Bridgetown, Issue #1: Arrival Read Online Free

Wayne followed, a reluctant pause preceding any action on
his part.
     
    The fifteen people now at the campsite got to
work. They dug foundations, hammered A-frames together, and helped
one another prop them up to assemble self-standing structures. But
they weren't alone. As the afternoon wore on, more and more cars
and trucks showed up. The gang formed a kind of crescent-shaped
parking lot around the nascent collection of building frames. All
told, there were fifty-five people at the site, by the time the
shadows grew long and the desert heat of the day cooled into the
desert chill of the night.
    By eight o'clock, work was over, and play was
about to begin.
    The summer sun had dropped
beneath the horizon, and the hiss-crack of beer cans popping open
broke out over the fuzz of bong rips and AM radio. It was a choir
of nightmare music for the church ladies back home.
    Susanna was busying herself making small chat
with some of the guests, trying hard to recall some of their
names—to no avail—when Jesse took her by the hand and led her away
from the main group of revelers.
    "Where are we going?" she asked.
    "Let me surprise you."
    He led her down a winding path in the brush.
"Keep an eye out for snakes."
    "Great."
    "I carved out this path a week before. I
wanted to show you something spectacular."
    "Well, you've got my attention."
    They were hiking towards Devil's Peak.
    It was too dark for the
mesa to be visible by anything other than the cutout of its
familiar silhouette in the night sky. A mesa-shaped void of no-star where elsewhere
there was star .
    Jesse stopped in front of her, and she nearly
tripped over him.
    "What is it?"
    "I think—this way," he said. "Yeah, this
way."
    He turned to his right, grabbing her by the
arm, excited. He was moving faster now.
    They went down into a ditch, having to
balance against one another as they progressed into the
crevasse.
    Jesse flicked on his Zippo lighter, casting
just enough light to illuminate a decaying old wooden board against
the mouth of an opening in the earth.
    "Is this a mineshaft?" Susanna asked.
    Jesse handed the Zippo to Susanna. "Hold
this. Keep it burning."
    She did so, as Jesse loosened the board of
rotting wood from its moorings and set it aside.
    "Okay, let's go."
    She followed him into the shaft, without
question. She was too curious to turn back.
    The passageway was only barely big enough for
them to make their way through. It was narrow and short.
    "Some mine this was," she said. "You can't
even get a cart out through this opening."
    "I think it's a service entry. Or an
emergency exit."
    Susanna kept her hands along the walls to
guide her and keep her balance. The texture was chipped, sharp
even. And sort of glassy, which she wasn't expecting. It didn't
feel like rock.
    They proceeded along a steady downward
gradient. She was putting her weight on the balls of her feet, and
while she wasn't exactly in danger of tumbling forward, she
wouldn't trust her stability if she had to go running full bore
ahead.
    "Look straight ahead," Jesse said.
    "I can't see anything. It's pitch black."
    "Wait a sec, let me move out of the way."
    Jesse squatted and pressed up against the
wall. With him out of the way, Susanna could finally make out an
inkling of why he'd brought her down here. It made her gasp:
    Half-there dots on her retinas danced as she
made out that the corridor was not, in fact, pitch-black. An
otherworldly violet light shimmered at the end of the hall, before
it curved out of sight.
    "What…what is that? Where is that coming
from?"
    "Come on, let's keep moving."
    Jesse led her on further. With each step, she
could make out more and more. At last, the end of the tunnel was in
sight. Susanna could see now that the narrow shaft opened up into a
much larger chamber.
    Jesse looked back at her, a loving grin
spread wide across his features. He was bathed in the purple light.
He took a step out beyond the tunnel, into the cavern beyond, and
beckoned Susanna forth