Then there was silence again. It didn’t take a genius to deduce that the intruder was probably waiting beside the door, ready to grab hold of my brother the minute he returned. My hands balled into fists as I waited. I was maddened by my own impotence. It’s a terrible thing to watch a video of someone you love about to be hurt and not be able to do a damn thing about it.
We heard the door open again, followed by a brief scuffle. Don’t let him be killed. Please, God, anything but that.
The dark figure returned to our field of view. He had Tommy’s small body thrown over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. “You want me to wait?” he asked someone off-screen. He had an odd accent: almost British but with a hint of a southern twang.
“No.” The voice that responded had a similar accent. “Head back to the caverns. I’ll finish up here.”
The guy carrying Tommy nodded and started toward the window. Our brief show was about to end, and we had learned nothing useful.
But just before the man left the camera’s range he glanced back briefly over his shoulder, and for an instant—just an instant—we could see his face.
“Holy crap …” Rita whispered.
I was speechless.
It was a slender face, delicate in bone structure, with high cheekbones and a narrow, feminine chin. The eyes were large and dark, vast almond-shaped orbs that reflected the shadows in the room. Maybe those eyes were impossibly huge, or maybe it was just the tiny size of his nose and mouth that made them seem that way, but the end result was that the face looked … well, not human. And the color of his skin wasn’t human either, but a weird grey hue with some kind of mottled pattern. It’s the lighting, I told myself. Or the monitor’s got the color wrong. But as an artist I was pretty alert to cues of lighting and color, so those excuses fell flat. Everything else in the room looked perfectly normal, which meant that both the lighting and the monitor settings were close to true. We were seeing what this guy had really looked like.
The figure walked off-screen. We heard more glass crunching. Then there was the sound of a window opening, a few muffled comments I couldn’t make out, and finally a heavy wooden thud as the window fell shut again. A faint tinkling of glass followed that, as if someone had brushed against a wind chime. Then silence.
For a full minute, none of us said anything. English didn’t have the kind of words you needed to respond to a video like that.
Rita was the first to find her voice. “What the hell was that?”
“A hoax,” Devon croaked. “Some kind of video hoax. Kids do things like that all the time.”
“Someone tried to burn down my house,” I said sharply. “Two people nearly died. That’s hardly the kind of practical joke my brother would play.” My head was pounding fiercely now, and not from physical pain this time.
“We should tell someone,” Devon said, without conviction.
“Tell them what?” Rita snapped. “Jesse’s brother was kidnapped by a space alien? Or by some kind of … Jesus Christ, what was that thing?”
Maybe this is all just a bad dream, I told myself. Wishful thinking. A dream was something you could wake up from. This was worse than any nightmare I’d ever had.
Rita got up from the couch and started pacing. Back and forth, back and forth, movements jerky and quick like those of a nervous animal. “We can’t show this to anyone. Anyone! You all understand that, right?”
Devon opened his mouth to protest … then just shut it and nodded. Because Rita was right. If we showed this crazy video to the police they would just accuse us of having altered it digitally—perhaps even staging the whole scene ourselves, as some sick kind of teenage prank—and then not only would we not get any help, we’d probably be arrested for falsifying evidence. Maybe they’d even suspect us of having started the fire, because why else would we make up such a crazy story? I’d seen people on cop shows arrested over less.
No one would believe what was in this video. No one.
Which meant we were completely on our own. And that was more scary than all the rest combined.
“He mentioned caverns,” Devon told me. “That’s where they were taking your brother.”
“There are a million caverns around here,” I reminded him. The karst mountains flanking the Shenandoah Valley were like Swiss cheese—I remembered that much from Geology. “So that’s not much to go on.”
Rita looked at me. “He said it like it was the name of a place. Or part of a name, anyway. Aren’t there caverns with names around here?”
Devon nodded. “Half a dozen, at least. Shenandoah, Endless, Skyline, Luray … but they’re all open to the public. Not the kind of place kidnappers would use for a hideout.”
Least of all kidnappers who don’t look human, I thought darkly.
But his words sparked a memory of something that had happened back when I was a kid. Fifth, maybe sixth grade. My science teacher had booked a tour for us at one of the big caverns: special lecture for young people, private tour, the whole nine yards. Only it got cancelled at the last minute. Apparently the caverns we’d planned to visit had come under new ownership and would no longer be open to the public. It all happened so fast there wasn’t time for our teacher to book an alternative tour before year’s end. Man, we were angry. Really angry. You never forget that kind of thing. “Mystic Caverns,” I said. “Closed about six years ago.”
Without saying a word, Devon returned to the laptop. I saw him pull up a browser and start scrolling through web pages. I rescued the remains of my soda from the table and tried to wash down the lump in my throat as I watched him. Rita went back to pacing.
“Got it,” he muttered at last. He leaned back on the couch and began to read aloud.
