by William Hawk
“Cy,” I said, “don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
I headed out of the tunnel and then left the cave. I slid down the slope of the mountain until I reached the valley floor, where I sprinted until I suddenly ran into an invisible wall that knocked me off my feet.
Not you, said a voice.
Sprawling in the dirt, I looked around. I was alone. Then I recognized where I was. I had tried to run into the open stretch of land that Sonny had told me was the graveyard of his ancestors.
He’d been right. I wasn’t welcome there.
I stood up, tried to walk forward again. I ran again into an invisible force field that prevented me from entering. It felt like Plexiglas. I decided to retrace my steps. I went back up the slope a little way, walked parallel with the graveyard, and then came down the slope at a point a little farther along. I crossed the valley without any trouble and clambered up the opposite slope.
As I approached Sonny’s house, I found him in his rocking chair on the porch, watching me as I sprinted up. He was the type of guy who always waited for you to speak first, which put you at a disadvantage.
“Sonny,” I said, “we have a problem.”
He pointed out at the horizon. “Sun’s comin’ up in the east and settin’ in the west.”
“Listen, Cy is in trouble, and I need your help. He’s in the cave.”
Sonny looked up at me. His eyes were distant, and his heavy eyebrows looked like they were about to fall over his face.
“The cave.”
“That cave,” I said, hoping he understood my insinuation. “By the crescent moon rock. The Hall of Knowledge.”
Sonny understood. “I told Cy when I found it, the Great Spirit warns our people to avoid looking into such things.”
I shrugged and didn’t say anything. He glanced at my dirty hands and knees.
“And today is a special day. It’s a day of reset.”
I went on to explain what we had been doing. When I finished, he said, “You want me to help pull him out?”
“Yes.”
“That could be hard.”
I didn’t say anything to that. Then I explained the situation about the narrow tunnel, Cy starving himself. Sonny shrugged, wiped his hands on a rag that was stuffed in his pocket. The smell of turpentine reached my nostrils.
“Well, maybe we can slide him out. But I’ll need to take the car.” He nodded toward his car, something from the fifties, a Chevrolet with big fins on the back, turquoise green, and in good shape, considering.
“That’s fine.”
We slid into Sonny’s car. For the next half hour, it chugged along like an old John Deere tractor. I think it had never been tuned, but it kept on going. We drove around to the other side of the canyon. There was no road except an overgrown cat track. Somehow that old land yacht rumbled through the forest, branches whipping at the sides of the vehicle. It was as if Sonny had discovered a path that no one else knew of. At times, it felt as though we would slide right off the cliff.
After we had rolled down the valley, we chugged up and around by Cy’s cabin. Then we went down to the rock plateau above the cave, this time without a road at all.
“I’m going to call this car the billy goat,” I said.
“It is surefooted.”
At last we made the final turn, and we pulled up onto the plateau from which the rope ladder swung. Sonny parked the vehicle, keeping the motor running, and exited. I did the same.
Slowly I inched to the edge. I wasn’t particularly fond of heights, and right there below me was the mouth of the cave. Sonny went around to the trunk of his car, pulled a rope out of the back, and motioned for me to tie it around my waist.
“All due respect, Sonny,” I said, “but what do you have in mind?”
In response, he pointed to the trailer hitch on his car. There was a winch attached to it. I watched him position the car, made sure the rope was connected securely to me, and made sure we took all the slack out of the rope before I started traversing over the edge.
The descent went quickly—I leaped off the side of the cliff, Sonny used the winch to pay out the rope; I returned to the wall a few feet lower and leaped off the wall again; Sonny paid it out again, and so on. Soon I felt my feet hit the ground in front of the entrance to the cave.
“William,” he said.
I looked up. “What?”
“Catch,” he said.
A large plastic bucket landed next to me. It was sealed shut. “What is this?”
“It’s axle grease,” he said. “I keep it in the trunk for the car. You’ll need it to get him out.”
Sonny was right. We couldn’t squeeze him out without some sort of lubricant.
I darted inside the cave and put the axle grease inside the trolley pan. Then I peered into the tunnel. At the far end, that luminous aura had returned to the cavern. It wasn’t natural, that was for sure.
“Cy!” I yelled, “we’re here! To rescue you!”
Silence from inside the cavern. That was alarming. I got down on my hands and knees and quickly crawled through the tunnel into the cavern. When I arrived, he hadn’t moved. This time, however, he was totally unconscious. The green light overhead didn’t dissipate this time. It stayed there, unnatural, and as I pulled the trolley pan into the cave, I swear that I felt the light watching me.
At last the pan arrived. I opened the small tub and using my hands, covered his body in great globs of the grease. I turned him over and covered his backside too. When I was finished, I positioned him at the mouth of the tunnel. Then I untied the rope from around my own body and looped it several times around his torso, under his armpits, and between his legs. It wasn’t professional, but it would work.
When he was ready, I picked up the rope and pulled it until it was tight. Then I gave it a few ferocious tugs. That was our agreed upon signal.
