Tears welled again. The chief had meant something to her.
Retsler shook his head. This was going to be one of those stories he didn’t want to hear. Something supernatural, something no one would believe until they saw the thing kill something else, and even then they’d find it hard.
“I take it you all solved whatever it was causing the deaths,” he said in the most clinical voice he had. If Denne had been up here, he would have known just how angry and trapped Retsler felt. He was back in Oregon, and he was back in hell.
“Yes,” she said in a somewhat strangled tone. “Yes, we figured it out.”
She straightened her shoulders, ran a hand through her hair, then gave him a watery smile.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that the previous chief had died suspiciously,” she said.
He shrugged. “We barely got through the introductions.”
She glanced at his hand, still wrapped around that mesh. “I feel like I’m not being fair to you. Doctor Denne told me a lot about you, about the strange things that happened in Whale Rock, and then I Googled you. We did do an open hire, we did. It was just—Marble Village isn’t a normal place. People want normal, they go to Cave Junction. Or Medford. Not here. And all of the applicants, they were either too old or too practical or too expensive. And so, I was complaining to Doctor Denne over the phone, and he told me about you. That’s when I e-mailed you. That’s when I hoped you would come home.”
This isn’t home, he almost said, but didn’t. Oregon was closer to home than Montana, that much was true. But this part of Oregon was very different from the coast, different enough to have its own weather, its own customs, and, apparently, its own monsters.
He didn’t want to know. Better to return to Montana, where the monsters were humans prone to domestic quarrels fueled by too much alcohol and an easy access to firearms.
Still, he couldn’t just walk away. Not with his fingers wrapped around this mesh fence, and that footprint below. He’d always wonder.
He saw that as both a personal failing and as a curse.
“All right,” he said. “Time to tell me what’s going on here.”
She swallowed, blinked, sighed, clearly steeling herself. Then her gaze met his.
“This one really isn’t important. We weren’t going to mention it. No one’s been hurt, nothing has gone wrong—”
“Except the damage,” he said.
“Which we can limit if we don’t move anything in the kitchen,” she said. “The problem is that the new chef—and it’s really not fair to call him new, since he’s been here five years—he wants to make the kitchen more efficient. And the grill is dying. We can’t keep repairing it. It’s from the 1930s. They don’t even make parts any more and we can’t find any others.”
Retsler was still focusing on how she started. “What do you mean you can limit it if you don’t move anything in the kitchen?”
She gave him a small smile. “I feel so stupid discussing this.”
“Believe me,” he said with more feeling than he had intended. “I understand.”
Her smile widened just a little. “We thought we had a little girl. It’s not. It’s something else—”
“A poltergeist?” He’d read up on the supernatural after he moved away from Whale Rock. And as he did, that always made him speculate if he had let go after all.
“Yeah, that’s what someone called it,” she said. “But that’s not really true. We didn’t have a little girl ghost. It’s a thin young woman, I think, or a feminine boyish man, someone to whom that kitchen meant a lot. When things are running smoothly, in fact, when the hotel is full and so is the restaurant, you can see her—him—it—sitting near the door, a smile on his—her—its face as if it liked the bustle. Sometimes, it would even help one of the morning cooks. Our previous cook—a matronly woman whom everyone loved—would occasionally let it help her pick ingredients. She wrote the recipes down; they’re spectacular.”
“A cooking ghost that lives in the Caves?”
Her smile disappeared as if it had never been. Her dark eyes flashed, and her chin set. “Go ahead. Make fun.”
Retsler had used the same tone with her that he used to use with Denne. It was a reflex, a way of pushing back at information he really didn’t want to hear.
“Sorry,” Retsler said. “I didn’t mean to make fun.”
She took a deep breath. Clearly she had to overcome his tone so that she could continue. She expected him to make fun of her, and it almost shut her down.
He wondered who else had made fun, and what had changed.
