Smith's Monthly #8

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  “Down here!” Danny shouted back. “But be careful. It’s a long fall!”

  The dark around him seemed to swallow Danny’s voice. And it felt like something scampered across his feet on the ledge, but he ignored that. He didn’t dare try to bend over. If he did, he would swing back out into space holding on to only the roots.

  And he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what it was that lived in this dark cavern.

  Above him, the light from Craig’s torch outlined the hole where the rock floor Danny had been standing on had slipped away. Then Craig poked his head over the edge.

  “Danny!” Craig shouted. Danny had no doubt that all Craig could see was his torch seventy feet below him on the rocks.

  “About twenty feet below you,” Danny said. “Stuck like Spider-Man on the wall.”

  “Oh, man, are you all right?” Craig asked, finally seeing Danny. “And how did you get there?”

  “Just luck,” Danny said. “But I think I found how to get under the old city.”

  “Yeah, I’d say,” Craig said. “Can you hang on there? “I’ll go get the others and some rope. Actually, a lot of rope.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Danny said. “But hurry, would you?”

  “Right back,” Craig said.

  His face and light disappeared from the hole over Danny’s head.

  He kept staring upward at the blackness, trying to let the training he had from his Native American grandfather take over and control his breathing.

  Right now, more than anything, he needed to just remain still and calm.

  Standing on the narrow ledge fifty feet over rocks, holding on to roots for dear life, there was just nothing else he could do.

  Then, he felt something again move across his foot in the pitch darkness of the jungle cavern.

  It felt very real and had weight.

  Then the horrible thing started up his leg.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  September 17, 1970

  Under the Lost City of Ishango, deep in the jungle of the Republic of Congo.

  DANNY PRESSED HIS back against the stone wall. He took a slow, shallow breath to try to stop himself from screaming and panicking. On a thin ledge, with only a bunch of roots holding him in place, he didn’t dare panic. That would be the quickest way to get himself killed, no matter what was crawling up his leg.

  Slowly, using his left hand to hold onto all the roots that had saved his life, he pressed his back against the rock wall then took a swipe at the creature as it came above his knee in the dark.

  The back of his hand hit something fairly solid and covered in some sort of fur. It felt huge, but Danny figured it was about the size of his fist. More than likely one of the big spiders.

  Whatever it was went flying off into the darkness. He just hoped it went far enough that it wasn’t coming back.

  He sure didn’t need to be fighting a mad spider in the dark while clinging to the face of a cliff.

  He took a deep breath and forced himself to try to calm his racing heart and try to listen.

  Nothing seemed to be moving around him.

  Only the distant sound of running water broke the intense silence.

  Under the teeming masses, the river becomes clear, the path muddy.

  That was the third Hydra Journal entry Danny’s father had found in Cairo.

  It was the riddle that had led them here, to this ancient lost city. The half million people who lived here when the Hydra Journal was written were the teeming masses. And now Danny could hear the river, or at least it sounded like a river.

  He had no idea what “the path muddy” meant, but he had a hunch, as with anything in this adventure so far, it wasn’t going to be easy to figure out.

  And even here in the dark, pressed against a cliff face, he half expected the men from the Hydra League to show up. The League had seemed to be able to track them just about anywhere they went. Their only hope, Danny figured, was that the elephants had taken care of them. Otherwise, they would show up here soon, if they weren’t already here somewhere, just watching them.

  The Hydra League had been formed when this city was still alive and had a half million people in it. They clearly knew these ruins were here. They were the ones protecting the secret of the Fountain of Youth.

  And they were the ones who had kidnapped Danny’s father.

  Danny figured the only way of ever seeing his father again was to stay alive long enough to find and solve all ten of the Hydra Journal clues. A tall order for a guy stuck in the dark on a cliff.

  “Danny!” Craig shouted from above. “Hang on, we’re coming!”

  Danny glanced up as a number of torches lit up the hole above him.

  “Careful on that floor,” Danny shouted up to his friends. “More sections of it might give way.”

  “You found the way under the city I see,” Hassett said as he poked his head over the edge and looked down.

  “I think it found me,” Danny said. “And I hear running water.”

  Hassett laughed. “Perfect. Hang on, we’re hooking up enough rope to get you all the way to the ground.”

  “Not going anywhere,” Danny said, trying to adjust his grip on the roots that he had been holding onto with a death grip for what seemed like an eternity now.

  Hassett, the old guide they had hired to take them up the Trail of Elephants, had turned out to be Dr. Steven Hassett, world known archeologist who had been discredited for his belief that a major civilization had existed around the planet before the Pharaohs. He had been exploring and documenting the ancient city of Ishango for twenty years. And he knew Danny’s father, and about the Hydra League and the Hydra Journals.

  Danny was really glad to have him helping them.

  A moment later a rope started down toward Danny. Craig stuck his head over the edge and watched it.

