Beckon

by Tom Pawlik

  Vale sighed and shook his head, a look of disappointment on his face. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you were just out for a morning stroll.”

  Part IV

  The Soul Eater

  / // /

  You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. . . . You have a body.

  Walter M. Miller Jr.,

  A Canticle for Leibowitz

  Chapter 31

  Twelve hours later

  It was going on eight o’clock in the evening and Jack was huddled in the back of the rust-colored pickup as it wound its way up a gravel road through looming pines to the top of a craggy bluff.

  His clothes were torn and muddy from his ordeal in the caves. The gash in his leg was bandaged and his hands were cuffed behind his back. And the sheriff they had called Carson—who Jack now knew was no real sheriff at all—sat beside him with a gun in his hand pointed at Jack’s chest. Malcolm Browne, the guy who had first picked Jack up on the highway, was driving. And the doctor named Henderson, who had bandaged Jack’s leg, was sitting beside Browne in the cab.

  They continued up the wooded hillside until the road leveled off and the trees parted to reveal the enormous log-beam mansion perched near the top of the bluff. It was quite impressive—a place that normally he’d like to spend a week in. Though considering his current circumstances, Jack could only feel a sense of great peril waiting for him inside.

  Carson yanked him out of the truck and ushered him up the gravel drive through the main entrance. He escorted Jack across the foyer into an expansive central hall.

  A man stood with his back to a wide bank of windows. He was lean and quite pale with a thick mass of black hair and very light-green—nearly yellow—eyes that gave his appearance a disturbing, vampirish feel.

  He strode across the room somewhat casually, as if to give Jack a closer look. “Welcome to Beckon. My name is Thomas Vale. They tell me your name is Kendrick. Is that right? Jack Kendrick?”

  Jack looked around at the others. “Do I know you?”

  “No,” Vale said simply. “They also say you’ve been inside the caves.”

  Jack could see where this was going. He suddenly realized that the less he knew, the safer he might be. “Uh . . . no. I haven’t been in any cave. I’ve just been out hiking—”

  Vale waved off his attempt at a lie. “Because you may just be the only person to have ever made it out of there alive.” He circled Jack as if inspecting him. “I can’t tell you how fascinating that is. I have a million questions.”

  “So do I.”

  “They tell me you’re some sort of anthropologist, yes?”

  Jack shook his head. “I’m not answering any questions until I get a phone. I want to call—”

  “Call who? The authorities?” Vale gave an icy chuckle. “Jack, in this town I am the authority.”

  “What’s going on here? Who are you people?”

  Vale ignored him. “It’s pretty impressive, really. I mean . . . finding a way into those caves was unlikely enough. But actually finding your way out again . . . well, that was just extraordinary. You have no idea how lucky you are.”

  “Funny, I don’t feel very lucky at the moment.”

  “Oh, but you are,” Vale said. “You see, the N’watu hate outsiders with a passion. And for you to have survived your encounter is nothing short of amazing.”

  Jack leaned forward. “What do you know about them?”

  Vale scratched the back of his neck. “Not nearly enough, I’m afraid. Though probably more than anyone else.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The last remnant of a pre-Columbian civilization that predates the Mayans. Probably even the Olmec.”

  Jack frowned. His father’s theories continued to be validated—a fact that both thrilled and frightened him as he feared he would never escape to share the discovery with anyone else. There was something obviously sinister going on in this town, and Jack wondered if his father had stumbled across this place and perhaps been kidnapped as well. In either case, he needed more information. He needed to find out what this guy knew about the N’watu.

  “And they still exist today, living entirely underground?”

  “Yes . . .” Vale looked almost giddy, like a parent talking about his child. “The truly incredible thing is that their culture has survived essentially intact for thousands of years, completely undetected by the modern world.” He paused, and his expression grew somber. “Of course, my intention is to keep it that way.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Vale looked incredulous. “You’re an anthropologist, aren’t you? To preserve their culture. To protect them from the invasive scrutiny of modern society.”

