Beckon

by Tom Pawlik

  “Let’s just say I’m older than I look.”

  Jack’s mouth hung open. This guy looked like he was in his twenties. Thick, chestnut-brown hair without a hint of gray. And perfect complexion. Not a trace of age lines by his mouth or crow’s-feet around his eyes. No moles or liver spots. But how old was he in reality? Forty? Fifty? Jack pressed him for an answer, but Henderson refused to provide further details. Finally Jack shook his head in frustration. “But you’re telling me that if you leave here or stop taking the perilium, you’ll die.”

  Henderson nodded and his lips grew tight. “I’ve seen it before. There have been others. The day you fail him or the day he decides you’re no longer useful to him, he cuts you off.”

  Jack fell silent for a moment, taking this all in. Then he snorted. “So basically your whole job here is to find new victims for the N’watu to sacrifice.”

  “Because if we don’t, the flow of perilium stops. And we all die.”

  Jack stared at the first terrarium. The kiracs had picked clean both the carcasses of the rat and the guinea pig. All that was left were bloodstains and bones scattered around the cage.

  “What happened to you?” Jack asked. “You’re a doctor. You used to value human life, didn’t you? You should know better.”

  Henderson issued a long sigh. “You need to see things with a little more objectivity.”

  “Objectivity?” Jack said. “You kidnap innocent human beings and bring them here to die.”

  At that point the door opened and Vale entered, shaking his head as if he’d been listening in on their conversation the whole time. “You know, Jack, I was really hoping you would work out here. That you’d be able to see the bigger picture.”

  “I’ve seen enough,” Jack said, his teeth clenched. “I’d tell you how wrong all this is. How evil. But I’m guessing you’re beyond even grasping those concepts.”

  Vale chuckled. “It’s funny how quick people are to judge evil, while so blind to seeing it in themselves.”

  “Don’t you drag me down to your level.”

  “Oh, I think you would be capable of greater things if properly motivated. We’re all willing to sacrifice others for our own purposes.”

  “Not like this,” Jack said. “Not like you.”

  “No? Tell me, Jack Kendrick, what moved you to come here in the first place? What drove you to search those caves? Something did. Some ambition. What was it, Jack?”

  Jack’s jaw clenched. Did he dare bring up his father? Would these people know what had happened? Or had his father just been one of a multitude of victims? Despite how painful the truth might be, Jack needed to know.

  “I came here to find out what happened to my father.”

  Vale narrowed his eyes and the corner of his mouth curled up slightly. “Your father?”

  “His name was David Kendrick, and he disappeared somewhere out here twelve years ago.” Jack found his voice quaking slightly. “He was an anthropologist doing some research. I’m guessing you probably remember him. You know what happened to him.”

  Vale merely shrugged. “But unfortunately I don’t.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” Vale said. “It’s sad, really. You coming all this way, looking for answers and not finding them. And it sounds to me like your friends paid the ultimate price for it.”

  Jack opened his mouth but could find no answer. His anger drained away as he pictured Rudy’s terrified convulsions and death. And he could still hear Ben screaming as he was pulled back down the tunnel by the same creatures.

  “So was it worth it, Jack? Was it worth their lives?”

  Jack stared at the floor. “I . . . I didn’t kill them.”

  “No? It was your obsession . . . your desire to find answers that killed them.”

  Vale gestured to Frank Carson, who entered the room with a dark grin. Fear and anger gripped Jack as he snapped out of his guilt and looked for some way of escape. But there was only the one door, and his hands were still bound behind his back. Still, he made a dash for the doorway, trying to plow through Carson. But Carson grabbed him and wrestled him to the floor, knocking a table over in the process and scattering papers everywhere.

  He yanked Jack to his feet and slapped the back of his knuckles across Jack’s face. Jack swooned momentarily and his legs buckled as he struggled to stay standing. He blinked the stars from his eyes and looked up at Vale.

  “What . . . what are you going to do with me?”

  Vale’s yellowish eyes stared at Jack, seemingly void of any emotion. “Unfortunately you pose too great a risk for us. So you might say we’re donating your body to science.”

  Chapter 34

  Jack felt himself being half carried, half dragged through darkness as the world spun around him. His head and jaw throbbed from where Carson had belted him, and Jack dimly added a concussion to his mental list of injuries. Only vaguely aware of his surroundings, he could tell he was descending deeper into darkness as shadow and cold folded around him and a sickly familiar scent of damp earth and stone filled his head.

  Fear swirled inside his chest, though he was too groggy and disoriented to realize just how afraid he should be. Far down in his consciousness, he knew they were taking him back into the caves. Back into the horror from which he had barely escaped.

  He heard metallic sounds: the jingle of keys and some kind of latch and then the dull wooden creak of a door. And then he fell flat onto a cold, hard stone floor. Human voices wailed and moaned in the darkness.

  Above them all, Carson’s harsh voice muttered something, but Jack couldn’t respond; then the sound of their footsteps quickly receded into the darkness. And as Jack lay on the floor, he felt an insurmountable sense that he was completely alone.

  “Hello?”

