A Crack in the World: The Reckoning

C. L. Schneider

Mar 85 min read

James Mordechai

Blurb

USSR, 1941. In the frozen desolation of Siberia, a shaman unleashes an ancient entity from its slumber deep within an abandoned salt mine. England, 1996. The echoes of that distant ritual reach across time as Meren-Ptah, a foe the RPI Gran Maestro occultist Gino Marcotti, once vanquished, returns. With the line between the living and the dead blurred, Gino and Carter Williams must unravel the mystery connecting the pats to the present. What dark force has been awakened, and how can the mistakes of history be undone? When the past and the paranormal collide, only the dead hold the key to saving the living.

Excerpt

Not all the expedition’s men had died.

Atom Melkonyan, the little Armenian physicist, who had been highly recommended by the

Soviet Academy of Science for this mission, was still standing. Barely.

His wide-open eyes – irises mere black dots in a sea of panicked white – had seen the demise

of all his companions. Each one of them fallen at a different stage of the expedition. The latest

corpse’s hand was sticking out from the snow a few metres away. Fingers all twisted and

mangled, the snowflakes had hardly any purchase and were slipping down onto the snow-

covered soil. Atom could not remember his name, just one of the many occultists that were

hoping to reach the salt mine in this desolate and wild part of Siberia.

Freezing cold wind was storming his dark beard and increasing the size of the thin icicles that

already covered his moustache. He could not see beyond a five-metre radius, so strong was the

snowstorm that had caught them by surprise. He could not feel his toes and he had given up

already on the idea of recovering them. He would forever be without toes, three shoe sizes

shorter. If he ever returned home.

What were the chances of surviving this ordeal? How could he hope to make it out alive? He

would just end up like his comrades. A chunk of meat in a vast natural open-air refrigerator. Like those woolly mammoths that are still found under metres of ancient ice.

He held tight to his backpack, hoping that squeezing his hands on something would help keep

them from the cold, and thus avoid losing his fingers too.

He peed and shat himself and that meant additional problems. His father had always told him

“never mix shit and ice”. But his old man was an Armenian priest, what did he know about

Siberia?

He could not change, he could not wash himself, he had to live with that for the time being.

He knew that the salt mine was close by, but in that white hell there was no north or south, not even up and down. Just white, pure white. That was starting to give him hallucinations. The

same hallucinations that his comrades suffered. One by one, each of them told of shadowy

figures or tall creatures in the storm. They had started to run away in desperation, removing

their coats and gear, bumping into trees and rocks or simply getting lost in the tundra. Those

that were found dead had their eyes open like they saw Death itself, jaws dislocated by the

shock and stiff limbs. Someone suggested they died of fear.

Whatever their cause of death was, Atom knew it was starting to happen to him as well. He

huddled, clenching his knees with the hands. He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight. He

rolled back and forth like a child in search of his mother’s comfort. The cold was now so intense that his lungs were getting tingly from the frozen air.

He stayed like this for what he thought were days.

Until someone or something touched his shoulder. He startled like when we suddenly wake up

thinking we are falling from our bed, but we are actually safe and sound under our sheets. That

comparison immediately crossed his mind, so he didn’t even bother to check if there was

someone else around. But it happened again and again, until he convinced himself to open his

eyes for the first time.

He had been tricked and he saw it. Amongst the whirlwinds sweeping the land and the blazing

snowflakes, a shadowy figure appeared from nowhere. It had no defined shape. Just a smudge

on the white canvas. Atom looked at it for a long time, until he decided to close his eyes again.

When he reopened them, the smudge was gone.

They are playing with me, he thought, feeling the desperation growing inside him. Who is they,

though?

He turned his face by a few degrees, exposing his cheeks to the icy wind. Or so he hoped.

What if it was one of his lost comrades trying to find the others? He stood up, his heart pumping more blood now that some hope came closer to his mental grasp. He scanned the terrain blasted by the blizzard. The corpse’s hand wasn’t there any longer, now fully covered by the snow. He could recognise a tree, or at least a dead trunk. A low bush covered by the snow to its right. And that undefined shape, now at a different spot.

“Hey,” he shouted, hoping the other comrade could hear him above the howling winds.

He attempted a step, but his boots were covered by twenty centimetres of heavy snow. He

realised he was getting buried alive. He tried to pull his leg up, but it was caged in. He then dug

with his gloved hands until he saw the dark leather. He did the same for the other boot and

stepped towards the figure that… disappeared again.

“Hey!” he yelled once more.

His warm breath exhaled like a spent candle. More life that escaped from him. He had to avoid

losing body warmth. He had to find another way to attract his attention. Atom started to wave his arms, like when his small town’s kids welcomed a biplane passing above them.

The walk towards the spot where the figure stood was revealed to be challenging. The snow

was so high now that it was more like wading through a thick silty lagoon than walking.

Where are you? You bastard.

He reached the dead trunk and leaned on it to get some rest and protection from the wind.

Even if I find him, what’s it going to change? Are we going to cuddle together until we both

die?

A sharp sound entered his ears, like bats clicking in search of their prey in the hot air of the

summer. Louder than the howling of the wind, sharper than any other sound he had heard. Its

frequency increased, and he thought that whoever or whatever was producing it was getting

closer. He turned around in panic.

About the Author

Meet James Mordechai, the enigmatic self-published author of weird and horror books. His novels offer the perfect escapism from reality, transporting readers to other realms where horror, mystery, and the supernatural mingle in a unique blend that pushes the boundaries of the genre. Although Mordechai enjoys anonymity, his writing has been extensively read, studied, and acclaimed in other realities, earning him a devoted following in the shadows. When he's not weaving his intricate stories, Mordechai can be found in Sussex, England, tending to his garden and spending time with his two children.