“Whatever it is,” she said with a little less enthusiasm, “it loves the kitchen just the way it’s always been. We got new dishware and fortunately, it wasn’t china, because the whatever it is tossed the dishware around the kitchen for weeks, trying to get rid of it. A few pieces chipped, finally, but we replaced them.”
“When did that stop?” he asked.
“After a few months. But we can’t wait this one out. We don’t want it to trash a new grill, and you saw what it did with the flour.”
“Yes,” he said, and looked down. The footprint was fading. Had there been a wind? He hadn’t noticed. “Did you know that this creature lives in the Caves?”
“I’m still not sure it does,” she said. “But whenever it gets angry, it leaves footprints, coming to this site. We’ve actually sent people into the Caves to follow the prints, but they disappear just inside the opening.”
“So this isn’t flour.” Retsler let go of the fence and crouched down. He touched the print. It was ice cold.
“Are you sure you should do that?” she asked.
“I’m not sure about anything,” he said. He checked his fingertip just to make sure the white whatever it was didn’t transfer onto his skin. So far as he could tell, it hadn’t. “Has anyone else tried to figure out what these prints are made of?”
“By the time we get experts here, the footprints have faded,” she said. “You can understand why we’re reluctant to call folks in.”
He nodded, then stood. “You have worse problems than this ghost?”
She bit her lower lip. “Apparently—and we didn’t know this during the boom of the 1990s—but Marble Village was built on the site of one of the first settlements ever on Mount Elijah. There’s water near here—”
“Don’t tell me,” he said. “The River Styx.”
She smiled. “No. Well, yes. But no. The River Styx runs through the Caves, and that really is its name. Outside of the Caves, it’s called Cave Creek. There are tributaries all over the mountainside. One of the largest is here, although it does dry up during summers like this one.”
“And floods in spring,” he said.
She nodded. “See why we want an Oregonian?”
“Anyone who lives around mountains knows how winter runoff works,” he said. He still wasn’t convinced about the Oregonian part. “But you were telling me about the water.”
“The initial settlers thought they had a great water supply,” she said, “so they built here instead of at Cave Junction. Then they abandoned the town.”
“That’s not unusual in the West,” he said. “There’s a million ghost towns just like it, places that people tried, figured wouldn’t work, and moved on.”
“Yeah.” She glanced around him at the Caves, as if she saw something. He hoped she would trust him enough to tell him if she did. “But they didn’t leave because the creek dried up or because of a wild fire or anything. They just disappeared one night. Half the town fled and the other half was never heard from again.”
“I don’t remember reading that,” he said. Then he smiled at her. “You’re not the only one who knows how to use Google.”
“Tourist town,” she said. “Resorts. We didn’t put some of the old history on any website, and fortunately, the initial stories of Marble Village, which was called Limestone Creek back then, weren’t published in any guidebooks.”
“You think
this history is important,” he said.
“I didn’t at the time,” she said, “but I do now.”
He brushed off his hands and stood. The footprints were nearly gone now, but he saw where they disappeared, and made a mental note of it.
“Why do you think so now?” he asked.
“Because we’re under assault, Chief Retsler,” she said. “That’s why we want you. Someone we don’t have to convince that this is important, that it could be an emergency. Someone who knows.”
He sighed. Back in Oregon, having the same old discussions. “Didn’t Hamilton tell you? I left Whale Rock because of the supernatural.”
“He did,” she said. “He also said he didn’t think you’d take the job, but he said I should push.”
Retsler nodded, sighed. “So, you’ve done your duty. You’ve pushed.”
The wind toyed with her hair. She grabbed some loose strands and tucked them behind her ears. “You’re going to say no, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said, and almost added, I ran away from all this. But he didn’t.
“Well.” Businesslike again. She stuck out her hand. “I’m sorry we wasted your time.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Let’s make sure it’s not wasted completely, all right?”
Then, without waiting for an answer, he shook the fence. It rattled, warning whatever was behind it that he was coming. He wasn’t sure if he had done that deliberately. He liked to think he hadn’t.
