by Garth Stein
Jenna still had not appeared. She had fallen very far back. David leaned into the tunnel and called out Jenna’s name. Nothing. He called again. Finally, she called back.
“I’m here,” he heard her say.
What a relief. He was afraid she had gotten stuck, or, worse, she was too tired and had given up.
David peered into the tunnel and he could see the top of Jenna’s head. She was there. At last. Her hands emerged and she pulled herself out of the opening, stumbling to the ground.
“Are you okay?” David asked.
Jenna stood up and dusted herself off.
“I’m here,” she said. “At last.”
David was relieved. He aimed his flashlight at Jenna’s face to see if she was all right, and what he saw made his heart stop for a moment. Sharp little teeth grinning up at him and black eyes that met his. David felt the blood in his veins run cold. His lungs wouldn’t take any air. His bladder emptied and a warm gush of urine ran down his leg. It wasn’t Jenna at all.
“I’m here, at last,” it repeated, and then, with a hand that looked more like a paw as it flashed through the air, the kushtaka connected with the side of David’s face and knocked him off his feet.
Dazed, David struggled to reach for his flashlight. He fixated on it. He had to have it. He couldn’t live without it. He reached for it and he felt the cold metal tube in his hand a moment before he felt the blow to the back of his head. It was a rough blow. It must have been a rock. Something blunt. And then he felt nothing. Saw nothing. Knew nothing of what would happen to him next.
WHEN DAVID CAME TO, he quickly noted that he was unable to move, and he immediately worked to keep his heart from racing. Now was not the time for panic. Now was the time to summon all of his shamanic skills. He steadied his breathing. He calmed his thoughts. There was a reason he was there. He was doing something important. Something he had wanted to do for a long time. He was there to foil the kushtaka. David had been cheated out of a son. The kushtaka had murdered him before he was born, and there was nothing David could do about that. All that David could have done—did do—was cremate his son so that his soul could be sent on its proper path, into the cycle of reincarnation. Jenna and Bobby, however, were still using their souls, and their souls had to be put on their proper paths: Bobby’s to the Land of Dead Souls, and Jenna’s to continue its present existence. That was David’s mission. To steal from the kushtaka as they had stolen from him.
David tried to move his hands. His fingers wiggled. They were there. He could move his arms slightly, so he wasn’t paralyzed. He was simply in a very tight place. A tunnel. He could taste the dirt in his face. His head felt hot, so most likely he was tipped toward his head. But he wasn’t upside down because there was no pressure on his neck. He was just in a steeply slanting tunnel.
He tried to meditate. Why had he let Jenna follow him? That was a stupid mistake. He should have made her go first. She was easy prey for a fast-moving rodent. She would have given up immediately. Weak and tired, she wouldn’t have made a sound. And then capturing David was just fun for them. Make the shaman squirm. A game. Show your power, then use it. Very disheartening. They were trying to break his will. But it wouldn’t be that easy. David had worked hard to strengthen his will. Two years ago he was an idiot. Weak and stupid. This time, he wouldn’t go so easily.
He felt his belt. His knife was there. They hadn’t taken it. How could they? It was metal. But where was his flashlight? He remembered grabbing it before he was knocked out. Had he dropped it?
With much difficulty, he worked his arms toward his face. The tunnel was so tight his elbows jammed into the walls, but taking his time and being methodical about it, he managed to get his arms over his head.
Just as he had figured, he was headfirst in a dead-end tube. His hands had nowhere to go, they pressed up against a dirt wall. That meant the exit was toward his feet. But how deep was he? He had no idea. Maybe if he pushed off with his hands, he could work his way out. So he pushed. And he felt himself move. He might be able to do it.
He felt something near his hands. A small, cold cylinder. He grabbed it. It was his flashlight. He had managed to keep ahold of it even though he had been unconscious. He worked his hand toward his belt and tucked the flashlight into his jeans. Then he took out his knife and worked his arm back over his head. He pushed off as hard as he could with both arms and managed to move up the tunnel. Holding himself in place by pressing his legs out against the walls, he then dug his knife blade into the dirt near his face. When the blade was in to the hilt, he pushed off on the knife handle, easing himself another two feet upward.
It was a slow and painstaking process, but it worked. After several attempts, he felt his feet emerge from the mouth of the tube in which he was trapped. He hooked his feet over the edge and, working his way up with his knife, freed himself from his prison.
David stood in a small den. He sensed it was empty. He didn’t dare turn on his flashlight. He stood for several minutes, letting himself adjust to gravity. He tried to pick up any energy around him. Something was near, but it wasn’t a kushtaka. At least he didn’t think so. A kushtaka would have penetrating energy. It would be aggressive and in attack mode. The energy he felt was very passive.
Jenna. It must be Jenna. David felt along the wall of the den hoping to find another tunnel like the one from which he had just emerged. He found it. Only a few feet away from his own. She was down there. He knew it. He could hear her breathing. He leaned into the hole.
“Jenna?” he whispered.
A muffled groan. It was her.
“Jenna, it’s me, David. Are you all right?”
