Beckon

by Tom Pawlik

  “Do you see her anywhere?” Jack said.

  “No, I—”

  Suddenly a terrified shriek echoed up from somewhere in the darkness. Jack snapped his head around and saw an open pit.

  “Elina!” he cried out. “Where are you?”

  “Down here!”

  Jack rushed across the cavern with Dwight following close behind. Jack ignited another flare and flung it ahead of him. It hit the ground and the orange glow lit up more of the chamber. He could see several carved stone structures all situated around a central pit. A stone table stood off to one side and another structure—some sort of primitive altar—had been built right at the edge of the pit. A thick log had been mounted to the altar and extended out over the hole. Jack could see a rope hanging down from the end.

  “There!” He leaned over the edge as Elina’s frantic voice called up from below.

  “Pull me up!”

  Dwight climbed onto the wooden beam where the rope was fastened. “I’ll pull the rope over.”

  Jack could hear the sheer terror in Elina’s voice as she cried out, “Please hurry!”

  Dwight scooted forward, stretching his hand out for the rope. The beam extended perhaps eight feet from the edge, and the rope was just out of his reach. He inched out a little farther, but the whole structure shifted under his weight.

  Dwight slipped and plunged into the darkness.

  “Dwight!” Jack screamed. Just then he saw movement from the corner of his eye. A shadow detached itself from behind one of the carved figures and shot toward him like a missile.

  Jack leaped out of the way as the dark shape landed in the spot where he had been standing. In the flickering glow of the flare, he recognized the diminutive figure, the tribe’s matriarch who seemed to be the leader. Dwight had called her Nun’dahbi.

  She was cloaked in black veils and holding a long wooden shaft tipped with a jagged spearhead that looked like it had been fashioned from part of a kirac’s foreleg. She shrugged off her outer cloak and crouched before Jack. Jack suppressed a gasp as he got his first good look at her.

  Her skin was ghostly pale and her head was completely hairless. Beneath the veils she wore a snug jerkin made from some kind of animal skin, interwoven with beads and animal claws. And Jack could see she was also still wearing the amulet she’d had on earlier. The image from his father’s papers.

  Nun’dahbi glared at Jack with yellow eyes reflecting the light of the dying flare. The skin around her eyes was blackened, accenting the glow of her irises and giving her gaunt face a skull-like appearance. Her black lips peeled back and she hissed words Jack could not understand. Though one of them did register.

  “Outsider!”

  She spat the word with such contempt that Jack could almost feel her venom.

  He swatted the spear away from his face and was reaching for his shotgun when something hard slammed into his ribs. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath. The woman’s bare foot drew back as Jack blinked, wondering how she had struck him with such power for her size.

  He rolled to the side as the spear flashed out at him, slicing his shoulder. Jack sucked in painful gasps of air. He hadn’t seen anyone move so fast in his life. The woman crouched low and moved sideways, circling him like a cat preparing to strike. Jack had never taken any formal hand-to-hand combat training, no martial arts, nothing. So reacting purely on instinct, he swept his leg back across the woman’s feet, but she jumped easily out of the way.

  Jack struggled to stand, dazed from the blow to his ribs. But before he could even straighten up, he felt another kick to his side and tumbled back to the ground. Nun’dahbi leaped in and out of the ring of light like a panther, striking hard and then jumping back into the darkness.

  Jack had managed to stagger to his feet again when she drove a fist hard into his jaw and another one just under his sternum. He crumpled to the ground, gasping for breath. His mind wavered on the brink of consciousness and he reached blindly for his gun. Nun’dahbi leaped to the edge of the pit, raising her spear to finish him off.

  But Jack rolled to the side and brought his shotgun up into her abdomen. His lips parted in a bloody grin.

  “Not . . . so fast. . . .”

  Her face twisted into a mask of hate as Jack pulled the trigger. The blast launched her diminutive frame off the ground and out over the pit. She plunged, shrieking, down into the darkness.

  “Jack!” Elina’s terrified voice cried from the pit.

  “I’m coming.”

