The Hollow Skull

by Christopher Pike

  Cass stared down at the black pool. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about how the miners couldn’t have worked in here with this puddle in their way. I’m sure you’re right, that things have slowly changed down here over the years.”

  “What are you getting at?” Fred asked.

  “Nothing in particular. But I have also been thinking about how the military keeps checking on this place. In a way I’m surprised they haven’t drained this pool.”

  ”Why?”

  Cass stood. “To see what’s under it.”

  They heard a sound. It startled them because they were in a place where sound should have been impossible. It took Cass a moment to calm her heart and understand what her ears were telling her.

  The lift was going up. They stared at each other. White ghosts in a black place.

  Fred managed to say it. “Someone’s coming down here.”

  Cass nodded tightly. “Who do you think it is?”

  “You told Sheriff Sam to check the place out. It could be him.” He added, “It could be someone else.”

  “Tim?”

  Fred exhaled and looked scared. “God knows. But whoever it is, I think they’re standing on the fourth platform. They’re going to be down here soon.”

  “We have to hide,” Cass blurted out, “so they can’t see us.” She strained to remain calm, and didn’t do a very good job of it. “We have to turn out the light.”

  “No way!”

  “Shh! You have to. They’ll be able to see the light a mile away. We have to turn off the flashlight and creep over and hide behind the lift. We can find the place by feel alone. There’s a space there where we can crouch down. They won’t see us unless they shine their lights right at us.” She stopped. “Oh, no.”

  “What?” Fred asked.

  “All the lifts are down when they should be up. They’ll have to know someone’s down here.”

  Fred considered. “They might not be that smart.”

  Cass was extremely doubtful. “We can only hope.”

  Fred wagged a nervous finger at her, the crow bar and light in his other hand. “If we accidentally step into that black pool and start to grow green warts, I am going to say I told you so.”

  She pulled him toward the tunnel. “Let’s get clear of it. Now turn off the light.”

  He sighed. The light went off.

  It was black. It couldn’t have been blacker. A voice spoke. “Happy?”

  She felt for his hand. “No. Keep your voice down. Hopefully we are just being cautious.”

  Fred gripped her fingers. “Somehow I don’t find stumbling around in the dark a half-mile beneath the surface of the Earth a cautious way to spend a Sunday evening.”

  She couldn’t have agreed more. Yet walking up the smooth tunnel was not difficult. It was narrow, and they had the right wall to guide them. It was when they reached the lift area that they became disoriented. The space was not that large but it was incredible how claustrophobic the dark was. Plus the sound of the lift had them shaking. It was coming back down. Far overhead, it looked like a million miles, they could see a white light. A star slowly falling from heaven. Cass feared it was destined to crash on their heads.

  Their feet bumped into something solid.

  “We have to move to the right,” Fred whispered.

  “No,” she hissed. “To the left. The wall’s on the right.”

  “The wall’s on the left.”

  She tugged at his arm. “The wall’s on both sides. But this way we can squeeze by and get behind the metal grid. We have to get down on our knees.”

  “If they scan the area with their flashlights while they’re descending,” Fred warned, “it won’t matter if we lie on our faces.”

  They found what they hoped was the ideal hiding space and got down on the hard black floor. They wouldn’t be absolutely sure where they were until they had some light. But the bright star of the avenging archangel was growing steadily. Cass was stunned to see it resolve itself into three separate points. Three flashlights, three people. All spending their Sunday evening in the Shaft. What kind of town was Madison turning into anyway?

  “Shit,” she whispered.

  “Amen,” Fred agreed.

  The lift landed. Three males stepped out with their lights in hand: Tim, Sheriff Sam, and Mr. Chavez. Beside her Fred gripped her arm, his question obvious. He thought it was OK to proclaim their presence. But Cass took his hand and placed it on her head as she shook it no. She didn’t understand why the three of them weren’t speaking. Not even exchanging small talk. It wasn’t as if Sheriff Sam had dragged Tim down to show him what they’d been up to. From casual inspection, it looked as if Tim was running the show. He walked in front of the other two and carried a medium-size black box in one hand. She and Fred watched as they disappeared down the tunnel.

  “What are we doing?” Fred whispered.

  “We’re observing.”

  “You think they’re dangerous?” Fred asked.

  “Potentially. I don’t want them to see us.”

  “You don’t want to make a run for it now?”

  “No.”

  “But why exactly are we hiding from them?”

  “A better question is what are they doing here?”

  “I think Tim is just showing the sheriff where we were.”

  “Maybe. But why is Mr. Chavez here?”

  Fred was impatient. “I don’t know.”

  Cass patted his arm. “We keep our mouths shut and wait.”

  They didn’t have long to wait. The three returned within fifteen minutes and stepped back into the lift. They continued to get along without chit chat. The lift started up, their three lights slowly blurred back into a single white star. Cass and Fred stood.

  “Don’t turn on your light yet,” she whispered in the dark.

  “I’m not stupid. If we want to remain anonymous, then we should wait until they have ridden all the lifts to the surface.”

  Cass brushed her pants off. She was shivering in the cold.

  “My thinking exactly.” She added, “But if we wait too long they might come back again.”

