by Jeff Long
That brought a chorus of snorts. Beckwith glanced around at the grim faces.
“There’s no burying something like this, Graham. Tell us what happened. We’ll decide how to deal with it.”
Beckwith started sewing.
“We only saw snatches of it,” said Graham.
“Start at the beginning, Graham.”
“Promise not to go down there?”
“Convince us we shouldn’t.”
Graham took a breath. “It followed us for a week,” he said. “Probably it was hunting us longer than that. We heard little noises but passed it off as our imagination, or the caves playing tricks on us. One of us would see something and everybody would hit his light. But there was never anything there.
“We blamed the water, or gases that weren’t registering on our monitors, or the air compression. Your brain gets twitchy in all that dark, but not everybody’s at the same time, not unless you’re all drinking the same Kool-Aid. And the thing was that none of us was seeing the exact same thing as the other fellow or even the same thing we’d seen before. We were like blind men feeling different parts of the elephant. One of us would see the scales, another the paws, another its hands. It had all of those things. And a sort of shell for a head. See what I mean, different beasts, none of them real. Except they were all the same thing, and it was real.”
Graham looked like something chucked out of a lawn mower, sliced right down to the white of his bones, and yet he went on with his concoction of a creature. Beckwith was impressed. You don’t get through SEAL training without learning the thresholds of pain, and this old man raised the bar to a whole new level.
“A week goes by,” someone said. “You’re getting buggy. You’re seeing things. Then what?”
“We kept doing our job,” said Graham.
“You said something was hunting you, though.”
“We didn’t know that yet,” Graham said. “But then Sheriff goes missing. We were setting up camp, and that was the first we noticed he was gone. We looked for him. We tried infrared for a heat signature. I rapped down a few potholes in case he had fallen. But there wasn’t a trace.”
The mapmaker looked at Beckwith. “A little more water would be nice.” Beckwith held the bottle to his lips. “That’s tasty,” said the old man.
“Keep on with it, Graham.”
“We decided that whatever happened to Sheriff, it was an accident. We only had another few days before the job was finished. So we kept working.
“Reilly was next on the menu. I was the one who discovered him. I smelled blood, and right away switched my night goggles to infrared, and by God if the walls weren’t glowing with a heat signature. The blood was so fresh it was still radiating some of his body heat. It was like standing inside one of his arteries, that tube of stone all painted with blood.”
“What next?” someone said.
“P.J. and I knew it was time to get out. We ditched the surveying equipment…”
“Goddamn it, Graham,” said a man, and one of the citizens walked away cursing. Beckwith guessed he was the owner of the surveying equipment, and that it wasn’t insured. Probably nothing was down here.
“Cut to the chase, Graham,” another man said. “If you’re talking about Haddie, say so. Are you saying one of them lived through the plague?”
“This was no hadal,” said Graham. “It was too big.”
“A big hadal then.”
“It had claws, and a shell for a head,” said Graham.
“Okay, a big hadal with claws and a shell.”
“And it ate hadals. Lots of them. Hadals and humans and creatures I’ve never seen. Ate ’em all.”
That quieted the audience.
“Let the man tell his story,” someone said.
Graham resumed. “We started out, not running, but always on the move. Two days and nights, never a stop. By the third day, we were getting punchy from the lack of sleep. We decided we’d outrun the thing, so it was okay to take a rest. It wasn’t.” He stopped.
“Go on,” someone said.
“Our lights were off. We were sleeping. All of a sudden I thought I was on fire. At first I didn’t know it was the claws going at me. In the darkness, it just felt like fire. Then it was P.J.’s turn. He started screaming. I turned on my light, and these eyes were waiting for me, eyes like ours, intelligent, but totally wild. Then my light got smashed, and those claws went at me again. They tell you to play dead with the bears and lions, right? I didn’t have to. I pretty much died, I figure.”
“You blacked out?”
