Track of the Beast: A Brock Stone Adventure

Stone’s sharp eyes picked out a dense thicket heavy with young pine trees. It stood out bright green among the older, sturdier oaks. Inside it, he found a tiny graveyard. He immediately noticed that the rusted wrought iron fence was laid out in a pentagonal shape. Highly unusual. The gravestones were simple, hand-hewn, the names and dates so washed out that they were almost illegible. There were five of them, one set near each corner of the fence. Standing in the center was a badly eroded obelisk. At its base lay a large stone slab. Engraved on it were a sunburst and a cross. Above these symbols was the name JA Weishaupt along with the dates May 2, 1776-July 4,1776.

Stone frowned, took the sight in. There was more here than met the eye. And then he put it all together.

“Alex! Come here!” he shouted.

Alex hurried over. “What is it?” He glanced down at the large slab. “The kid only lived two months? And died on Independence Day? That’s sad.”

Stone shook his head. “This isn’t a real grave.”

Alex ran a hand through his ginger hair. “How can you be sure?”

“Take a close look at the sunburst. What do you see?”

Alex knelt for a closer look. He reached to touch a smaller image engraved at the center of the image. “The All-Seeing Eye is carved in the middle of the sun. It’s so faint I didn’t see it at first.”

Stone nodded. “And what about the cross?”

“It’s a double-barred cross,” Alex said, a note of surprise in his voice.

“And look at the outline of the fence. It’s pentagonal, but if you were to draw lines between the corners, it becomes…”

“A pentagram,” Alex said thoughtfully. “But what does it all mean?”

“These are all symbols associated with a group founded by Johann Adam Weishaupt on May 2, 1776. It’s a group many believed had among its members some of our Founding Fathers.”

Alex sprang back from the false grave as if it were infectious. “The Illuminati! You think it’s real?”

Stone grimaced. The question brought back memories of his past, things he had faced during his time in the service and in the intervening time before he had returned home the previous year.

“I believe so,” Stone said. “Here. Help me move this slab.”

“I’m not going to be of much help with one hand,” Alex said. “Can’t you move it yourself, mister football hero?”

“Stop trying to dodge the hard work, you laggard. You’re plenty strong, and I don’t want to accidentally break this.”

Carefully, they worked the slab free and scooted it to the side. Beams of morning sunlight filtered through the canopy of forest above them cast the space beneath it in a golden glow. Beneath them lay an empty vault, six feet long, three wide, and four deep. The floor was lined with gray flagstone, and a symbol was etched in the center stone.

Alex sprang nimbly down into the vault and knelt over the symbol. “It’s the square and the compass, the Freemasonry symbol. But it looks like it was scratched into the surface in a hurry. Like they wanted it known that they’d been here.” He looked up at Stone and frowned. “Why would…”

He didn’t get to finish the question. At that moment, the floor beneath him gave way and, with a shout of surprise, he fell from sight.

Interlude 1

May, 1927

Five Years Ago

Brock Stone had been cold before, but this place was different. The wind sliced through his layers of clothing and numbed him to the bone. He moved robotically, his boots crunching through the frozen crust and plunging deep into the snow beneath. High above, a single cloud drifted across the azure sky like a ship adrift at sea. The sight filled him with sadness. It also strengthened his resolve.

He kept climbing, ascending the frozen slope with painstaking slowness. The stark white peak in the distance seemed to grow no closer. Not that he planned on going that far.

“Just a little bit farther.” It was a refrain had repeated at least twenty times since beginning his ascent. The truth was, the few locals who had been willing to talk with him had provided only a general idea of where his destination lay, and not a single guide had been willing to take the job, even after he offered to triple their pay.

In the distance, he caught a glimpse of something moving. He squinted, shielded his eyes. Something was moving up the surface of a sheer cliff up ahead. It appeared to be human, or at least roughly shaped like one. Perhaps a Tibetan macaque? He immediately dismissed the idea. The altitude was far too high, and if he didn’t miss his guess, the thing was closer to the size of a fully grown man. Perhaps that meant the monastery was close by!

“Hello!” he shouted. No response. “Can you help me?” The figure kept climbing.

With renewed vigor, Stone fought his way up the frozen slope, slipping and sliding but still moving upward until he finally reached the base of the cliff. Chest heaving from exertion, he took a few steps back and looked it up and down. The climber had vanished. Stone needed to hurry if he was to catch up.