Thunderhead

by Douglas Preston

  And then he felt the unyielding knife blade trace a hard cold line across his neck; felt the abrupt wheeze of his own air, the gush of hot blood filling his windpipe; and he realized, with transcendent astonishment, that it was not a hallucination, after all.

  64

  * * *

  SLOANE WAITED, EVERY MUSCLE TENSED, LISTENING with rapt concentration. There was a break in the storm, and the rain had slowed to an occasional patter. Cupping her watch to shield the glow, she briefly illuminated it: almost ten thirty. The sky had broken into patches of light as tattered clouds swept past a gibbous moon. Still, it was mostly dark—dark enough for a person to think she could creep into camp unobserved.

  She shifted, rubbing her elbows. Once again, she found herself wondering what had happened to Swire and Bonarotti. No one had appeared at the mouth of the city. And they obviously weren’t in camp. Perhaps they’d never left Quivira in the first place, and were even now back in the kiva, watching over Black. In any case, it was best they were not around. Nora couldn’t hide forever. Soon, she would be coming for Smithback.

  Sloane returned her gaze to the tent and its thin, small glow, like a canvas lampshade in the center of the dark landscape. The camp remained still. Concentrating on dismissing all irrelevant noise, she waited, ready to distinguish the sound of Nora’s approach from the distant rush of the swollen creek. Ten minutes went by, then fifteen. The moon fell once more behind ragged clouds. The rain came on again, accompanied by distant thunder. It was more difficult than she could have imagined, waiting here like this, gun in hand. She felt an undercurrent of rage: partly at Nora, but partly at her father. If he had trusted her, put her in charge of the expedition, none of this would have happened. She suppressed the sweep of dread that came over her as she contemplated what was about to happen—what she was being forced to do.

  She forced her thoughts back toward the limitless wonders that awaited in the secret city. She reminded herself once again there was no other way. Even if she managed to beat Nora’s accusations somehow, they would ruin her forever. And in his heart, her father would know . . .

  It came at last: the crackle of a twig. The soft chuff of a foot, placed carefully in wet sand. And then another; at least, she thought she heard another, against the distant call of the river and the soft patter of rain.

  Someone was sneaking up to the tent; someone exercising exceptional care.

  Sloane hesitated momentarily; she didn’t know Nora had such capacity for stealth. But nobody else, she knew, would be approaching the tent so cautiously.

  She took a breath, opening her mouth as if to speak. For a moment, she considered calling out to Nora: to give her one more chance, to forget Aragon, the weather report, everything. But then she remembered the look on Nora’s face—the word murderer, uttered between clenched teeth—and she remained silent.

  With a slight pressure of her thumbs and middle fingers, she raised the muzzle of the .38, relaxing her hands to absorb the recoil. She was a decent shot; at this range, there was no chance of missing. It would be quick, and probably painless. Within two minutes, both Nora and Smithback would be in the river, moving inexorably toward the narrow slot at its far end. If there was ever any question, she could always tell the others she had been shooting at a snake.

  She waited, barrel leveled steadily. The steps were so quiet, and spaced so far apart, Sloane could not tell if they were approaching or receding. And then at last a shadow interposed itself between her and the tent.

  Sloane breathed out slowly through her nostrils. The shadow was too tall to be bandy-legged Swire, and too short to be Aaron or Bonarotti. It could only be Nora. The shadow deepened slightly as it glided around the side of the tent, hovering outside the door.

  Carefully, Sloane aimed the gun, centering on the shadow. This was it, then. She suspended her breathing, timed the shot to the interval between heartbeats, and squeezed the trigger.

  The short-barreled weapon jerked back violently in her hands as the shot reverberated down the canyon. There was a gasp; the sound of spasmodic kicking; a brief, retreating scrabble. When her eyes cleared, the silhouette had disappeared from the dim light of the tent and all was silent.

  She crept out of the chamisa and rose to her feet. It was done. She realized she was shaking violently but made no attempt to control it. Snapping on her light, keeping the gun drawn, she came forward. She hesitated at the side of the tent, momentarily unwilling to see the destruction her gun had wrought. Then, with a deep breath, she stepped forward.

