Tartarus

By David Gearing

The dwell below the streets of humans.

They live below the humes, below their streets. Below their houses. They live content that they will never fit in with hume society. But not all of them are happy about it.

Thinking it's time to finally start dating again, Kai McLean finds puts himself out on the market for a new relationship. Rhiannon, the first woman to respond to Kai's online dating profile is beautiful, but there's something that reminds Kai of the woman that left him.

A simple first date leaves Kai and Rhiannon on the run to the tunnels deep below Seattle for safety. But the dwellers of Tartarus don't take too kindly to outsiders.

A thrillingly fast-paced novel, TARTARUS will make you keep the lights on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Gearing
• Release date: Jul 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005827960

David Gearing

David Gearing is a recent transplant from the harsh Arizona deserts to the green forests of the Pacific Northwest. He plots, he games, he pretends to be his own living room rockstar when no one is looking. His other books range from various genres from thrillers to gothic horror and beyond. You can find him at his webpage DavidGearingBooks.com or at his publisher's website AkusaiPublishing.com

Book preview

1

Crab-Girl

She had to have been no older than six-years-old. She carried herself like a little person, walking independently from her mother, who kept her eyes on the shelves, not on her daughter.

It was all fine and dandy to Laelia. She had found the upper world to be busy and nonsensical and so, so beautiful. There were colors everywhere, and when other people went—shopping, they called it—when they went shopping, there were too many colors to count.

It seemed like the companies had created those colors, remaking the rainbows, just to fit their products.

It had been years, maybe even a decade, since Laelia had seen a rainbow. She had heard the rain dropping on the covers up above. Sometimes, she’d catch the trickling noises from the drains. And smile.

She had always wanted to go up, stare into the sky and let the rain drop into her eyes. She wanted to see a gray, cloudy sky in the daytime. She would kill to see a rainbow. See what it was really like.

She remembered what it was supposed to look like thanks to only a few years of school.

Before she was rushed underground, her life taken away from her.

Before Laelia had become who she is now. A person, from the underground—from Tartarus. In Greek legends, this is where the Titans were held away from Mount Olympus. Prisoners. Held captive for their mistakes.

Laelia had often asked the question, what was their mistake.

When she had snuck out to the open world, just as she had done that night, she received her answer.

She was born. Born with hands that were not quite hands, but large fingers. The kids had called her Crab Girl when she was still an Overworlder. She cried the first time she heard it, never knowing, really, what it meant.

What they meant by calling her that.

Now at twenty-two years old, she had seen that the world was a different place than she thought it was.

Different, but all the same.

She knew that people were good and that some were bad.

But mostly bad.

They talked amongst themselves, and she overheard conversations.

Just as she sat in the front of a supermarket, with a huge red circle and a red dot in the middle, a target symbol on the front. She sat on the metal benches and watched as the people spoke about what was on the news and who had died next.

They spoke about horrible things. Uncivilized things.

And it made it that much easier, really, to do this.

To watch and observe.

Laelia might have wanted to be one of them. Once. But that was years ago.

Now she just wanted to be among them.

That was different.

The little girl had moved from the aisle with her mother to the next one. There were bright pink girl dolls and blue boy dolls hanging on a white pole. The girl walked up to it, in her short pants and yellow shirt that was already dirty from eating something brown.

Probably chocolate. Laelia had tasted chocolate when she was younger. She remembered the cream, the way it melted on her tongue. She remembered liking it. Very, very much.

Laelia watched the girl take the doll off the rack, then hold it near her. She clutched it tightly to her chest. She seemed to hear something, and her head whipped back to the end of the aisle. Her little pigtails whipped her in the face from the rapid movement.

Laelia giggled. She was cute, if not interesting. Such a strong personality for someone so young. She had watched many grown Overworlders for many years. Not many had the same strength of personality, such will, as this girl did.

Laelia stood up, rested her hands in her dirty khaki pockets and walked slowly. Her brown hoodie jacket had been opened, revealing a red shirt that was torn in half and let her belly button out into the world.

She liked the breeze, the way it helped her move. She had seen her reflection in the mirror, and loved how she was able to show off her body, if not her hands.

Her hands were something else.

Her eyes and her mouth, they were something else, too.

She had spent so much time hiding her hands because she could.

But her eyes and her face, there was only so much that Laelia could do about those. Her eyes were beautiful and unique, her mother once told her. Told her before she was whisked away from her.

