Two years ago, I posted a chapter for a potential novel. It was all I had: a single chapter. Readers seemed to like it and I was encouraged to write more. Testing Grounds is now finished and scheduled for release in July of this year. I thought I would repost the revised and completed chapter to see what readers think. I hope you enjoy this sneak peek, and that you will support me by purchasing and reading the completed novel when it becomes available.

Until then, Welcome to the Testing Grounds – Chapter 1

Although the stairs and the elevator were only a few feet away, the vehicle ramp looked much more inviting today. Leon elbowed the door of his car closed and pressed the lock button on his key fob, causing the Toyota Corolla to chirp compliantly. He tucked the key into the pocket of his jeans. Shrugging one strap of his backpack over his right shoulder, he set off for the paved car ramp spiraling down to the ground floor of the parking structure.

The circling roadway was meant for vehicles only. Leon knew that. Even if he didn’t, the square metal signs mounted on the wall clearly stated in bold block lettering: “No Pedestrians.” He wasn’t supposed to be walking here. Students late for class and racing up the ramp to find the last few available parking spots would not be expecting a person on foot to suddenly appear in front of them and would more than likely not be able to react in time to avoid running him over. Leon was taking his life in his hands, but he knew that, too. He felt confident he would hear those same cars coming from a mile away. The echoes of their engines in the close quarters of the garage and the squeak of tire rubber turning on smooth pavement would give him plenty of warning to hug the wall and get out of the way.

He passed a second no pedestrian notice, this one painted on the asphalt at his feet. Without a qualm, he ignored the second warning like the first. If he spent his whole life avoiding things he was not supposed to do, he never would have made it to college. His father died when he was twelve, blown up on some God-forsaken sand dune in Afghanistan, and his mother had to pick up a second job just to pay for groceries and keep a roof over the heads of Leon and his younger brother, Jorge. In addition to being a one-parent household, they were the only Mexican family in a mostly white neighborhood. Caldwell, Idaho might be considered an idyllic little town by most passers through, but nobody could claim it was racially integrated. With the obvious exception of his brother, Leon was the only brown face at his high school for three of his four years there.

Nobody expected the fatherless Mexican kid to get anywhere or accomplish anything. Going to college was for the white kids with stable two-income families. For people like Leon, there were manual labor jobs in the agricultural fields or maybe, if he didn’t make any waves, he could make supervisor at one of the larger farms. He certainly wasn’t supposed to get straight A’s and finish number one in his class academically.

Yet he had, and because of that, today he was at San Jose State University in California, finishing up his fourth year of study in Physics. Between the scholarships he had earned and the little bit of “sorry we got your dad killed” money from Uncle Sam, he had ended up with his studies fully paid for. He was proud of that. He was glad that he had gotten accepted into the college, but especially proud that he could come here without causing any more financial hardship to his mom and little brother.

Leon paused before stepping onto the parking structure ramp, listening for any cars making their way up from the bottom. Cars travelling down would take a different ramp, so any noises coming from above did not concern him. All remained quiet. He started forward at a brisk pace, each descending step along the steep downward slope jolted and bounced the backpack slung over his shoulder. He glanced at a third sign posted on the wall to his right. It announced: “Vehicles Only Past This Point.”

“I’m exploring,” Leon commented aloud.

His parents would have wanted him to push the boundaries. They loved trailblazers. When he was born, they had even christened him with the name of their favorite Spanish explorer. His birth certificate read, Juan Ponce De Leon Alvarado. He was destined, they told him on multiple occasions, to travel and explore places the rest of his family had never seen. Perhaps that was true. He hoped so, but thus far it had certainly not been easy. It was a heavy name he carried, and it came with expectations.

It also came with its own baggage. Growing up, his parents had called him Juan, but when he started school, he quickly realized how much the name made him stand out. He already felt different from all the other kids because of the way he looked. The name Juan only made him feel more foreign. More isolated. One day, during roll call in the first few weeks of first grade, he raised his hand.

“Yes, Juan?” His teacher asked. Her name was Miss Emily Walcott. He remembered her as being very nice to him when he was in her class. She taught at his school for two more years before she got married and moved away.

“Miss, Walcott,” he replied. “Can you please call me Leon?”

She smiled. “Of course. Leon.”

And that was it. From that day forward, he had been Leon.

But simply changing his name did not make him someone else. By the time he entered middle school, he had pretty much given up on fitting in and he began to put his energy into other pursuits. Sports, academics, music, whatever he tried, he strove to be better at it than any of his classmates. If he was going to stand out, he wanted it to be for more than just the color of his skin. He decided to keep the name Leon, however.

He kind of liked it.