  Instead of Nora’s body lying before the tent, broken and bleeding, there was nothing.

  Sloane’s hands went slack in consternation, and she fought to maintain her grip on the gun. She looked down at the sand before her, horrified. How could she possibly have missed? It was practically a point-blank shot. Could the gun have misfired? She swivelled her light around, looking for something, anything, that could explain.

  And then, in the sand at the far edge of the tent, the cone of light caught something. It was a thick gout of blood. And, beside it, a partial bloody footprint in the damp earth.

  Sloane peered more closely. The print did not belong to Nora—or, it seemed, to any other human being. It looked, in fact, like a clawed forepaw.

  She drew back and glanced around, swinging her flashlight as she did so. There, caught in the beam behind her, was Nora, sprinting across the valley toward her and the camp. As the moon peered briefly through the rainclouds, Nora caught sight of Sloane, and stopped short; then veered away quickly, angling now toward the rope ladder that led up to the city. The shot had flushed her from the rock pile, but in the worst possible way.

  Sloane raised the gun in her direction, then lowered it again. Nora had not approached the tent, after all. So what had she shot?

  As she slowly circled the camp with her light, something resolved itself against the farthest row of tents. Sloane staggered in disbelief.

  The cold light had fallen across a terrifying apparition. It stood, humped and ragged, staring silently back at her. Red eyes bored like dots of fire through holes cut into a buckskin mask. Wild painted designs of white along the legs and arms were spattered crimson with blood. Its pelt steamed in the humid air.

  Instinctively, Sloane took a step backward, panic and disbelief struggling within her. This was what she had shot. She could see the great wound in its midriff, the blood shining black in the moonlight. And yet it remained standing. More than that: as its chest heaved slowly, she could see that it was very much alive.

  Though the revelation took only a split second, to Sloane it seemed as if time had come to a standstill. She could hear her heart beating a frantic cadence in her ribs.

  And then, with terrifying, deliberate malevolence, the creature took a step toward her.

  Instantly, panic took over. Dropping the flashlight, Sloane wheeled and ran. For a moment, the kiva, the flood, everything was forgotten in her desire to escape this monstrous vision. This was the thing that massacred the horses, desecrated Holroyd’s body . . . then she thought of Swire and Bonarotti, and suddenly her legs were churning even faster, the night air tearing in and out of her lungs.

  Now she could barely make out Nora, climbing toward the city. Desperately, Sloane veered to follow, keeping her eyes locked on the ladder, running with reckless abandon, trying with all the power of her will to ignore the awful, low, flapping sounds of the pelted thing as it came racing up the darkness behind her.

  65

  * * *

  NORA HEAVED HERSELF OVER THE RIM, scrambled to her feet, and sprinted away from the edge of the cliff. Vaulting over the retaining wall, she dashed across the central plaza into the deeper darkness beneath the shadow of the roomblocks.

  She came to a stop, leaning against a wall, sobbing, sides heaving. As if from a great distance, she heard the steady beating of rain. She paid it no heed. A single, fleeting image was burned into her mind: Sloane, standing outside the door to Smithback’s tent after the soun
d of that terrible shot. She had found Bill, and killed him. For a moment, the pain and despair were so overwhelming that Nora considered simply walking out into the plaza and letting Sloane gun her down.

  A peal of thunder boomed, echoing again and again beneath the vast dome. Just being in the city made her feel sick. Her gaze traveled first to the far wall of the plaza, then back toward the roomblocks and the granaries. There, black upon black, yawned the maw of the Crawlspace. She flitted toward the rear of the plaza, careful not to raise any dust. Perhaps she could lure Sloane inside the Crawlspace, then ambush her, take the gun . . .

  She pulled up short, breathing hard. This was stupid; she was panicking, making bad decisions. Not only was the Crawlspace a potentially deadly bottleneck, it was loaded with fungal dust.

  There was a fresh slash of lightning, and she turned back to see Sloane scramble over the top of the rope ladder, pistol in hand.

