by Tom Pawlik
She was still in the air when Carson swung the stick toward her. She saw a blue spark of light and felt her limbs involuntarily stiffen. She hit the ground like a sack of rocks, her throat tightening so violently that she couldn’t breathe.
Then Carson pulled the stick away, electricity still sparking from the tip. Elina lay completely stunned and gasping for breath as the other man entered with a rope.
Chapter 37
Jack screamed until his throat was raw, his throbbing fists pounding against the door. He alternated between threatening and reasoning with Vale as Carson and another man entered Elina’s cell.
But Vale ignored Jack, and a few minutes later his men emerged again, carrying Elina between them. She was bound and gagged, her hands and feet wrapped tightly with rope.
They hauled her back up the tunnel, around the corner, and out of sight. Jack leaned his head against the bars, listening to the other voices echo curses through the tunnels.
Jack closed his eyes and struggled to keep his thoughts focused. He tried to talk to the man in the cell across from him. The newcomer they had just brought down. Vale had called him George.
“Hey . . . hey, George.”
Jack could see a vague shadow moving behind the bars in the window.
“George,” Jack called again. “Did you ever find a way to contact the FBI?”
A voice replied from behind the door. It was husky and hollow, empty of emotion. “No. They were waiting for us as soon as we got out of the tunnel. Vale’s had us locked up in our room ever since.”
“Elina said you were with someone else. . . . Was that your wife?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to her?”
Jack could see the vague shape of George’s face through the bars of his door. “She’s dead. They said they had a cure for her Alzheimer’s, but . . . they lied to us. It killed her instead.”
Jack heard him begin to sob in the darkness. He stepped back to process this information in silence. It was just like Henderson had described. Vale lured people to town with the promise of curing some disease. George was probably wealthy or had something else Vale needed to continue his smuggling of human beings into town. That must have been why they were chosen.
“I’m sorry for your loss” was all he could think of to say.
The soft echo of footsteps brought Jack up from his thoughts. He strained to listen. Someone else was approaching.
A minute later another figure appeared in the tunnel, carrying a flashlight. He moved slowly down the passage, peering into the cells. The light glared in Jack’s eyes for a moment, then flicked away.
“He’s going to kill her,” a voice said.
Jack’s hope lifted. “Dwight?”
Dwight Henderson’s eyes darted around the tunnel. “We . . . we have to save her.”
“Save Elina?” Jack said. “Yes, we do. But you need to let us out so we can help you.”
Dwight shook his head. Jack thought he looked disoriented. “I—I begged him not to take her, but . . . he said she was too dangerous to keep.”
“Dwight, let us out of here. We’re running out of time.”
Dwight shone the light into George’s cell. “I’m sorry about Miriam. I’m sorry that you lost her.”
George’s voice took on a biting tone. “Oh, I’m sure you are.”
“Why didn’t she want to live here? Why would she do that?”
“Because she wasn’t afraid to die,” George said. “She would rather die than be a part of what you people are doing here, and she wanted to set me free. She . . .” His voice cracked. “She believed something better was waiting for her when she died.”
Dwight leaned closer to George’s window. “Do you?”
George was silent for a moment, then said, “I don’t know.”
“Dwight,” Jack said, “do you have the keys?”
Dwight held up a ring of keys. “He’ll kill me for this.”
“We’ll help you,” Jack said. “Just let us out of here.”
“He’ll kill me.” Dwight stared at the keys, though his gaze seemed unfocused. “He’ll get rid of me like he did with Amanda. He’s going to kill all of us sooner or later. Eventually we’ll all stop being useful to him.”
“Listen to me,” Jack persisted. “We can help you.”
“No, you can’t, Jack. No one can.” He turned back to George. “Do you think Miriam was right? Do you think there’s anything waiting for you when you die?”
“If there is a hell, I know you’ll be there. You and all the rest of the people in this town.”
Jack could see Dwight wavering in the darkness. Teetering on the brink between hope and despair. Struggling perhaps with a newfound conscience. A sense of moral doubt that had been buried too deeply and for too long but that now seemed to be reemerging. Jack tried to tip the balance further, even if he wasn’t quite sure of it himself.
“That’s not true, Dwight. There’s still hope.”
“No, there’s not. I’ve done terrible things.”
“I know it,” Jack said. “Horrible things. I don’t have all the answers, but I have to believe that God’s bigger than all that. I have to believe He can forgive you. That He wants to forgive you.”
“That’s what she thought too.” Dwight furrowed his brow and snorted. “But God left this town a long time ago.”
“No, He didn’t.” Jack felt his heart swelling now with courage. He could sense the tiniest spark of hope in this dungeon. Elina had ignited it in his heart almost without his knowing it. And now it was struggling to shine again right on the other side of his prison door. He just needed to coax it a little. To fan it into flame. “I used to think that way too, but maybe God’s here now. Right here in the darkness. Maybe it’s why He brought Elina here. To help you find Him. Now please, let us out so we can save her.”
Dwight blinked and looked down at the ring in his hands. His jaw clenched, and he slipped the key into the lock.
