The G***n **** Dark Lotus Books.com Publishers of the Just Plain Weird
Home
by Glenn L Roberts
All Rights Reserved.
“Lori sighed and hurried to catch up. “Why are we doing this, anyway? I’m getting scared, guys. The woods are getting dark. Did anyone bring a flashlight?”
Charlie snorted. “Isn’t that just like a girl? Afraid of a little dark. Of course no one brought a girlie flashlight.” He put his foot on one pedal again, and turned his most haughty stare on the others. “Well, are you comin’ or not?”
“I guess so.” All together, they resumed pedaling.
The sun creeped inch by inch further behind the hills, the shadows in the woods stealthily lengthening as if another world was watching and waiting to emerge.
A rusty fence with multiple strands of barbed wire blocked their path. Without a word, they maneuvered their bikes into the brush to a spot where the wires had been flattened by a fallen tree. They carried their bikes across and rejoined the dirt path.
Within a short time, Lori halted again. “I can’t go on, guys. Club or no club, I’m tired and thirsty. I wanna go home.” No one answered and she looked around. “Guys?”
At the edge of the woods, the others stood and silently stared. Up and above loomed a vast limestone cliff jagged with outcrops and dark holes suggestive of caves. At the top of a slope of crumbled rocks and detritus, just beneath the top-most layer of stone, loomed a vertical cylinder of ancient solid stone bricks, shaped in the form of a tapering dome. The outer face was smooth and gave no hint of any means of entry. The last rays of the sun illuminated the tower redly. Even as they watched, the reflected light narrowed, the lower reaches of the pylon turning grey.
“There it is,” said Sam. “The Round House.”