CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE ANCIENT ONES
Micki felt the familiar feeling of falling. Here we go again. She thought. Then she hit sand hard. The impact actually knocked the air out of her.
After catching her breath again, she slowly and painfully got up. Every part of her body was aching. She wondered why it was that she was always the one who got the pleasure of enduring these damned ultra real illusions. I guess I'm just lucky that way. She concluded, shaking her head.
She looked around at her surroundings. All she could see was flat sand and dead looking trees for as far as she could see.
Then she saw movement on the horizon. As she watched the movement became a gray line stretching the horizon. Then it continued to get bigger and she saw what appeared to be a huge gray wave forming on the horizon and coming straight for her.
Phil slowly backed away from the others as they all focused their attention on Freeman's cousin. When he felt he was far enough away he turned and quickly headed to the back of the room where he knew the new case area was located.
When he arrived he saw that there were two dozen boxes stacked in the yellow taped off area. He looked at the boxes, but unlike the other boxes in the evidence room these didn't have a list of contents on them. Oh, great. He thought, hoping the book would be able to keep its hold on Freeman's cousin until he could find the mask.
Fear crept into Micki Foster's very soul as she watched the gray wave grow before her eyes. She could now make out that the wave was undulating like jelly rather than flowing like water.
Questions filled her head. What was she seeing? Was it the end of the world? And, what world was it? Was she even in the same plain of existence? Was she going to survive this vision and be able to tell anyone what she's seen?
Now she could see that the wave wasn't a solid mass, but was made up of an inestimable number of living, and crawling things. The best way she could describe what she was seeing, and even this was too simplistic, was a sky high wall of grotesque gray giant maggots crawling and intertwining with each other as they moved across the sand toward her.
Phil looked over his shoulder at the others, who where visible between the rows of shelf unites. Thankfully their attention was still fixed on Freeman's cousin whose mind, he gathered, was still stuck where ever the Ancient Ones had stuck it.
As for him, he was still picking his way through the boxes looking for the mask. Now that he was so near to it his hunger for it was raging. He had to fight with everything he had to stop from simply going nuts and dumping all the boxes over in the hopes that the mask would surface rather than being buried. But he knew this would only tip his hand and lose him his prize.
But when he stuck his hand into his seventh box, which had felt like his seventieth, he felt a shock run through his arm and knew he'd touched the mask. His groin grew afire with a passion no woman could ever produce in him. He shifted his fingers and grasped the plastic bag that covered his precious prize. Then carefully, so not to lose grip he slowly pulled the bag out of the box.
An almost insane smile crossed his face as his arm came free of the box and the clear bag that covered the mask was revealed to him. It's mine. It's finally mine! His mind screamed.
Yes, the mask is finally ours. The voice in his head said. Now we have to be smart and get it out of here.
“Don't worry about that it's all part of the plan.” Phil said, under his breath. Now that he had the mask again he felt energized. He could almost say nearly indestructible, but he knew this wasn't the case. That wouldn't be the case until that magic moment when he put on the mask and was reborn in the image of Jason. No, he knew now wasn't the time. Now he had to be cunning and use his mind to slip out of this building with his prize.
He looked around the shelves for anything that might be of help to him. He found it in the form of a worn looking wooden handle sticking out of one of the boxes on a nearby shelf.
He went over to the shelf, grabbed the handle, and pulled out the long rusted and pitted blade of a machete. He knew it had to be Jason's.
Now the living wall was nearly upon her. At this distance she could smell the foul odor of the creatures. The odor was fouler than the most festering sewer she'd ever smelt, and in her time dealing with Uncle Lewis' legacy she been in many. Now she had to fight to keep from emptying her guts on the sands.
Now she could see even more details. The maggots were clear and jelly-like. Behind them she could see blurred images of other more mountainous creatures moving within the sea of maggots. She was thankful that these other creatures were blurred lest her very sanity collapse in their presence.
Her every instinct was telling her to run, but she knew this would be a waste of effort. The creatures were moving faster than they appeared to be, and, anyway, where would she go.
Then, with her heart pounding in her chest and her breathing so hard she was nearly hyperventilating, the wall hit her and engulfed her.
Micki jumped up into a sitting position, knocking Rashid and Ryan to either side of her in the process. She let out the loudest scream of her life and the tears started to fall.
“It's all right, Micki!” Ryan said, grabbing her and hugging her to him. “It's all right. You're back with us.”
“Ryan?” Micki said, hoarsely after she stopped screaming. “Oh god, Ryan, I thought I was dead. I thought they'd eaten me or worse.”
Then Micki looked down and saw she was still holding the book. She immediately dropped it and kicked it away from her.
“A thousand apologies, Micki.” Rashid said. “I would've never given you that damnable volume had I known it would have had such a strong affect on you.”
“I saw them, Rashid.” she told him excitedly. “Or atleast some of them. And, I got the impression they she me too.”
“Mam, are you ok?” Deputy Marlin asked. “If you would like I'll go...” But he stopped in midsentence and a look of shock came over his face. The he looked down at the rusted blade point that was now sticking out of his chest.