The Descent

by Jeff Long

  A body was floating upon the sea. It lay there as quiet as the water.

  “It’s not hadal,” Spurrier was saying.

  “He was a big guy,” said Ruiz. “Could he be one of Walker’s soldiers?”

  “Walker?” said Twiggs. “Here?”

  “Maybe he fell off one of the rafts and drowned. And then floated here.”

  He had glided in to shore like a ship with no crew, headfirst, faceup, bleached dead white by the sea. His limp arms wafted in the current. The eyes were gone.

  “I thought it was driftwood and started out to get it,” Chelsea said. “Then it got closer.”

  Ike waded into the water and hunched over the body with his back to them. Ali thought she saw the glint of his knife. After a minute he returned to them, towing the body.

  “It’s one of Walker’s, all right,” he said.

  “A coincidence,” said Ruiz. “He was bound to drift ashore somewhere.”

  “Here, though, of all places? You’d think he would have sunk. Or rotted. Or been eaten.”

  “He’s been preserved,” Ike said.

  Ali saw what the others seemed not to see, an incision in one of the man’s thighs where Ike had probed.

  “You mean something in the water?” said Pia.

  “No,” Ike said. “They did it some other way.”

  “The hadals?” said Ruiz.

  “Yes,” Ike said.

  “The currents. Chance …”

  “He was delivered to us.”

  The group needed a long minute to absorb the fact.

  “But why?” asked Troy.

  “It must be a warning,” Twiggs said.

  “They’re telling us to go home?” Ruiz laughed.

  “You don’t understand,” Ike quietly told them. “It’s an offering.”

  “They’re making a sacrifice to us?”

  “I guess if you want to put it that way,” Ike said. “They could have eaten him themselves.”

  They fell silent.

  “They’re giving us a dead man for food?” whimpered Pia. “To eat?”

  “The question is why,” Ike said, staring across the dark sea.

  Twiggs was affronted. “They think we’re cannibals?”

  “They think we probably want to live.”

  Ike did a horrible thing. He did not push the body back out to sea. Instead he waited.

  “What are you waiting for?” Twiggs demanded. “Get rid of it.”

  Ike didn’t say anything. He just waited some more.

  It was appalling, the temptation.

  Finally Ruiz said, “You’ve misjudged us, Ike.”

  “Don’t insult us,” Twiggs said.

  Ike ignored him. He waited for the group. Another minute passed. They glared at him. Nobody wanted to say yes and nobody wanted to say no, and he wasn’t going to say it for them. Even Ali did not reject the idea out of hand.

  Ike was patient. The dead soldier bobbed slightly beside him. He was patient, too.

  They were all thinking similar thoughts, she was sure, wondering what it would taste like and how long it would last and who would do the deed. In the end, Ali took it one step further, and that was their answer. “We could eat him,” she said. “But when he was finished, what then?”

  Ike sighed.

  “Exactly,” said Pia after a few seconds.

  Ruiz and Spurrier closed their eyes. Troy shook his head ever so slightly.

  “Thank heavens,” said Twiggs.

  They languished in the fortress, too weak to do much except shuffle outside to pee. They shifted about on their sleeping pads. It was not comfortable, lying around on your own bones.

  So this is famine, thought Ali. A long wait for the ultimate poverty. She had always prided herself on her gift for transcending the moment. You gave up your worldly attachments, but always with the knowledge you could return to them. There was no such thing with starving. Deprivation was monotonous.

  Before their strength dwindled anymore, Ali and Ike shared two more nights in the tower room among the lighted lamps. On November 30, they descended to the makeshift camp with finality. After that she was too light-headed to climb the stairs again.

  The starvation made them very old and very young. Twiggs, especially, looked aged, his face hollowed and jowls hanging. But also they resembled infants, curled in upon their stomachs and sleeping more and more each day. Except for Ike, who was like a horse in his need to stay on his feet, their catnaps reached twenty hours.

  Ali tried to force herself to work, to stay clean, say her prayers, and continue to draw her day maps. It was a matter of getting God’s daily chaos in order.

