Badwater

by Clinton McKinzie

  Despite my instructions to him, Roberto had no intention of faking another seizure. He was going to take care of Smit directly. He had one hand on top of the blanket, gripping his twin canes. He was ready for it. He was looking forward to it.

  The big man had been hassling him for the last two days. Almost as much as he hassled Jonah. When Roberto just stared back at him, pretending not to understand the insults that were made in English, Smit had threatened time and time again to take one of his canes and stick it up his ass. The guy was obviously an asshole with an asshole fixation. Every time he made the threat, Roberto just went on staring. He knew from the way Smit turned away that the big man was afraid of him.

  Imagine that—afraid of a cripple. He almost laughed again.

  But the urge was choked off when big hands clamped—simultaneously—over his mouth and throat.

  forty-one

  At the same time, Brandy couldn’t stop shivering. And she couldn’t stop staring at the carcass. At times she was shaking so hard she thought she saw it move. A portion of the spine was exposed, reaching toward her from the open cavity of the neck. Bits of flesh clung to the white bone.

  But at least she wasn’t alone.

  Two mice had appeared early in the evening. They’d darted in and out of the doorway for maybe an hour. Looking at her with glassy black eyes, then the carcass, then her again. Having finally chewed through the duct-tape gag, she tried talking to them, but it just made them scurry away. So she shut up and just smiled. She badly needed their company.

  They slipped in and began nibbling. After a while they even stopped glancing her way. But then they suddenly fled in terror as a red fox leapt in the door.

  After her initial surprise, she played the same silent, smiling game with the fox. It, too, soon accepted her as harmless and began to nibble, tearing delicate chunks from the huge wound where the deer’s head had been sawed off. Brandy barely made a whisper at first, careful not to raise her voice too much until the fox grew used to it. After a while, as the sky darkened and finally turned black, she could speak at an almost normal volume. But her speech was impaired when she tried to compliment its pointed ears and clean, fluffy tail by the fact that her tongue was swelling hugely in her mouth from thirst.

  It was only when the fox fled that she began to really get scared. Its flight from such a smorgasbord could only mean something bigger and badder was on the way. Her teeth began to chatter. She couldn’t clench her sore jaw tight enough to stop it.

  The change in smell was the first thing she noticed. It wasn’t the sickly sweet smell of the rotting meat, or even the now-familiar odor of her own vomit, sweat, and fear. It was something heavier, more powerful, and tremendously rank. She brought her quivering knees up to her chest and squeezed as hard as she could into the corner of the wrecked cabin.

  She never heard its footsteps, but she could hear it huffing toward her from a long way off. Every now and then there came a low groan, like wind through rock. The two sounds kept coming—regular huffs like a steam engine climbing a steep grade punctuated by groans.

  Even though she had lots of time—far, far too much time—to prepare, she was in no way ready when the head swung around the door frame. It was as big as a truck tire. But its eyes were small, shiny buttons. The moonlight silvered the honey-brown fur.

  The head swung from side to side twice as the massive snout seemed to suck all the air out of the ruined cabin. Then the nose and the eyes locked in on her and everything became very still. Brandy stared back with her mouth open as the black lips lifted and revealed broken yellow teeth as long as knives.

  forty-two

  The moon was just hanging there in the sky, so bloated and bright that it cast shadows from every upright object in the woods. The shadows were still except for when an easy breeze ruffled needles and leaves. In all of the Shoshone National Forest, only two of these shadows were moving fast. One was made for night running—it glided along, low to the ground, smooth and straight as a bullet. The other was far more awkward. It ran erect, its spine straight, frantically pumping limbs that never connected to the earth or the feet of the man who cast it. Every now and then it crashed to the ground, only to rise again, spitting curses.

  I was gasping like a bellows from the climb. We’d ascended more than two thousand feet from the road, up through pines and aspens and steep fields of scree. Sometimes we were on the rocky four-wheel trail, and other times we lost it entirely. My route might have been foolish, but I was determined to take as direct a path as possible toward the saddle between the two peaks in the night sky.

