Darkscope

by J. Carson Black

  Two worlds, intersecting.

  “Not to mention labor troubles,” the older man continued. “The damn AFL and CIO are at each other’s throats!”

  A third man brushed by Chelsea, “Lucas, the boy’s right about this. We need to be prepared. You know how slow you got moving on that lend-lease contract. We lost a lot of money on that one.”

  “There won’t be a war,” the gray-haired man said shortly.

  Lucas. Suddenly Chelsea remembered where she’d seen him. In the photograph at the Tombstone Territorial Courthouse. Lucas McCord. Her great-grandfather!

  “Dad, the world needs copper. It always will,” the young man said.

  The man named Lucas didn’t answer. Chelsea could sense a rage in him, tightly controlled.

  Aware that the cave was getting dimmer again, Chelsea dragged her gaze away from the little drama and glanced at the steps. People were still waiting. She had time.

  “Let’s not wander off the subject, John,” Lucas McCord said at last. “I’m wondering if we’ll have to fill in this goddamn hole.”

  “It ain’t necessary,” said the third man. He took off his helmet and rubbed his bald head.

  “As long as the government doesn’t think so,” Lucas said.

  “She’s pretty stable.” The bald-headed man scratched the back of his neck. “I’m sure this stope can be left the way she is. No one’s working anywhere near here anymore.”

  “That doesn’t seem to make a difference with the unions,” Lucas replied. “But if you say she’s safe, it’s good enough for me. I guess I’ve seen enough.” Lucas rocked on his heels. “Could you leave us for a bit, Gil?”

  “Sure thing.” The bald-headed man walked toward the steps, unaware of the group of tourists at the mouth of the tunnel. Just as he reached them, they dissolved into darkness. But that didn’t matter because—

  Because Chelsea knew where she’d seen the young man before. He was in her great-uncle’s family album, a young man seated on a blaze-faced, chestnut horse in front of a Victorian house.

  John McCord, her own grandfather.

  But she’d seen him somewhere else, and with a jolt that drove everything else from her mind, she remembered where. He was also the man from the photographs. The dark-haired girl’s lover.

  The man who’d struck her as being somehow important to her.

  Chelsea’s heart thudded in her chest. He was important to her—in a very real sense. He was in her blood and bones, in her genes!

  As the implications of this rushed like a forest fire through Chelsea’s mind, she almost missed the conversation taking place right beside her.

  “I’m glad you asked me to come with you today,” the young man was saying.

  Lucas spoke in clipped sentences, and Chelsea sensed his anger again, coming off him in waves. “No matter how you choose to lead your life, you’re still my son. You need to know everything that goes on in this mine. I’m only doing my duty.”

  Chelsea’s grandfather smiled grimly. “You’ve always done your duty by me, Dad. I suppose I can be grateful for that.”

  “You failed me, John. I owe you nothing more until you come to your senses.”

  “In that case, duty will have to do.”

  Lucas McCord stood back, his lips tightening into a line. He brushed dust from his lapel and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I should have known you wouldn’t change your mind. You’re too far gone for that.” He turned to leave.

  Chelsea heard a distant rumble.

  “What was that?” asked John.

  “I don’t know.” Lucas pushed past Chelsea. She could smell his breath: mint and decay.

  “Dad, I . . .”

  Lucas turned. His eyes were like hard blueberries coated with frost.

  John McCord looked away. “Nothing.”

  Lucas spun on his heel and walked toward the steps.

  The steps! Chelsea realized they were dark. Everyone was gone! Not one tourist remained in the stope! She saw distant bouncing lights below, through gaps in the wooden stairs.

  Panic gripped her. The wet dust was thick, choking. Here she was alone in the cave under tons of rock—no, not alone. The ghosts of her grandfather and great-grandfather were carrying on a conversation right in front of her!

  Chelsea headed toward the receding lights, aware that the cavern was pitch-black except for the crazy seesawing of her own light. Even the ghosts had faded into the darkness. She was back in 1986, alone in the cave. Scrambling over the uneven floor, heart beating wildly, tears threatened to choke her. Alone. They couldn’t leave her here. She’d never find her way out!