  On the morning of December 2, they heard animal noises coming from the beach. Those who could sit struggled upright. Their worst fear was coming true. The hadals were coming for them.

  It sounded like wolves loping into position. You could hear whispered snatches of words. Troy began to totter off in search of Ike, but his legs wouldn’t work well enough. He sat down again.

  “Couldn’t they wait?” Twiggs moaned softly. “I just wanted to die in my sleep.”

  “Shut up, Twiggs,” hissed one of the geologists. “And turn out those lights. Maybe they don’t know we’re here.”

  The man got to his feet. In the preternatural glow of stone, they all watched him stagger across to a porthole near the doorway. With the stealth of an intruder, he cautiously lifted his head to the opening. And slid back down again.

  “What did you see?” Spurrier whispered.

  The geologist was silent.

  “Hey, Ruiz.” Finally, Spurrier crawled over. “Christ, the back of his head’s gone!”

  At that instant the assault commenced.

  Huge shapes poured in, monstrous silhouettes against the gleaming stone.

  “Oh, dear God!” screamed Twiggs.

  If not for his cry in English, they would have been shredded with gunfire.

  Instead there was a pause.

  “Hold your fire,” a voice commanded. “Who said ‘God’?”

  “Me,” pleaded Twiggs. “Davis Twiggs.”

  “That’s impossible,” said the voice.

  “It could be a trap,” warned a second.

  “It’s just us,” said Spurrier, and shined his light on his own face.

  “Soldiers,” cried Pia. “Americans!”

  Lights snapped on throughout the room.

  Shaggy mercenaries ranged right and left, still crouched, ready to shoot. It was hard to say who was more surprised, the debilitated scientists or the tattered remains of Walker’s command.

  “Don’t move, don’t move,” the mercenaries shouted at them. Their eyes were rimmed with red. They trusted nothing. Their rifle barrels darted like hummingbirds, searching for enemy.

  “Get the colonel,” said a man.

  Walker was carried in, seated on a rifle held on each side by soldiers. To Ali, he looked starved, until she saw his blood. The knifed-open rags of his pant legs showed dozens of bits of obsidian embedded in the flesh and bone. It was pain that had hollowed his face out. His faculties were unimpaired, though. He took in the room with a raptor’s eye.

  “Are you sick?” Walker demanded.

  Ali saw what he saw, gaunt men and women barely able to sit. They looked like scarecrows.

  “Just very hungry,” said Spurrier. “Do you have food?”

  Walker considered them. “Where’s the rest of you?” he said. “I recall more than just nine of you.”

  “They went home,” said Chelsea, prone beside her chessboard. She was looking at Ruiz’s body. Now they could see that the geologist had been sniped through the eye.

  “They’re going back the way we came,” said Spurrier.

  “The physicians, too?” Walker said. For a moment he was hopeful.

  “It’s just us now,” said Pia. “And you.”

  He surveyed the room. “What is this place, a shrine?”

  “A way station,” Pia said. Ali hoped she wou
ld stop there. She didn’t want Walker to know about the circular map, or the ceramic soldiers.

  “We found it two weeks ago,” Twiggs volunteered.

  “And you’re still here?”

  “We ran out of food.”

  “It looks defensible,” Walker said to a lieutenant in burned clothing. “Set your perimeters. Secure the boats. Bring in the supplies and our guest. And remove that body.”

  They set Walker on the ground against one wall. They were careful, but laying his legs out was an agony for him.

  Mercenaries began arriving from the beach with heavy loads of Helios food and supplies. Not one retained the look of the immaculate crusaders Walker had assiduously groomed. Their uniforms were in rags. Some were missing their boots. There were leg wounds and head injuries. They stank of cordite and old blood. Their beards and greasy locks made them look like a motorcycle gang.

  Their veneer of religious vocation had rubbed away, leaving tired, angry, frightened gunmen. The rough way they dumped the wetbags and boxes spoke volumes. Their escape attempt was not going well.

  After a few minutes, Walker returned his attention to the scientists. “Tell me,” he said, “how many people did you lose along the way?”