Her mother may have been the only one who truly did appreciate what a beautiful little girl she was. And now, she was Laelia. Laelia the fierce. Laelia the terrible. Laelia the hunter.

She kept her eyes looking down on the white tile floor. It was gray speckled, with thin gray lines between each of the panels. Laelia made it a game to keep from stepping on the lines. She had small feet and it was easy to keep them inside the tiles at all times.

But this meant she had to walk slowly, deliberately through the aisles.

As she walked, she tried to keep her mouth closed, her eyes down.

People walked by her, couples holding hands. Pairs of women shopping together while their kids cried in the red carts together.

Everyone being together.

The little girl with the blond pigtails walked slowly to the end of the aisle and peered around. She was looking for Mommy, probably.

What she didn’t know was Mommy was busy flipping through her phone and comparing something she saw on that screen to the round mirror thing on the white metal shelf. Mommy would have no idea that her daughter was not by her side.

She had no idea where her daughter was.

Which was alright by Laelia’s standards. It made this that much easier.

Laelia reached the broad aisle just opposite of the little girl. She stared, watching the girl looking at the doll, then looking at the boy doll. They were dressed in red shirts and blue pants on the boy with blue skin. The girl had pink skin, a yellow dress that came out in a frilly fabric from the waist to around the doll’s knees.

It was clever, and beautiful. Such colors. Such softness and touches and smells.

Too many smells. So many colors.

The people up here, they didn’t value what they had. They didn’t know what it was like to lose.

Not like Laelia.

The girl grabbed the dolls in both of her hands and then put the girl doll back on the hook. Mom, the girl said. Her voice squeaked, unsure.

Laelia took a step forward.

The girl must have seen her. She turned to look at Laelia. Her eyes narrowed.

Laelia looked down and away.

Then a crackling noise from up above. A voice, announcing that there was a blue Volvo that needed to be moved somewhere.

Laelia looked up, searching the ceiling for the source of the noise. A speaker, someone else was talking.

But as Laelia looked back down at the girl—her target—the girl had locked eyes with her.

Her mouth opened, her tiny pink lips pulled back to show a tiny flap of a tongue and white teeth no bigger than kernels of corn.

Then, she screamed.

Laelia’s eyes were not like the girl’s. Not like anyone’s.

This had already taken too long. She needed to act.

Act now.

Laelia pulled her claw-like hands from the dirty pockets of her trousers and wrapped them around the screaming child.

She screamed louder.

The doll fell to Laelia’s feet, and she kicked it as she left the aisle and searched for the front door.

Oh my god, someone gasped. A young woman holding a black basket in her hands. A basket filled with stuff. Bright, colorful, useless stuff.

And Laelia ran.

Her pushed past the groups of people who stood along the sides. No one actually getting in her way.

They never did.

The girl screamed, louder, punching at her stomach and kneeing her back.

Laelia felt every punch, every knee. But it didn’t matter. It felt fine to her. She had taken punches all her life.

She reached the glass door, resting her three claw-like fingers along on the glass. She pressed against it, pulling it to the side.

Come on, come on.

Someone to her left asked out loud, What’s wrong with her eyes?

Laelia tried not to look into the direction of the voices, but they were everywhere around her. Asking what was wrong with her body, her hands, her eyes.

Then another scream. This time, from a human female adult. That thing has my baby!

Laelia’s jaw tensed.

Thing. Crab-girl. Monster.

Time and time again.

Laelia clutched the girl closer to her with a tight grip. Then, with her free hand, she seized she seized a man who approached her. He wore normal clothes but had a silver badge on his chest. She couldn’t read what it had said, but she had seen badges before.

Police, she remembered. Badges almost always meant police.

Let the girl go, the man said. He held up a hand to keep his distance. Maybe as warning.

But it was empty. He was heavy, nearly balding. He was slow. Laelia could see it already.

Laelia opened her mouth and hissed at the man.

He took a step back, covering his face with his forearm. Jesus Christ, he said. What are you?

The glass door finally opened. Slowly.

Laelia pressed her elbow on the door and shoved her body weight into it.

The girl continued to scream, but the faint smell of popcorn wafted over. She remembered the buttery taste from the scraps she had picked off the trash while wandering the Overworld.

This world. This girl. They didn’t deserve what they had.

And what they had was everything.