“How do I get through this?”
“You don’t need to,” she said.
“I’d like to,” he said.
She hesitated, then pointed to an overgrown blackberry bush near one of the boulders. “Through that.”
He’d tried to go through blackberry bushes before. They were stubborn, and sometimes hid things with thorns.
“I guess I’ll climb,” he said, and gripped the mesh. The diamonds were big enough for the toes of his somewhat dressy shoes. He hauled himself up, and carefully eased over, landing in the dirt on the other side.
At least she wouldn’t follow him here.
“I’ll get someone to open the gate,” she said.
He nodded absently, not caring if she did or not. “I’d rather have an expert on the hotel’s history, preferably not a scholarly type, but someone who’s been around for a few generations.”
“Um, but—”
He didn’t listen to her answer. Instead, he followed the fading footprints down the incline to the mouth of the Caves.
The prints stopped just outside the opening. He touched them again. Cold, but damp, as if they were made of ice and the ice had started to melt. Water, again. Dammit.
He sniffed his fingers, wondering if the dampness had an odor. It didn’t, or at least, it wasn’t an odor that he could smell over the pines and the dirt and the fresh Oregon air.
He stood. The boards over the cave entrance were old and rotted. They hadn’t been replaced in years. Some had broken along the sides. He touched them, and two boards fell down, leaving a space just large enough for a young adult woman or a slender young man who hadn’t reached his full growth to slide through.
Retsler peered inside. No lights, but a chill against his skin. The Caves had an ambient temperature of 41 degrees, a fact he remembered from his childhood. As a boy, he had wondered why the settlers hadn’t built their homes inside the Caves—they would stay relatively warm in the frigid mountain winters and remain cool in the summer. He had mentioned it to his father, who had laughed.
Boy, forty-one is too cold for comfortable living, no matter what the season.
It was also too warm to keep ice frozen, so the water inside the Caves—that damned River Styx—would continue to flow.
Retsler wondered if he should break the wood and go inside. Then he decided against it. He didn’t have the equipment for one thing. Just his cell phone, which could double as a flashlight, but wouldn’t have service deep inside. And this was a part of the Caves that the Park Service had deliberately blocked off, so finding him wouldn’t be easy if he got lost or turned around.
Or attacked.
He picked up the wood. He would wait until he had permission, or even knew if he had to go inside.
Voices echoed along the path. He decided not to wait for someone to cut the brambles away from the gate opening so he could get out. He climbed the mesh for a second time, his fingers complaining as the metal dug into his skin.
He landed on the path just as Bronly returned with one of the town parents. The curled name badge reminded Retsler that the man was named Stanley. Stanley didn’t look as winded by the walk as Bronly did. Despite the extra weight he carried around his middle, Stanley was surprisingly fit.
He held up hedge trimmers. “Was gonna help you get out.”
“Thank you,” Retsler said.
“Guess you didn’t need it.”
“I figured climbing was easier.”
Stanley looked at him through narrowed eyes. Then he said, “Bronly here says you want to know about our ghost.”
He sounded calm about it, calmer than Bronly had. She glanced at him, then at Retsler.
“I did,” Retsler said, matching Stanley’s calm tone, “but I would rather have heard from someone who maybe lived here in the 1930s.”
“Ain’t got many of those folks left and what we do are down to the Village. I could give you some names of folks in a home in Medford.” Stanley wasn’t looking at Retsler. He was peering over Retsler’s shoulder at the Caves.
“See something?” Retsler asked.
“Naw,” Stanley said. “Just like to be watchful, is all. This ain’t the best side of the mountain to be on.”
“Why not?”
“Creepies, crawlies, things that go bump in the night. They like the shadow side best.”
“And this is the shadow side?”