“… Shoponi tradition says it is home to powerful spirits, and that if a shaman sleeps there after proper ritual preparation, he can enter the spirit world in his dreams. In the early 19th century the caverns were used as a way station for escaped slaves, and during Prohibition private parties were often held in its depths. In 1936 the owners revamped the tourist facilities, adding steel walkways, an electrical system, and a new and larger entrance at the southern end. Mystic Caverns remained a popular tourist destination until it closed in 2007 … .”
“Of course,” Devon cautioned, “we don’t know for sure that’s where Tommy is.”
But I knew in my gut that it was. All that stuff about spirits and dreams, and visiting other worlds … it fit too well. Something strange was going on, and this place was at the center of it.
I felt a flutter of excitement in the pit of my stomach. Like you feel when you are about to step off a high diving board for the first time. Fear and elation all tangled up together.
“You’re going to go there,” Rita said. Not a question.
I didn’t respond.
“Whatever’s going on there probably won’t be aboveground,” she warned. “And we can hardly just wander in the main entrance without being noticed.”
“They built a new entrance in 1936,” Devon reminded her. “That means that somewhere there may be an old one that’s still accessible. If we can locate that …” He turned back to the computer and started typing again.
“You two don’t have to go,” I said quietly. “He’s not your brother.”
“Hey.” Rita glared at me. “This isn’t just about your brother, okay? Devon and I are on the same hit list you are. So are a lot of our friends. So on the off chance there’s something out there that will tell us what’s going on—and why—I sure as hell want to be there when you find it.”
Devon nodded as he typed. “This may take a while, Jesse. Why don’t you go take a shower, get changed …” The words trailed off as he focused on the computer.
Get ready to leave this place of safety. Get ready to invade dark places where dangerous people—dangerous creatures—might reside.
I started to protest, but then stopped myself. There was nothing I could do in this living room right now that would make our situation any bett
er, and meanwhile, I wanted to get clean so badly I could taste it. So I went and collected the clothes they’d left out for me, and a fluffy white guest towel, and headed off to the bathroom to wash off the mixture of soot and sweat and fear that clung to my skin. A lot of fear.
The latter didn’t wash away completely, but I tried my best.
• • •
Night was falling; the woods surrounding us were dim, like a photo that had faded over time. A breeze stirred my newly washed hair, scattering droplets of water across the shoulders of my camo T-shirt. Yeah, camo: the kind of thing you wear when you want to hide out in the woods. That tells you something about what those two were thinking when they shopped for me.
Prescient of them.
Devon came out onto the narrow deck and joined me at the railing.
“Find anything useful?” I asked.
“An old map. Won’t know how accurate it is until we get there. I cached a satellite image of the local terrain.”
I hesitated. “Do your parents know we’re here?”
“My dad knows I’m here. He thinks I’m off hiking this week, using the cabin as a base of operations. Hopefully we’ll be back before he realizes that isn’t the case. My mother …” He paused. “She died a few years ago.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged stiffly. “Beltway collision. Still hard to accept.” He offered me the phone. “You want to try your mom?”
I hesitated. I did want to talk to my mother, more than anything in the world. She must have been going crazy not knowing where I was. But the mere thought of taking the phone from him made my hand start shaking, as the full implications of our situation hit home: Whoever wanted to kill me must surely have realized by now that the fire had failed, and they’d be looking for me, to try again. If they were smart they’d be watching my mother’s every move, possibly even tapping her phone. The one sure way to find me.
I might have been willing to take a chance with my own life, but they’d proven they were willing to kill my family to get to me, and I didn’t want to put her in danger.
I’m sorry, Mom. I blinked back tears as I waved off Devon’s offer. I’m sorry I can’t tell you that I’m okay. I know it must be tearing you to pieces inside, not to know what happened to me.
“Hey,” he said gently. “It’s okay. We’ll be back soon enough. Maybe with enough solid evidence to give to the police. That’s the goal, right?”
“And what if something goes wrong along the way?” I whispered. “What if we don’t come back? No one will ever know what happened to us.”
He nodded, and I got the sense that this was something he’d already considered. “We can leave a note in the cabin. If I don’t check in for a few days my dad will start to worry, and eventually he’ll come out here and find it. That’ll give us enough time to check out the caverns without interference, but also guarantee that we get backup eventually, in case anything goes wrong.”
I nodded dully. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was the best we were likely to come up with.
“You could leave a letter for your mother,” he offered. “I’m sure my dad would deliver it.”
“Thanks,” I whispered.
He hesitated, then put his hand over mine. It felt strong and certain and it vibrated with positive energy. I tried to draw strength from it.
“C’mon,” he said. “We need to head out to Front Royal while the Walmart is still open.”
• • •
In my letter, I told Mom everything. Never mind how crazy some of it sounded when you put it in writing; if she got this letter it would mean that the worst had happened, in which case she had to know it all. I even drew her a picture of Tommy’s kidnapper. I tried to make him look realistic, but he still came out looking like a space alien in a hoodie. My hand shook as I drew Tommy’s small body draped over his shoulder.
I hope you never have to read this, I thought, as I sealed my letter and put it beside Devon’s. I hope we come back soon enough that no one even knows we were gone.