  A woman’s voice echoed somewhere nearby. Jack wondered if he was dreaming. Then a male voice—also nearby—responded. Jack thought he was speaking Spanish.

  Jack opened his eyes. He lifted himself off the ground and surveyed his surroundings. He could see the vague rocky surface of walls. Along one side, a pale beam of green light streamed in through an opening. Like a small window in a door. Jack squinted. A prison door.

  He rubbed his head and jaw, which still throbbed, though less intensely now. Carson’s punch had packed considerable wallop. He almost thought he had heard voices calling to him.

  “Hey in there . . . can you hear me?” The woman’s voice came again.

  Jack felt his way to the door and peered out into what looked like some kind of tunnel. Across from him, he could see another wooden door with a small window cut into it. Iron bars were embedded in the wood. A sick feeling grew in the pit of his stomach.

  “I . . . I can hear you,” he said.

  There was a pause. Jack was both relieved and disconcerted to hear others down in the darkness. Obviously this was where Vale was stockpiling new victims for his monsters. Then the voice came back.

  “My name is Elina Gutierrez. I’m . . . I used to be a police officer from Los Angeles.”

  “Los Angeles?” Jack said. “How did you get here?”

  “I was looking for my cousin, Javier. He’d been kidnapped and brought here. I followed their van from California but they caught me, too.”

  At that point Jack heard another male voice off in the darkness, speaking Spanish. Elina responded in Spanish as well.

  “Who are they?” Jack said.

  “That’s Javier. They brought a whole vanload of workers—they said they had jobs in Las Vegas but then brought them here four weeks ago and locked them in this place. I think they’ve been doing this for a while.”

  Jack grunted. “Huh . . . I guess that makes sense.”

  “Why? What are they doing to them?”

  Jack leaned his forehead against the bars. “You don’t want to know.”

  “They said there’s something down in the caves. Do you know what they’re talking about?”

  Jack couldn
’t bring himself to tell them what he knew. He could barely stand to think of it himself.

  After a moment Elina’s voice came again. “What’s your name?”

  “Jack.”

  “Jack . . . how did you get here?”

  Jack closed his eyes for a second. He had lost track of time. It had been only a matter of days, yet it seemed like forever. “I was in the caves, trying to find some evidence of an old Indian legend. . . .”

  He gave her all the details of his expedition. How he had discovered his father’s papers and the article on the Caieche. He told her about the legends of the N’watu and the Soul Eater. He described how they had found the cave and the kiracs in the bone pit. His voice grew a little shaky as he described Rudy and Ben and how they died. He told her about his encounter with the N’watu remnant still living in the caves and his escape. And finally how he had been captured by the people in Beckon and everything he had learned about perilium and their dark history of human sacrifices to the Soul Eater.

  Elina seemed particularly interested in that part. “Perilium? Well, that explains how Carson recovered from his gunshot wound.”

  “Gunshot?” Jack said. “When did that happen?”

  Then Jack listened as Elina told him about her own encounter—how she had followed the white van with the Nevada plates to Wyoming and how she had shot Carson nearly point-blank and he had appeared to recover.

  “But the trouble is, they all have some kind of addiction to it,” Jack said. “If they ever stopped taking it, they would all die.”

  “So they’ve been smuggling illegal immigrants for years,” Elina said. “Now I know why.”

  “But they don’t know how to actually make this stuff themselves,” Jack said. “So they’ve been forced to keep this bargain with the N’watu.”

  “Well, you said they thought it was somehow connected to these creatures.”

  “Yes, but they don’t know how exactly,” Jack said, lowering his voice. “When we were inside the cave, we saw the N’watu performing some kind of ceremony where they pulled the hatchlings out of an egg sac and ate them. Then they poured the rest into a bowl and started mashing them up.”

  “So you think they make perilium out of the . . . baby kiracs?”

  “And that’s what the Soul Eater legend says,” Jack said. “The queen kirac supposedly devours a human soul and then imparts its energy back through her nectar.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Elina grunted.

  “Yeah, but it makes sense,” Jack said. “There must be something in the kiracs’ physiology—some type of enzyme or something, maybe active just during that stage of their development—that causes the effect on the body.”

  “There’s one thing I don’t get,” Elina said. “How has this tribe been able to survive for so long? You said you only saw the one female in the cave. That’s not much of a gene pool.”

  Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. There must be more of them that we didn’t see.”

  “Or maybe they’re just like those creatures,” Elina said. “Like you said, a group of hunters around a single queen.”

  “Maybe.” Jack rubbed his eyes. “I don’t care anymore. I just want to find a way out.”

  Elina seemed to brighten. “There were two people who came down here earlier. I don’t know who they are, but I don’t think they’re part of all this. They said they were guests or something. They were going to try to get help.”

  “If they’re guests here, I’m not so sure we can trust them,” Jack said. “I wouldn’t trust anyone connected to Thomas Vale.”

  “I don’t think they knew what was going on here. They said they were going to try to contact the FBI.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Although hope was not something he sensed much at the moment.

  Chapter 35

  George had watched Miriam sleep fitfully throughout the night. He had tossed and turned himself, as he found he couldn’t get the vision of Amanda’s agonizing death out of his mind. And Vale leering over her, playing mind games with him. The man was clearly used to manipulating his subordinates and circumstances, all to his own advantage.