I thought I heard a faint shout outside the cave. Then the rope tightened even more. Far above us, Sonny was cranking the winch. Soon Cy’s unconscious body moved a few inches, then another few inches. The plan was working.
I got down on my hands and knees and followed closely behind, cradling his head with my hand as much as possible. During the tight midpoint, Cy’s belly scraped again along the roof of the tunnel. I heard him moan in pain.
“Almost out,” I reassured him.
Finally, like a cork out of a champagne bottle, Cy popped out of the mouth of the tunnel. I came out after him. He was breathing hard now, fully awake, with some fresh blood on his belly and shoulders.
“Hang in there,” I said.
I picked him up on my back and carried him a few yards out into the sunlight, though he was slippery as a fish.
“Sonny!” I shouted. “He’s ready!”
I could hear the automobile start up, and Cy gave me a weak thumbs up as his body was slowly cranked into the air. I watched him disappear over the lip of the cliff above me. A moment later, the rope came flying down again. I fastened it around my waist and then felt myself rising into the air.
CHAPTER TWELVE
As I buried my head in my hands, I tried to remember the doctor’s question, but my mind was an absolute jumble.
“Could you repeat the question?” I asked.
It’d been almost twenty-four hours since Sonny and I had rescued Cy from the Hall of Knowledge. We’d driven him back up to his cabin and laid him out on the mattress. I’d cooked some chicken broth and tried to feed him, but he wouldn’t accept it. We’d both realized that he needed medical help.
So, we helped him stand and held his arms while he staggered outside into the passenger seat of his truck. I’d taken the keys, thanked Sonny, and turned the vehicle out of the sacred valley and back toward the nearest town and the hospital there. I was nervous driving, especially without a license. Like most kids, I had done it before, stupidly, but now I had had more reasons than ever to worry.
Now I was standing in the hallway of a hospital. The doctor, a middle-aged woman i
n a white coat, was looking at me with a neutral expression. A stethoscope was wrapped carelessly around her neck, and she held a clipboard and pen.
I hadn’t been in civilization for a while. It felt strange, as though I were an astronaut who had reentered the troposphere.
She caught my attention. “I said, what is that stuff all over him?”
I finally came back to earth. “That’s axle grease that I smeared all over him.”
The doctor tapped her pen against her clipboard. “Do I want to know why?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you. We wouldn’t have been able to get him out of that cave without it. The tunnel was so small.”
She tried to contain a smile. “You guys were having a lot of fun in the caves. What are you called? Spelunkers!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Of course, it was not an option to tell her, or anybody, what we’d discovered.
“Do you know when was the last time Cy ate?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been living with him for about a month, and I don’t remember seeing him eat anything for a few weeks.”
The doctor’s eyebrows nearly lifted off her face. “Do you know why?”
I shrugged again. “He doesn’t explain himself to me.”
She studied me. “How old are you?”
I thought just a beat and then said, “Nineteen.”
“You two are a strange pair.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. She turned to a nurse and barked an order to get an IV going. Then she turned back to me.
“We’ll let you know as soon as we learn something further. Are you going to wait here?”
I didn’t know. I didn’t have any place else to go.
“I guess so,” I said.
She pointed down the hall. “Waiting room is down there.”
Another nurse escorted me to the waiting room. On the way, we passed the police officer on duty. He was reading the paper. He momentarily lowered his paper and glanced at me. That was the moment I remembered I was potentially a wanted man and started getting nervous. I flipped the hood of my sweatshirt over my head and went to a far corner of the waiting area and tried to hide myself behind a vending machine.
William, find me.
I must’ve passed out, because she spoke to me so clearly, it felt like she was whispering in my ear.
I’m here, Grace.
I bolted to my feet. Her voice was so loud, in a telekinetic sense, I knew that she was physically near. Could she be in this very hospital?
My hoodie safely over my head, I began to prowl the corridors of the hospital. I had my spiritual antenna up, waiting for a sign of life.
Find me, William.
I crisscrossed the second floor. I didn’t see many patients, and the ones who were there didn’t feel like Grace. They were mostly old people with oxygen tanks. Family members, including many children, were roaming the hallways. I remembered that it was Sunday, which meant that they’d come to visit grandpa or grandma. I had been gone so long that I’d nearly lost track of the days.
On the third floor, I passed several empty rooms. Then, at the end of the hallway, a single open door caught my eye. I felt something pulling me down the corridor, and I followed. My shoes made soft footfalls on the floor.
I’m here.
I arrived at the door and peered inside.
A young woman was lying in bed. The sheets had been pulled up around her chest and tucked in nicely. Her lustrous hair was brushed and spread out on the pillow around her head. She appeared to be about my age. She also appeared to be totally unconscious.
I knew it was Grace. There was no doubt. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name. But I needed to confirm.
At that moment, a pair of nurses walked by, chattering. They saw me peeking into the girl’s room. Before they could demand to know why I was up here, I turned the tables on them.
“Ma’am,” I said to the nearest nurse, “can you tell me, who is this girl?”
“I can’t tell you that,” she said. “That would violate patient confidentiality.”
“But I think I might know her,” I told her.
