Free Bad Land by Jonathan Yanez Page A

was no give to the rough stones that made up the wall.
    I shifted my weight and tried to slide the stone surface. There was a give. Not much, just a few inches. I ground my teeth and put my small back to the wall. With all of my might I tried to slide the brick wall. It gave a few more inches and then a few hard fought more. Eventually there was room enough for me to squeeze through.
    I entered a cave hall that was illuminated by candles placed on the walls. The fear that I had managed to push away came back now as I heard chanting coming from somewhere deep in the belly of the cave.
    Quietly I made my way down the slanting hall that led deeper into the earth toward the rhythmic chanting. The shadows cast by the candles leapt out at me, contorting into sinister faces and ghoulish grins. But this was the least of my worries. My entire focus was where the chanting was coming from and what I would see when I reached the noise.
    I didn’t have to wait much longer as the hall curved and opened wide into a large room. I figured we must be right under the great house. There was a circular area with a large flat rock placed in the center. On one side of the rock, a stone bowl sprouted, carved from the same piece of rock. The other side came down into a kind of waterfall that pointed to the ground. 
    There was a group of darkly hooded figures that stood around the stone, all chanting in a language that I couldn’t understand. It was a language that I would later find out was an ancient Native American tongue.
    That’s when I noticed Melissa being brought forward. She was gagged and tied by both her feet and ankles. Her eyes were wild with fear and tears streaked her otherwise kind and gentle face. The man who had adopted me from the orphanage, the man I would grow to hate, dragged her to the stone altar and tied her down. The chanting picked up now as I crouched in the shadows, powerless and incapacitated by fear. All I could do was watch.
    A dozen scenarios ran through my head but not a single one ended well. I was a small boy and there were a dozen or more darkly hooded figures. What could I do? I should have done something. I should have done anything besides crouch there in the shadows, but I didn’t.
    I hunkered down like a coward and watched as the man who had adopted me and so many other children reached into his cloak, drew out a knife, and slit Melissa’s wrists and ankles. There was so much blood. Her little heart beat in vain trying to send red liquid to nourish her body, but the blood was pouring out of her hands and feet too quickly. The stone basin on one side of the stone table near her head collected the blood from her wrists. The blood from her ankles collected like a tiny waterfall and fell down the opposite side of the stone onto the cave floor.
    The ground seeped up the blood like a man dying of thirst. It didn’t simply soak into the hard dirt floor—I swear it drank the blood in deep, thirsty gulps. The chanting soon stopped as Melissa’s chest stopped moving. Each of the cloaked members dipped a cupped hand into the blood-filled basin, took off their hoods, and poured the blood on their heads.
    I had seen enough. I don’t know what it was that gripped me, but I knew I had to go. I knew that if I stayed any longer, I was going to get caught and suffer the same fate as Melissa Nixon.
    I took one last look at her lifeless form and I ran. I ran back up the cave hall, through the fireplace, and I ran right out the front door. I stuck to the shadows, and by luck or fate, no one saw me as I crossed the lawn and jumped the fence.
    I escaped with my life, but I will never forget that night in Wakan Canyon.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 12
     
     
    Jonah’s eyes blinked as though he had just woken up from a dream and readjusted on Marshall. “And that is what I know. And now you’re dragged into this whether you like it or not. You can’t unknow what you have learned.”
    Marshall didn’t know