by Pat Hauldren
For a flash of a second, Jackson thought he saw something in the snow – no, in the snowfall – the outline of a figure standing where the rock had fallen away. He blinked and stared hard.
No… no. There was nothing there.
It was just a trick of the wind.
It was nothing.
Maybe he was in worse shape than he thought. He needed to find the cave and work out his next plans, not the least of which would include what he was going to eat for dinner. His entire trek into the valley had been conspicuously absent of any sort of wildlife, small or otherwise. He was pretty sure that the small bits of jerky were gone. There were more lean days that he thought he’d run into this far north, and he resisted the urge to cuss himself for being shortsighted. No one could know for sure what was ahead, and you just had to deal with what was on hand when you got there.
Jackson picked his way along the path, a seemingly ideal horizontal shelf cut into the side of the mountain. The overhang was sometimes low enough that he had to crouch down, but he’d been through much worse and survived to tell the tale. This was no big deal. Really. And he told himself that again.
(It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t also been increasingly more slippery. The snow, though unmotivated by wind from any particular direction, was finding its way onto the path often enough to create a reasonable hazard.)
Jackson kept a hand on the wall to his right as he navigated more and more cautiously. The snow was falling more heavily, building into a proper storm, and though he was no longer in the valley, he could hear the flakes brushing up against each other, creating their own orchestra of distraction while drowning out any other sound that might be made for miles. He stepped a few paces, glanced back up the path over his shoulder, and then back towards his destination. His eye caught sight of his hand, and he froze.
It may well be a kind of ancestral memory or evolutionary response that the color red invokes. Regardless of the context, the sudden appearance of this color creates a strong and unavoidable reaction. This all rushed through Jackson’s mind – former college boy as he was – even while he was fighting another surge of panic at the brilliant wet stuff on his fingers.
He stared at it, forcing himself still like a stone. It couldn’t be—and it wasn’t. It was certainly the same color as blood, but the smell was sweet like fresh berries mixed with syrup. He looked at the wall.
Someone had used this syrup as a medium for messaging. He was probably too close to read it – the letters were over half his size, and he was not especially small – but he figured out that he’d put his hand on the letter S.
It was not a convenient place to turn around and try to the read the rest of it, and it was probably not a message that was meant for him anyway. What really struck his mind as important, though, was that someone had to have written it very recently, and, sure enough, there in the snow in front of him were footprints.
Humans this far out were handy things to run into. Generally, they were friendly, and travelers tended to appreciate each other without malice. It was a safer bet that security was up ahead than anything else.
He only vaguely paid any attention to the rest of the letters as he came across them in reverse order, and his intellectual mind put them together as words only after he perceived in the gathering gloom that there was a significant glow coming from just around the bend. “HERE COMES” was what he’d sorted out, and he figured that someone had signaled another community or maybe other travelers coming from that direction about the snow storm. He wouldn’t have guessed that it would increase in intensity, but then again, he was not a weather man. He left predictions to better folk.
Despite his elation, he did not rush forward into the cave. Some people were a little twitchy about strangers, and though Jackson could not be absolutely certain how far down the drop behind him was, he was still pretty sure that it was not an exit he’d like to take. He inched along the edge and peeked around the corner.
The cave was large and spacious. The main room was much larger than the mouth, which of itself could easily accommodate at least two or three people across. In the middle and towards the back was a big bright fire protected by a well-maintained ring of stones. On various surfaces around the room – sleeping bags, furs, piles of indistinct fabric – people were lounging, smiling and talking without worry or fear. The topic of discussion seemed to be old movies and whether or not it was practical to consider the format of movies as a viable means of entertainment anymore.
Jackson listened for a long moment, and he picked out at least four distinct voices – two of which were definitely women. He waved his hand a little in the mouth of the cave and said, “Hello?”
“Ah!” a husky man’s voice said jovially, “we have a guest!” This was the voice that he been suggesting that movies were vital and that someone, somehow, would come up with a way to preserve and to produce them in the future.
“May I come in, please?” Jackson asked as he inched further around the corner.
“Long as you’re meanin’ no harm,” the man replied, and he waved Jackson in. “Where you coming from?”
“The storm, mostly,” Jackson said with a smile. He hazarded another glance over his shoulder and saw that night had, indeed, fallen. “I’m up from Masdic, trying to find my spot.”
“Aren’t we all?” one of the women said with a grin, and she winked at the other woman with a nod.
“I’m Jackson.” He stood in the mouth of the cave still, letting the worst of the snow fall off of him. Even from the other side of the cave, the fire was warm.
“I’m Ted,” the husky man said, “and these lovely ladies are Bridget”, the one who’d spoken first, “and Gracie.” He pointed a thumb over to the younger fellow reclining on a pile of blankets. “That’s Boxie.”
“A pleasure,” Jackson said.
“Come in and prop your bag by the door,” Ted said. “It’ll be safe.”
Jackson shrugged off the backpack and leaned it against the wall right as a gust of wind blew a flurry of snow through the opening of the cave.