  Jack scowled. “But science is all about scrutiny. It’s about exploration and discovery.”

  Vale clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Perhaps some things weren’t meant to be discovered. I’d have thought you would understand the consequences to their way of life if news of their existence ever got out.”

  “Way of life? What kind of a life do these people have? They’re living inside a cave at a Stone Age level of existence.”

  “This culture has evolved in a completely isolated subterranean environment. The N’watu live their entire lives underground. And yet somehow they’ve managed to survive. Think about how remarkable that is.”

  “I guess I just don’t share your enthusiasm,” Jack said. “Besides, I think they’ve had more contact with the outside world than you’re leading me to believe.”

  Vale’s eyes flicked to the three other men in the room, then back to Jack. “Do you have any clue what kind of secrets such an ancient culture might hold? And what we can learn from them?”

  “Oh? Like offering human sacrifices?”

  Vale leveled his gaze at Jack. “You say that with such vitriol and judgment. But is our modern, civilized society any better? How many innocent lives have we surface dwellers taken in the name of progress or security? Or just plain convenience?”

  “So I assume you know about their bone pit.”

  “I’ve never actually been that deep into the cave,” Vale said. “But I don’t presume to judge their religious practices.”

  “Religious? They’ve been practicing ritual human sacrifices for years. And I’m guessing you’ve either known about it or have been directly complicit in the act.”

  Vale laughed and shook his head. “I don’t think you have a clue what’s going on here.”

  “I think I’ve seen enough.”

  Vale nodded to his men. “Excellent; then let’s see how much you know.”

  Carson yanked Jack backward, and they followed Vale down a corridor off the main room. Browne and Henderson brought up the rear. They turned down a narrow side hall, where Vale led them through another door and descended a flight of stairs.

  They arrived in a dimly lit basement, where Jack found himself in a narrow concrete-block corridor with three metal doors: one on each side of the hall and a third at the far end. Vale opened the door on the right and ushered Jack into a large room lined with cabinets and shelving units and lit by two rows of cold fluorescent lights. Situated throughout the room were several long tables, each one cluttered with a variety of laboratory equipment.

  At the far end of the room was a pair of enormous glass terraria, five or six feet in length. Vale strode to the first terrarium and tapped on the glass. “Have you fed them yet today?”

  Henderson cleared his throat. “Uh . . . no. I figured you might want to do that yourself.”

  Vale waved Jack over for a better look, and after a sharp nudge from Carson, Jack complied. He could see that the bottoms of both tanks were covered with a layer of mud, pebbles, and small rocks. On one side of each tank was a large pile of leaves and sticks. Jack could see the leaves jittering as Vale tapped the glass.

  “Bring me a rat, please.”

  Henderson went over to one of the shelving units along the wall. It was packed with rows of wire cages. And each
cage contained one or more of a variety of rodents: rats, mice, guinea pigs, and even a few rabbits.

  He retrieved a white rat by the scruff of its neck and handed it to Vale. Vale flipped open a small plastic hatch in the cover and dropped the rat into the terrarium.

  The rodent sat there for a moment, its whiskers twittering as it inspected its new surroundings.

  Suddenly the leaves shook as something emerged from under the pile. Jack let out a yelp and jumped backward.

  Vale grinned. “You’ve seen this before, yes?”

  Jack’s throat was dry. “Yes.”

  The armored arachnid was a miniature version of the monsters Jack had seen inside the caves. It was only six or eight inches across but had the same dark coloration on its top and a pale-gray underside. It reared back, raising its saber-like forelegs in the same menacing pose that Jack had seen before. Its two palps slapped together in rapid bursts, creating a soft but all-too-familiar clicking sound that sent chills down Jack’s spine. And while this spider was much smaller, it looked no less fierce under the brighter lights. A moment later three more had appeared from under the leaves.

