Void Read online

  Contents

  Void

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  For more books by

  D Haltinner

  see his web site at

  www.amazon.com/author/dhaltinner

  Books available in paperback and e-book from Amazon and other online retailers.

  Void

  D Haltinner

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Void

  Copyright © 2014 by D. Haltinner

  First publication.

  Originally hand written 2009

  Cover photograph Copyright © AdriaanC, released under the Creative Commons – Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 license. Available 11/2013 at stockpholio.com. Minor formatting changes only.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Paperback ISBN-13 978-1494775650

  Paperback ISBN-10 1494775654

  Chapter 1

  “What is it?” Troy Rankin asked.

  “A hatch,” Darren Ansari said.

  “I can see that.”

  “Then why’d you ask?”

  “Where does the hatch go?”

  Darren shrugged. “Why would I know?”

  “I thought you were supposed to be smart?”

  “What does that have to do with being smart?”

  Troy looked at Darren, confusion on his face.

  Darren rolled his eyes. “Never mind.”

  Troy bent down to the rusted hatch in the floor and Darren slid the bookcase back further until the entire surface was exposed. Two feet on each side and covered by a thin film of rust that gave the diamond plate surface a rougher texture, the hatch didn’t look like it had been opened in years. The carpet around it was cut ragged as if with a dull scissors-almost as if someone was in a hurry to get to it after it was covered by the carpeting.

  “You had to have known this was here,” Troy said. He reached out and touched the steel with his fingers and then looked at the rust that stuck to their tips before wiping it on his jeans.

  “How would I have known that?” Darren asked. “I haven’t stepped foot in the library since the tour I had when I got here.”

  Troy looked up at Darren. “You found it way too easily.”

  “I stubbed my toe on it.”

  “But it was covered by the bookshelf.”

  “Not the corner of it." Darren shook his head. “What’s the point?”

  Troy looked back down at the hatch and wiped the built up dust from around the handle. “Just saying you found it too conveniently.”

  “Well, I’ve never seen it before, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Darren shook his head and glanced toward the aisle of shelves stemming away from them. There was no sign of anyone else, but then again, at this time of night there’s only one school employee working. A student helper or two, but they would be just as curious as Troy was.

  A yawn slipped out of Darren’s mouth. The air was as stale as the pages of the books around him, and seemed to grow thicker as the seconds passed. No sounds besides the ticking of the clock two aisles away broke through the stillness, and even that was dulled by the rows of books between it and Darren. It was an hour or two past Darren’s usual bedtime, but he had to get used to the schedule of a college student and shift his life back at least three hours. Everyone else his age lived as a night owl, and how else was he supposed to fit in? He never fit in at his high school, and he intended to make some sort of effort to fit in at college.

  “We should see where it goes,” Troy said.

  “I thought we came to do research on Paul Revere?”

  Troy looked up at Darren, pushing the blonde bangs off his forehead. “We have two weeks to get that paper done.”

  “Then why don’t we come back to the hatch another day?”

  “Someone else will find it.”

  “Doesn’t look like anyone has opened it in a long time.”

  “Come on man, don’t be a spoil sport.”

  “It’s been hidden beneath that bookcase for who knows how long,” Darren said. “We just cover it back up and no one else will know it’s here.”

  “You’re just a yellow belly.”

  Darren closed his eyes and shook his head. Why he wanted to fit in with people like this, he had no idea. Maybe he would be better off keeping to himself for the next four years. It worked the last four.

  “You can do whatever you want,” Darren said. “But I don’t want to get in trouble my first month here for going places I’m not supposed to. Plus we came to do research for the paper, not go exploring.”

  “Well, I’m going to see what’s down there,” Troy said, “with or without you.”

  Darren shook his head and scratched at his chin. He needed to remember to shave in the morning before the stubble got too long. Otherwise people will stare at him and give him the Arab terrorist treatment again.

  “Do what you want,” Darren said.

  Troy grasped at the handle on the hatch, but couldn’t get his fingers underneath it to lift it. “Give me your ID,” he said to Darren.

  “Why?”

  “I need something to get under the handle.”

  “Use your own.”

  “It’s with my backpack at the table.”