  “None,” said Pia. “Until now.”

  Walker made no apology as the geologist Ruiz was dragged from the room by the heels. “I’m impressed,” he said. “You managed to come hundreds of miles through a wilderness without a single casualty. Unarmed.”

  “Ike knows what he’s doing,” said Pia.

  “Crockett’s here?”

  “He’s exploring,” Troy quickly inserted. “He goes off days at a time. He’s looking for Cache V. For food.”

  “He’s wasting his time.” Walker turned his head to the black lieutenant. “Take five men,” he said. “Locate our friend. We don’t need any more surprises.”

  The soldier said, “You don’t hunt that man, sir. Our troops have had enough, the last month.”

  “I will not have him roaming at large.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Ali demanded. “What’s he done to you?”

  “It’s what I’ve done to him that’s the problem. Crockett’s not the sort to forgive and forget. He’s out there watching us right now.”

  “He’ll run off. There’s nothing here for him anymore. He said we’ve given up.”

  “Then why the tears?”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Ali told him softly.

  Walker grew brisk. “No live catches, Lieutenant, do you hear me? Crockett’s first commandment.”

  “Yes sir,” the lieutenant breathed out. He tagged five of his men and they started into the building.

  After the search team left, Walker closed his eyes. A soldier pulled a knife from his boot sheath and slit open a box of MREs and gestured at the scientists. It was up to Troy to feebly carry packets to his comrades. Twiggs kissed his, then tore it open with his teeth.

  Ali’s first bite of processed military spaghetti was delicious. She made her bites small. She sipped her water.

  Twiggs vomited. Then started over again.

  The room was beginning to fill up. More wounded were brought in. Two men mounted a machine gun at the window. All told, including herself and her comrades, Ali counted fewer than twenty-five people remaining from the original hundred and fifty who had started the journey.

  Walker opened his bloodshot eyes. “Bring everything inside,” he ordered. “The boats, too. They’re vulnerable, and they announce our presence.”

  “But there’s twelve of them out there.” Fifteen less than they’d started with, Ali realized. What had happened out there?

  “Bring them in,” said Walker. “We’re going to fort up a few days. This is the answer to our prayers, a toehold in this evil place.”

  The soldier’s pig eyes disagreed. He threw his salute. Walker’s hold was slipping.

  “How did you find us?” Pia asked.

  “We saw your light,” said Walker.

  “Our light?”

  Ike’s oil lamps, thought Ali. It had been her secret with him. A beacon to the world.

  “You found Cache V,” said Spurrier.

  “Haddie got half,” said Walker.

  “Call it the devil’s due,” said a voice, and Montgomery Shoat entered the room.

  “You? You’re still alive?” said Ali. She couldn’t hide her distaste. Being abandoned by the soldiers was one thing. But Shoat was a fellow civilian, and had known Walker’s dirty scheme. His betrayal felt worse.

  “It’s been quite the excursion,” said Shoat. He had a black eye and yellow bruises along one cheek, obviously from a beating. “Haddie’s been picking us to pieces for weeks. And the boys have been working doubletime to fit me in. I’m starting to think we may not complete our grand tour of the sub-Pacific.”

  Walker was in no mood for a court jester. “Is this coastline inhabited?”

  “I’ve only seen three of them,” Ali said.

  “Three villages?”

  “Three hadals.”

  “That’s all? No villages?” Walker’s black beard parted in a smile. “Then we’ve lost them, thank the Lord. They’ll never be able to track us across open water. We’re safe. We have food for another two months. And we have Shoat’s homing device.”

  Shoat wagged a finger at the colonel. “Ah-ah,” he said. “Not yet. You agreed. Three more days to the west. Then we’ll talk about retreat.”

  “Where’s the girl?” asked Ali. As more of the mercenaries came in, she saw the clawed hands and hadal ears and pieces of male and female genitalia dangling from their belts and rucksacks and rifles. Yeats’s poem echoed in her mind: The center cannot hold; … The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.…

  “I misjudged her,” Walker rasped. He needed morphine. Ali suspected what the soldiers had probably done with it.

