________
The man with the gun continued to prowl the vast cavern, pausing to spear the beam of his flashlight into every side passage.
Catalina switched on her own flashlight. The killer would surely see the glare, but he was still on the far side of the cavern. It would take him a couple of minutes to cross the big chamber to the tunnel where she and Olivia were hiding because of the curve in the underground river. He would have to circle around it. If they moved fast they could be out of sight in seconds. He would hear their footsteps for some time because the cavern was an echo chamber, but it would take him a while to locate the right tunnel.
“Stop,” Shaved Head shouted. “Police. I won’t hurt you. I’m an undercover cop working for the Feds. I’m here to protect you. That man was a killer, a danger to your community. I was sent to stop him.”
A couple of kids from a town on the outside might have bought that story, Catalina thought. But Shaved Head had picked the wrong teens to try to fool. Fogg Lake youth were raised to be suspicious of outsiders in general. It seemed like a good idea to double down on that concept when you had just watched one stranger kill another stranger.
________
They plunged deeper into the tunnel and rounded a corner, and suddenly the passageway was transformed into a hall of mirrors. At least, Catalina thought, that’s how I see them. She blinked hard but her vision didn’t change. She did not know exactly how things appeared to Olivia, but judging from the way her friend clutched her hand, the visions were just as frightening.
“You’ll get lost,” the killer shouted. His voice echoed down the tunnel. “You’ll die in there. Come out. I promise you’ll be safe. Trust me. I’m a cop.”
Catalina and Olivia kept going. They rounded another curve in the cramped passageway and scrambled to a halt at the sight of the storm of energy—intense swirls of light that Catalina could both sense and see—that barred their way.
“What is it?” Olivia whispered.
“I don’t know,” Catalina said. “But he’s still coming. We’ve got no choice. We’re going to have to go through it.”
“You might as well come out,” the killer said. “Just a matter of time before I find you.”
His voice was more distant now but he had not given up the chase.
Catalina studied the strange storm. “It looks like one of those pictures of giant hurricanes taken from a satellite. There’s sort of an eye in the center.”
“We’ll aim for that,” Olivia said. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
They tightened their grip on each other’s hands and hurtled forward, straight into the core of the vortex of fierce energy. They dove through it.
Catalina struggled to deal with the onslaught of visions, but she was overwhelmed. She fell into the darkness.
________
She opened her eyes some time later to find herself sprawled on the floor of a cavern that was illuminated in an eerie ultraviolet radiance. Beside her, Olivia stirred and levered herself to a sitting position. She looked around, dazed.
“Where are we?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.”
Catalina sat up and surveyed their surroundings. Wonder and dread welled up inside her. She had never seen anything like the cavern chamber in which she and Olivia found themselves. She knew Olivia was just as mystified as she was.
The violent energy storm still seethed at the entrance. The chamber was filled with currents, too, but they were not nearly as violent as those that formed the gate. Hallucinations danced in the paranormal shadows, but they were manageable. Catalina could not entirely suppress them but they did not overwhelm her senses.
She listened closely. There was no sound from the tunnel on the other side. Either the killer had abandoned the hunt or else he had become disoriented and lost. For the moment, it seemed she and Olivia were safe.
The ultraviolet light seeping out of the cavern walls sparked and flashed on shards of some reflective material scattered around the chamber. Olivia picked up one of the jagged slivers and cautiously wiped off the grime.
“It looks like a piece of a mirror,” she said.
Portions of the walls were paneled in the same material. Large rocky formations projected down from the ceiling and thrust up out of the floor.
“Stalactites and stalagmites,” Catalina said.
She got to her feet and went to the nearest formation jutting upward from the mirrored floor. She wiped away a thick accumulation of dirt, exposing a small area of the crystal underneath. The gem-like stone sparked with the colors of dark fire.
“I think the creep with the gun gave up,” Olivia whispered.
“He may have decided that he couldn’t follow us, but what if he decides that all he has to do is go back to the main cavern and wait for us to come out?” Catalina said in the same low tones.
“In that case I guess we’re stuck in here until morning,” Olivia said.
“If he waits that long he’ll be in for a shock, because if we’re not home before breakfast, the whole town will be out searching for us. The caves are the first place they’ll look.”
“It’s going to be a long night,” Olivia said. “But I think we’re safe in here. It’s weird, though, isn’t it? The rocky things hanging down from the ceiling look like crystal chandeliers that someone hasn’t dusted in a very long time.”
Catalina touched one of the broken mirrors on the walls. “Like a ballroom that was once lit up with paranormal light and music.”
Olivia shuddered. “The devil’s ballroom.”
________
Their low-tech, old-fashioned mechanical watches were not affected by the energy in the atmosphere. The night seemed endless but eventually they realized that dawn had arrived.
“He’ll be gone now,” Catalina said. “The whole town will be out searching for us. He won’t dare hang around. We have to go back the way we came, though. That means another trip through that miniature hurricane.”
Olivia studied the energy gate with a thoughtful expression. Catalina knew that she was viewing it with her new senses.
“Hmm,” Olivia said. She went forward cautiously. Her hair lifted in response to the energy in the atmosphere. “I don’t think it’s going to be as scary to get through from this side.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It’s as if it was made to keep people out but not lock them inside.”
Olivia held out her hand. Catalina grabbed it. Together they hurled themselves into the storm—and emerged without incident on the other side.
They found the currents of energy that had led them to the Devil’s Ballroom and followed them back out. They stumbled out of the maze and into the cavern where the murder had occurred. One of the search parties arrived at about the same time.
There was no sign of the killer.
That was the good news.
The really bad news was that there was no evidence of the murder. The body had vanished into the river. The device that the two men had set up in the main cavern had disappeared. There was no indication that anyone other than Catalina and Olivia had been in the caves during the night.
________
Later that afternoon, Catalina met Olivia at their favorite place on the edge of the lake. They sat on the rocks and contemplated the gray mist that hung over the water. Some of the old-timers in town claimed that before the Incident, the lake had not been perpetually shrouded in fog, but neither Catalina nor Olivia could recall a time when sunlight had sparkled on the water.