“How can you black out when everything’s already black?” Graham said. “Time passed. I felt pain. At some point I realized I’d been moved. This wasn’t our tunnel anymore. It smelled like the inside of an intestine, like digestion and bad gas and shit. Then I heard the sound of teeth on bone, like a dog working for the marrow. Gnawing away. Splintering it. I realized that I was in this thing’s den, and that it was saving me for later.”
“What did you do?”
“Counted my heartbeats. Stayed still. Tried to think about something else, the sun, the blue sky, riding my Harley along I-70. Better times.”
“Then what?”
“It spoke.”
Beckwith paused in his sewing.
“It what?”
“It said something.”
“It talked?”
“I know. Crazy. I thought, Graham, you’re losing it. An animal that talks? But that’s what it was doing, gnawing on bones and talking to itself, or trying to talk. That scared me more than everything else put together. This thing had the beginnings of a voice. It was alone and trying to talk to itself, but couldn’t quite form the words.”
The skeptics quit challenging Graham. Everyone listened in silence.
“Finally it left. I could hear its nails on the rock. Things got quiet. That’s when I heard P.J. groan. He was alive. We found each other in all the bones and muck. In the darkness, I couldn’t tell who was hurt worse, him or me. We lay against each other whispering, trying to decide what to do. P.J. said he still had his light. I said give it to me. He said no, it would only bring that thing back. The light would be the death of us. Finally I just took it from him and turned it on.”
Beckwith gave him another drink.
“It was bad,” Graham continued. “Reilly’s head was up there. Yes, just his head. And a hand with Sheriff’s Sigma Chi ring on one finger. P.J. was all ripped up. I saw the wounds on my arms and legs.
“We weren’t the first of its victims. Like I said, it ate hadals, too. And it doesn’t just eat, it collects. It had leg bones stacked like firewood, and skulls on a shelf, human and hadal and others. No animal does that.
“Then we heard it coming back. P.J. said Graham, you just fucking killed us. But I saw a hole at the back of the den. We crawled over and squeezed in, and sweet Jesus if it didn’t hold a chimney going up.
“Well, we started climbing. The chimney was tight. It got tighter. We were both leaving skin and blood on the rock, and there was no rope to protect us if we slipped and fell. But what was our choice? That thing was coming right behind us, talking at us with its grunts and barking.
“We wormed up higher and higher, me first, and I was beginning to think we could beat it. Right about then, we came to a squeeze slot. I tried it one way and then another. P.J. was under me yelling hurry up, get it done, that fucker’s coming. I would have let him try the slot, but the chimney was too tight to switch spots, so it was up to me. I stretched long and blew all the air out of my lungs, and it worked. I shimmied through the slot and the tube opened up. I saw a feeder tunnel just above. All P.J. had to do was finish the slot.
“But he was a big man, you boys remember? I turned myself around, upside down, and I told him the moves, one arm up, a foot there, now blow your air out. I held the light. I touched his fingers. I was sure he had it. Just a little more. But then he took a breath. His rib cage swelled up and that was that. He jammed in the slot as
tight as a nail. He couldn’t come up and he couldn’t go down.
“I slid down some more. I reached his hand and pulled. You’re killing me, he says. No I’m not, come on, you’re almost there, I say. We go back and forth like that. I’ve got the light. His face is all red. His eyes are starting to get the black panic in them. If he loses his cool, I know it’s all over. Smooth and easy, I tell him, just a little more.
“All of a sudden he gave a big jerk. His mouth opened up like a fish out of water. His eyes bugged out. He didn’t scream. No air for screaming. He just looked at me. It was like the most terrible knowledge written on his face.”
“What are you saying? Graham, what happened?”
“The thing had caught up with him and taken a bite. Then it took another. This little squeal came out of poor P.J., like air leaking.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, I stayed with him as long as I could. Every now and then he would jerk hard and it was that thing tugging on him, trying to uncork the hole and get to me. But P.J.was jammed. So it fed on his legs. P.J.never quit looking at me. Finally his eyes glazed over. The light went out of them. I said good-bye, brother, next life, all that. I scooted myself around and reached the feeder tunnel and left him behind. Pretty soon, the battery died.”
