Inhabited

by Ike Hamill

  “I don’t see anyone,” Florida said. “Do you still see him?”

  “I’m not crazy, Florida,” Roger said. “There was a man here.”

  Roger began to hop forward. Florida hung back a bit and moved her light around to try to see past him. When he got beyond the jagged rocks of the narrow passage, Roger started moving his hands over the walls, searching frantically. Florida caught up with him as he spun and shifted to the walls of the other side.

  “What are you doing?”

  “He must have some secret here. Maybe we can’t see it for some reason. Maybe you can’t see it with your eyes, you know?” Roger asked.

  “Hey, Roger?”

  He stopped and looked at her. His eyes blinked compulsively. It looked like a mixture of excitement and fear in his eyes.

  “What?”

  “You remember when you told me to not get obsessed a few minutes ago?” Florida asked.

  Roger turned back to the wall, feeling the surface for some mysterious passage.

  “I think you’re getting a little freaked out here,” Florida said.

  “I just saw a guy,” he said. He didn’t turn to address her. He began feeling along the floor.

  “Right,” she said. “We both have seen things that don’t make sense. Remember the climbing guy. He looked like a movie or something being projected on the rocks as we got closer. Maybe there are gasses down here that create hallucinations. Maybe we’re just going a little crazy because we’ve been cooped up underground for too long. Our lights are getting pretty dim. It’s easy to see weird stuff in low light when you’re freaked out.”

  “I could smell him,” Roger said. “He smelled like a homeless guy who has been out in the sun for too long, you know. He smelled of piss, and sweat, and shit. Whoever it is, he’s been down here a long time.”

  Florida nodded. She moved beyond Roger and started to walk up the passage as he massaged the rocks. “What was it you suggested earlier? Maybe we should head back to the portraits and see if there’s something we missed? That’s a good idea. Let’s do that. There was that one crack that looked like it might go somewhere. You remember that?”

  She forced herself to keep walking. She needed to establish her independence again. She was starting to feel too tied to Roger. If he went off the rails, she didn’t want to be dragged down with him.

  Still, she felt more comfortable when she heard his lopsided footfalls behind her. Roger kept up well, despite his footwear issues.

  “I’m still encouraged by that door,” she said, turning. “At least it means…” She trailed off. Roger was still back there on the floor, feeling up the wall. She glanced around herself with quick, jerky motions, wondering where the sound of footsteps had come from. She shook off the question. It must have been some weird echo. “Come on, Roger. Let’s get out of here.”

  He got up slowly and came after her with slumped shoulders.

  “I saw someone,” he said.

  “I believe you,” Florida said. “I was saying—I’m still encouraged. That wood came from somewhere, so there must be a pretty easy way out. They wouldn’t have dragged it too far in here for no reason.”

  She glanced back.

  Roger nodded, but she didn’t have any sense that he had been listening.

  “You were fine a minute ago,” she said. “I was the one who was freaking out. What happened to you?” She turned and walked backwards.

  Roger had been looking at the floor. He raised his head slowly and met her eyes as he shuffled forward. “There was something about him. He knew things. And he was real. He wasn’t a ghost or something. He was real and then he just disappeared.”

  Florida turned her back on Roger and picked up the pace.

  “Florida,” he called.

  “What?” she asked. She didn’t slow down.

  “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “Could you… Do you have to walk so damn fast? I want to tell you something.”

  “What?” she asked. She turned around and walked backwards.

  He picked up his speed and gained ground on her.

  “I don’t have much to live for,” he said. He looked down as he spoke, like he was ashamed to meet her eyes. “I don’t want to be one of those old, helpless people you see begging on the street. I’ll kill myself before it gets to that.”

  “What are you…” she began.

  He cut her off.

  “If we get out of here, I’m going to make a change. I’m going to find some way to better myself.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Will you hold me to that? Will you remind me of that when we get out?”

  “Sure,” she said, shrugging. She turned around again. “Why would you say that right now?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “That guy I saw,” he began. His voice was quavering, but it gained conviction as he continued. “He looked like what I fear I might become, you know? He was dirty, old, had no self-respect, and he had his eyes closed. He was blind to what he has become. I’m not going to get like that. I’ve had some hard times. You can blame it on circumstances, or you can blame it on me. Both things are true. Regardless, I’m not making any excuses. I’m not giving up anymore.”

  “Okay,” she said. She didn’t have any idea what he was talking about, but his speech seemed to require an answer.

  “Just remind me of that?” he asked.

  “Okay.”

  Chapter Forty — Road

  THEIR FEET FELL INTO a rhythm as they walked down the road. Justin’s light sputtered out first.

  “You want to stop and refill?” Travis asked.

  “No,” Justin said. “I don’t think we need the light, honestly. Stars are bright enough to find the road.”

  Travis shrugged and shut off the water to his own headlamp. After a few more minutes, his light failed as well. Their eyes adjusted quickly and it was actually easier to see farther with them off. The headlamps only reached so far. The starlight went on forever.

  They crested a hill and saw the road winding off ahead of them.