Jack pushed the door open with a rush of emotion flooding over him. He grabbed Dwight by the shoulders, wanting to hug the man there in the tunnel. “We have to free the others.”
They unlocked George’s cell and the one on the other side of Jack.
The young man who emerged from that cell was emaciated and filthy. He looked barely eighteen or nineteen and rail thin. His tattered clothes reeked. He was talking rapidly in Spanish. Jack handed him the keys and motioned for him to open the other cells.
George emerged from his cell as if in a daze. Jack could see he was an older man, maybe in his seventies. He was tall and perhaps at one time rather distinguished-looking, but now his face looked gaunt and gray as if worn out by sorrow. A large purple bruise puffed out on his upper cheek.
“We have to go after them,” Jack said to Dwight and George. He could hear the other cell doors opening, accompanied by yelps and hoots of relief.
Dwight was shaking his head. “You need weapons first. Frank has a gun.”
By now, the other kid had returned, out of breath and followed by six exhausted-looking Hispanic men. They were all speaking Spanish, and Jack couldn’t understand what they were saying.
He turned back to Dwight. “Where are the weapons?”
Dwight pointed up the tunnel. “Frank’s ex-military. He’s got an armory in the basement, right across from my lab.”
Jack looked at the group of Hispanic men. “Which one of you is Javier? Who’s Elina’s cousin?”
One of them stepped forward, the tallest of the group. His long black hair was matted and tangled.
“We have to save Elina,” Jack said.
Javier started to reply in Spanish, but Jack shook his head.
“Wait . . . uh, no . . . no habla es—”
Dwight cut him off. “Han llevado a Elina a la cueva. Tenemos que ir por ella.”
Javier nodded excitedly. “Sí, vamos a prisa!”
They rushed through the tunnel and up the stairs into the basement of the lodge. All of the
m shielded their eyes from the fluorescent lights and moved out into the corridor.
“Here,” Dwight said. He stopped at the door across from his lab and fumbled with the keys. “It’s this one.”
All of the prisoners with the exception of Javier scurried past them toward the stairs.
“Hey, wait! Hold up,” Dwight called after them. “Espera, espera!”
But they ignored him, obviously too relieved to be free.
Dwight looked at Jack and George. “We have to stop them. The others are still upstairs. If they find out what’s going on . . .”
George’s eyes took on an icy glare. “I’ll take care of them; you guys go after the girl.”
Dwight unlocked the door and opened it into a small room with gun racks on the walls and a shelving unit crammed with boxes of ammunition. They snatched weapons and ammo in a mad flurry. Jack found a rack of shotguns.
He tossed one to George along with a box of shells. “Guard the entrance. Make sure none of them come after us.”
George nodded and headed up the hall, loading the shells as he went.
Dwight was busy loading the other shotguns. He slung one over his shoulder and handed another to Jack. Jack looked it over, familiarizing himself with the weapon. He had fired a gun a few times on a target range, but he’d never used one in any kind of violent action.
“Point and pull.” Dwight tapped the barrel. “Just don’t point it at me.” He gave one to Javier as well and rattled off some instructions in Spanish.
Jack spotted a box of flares on one of the lower shelves. He grabbed a handful and shoved them into a canvas bag.
Meanwhile Dwight had loaded a pair of .45 revolvers; he shoved one in his belt and held the other ready. Inside of three minutes they were loaded and ready for war.
Dwight stopped on his way out the door. “Hold on.”
He grabbed a couple items off one of the shelves and showed them to Jack—small, black metallic spheres with handles on one side.
Jack’s eyebrows went up. “Grenades? He’s got hand grenades too?”
Dwight shrugged. “Like I said, Frank’s ex-military.”
Jack glanced back along the corridor where George had disappeared up the stairs. Then he turned and followed Dwight and Javier through the storage closet and down into the tunnel.
Chapter 38
Elina struggled against the ropes, but they were far too tight. Obviously these guys had done this before and knew the best ways to subdue and transport their prisoners. They had gagged her as well.
They carried her out of the cell and down into the darkness of the tunnel. There was no more lighting and no stairs carved beyond this point, so the two men moved slowly through the rough passage, lugging her between them. Vale stayed in the lead with the flashlight.
They carried her for nearly ten minutes, descending deeper into the cave until they came at last into a larger chamber. They set her down on the ground, a cold mixture of pebbles and mud. Elina watched her two bearers step back while Vale moved forward to a section of the wall where Elina could see what looked like wooden timbers. Another doorway built into the rock.
Vale picked up a large stone and pounded it against the wood. A dull, hollow thump rang out in the cavern. Then he stepped away. The other two men retreated even farther, taking cover behind a large rock.
At first nothing happened. And then came a long, low creak as the door swung open. Vale shut off his flashlight, plunging the entire chamber into blackness.
In the middle of the darkness, Elina saw two lights glowing. She peered more closely, her heart racing now. These weren’t flashlights or torches she saw, but rather they emitted a soft, steady glow. Two orbs of pale-yellow light suspended in the darkness.
And yet Elina saw the lights were moving, floating closer until she could see they were in fact two lanterns of some sort, being carried by a pair of human figures walking toward them. It wasn’t until they were much closer that Elina was able to determine what they looked like.