A large number five, rendered in black paint on the far wall, passed him on his left as he continued his winding march down. The number announced that he was leaving the fifth floor of the parking structure. About half a minute later, he passed the number four emblazoned on the wall in a similar manner. As the number disappeared from sight past his left shoulder, something odd grabbed Leon’s attention, pulling him out of his childhood ruminations. To his right, on the inside wall of the spiral ramp and bolted to the wall approximately three and a half feet from the ground, was a polished brass handrail. The circular rail started in what appeared to be a random location, appearing to grow out from the concrete wall from a metal disk bolted to its smooth gray surface. The rail bent in a ninety-degree angle, running parallel to the floor, and it wound along the wall on its way down the ramp until it disappeared around the next curve. Thick brass brackets, attached to the concrete every few feet, braced and supported the handrail along its length.

Leon stopped to observe the strange new addition to the garage. He had never noticed it before and, frankly, it made no sense being there. Who in their right mind, he mused, would bother to post signs to keep pedestrians away, then add a railing to assist anyone who decided to ignore the warnings? He didn’t have an answer to this riddle, other than perhaps stupidity, or some obscure governmental regulation. Perhaps both.

He shrugged before resuming his walk. It wasn’t the dumbest thing he had ever come across. It probably wouldn’t even be the most ridiculous thing he encountered today. The world was full of examples of people doing things that made no sense. The guy who installed it probably knew how ridiculous the project was, but a worker can’t be blamed for following instructions when his paycheck is on the line. If you hire a contractor to build a boat with more holes in it than a swiss cheese, as long as he’s getting paid, he’s not going to refuse. He is going to build that boat exactly as designed. The same was true for a handrail installed along a ramp designated for vehicle use only.

Leon tromped a few feet further down the ramp when he stumbled across his second surprise that morning. Someone had added some graffiti on the wall, above the new railing. In black, box lettering, stenciled over a haphazardly sprayed white background, Leon discovered a short message. Or rather, a short poem:

WHY WALK WHEN YOU CAN SLIDE?

HAVE A SEAT AND TAKE A RIDE.

A goofy grin spread across Leon’s face. Take a ride? Well, why not? he thought. The rail looked shiny and clean. Hell, it looked brand new. Leon hadn’t done anything like this since he was thirteen when he would slide down the bannister at a friend’s house whenever the boy’s parents weren’t around. It sounded like fun.

Leon turned his back to the rail and shifted his pack so it wouldn’t get pinned between his body and the wall. He didn’t expect the experiment to last for long. Because of the curve of the slide, he figured as he picked up speed centrifugal force would fling him off before he got very far. Still, he was game to try. He hopped up on the rail and, raising his legs out in front of him for balance, he scooted his hips along the length of the brass bar.

It worked surprisingly well. The grade of descent was shallow enough that he never built up enough speed to launch him off his perch.  Still, the ride remained fast enough that it was fun. He made good time on his way down, certainly faster than if he had walked. Leon laughed. He wished a car or another pedestrian would pass by so he had a witness to his impromptu ride. He could imagine the look of surprise on their face when he glided past them looking as nonchalant as if this was merely a part of his everyday commute. He might even give them a small wave as he disappeared around the next curve. Unfortunately, the ramp remained empty.

A large number three appeared on the wall across from him. It flew along on his left and was quickly past. Only a few more seconds seemed to tick by when the number two came chasing after it. One was not far behind.

Leon chuckled with delight. He was going to have to do this ride again. He briefly considered jumping onto the elevator on the ground floor and returning to the fourth floor to hop back on the handrail, but he discarded the idea just as quickly as it occurred to him. He had to get to class and didn’t have time to waste on games right now. Tomorrow, however, might be another story. He could come to campus a few minutes early and get in a couple laps before his first class started.

A bold letter “G,” at least two feet tall, appeared as Leon reached the ground floor of the garage. The ride was over. He had reached his destination. He kicked his legs forward and pushed with one hand against the rail to dismount. Nothing happened. He continued to slide along the wall at his previous pace. He kicked again, this time with more effort, but the result was the same. The seat of his pants never lost contact with the rail.

Confused by his inability to pull free of the wall, Leon flashed back to a video he had seen several years ago. It had been filmed by visitors at a zoo in China. The video showed a man sitting on a curb directly in front of a Panda cage unaware that the animal in the enclosure had moved up behind him. The Panda grabbed the man’s jacket, pulling him backward and pinning him to the bars of the cage. Leon remembered the look of surprise on the man’s face as he realized for the first time that he was stuck and could not pull away. There was no fear in his eyes. He did not yet know the real danger he was in. There was only the shock of suddenly finding he could not move.

Leon felt that way now. Shocked, but not yet fearful. He was for some reason unable to stop his slide, but he also knew that he was on the ground floor of the garage and the rail had to end somewhere soon.

Only, it didn’t.