  “That’s enough,” Craig said as the rope with a few knots in it got to Danny’s level. It looked to be a thick rope, clearly something Hassett had in his camp hidden in the center of the old city.

  “How far down do you think it is from there?” Hassett called out.

  “Fifty feet, maybe sixty!” Danny shouted back up, glancing down at his flickering torch on the rocks below.

  “Hang on,” Craig said.

  Danny watched as he looked around, then leaned back over the edge. “Okay, we’re ready. You want a ride down?”

  “I would love one,” Danny said.

  Craig took the rope and got it swinging slightly until finally the end got close enough for Danny to reach with one hand.

  “Are you ready?” Danny shouted back up. “It’s going to have to hold all my weight.”

  Craig glanced back over his shoulder, then shouted down, “Ready.”

  “Here goes,” Danny said.

  Letting go of the roots, he grabbed the rope right above one of the knots tied in it and swung out into space, twisting in the hundreds of roots that filled the space. He wrapped his legs around the rope, like he had done in gym class in Junior High.

  He was living a childhood dream. He was in a jungle playing Tarzan, only he was underground, fifty feet above rocks, in the dark, with huge spiders, and scared to death.

  Tarzan had it good.

  The rope held and Danny swung through the maze of roots, breaking many of them, and wrapping others around his body. He used his arms to keep the roots away from his neck. The last thing he needed was to slip and have a root hang him.

  He used his legs to support most of his weight on the rope, then with one hand he pulled off many of the roots before shouting, “Lower away!”

  Less than five minutes later, he was on the rough rock surface of the cavern’s floor.

  He hadn’t felt anything so good as solid ground under his feet. He hadn’t realized until he was down just how frightened he had been. Now his hands started to shake.

  “I’m down!” he shouted up to a tiny hole of light at least seven stories over his head.

  All the
way up, the rope had knots tied every five feet to make it easier to hold and climb. That was going to be a nasty climb to get back out of here.

  “Tie the rope around a rock or anchor it in some way,” Hassatt shouted down, his voice echoing in the large, dark cavern.

  Danny did as Hassatt said, then shouted that it was secure.

  “Coming down,” Hassatt shouted.

  The old archeologist had a large pack on his back and he came down the rope like a monkey, faster than Danny could have done it. For a man in his sixties, Hassatt was in great shape, that was for sure.

  He got to the bottom and then worked on starting another few torches.

  The twins followed next, dropping quickly hand-over-hand, clearly also used to climbing ropes. They both had packs of equipment as well. Bud came down next, with a bag of something in his mouth. He was slower, clearly more afraid of the height than of climbing down the rope. Craig was last and the slowest, not taking any chances.

  Craig patted Danny on the shoulder after they were all standing on the rough floor of the cavern. “Glad you’re all right.”

  “Thank all the roots,” Danny said.

  “Well, at least we found this,” Hassatt said, holding his torch up and studying the huge cavern around them. “The original residents clearly used these caverns.”

  He pointed to some old stone stairs leading down toward a lower cavern in the direction of the water, now clear in the light of six burning torches. The smoke from the torches twisted upward into the dark of the maze of roots.

  Danny finally took time to really look around at the cavern he’d found.

  Some of the walls were stone blocks as well. And part of the ceiling was the stone floor of the temple above them. A lot of rock had fallen in places, and the hole over their head seemed to be the only way out. The temple had been built over this cavern for a reason, of that there was no doubt. Now they just had to find the reason.

  “Well,” Craig said, shaking his head. “At least those Hydra League thugs won’t find us down here.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” a distant voice said from over their heads.

  All of their heads snapped to look up as if tied to the same string. There was a faint light in the hole above, and a few shadows moving around.

  Danny knew that voice. It was the same man who had killed the professor back in Cairo.

  How could they have found them?

  Clearly they had escaped the elephants and had just been watching them the last few days.

  As all six of them stared upward, the rope fell toward them, forming a huge pile with a thump at their feet.

  The end had clearly been cut.

  Now they had no way out.

  “Enjoy your stay,” the voice above them said.

  Then he laughed, the sound echoing in the huge chamber like a bad villain in a bad movie.

  Only this was real.

  Very real.

  Continued in the next issue…

  USA Today bestselling writer, Dean Wesley Smith, takes a look at a very strange job that Connie works. She loves the sex, but she loves the killing more.

  The job certainly keeps her life exciting in more ways than she can imagine.

  A story that walks a very thin line between an adult fantasy and The Twilight Zone.

  A PATHETIC FALLACY

  HAROLD: THE FIRST TRICK.

  CONNIE ROLLED SIDEWAYS on the bed. The hot, sticky air of the small New York City hotel room made the sheets seem damp from more than just the sweat of their bodies. Outside she could faintly hear the sounds of the city, the honking of the cars, the rumble of the subways, the constant hum of millions of busy people. The sounds made her feel safe, sure of herself. They always had, even as a kid.