  One of the sobbing brothers had pointed out the peaks. The other one was facedown on the dirt floor of the hut, Mungo’s jaws clamped around the back of his neck. It had taken less than a minute after kicking through the door for them to tell me what and where.

  The what was Bogey. The where was an abandoned cabin in the looming mountains.

  Through their frantic squeals that were muffled by the dirt, I was told that everything had gotten out of hand. They’d only meant to scare her. But she’d fallen off her bike and hit her head. They’d gotten scared themselves and brought her to the shed. Unsure what to do next, they’d called Bogey. He was pissed. He told them to take her someplace more remote. He’d assured them he’d take care of her, bring her food and clothes, and talk her out of getting them in trouble. In return they’d never, ever mention his name, or else they’d spend the rest of their teenage years in a boot camp in Utah.

  My heart had long since red-lined—it was pounding as hard as it was willing to; any harder and it would explode. I really should have borrowed one of the ATVs. But just driving one of the damn things was such anathema to me that the idea hadn’t occurred when it would have counted. Besides, I was in the best shape of my life thanks to Moriah, and was certain I could run the distance over rough ground in the dark faster than I could maneuver a machine. I supposed now that I was wrong.

  “Wait, Mungo,” I croaked, sounding like McGee climbing a flight of stairs. “Slow down.”

  Mungo turned and glanced at me. She was panting lightly, barely winded. Her look said, What? Not again.

  I doubled over with my hands on my knees and took huge belly breaths. I tried to walk a little, but my legs were so stiff with lactic acid that they’d barely follow my commands. But I managed to force them back into a reasonable jog rather than the all-out sprint that kept creeping over me. I kept thinking how every second might count, how if I’d been just a little faster in reaching Cody Wallis, the boy might have lived and none of this would have happened in the first place.

  Up, up, and up, we soon passed into a forest of far smaller trees. These were stunted by the altitude and twisted by the wind. Their shapes were bizarre, their long shadows even more so. It couldn’t be much farther now—the brothers had tearfully claimed it was just above the tree line.

  After just a few more minutes I topped out on a rise and saw a headwall before me. It protected the hanging valley between the two peaks, nestling the cabin in its bosom. Somewhere was the four-wheel track, but damn if I could find it.

  Approaching it, I finally commanded my muscles, heart, and lungs to apply the brake that they’d been screaming for. As great as my need for speed was, I couldn’t just go charging in. Someone could be there—maybe even Bogey.

  It wasn’t hard to pick a route up the wall even without spotting the track. Down its middle spilled a great field of talus. Large blocks—their sizes ranging from dishwashers to SUVs—that wouldn’t likely move or slide from the weight of just one human and a light-footed wolf-dog. Here I had the advantage. Pushing with my legs and pulling with my hands, I gained elevation at an even pace. Mungo was now the graceless one, forced by her anatomy to lurch from stance to stance.

  Within fifteen minutes we crested the top of the wall. Before us was a small valley that widened into a lake, then narrowed again into a dirty gray glacier, which then climbed into a saddle between the two high peaks. I couldn�
�t see a cabin. But based on the geography, I could guess where it would be: on a safe knoll above, but not far from, the glacial lake, and on the north side to best catch the light.

  “Whoa, Mungo. Tranquilo,” I hissed.

  Mungo turned again to look at me. This time I didn’t see disgust for my slow pace in the way she held her body. Her head was very low, and her tail was held straight out and stiff as a board. Her shoulders looked huge in the moonlight, like she’d slipped a pair of shoulder pads under her fur. I realized that all her hair was standing on end.

  Something very bad had happened—or was happening.

  The ground at the base of the hanging valley was floored with scattered rocks and high-alpine tundra. We made our way together over and through small hillocks, Mungo staying by my side. So close, in fact, that she kept nudging me off-balance. But I didn’t reprimand her. I was just glad she was with me.