Laelia’s stomach grumbled. She burst out of the door, running at full speed while keeping the girl to her side. The body flopped up and down, kicking.

Until the girl stopped screaming. But she began to cry, her voice was hoarse. It would be better if she tired herself out.

It was the worst part about hunting. Listening to the wails.

She was hungry, though, and Laelia needed to eat. And nothing gave her the blood-pumping thrill like hunting for food in the middle of the afternoon.

2

An Experience

When Kai Eliud McLean had opened himself up to the prospect of meeting another woman, he was half drunk off a bottle of sake he bought just because it was on sale. The moment seemed fleeting, and he knew the sake was a potent serum, giving him the balls to be the man he knew he never was. He bought it was because it was on sale, in a pink bottle, and unfiltered sweet. The sediment on the bottom wasn’t noticeable, but the hint of sweetness and flowery notes were enough to make drinking sake an experience.

And if Kai needed anything lately, it was an experience.

It was easier than he thought it would be. When asked what he was all about, he was honest.

At first.

Then, it was a few edits and bits of poetic flair, maybe a Shakespearean reference or two, and he was done.

If someone didn’t snatch him up, he might just have to give up women altogether.

He had decided it was a time to drink thanks a special anniversary. The second one, actually. Two years since he became a bachelor. When his true love looked at him longingly, then with a tear, packed her bags while he was gone and left.

She did leave a note, at least. But a lot of good it did her.

He crumpled it up after reading the first line and cried himself to sleep watching late night TV. It was one of the last restful, sober nights he had in years.

Thanks, Becky.

His bed had seen less action. He slept on the couch most nights, cuddled up with a pillow behind his head, behind his lower back. The back pain could be settled the easy way and sleeping on his bed.

But why do anything the easy way? History was not made by doing anything the easy way.

And it was all of this, plus a hangover sent from Satan himself, that swirled around in his dazed, confused, and very, very tired brain.

The message sat in his inbox.

You have a response! it said.

He blinked twice, clicked the left mouse button on the message, and closed his eyes.

The Dell desktop computer clicked twice before the internal whirring and gadgets stopped moving.

Kai opened a single eye, then the other.

In his little one-bedroom apartment, his computer desk had to be right next to his bed. All of the feng shui books he read warned against this, but again, little was ever solved by playing it safe.

The message was from a beautiful girl. Dark hair with light red streaks that were dark enough to maybe be real highlights.

But she looked young. Ten years younger than his own thirty-three years old. He taught high school, and the idea of getting caught with a younger person was scandalous.

As a male teacher, he knew he was under watch. Local news stations loved to show teachers behaving badly with their students. It was scandal, which meant it drew eyes and ears, which meant it drew money and notoriety.

Nope. Kai didn’t need that shit.

And yet, her message had some poise to it.

It read: Hi, I liked what I saw, and you seem like a relatively sane guy. Would you like to meet up?

He clicked on her picture, pulling up a profile picture. She smiled, facing the camera but her eyes looking off to the side, her tongue sticking out slightly between her teeth. There was a skyline behind her—Seattle’s skyline. About a half hour from where he lived.

Her face had taken up nearly a quarter of the screen. She had thin lips, dark red lipstick and a slightly upturned nose that had a classic beauty to it. Blonde hair brushed away to the side of her head. He studied her eyes and she reminded him of someone.

Someone who he didn’t want to name, but goddammit, it was just like her.

Like Becky.

He turned away from the screen, running his hands through his hair.

He had seen Becky everywhere for two weeks after she left.

Okay, it was two months.

She was right behind him in the grocery store, her blond hair catching his attention as she turned away just as he looked at her. He saw her at the movies, holding hands with another guy who was younger than he was. He even saw her at restaurants, when he drove, along the sidewalks when he walked into the bakeries to pick up a donut or cupcake.

But it was never her.

But he saw her. Every time.

Saw her, but didn’t see her.

Was he doing it again?

Kai turned around on his black swivel office chair. It was a smooth swivel. He caught himself on the corner of the tiny, light wood desk and stared into her eyes again.

No. They were green.

Becky’s eyes were blue. Not green.

Blue.

Becky, she had speckles of brown along the edges of her eyes. He had stared into them more times than he wanted to admit at that moment. He had run his fingers through her shoulder-length hair, pulled her closer, let his body come into contact with hers. Her legs were always cold. Freezing thighs, though she constantly complained about her feet being on fire.

Kai stared into her