  “We could cut off the corner and save some time,” Travis said, pointing.

  “No. If we leave the road, we’re just going to risk missing those guys. Best to stay on course, you know?”

  “Yeah. Honestly, I don’t know what we’re going to say to Miguel’s mom anyway. I guess I’m not too eager to deal with that,” Travis said.

  “Yeah,” Justin said. “You think you can lead the cops to where he’s at?”

  “Fuck no,” Travis said. “I’ll draw them a map. I’ll be damned if I’m ever going in that fucking mine again.”

  “Yeah,” Justin said. “Good point.”

  “Besides, that crevice thing ebbs and flows. Maybe we wouldn’t be able to get back there anyway.”

  “True.”

  They walked in silence down the hill and around the bend. Occasionally, the road crested a hill and they could see all the way to where the mountains met the stars. Then they’d drop into a dip and they would only be able to see the next turn or the next rise.

  “Maybe we ought to hide the gold, you know?” Travis asked. “Hey—did I tell you that I found a diamond in there? I hope it doesn’t get lost in the pack.”

  “You might be right,” Justin said. “It might look like we were grave-robbing or something. Then again, there’s no sense in hiding the stuff until it looks like the others are coming back with the authorities, you know? If we see headlights or hear an engine, we’ll ditch the pack behind a rock and come back for it in the daylight.”

  “That’s a plan,” Travis said.

  Neither of them spoke for a minute.

  “We should give the gold to Miguel’s family,” Justin said.

  “I was just thinking the same thing. Is his grandfather still alive?” Travis asked.

  “I don’t know,” Justin said.

  “If he is, someone should smack that old man in the face. That’s bu
llshit, talking your own grandson into risking his life for some gold.”

  “He talked him into it?” Justin asked.

  “I think so.”

  Travis put his hand out and caught Justin’s arm.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t hear that?” Travis asked.

  “Shit. What now?”

  “I think it was Kristin.”

  They both heard it the second time.

  “Staaaaaaahp!” she yelled.

  They stopped walking and listened.

  “Where are you?” Justin yelled.

  “I’m up here,” she yelled back.

  They both looked around. Justin couldn’t see her. There was desert off to the right and hills to their left.

  “There,” Travis said.

  Justin followed his pointing arm and finally saw the outline of her distant arms, waving over her head.

  “Come on,” Travis said. He began to head off the road, towards the hill.

  “No!” she screamed. “Don’t come any closer.”

  Travis stopped and turned around to look at Justin. He put his hands up with an unspoken question.

  “What’s wrong?” Justin yelled.

  “Back up about twenty paces,” Kristin yelled.

  They did, but they took small, hesitant steps. While they moved, they studied her distant outline.

  “More,” she called.

  They kept moving until she yelled again. “Okay, now turn hard to your left and come about halfway up that hill. They followed orders, but it was difficult going. The path she dictated moved them right up a steep edge of rock. The terrain was difficult enough. In the dark, it was nearly impossible. When Travis tried to move a little closer, to get around a particularly tall rock, Kristin yelled again.

  “No! Back. Back. Right there.”

  By the time they got halfway up the hill, as she’d ordered, they were both panting and irritated. She coaxed them forward. They walked along the side of the hill. Their feet slipped on the loose rocks and sand, but she wouldn’t let them move any higher or lower on the slope.

  “Okay, straight to me,” she said when they were about a dozen paces from her.

  “What the fuck is this all about?” Justin asked.

  “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t trust that shadow there. You see?”

  He turned and looked in the direction she was pointing. The road snaked out below them. There were tons of shadows, but none of them looked particularly untrustworthy.

  “What are you talking about?” Travis asked.

  “It’s hard to explain,” she said. Kristin bend over and picked up a big chunk of rock. Travis shied back. Kristin looked like she meant business. “Just watch, okay?” she asked. She made sure that they were both paying attention to the road. “I don’t know if this is going to work yet. They forget after a while, but this one might be smarter than the others. The bigger they are, it seems like the smarter they are.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Justin asked.

  Instead of answering, Kristin cocked back her arm and let the rock fly. She had a good arm and was aided by the way the terrain fell away from their position. The rock sailed. It went over the road and came down near a clump of bushes on the other side. Justin blinked when the thing clunked to the ground.

  His eyes adjusted. The world seemed a little brighter.

  “What the hell?” Travis asked.

  “Keep watching,” Kristin said.

  “What are you guys…” Justin started he didn’t finish his question. Something was flowing across the road.

  “See? It comes back quick. This one is smarter. I knew it would be,” Kristin said.

  “Holy shit. What is it?” Travis asked.

  “Did you ever go to the aquarium down in Apple Valley?” Kristin asked.

  “No,” Justin said.

  “Yeah, I went,” Travis said.

  “They had a coral reef down there, and there was this one thing…”

  “Anemone,” Justin said.

  “Yes,” Travis said. “That’s what you said before. He had the same idea.”

  “No,” Kristin said. “Not quite. An anemone will sting things and then slowly contract them back to its mouth. The thing I’m talking about was called a ‘feather duster worm.’ It would spread out like an umbrella and then when it would come in contact with food, it would collapse in the blink of an eye. That’s what these things are like.”