  Darren grumbled and pulled out his wallet. The entire University of Wisconsin system installed RF readers on all the dorm rooms over the summer, so instead of having to carry around keys, all that was needed was an ID card. Bring it close to the reader by the door and it unlocks. Kind of nifty, and after realizing that it could read Darren’s card through his wallet, all he had to do was swing his hip at the r
eader to unlock the door. Made moving into the dorm a thousand times easier when your arms are full of crap and you don’t have to set anything down.

  On his tour of the university in Redfern, the administration said that the RF readers were installed for extra security. Now they could track the movements of students into the dorms and they had talks of installing them in the student union on vending machines and in the food court instead of making people use cash or wearing out the magnetic strips on the cards.

  Darren felt it was an invasion into privacy. The school just wanted to play big brother. But he didn’t dare voice his opinion. He felt the stares of the other students on him when the process was being explained to them. Don’t fuel the fire, his mom had always told him.

  Darren slipped the ID out of his wallet and handed it to Troy.

  “Hey, who’s the picture of?” Troy asked, pointing at the photograph in Darren’s wallet.

  “My girlfriend.”

  “Is that Rachel? Rachel Stevenson?”

  “Yeah, do you know her or something?”

  “Partied with her a couple times already.”

  Sounds like Rachel. She spent the weekends in some sort of alcohol-induced haze. She was only eighteen too, so Darren was never sure how she got a hold of alcohol, nor did he want to know. He didn’t drink, and he had no intention to either, and Rachel knew that. She never even started drinking until they got to Redfern, and Darren figured it would stop after a few weeks. He was still waiting.

  “She seems like a loose one,” Troy said.

  Darren’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”

  Troy shrugged. “I don’t know that for sure,” he said. “She just seems like the type.”

  “I’d prefer if you didn’t talk about her like that,” Darren said.

  Troy held up his hands in defense. “Sorry,” he said. He moved his attention back to the handle and tried to slide Darren’s ID underneath it, wiggling it back and forth and twisting it when he caught the edge. “How long have you been with her?”

  “Three years.”

  “Must have met in high school?”

  “Kingston High.”

  “I’m from Manitowoc.”

  “Never been there.”

  “Not many people do go there.”

  The handle lifted enough for Troy to get the tips of his fingers beneath it and he handed the ID back to Darren. Darren brushed off the red dust on his pant leg and slid it back into his wallet. He didn’t even want to look to see if Troy scratched the hell out of it, he could feel a nice gouge just by touching it.

  Troy pulled at the handle, but it didn’t budge. He stood up, straddled the hatch, and yanked at the handle until his face turned red, enhancing the deep blue of the vein pulsing across his forehead. The door lifted a slight amount, the hinges squealing in protest. The sound echoed off the shelves and vanished down the row a moment later.

  Someone will have heard that. How are they supposed to explain their way out of this one? He should just leave Troy to his own adventure and get out of there. He didn’t come to college to get in trouble, or drink, or anything other than getting a degree.

  But he still wanted to fit in.

  Troy lifted the hatch slower, and the volume of the screeching lowered until it was unable to escape the intersection of rows they stood at. Troy let the rusted hinges hold the hatch open vertically and stood back up, wiping the rust on his pants, leaving long streaks of red on the blue denim.

  “Someone probably heard that,” Darren said, watching down the row for any movement.

  “Quit worrying so much,” Troy said as he moved around the hatch, staring into the darkness revealed below it.

  “You’re going to get us in trouble.”

  “You whine like a little kid.”

  Darren’s heart began to race as he looked down into the shaft. He tried to tell himself that this wasn’t the manhole he became familiar with back in Kingston, but his mind wouldn’t listen. He could feel the darkness again, the water soaking into his clothes and chilling his skin, the scurrying of something unseen in the blackness with him.

  The memories were still too vivid.

  He shook his head, trying to bring himself back to the present, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that crawled through the marrow of his bones as he looked down into the hole.

  The lights of the library sank into the hole, revealing a narrow shaft of crumbling and cracking cement that went down three feet until it intersected with a passageway running north and south.

  “A tunnel below the library?" Troy said.

  “Probably some old fallout shelter,” Darren said.

  “The library already has one,” Troy said, pointing down the row toward the entrance. “There are signs directing toward the offices in back.”

  “I don’t know what it is, and I have no intention of finding out.”

  “I do.”

  “Come on, we’re supposed to be doing research.”

  “We got time.”