  We came to the foot of the lake. The cabin had to be somewhere to the right. Mungo darted ahead—then froze before I could try to call her back. She lowered her head all the way to the ground and took a tentative lick. I approached and knelt, pushing her away. I examined the ground in the moonlight, touching it. I found sticky blood and flecks of skin and hair.

  “Oh fuck.”

  Before I could stop her, Mungo darted ahead again. This time she didn’t stop, not even when I hissed. She ran a straight course to the north side of the lake. When she was a hundred feet away, showing no signs of stopping, I cursed again and started to run after her.

  I came over a rise and saw, just ahead, the outline of a small cabin. And the gray ghost shape of Mungo flying toward it. The cabin looked tiny, no more than twelve feet wide and seven feet high and probably missing its roof. It had a long-abandoned aspect to it. A few steps closer and I could make out the door, or at least the black hole of where a door should be, just as Mungo shot into it.

  I didn’t know what to expect, but what happened was the last thing I could have imagined in my worst nightmares.

  A sound that was like the boom of thunder broke the night sky wide open. But it was longer than thunder, more animated, and full of rage. It was a roar that no human could make. It lifted all the hair on my head. I actually felt the vibrations blast through me. Then an enormous head and shoulders rose above the walls—the body that supported it had to be eight feet tall. I almost believed I was witnessing some monster from a nightmare, until I saw the profile of the snout, and my brain screamed bear!

  What followed was total chaos. The bellowing roar continued, and another voice from a hell’s chorus joined in. It was Mungo, snarling louder and more ferociously than I knew she was capable of.

  Running again, I automatically touched the gun on my hip. But the .40-caliber now felt as deadly as a cap gun. I was fifty feet away when Mungo scampered back out the doorway. She was running fast on just three legs.

  She was limping to the left, so I broke right. If the bear came out after her, I’d have a better chance to drill it with a full law-enforcement clip if I wasn’t right in front of it.

  But the bear didn’t come out. I found myself circling the cabin, listening to the huffing and scratching and growling from within. With the exception of one final bellow, the roars had stopped with Mungo’s hasty exit.

  I couldn’t decide what to do. Approaching the cabin seemed like a very, very bad idea. Finding Mungo and getting her the hell out of here seemed infinitely easier and wiser. Then going for help and a bigger gun. But I knew that the hard choice is usually the right one. One way or another, I had to see what was inside the cabin. If there was a one-in-a-million chance that Brandy was somehow still alive in there, being mauled, being eaten alive, I had to risk it.

  I approached the cabin from the rear. Each huff or scratch sent a buzz of alarm racing down my spine. I held my gun ahead of me in a two-handed grip while my mind frantically debated target options. Heart or head? Would the thick skull deflect bullets?

  Coming up behind the cabin, I could see how rickety the walls were. They were barely standing. They seemed to vibrate with each noise from the interior. There appeared to be gaps several inches wide between the logs that formed the walls.

  Crouching low, I crept up and settled down behind one of the gaps. Just on the other side of the wall were ungodly loud groans and slurps.

  The stench was the first thing that struck me. Over the powerful body odor of the bear was the stench of rotting meat. It almost made me gag when I couldn’t help but realize the likely source of the latter smell. And it almost made me creep away. But I had to look. I had to know.

  I put my face against a large seam and stared into the darkness. Because most of the roof was missing, the moonlight blazed straight down inside. The massive shape of the bear, with its humped shoulders and swayed back, was moving side to side as it pulled at something on the ground.

  And then I heard it. A tiny, rasping voice just on the other side of the wall. Singing what sounded like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Serenading the bear.

  The voice wasn’t coming from where the bear was pulling and tearing on the opposite side of the cabin. It was coming from just inches from my face, down low. I had a vision of a disembodied head chanting the song.

  Then the song changed. An improvised song began. “Mungo, Mungo, if that wolf was you, I wish you’d come back to me. And bring your master, too.” Sung in the same small voice.

  “I’m here,” I whispered, so quietly I didn’t even hear myself.