  The wooden beam was tilted downward after Dwight’s fall. Jack leaned against the altar, gasping for breath. He was stretching out for the rope when a deafening shriek echoed up from the pit. But Jack knew it had no human source; he had heard that sound once before, out in the caverns as he and Ben were escaping.

  Elina screamed again.

  Jack snapped another flare and dropped it into the pit. Now he could see the hole went down at least twenty feet. Dwight lay in the mud, and Nun’dahbi’s twisted body was sprawled out on the rocks, covered in blood. Elina lay on the ground between them, wrapped tightly in ropes.

  She looked up, wide-eyed. “Jack! Get me out of here!”

  “I can’t reach the rope!”

  “Hurry; something’s down here.”

  Jack secured his shotgun and the bag of flares around his back and leaped out for the rope. He felt it in his fingers and clutched it. The log shifted again, and he slid down several feet before managing to stop himself. The rope tore the skin off his palms as he lowered himself farther into the pit.

  He reached the bottom and bent over Elina’s quivering body. They had painted her face with what looked like the same type of marks that the warriors had covering their bodies.

  “Are you hurt?” He fumbled with the ropes in his bloody hands. “Is anything broken?”

  “No . . . I’m okay,” Elina said. “You’re bleeding.”

  Jack shook his head. His wounds throbbed and stung, but he couldn’t afford the luxury of worrying about that now. “I’m okay.”

  Jack surveyed the elongated cavern that extended away into darkness. The flare lit the immediate area, and Jack could see numerous tunnels and side passages leading off the main chamber. Large rocks and bones cluttered the floor of the pit. The remnants, he guessed, from an untold number of human sacrifices to the Soul Eater.

  Beside them, Dwight groaned.

  Elina sat up. “He’s alive?”

  Jack moved to check him. “Dwight? Are you okay?”

  Dwight groaned again and rolled onto his side. He looked up at the top of the pit and rubbed his head. “What happened?”

  “You fell,” Jack said. “You should be dead.”

  “Yeah . . .” Dwight sat up gingerly. “I should’ve been dead a few times in my life.”

  Jack was still struggling with Elina’s ropes. “I can’t get them untied. I need to cut them.”

  “Hurry.”

  Jack turned to retrieve the spear wedged in the rocks beside Nun’dahbi’s limp body when he saw the amulet glimmering in the light of the flare. His eyes widened. He’d lost his pack in the caves earlier and with it, all the evidence he and Rudy had collected. But this medallion would be even better. To come back with an actual N’watu artifact, a piece of their culture . . .

  Momentarily forgetting everything else, Jack crawled over and reached out for the amulet.

  A cold, bony grip clamped onto his arm. Nun’dahbi clutched his wrist and lifted her battered head. Blood gurgled though her clenched teeth as she grimaced, hissing with what seemed to be pure vitriol.

  Jack let out a yelp. Obviously the perilium made the N’watu as hard to kill as the kiracs.

  Just then a second chilling shriek burst out of the darkness at the far end of the cavern, followed by a familiar tapping. Whatever was in the darkness was getting closer. Jack could hear a scraping sound—like something big being dragged across rocks.

  Something very big.

  “Hurry, Jack!” Elina’s
voice came from behind him.

  Jack yanked his hand free from Nun’dahbi’s grip. She immediately clutched the amulet in her broken, bloody fingers, still hissing curses at him and struggling to move. Jack picked up the spear instead and returned to Elina.

  Dwight stumbled to his feet. “How do we get out of here?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been in this part of the caves.” Jack sliced through the top rope and started on the bands around Elina’s feet. Then the flare died out and darkness folded over them like a wave. Jack could hear Dwight digging through the bag for another one.

  He snapped the cap off and ignited it.

  Elina screamed.

  Shadows fled away, partially revealing the bulk of an enormous, armored beast looming directly over Dwight. It reared up, flexing its huge mandibles. The jaws opened to reveal a hideous mouthful of dripping fangs. It lifted one of its massive, spiked forelegs and stabbed at Dwight, who barely managed to duck out of the way. The pointed claw sank into the ground where he had been standing. Then it swiped sideways and flung him into the rocky wall of the chamber. Dwight fell back to the ground, groaning.