The ramp continued its downward spiral and Leon remained trapped on his surreal journey. The concrete wall across from him shifted past inexorably, unending. Then, to Leon’s horror, a towering number one applied to the wall in garish red paint slid across his vision, moving steadily from right to left. As it disappeared behind him, Leon choked out a startled curse. True fear finally began to set in.

This is insane, he told himself. This garage did not have underground levels. It should have stopped by now. He thrashed desperately, slamming feet and elbows against the wall to dislodge himself. His struggles were rewarded with no noticeable effect. He might as well have been a magnet placed on a metal bar, free to slide from one end to the other, but unable to break the connection that bound them together.

When a red number two rolled past, tears welled in Leon’s eyes. Fear and anger overwhelmed rational thought and, coupled with the frustration of being helpless to save himself from whatever he had stumbled into, he continued to kick desperately at the wall. He was a fly, his feet firmly glued to a sticky tape on which he had been foolish enough to land, and like that fly, his fate would be determined by whomever had placed the trap here in the first place. Leon cried out, not words, only an inchoate howl of misery and denial.

The number three appeared.

Then four. Only, this figure was not really a four. The shape loosely resembled the number four, but it was twisted and malformed, as if a young child had seen a picture of the number once long ago and was now trying to repeat what it had seen. The five that followed was even less recognizable, and it appeared to be larger than the previous markings.

Leon’s eyes widened in realization. The number had not grown larger, the wall across from him had gotten closer. The roadway between him and the far wall had gradually grown narrower until barely enough width for a motorcycle to travel through remained, much less a car. In addition to the closing space, the light began to fail. There were no artificial lights in the walls or ceiling, and the further Leon travelled down, the less natural lighting penetrated from above to illuminate his path. Fear blossomed into panic. His tears started to flow in earnest.

By the time Leon reached what should have been the seventh level down, the opposite wall closed to mere inches away. He could no longer see it, but if he kicked his foot forward, he could feel it pull at his shoe as it swept along in front of him. With the light completely gone, he no longer had any clue as to how fast he was travelling. All he knew for certain was that he never stopped moving. Leon felt the rail gliding under the denim material of his jeans and the wall shifting along his back as his nylon windbreaker brushed over it. If he concentrated, he could feel a slight breeze against his cheek generated by the speed of his progress. He was making good time.

But to where?

A terrible thought occurred to him. What if he wasn’t going anywhere? Maybe sliding ever downward into the complete darkness was all he had to look forward to for the rest of his natural life. He would die of hunger and thirst and his dead body would just keep going around and around into an endless black hole. Or, perhaps he would ride this damned handrail right into Hell, dropped off into a pit of fire and brimstone to be tormented by demons for eternity. Both options seemed equally unappealing, and Leon did not know which one he hoped would come first. Neither he supposed.

Time passed, and Leon continued to slide. In the unchanging darkness, he had nothing with which to gauge its passage and he had no way to calculate how long he had been on this unplanned journey. As a game, and as a simple way to mark the time, he began tapping his foot against the opposite wall every time he estimated ten seconds in his head. He counted his kicks, and in this way, he guessed at how many levels down he had travelled. At three hundred he began to lose count. By five hundred, he gave up completely. He wasn’t hungry or thirsty, so he decided only a few hours could have passed at most.

It didn’t matter any longer, he realized. In truth, whether it had been several hours or several days, Leon had stopped caring. Fear and adrenaline had long since burned themselves out, leaving only a resigned acceptance of whatever would come. If anything.

Then, surprisingly, he saw light at the end of the tunnel.

Literally.

A pinprick of illumination appeared in Leon’s peripheral vision in the direction he was travelling. He turned to face it, but it was too dim to see if he stared directly at it. He glanced aside and waited anxiously, hoping the light had not merely been wishful thinking.

There it was again!

He watched the distant gleam out of the corner of his eye, and not only did it remain this time, but it stayed in the same place. Apparently, at some point in the past hours he had stopped spiraling and his direction of travel straightened out. That or the light was nothing more than a tiny spark a few feet away from him and travelling at the same speed, matching his progress.

Leon extended a hand to touch it but was unable to reach far enough to make contact. The fact it remained beyond his grasp gave him hope that it was indeed a sign his journey was reaching its end and he would soon escape this blackness.

The speck of light steadied, intensified, and incrementally began to grow. Before long, Leon could stare directly at it without it fading from his view. As the circle of white brilliance widened, it began to burn his eyes, causing them to water. His time in absolutely darkness left his light-starved senses extremely vulnerable. Before he could be blinded, Leon was forced to glance away.

In the instant he looked aside, the light was on top of him. The railing came to an end, and Leon launched through the opening into the dazzling white radiance.

More coming in July, 2021!