  “Nora!” she heard Sloane call out wildly. “Nora, for God’s sake, wait!”

  Nora wheeled, diving away from the plaza, back toward the curved rear wall of the city.

  Another tongue of lightning ripped the distant landscape, briefly illuminating the ancient city in indigo chiaroscuro. A second later, there was a crack of thunder, followed almost immediately by a second sound, shockingly loud in the close confines: the sound of gunfire.

  Keeping to the darkest shadows, moving as swiftly as she dared, Nora crept along the stone wall toward the old midden heap. Careful not to trip over Black’s tarps, she moved along the edge of the city, approaching the dark bulk of the first tower.

  The sound of running footsteps rang out against stone. Nora shrank quickly behind the pole ladder propped against the tower, trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. In the darkness, it was impossible to tell where the footsteps had come from. She needed time to think, to determine a plan of action. Now that Sloane was in the city, perhaps there was a way for her to sneak back to the ladder, descend into the valley, get Smithback, and . . .

  Footsteps again, much louder now; gasping breath; and then, coming around from the front side of the tower, was Sloane.

  Nora glanced around in fresh desperation: the midden heap, the back alley leading to the Crawlspace, the benchland trail that led out to the narrow circuit above the valley. Every one was a dead end. There was nowhere left to run. Slowly, she turned back toward Sloane, steeling herself for the inevitable: the roar of the gun, the sudden lance of pain.

  But Sloane was crouched at the base of the tower, peering cautiously around its front edge. Her left hand was clenched against her heaving chest; her gun hand was pointed, not at Nora, but out into the darkness of the plaza.

  “Nora, listen,” Sloane gasped over her shoulder. “There’s something after us.”

  “Something?” Nora echoed.

  “Something horrible.”

  Nora stared at Sloane. What kind of a trick is this? she wondered.

  Sloane remained crouched, gun pointed out into the plaza. She glanced back at Nora for a moment, and even in the darkness Nora could see fear, disbelief, nascent panic in the almond eyes.

  “For God’s sake, watch behind us!” Sloane begged, returning her own gaze to the plaza.

  Nora looked quickly back down the direction from which she’d run. Her mouth had gone dry.

  “Listen, Nora, please,” she heard Sloane whisper, struggling to get her breathing under control. “Swire and Bonarotti have disappeared. I think we’re the only ones left. And now, it’s after us.”

  “What’s after us?” Nora asked. But even as she phrased the question, she realized she already knew the answer.

  “If we separate, we’re dead,” Sloane said. “The only chance we have is to stick together.”

  Nora stared out into the darkness, past the midden heap, toward the granaries and the hidden maw of the Crawlspace. She struggled to keep the panic from clamping down and freezing her limbs. The woman at her back, she knew, had brought tragedy to the expedition; caused Aragon’s death; murdered Smithback in cold blood. But right now, she could not afford to think about that. Now, she could think only of the dreadful apparition that, at any moment, could come scuttling toward her out of the black.

  The city was full of recesses in which they could hide. But hiding in the dark was not the answer. It would be just a matter of time until the skinwalker tracked them down. What they needed was some defensible place where they could hold out for at least a while. Daybreak might afford a fresh set of options. . . .

  In that instant, she realized that there was nowhere to go. Nowhere, except up.

  “The tower,” she said.

  Sloane turned quickly to her. The question in her eyes disappeared as she followed Nora’s gaze toward the structure that reared above them.

  Grasping the pole ladder, Nora scrambled up to the small second-story rooftop. Sloane followed, kicking the ladder away behind her. They dashed through the low crumbling doorway and into the enfolding darkness of the great tower.

  Nora paused within, digging out her flashlight and shining it into the rectangle of darkness above them. The sight was terrifying: a series of rickety pole ladders, balanced on ledges of projecting stone, rising into the darkness. To climb, she would have to place one foot on a series of projecting stones that ascended the inside wall, and the other foot on the notches of the poles. There were three series of ladders, one above the other, separated by the narrow stone shelves that ran around the inner walls of the tower. It had been deliberately designed to be the most precarious climb possible.