  Jack found himself stunned by the sight. This thing—this Soul Eater—was more hideous than he could have imagined. Based on what he’d seen in Dwight’s lab, he had expected the queen to be larger than the other kiracs . . . but not this big. Its long, bony forelegs looked like gnarled tree branches, and its jagged shell was the size of a large dining room table, ringed with hundreds of spiked protrusions.

  Jack reached for his shotgun and fired directly into the beast’s underside. It shrieked again—deafening at this close range. Jack pumped in another shell and fired once more. The Soul Eater lumbered backward, maneuvering its bulk with stilted, jerky movements.

  Jack could sense great age in it. A twisted, hulking beast that had been stalking these tunnels perhaps for centuries. The creature swatted at Jack with its other foreleg, sending him tumbling across the rocks. He felt like he’d been hit by a truck.

  He looked back to see Elina kick her feet free of the ropes and scramble against the wall of the pit. The giant kirac swiveled its massive body around, clicking its palps as if in search of new prey. Suddenly the beast turned, raised itself off the ground, and lumbered away from Elina. Then Jack saw its new target.

  Nun’dahbi was dragging herself with one arm toward the far side of the pit. Her other arm hung limp at her side and both of her legs were contorted, with a bone jutting through the flesh of one calf. Still, she struggled furiously toward one of the side tunnels. Jack spotted the amulet still in her grasp.

  But the Soul Eater stalked hard after her, raising its foreleg and impaling Nun’dahbi through the back. She let out a horrifying scream and flailed her arm as the beast quickly pulled her writhing body under its bulk and sank its fangs into her neck. Nun’dahbi’s cries were cut mercifully short as the Soul Eater sucked out what little life was left in her.

  While the beast was occupied, Jack scrambled to his feet and rushed over to Elina. “Are you okay?” His voice was a hoarse whisper.

  “I’m okay; I’m okay,” Elina whispered back. “How do we get out of here?”

  For a moment Jack thought they might be able to use the rope to climb out, but they’d never get up fast enough and would only be an easier target. He shrugged, keeping an eye on the giant kirac. He was quickly running out of time and his thoughts were scattered. But he couldn’t let fear overwhelm him. This creature could probably smell fear from a mile away.

  Just then the queen kirac lifted itself from its food and turned toward him.

  Jack pulled Dwight to his feet and pointed toward one of the side passages. “Through there!”

  Dwight nodded groggily as Jack pushed Elina down and into the tunnel first, then Dwight, and then . . .

  Another high-pitched roar thundered through the chamber as the Soul Eater lumbered toward them.

  Jack scooped up his gun and the bag of flares and dove into the dark tunnel, bashing his knees against the rocks as he scrambled forward. “Move, move!”

  He turned to see the creature’s bulk blocking the entrance to the tunnel. Its mouth filled the hole with a tangle of twisted fangs, hissing and snapping in a blind fury. The confined passage was filled with another piercing screech.

  Jack crawled on, fumbling through the bag for another flare. He found one and ignited it. The light revealed a rather tight space, barely two feet high and curving out of sight ahead and behind. He looked into Elina’s eyes and then Dwight’s.

  Fear was painted on both of their faces like the marks on Elina’s skin. He could hear the beast still growling behind them, but they seemed out of reach and safe for the moment.

  “What now?” Elina said.

  Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess we keep going. See where this leads.”

  They continued on, following the narrow passage as it curved away from the sacrificial cavern. They crawled for several yards until it opened into a smaller chamber. Jack stood, thankful to at least be out of the cramped tunnel. As they ventured across the room, he could see that all over the floor were scattered curved, bony shells and fragments of appendages.

  Then Elina pointed at something up ahead. “What is that?”

  Jack held the flare out and spotted what looked like a large rock of some kind, an unnaturally rounded boulder nearly two feet in diameter. He stood, frozen. He had seen this before. He raised the light and could see more of the objects scattered around the chamber.

  Elina leaned toward Jack and whispered, “What are those things?”

