The Crypts of Eden

PROLOGUE

The old man was euphoric after discovering the hidden temple of Edin.

Three days later he was running for his life.

With a hand over a heart that threatened to misfire in his chest, Professor Jonathan Moore ran in a crooked gait as he and his aide, Montario, sprinted away from something inside the tunnels.

Whatever it was had always stayed beyond the fringe of light, teasing the professor with mere glimpses, but never showing itself in its entirety. It was quick, quiet, and experienced in its approach, picking off team members one by one, and then dragging them into the darkness until their screams died away.

The professor was yielding space as the gap widened between him and Montario. “Montario, you’re moving too quickly!”

Montario stopped and turned, shining the head of the lantern beyond the professor and into the veil of darkness.

There, another glimpse, a flash of the creature with its diaphanous frill fanning around its head like an Elizabethan collar, rattling. And then it was gone as quick as a subliminal message, its tail whipping across the light’s beam until there was nothing but a wall of darkness.

“It’s behind you, Professor!”

“I know!” he cried out, his breathing labored. “I could sense it closing in as I was falling behind!”

Montario flashed the light down the direction of their escape. There was no form of light anywhere, not even the slightest pinprick of illumination to give them any hope that there was an opening somewhere along the corridor’s length.

“Keep going,” said the professor. “This is the way we came in.”

Are you sure?

Montario scanned the lamp. The walls, the ceiling, the floors — they were all the same, all made of black silica as smooth as the surface of glass.

“Keep going,” the old man prodded, shoving Montario forward.

The corridors were like a maze, each intersecting or T-boning into one another.

But the professor didn’t hesitate, using his memory and intellect like a compass, taking one twisted bend after another until a glimmer of light shone at the far end of the corridor.

“There,” said Professor Moore, pointing. “There’s the way out!”

The professor grimaced and went down on a bended knee, a hand clutching his chest.

Montario reached down and tried to hoist the old man to his feet, but failed. “We’re almost there,” he told him calmly.

Something hissed from the cloak of darkness.

Montario flashed the lamp.

And saw nothing.

But they both knew it was there, waiting.

“It’s not gonna let us leave, is it? We’re gonna die here.”

The old man clenched his teeth against the heaviness growing in his chest, waiting for it to pass. “What are you, Montario? Twenty-four? Twenty-five?”

The aide looked at him questioningly. “I’m twenty-eight.”

The old man nodded. “Let me tell you something,” he said, laboring to his feet. “You’ve got plenty of time ahead of you so don’t talk like that.” In the pale light, Montario could see that the professor’s shirt was beginning to take on the sweaty Rorschach blots on his chest, back and underarms. His face was turning slick and gray like the underbelly of a fish.

“You’re gonna to be all right,” Montario told him in a low voice. “You’re gonna be OK.”

The professor feigned a smiled. He knew better. “How far do we have to go?”

Montario pointed the lamp at the direction of the light. “Not too far,” he answered.

The professor gauged the distance, and then, “For me, Montario, it just might be. But just in case.” With a birdlike hand he reached into his shirt pocket, took out a small black book, and held it up within the wash of the lamp’s light. “I want you to take this,” he told him, “and give it to Alyssa.”

“Professor, please—”

“Montario, I’m slowing you down!”

Montario looked past the old man and into the darkness behind him.

But the old man grabbed Montario’s attention by tapping the young man’s chest with his forefinger. “I want you to give this to Alyssa,” he repeated, waving the book. “And I want you to tell her that it exists,” He pressed the tome into Montario’s palm, and then folded Montario’s fingers around it until the aide was in complete possession of the book.

“Professor, you can give it to her yourself.” He tried to hand the book back but the professor refused it.

“Look, Montario. I’m an old man and I’ve lived a good life. But if I don’t make it out of here, then I want you to tell her the truth about Edin, you hear me? I want you to tell Alyssa that what we’ve discovered here is not the biblical paradise that it’s made out to be. Tell her that it’s a cold, dark place that holds a horrible secret.”

“Please, Professor—”

“And tell her about the crypts. Tell her to follow the encrypted passages in that journal like a blueprint. It’ll lead her to the crypts beneath the temple’s cap. And tell her to be prepared,” he told him. “The disclosure of the true occupants lying within may lead her to question her faith.”

“Professor, please! We need to move!”

The professor looked over his shoulder and saw nothing but a veil of darkness that was complete and absolute. “I’ll be right behind you,” he said. And then he grabbed his aide by the elbow and drew him close. “But if I slow you down, Montario, then you leave me behind, you hear me? You leave me… behind.”

