’s trade. I’ll take him now.”

“I’ve got him.” Daou sounded confused at the suggestion.

“I see that, Daou. But I want him. You take the phone. For just a moment now.”

“What are you going to do? Let’s just take him out of here. He’s seen enough.”

“I know he has, but he can help us see more. What we’ve wanted to see. See? Give him over.”

Kevin waited for the hesitant transaction, when Daou released his grip, and Kevin darted to the side, successfully slipping away from the bigger man.

“Dammit, Daou!”

Before Kevin was two steps away, he felt something slam into the side of his head. As he stumbled, he saw the flashlight sail through the air having ricocheted off his head. It flew over the fence and into the tile bottom of the pool. It didn’t hit the tile. It didn’t clatter or bust open. It passed right through the bottom and out of sight. Swallowed seemingly by a watery depth that just wasn’t there.

Kevin witnessed that in an instant, and in the very next instant, he felt a body crash into him.

“Unan, what—”

That was the last words Kevin could make out. It’s like his ears stopped working as he felt his body swing over the railing and fall the short distance to the tiles of the glowing pool.

Only Kevin didn’t fall a short distance. He continued to fall. His eyes faced the darkness of the atrium, which now sped away from him like a shrinking circle.

It shrunk until Kevin was enveloped by the rippling glow.

<><><>

Kevin blinked, blurred light filling the corners of his vision. He felt tears sneak out and trail over his cheekbones. He was kneeling on grass. The stale heat of the mall had vanished at some point, and the open air surrounding him now was warm but pleasant.

The mall...

Where was the mall?!

Grass...?

He jumped to his feet, scanning the area. Trees and bushes and grasses and flowers all filled his vision, surrounded him. And he recognized none of them. Their shapes, colors, leaves. It all looked... painted on. Less green and more pinks, oranges, soft reds – and all different shades of those.

His heart full-on stopped when he saw the creatures stepping out from behind the trees less than thirty feet from him. His brain took in the sights but didn't know how to process it. He kept blinking, expecting the image to go away. But he just kept seeing the three shirtless figures stamp around the clearing, horned heads looking from side to side.

Their naked torsos looked human, but waist-down covered in hair and resembled the hind legs of a goat. Kevin was pretty sure these were mythical creatures known as satyrs. Mythical creatures. Standing a stone's throw away from him.

Mythical creatures. Now looking right at him.

As they took steps toward the leafy concealment, Kevin noticed the spears wielded by each. Something he didn't see initially when captivated by the goat half...

Kevin fell out of his hiding spot in an effort to stumble away. He could barely make out the three creatures as they pole vaulted in flashes around him.

"Steady!" one of them commanded. Kevin was shocked he could understand them for only a moment before terror fully taking over his body. "Steady, boy! We mean not to harm you."

The creature's words did nothing to mend Kevin's incapacitated trembling. All three now stood round him, spear heads pressed into the soft wooded earth beneath them. Kevin could not keep himself from glancing at the spear in the First's hand. The satyr easily saw the glance.

He chuckled. "This is for our own protection. He has been a long time since we last called a human to our world. We could not know if you would try to attack us. They are for our own defense."

"Where am I?" No amount of forced air from his chest could correct the wavering in the question.

The three satyrs who'd circled him broke into a dance. They pranced around Kevin, rapping knuckles to their staves in synchronous rhythm. The sound of a flute joined the rhythm. One of the dancing satyrs held the flute to his lips, blowing into it with closed eyes.

Where'd that come from??

"Welcome to our lands, human!" the First shouted in glee.

"Where am I?" Kevin tried to raise his voice over the sound of the flute, make-shift percussion, and soft thud of hooves.

As the repeated question left his mouth, all the creatures stopped and bowed. The last note from the flute echoed off trees. Everything settled into silence. Kevin could hear the stranger breathing heavily.

"Human," the First said, still bowed low at the waist. "Welcome to the Wilderneath."