  Instantly, the song stopped. And the bear responded, too, letting go of the carcass and raising its great head. It seemed to be staring straight through the crack at me. I knew I was shadowed by the wall, but I wondered if that was enough. The bear sniffed the air while I held my breath.

  The singing started again, a little louder. This time it was “Hush Little Baby.”

  The bear stared, then reluctantly, growling sulkily, went back to feeding. I could now make out the rotting carcass as that of a big mule deer. Something was sticky when I touched the wall. I ran my fingers gently over it and recognized a twisted wrap of duct tape. Above and below it were two filthy, swollen hands.

  The fingers moved. Very carefully, I took hold of one of the hands. It squeezed back with a strength that startled me. Its touch conveyed some kind of triumph, some kind of victory over psychic and physical agony.

  I leaned a little to the side and tried to see to the right, the direction the wrists seemed to run. I could make out a pair of lips moving, the ragged voice coming from them, and pale, dirt- and blood-streaked skin.

  The hand wouldn’t let go. I had to set my gun down carefully between my knees in order to dig my knife out of my pocket. Holding it tight, I opened it one-handed. Carefully, awkwardly, while the voice connected to the hand continued to sing, I sawed through the tape with the razor-sharp blade.

  The bear raised its head again at the sound of the tape parting. This time it didn’t hesitate or sniff the air. It lunged forward a single step, crossing the entire diameter of the cabin. Its head was enormous. It opened jaws from which swung thick ropes of saliva and bellowed right into Brandy’s face.

  I felt the sticky saliva cover my face as it sprayed through the crack. I felt the shattering vibration of the sound rattle through my bones. But the hand holding mine didn’t even flinch. And when the roar was finished, the singing continued, never having stopped. “I’m not going to hurt you, I’m not going to eat your dinner, I’m just a silly human, no threat to anyone.” I couldn’t see any fear on her wet face, with the bear’s open jaws just inches from it. There was none of my own terror reflected there.

  For the first time in my life, I felt awe.

  From the doorway of the cabin came a higher-pitched growl. The bear swung around, stretching out one paw and slapping the air. The paw caught the side of the door frame and shook the whole cabin but missed Mungo.

  Now she snarled again and darted forward, like she was going for the meat. The bear lunged for her. Its huge
shoulders completely filled the door and made the wood crack.

  I didn’t hesitate. It was now or never. Letting go of the hand, I scrambled over the crude wall and fell inside. The bear’s hindquarters were so close I could have touched them. Brandy was trying to rise, but her legs didn’t seem to be working. I grabbed her, lifted her to her feet, and threw her over the back wall.

  A quick glance at the bear showed that it was pushing its way out of the cabin. Maybe so it could turn around and come back in. Jumping up, I grabbed the top log of the wall and vaulted over. I landed on top of Brandy with one knee, but she didn’t cry out. I found my gun, lifted her again, and began dragging her away from the cabin as fast as I could.

  With Brandy beginning to recover the use of her legs, we ran across the rocks and the tundra heading for the end of the valley. Behind them, it sounded as if Mungo and the bear were locked in mortal combat. A fight that could only have one outcome.

  “Keep running,” I yelled, letting go of Brandy.

  But she didn’t listen. She stopped, too.

  In the open space in front of the cabin, the bear was standing on its hind legs, bellowing and swinging its paws. Between swings Mungo darted in to snatch bites at its legs and belly before darting out again.

  I pointed my gun in the air over the cabin and fired. The shot cracked out just as the bear caught Mungo with a mighty hook. My wolf-dog was thrown through the air, spinning, and landed in a heap. The bear dropped to all fours.

  I fired again. And again. The bear swung its head as if dodging bullets in slow motion. Then it turned and shambled over the hill at a sideways lope.

  I ran for where Mungo lay still.

  “Good girl,” I said, scooping her up in my arms. She didn’t seem to weigh much at all. Or maybe it was just that the adrenaline throbbing through my veins was giving me superhuman strength.

  With Brandy following, trying to help by holding Mungo’s haunches, we hustled out of the valley.