“The Starets's Hunt” Read online

thought he saw the telemetry wink out on him, but the monitor never did go blank on him.

 

  The three young men all stood in complete silence, first looking at the Geiger’s monitor, then looking out around the trashed out church. There was a breeze making its presence known in the autumn night. It rustled abandoned papers and made creaking noises with some of the church’s very old and very charred wood.

 

  “Looks like we’ll have to go to the basement,” Julius finally said, breaking the eerie silence. For it was in the direction of a set of stairs where the Geiger had registered some radiation.

 

  With no further conversations, the trio cautiously made their way to the flight of stairs. The stairwell was a patch of pitch black against the darkened church in the night. They all turned on their flashlights and didn’t have to worry about being seen by any of the neighbors at this point.

 

  Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Edward and Julius moved to the side and let Wayne proceed with his Geiger counter.

 

  “I don’t see any glow around, do you guys,” Wayne asked while glancing at the monitor once again.

 

  Neither Julius nor Edward said anything, though their heads shook in response. Again, silence. Wayne narrowed his detection field toward the darkest corner of the church’s basement. Each time he pointed the Geiger in that direction the radiation levels increased, though not to dangerous levels that would fatal harm the boys, but definitely high enough to register caution.

 

  “We’ll be okay,” Wayne informed them curtly.

 

  Edward, still not totally trusting the bookworm, looked at him through his own ski mask with incredulity.

 

  “Look, it’s like you said yourself a few minutes ago, there’s going to be some radiation. And, trust me, if it were that dangerous I wouldn’t be here!”

 

  That last comment was more assuring than anything else Wayne said to Edward or even his friend Julius. The two stout ones glanced at each other and nodded at Wayne’s point. Quickly, all three made their way to the blackened corner, stepping over debris and dodging wooden stalactites that hung in the basement from the first floor. The hanging wood from the gaping ceiling above the basement was a testament to just how extensive the fire-damage was within the church. They slowed down once they got within ten meters the corner.

 

  There was no more need to have the Geiger counter on at this point. So Wayne was about to turn off the device until he noticed a very odd reading on the monitor.

 

  “Well, son of a bitch,” said Wayne so softly Edward and Julius barely heard him. The two stopped their advancement toward the corner and whipped their heads around to see what was Wayne’s consternation.

 

  Wayne was shaking his head while tapping gently on the side of the counter’s monitor. “The Geiger’s reading negative!”

 

  Edward looked to Julius for understanding. All that he did was shrug his shoulders and nimbly shook his masked head for lack of comprehension.

 

  “And the Sun is in the center of the solar system…so what, Wayne!”

 

  “Edward, Geiger counters read existing radiation. For this to read in the negative would be like a weather forecaster predicting how much rain would not fall during a storm…an interesting concept, but it doesn’t make sense!”

 

  Edward was stoically nodding his head as he looked off to no particular place, thinking of the metaphor that Wayne described. “For once, C3-PO, you and I agree on something!”

 

  “Well, I’m going in,” Julius said with impatience.

 

  Edward snapped out of his pensive mode and followed Julius, while Wayne remained at his spot, letting the two pros do their thing. He kept his eyes on the monitor of the Geiger, noting how that each time he pointed it away from the dark corner the telemetry went back to either zero or mere traces of radiation from the burnt-up church.

 

  He also noted how, this time, the audio portion of the counter did not ping when it read negative. Rather, slurred and elongated waves of noises he had never heard before generated from the taped-up speakers.

 

  “This is getting too freakin’ weird, guys,” he said, now with apprehension in his voice, if not, outright fear. “Maybe we should—you know, get out of here?”

 

  Edward and Julius ignored him. They were too busy thinking of the moneymaking potential of whatever item was in that corner. When they finally got to the corner, there was a disappointed sigh from Edward.

 

  “There’s nothing here, except more debris!” Edward’s voice was still at a whisper, but its decimal was undoubtedly up.

