Midnight's Lair

by Richard Laymon

  'I think I'll live,' Carol said.

  'Well, it's up to you, of course.'

  'Yes, it is.'

  Now, Carol wished she'd chosen a different issue for her small rebellion. The cool of the cave had felt good for a while, but soon it began bothering her. She'd been shivering ever since the lights went out. She suspected that the shivers had less to do with the temperature of the cave than with fear. Whatever the cause, however, warmer clothes would have improved the situation.

  Her sundress didn't cover much. It was cut low in front and back, sleeveless and short. The fabric was so light it seemed to float around her, barely touching her skin. It let the air in. Wonderful in hot weather. Not so great down here.

  Helen's arm felt warm and good on her back. She put her arm around Helen.

  Felt the thickness of her friend's cable-knit sweater.

  I wonder if she'd let me wear that for a few minutes. No way am I going to ask, Carol told herself.

  We'll be out of here before long.

  She looked up. Light from behind brushed the shoulders and heads of those in front of her. Its glow lit the slick grey wall of the cave to the right. She saw a ruffled slab of flowstone that the guide, Darcy, had talked about on the way in.

  We're more than halfway back to the elevators, she realized.

  Helen suddenly seemed to stiffen. Her hand pressed more tightly against Carol's side.

  'Are you all right?' Carol whispered.

  'I'm sure… we're not actually trapped.'

  'No, of course not. It's just temporary.'

  'Perhaps they had to send to town for an electrician. That might take a while.'

  'They won't leave us down here, Helen.'

  'I understand that. I'm certain we'll be out of here in a matter of hours, at most.

  'Probably,' Carol agreed. 'I really don't think anything serious happened up there.'

  'A short circuit, something of that nature.'

  'Can you believe that cretin suggesting there'd been a nuclear attack?'

  'I suppose it is a possibility. It's always a possibility.'

  'But remote,' Carol said. 'This is bad enough without dreaming up catastrophes.'

  Helen patted her side.

  They walked in silence.

  Carol forgot about the cold. She struggled against an awful feeling of loss. What for? she thought. There certainly wasn't any goddamn nuclear war. Probably.

  Even if there was, I don't have any family. If everyone got wiped out, I'd lose a few friends. Helen's probably my best friend, and she's safe down here with me.

  Isn't that fine? No one to lose. No husband, not even a lover. No child. You're thirty-one, and you've got nothing. You blew it with Derek, you blew it with David. You wanted your space.

  You'll have all the space in the world if it's been levelled.

  'Carol?'

  'Huh?' she asked, glad to have such thoughts interrupted.

  'I left my insulin in the hotel room.'

  ***

  'Are we almost there yet?'

  Wayne Phillips looked down at his daughter. Katie was walking between him and Jean, holding a hand of each.

  'Almost where?' Wayne asked.

  'Don't be dumb, Daddy. The elevator.'

  'We'll be there in fifteen minutes or so, I think. If the monsters don't get us.'

  Katie jerked her hand away and punched his hip. 'Mommy, tell Daddy to stop. He's talking about monsters.'

  'Really, Wayne, I don't think this is a good time for that sort of thing.'

  'You're right. Besides, I haven't seen any. Yet.'

  'Daddy!'

  'He has monsters on the brain,' Jean said.

  'And a good thing, too,' he told her, 'or we wouldn't be able to afford this fine vacation.' It made him feel good to think of the $7,500 they'd just received, the first half of the $15,000 advance for his new novel, Lurker in the Dark. The other half was due in nine months or on publication, whichever came first.

  'I'll get a book out of this, for sure,' he said. 'What a terrific premise. Forty people trapped in a cave.'

  'Didn't we see an Irwin Allen movie like that?' Jean asked.

  'That was a disaster movie. This'll be horror. There's something nasty in the cave. Something that creeps out of the darkness and…'

  'Stop it, Daddy. I don't think you're funny.'

  'I'm not trying to scare you,' he protested. 'I'm just thinking out loud.'

  'I wish you'd think to yourself.'

  Seven years old, he thought, and she's already giving orders to men.

  She's scared.

  She loves spooky stories and horror movies, but this is getting to her. This is the real thing. No zombies or madmen or scuttling aliens (not yet), but we're in just the sort of place they might really go for, and she knows it.

  And so do I.

  There's no one down here but us, Wayne told himself.

  And he suddenly remembered the clay people from one of those Flash Gordon serials he used to watch on television. It was the same story that had the forest people, those freaky folks with the wild hairdos who swung through the trees - and got either Flash or Happy with an arrow from one of their weird little crossbows.