And then she wished she’d never seen them.
They were tall and gaunt and ghostly pale, their skin reflecting the light of their lanterns with an eerie luminescence. They moved with smooth, sure-footed strides through the dark cavern, naked except for the loincloths tied low around their hips. Their translucent white skin was covered with strange black markings, just as Jack had described. But in fact the N’watu were more terrifying by far than Elina had imagined from Jack’s account.
Now she could see four of them, each one carrying a thick spear topped with a long, serrated tip that looked like it had been carved from some sort of bone or shell. And behind them, Elina spotted a diminutive shadow moving. Black against the darkness beyond.
The N’watu approached Elina and loomed over her with eerie, colorless eyes gazing down. Their skeletal faces were hideous—fierce and misshapen. If Carson hadn’t stuffed the rag in her mouth and tied it there, Elina would have been screaming.
Then the fifth figure drew up behind them. The woman Jack had described, dressed in veils and dwarfed by her accompanying warriors, approached Elina. She bent down as if to inspect her, like a woman examining a cut of meat at a butcher shop. She hissed some muttered incantation over her, then straightened and faced Vale.
Vale bowed low in her presence. “Nun’dahbi.”
“Another outsider,” the woman’s voice hissed. The sound was somewhat unnerving to Elina, at once beautiful and yet filled with venom.
“Yes,” Vale said. “She . . . she wandered into town—and she knew too much for us to let her go.”
“She will be missed. More will come searching.”
“No, Great Mother, they won’t find anything,” Vale said. Elina could tell he was trying to exude confidence, but he looked nervous. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“There were other intruders. You could not keep them away.”
Vale nodded in earnest. “We captured one of them, and the others are dead. They had discovered another entrance into the caves. A hidden entrance. But we will block that also so no one else will find it. Your home is still safe.”
Nun’dahbi paused. Elina could not see her face and so could not tell if she was satisfied with his assurances. “They are growing too numerous,” she said at last. “More and more they come.”
“Your home is safe, Nun’dahbi.”
“But for how long?”
Vale looked surprised. “I . . . I assure you,” he stammered, “we . . . we have everything under control.”
Nun’dahbi paused a moment—perhaps to let Vale stew in a bit of uncertainty, Elina thought. He might have been in charge up on the surface, but clearly he was the subordinate down here.
Then Nun’dahbi produced a vessel of some sort from the folds of her cloak and held it out in white, bony hands. It was a tall, dark-colored decanter that Elina could see held some sort of liquid. Vale bowed his head and reached forward to take the jar from her hands, but she clung to it a moment.
“Do not fail me.” Her tone was soft but strident.
Vale looked up sharply. “I . . . I have never failed you, Great Mother.”
The faceless veil issued a soft hiss, a sigh perhaps. Or perhaps it was a laugh. Elina couldn’t be sure. But after a moment Nun’dahbi released the jar into his grasp.
“See that you don’t.”
Then she turned away and with a brief gesture of her clawed fingers waved him off.
Vale skulked away, clutching the jar in both hands as two of the N’watu lifted Elina by the ropes and carried her through the doorway into the tunnel beyond. She could hear a heavy, wooden groan as the door swung shut behind her. Elina found her pulse racing as she struggled against the ropes.
They carried her through the passage. Elina could see one lantern ahead of her and one behind, both casting a pale glow against the jagged walls and ceiling.
Before long they came into an open space, a larger cavern. Situated about the chamber were dozens of lanterns like the ones the tw
o warriors carried. Their glow lit the cave in a mesmerizing yellow light. Elina struggled to stay focused and aware of her surroundings. The room was about a hundred feet across and the floor was smooth and flat, almost artificially so. Not like a natural cavern. The walls as well were too straight to be natural formations, with openings cut into them leading perhaps into other rooms.
They came to the edge of a precipice that plunged into darkness. She glanced, wide-eyed, down at the abyss.
They moved along the edge of the pit until they came to a wide, stone slab and laid her on it. Elina noticed now that several other warriors had joined them, and she fought through her fear to try to count them. Nearly a dozen of them but still the woman, Nun’dahbi, was the only female Elina had seen.
She was lying on some sort of table in a large oval-shaped chamber. Recalling her training, Elina tried to get her bearings. In the middle of the chamber was the large, round pit. Elina guessed it was twenty or thirty feet across. And on the ledge she could see the outline of a large structure—a stone base supporting a thick log that extended out over the mouth of the pit.
Nun’dahbi strode into Elina’s view, carrying a staff with beads and feathers dangling from the top. She swept it over Elina’s body from head to foot and back again, muttering a gargled series of incantations. She motioned to some of the men standing around her, and they brought a few lanterns closer, setting them on the edges of the table. Another man brought a small wooden bowl, the size of a coffee cup, and set it beside Elina’s head. She squirmed and rolled on the table, determined to make whatever procedure they might have planned as difficult for them as possible.
But apparently Nun’dahbi would have none of it. She hissed something at her men, and four of them stepped up to place their long hands firmly on Elina’s body and hold her still. For all their lean and bony appearance, these men seemed to possess great strength. Elina felt like she was being held by iron restraints.