  On the other hand, if they could just reach the redoubt at the top, they might be able to hold the skinwalker off. The Anasazi had built this tower for a single purpose: defense. Sloane had a gun. And they might even find a cache of stones at the top that could be lobbed down into the tower.

  “Go on!” Sloane whispered urgently.

  Nora checked her flashlight. Its beam was growing feeble. But she had no choice: they could not make the climb in total darkness. Sliding the lit flashlight into her shirt pocket, she reached for the first pole, testing its sturdiness. Taking a deep breath, she placed a foot in the first notch. Her other foot went on the first small stump of rock, projecting from the tower wall across from the notch. She hoisted herself up, spreadeagled over open space. She climbed as fast as she dared, trying not to think of the swaying of the pole under her weight, creaking with dry rot and shedding powdered wood. Sloane followed behind, her frantic climbing shaking the brittle structure still further.

  Reaching the first platform, Nora stopped to catch her breath. As she crouched, gasping, she heard a faint clatter from outside the tower: the sound of a pole ladder being thrust up against adobe walls.

  Instantly, Nora leaped for the second pole, Sloane following. She scrambled upward, vaulting up the swaying pole, listening to the crackling and splitting of wood beneath her feet. This ladder felt much less secure than the first. As she neared the top, she felt its supports beginning to give way. She threw herself onto the second shelf, gasping and crying.

  Just then, she heard the patter of footsteps below. A dark form momentarily blotted out the dim rectangle of light at the entrance to the tower. Beside her, Sloane cursed under her breath.

  For an instant, Nora found herself unable to move, as the terror of the encounter in the abandoned ranch house returned to her in full force. Then she was shocked back to the present by the deafening blast of a pistol shot. The echoes died crazily within the confines of the tower. Heart in her mouth, Nora angled the flashlight downward. The figure was swarming up the first ladder, swift and sure. Sloane raised her weapon again.

  “Save your bullets for the top!” Nora cried. She urged Sloane onto the third and final ladder, its ancient geometry faint in the beam of her light.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Sloane whispered.

  But Nora simply pushed her up the ladder without a word. It was time to take a desperate chance.

  Taking a firm hold
on the stone shelf, she drew her leg back and kicked at the bracing of the second pole as hard as she could. She felt it shudder with the impact. She kicked at it a second time, then a third. Below, she could hear a desperate scrabbling as the figure rode the shaking structure. Summoning all her strength, Nora kicked at the pole once again. With a shriek of rending wood, the pole lurched outward about six inches, whipsawing itself into a notch of rock. Nora heard a muffled roar from below. Chancing another look down, she saw the skinwalker lose its grip and begin to fall away toward the base of the tower. Then, catlike, it lashed out, grasping a set of supports. It clung there for a moment, swinging in and out of the dying beam of Nora’s light. Then, with careful deliberation, it began climbing toward her again. Nora kicked out once more, trying to knock the pole away completely, but it was now jammed fast.

  She leaped for the third pole and climbed, arms and legs protesting, toward the third shelf and the hole leading to the redoubt at the top of the tower. Moments later she was onto the ledge. From the small room beyond, Sloane reached out a hand to help her in.

  Crouching beneath the low ceiling, Nora swept her flashlight around the room. It was tiny, perhaps four by six feet. Above her head, a small ragged hole led up onto the roof of the tower. A disarticulated skeleton lay in a heap against one wall. Her heart sank as she saw there were no stones, no weapons—nothing they could use to defend themselves except a few useless bones.

  But they still had the gun.

  Shielding the flashlight, Nora leaned back out into the cool dark shaft of the tower. Two bobbing red eyes reflected the feeble beam: it was on the second ladder again, and coming inexorably closer.

  She shrank back into the redoubt and looked at Sloane. A pale face stared back at her, drawn with fear and tension. Beneath it, the necklace of micaceous beads gave off a faint golden sheen. Nora cupped her hand over the light. A part of her could not fully comprehend what was happening: stuck here, with the woman who had caused the death of her friends, while a creature out of nightmare was climbing toward them. She shook her head, trying to clear it.