  But Jack stood still. Too frightened to respond.

  “Jack?” Dwight whispered. “What is it?”

  “I think . . .” Jack’s throat was dry. “I think we’re in some kind of . . . nest.”

  Chapter 43

  George Wilcox sat in Thomas Vale’s spacious office, behind Thomas Vale’s burnished oak desk, in Thomas Vale’s exquisite leather chair, with a shotgun across his lap.

  Malcolm Browne—Thomas Vale’s business manager—lay dead in the other room in front of Thomas Vale’s massive stone fireplace. Loraine Browne, along with the Huxleys and the Dunhams, had already left for the evening and had probably gone to bed some time ago. George would deal with them later. In fact, he probably wouldn’t need to do a thing.

  But for the moment, all was quiet in Thomas Vale’s mansion. So George sat there in the darkened office, waiting for Vale to return.

  He felt little emotion, numbed by Miriam’s death. Some part of him suspected he might soon join her, and that thought no longer filled him with apprehension. His wife had faced her end with courage. A courage born out of a faith that he now knew was more than empty religion. He would mourn for her when this was over. But for now he just needed to be patient.

  He swiveled around and stared out the window into the night. The moon was nearly full and had already risen high into the night sky and lit up the whole countryside.

  Shortly after midnight, the silence was broken by the sound of footsteps. George could hear them coming up the stairs. He listened closely. They were hurried and uneven. Someone was frightened and perhaps injured. And George could also hear the sound of labored breathing.

  The footsteps reached the top and were now coming down the hall. George spun around to face the door. Moonlight streamed from behind him and lit the room with a dim but usable glow.

  A silhouette appeared in the office doorway and stopped. George heard the breathing pause a moment and then resume.

  Vale felt for the light switch and flipped it on. His shirt was drenched in blood, his face ashen with dark circles under his eyes. His hands were trembling, and he was sweating. Profusely. Yet he didn’t look at all surprised to see George there.

  George nodded toward Vale’s bloodied shirt. “It looks like you ran into some trouble. It’s a good thing you’re immortal.”

  Vale scowled and lurched into the side room where he stored the perilium. George liste
ned carefully for the sound of his reaction when he saw the refrigerators. The mangled, empty refrigerators.

  A full twenty seconds later, Thomas Vale emerged from the room, his eyes looking glazed and unfocused. He clutched one trembling hand in the other. “What do you want?”

  George’s eyebrows went up. “Excuse me?”

  “How much do you want? Ten million? Twenty?”

  “Money? You think I want money?”

  “What, then?”

  George raised the shotgun and aimed it directly into Vale’s face. “I want my wife back.”

  Vale’s breathing grew more labored. “It wasn’t . . . my fault. It was her . . . choice.”

  “Well, in that case, I’ll settle for watching you die.”

  Vale glared at him. “What did you do . . . with it?”

  George shrugged. “It’s gone. Every last drop. I flushed it all down your own toilet.”

  George watched Vale’s incredulity turn to hate. “You . . . have no idea what I was . . . offering you.” He was sucking in air hard now. “The chance to be . . . young again.”

  George leaned back in the chair. Vale was no longer fearsome—now frail and thin, wrapping his arms around himself in an attempt to keep from trembling.

  “When did you become so arrogant,” George said, “to think you had the right to live off the deaths of innocent people like this? As if there would never come a reckoning.”

  “Off your . . . high horse, George,” Vale said. “You know what you’re capable of. We’re . . . not so different . . . you and I.”

  “Tell me something, Mr. Vale,” George said. “What are you afraid of? After all these years of cheating death, it’s finally catching up with you. How does that feel?”

  Vale opened his mouth, trying to respond, but his voice was already gone. He could no longer stop the tremors. Nor hide the symptoms of his impending fate. Both hands quivered violently. His arms began to tremble and then his legs.

  He turned in a feeble attempt to leave. George imagined it was to find a place to hide. To keep George from witnessing the convulsions and so to rob him of that last bit of satisfaction. But his motor skills were negated now by the onslaught of his death.