The Secret of the Stones, Ernest Dempsey [popular books to read TXT] 📗

gun as one of the bullets found its mark, sending the man reeling backward, shock on his face as he collapsed to the ground.

In another instant motion, Ulrich had spun forward and grabbed Allyson around the neck, immediately putting the gun to her head.

Tommy looked on helplessly. He stood frozen, completely stunned by what had just transpired.

“Drop the weapon, Mr. Schultz. I may still have need of you, so don’t do anything stupid.”

Sean was crouching down on his perch, now looking at the scene below. Joe was still down, wet crimson soaking his shirt.

“Mr. Wyatt, if you would be so kind as to join us now.” Ulrich motioned for him to return the way he’d just gone.

Going down was much easier than the jumping up had been, and in less than a minute, Sean was back on the ground. The guard had retrieved his gun and now had it trained on Wyatt.

To say that Sean was frustrated would be an understatement. He’d forgotten the cardinal rule of his training. Always check a detainee for other weapons. Now they were all back to square one. Worse than that, now Allyson was in danger. “Leave her out of this,” he demanded.

She squirmed against Ulrich’s grip, and a look of terror filled her eyes.

“Now, now,” Ulrich whispered. “Don’t struggle. I would hate to have to kill you, my dear.” He didn’t respond to Sean’s request.

Her mouth couldn’t form the angry words she wanted to say. The man’s vice-like grip around her throat barely let in enough air.

“Let her go!” Sean shouted this time. “She has nothing to do with this! The cops are on their way. What are you going to do? It’s over!”

The blond man answered with a twisted smile. “Then I suppose we should hurry.” He motioned with his gun at the area Sean had pointed out a few minutes before. “Now! Or I kill her right here!”

“We can’t just leave him here.” Wyatt motioned to his friend lying on the ground, motionless.

“You will do as I say, or she dies!”

Tommy and Sean had no choice. For a moment, their eyes locked, desperate and bewildered. Then they started trudging into the forest, Sean leading the way. The guard was right behind them, holding his gun at waist level, followed by Ulrich, who’d taken his arm from around Allyson’s neck and forced her to walk in front of him, holding the pistol at the small of her back.

“What are we gonna do, Sean?” Tommy asked. His voice sounded like a child’s.

“I don’t know, Schultzie.” He looked around as they waded through the tall grass, hoping the police were on their way. “But we’re running out of time.”

55

Eastern Georgia

Ulrich forced the group to move quickly through the forest. He had overheard Sean’s conversation with the police so time, he knew, was running out. With a feverish urgency bordering on madness, the blond man trudged through the undergrowth. He snapped his head left and right every time a twig broke under someone’s foot.

The guard, too, looked uneasy, making sure he covered a 360-degree area with his gun as he swung it around wildly.

Sean’s thoughts wandered to Joe. He hoped that the police would find him fast enough to get him medical treatment. The wound hadn’t looked good, and Mac must have lost a great deal of blood in a short amount of time.

After a few more minutes of marching through the trees, the group arrived at the spot Wyatt had seen earlier.

Tommy stared at one of the most impressive monuments he had ever seen. Loose dirt surrounded it, indicating that the massive thing was mostly buried, if not totally underground.

The woods had been somewhat flat up until they got to that point. There, the forest floor gave rise to a small hill with the enormous totem pole at its base. Just beyond it, at the foot of the hillside, gaped an opening to a cave.

Ulrich motioned toward the entrance, “Quickly, inside!”

The three captives obeyed and swiftly scurried over to the opening. It was a hole about seven feet high and four feet wide. A pile of grass and dirt lay next to it, alluding to the fact that the entrance had been covered for centuries. Ulrich removed a pen-sized aluminum flashlight from a cargo pocket. The guard did the same.

Sean turned around at the edge of the dark corridor. “Are we supposed to just go on through the dark?”

The blond replied with a fake pitying grin and tossed him the small light. “Lucky for you, I brought an extra. Now move!” He flicked the gun, herding Sean and the others into the darkness.

Sean led the way in with Tommy just behind, followed by the stumpy guard, then Allyson and Ulrich. There were cobwebs everywhere, and it was a struggle just to maintain sanity while brushing them away every five or six feet. Apparently, the spiders that had spun them had long since died or given up trying to catch anything in the ancient place.

The walls of the walkway were smoothly carved stone cut with laser precision. Overhead, the ceiling was also a perfectly scored surface.

Tommy broke the awed silence as they moved farther underground. “Do you realize what we are seeing? No one has been inside of this hall for maybe thousands of years. We are the first humans to set foot here in millennia.”

“Yeah,” Sean responded only half interested. The current situation overwhelmed his admiration of the surroundings.

The passageway came to a corner and turned ninety degrees to the left, sloping down somewhat steeply. Another twenty or so feet, the same turn was repeated, continuing downward almost like a spiral staircase without the stairs.

After turning left several times, descending