 

  Without saying a word, Julius went directly into the corner, took his miniature flashlight and shined his light in the area.

 

  Julius’ inspection came across a corner of the basement’s carpet. At least what was left of it. He grabbed hold of it and pulled the carpet back with some effort. And there, he and Edward saw the outline of a sealed doorway, built right into the concrete floor. In the center of that small door—approximately four square feet—was a medallion stylistically depicting a biblical mythological scene with Jesus Christ holding some fish and bread, surrounded by a score of men. They all recognized the symbol from when various parts throughout the church. It was the Russian Orthodox Church of Lincoln’s official emblem. Encircling the medallion were several Russian words and what appeared to be a date: 1891.

 

  By the time Julius had moved the corner of the singed carpet out of the way completely, Wayne had moved in with his Geiger counter still on. There was no mistaking it, the Geiger’s monitor was registering negative readings and the audio indicator was doing a creepy rendering of a melancholy piece. This time, Edward and Julius were there to see and hear it for themselves.

 

  “Turn it off for now, will you,” Julius asked his friend. Wayne merely shrugged and obliged Julius.

 

  Edward examined the rectangular outline. He ran his gloved hands around its perimeter and over the medallion, pushing it and turning at the slightly raised artwork. He hoped, somehow, the relief would be a secret key to opening the door. The door was kept safe from the fire due to the carpet that had been covering it. “Don’t see any handles or knobs…makes me wonder if they have any treasures down there!”

 

  “Whatever’s down there, they felt it was important enough for them to lock and chain it underground,” Julius said, also getting excited about the potential loot of wealth.

 

  “How do we know the church members didn’t get whatever’s inside, while the church was burning,” Wayne pointed out, almost more of a suggestion than a question.

 

  “Remember, Jules had to pull up the carpet to get to the door,” Edward reminded Wayne. Wayne nodded in affirmation to himself. “I can tell the carpet hasn’t been moved for years by the staples and glue that was stuck to the carpet…Jules and I have done this for a while now, Wayne. We have a good idea what to look for. Besides, we might as well try it while we’re here, right? For all we know they were too preoccupied with the fire and forgot about whatever’s down there.”

 

  Even Julius had to shake his head at that one. “Uh, I don’t know, Eddie. These churchgoers sure went through a lot of trouble to have this built and covered, just to forget about it during a fire…think about it. If you had something extremely valuable in a vault at home and your house caught on fire, wouldn’t it be one of the things you’d grab with you as yo
u got out of the house?”

 

  Edward and Wayne both nodded their heads at Julius’ point.

 

  “Like you said,” Wayne commented, shifting around to get a better look at the door and its medallion, “you kind of had to go through a lot of work to rip off the carpet covering the door, Julius. And that was after the fire destroyed the carpet. Think how hard it must have been to get to the door before the fire!”

 

  Edward and Julius remained silent, thinking about what was said by their obtuse partner. Wayne continued, his head shaking out of conviction. “No, guys, I think we got it all wrong. The sealed door with no knobs or handles to open it; it was covered by a thick carpet that looks like no one even tried to pull up to get at the door; the Geiger counter always reads negative whenever I point it directly toward the door…if you ask me, I think the church members left whatever’s down there on purpose!”

 

  That speculation left a chill in Edward and Julius. Being in a burned out, dark basement of a very old church in the middle of the night didn’t exactly help, either!

 

  “Come on, Eddie, Jules,” Wayne practically begged. “You guys got several things from here already. Let’s go while we still can!”

 

  “I wonder what the text says,” Julius said as he ignored Wayne, half to himself, half to his two partners in crime.

 

  “It says to never open it,” a Russian-accented male’s voice came from another corner of the basement.

 

  The three young men screamed like tweeny girls! Wayne had hefted the Geiger counter and was actually ready to use it for a weapon.

 

  The man, though yet cloaked in the darkened corner, laughed a dry,