“Just in time,” Gracie said. “That storm’s been brewing for some hours now, and it doesn’t look like it’ll let up before morning.” Her voice was higher and lighter than Bridget’s, but it had a similar quality. Jackson guessed that they might be sisters.
“Have a seat,” Ted said, waving towards a rock near the fire. “Get dried off. Dinner’ll be ready sometime soon.”
As Jackson sat down, his wiser nature started to kick in. He glanced quickly around the cave and noticed that there was a stockpile of various supplies stacked against the wall, including bags of what appeared to be jerked meat and at least a cord of chopped and stacked firewood. Ted himself was a largish man with silvering red hair and a scruffy beard. Boxie was probably Ted’s son or relatively close kin with similarly red hair and quick blue eyes. Upon longer inspection, Jackson realized that Bridget was probably Gracie’s mother, but that they were likely traveling together as a family.
“So, you’re up from Masdic,” Gracie said. “How’s the world down there?”
Jackson shrugged a little. “Same as it’s been for a while,” he said. “Folks are still waiting for word from a government that doesn’t exist anymore. People are trying to scrape by as well as they can, having to re-learn how to farm and raise animals, things like that.” Jackson started unbuttoning his jacket in the growing warmth from the fire. “When I was there last, they’d managed to get a small windmill working to generate a little electricity for the med clinic, but that’s almost a novelty anymore. Anyone who’d have been kept alive by having it has already passed on.”
“Well, sure,” Ted said. “That’s the way these things go.”
“Some say those were the lucky ones,” Boxie added from his spot by the wall. “You hear about what happened to Denver?”
Jackson nodded. “Who hasn’t? From the way I hear it told last, it’s almost a ghost town.”
Boxie
nodded sadly. “Almost.”
“Is that where you’re from?” Jackson asked.
Boxie, Gracie, and Bridget all looked to Ted. Ted smiled a little and nodded. “Sure,” he said.
Jackson tried not to let his expression show the rising concern. His logical mind could not place exactly what was unusual by that exchange, but it brought up an uneasiness in him.
“How long have you been here in the cave?” Jackson asked.
“Oh, about a few weeks, I’d say, if I had to hazard a guess,” Ted said, and he poked the fire a little with a long stick, sending sparks flying up into the air. “We were passing through on our way to homestead when Boxie fell and busted his leg a little. We found this little spot and figured we’d be keeping to it for a little while until he got to feeling better.”
Jackson nodded. It made as much sense as anything. If they’d been traveling as a family looking for a homestead, they’d have had these supplies with them. It was always a point of concern, seeing materials gathered like that. It was easier to take it off the dead than bring it yourself, even if the dead hadn’t started out that way when you found them. Jackson had never taken that route himself, but he only had himself to be concerned with – he could go longer without niceties like fresh food or large campfires.
“Anything interesting along the way?” Gracie asked.
All eyes turned to Jackson then, and he felt that uneasiness rising a little more. “Not much to tell,” he said. “A few folks have made some homesteads between here and Masdic, but most of them aren’t real sure how to go about making something of them. The big traffic right now is in books on agriculture and husbandry, but even that’s not good trade since they call for things that no one can find anymore.”
“They’d do better to compost,” Bridget said. “That’s what we did when we had a home. I just had my little garden, but all of my fertilizer came right from my own kitchen.”
“I can see how that’d be efficient,” Jackson agreed.
“And you’re looking to homestead, too?” Gracie pressed.
Jackson shrugged. “Sure, everyone would like a homestead, but it all depends. If I run into folks along the way that’d just as soon make a place for a man like me, I’d be as inclined to trade hard work for food and shelter.”
“Smart man,” Ted said with a smile.
The conversation dwindled a little, and Jackson caught Ted glancing towards the door once or twice.
“Are we expecting anyone else?” Jackson asked.
Ted looked at him for a long moment, and then mumbled something unintelligible. Jackson frowned.
“Ted’s always waiting for someone,” Bridget said. There was something in her voice that said that there was a long story behind the statement and also that it might not have been entirely true.
Jackson realized that his stomach was protesting against the distinct lack of nutrition it had received that day.
“On the topic of dinner,” Jackson said, “is there something I could trade you?”
“Nah,” Ted said. “You’re a traveler like us. Nothing to trade for that we wouldn’t give willingly. We planned ahead, you see.”
Jackson smiled earnestly. It was good to know that there were other honest travelers out in the world.
That uneasiness twinged at him again. His stomach forced him to actively ignore it.
A gust of air drifted through the cave, but it was not scented with the moisture of the storm. Jackson looked around and realized that there was another opening to the cave, but it was covered with a large piece of fabric, or perhaps it was leather. It drifted up here and there with slight breeze.
“What’s back there?” he asked.
Ted looked over his shoulder at the make-shift door then back at the fire.
“This cave goes a long way back,” he said. “If we didn’t close that off, we’d never be able to keep this room warm. We figured that out the first night we were up here.”
“Oh,” Jackson said simply. He stared at the door for a long moment, then said, “Does it lead anywhere?”
“What do you mean?” Ted asked.
“Does it go anywhere? I mean, is there another opening somewhere that I could get to without going out in the storm and weather?”