  The tag. They’d take a head count and see she was missing. Stay calm.

  The rumbling again, louder this time. And voices. The square-sets disappeared, flickered, then stayed for good; they leaned toward her. Chelsea ran toward the entrance. The cave seemed to stretch. It was much farther to the steps than she had gauged. Panicked, she tripped over a rock and went sprawling.

  “Fire!” a voice cried close by. Gil was back. “It’s in Level Two!”

  “I’ll close the fire door,” John McCord shouted, and Chelsea saw him race for the steps.

  “Don’t go, John!” Lucas McCord’s command overrode everything else.

  Chelsea heard a sound like popping corn.

  “We better get out of here. That fire’s moving fast!” Gil yelled, and pulled Lucas McCord toward the steps.

  Chelsea tried to stand up in the jumble of rocks, using her hands as a brace.

  The rocks moved.

  Her light swayed, then steadied on the seedling stones. Some were trying to squeeze through her fingers, warm and repulsive bodies squeaking in terror.

  Rats!

  Chelsea screamed as the creatures scrabbled over her shaking legs and milled around her knees. Needle-sharp teeth punctured the skin between her thumb and finger. Blood welled up, warm and dark, webbing her hand like lace.

  “John! John! Where is he?”

  “We’ve got to get out of here. The way the smoke’s going we’ll be dead in ten minutes! Come on!”

  “Johnny!”

  “Come on! He’ll be okay. There’s an escape route near the fire door.”

  Chelsea was rooted to the spot, unable to think or react. The fire was tearing through the mine like a whirlwind. She struggled to her feet and started down the steps. At the juncture of the steps and the tunnel, a searing wave of heat blasted her. Hot sparks showered, lighting on her hair, face, and arms. And still the rats jumbled under her, squealing and clawing over each other.

  Chelsea ran through the tunnel. Heat snatched at her breath before she could use it. The air wavered with smoke. Her eyes stung, and she closed them, clapping a hand over her mouth. Lungs quaking with effort, she tried to pull in oxygen. Crawl on the floor. Crawl on the floor . . . try not to inhale . . .

  Chelsea knelt down, but as her hands came in contact with the rats, she recoiled. She couldn’t do it.

  Her vision blurred. She needed air. Heat buzzed like a swarm of bees at her nostrils, her open mouth. Crawl! Make yourself do it! She flung herself at the blanket of seething rats, flinching as cinders seared her face. Unseen claws skittered across her back, digging into the material of her jacket, rending her flesh. More and more rats clung to her, chittering, pulsing, angry. Plump, furry bodies wedged themselves into her sleeves, stampeding up her arms, tails whipping in agitation.

  Abruptly she was pulled up from the floor, and cool air slapped her in the face. Arms around her. Gary’s arms, she was certain. It’s not real. I’ve been hallucinating the whole thing. Relief washed through her like a tide, weakening her legs.

  The rats fell from her like dried leaves. Strong hands grabbed her shoulders, propelling her forward. “Are you all right?” Through closed eyes, Chelsea felt breath on her face . . . heard Gary’s voice. She opened her eyes.

  And saw John McCord instead. “A girl! What are you doing in here? We’ve got to get out! Now!” He jerked at her sh
oulders.

  Chelsea wanted to run, but was paralyzed by fear.

  “Don’t worry,” John was telling her. “The escape route is close by. The—” Chelsea saw his eyes fill with a terrible realization.

  “Escape route?”

  “Shh!” he snapped, his eyes darting like fish in white water. “The air,” he said at last. “The air’s going the wrong way.”

  “I don’t—” Chelsea couldn’t finish. Smoke filled her throat, stung her eyes.

  And then she understood. They were trapped.

  This is what it’s like to die. She looked at John McCord’s face, thinking she would die with him, seeing his strong features, the straight nose, the serious blue-gray eyes.

  Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh.

  The smoke had gone beyond hurting. Chelsea was looking at her grandfather, and the thought of being with him forever was comforting, even attractive.

  As if echoing her own thoughts, he said, “It’s no use. We’re doomed.”