  Vale leaned close to the glass as the creatures pounced on the hapless rat, overwhelming it. Fangs punctured fur and skin. Claws dug deep into its flesh, twisting and yanking the limbs in various directions, and their tiny jaws tore off bits of tissue while the rat squealed and writhed. Jack grimaced as he watched the horrid spectacle.

  Thankfully, the rat was dead within seconds, and the spiders began systematically dismembering its corpse.

  No, Jack thought, it was hardly systematic. It was a frenzied, monstrous attack like he had seen in the caves. Vicious and chaotic. One of the spiders clutched a hind leg with its fangs and forelegs and spun its body to twist off the limb much like a crocodile would do to an antelope. The others tore into the carcass with their claws, gnawing flesh off bone. A flurry of blood and fur spattered the glass. Jack had never witnessed anything so brutal in his life.

  He noticed Browne and even Carson kept their distance from the terraria.

  But Vale seemed positively giddy and grinned at Jack. “The N’watu call them kiracs. It’s derived from their word for terror. Aptly named, wouldn’t you say?”

  Henderson sounded less enthusiastic. “We believe they live in a colony structure with dozens or even hundreds of male hunters serving a single queen.”

  Vale leaned close to the glass, pointing at the carnage. “See . . . the males—the warriors—they’ll eat anything. Bugs, birds, reptiles, mammals . . . even each other.”

  Then he straightened up and moved to the second terrarium. “But the female, the queen . . . now, she’s more discriminating in her tastes. She’s far more . . . refined.” He tapped the glass.

  Jack’s eyes widened at what he saw.

  The queen kirac crept out from under the sticks and leaves, revealing her gnarled, armored bulk inch by inch. She was at least three times the size of the males and completely black with yellow spots dotting the top of her jagged shell. She moved slowly and deliberately . . . menacingly . . . clicking her palps in search of prey.

  Vale motioned for Henderson to bring him another rodent. A guinea pig this time. Vale held it by the scruff of its neck outside the glass. The queen seemed to ignore it completely, though the guinea pig wriggled and twitched at the sight of the kirac, struggling to free itself from Vale’s grasp.

  “See, the queen doesn’t eat flesh,” Vale said. “She only drinks the blood. But here’s the thing: it has to be a living victim.”

  He lifted the lid and dropped the guinea pig into the cage. The queen turned, clicking her palps in short flurries. She seemed to locate her target quickly. The rodent scrambled away, instinctively backing up to the glass. Its nose and whiskers twitched furiously as it rose up against the glass in search of an exit.

  The queen crept closer with slow, menacing strides. She first backed the guinea pig into the corner and then quickly moved in for the kill. The rodent jerked and struggled in a futile attempt to flee, but the queen clutched it with her massive forelegs. Jack could see the agitated animal growing increasingly desperate as the queen closed her legs around it, pulling it tightly into her embrace. It kicked against the rocks but couldn’t free itself from her bony grasp.

  Vale had a look of pride as if watching his prize hunting dog corner a fox. “And she doesn’t poison it, either. She overpowers it, holds it tightly, and sucks out all of its blood.”

  Jack saw the queen sink her long fangs into the throat of the guinea pig. The animal’s sides pulsed with each frantic breath but gradually slowed and within a minute had stopped altogether.

  After another minute, the queen slowly loosened her grasp and moved off toward her lair, leaving the rodent’s corpse lying in the mud.

  Henderson lifted the lid and picked up the limp guinea pig with a pair of tongs. Then he dropped it into the first terrarium, where the ravenous males dispatched the carcass with the same speed and ferocity as they had the rat.

  Jack swallowed back his nausea. “So she lives off the blood?”

  “It’s more than just blood. We think there’s something else.” Vale glanced at Henderson, who seemed to take his cue.

  “We know she won’t touch a corpse,” he said. “She has to have live prey. But when we give her a choice between two identical rats, one of them sedated and the other fully conscious, she’ll ignore the sedated one even though it’s an easier kill.”