  She propped herself up on her elbow and let herself enjoy the smell of new sex mixed with Harold’s cologne and his slightly sour body odor. He had his face buried in the pillow and his breathing was heavy and hard.

  “You going to be all right?” she asked, rubbing his back and shoulders lightly, letting the sweat roll under her fingers, his smooth skin slick and hot. He had a great body even though he was almost fifty. He must exercise a lot.

  He nodded, but didn’t say a word.

  She stretched, sat up cross-legged on the bed.

  “That sure was nice,” she said. They had made love for over an hour and she had lost count of her orgasms.

  Again all he did was nod.

  She smiled. She loved it when a man was totally satisfied, exhausted, and drained of energy.

  Harold, she knew, worked for a brokerage firm. He had a wife and two kids. Both kids were in high school and he was worried about paying for their college. He owned a small summer place out on Long Island, but while in the city he had a flat near Central Park.

  She patted his naked, white rump and leaned toward the nightstand. With a quick snap of the wrist she opened the drawer and pulled out a small revolver. Earlier, while Harold was in the bathroom, she had loaded it and made sure the safety was off.

  Smiling, she placed the gun right against the back of Harold’s neck, the barrel pointing up into his brain. With her other hand she slowly stroked his back.

  He sighed.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

  She moved the gun just far enough away from his head so that when he nodded, his face still buried in the pillow, he wouldn’t feel the gun.

  Slowly, with her free hand, she pulled another pillow up and draped it over the gun to muffle the sound of the shot and keep the blood from spattering too much. She was planning on taking a shower anyhow, but it was easier if there was less blood.

  “It was nice, Harold,” she said and pulled the trigger.

  The shot was no louder than she had expected. She doubted that someone passing by in the hall could have even heard it.

  Harold flinched once, lay still.

  She pulled the pillow off and looked at the mess she had made. Blood was soaking into the white of the pillow under his head and there was a small round hole bleeding just above the line of his hair. She had no desire to see what the bullet leaving his head had done to his face. He had had a handsome face and she wanted to remember him that way.

  The smell in the room had changed from sex and sweat to a copper smell of fresh blood. God how she loved that smell, almost more than anything else.

  Even the sex.

  She scooted away from Harold and off the bed.

  Carefully, she laid the gun on the end table beside the bed and stretched, her back to the bed.

  The window was open, with only the light, white drapes pulled for privacy. She moved to the window and was almost tempted to walk out nude onto the small balcony. But doing that in the middle of the day might draw just a little too much attention and that she didn’t need at the moment.

  So instead, she took comfort in just pulling back the drapes, sliding open the glass door slightly and breathing in the fresh, hot air and the smells of the city.

  She stood there for a time, enjoying the feel of another job well done, and some good sex.

  “Well, better get showered and dressed,” she finally said and turned back from the window.

  Harold was gone.

  “What—?”

  The bed was made, no blood anywhere.

  “What the hell?”

  She scrambled to the obviously freshly made bed and pulled the covers aside.

  Nothing.

  No body, no blood.

  Nothing.

  She looked under the bed and then quickly checked the closet and the bathroom.

  Nothing.

  Absolutely nothing except a fresh hotel room. And the main door to the room was still locked and bolted from the inside.

  She dropped down into the armchair facing the dark television and stared at the room, not believing what she was seeing.

  Not possible, just not possible.

  “Get a grip on yourself, old girl,” she said aloud. Her voice sounded hollow and almo
st ready to crack, even to her ears. “There has to be an explanation for this. Somehow?”

  She forced herself to think about what had happened. She had been hired in her usual manner to kill Harold Lindsey. She had got him up here, made love to him, and then done exactly that.

  She had killed him.

  One shot. Nice and clean the way she liked.

  Just as she had done to men before him.

  He was nothing special.

  She went back over the events following his shooting. She had placed the gun on the end table.

  She got up and went over to the end table and checked the drawer. There was nothing there but a bible and some information about restaurants.

  She had gone to the window next, so she repeated her steps and looked out the white drapes like she had the last time.

  Everything out there seemed to be the same, including the sounds of the city.

  She turned around, afraid for what she might find.

  Harold’s body was still gone.

  The bed was still made.

  She was still nude.

  But this time the bathroom door was closed and she was sure she had left it open.

  Her heart racing, she eased closer to the door and could hear movement in there.

  She was about to grab her clothes and duck for the hall when the bathroom door opened and out stepped Harold, also totally nude.

  And very much alive.

  She took a step back, not really wanting to believe what she was seeing.

  He also stopped and the look of shock on his face matched what she was feeling.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity he said, “Connie. What—? I mean, how? I mean—”

  He stopped and just stared at her.

  She glanced at the door to the hall and tried to figure if she could make it with a quick dash. He was much closer and much bigger and stronger. Even with her training it would be a close match if it came down to a fight.

  After another long moment of staring at each other, Harold seemed to recover a little. He made a quick step sideways, yanked open the top drawer of the cabinet under the television and pulled out a revolver.