Rita didn’t leave a letter for anyone.
9
FRONT ROYAL
VIRGINIA
RITA’S CAR WAS A SLEEK BLACK AUDI, which was not what I’d expected. Turned out it wasn’t her car after all. I figured that out when we stopped in a bad neighborhood in Front Royal so she could leave it on the street with the key in the ignition. She wiped the steering wheel down carefully first, then the door handles and gear shift, removing her fingerprints with a thoroughness that suggested she’d done that kind of thing before. Maybe her prints were “in the system.”
She caught my eye as she slid into the back seat of Devon’s SUV, apparently reading some kind of challenge in my expression. “I was worried about you that night,” she said defiantly. “I wanted to see if anyone was casing your house. What was I supposed to do, walk?”
I muttered something that I hoped was appropriate. I honestly didn’t know what to say to someone who would steal a car just to take a trip across town, though I was certainly grateful she’d done it.
The trip to Walmart was apparently so we could stock up on bottled water. And backpacks to put the water in. And flashlights. And rope. And chalk. And three of those folding utility knives that have all sorts of household tools tucked into them.
“Are you expecting to get lost in a cavern?” I asked Devon, trying to keep my tone light.
“No one ever expects to get lost in a cavern,” he pointed out reasonably.
He told us that if there was anything Rita and I thought we should pack, that he’d left out, we should go get it. So I headed over to the hardware department, because, as every fan of Mythbusters knows, the single most important thing to have with you in unfamiliar territory is duct tape. Rita disappeared into Housewares and soon returned with three large kitchen knives. They were the kind you see in horror movies, when the heroine is being hunted by a killer inside her own house, and she searches in the kitchen drawer for the deadliest looking weapon she can find. They were long and triangular and surely would scare off the most hardened serial killer.
We also picked up a set of children’s walkie-talkies (Devon’s idea), pocket-sized first aid kits (my idea), and a box of breakfast bars (Rita’s idea). We bought everything in threes, which was actually kind of disturbing, as it meant we were planning to get separated. That was a possibility I was trying hard not to think about.
Devon’s parents had given him a credit card for emergencies, but he’d intentionally left it at the cabin, not wanting to risk it getting into the hands of the wrong people. That left him only with the cash he’d withdrawn from his personal bank account when we’d arrived in Front Royal. After all our stuff was paid for, there wasn’t much left. Hopefully, whatever emergencies lay ahead wouldn’t be expensive ones.
It was dark by the time we finally pulled back onto Route 340, heading south. Rita sat in the back seat, trying to cut up the clamshell packaging from her kitchen knives so that we could use them as sheathes. I munched on a breakfast bar without tasting it, trying not to think about what kind of creatures might be waiting for us just down the road.
They’re human beings, I told myself stubbornly. The one that took Tommy was probably wearing some kind of disguise, to fool security cameras.
But try as I might, I couldn’t get those alien eyes out of my head.
Devon was using the car’s GPS to navigate, and after about half an hour it directed him to turn left, onto a narrow dirt road. Soon after that he killed the lights, which made the last part of the drive somewhat harrowing; tree branches seemed to jump out of nowhere, and giant potholes were all but invisible until you were right on top of them. Once we bottomed out so hard I feared the axle might get broken. My nerves hadn’t been all that calm to start with, and this wasn’t helping.
Finally he stopped and parked. We were in the middle of nowhere.
“I don’t see a cave,” Rita said.
Devon nodded. “I don’t want to bring th
e car too close to it, they might hear us coming. We can walk from here.”
Even with our flashlights, visibility was poor. The ground was rocky and uneven and the trees looming overhead blocked most of the moonlight. More than once I stubbed my toe on some unseen obstacle, or heard Rita curse as she did the same. Devon had brought his smartphone along, complete with a GPS app and some cavern maps that he’d cached, so at least there was no chance of us getting lost. But it was one hell of a walk.
Finally the ground leveled out and the trees gave way to a plain of tall wild grass. Devon glanced at his device again and nodded; by unspoken agreement, we all turned off our flashlights. We were getting close to something and couldn’t take the risk that we might be seen.
Silently we skirted the grassy area, moving as quietly as we could manage. Then we came over a rise and saw what must once have been the Mystic Caverns tourist center. A semi-circle of small buildings flanked one large one at the center, all of them designed to look like log cabins. Whatever signs might once have identified them were missing, and the buildings were so weathered and aged that the whole place looked like a ghost town. But the surrounding grass had been neatly mowed, and near the main building there were tire tracks plainly visible. My heart skipped a beat when I saw them. Had the vehicle that made those brought my brother here?
We skirted the compound with care, which, as it turned out, was a really good idea, because someone had strung up barbed wire around the place. It was nearly invisible in the moonlight, and Devon almost walked right into it. Whoever owned this place really didn’t want visitors. Which, when you were searching for kidnappers and arsonists who were trying to kill you, was a pretty good sign you were in the right place.
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