  “What for?” he asked.

  “What do you mean what for? Isn’t it obvious that they had to carry something out of here in that black box?”

  “We didn’t see what they used the black box for, but you might be right. I say we wait twenty minutes then call for the lift.”

  She worried. “What if it doesn’t come for us?”

  “You’re a cheery character, you know that?”

  “Sorry.” Cass pulled on his arm. “I want to check out the cavern again. See if it’s changed.”

  “Just our luck we’ll stumble into the black pool.”

  “I’m the cheery one?”

  By feel and moving ever so slowly, they made it back to the cavern. Shielded as they were from the lifts by the intervening rock, Cass thought they could risk turning their flashlight back on. Once again the cavern didn’t appear to have been altered but Cass suspected that there were more oily splashes on the floor. She pointed out what she observed to Fred, but he shook his head.

  “Could all of this be a big ado about nothing?” he asked.

  She stared at him. “It’s possible. But Jill is still missing and Tim is still acting weird.”

  “Jill might be at home right now, and Tim might be suffering from shock as a result of his brush with death.”

  “And Sheriff Sam and Mr. Chavez?”

  “They haven’t done anything supernatural as far as I can tell.” Fred yawned. “I need to get home and I need to rest. I think this whole situation will look different in the morning. Most things do.”

  Cass patted him on the back. “You’re probably right. Thanks for indulging me. You’ve been a dear.”

  “Any time,” he said as he took her hand.

  He still had the bloody crow bar in the other hand.

  She insisted on taking it even though she was no longer in a hurry to gi
ve it to Sheriff Sam.

  12

  The next morning, first thing, Cass called Jill’s house. Her mother answered after twenty rings. The woman sounded drowsy even though it wasn’t all that early.

  “Is Jill there?” Cass asked.

  Mrs. Leper paused. “Who is this?”

  “Cass.”

  “Oh. Yeah, Jill came back late last night.”

  Cass felt a flood of relief. “Great! Could I talk to her please?”

  Mrs. Leper paused. “I don’t think she’s here right now.”

  “Did she go to work?”

  “She might have.” The woman paused. “I don’t know where she is.”

  “But you definitely saw her this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is she?”

  “Fine.”

  “Where was she?”

  “I don’t know, she didn’t say.”

  “You didn’t ask her?”

  “No.”

  Cass considered. “Thank you, Mrs. Leper, I might stop by later if that would be OK?”

  “That would be fine. Goodbye, dear.”

  The woman had hung up. Cass set Fred’s phone down and looked at Fred and Mary across the breakfast table. Fred was eating toast and eggs with great relish. Mary was staring at a bowl of soggy corn flakes.

  “Jill’s OK?” Fred asked between mouthfuls.

  Cass nodded. “Yeah. Her mom says she came in last night.”

  “What’s the matter?” Fred asked. “You don’t look relieved.”

  “I’m very much relieved. It’s just that Jill’s mother sounded odd.”

  “That woman is odd,” Fred said, sipping his coffee. Fred drank a black pot every morning. Cass glanced at Mary.

  “Why aren’t you eating?” she asked.

  “I’m not hungry,” Mary said defiantly.

  “Somebody woke up in a bad mood this morning,” Cass remarked.

  “I don’t like cornflakes,” Mary said.

  “Since when?” Cass asked.

  Mary pouted. “It doesn’t matter when my dislike for them started. I don’t want to eat them.”

  “Do you want some toast?” Cass asked.

  Mary played with her hair. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Mary, what were you up to last night?” Fred asked.

  Mary hesitated. “Just watching all the people.”

  “What is this?” Cass asked. “You were up in the middle of the night, Mary?”

  The little girl nodded. “I was watching all the people.”

  “What people?” Cass asked.

  “The lights were on all over town and everybody was out. I could see them walking around,” Mary explained.

  Cass frowned. “That’s ridiculous. Fred, did you see this?”

  “No. But I slept pretty soundly. I just woke up a couple of times when Mary got up.” Fred paused. “Mary, did you go outside?”

  Mary shook her head. “Just watched through the window.”

  “I thought I saw you coming in the trailer.” Fred went back to his food. “I could have been mistaken.”

  “I still have to catch up here,” Cass said. “The whole town was awake and walking around last night?”

  Mary nodded vigorously. “It looked like it.”

  “But what were they doing?” Cass persisted.

  Mary shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, just walking. Going door to door.”

  Cass was confused. “Fred?”

  He shrugged with food in his mouth. “I don’t know what’s going on around here and frankly I don’t care. Tim is well enough to walk and Jill has been spotted alive and well by her mother. I say it’s time we got out of town and went to L.A.”

  “I agree,” Cass said without enthusiasm. “But I still need to say goodbye to Jill. After I’ve done that, we can pack up and leave.”

  Mary swallowed. “Can we say goodbye to Daddy?”

  Cass paused. “Sure. We’ll stop by the house on the way out of town.”

  Fred did the breakfast dishes while Cass took a quick shower. It was only while she was standing under the hot water that she remembered dreaming of standing under a shower of different colored lights. In the dream her whole body had been bombarded by a searing spectrum of energy. It had been a preparation for completing the transformation. She didn’t understand why she was having such weird dreams, maybe it was all the stress.

