Hell Holes: What Lurks Below
Donald Firesmith
Hell Holes 1 :
What Lurks Below
Donald Firesmith
Hell Holes 1: What Lurks Below
By Donald Firesmith
Copyright 2015-2017 by Donald G. Firesmith
Fifth Edition: May 2017
10 9 8 7 6 5
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All characters and events in this work are figments of the author’s imagination.
1. Science Fiction 2. Paranormal 3. Fantasy 4. Apocalyptic
5. Action-Adventure
You may purchase autographed books by contacting the author via:
Magical Wand Press
20 Bradford Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15205
https://donaldfiresmith.com
This book is typeset in Times New Roman and Mortis.
Cover design and layout by Ellie Kay Bockert Augsburger of Creative Digital Studios
Editing by Heidi Brayer and Paul Smith of Wise Gray Owl
Interior design by Donald G. Firesmith
Praise for Hell Holes
“I couldn’t put this book down! I started it just after breakfast and finished it around eleven that same night! I loved the way Mr. Firesmith combined science and a bit of paranormal to tell his story. James Rollins watch out!”
Lori Beasley Bradley, author of The Legend of the Swamp Witch and The Ruby Queen: Book 1 of The Soiled Dove Sagas
“I enjoyed my time in Firesmith’s world. I did not want to leave. I really got a kick out of it, and would happily come back for more. Recommended.”
MJ Kobernus, author of The Guardian: Blood in the Sand and The Guardian: Blood in the Snow
“This book rocks.”
Barton Paul Levenson, author of Dark Gods of Alter Telluria
“A quick, enjoyable read. Full of action and fraught with danger”
Dave Robertson, author of Strange Hunting, Strange Hunting II, and The Brave and The Dead
“The book is an easy and quick read and an action-filled one that you’ll imagine as a TV series or a movie with no difficulty.”
Olga Núñez Miret, author of Escaping Psychiatry
Cataloging-in-Publication (CIP) Data
Name: Firesmith, Donald.
Title: Hell Holes: What Lurks Below / by Donald Firesmith.
Description: Fourth edition. | Pittsburgh : Magical Wand Press, 2016. | Series: Hell Holes, Volume 1.
Summary: An oil company sends team of scientists to investigate huge holes that mysteriously appear in the tundra of the Alaskan North Slope. | Audience: Adult. | Language: English
Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-31043-121-0 (ebooks).
Subjects: BISAC: Fiction / Action & Adventure. | Fiction / Fantasy /Paranormal. | Fiction / Science Fiction / General. | LCSH: American–Fantasy–Fiction. | American–Paranormal–Fiction. | American–Science Fiction–Fiction. | GSAFD: Adventure fiction. | Fantasy fiction. | Science fiction.
Classification: DDC 813.62 F57h 2016
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: An Unexpected Phone Call
Chapter 2: Into the Pit
Chapter 3: Hell Day
Chapter 4: Escape from Pump Station 2
Other Books by Donald Firesmith
The Team
The Demons
Acknowledgements
Dedication
The Siberian Holes
About the Author
Thank You
Preface
Though the sun had finally dipped behind the rounded mountains of the Brooks Range, the temperature remained well above freezing, leaving the ground moist from the morning’s rains. It was quiet except for the soft sound of the breeze blowing through the short shrubs and sedges that covered the tundra of the North Slope.
An arctic fox silently patrolled his territory. He sniffed the ground, following the scent of a female that had passed by earlier that evening. She had brushed against a bearberry bush, and he stopped to breathe in her enticing smell. She was in heat, and he hoped to father her second litter of the season.
Though the fox occasionally heard the distant rumble of big rigs driving north along the Dalton, carrying supplies to Deadhorse and the oil fields around Prudhoe Bay, he paid them no mind. The humans were several miles away, and unlike wolves and wolverines, they posed no threat.
The fox abruptly stopped, turning his head to the side in puzzlement. He heard a faint hum that seemed to come from the ground below him. It was a new sound, one that he had not heard before. It rapidly increased in volume until it became a piercing, high-pitched whine, far beyond the dull hearing of the humans in their trucks. In agony, the fox rolled on the ground, desperately pawing at his ears in a vain attempt to stop the pain. He yipped and whined, adding his voice to the faraway howling of wolves.
The sound suddenly stopped, replaced by a deep rumble as the ground beneath the fox began to shake. Slowly, foot by foot, a huge circle of tundra the size of a large pond began to push itself above the surrounding tundra. Carrying the fox upward, it rose until it reached the height of a caribou’s antlers. Along its circular boundary, loose wet dirt and ragged patches of plants fell off, forming a ring-shaped pile that surrounded the rising ground.
With a sharp jerk, the massive cylindrical plug of earth underneath the fox stopped rising and began sliding downward. No longer incapacitated by pain, the terrified fox sped across the quivering ground, running for his life as it continued its unrelenting collapse. He ran toward the edge, arriving just as the ground beneath him slipped below the short ring of loose and muddy soil that marked its circumference. With a desperate leap, the fox jumped up, landing on the ring’s slippery slope as the ground continued its collapse into the rapidly deepening crater. He slipped, sliding perilously backwards before desperately pawing his way back up and over the top. Once down on the solid ground surrounding the huge hole, he ran away as if he were chased by a pack of starving wolves.
The frightened fox was several hundred yards from the hole when the rumbling stopped. Still running for his life, he did not see the brilliant blue burst of light that shot skyward out of the huge crater. But he did see dozens of similar blue beams briefly light up the northern horizon. As suddenly as they appeared, the lights winked out. The fox did not stop until he had placed several miles between himself and the pit. Silence returned to the North Slope, while the scent of sulfur and decay filled the air above the newly formed hell holes.