The mapmaker got quiet. His eyes closed. Beckwith thought the drugs had knocked him out. It seemed the old man might get a chance to heal and see the sun again. Beckwith hoped so. He didn’t know the man from Adam, and this was none of his business. But he had come out of the infamous hell week convinced that suffering was ultimately redemptive. Whatever had happened down there, the mapmaker had definitely suffered.
“Hey,” said a man with a bull’s neck and shoulders. “We’re not finished with you yet.”
Graham’s eyes opened. He looked around. The grin surfaced. “Here I am.”
“You think we’re fools?” said the bull. “An animal that talks killed everyone but you? And then you spend three weeks crawling, with no light, lost and alone? And somehow you land right back in Margaritaville?”
“He got lucky,” someone else said. “Ease up, Mick.”
“There’s no such thing as lucky, not in the tubes,” Mick said. “We’ve all been out there. We know what it’s like. I say he planned it. It was premeditated, it had to be.”
“Planned what, Mick? Look at him. Do you think he cut himself to ribbons?”
“He must have hidden caches of food along the trail when they were going down,” said Mick. “And made secret marks in the tunnels to guide him back. There’s no other way he could have made it out alone. I want answers. P.J. was my friend.”
“You’re right, Mick,” Graham said. “The truth is, I wasn’t alone. I got aided and abetted. I had help.” He smiled. His eyes gleamed. “Inside help.”
People muttered darkly.
“There,” said Mick. “By God, who was in on it with you?”
Graham smiled a little wider. “P.J.”
“What?”
“And Reilly. And Matthews.”
“What are you saying, old man?”
“They talked me in. It was like a radio call, but without the radio.”
“Quit your hogwash.”
“I’m telling you straight,” said Graham. “Whenever I wanted to quit, they kept me going. Wherever I got lost, they led me right. They were with me every inch of the way, whispering me in.”
“He’s lost his mind.”
“God’s truth, boys. Clear as crystal. Souls,” said Graham. “Dead souls. Whispering away down there as real as you and me.”
Beckwith would have told him to shut up. The fool was pouring gas on the flames with his crazy nonsense. But it was too late.
“First a demon creature, now dead souls,” said Mick. “What next, angels with flaming swords? Out with it, old man. Where’d you leave the bodies?”
“Down where you’re not going because I’m not telling,” Graham said. “Now I’ve seen. There’s places we shouldn’t go. There’s things we want to leave alone.”
“You’re hiding something more than bodies. What was worth killing three men for? Gold? Diamonds? What? Where’d you leave them, old man?”
“Not another word from me,” said Graham.
“Tell us, you murdering bastard.”
Beckwith felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. It was Mick. The veins stood out on his temples. “We’ll take it from here,” he said.
“I’m not finished,” said Beckwith.
“Yeah, you are. Your work is done, mister.”
Beckwith stood up. Like many men in special ops, he was under six feet and not heavily muscled. This pissed-off miner had a hundred pounds on him easily. “The man’s hurt and tired and dehydrated,” he said.
“Step away,” said Mick.
“He’s delirious. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“You’re in my way,” said Mick.
The corpsman folded his kit shut. He leaned close to Beckwith. “We’re done here,” he said.
“Not yet,” said Beckwith. The corpsman glanced at the crowd and frowned at him.
Another of the snipers stepped in. “It’s over, man. We’re out of here.”
“You know what’s going to happen once we leave,” said Beckwith.
“We can’t save the world. Let’s go.”
“You don’t just turn a man out to the wolves.”
“We did our best,” said the corpsman. “Let go, Becky. Walk away.”
“They’ll kill him. I’m not signing off on that.” He sounded crazy, even to himself. The mapmaker was a complete stranger. His welfare had zip to do with their training mission. They’d descended to this region to shoot paper targets, not tangle with the locals.