  “Fine, you go. I’m going back to my dorm.”

  “Do whatever you want, but if I were you, I’d wait to see if-”

  A phone started ringing. A musical tone, too much bass for Darren’s taste. Troy slid a cell phone out of his pocket and looked at the display.

  “You’re supposed to shut phones off in the library,” Darren said.

  “What are you, the police?” Troy answered his phone.

  Just go. Leave Troy to his own problems. Let him get in trouble by himself.

  But what’s down there?

  Doesn’t matter. It isn’t worth the risk of getting caught.

  But he’ll think I really am a chicken.

  You are.

  Darren shook the voices out of his head.

  Troy talked on his phone at full volume, not seeming to care if he attracted attention to them or not. “-in the library. Yeah. Gotta do some research for that history class. American history or some shit like that. No, the prof made us take partners.”

  Troy looked up at Darren and lowered his voice. “-yeah, hold on." He moved around the bookcases to the next row.

  Darren could still hear him.

  “-he stuck me with that Arab kid-”

  Maybe it would have been better if he couldn’t hear.

  “-probably here to edumacate himself for the next nine-eleven-”

  On second thought, it would have been better.

  “-military should just exterminate their asses-”

  Darren was used to hearing the same kind of things in high school. Junior high too. In fact, even in elementary school, but not as much back then. At least not from the students.

  “-kick all them rug kissers out of the country-”

  He was ten when nine-eleven occurred. Life was fine before then. He was just a normal kid. Born and raised in America like everyone else.

  “-fucking terrorist-”

  Then nine-eleven came and none of the kids would go near him after their parents told them not to. Even his teachers wouldn’t acknowledge his existence after that.

  “-go back to the desert-”

  It took a couple of years before things started settling back the way they were. By then Darren had no friends and spent all of his free time alone. Books were a good escape at that age. TV too, but his parents couldn’t afford cable, so unless he wanted to watch soap operas all summer, he had to find something else to keep himself occupied.

  “-just missing the beard and the towel on his head-”

  He had a couple of kids in high school he hung out with on occasion, but his parents were worried that he wasn’t social enough. So they forced him to start going to a youth group held at a church downtown. He skipped it most of the time and went to the bookstore a block away instead. Once he lost track of time at the bookstore while his mom was waiting in the parking lot of the church for him to come out.

  That didn’t turn out to be very good. But worse has happened. A lot worse.

  “-fucking Muslims-�
��

  “I’m a Methodist,” Darren yelled.

  Troy fell silent.

  “Bloody idiot,” Darren mumbled.

  This was going to be a fun four years.

  “I’ll call you later,” Troy said. A moment later he appeared back in sight, slipping the phone into his pocket. “You heard the…”

  Darren held up a hand. “I don’t even want to hear it.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”

  “I said I don’t want to hear it."

  Troy didn’t regret what he said, he only regretted getting caught. Darren heard it often enough to know that. It was always the same excuses and the same apologies, and he didn’t need to hear it again.

  “We’re supposed to do a paper together,” Darren said. “No one said we had to be friends. So let’s just forget about it and get this research done.”

  Troy looked down at the hatch, then back up at Darren. “Look,” he said, “we got two weeks to do that. I’m going down there. You can come or stay, your choice.”

  “I’m not going to procrastinate in order to support your laziness.”

  “Then don’t.”

  Darren shook his head.

  Troy climbed down to his knees, turned around, and began to lower himself into the hole backwards, legs first.

  “Hey, wait,” Darren said. “You’re going to end up getting hurt.”

  “No I won’t,” Troy said. And with that he let go of his grip and disappeared into the hole.

  Daren moved to the edge of the hatch and leaned over the opening. “Then climb on back out of there before someone comes by.”

  “Quit being a chicken. And quit blocking the light too.”

  Darren leaned to the side further, letting more light spill past him and into the hole.

  Troy dug in his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He pushed a button on the keypad and the shaft lit from the bottom up in a faint yellow glow. Cracks lined the cement walls and dust covered floor. The skeleton of a mouse sat near Troy’s feet and he kicked it away.

  “Come on,” Darren said. He looked down the rows of books, knowing that someone would stumble upon them soon.

  How the hell could he explain this?

  “I hear something,” Troy said. He turned his head to look down the south tunnel, then back to the north.