  “You killed her,” Ali said.

  “I should have. She’s been useless to me.” He gestured, and two soldiers dragged the feral girl in and tied her to the wall nearby.

  The first thing Ali noticed was her smells. The girl had a raw odor, fecal and musky and layered with sweat. Her hair smelled like smoke and filth. Blood and snot streaked the duct tape.

  “What has been done to this child?”

  “She’s been an ungodly temptation to my men,” Walker answered.

  “You allowed your men—”

  Walker peered at her. “So righteous? You’re no different, though. Everyone wants something from this creature. Go ahead, extract your glossary from her, Sister. Just don’t leave this room without permission.”

  Troy stood and draped his jacket on the girl’s shoulders. The girl backed away from his chivalry, then opened her legs as far as the ropes would allow, and pumped her groin at him. Troy backed away.

  “I wouldn’t fall in love with that one, boy.” Walker laughed. “Ferae naturae. She’s wild by nature.”

  Ali and Troy went to feed the girl.

  “What you doing?” a soldier demanded.

  “Taking off this duct tape,” Ali said. “How else can she eat?”

  The soldier gave a hard yank at the tape, and snatched his hand away. The girl all but garroted herself on the wire, lunging for him. Ali fell back. Laughter sprinkled the room. “All yours,” he said.

  The feeding needed caution. Ali spoke to her with a low voice, enunciating their names, and trying to disarm her. The food was noxious to the girl, but she took it. At one point she spit the applesauce out and made some elaborate complaint, which emerged with extraordinary softness. It wasn’t just the volume that was soft, but the formal delivery. For all her ferocity, the girl sounded almost pious. She seemed to be speaking to the food, or discoursing on it. Her temperament was sophisticated, not savage.

  When she was done, the girl lay back on the rock floor and closed her eyes. There was no transition between the meal and sleeping. She took what she could get.

 
Two days passed. Ike still did not show himself. Ali sensed he was somewhere close, but the search teams came up empty.

  The soldiers beat Shoat senseless, trying to pry loose the secret of his homing-device code. His stubbornness drove them to a fury, and they only stopped when Ali placed her body across Shoat’s. “Kill him and you’ll never learn the code,” she told them. Nursing Shoat added to her duties, for she was already taking care of Walker and several other soldiers. But someone had to do it. They were still God’s creatures.

  Walker wavered in and out of fever. He railed in tongues in his sleep. The soldiers exchanged dark looks. The room filled with deadly intent, and Ali grew more and more concerned. The only good news was that Ike was nowhere to be found.

  On the second night, Troy bravely tried to stop a mercenary from taking the girl outside to some waiting friends. The soldiers gave him a pistol-whipping that would have gone on but for the girl’s laughter, and her strangeness made them lose interest in hitting Troy. Much later she was returned to the room, sweaty and with her mouth duct-taped. Still bleeding himself, Troy helped Ali bathe the girl with a bottle of water.

  “She’s carried children,” Troy observed in a low voice. “Have you seen that?”

  “You’re mistaken,” Ali said.

  But there among the tattooed zebra lines and hatchmarks hid the stretch marks of pregnancy. Her areolae were dark. Ali had missed the signs.

  On the third night, the mercenaries came for the girl again. Hours later she was returned, semiconscious. While she and Troy washed the girl, Ali quietly hummed a tune. She wasn’t even aware of it until Troy said, “Ali, look!”

  Ali raised her eyes from the yellowing bruises on the child’s pelvic saddle. The girl was staring at her with tears running down her cheeks. Ali lifted the hum into words. “Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come,” she softly sang. “ ’Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home.”

  The girl began sobbing. Ali made the mistake of taking the child in her arms. The kindness triggered a terrible storm of kicking and thrashing and rejection. It was a horrible enlightening moment, for now Ali knew the girl had once had a mother who had sung that song.

  All night Ali spent with the captive, watching her. In her fourteen years the girl had experienced more of womanhood than Ali had in thirty-four. She had been married, or mated. She appeared to have borne a child. And so far she had kept her sanity through brutal mass rapes. Her inner strength was amazing.