Her breathing picked up.
“I can’t move,” he heard her say.
How far down was she? Could he reach her? A sound was coming from the tunnel. What was it? Sobbing. He could hear her sobbing.
“Jenna, calm down,” David said. “I’m going to get you out.”
David started to crawl into the tube, careful to keep his knees pressed against the mouth so he wouldn’t fall in. He reached out as far as he could with his hands, but she was deeper than that.
“Jenna, I’m in here with you. It’s okay. We’ll get out. But I need you to push off with your hands.”
“I can’t move.”
“Yes, you can. You need to slowly work your hands over your head and push off. You can do it.”
“I’m stuck,” she said.
“No, you’re not. You’re in a tight spot. Do one arm, then the other.”
More movement. More struggling.
“I can’t do it,” she said, and then began to cry.
“Jenna, stop it. You can do it. I did it. If you can push off, I can reach your feet and I can pull you out. Now concentrate. Breathe deeply. Center yourself. Picture it working for you and let your body do what your mind is picturing. It’s physically possible, I guarantee it. You just have to make your body do it.”
Then David closed his eyes and visualized Jenna working her hands over her head. He tried to send his energy toward her. His will could help her.
Minutes later he heard her.
“Okay.”
“Okay, now push off.”
He reached out, but she wasn’t there.
“Have you got me?” she asked.
No. The tube was too deep. David let himself slide farther down.
“Jenna, you need to push off a little more.”
“I can’t.”
“Jenna, you can. Push off more. Now.”
He felt the surge. The surge of her will. Her body’s energy moving toward him. He could reach her. There. He grabbed one of her feet. Then the other. He had them. He pulled toward himself, managed to pull her up until her feet were next to his head.
“Push your legs against the tunnel wall,” he told her. “Hold yourself there.”
She did. He managed to work himself out of the tunnel until his knees were safely beyond the lip. He reached down and grabbed Jenna’s fe
et again and pulled.
They worked themselves out this way until they both were free and David could feel Jenna in front of him shaking from her exertion.
“We’re out,” he said.
David took his flashlight out of his belt and turned it on.
“Sorry, Jenna, but I have to see if it’s you.”
He shined the light in her eyes. He couldn’t tell. He asked her to open her mouth. Her teeth seemed okay. But it wasn’t enough. He took the knife from his belt.
“Take this,” he said.
She reached out and held the knife. It didn’t burn her. She didn’t flinch. It was okay. She was the real Jenna. He returned the knife to his belt.
“Where are we?” Jenna asked.
David shined his flashlight around the room. “I have no idea,” he said. “But they’re probably close by. We have to get out of here.”
He scanned the walls with his light. There were several tunnels. But which one to go through? He moved around the den, listening at each hole. He heard something. Through one of the tunnels he could hear a rushing sound. Water running. And the sound of movement. Animals.
“I hear them. Let’s go.”
Jenna hesitated.
“But if they’re there, shouldn’t we go the other way?”
“We need to find Bobby,” David said.
Jenna didn’t move. David turned his light on her. Her head was down.
“Jenna?”
“I’m afraid,” she answered.
“So am I. But that’s not going to stop us. Let’s go.”
She looked up at him and she must have felt something; she must have felt his power because she moved toward him. And David realized that at that moment he felt his own power. He was strong and resolved. He wouldn’t be stopped by being buried in a tube or anything else. There was something he had to do.
This time he made Jenna go first. The tunnel was relatively roomy and they moved quickly through it. The sound of rushing water grew louder and louder until they emerged from the tunnel into a cavern with an underground river.
There was some light in the cavern, from the opposite end. Enough light so they could faintly see each other. The room slanted upward at one end, and David guessed that it must lead up to a cave on the surface.
The cavern itself had walls of striated shale. They were under a garnet ledge, a perfect place for a kushtaka den, protected by the rock above so people couldn’t dig down and invade them. The floor of the cavern was littered with big rocks that had fallen from the ceiling. The room felt large. David estimated that the ceiling was about twenty feet high and the room was a hundred or so feet wide. But the river was really just a creek. Maybe a few feet deep and not very fast. And everywhere they looked were otters. Little otters. Baby kushtaka.
“Keep calm, Jenna,” David said softly, hoping to prevent her from panicking. They could navigate through the babies. But this many babies wouldn’t be left unprotected. There would be supervision, and David wanted to avoid confrontation if possible. Jenna had to keep her cool or the kushtaka would sense her energy and sound an alarm. They moved slowly toward the river.
“How will we find Bobby?” Jenna asked.
David shrugged.
“I’m figuring that he’ll find you.”
They skirted the edge of the cavern, as far away from the kushtaka as they could get. There were so many of them. David was surprised. He tried to look closely at one of them. From a distance, he saw rat. But from up close, he saw otter. They were born as otters, raised as otters. They probably couldn’t change form until they were adults, David thought. But he didn’t know for sure. He did know that otters are very much like people, not reaching maturity for several years. Young otters are not born with many instincts. Their mothers must teach them how to swim and how to hunt food. They’re very intelligent. They are good at mimicking what they see. Which is, no doubt, why the kushtaka took so well to their birthright: to change form into other animals. The ultimate impersonators.