  There was a tremendous crunch. A timber fell forward in spiraling scarves of bright flame. Blocking the tunnel.

  Startled out of her apathy, Chelsea tried to pull away.

  “Stay with me.” His fingers pressed gently, insistently, into her wrist. His eyes were so kind, so gentle. “Please.”

  Flame shadows wavered across his face. She could lose herself in those beautiful eyes.

  Stay.

  Chelsea felt herself surrendering, felt the panic flee from her limbs. His expression, so calm.

  The grandfather she never knew, dead and gone.

  You’re dead, she thought. You died in a fire—

  Stay. His plea echoed in her mind.

  You’re dead, but I’m still alive.

  The realization jarred her back to reality.

  Chelsea jerked her hand from his grip. The impetus sent her reeling against the jagged wall of the cave.

  His face changed. Perspiration, lit up by the fire, streamed down his cheeks, taking runnels of skin with it. Soon his whole face was a mass of running flesh, sliding like mud, erasing his features until all she saw were two holes from which shiny beetles bristled and squirmed.

  Chelsea screamed.

  Nineteen

  The blue panel truck marked PHILLIPS CARPENTRY eased off the traffic circle at the Warren turnoff, followed the road into town, and parked before the Hitching Post Tavern. Not much of a drinker, Gary Phillips didn’t usually need a beer.

  But he needed one now.

  Sitting at the bar, he ordered a Michelob and downed half the glass in one gulp. He tried not to let the image in, but it battered at the door to his mind so insistently that at last he saw it all again, in living color. He saw Chelsea, cowering in the mine, mumbling and scrubbing at her arms and legs, heard her high-pitched scream.

  He’d watched a television show on paranoid schizophrenia once. Schizophrenics heard voices, saw things. Talked to people who weren’t there.

  To his layman’s eyes, Chelsea had given a pretty good imitation of a schizophrenic.

  Hands shaking so badly he had to stuff them in his pockets, Gary called for another beer.

  Chelsea sat at the kitchen table and stared at the scar between her thumb and forefinger. It was an old scar, very old. It could have been with her for the whole twenty-six years of her life.

  Or longer. It could have been there since the early forties, when she’d been bitten by a rat in a burning mine.

  Gary’s shocked expression loomed before her eyes. I sure did it this time, she told herself. I'll bet he thinks I’m the original Looney Tunes.

  She had blacked out after seeing her grandfather’s death.

  Awakening on the floor of the tunnel, the sand’s wetness seeping into the seat of her jeans, Chelsea found herself staring into a ring of white, horrified faces. The tour guide explained that sometimes people panicked in the mine; sometimes claustrophobia could make a person act as Chelsea had. The tourists accepted the guide’s explanation with a mixture of relief and doubt. Chelsea thanked him silently.

  But on the way home, Gary wasn’t his wisecrackin’ self. Chelsea debated whether to tell him the truth, but decided against it. Telling the truth would probably have the effect of pouring gasoline on a fire.

  “He’ll just have to get over it,” Chelsea told herself grimly.

  She traced a finger along the scar. It was slightly iridescent, like opal, running like a satin stitch across her pale skin. But what about me? Can I get over it? She had flipped in time twice now, and on this occasion, she hadn’t needed the camera. What if this kept happening? If she could sustain a scar from a rat bite, couldn’t she just as easily have been burned to death?

  Bile rose in her throat. Her grandfather had tried to keep her there . . . with him.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about it: the way she had swatted at the air, crawling on the floor and babbling, trying to shake off the rats. Her face grew hot with embarrassment. It must have been quite a show.

  Apparently, traveling back to another era didn’t keep her from remaining in this one. And her lack of awareness to dangers in the present opened a whole Pandora’s box of troubles. What if it happened at the grocery store? When she was teaching? Or driving? Not counting the actual physical danger, anyone watching her could only assume—as Gary had—that she was either as crazy as a bedbug or experimenting with hallucinogens. She shuddered. Wouldn’t Jason just love to know about this! He’d jump at the chance to have her declared incompetent before the divorce could go through.