Ted sighed and shrugged. “I thought the same thing, too,” he said. “I got mighty lost for a day or so, and all I found was a bunch of tunnels that looped back on themselves. There might’ve been a way out before, but it’s all closed off now with cave-ins and collapses.” He poked the fire a little more. “I found a drop off – damn-near the hard way – but besides that, we’re pretty much in the best spot on the mountain.”
Jackson stared back at the fire. It was a little disappointing, but at the same time, it was not unexpected. If there had been such an easy exit or a way around the harder paths in front of him, it was most likely that someone else would have found it already and marked it on a map.
“Not to worry too much,” Gracie said. “After the storm passes tomorrow morning, it’ll be at least another three or four days before any more weather hits. You’ll have some snow on the ground, but a lot of it will burn off of the western slopes by tomorrow afternoon.”
“That’s mighty helpful,” Jackson said, looking at her on her perch. She sat a little behind Ted and to the right, almost between him and Bridget next to the fire. “How do you know all that?”
“I was studying meteorology,” she said simply.
Jackson frowned. It had been a few years since anyone was able to study anything formally. He started to wonder if she was perhaps older than he’d first placed her.
“At home,” Bridget added. “We homeschooled.”
“Ah,” Jackson replied.
The wind whistled outside with a quick gust of aggression, and Jackson shivered a little. The same feeling of being watched – of something creeping up behind him, unseen – started niggling at his perception. The hair on the back of his neck started rising.
“Are you sure no one else is coming?” Jackson asked.
Bridget and Gracie exchanged glances again. “Maybe,” Bridget admitted finally. “Always, but never for sure.”
Jackson fidgeted a little but tried to put the thought out of his mind. It did not want to go quietly.
“So, is there anything I can do to help with dinner?” he asked. “I don’t mean to be pushy or anything, but it’s been a couple of days since I ate.”
“I totally understand,” Ted said. “No need to help, but it’ll be just a short time before we serve up.”
“Why?” Jackson asked. It was, in his opinion, a legitimate question.
Ted looked at him for a long moment, their eyes meeting with a sudden intensity that shocked him. It occurred to Jackson just then that Ted was not regarding him as another human being, as an equal in any way. The expression on his face was much like one that you’d expect on a farmer that was about to slaughter his favorite calf.
Jackson’s anxiety rose sharply.
“Is there—,” he said, his throat suddenly becoming tight, “is there something I should know?”
“Not that would do any good,” Boxie said.
He, too, was staring at Jackson in that same way.
It was pity mixed with resignation.
Something shuffled in the snow outside, a footstep or a slide could not be determined.
“Here is our last guest,” Ted said. His voice was matter-of-fact and clear, but under the casual tone was just the slightest hint of regret and perhaps a little fear.
Jackson kept his eyes on Ted, trying to lock another gaze with him. He suspected what might come next, and for all that his mind raced over any and every legend he’d heard about the valley – which was not very much – he could not conceive of anything that would justify his overwhelming terror.
Ted looked away back at the fire, poking it with the stick as though nothing out of the ordinary was going on. “Nothing for it,” he said, “just relax and it’ll be over soon.”
<
br /> “What’ll be over?” Jackson asked, his voice cracking. He looked between the four faces, but no one was looking back.
The suspense was tangible in the air as though the cave was holding its breath. Jackson dared not turn around, couldn’t do it, had to do it. Slowly, he peeked over his shoulder.
At first, it seemed that there was nothing there, that the space between him and the opening of the cave – still solid gray with blowing snow on the other side – was empty. The strange extra sense that humans have to perceive the unseen said that there was definitely something there, and as though the admission of it was enough, he began to make out a shimmering shape.
It was larger than a man, or at least as large as the biggest man Jackson himself had seen. It was wide and tall, but it did not make an impact on the soft sand floor. If he looked directly at it, he could not see it at all, but, just like with certain stars, if he looked to the side, he could make out the shape of distortion that defined the thing.
“No use fightin’,” Ted said, a slight drawl creeping out to overshadow the tinge of his own fear.
“I don’t—“ Jackson began to say, but his words were cut off sharply as though a stone had lodged itself in his throat.
The thing – a ghost or demon, perhaps – was near him, infiltrating his being. He could feel the slick texture of its otherworldly substance sliding over his skin and then beneath it. He panicked and tried to struggle against the feeling, tried to kick his legs out, but he was paralyzed against it. He could not tell if it was his own physical reaction or if it was some property of the thing.
“This is the spirit of the valley,” Ted said, still staring into the fire. “At least, that’s what we reckon. It’s not the friendly sort, but it believes in fair trade. The deal is, we get to stay here safe and sound until Boxie gets all mended up, and this fellow gets any extra passers-by.” He poked the fire again and sparks flew up in another starry dance. “It’s nothing personal,” he added, “just business.”
Jackson was not just offended on the basis that it was him that was being sacrificed but also on general principle that anyone would throw a perfectly good stranger into peril over family. Sure, it seemed pretty in picture books, as they say, but such disregard for life was deplorable.