Stanley nodded. His gaze moved from the Caves to Retsler’s face. “Let’s go to the diner,” he said. “I bet you could use you some pie.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” Retsler said. He glanced over his shoulder at the Caves behind him. The white footprints were gone, but his remained. His and Ron’s and Stanley’s, tromping all over each other, showing their confusion and indecision. The only odd thing he noted was that on the other side of the fence, no footprints showed at all, not even where he had jumped.
Retsler frowned. That felt important, but he wasn’t sure why.
Or, at least, he wasn’t sure why—yet.
***
Half a dozen patrons sat in the W-shaped counters lining the diner. None of the patrons were the town parents, many of whom nursed coffee near the kitchen door.
Bronly led Retsler to the farthest side of the W, facing the windows that overlooked the small man-made pond and beyond it, the Siskiyou National Forest.
This part of Oregon was pretty, he had to admit that, and pretty in a different way from Montana. Maybe it was the color of the dirt, or the narrowness of the sky or maybe it was just the smell in the outdoor air, which he shouldn’t have been able to smell in here.
That faint scent of fried hamburgers grew stronger now, particularly since one of his burgers was on that grill. The waitress, wearing a blue-and-white checkered uniform and a little protective hat that made her look like something out of the 1930s, had already given him ketchup and mustard in red and yellow plastic squirt containers, without any labels. Nothing had labels, trying to maintain the illusion of history. He wondered what he would get if he asked for artificial sugar to go with his iced tea, then decided not to ask.
He didn’t want to spoil the illusion either.
Bronly also ordered a burger, which surprised him. He would have thought that a woman like her would order a salad. Although he hadn’t seen any salads prominently displayed on the old-fashioned menu.
Stanley had ordered a piece of apple pie a la mode, and the waitress had already given it to him, along with a cup of diner coffee—nothing fancy at all, no half-caf
lattes or sprinkles allowed.
“We’re talking over here,” Stanley said as he turned his plate so that the point of the wedge-shaped piece of pie faced him, “because the others think this’s all crazy, that some kids’re doing pranks.”
“You don’t?” Retsler asked. His stomach growled again. That piece of pie looked like something out of a magazine, perfect crust, glistening apples covered in a lovely brown sauce.
Then Stanley ruined the perfection by slicing off the tip. “You seen it. You want to tell me how them footprints got where they are? And icy to boot.”
“You’ve touched the prints, then,” Retsler said.
“First time I saw them. Windy day, but the prints stayed the same. Ice shocked me. It was strange, and back then, I didn’t like strange.” Stanley shoveled the pie into his mouth.
“You do now?” Retsler asked.
“Let’s just say I’m used to it,” Stanley said around the pie in his mouth.
Bronly glanced at the town parents, still talking near the kitchen door. Her glance seemed almost furtive, as if she didn’t want them to overhear—which they couldn’t, given how far away the door was.
“So this has been going on for a long time,” Retsler said.
“This, that, and the other thing. The killings, though, those were new.” Stanley cut another piece of pie, shoving the side of his fork so hard into the surface that the plate moved.
“And Hamilton Denne helped you with those,” Retsler said, wanting to make sure.
“Theoretically. He said, though, things’re changing. He was seeing more weird things, and he blamed all kinds of nutty stuff—global warming, some kind of creature rebellion, pollution, you know. All that liberal conspiracy crap.”
Bronly leaned back just enough to catch Retsler’s eye behind Stanley’s back. She shook her head just a little, warning him off this part of the topic.
Retsler already knew to move away. He’d met this Oregon type before. They were prevalent in the mountains, guys who had their own beliefs about the world and who believed that anyone who disagreed with them was crazy or nutty or worse. Retsler had always thought of them as the precursors to the survivalists who had moved up here in the 1980s. When he was in Montana, which had a slightly different version of the same type, he realized that many of these folks were the survivalists who had moved to the “wilderness” in the 1980s. They had integrated back into society, kinda, but hadn’t lost their strong opinions about the way the world worked or about the people who disagreed with them.
Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds Page 15