  Jack frowned. “She only picks the conscious one?”

  “Every time. She won’t feed on a sedated animal even if that’s her only option.”

  “So . . . her instincts are based on movement?”

  Henderson shook his head. “That’s what we thought at first, but when we suspended a sedated rat from a string to keep it moving, she still wouldn’t go for it.”

  Jack nodded. “She must be keying in on something else. Maybe respiration or heart rate . . .” Jack recalled something Running Bear had said. The N’watu believed that Sh’ar Kouhm—the Soul Eater—fed on emotions.

  On fear.

  “The Caieche said the Soul Eater feeds on fear and anger.” Jack scratched his head. “So what if she can sense fear in her prey? Fear has a physiological effect on the body. Elevated heart rate, respiration . . .” He shrugged. “Maybe she has a taste for adrenaline.”

  Vale offered a thin smile. “Very good, Jack. I’m impressed with your powers of deduction. I want to know everything that happened in those caves. I want to know everything you know about these things.”

  “What?” Jack scowled. “Why should I tell you anything?”

  Vale shrugged. “Because the only thing keeping you alive at the moment is that I believe you have information that could be useful. So as long as you stay cooperative, you’ll stay alive.”

  Jack felt his jaw tighten. He had no doubt these people would make good on that threat. He had no interest in helping them, but he also needed to learn more about what was going on in this town.

  He sighed. “Fine . . . what do you want to know?”

  Henderson gestured to the glass. “I’ve been studying these things for a while now, but there’s still so much I don’t know. What can you tell me about what you experienced in the caves?”

  Jack just stared at the kiracs, wishing Rudy were still alive. He was the biology major with all the theories. Jack shuddered again at the memory of his friend succumbing to the spider’s poison.

  “Well . . . we found out their venom is extremely toxic. And fast. It causes massive internal bleeding and . . . a very painful death.”

  “We know,” Henderson said. “But only the males are venomous.”

  Jack pointed to the terrarium. “The ones I saw in the cave were enormous. Five to ten times the size of these. Are they all juveniles?”

  “No, they’re fully mature at twelve months,” Henderson said. “But some arthropods never stop growing.”

  “My friend had a theory,” Jack said. “We
saw enormous millipedes and beetles feeding on some kind of bioluminescent microorganism—bacteria or something. And he thought it might be producing oxygen. Through some kind of reaction.”

  Henderson was nodding. “So an increase in the overall oxygen levels would support the increased mass . . . provided they had a sufficient food supply.”

  Vale interrupted them. “Well, it sounds like you two have a lot to discuss.” He seemed satisfied with Jack’s cooperation. “I have some matters to attend to upstairs. Let me know if you come up with anything useful.”

  Vale left the lab, followed by Malcolm Browne.

  Carson checked to make sure Jack’s handcuffs were still secure. “Don’t try anything stupid, kid. I’m right outside.”

  Carson left and locked the door behind him, leaving Jack and Henderson alone in the lab.

  Jack sat down on a stool, suddenly overwhelmed by fatigue and hunger. “Look, you seem to be the only one in this town who’s not psychotic. Can you please just tell me what’s going on?”

  Henderson looked away. “It’s complicated.”

  Jack shook his head and laughed a hopeless, empty laugh. He truly felt at the end of his rope. “Of course it’s complicated. There’s a pile of human bones down in those caves. There are legends of human sacrifices. And now you people are holding me captive, I assume because I’ve seen too much and you can’t let me go.”

  “You’re here because you serve a purpose for Thomas Vale,” Henderson said. “All of us serve some kind of purpose for him.”

  “So . . . are you saying you’re being held here against your will too?”

  Henderson bit the inside of his cheek. “I suppose I could leave if I really wanted to.”

  Jack wrinkled his forehead. “I don’t get it. Don’t you want to leave?”

  “More than anything.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Henderson’s gaze fell and he shook his head. “The problem is, I’ll die if I leave. And I’d die a pretty painful death.”