  Cass left Mary and Fred packing boxes while she took her car over to the drugstore where Jill worked. The owner, Mr. Felix, said he hadn’t seen her in a couple of days.

  “But doesn’t she always work on Mondays?” Cass asked.

  Mr. Felix was a thin nervous man with pale skin and thick glasses. Intensely shy, the buzz around town about him was that he had never had a girlfriend not because he was gay, but because he started to hyperventilate when he was alone with a female. Cass had never managed to get such a reaction out of him, but of course he was twice her age.

  “She’s scheduled to work today,” Mr. Felix said as he unloaded cigarette cartons onto a shelf. He chain smoked on top of everything else, but never in the store. “She didn’t show.”

  “She didn’t even call?”

  “No.”

  “That’s not like her.”

  Mr. Felix pushed back his glasses. “It’s not. I was worried about her so I called her mother but she said that Jill had just left. But she said she didn’t know where she was going.”

  “Sounds like her mother,” Cass muttered. She turned to leave. “Thanks, Mr. Felix. Have a nice day.”

  “Cass?” he called after her. “Have you heard there’s a big assembly going on this afternoon in the school gym?”

  Cass stopped. “No. What kind of assembly?”

  “I don’t know. I just heard some of my customers talking about it. It’s supposed to be important, the mayor and Sheriff Sam have asked all the businesses to shut down so that everyone can attend. It’s at two sharp.”

  Cass turned back to him. “Mr. Felix, did you notice a lot of people out in the middle of the night?”

  He paused and scratched his thinning brown hair. “There did seem to be some kind of commotion going on. But, you know, I live on the edge of town, and I don’t hear much of anything out there.” He paused. “But a customer told me people were in preparation for this big assembly they’ve planned .”

  Cass shook her head. “Who would prepare for such a thing in the middle of the night?”

  “I wondered the same thing.”

  “Are you going to go to this meeting?” she asked.

  “Probably not. This is a drugstore. Somebody might need an emergency prescription filled, you never know. But if you go, let me know what it was about.”

  “I’ll do that,” Cass muttered as she stepped outside. By two she planned to be far from Madison—if she had her way. Yet she didn’t really want to leave yet because a part of her told her that it would be a big mistake. One thing was for sure, her sense of foreboding had not diminished. But she kept thinking that if she could talk to Jill and ask her what she had been doing the past two days everything would become clear. Right then Cass decided not to wait but to swing by Jill’s house immediately.

  Mrs. Leper answered the door. Still in her bathrobe, she was an old forty-five, with sun wrinkles etched so deep around her eyes her postmenopausal hairs had a place to ski. She had bad liver spots on her hands and arms. The woman never drank, but took plenty of pills, mainly Valium and antidepressants. Mr. Leper didn’t beat her or anything, but he was closer to having a love affair with the Sports Channel than with his wife. Jill said her mother had been depressed for as long as she could remember. Mrs. Leper didn’t look especially spiffy this morning. Cass forced a smile.

  “Is Jill here?” she asked.

  “No.” Mrs. Leper frowned. “I told you she was not.”

  “I thought she might have come back since I called. She’s not at work.”

  “She hasn’t come back.”

 
“Did she give you any idea where she was going today?”

  “No.”

  “How was she dressed?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “OK. Did she go out by herself? Or did someone pick her up?”

  “I believe she went out by herself.” The woman paused and stared. “Why are you asking all these questions?”

  “Because I’m worried about her. I want to talk to her.”

  “Well shes not here.”

  “Yes. I got that.” Cass turned away. “Have a nice day, Mrs. Leper.”

  “Cass?” the woman called to her when she was down the steps. Cass turned and was surprised to see the woman smiling brightly.

  “Yes?” Cass said.

  “Are you going to the assembly this afternoon?”

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  The woman’s smile grew, it looked like something made of wet plaster.

  “But you must come. It’s supposed to be important.”

  Standing in the hot sun, Cass felt cold. “Why is it important?” she asked quietly.

  Mrs. Leper stepped onto the porch. “Everyone will be there.”

  “What’s the assembly about?”

  “It’s a surprise, you’ll see when you get there.” Cass stared at her and wondered if the whole world had gone mad or if it was just her. Even from a pill popping depressed housewife, she simply could not understand answers like that. Cass forced another smile.

  “Could you give me a little hint what it’s about?” she said sweetly. “It might inspire me to attend.”

  Mrs. Leper blinked. “I’m sorry, I can’t. I just know it’s going to be wonderful.”

  Cass grinned. “I’ll be sure to attend then. Thanks for your time, Mrs. Leper.”

  “Thank you, Cass.”

  Cass got in her car and waited until Mrs. Leper had gone back in the house. Then Cass quietly got out and hurried to the side of the house and peeked in the cracks around the wooden garage door.

  Jill’s car was still inside.

  Cass believed it had been there for the past two days.

  She returned to her car and drove aimlessly around town for half an hour. Again, she had to wonder if it was only her imagination, but it seemed a lot of people were staring at her.