  “And rocks are food?” Justin asked.

  “No,” Kristin said. “I was using a rock to trick it. It won’t fall for a rock again, not for a while. Give it a try.”

  Travis knelt and picked up a rock. He lobbed it towards the same bushes that Kristin had hit. The rock crashed through the branches and then thumped the sand. The shadow didn’t stir.

  “There’s actually a hole somewhere in there. There’s always a hole in the center. It’s where they come out from,” Kristin said. She bent and picked up another rock. Her next shot missed the bushes.

  Justin threw the next rock and his passed right through the branches and echoed as it fell down into the hole. Justin nodded.

  “See? It didn’t react that time,” Kristin said.

  “It did,” Travis said. “Just a little at the edges. It flinched.”

  “So you’re saying that if we went down there…” Justin began.

  “Or over there, or there, or up even a little higher on that hill you climbed. Yes, if you went into one of those spots, you’d trigger a retraction and it would suck you down into its hole. I saw it happen with a snake. One instant you’re there. The next, you’re gone.”

  “I’m a lot heavier than a snake,” Travis said. “Are you sure it would be able to take us?”

  Kristin shrugged in the starlight. “Is it worth taking the chance?”

  “That depends,” Justin said. “If we can find a way around them, then I guess it would make sense to avoid them.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Travis said. “What’s the best way around?”

  “That’s the problem,” Kristin said. “I can’t find a way around this one.”

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  Kristin described the extent of all the shadow traps that she knew about. They followed her pointing finger and tried to get a sense of the area. Then she told them about how she’d reached the spot they were at.

  “Some of the other ones were slow enough that I could trigger them, and then make a run for it. But you’ve seen how fast this one is. We wouldn’t make it halfway down the hill before it came back out. And we don’t know what’s on the other side of that rise. We might crest that hill just to find that the trap overlaps with the next one,” she said.

  “Have you seen that?” Justin asked. “Have you seen two overlapping traps?”

  “I guess not,” she said.

  “You described how the snake seemed to know the path between them. I’m guessing that if all these traps were able to overlap, there wouldn’t have been a snake at all,” Justin said.

  “Wait a second,” Travis said. “This is the road we came in on. How did we get by this road in the Jeep if these things are as powerful as you think?”

  “That’s a good question,” Justin said.

  “I don’t know,” Kristin said. “Maybe we were moving too quickly, or maybe it doesn’t like metal. I saw a few of them retract at the sound of a truck horn before. Maybe all the noise made them pull in before we came through, you know? It doesn’t matter anyway. The Jeep is toast.”

  “Yeah, we saw that,” Justin said. “Joy must be pissed.”

  Kristin looked down.

  She told them about Joy and Carlos.

  Travis swallowed hard at the news. “That sucks about Joy, but we’ve seen Carlos.”

  “What?” Kristin asked. She grabbed Travis by the arms. “Where is he?”

  “He was near the entrance,” Justin said. “He was convinced that he couldn’t leave because he thought something would get him. We figured we would go get he
lp and then come back for him.”

  “We have to go back,” Kristin said. “Maybe we can yell to him. Do you think he’s close enough to hear?”

  Justin and Travis looked towards each other in the dim light.

  “I guess,” Travis said. “He was a little disturbed though. I think he needs some time to settle down, you know?”

  “We have to go,” Kristin said. “We have to tell him to stay away from the exit.”

  “What?” Justin said. “Why wouldn’t we just try to get him to come out?”

  “Because he’s right,” Kristin said. “I don’t know how you two made it out, but there is something that will get him if he’s not careful.” She moved away from Travis and Justin and began to work her way down the slope.

  The men watched her descend towards the road for a second and then they went after her.

  Chapter Forty-One — Observation

  “WE’RE GOING TO BE here forever,” Roger said. He hung his head and looked down between his swinging feet. His bare foot looked swollen and purple in his dim light. They had been wandering in the cave for what felt like days. After dropping down through the crack from the portrait tunnel, they had found endless winding caves, but none of them seem to lead anywhere. It was a giant collection of dead ends.

  “Probably,” Florida said.

  Roger looked up at her. It was unlike her to show any emotion besides determination. He was surprised by her candid response. She was collecting scraps of paper. One of them was sitting on the rock next to Roger. It was a page out of a paperback book. They were scattered everywhere in the long cave. For some reason, Florida had taken it upon herself to collect them.

  She had a big handful of them when she sat down next to Roger.

  She sorted through them.

  “We ought to make a plan,” Roger said. “I don’t want to live much longer than our lights, you know. Before this thing goes dark, I want to find a way to kill myself.”

  “You could probably jump from one of those high ledges down into the white floor we found earlier.” She looked down at her hands as she spoke. Her tone was distracted and matter-of-fact. Her entire demeanor was confusing. “The fall would probably kill you. Try to land on your head if you can. Actually, I think there’s a reflex that will make you put your hands out, whether you want to or not.”