“Who are you?” she said, her eyes sizing me up. “Do you have relatives here?”
The other nurse laid a hand on the first one’s arm. “Wait, Dolores, he said that he might know her.” She turned to me, “What’s her name?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but I think I’ve seen her before. It might be Grace.”
The nurses looked a little stunned by the news. I didn’t know why that would give them pause. They should have her name from when she checked in.
“Should we tell him?” said the second.
The first one, Dolores, shrugged.
The second nurse joined me in the doorway. “She’s a Jane Doe. We don’t know who she is. She was brought in here, almost dead. She apparently had been bitten by a rattlesnake while she was out hiking, though we couldn’t find any of the venom in her. She had a severe reaction to the medication we gave her and hasn’t regained consciousness.”
“Nobody’s come to claim her either,” said the other. “And her fingerprints aren’t even in the database.”
My mind reeled. Grace has been in a coma, bitten by a rattlesnake. It didn’t really square with the way she’d been speaking to me. Or maybe it did.
“Is it okay if I go inside?”
The nurse looked nonplussed. “There’s a policy against it.” She eyed me suspiciously. “But if you can identify her, we’ll stand out here in the hallway and wait.” Then she added sternly, “No touching.”
I entered the room, flipped my hoodie down, and approached Grace. Looking down on her, I began to feel the same thing I had felt inside the cavern, except this felt a little more personal—that same smattering of images went floating through my memory, the ones I’d had on my birthday, the ones that seemed quite vivid but foreign, as though they didn’t belong to me. I couldn’t be sure, but she sure had the same hair color, the same look as the girl in my visions.
I looked behind me and glanced at the nurses. They were talking to each other in low voices. I sneakily reached my hand out and touched the girl’s arm.
William, you found me.
All those floating memories concentrated and leaped out of the fog of memory, a thousand times more vivid. It was Grace. I knew that more certainly than I’d ever known anything before.
“No touching,” said Dolores. I yanked my hand back and turned toward them. The nurses were staring oddly at me.
“Is your name William?” the second nurse said.
I felt my stomach drop to my shoes. I was a wanted man. I felt the sweat popping out all over my body. There was only one answer to that question—a lie. I was sorry for what had happened in the sporting goods store, but Julia’s cousin wasn’t seriously injured. I, meanwhile, had a far bigger problem to deal with.
“No,” I lied. “I’m Fred.”
“You look just like that boy who was on the news,” she said. “The one who ran away. The one whose family…”
She trailed off, didn’t finish the sentence. My stomach twisted itself into a thousand knots.
“Whose family did what?” I asked.
Dolores fixed me with a merciless stare. “Well, you’re not him?”
“Nope.”
“His family was killed yesterday. It’s all over the news. Haven’t you seen it?”
“No,” I croaked. The room was going sideways. I struggled to keep myself from throwing up all over the place.
“Well, Grace is a good start,” she said, turning away. “We’ll check out the database.” She left the room, and I stepped into the hall in a daze. I had the wherewithal to flip up my hoodie again as I went down the elevator, but otherwise I felt as though I had been struck by lightning.
My God, were they really all dead? My knees buckled, and this time I couldn’t help it. I vomited on the elevator floor. I was wiping my mouth when the doors opened, and an older couple stood there,
staring. I excused myself and pushed past them. I had to get out of there. That nurse might send someone after me. I stumbled through the front doors, crying, heartbroken. Could it be true? I had to know.
I don’t remember the drive back to my hometown. I was catatonic, and again behind the wheel of Cy’s truck. Still not caring that I didn’t have a license.
When I pulled into my neighborhood, it was 4 p.m. My street was blocked off by a pair of sawhorses, and a police cruiser was parked behind them. A cop sat behind the wheel, looking down at something in his lap.
I felt cold sweat springing out all over my body. Those nurses couldn’t have been referring to my family. They couldn’t have been. But something had happened on my block.
I made an executive decision not to try turning down my street. It wouldn’t be smart. The police could be looking for me. There could be a warrant out for my arrest. Instead, I would wait until nighttime.
I slunk down in the seat so that my face wasn’t visible as I passed the roadblock. Then I turned out of the neighborhood, back onto the main road, and went to a park some ways away, where I stopped Cy’s pickup under a tree and turned off the engine. I had nowhere else to go, not without risking discovery.
Then I sat there, frozen in fear, watching the sun sink lower on the horizon.
Six hours later, darkness had cloaked the park, and my armpits were damp with perspiration. I was still sitting in the truck. My body had been unable to move, but my mind had been spinning through the darkest possible scenarios.
Now I would do whatever it took to infiltrate my own house.
I started up the truck and drove back to the neighborhood. The sawhorses were still up, the cruiser still parked behind. I drove past them, circled a different block, and saw the other end of my street was similarly blocked.
There was only one way to do this—on foot.
I parked several blocks away, slipped out of the truck, put up my hood, and began crossing through the yards. It was pitch dark and my neighborhood had no streetlights, so it was easy to slink around undetected. After a few minutes, I arrived on my street. The two cruisers were at either end, and I was enveloped in darkness.