Montario nodded.

“I’m serious, Montario. Just make sure that Alyssa gets that book.”

He placed the book in his shirt pocket with reluctance. You’ll be giving this to her yourself.

Something behind them made a noise, a ticking of claws against the black silica floor.

…Tic-Tic… Tic-Tic… Tic-Tic…

Whatever it was it was coming closer to the edge of light — something blacker than black.

Wincing as he clutched his chest, Professor Moore forced Montario toward the light at the end of the corridor. “Move your ass and don’t look back!”

The opening grew brighter, larger, the professor leading him from darkness to the light of hope.

The black silica walls shone with polished veneer as did the floor and ceiling, a marvel of archeological advancement by today’s standards let alone the values of a culture considered to be fourteen thousand years old.

Edin did exist. And by the interpretations of cuneiforms discovered within the temple of Göbekli Tepe, currently the oldest known civilization believed to be 12,000 years old; he was able to decipher the references of a “technologically advanced city to the north” that predated Göbekli Tepe by two thousand years. By following the suggestions cited in cuneiforms, religious texts and ancient scriptures, after years of suffering ridicule from scholars who considered Edin to be as mythical as the city of Atlantis, he finally found his Holy Grail. His previous discoveries no longer mattered. Not the treasures, not the antiquities — there was absolutely nothing that could compare to the crypts that lie within this temple.

Absolutely nothing!

The old man snapped out of his musings, finding himself once again falling behind.

Montario held up. But the professor waved him on. “What did I tell you? I said to keep moving!”

The professor trundled on in an uneven gait, his chest tightening. And then his legs gave, folding underneath him and sending him to his knees. Placing a hand against the wall he tried to sidle his way back to solid footing, but failed.

Montario headed back against the professor’s wishes, the old man waving him away as his face became a contortion of agony. “Don’t worry about me!” he said. “Get the book—” The old man grabbed his chest, grit his teeth, his entire body now a tabernacle of pain. “Just get the book to Alyssa.”

Montario held the lamp in front him as he ran towards the professor and away from the light.

Turn around, you damn fool!

As he approached the professor, he saw the old man pressing a shoulder against the wall as he sat on the floor, his face hanging, the man exhausted.

He held the lamp high. “Profess—” He cut himself off.

What had been trailing them now entered the circle of brightness. Its head probed the light’s fringe, darting in and out to test the severity of its intensity. For the first time they were able to gather a good look at their predator. Its hide was rough and pewter-gray, its eyes golden-yellow with black vertical slits for pupils, and its claws were curved and wickedly keen, obviously designed to rip and tear.

It came into the light, its head lowered, approaching the professor with caution, its tongue lashing in and out, tasting the air, its olfactory senses telling it that its prey was wounded.

In self-preservation Professor Moore held his hand out and whispered, “Run, Montario.”

His aide watched with paralytic terror as the thing advanced toward them.

“Montario, run!”

The sudden cry galvanized the creature into a state of agitation. Suddenly its frill expanded around its head and vibrated intensely. Its mouth opened with threads of viscous saliva connecting its upper and lower jaws. And then it lunged forward, snapping the professor out of the circle of light.

The old man was there one moment, and gone the next. The only indication that the professor had been there at all were his fading cries as the creature dragged him off into the darkness.

As Montario’s mind tried to register the reality of the moment, he cast the light against the empty space where the professor had just been.

He was now the last of his group.

When certainty finally hit him that the professor was gone, Montario headed for the light, hoping that the old man’s heart gave out before the creature pitched him into whatever corner it used to consume its prey.

With his fingers tracing the outline of the book inside his pocket, he ran.

As he dived through the exit hole he was hit by a wave of inhospitable heat, the sun white hot, then turned to face the amoeba-shaped opening that proved to be an invite to deadly consequences.

Immediately he drew distance by crawling along his belly against the sand before turning on his back.

Above him, he watched the birds circle overhead in perfect loops against a uniform blue sky and listened to the soughing of a wind that sounded like soft whispers.

And then he thought about the professor by tracing a finger over the book in his pocket.

It was still there.

After looking at the lamp as if it was something alien, he tossed it aside. It rolled down the hill of desert sand and rock, before coming to a full rest at the bottom. He got to his feet, looked over the harsh, brutal desert landscape, and began to walk south.

He glanced over his shoulder often to make sure that nothing was giving chase.

And when nothing was, he found himself totally grateful.