  George woke every time Miriam coughed or rolled over, afraid she would start having seizures during the night. And by the time morning came, he’d not slept more than a few minutes at a time and was still bleary-eyed when he heard voices outside the door.

  George slipped out of bed to see what was going on just as Dwight Henderson entered with a tray of food. Through the doorway, George spotted Mulch still standing guard outside.

  Henderson set the tray on the table and glanced into the bedroom. “How is she doing this morning?”

  George glared at him. “As well as could be expected.”

  Henderson was silent for a moment and then shook his head. “Why did you go nosing around? Why did you have to go down into the tunnels?”

  “Why were you down there?” George said. “What does Vale have you doing? Checking on all his prisoners?”

  “You don’t know the whole story.”

  George could see some kind of conflict in Henderson’s eyes. Whatever was going on in this town, it looked like Henderson was more of an unwilling participant. Much like Amanda had been.

  “Then why don’t you tell me? You can start with how you got here.”

  “It’s not important.” Henderson looked away. “It was a long time ago.”

  George sighed. “Vale lured you here the same way he did us, didn’t he? To save someone you loved?”

  Henderson didn’t answer.

  “Who was she?”

  Henderson’s gaze fell, and after a moment he took a long breath. “Her name was Julia. She was my wife. But she’s been gone more than eighty years now.”

  “From the perilium?”

  “No . . .” Henderson sat down. “No, she hanged herself.”

  “Suicide? What happened?”

  Henderson’s gaze shifted around the room. “I was a doctor in San Francisco when Julia became ill with leukemia. It was 1897 and we tried every treatment available to us, but she only got worse. And that’s when Vale contacted me. I . . . I don’t know how he found me, but Julia was quite literally on her deathbed and Vale said he had this medicine—an old Indian treatment that would heal her. But he said it would come at a cost. My family was quite wealthy, but he said he didn’t only want our money. He just said the cure would require us to move to Beckon.”

  “Sounds familiar,” George grunted.

  Henderson shrugged. “We were desperate, and I would have done anything to save her. So, of course, I agreed. We were both in our fifties at the time and soon I found what you did. That perilium reverses the aging process and makes a person young again. Within days, Julia looked like she was thirty years younger.”

  George nodded. “You thought it was a miracle.”

  “Yes,” Henderson said. “He offered it to me as well, but he said he needed me to return to San Francisco for a few years. He said he had work for me to do.”

  George frowned. “What kind of work?”

  “Horrible work.” Henderson looked down and shuddered. “The devil’s work.”

  “What was it?”

  “He said he needed . . . specimens, he called them—five or six every month. He gave me very detailed instructions on what to do and how to have them sent. He said I would find plenty of suitable subjects in San Francisco. People no one would miss. Vagrants, prostitutes, criminals. He said I would be doing the city a favor. All I had to do was sedate them and have them transported to Wyoming. Henry Mulch would arrive with a coach every month like clockwork. And Vale said if I missed a single deadline, the perilium would stop and Julia would die. If I told anyone or tried to send help, Julia would die.”

  George recalled Vale’s boasting about his negotiation skills. “So he found out what you needed most and exploited that to get what he wanted. He used your fear against you.”

  “It’s what he does best. It’s how he ha
s survived here for so long.”

  “So what did he do with them? The . . . specimens?”

  Henderson grew pale at George’s question. “There’s something down in the caves. The N’watu call it the Soul Eater—they worship it like some kind of god. And it’s the source of the perilium.” He turned away. “The N’watu must supply it with a new offering—they . . . feed it a human soul in exchange for the perilium.”

  “Feed it?” George couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What do you mean? What is this thing?”

  “It’s . . . some kind of animal.” Henderson seemed to struggle for words. “A creature that drinks the blood of its prey. The N’watu say it feeds on a human soul and in exchange provides that soul’s energy back to them.”

  “This is crazy!” George found his mind reeling again. He got up and paced the room. The more information he gained about this town, the more hideous and terrifying it became. “So then everyone’s role here is somehow involved with finding new victims.”

  “One way or another,” Henderson said. “If we don’t provide the N’watu with a new sacrifice, the perilium will stop. And if the perilium stops, we’ll all die. Just the way you saw Amanda die.”

  “How many specimens did you send him?”

  “I don’t know.” Henderson rubbed his eyes. “I wouldn’t keep count. You have to understand, I had to become another man altogether to do this work. Like Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes I would find two or three at a time to send. I swear I didn’t know what he was doing with them.”

  George grew indignant. This man truly believed he had done nothing wrong. He had justified his role in the deaths of possibly hundreds of innocent human beings. “What did you think he was doing? You’re a doctor. You’re supposed to save lives!”

  “I saved Julia’s life. As long as Vale kept getting his specimens, she had enough perilium. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t sacrifice a stranger—or a thousand strangers—to save Miriam.”

  George’s indignation suddenly abated. He’d made just such a choice last night. Amanda’s life had been in his hands and he’d sacrificed it for his wife’s. He no longer had the moral high ground from which to judge Henderson.