  Oh God. Chelsea slumped in the kitchen chair, horrified by her train of thought.

  Her gaze shifted to the cabinet where she kept the solvents and cleaners. About a week before her trip back in time to the 1930s, she’d wiped the cupboard down with Pine Sol and put the camera in there, hoping that the chemical smells would overpower its deathly taint. So far, so good.

  Perhaps it was the fact that the camera existed, that it was a solid object bound (at least partially) by the laws of this world, that made her turn to it now. She couldn’t touch the visions, but she could touch the camera.

  She removed the Kodak from the cupboard and looked into the viewfinder, half expecting to see the room from the thirties. She saw nothing.

  She shook it, stared into the viewfinder again. Her fingers fused to the juteboard, she willed the camera to take her into the past. Closing her eyes, gritting her teeth, she sent the message over and over. Take me back to the kitchen of the thirties; please take me back!

  Nothing, nothing, nothing!

  Frustrated to the boiling point, Chelsea hurled the camera across the room. It landed with a thud against the kitchen door.

  Had she imagined it all?

  The scar. She still had the scar.

  Still shaking, Chelsea walked over and picked up the Kodak. It was then she noticed that the camera didn’t smell.

  Not at all.

  The Brownie reminded her of an empty house, its occupant long gone. The dull black box sat in her hands, as light as a piece of balsa wood.

  And suddenly Chelsea knew. Without questioning the origin of that knowledge, she was certain that whatever had powered the camera had gone. Leaving only an empty husk.

  Fear uncoiled in her stomach like a cold, hungry worm.

  The thing in the camera had gotten loose somehow and was out in the world.

  Outside, a summer breeze sprang up. The branch from the Arizona Cypress tree clawed the rain gutter, scraping across her mind like a rusty nail against metal.

  Twenty

  Ben parked his Chevrolet Silverado nose-in to the Phelps Dodge Mercantile in Warren. The grocery store stood on the corner of Arizona and Congdon, a couple of blocks from the long park that stretched like a ribbon down the center of the town. “I have to pick up a couple of things. Do you want to come in?”

  “No thanks. I’ll wait here,” Chelsea replied, rolling down the window.

  When Ben had called this morning, Chelsea had been at
her lowest point since realizing her mistake in marrying Jason. The thought that she had been singled out by some strange force, to be terrorized and controlled—the sheer helplessness of it cut bone deep.

  So when Ben told her about Bette Kronke, an old lady who had taught school here in the twenties and thirties, Chelsea wasn’t all that anxious to accompany him on a fact-finding mission. She really didn’t want to go anywhere. But Ben’s voice sounded so normal, so reassuring, and she needed the company. Any company—as long as it was human. Besides, if anyone knew the identity of the child and woman in the pictures, it would be the child’s teacher.

  And discovering the dark-haired woman’s identity might pacify whatever it was that haunted her. She hoped.

  Chelsea hopped down from the truck, stretching her legs. What was keeping him?

  Off to the south, where the mountains were tinged copper and purple, a dazzling white thunderhead drifted all alone. It looked, against the pure blue field of sky, like a ball of cotton pulled up from a dispenser.

  In a natural bowl in the earth, the town of Warren reached from mountain to mountain. Bisbee, Warren, and what remained of Lowell had long been incorporated into one town. But to Chelsea, Warren had retained its own character. The carefully planned grid of streets and houses was laid out like an open fan, surrounded by brick-red hills. If Old Bisbee was scenic, with its landmark buildings and breathtaking views, Warren distilled the true spirit of a mining town—past and present. Old Bisbee was a haven for newcomers, drawing people from all over the country who liked the town’s atmosphere. Warren belonged to the people who had worked the mines, run the stores, and raised the children. There was a large Hispanic population here. The houses were lived in, kept up. At noon, the park teemed with shouting, laughing high school students. Families—generations of them—had made their homes in Warren.

  She leaned against the truck, watching a lazy, white jet contrail bisect the sky. Gary had come by yesterday to patch the studio roof. If he’d been bothered by the incident in the mine the day before, he hadn’t shown it.

  Neither of them had mentioned the mine tour.