“Saddle up, Becky. We’re leaving.”
Beckwith didn’t budge. He looked around at the crowd and saw the bleakness and severity of this place on their faces. They belonged to the cave. They were the cave. Someone had to fight that. Otherwise the darkness won.
“I’ll stick with you,” Beckwith said to Graham. And he meant it.
The old man pushed at Beckwith’s leg. “Thanks, but no thanks, friend. Get back to where you came from. Don’t waste yourself on the dark places.”
“You’re going with me,” Beckwith said.
He shoveled his hands underneath the mapmaker and started to lift him. It could have worked. The crowd would have parted for him and he could have carried the old man out of there. But Graham yelled out in pain, and Beckwith set him flat again.
“Fight,” said Beckwith.
The mapmaker closed his eyes. “I’m tired, son. I hurt.”
“You said you want to go home,” said Beckwith. “Let’s go home.”
But Graham turned his face away.
“A savior with no one to save,” Mick scoffed.
One of the snipers stepped forward. “If I were you,” he said to the giant miner, “I’d quit crowing and go get drunk and thank the gods. Because today’s the day you looked into the eyes of the angel of death, and for some fucking reason he let you walk away.”
Mick’s grin died.
An arm went around Beckwith’s shoulder. It was his spotter. “Grab your gear, dude. You did your best.”
Beckwith looked down at the old man on the ground with his half-sewn wounds and emaciated body, and for the first time in his life he surrendered. And it did not feel good.
ARTIFACTS
From NAVAL SPECIAL WARFARE BASIC SNIPER TRAINING
Equipment
The sniper should have with him the following items:
Suitable paper in a book with a stiff cover to give a reasonable drawing surface
A pencil, preferably a number 2 pencil with an eraser
A knife or razor blade to sharpen the pencil
A protractor or ruler
A piece of string 15 inches long
From CUSTOMS
A Medieval Carthusian Monk’s Equipment
He (the mon
k copyist) should be given an inkwell, quill pens, chalk, two pumice stones, two horns, a small knife, two razors for scraping the parchment (one ordinary stylus and one finer), a lead pencil, a ruler, some writing tablets, and a stylet.
5
TEXAS
When the crickets started up, Rebecca laid aside her book and went to the window. Lightning flickered to the south. Something was coming in from the Gulf.
Jake was doing battle under the big oak, killing weeds and getting raked by the rosebushes and slaying the mosquitoes, all in the name of his so-called lawn. It was a ratty, sorry thatch of a thing, but that did not diminish his territorial imperative. Until the blue northers came breasting down from Canada with their hard cold, the suburbs would stay green. Meaning Jake would have his bit of grass to defend for at least another month.
Further out she spied Sam dancing on the edge, all too literally, and her mother’s heart gave a squeeze. Sam was not a bold child in most things. The prospect of fourth grade frightened her. And she had what Rebecca considered a proper loathing of snakes, bees, doctors’ needles, and dinosaur movies. But when Daddy was around, Sam had the courage of lions. Or cubs.
Just now Sam was performing bits of ballet upon the very lip of the limestone cliffs that fell straight to the river. Jake looked perfectly oblivious in his salt-of-the-earth way. It took everything for Rebecca to keep from rushing out. Have a little faith. Things were fine out there. Somehow, with Jake around, they always were.
By her Aggie standards, Jake was not so very big. But she had seen him lift fallen trees, and once carry a man with a broken leg over nine miles of bad trail, and hold her family strong after her father passed on. On a trip to Ireland, he had talked his way out of not one, but two sure brawls…and left the pubs with everyone in fine humor. Jake took care of things. Sam worshipped him. As did Rebecca.
Watching them together, she began to relax. Father and daughter were in perfect wordless synch. Without actually looking at each other, Sam never strayed more than twenty feet away from her daddy, nor he from her. They were like satellites orbiting each other.