David also knew that the kushtaka weren’t evil or bad. They just were. They were proselytizers, true. They tried to convert everyone they encountered. But other than that, they kept to themselves. This was what would allow Jenna and Bobby to escape, David hoped. Their intelligence and their desire to convert humans. David would give himself up. He would sacrifice himself. Surely the soul of a shaman would be worth more to the kushtaka than the souls of a couple of humans. They would let Jenna and Bobby go in order to pursue David. At least that was the plan. But first they had to find Bobby.
Jenna stopped short with a gasp and David almost ran into her. He followed her sight line and saw what had surprised her. On the ground not more than a few feet away from them was a female kushtaka suckling her young. But the female wasn’t in otter form. Not quite. She was half otter, half human, a strange combination of skin and fur, with a human head and a large torso, but also with small arms and legs and eight nipples on her belly, at which five tiny fur balls sucked eagerly. Jenna and David stood and watched, Jenna in horror, David in awe. Neither had seen anything like it before.
David nudged Jenna to keep moving. He didn’t want the suckling kushtaka to notice them. They continued along the wall and around a large boulder, and then they stopped short again.
“Mommy?”
A little boy stood before them. It was Bobby.
Jenna didn’t say a word; she froze and looked down at Bobby. He was naked, but fully in his human form. Jenna wanted to go to him, but she held herself back. She was confused by everything she was seeing, and her confusion kept her from following her instinct as a mother.
“Hello, Bobby. I’m David.”
Bobby looked suspiciously at David and took a tentative step away from him.
“Don’t go, Bobby. We’re here to help you.”
Bobby looked to Jenna, who had retreated a little, not sure of what to do.
“Bobby, your mommy wants to help you. If you come with us, we can help you.”
David moved toward Bobby, reaching out his hand. Bobby looked nervously at David and then at Jenna.
“Tell him it’s okay,” David said to Jenna.
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She didn’t know what was happening and she wasn’t quite able to deal with it all.
“Jenna, tell him it’s okay to come with us.”
Jenna covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head. What had become of her son? What was he?
“Jenna.”
But she wasn’t going to do it. She wasn’t helping. David had no other choice but to grab Bobby and take him forcibly. He lunged at the boy, but Bobby was much too fast for David. Bobby scampered away and disappeared into the cavern.
David straightened up and turned to Jenna.
“Jenna, you have to help me, here. You have to bring him to us so we can go.”
She was in shock, her eyes glazed over.
“Please. We’ve come so far. We can do it, Jenna. But you have to help.”
She nodded.
“Now call him.”
Softly, she called Bobby’s name. They waited. Nothing. Then, behind them, a small voice.
“Who is that man?”
They turned. Standing behind them was Bobby.
“Tell him who I am,” David said to Jenna.
She took a deep breath.
“He’s David. He’s here to help us,” she said.
“Ask him to come to you,” David instructed.
Jenna knelt down and held out her arms.
“Come here, Bobby.”
After a hesitation, Bobby went to Jenna. He allowed her to take his shoulders and pull him close. David moved toward them.
“Comfort him, Jenna. Tell him everything’s okay.”
She did. She held him. David put his hand on Bobby’s arm. And suddenly, Bobby shot away from them like a little wind sprite, vanishing before either of them could react.
They looked around the cavern for him, but he was nowhere to be seen
.
“He’s too suspicious,” David said. “He’ll never come with us.”
“So, what do we do?” Jenna asked.
David knew what they should do, but he didn’t know if Jenna could do it. They had to get out of there with Bobby, and they didn’t have a lot of time to try to explain to Bobby the situation. They had to get him out dead or alive, conscious or unconscious. It didn’t matter. Because Bobby was already dead.
“Jenna, we need to hurt him.”
“What?”
“He’s too fast for us. We need to slow him down. You have to call him to you and then you have to hurt him.”
Jenna stared at David, incredulous.
“No.”
“Jenna, he’s dead. He died two years ago. Anything you do to him now won’t hurt him because he’s already dead, understand?”
“No.”
David sighed. How could he ask her to do something like that? She was the boy’s mother. Her duty was to protect him from harm at all costs. How could she be convinced to cause the boy harm?
“Jenna, do you want to save Bobby’s soul?”
“I can’t hurt him.”
“Jenna, trust me. It’s the only way. If you don’t do it, then you and I will have to leave him here and he’ll be one of them forever.”
He paused to let it sink in. He wanted her to feel the full impact.
“That woman you saw over there with the otter pups? She was a person once. That’s what happens. Is that what you want for your son?”
With the faint light from the cavern entrance, David could see Jenna’s face. He could see her clench her teeth, her jaw bulge with effort. She nodded slightly. David picked up a rock the size of his hand.
“Take this. Call him to you. When he comes, hit him with it. You don’t have to kill him, just slow him down. We have to get him out of here or he’s here forever.”