  Good God, Wayne thought. I used the forest people.

  They'd shown up as the Krotes in his second novel.

  Until now, he'd never realized the connection.

  So how about the clay people? he wondered. They were every bit as frightening as those creeps in the trees. They kind of looked like mummies. They were in the walls of the caves. You couldn't see them at all. They were just part of the rock (or clay) until they decided to move around, and then they sort of unblended and lurched along.

  A lot like mummies. Maybe that's what made them so creepy. And the fact that they could be anywhere. You lean against a wall of the cave to rest, and maybe you're leaning against one of them and the next thing you know it grabs you.

  They turned out to be good guys, Wayne remembered. Getting turned to clay was punishment for screwing up. It wasn't Ming doing it. Some babe. Some evil queen or princess.

  Pretty far-fetched. Maybe you could get away with stuff like that in 1938 or whenever, but not today.

  Still, it is a spooky concept.

  All around us. Right in the walls. After we pass by, they materialize - grey, misshapen creatures of the cave. They're hunched over. They don't walk so much as shamble. And they start to stalk us.

  Something snatched Wayne's hand. He jerked rigid and sucked a harsh gasp.

  His hand had been snatched by Katie.

  She started to laugh.

  'You scared the bejabbers outa me,' he whispered.

  Katie laughed even harder.

  He knew that giving Dad a good scare, even if done by accident (like this time), was seen by Katie as one of life's genuine joys. It ranked right up there with talk of boogers, barf, butts and farts.

  With tastes like that, he thought, she'll end up preferring to read Stephen King instead of her dear old dad.

  Wayne noted that the couple ahead of him were carrying on a conversation - and not likely to hear his whispered words. 'You scared me so bad, I think I blew a hole in my unders.'

  'Turn them into a Hershey factory?' Katie asked. 'Who have you been reading?'

  'She's been listening to you, dear,' Jean informed him. 'And me a Nestles man.'

  ***

  Calvin Fargo had long ago lost track of the number of broken bones in his body, but he suspected he could count them up now without much trouble if he had a mind to. Each of the old fractures seemed to be clamouring for attention. The dank chill was doing it.

  Calvin had been a stuntman for over thirty years, spent a good part of that time in the saddle, and bit the dust in more than a hundred movies. He'd been trampled by horses and cattle, been run over a few times by stage coaches and buckboards (and by a chariot in the remake of Ben Hur), taken falls off balconies, roofs and bluffs. It all added up to more fractures than a human has bones
.

  The hand-carved mesquite walking stick with its brass stallion-head handle had been a gag gift on his fiftieth birthday. Busted up as he was back then, he could still get around on his own two feet without the help of a cane. But it came from Yakima Canutt, who was not only his old pal but also the greatest stuntman of all time, so Calvin cherished the cane and took it with him everywhere - even if he didn't need it.

  Today, he was mighty glad to have the help.

  But the cane was enough. He sure didn't need Mavis trying to keep him up.

  'Leave off my arm, there, sugar,' he said when he realized she wasn't just holding his arm, but lifting on it. 'I don't need a woman tugging at me.'

  'Don't be such a chauvinist, honey.'

  'I'm sure the lucky one,' he said. 'Married to the only gal in the country still talks like a sixties issue of Cosmo.'

  'Oh, quit your complaining.'

  'Then you quit dragging on my appendage.' She stopped helping him along, and merely held onto his elbow. 'Much obliged.'

  'Pride goeth before a fall.'

  'Shitfire! Now she's into scripture!'

  He heard Mavis chuckle softly. 'You old coot. I don't know why I put up with you.'

  'Cause I'm the hottest cocksman north of the Rio Grande, that's why.'

  'Shhhh. Someone's gonna hear you.'

  'Let 'em hear. Tell the truth and shame the devil, as you're so fond of saying in between calling folks chauvinists.'

  'You're certainly cantankerous today.'

  'Pissant called me an old fart.'

  'Well, you shouldn't have interfered.'

  'A man can only take so much, watching that son-of-a-whore bullying his boy. He's damn lucky I didn't lay into him.'

  'You just forget about laying into anyone, Calvin Fargo.'

  'Got no right to treat his boy that way. Your children, they're the best thing you get out of life…'

  'Well, thank you very much.'

  ' 'Cept, of course, for a good horse, old boots, a warm place to shit, and a tight…'

  'Don't you dare use that word in public.'

  He laughed. 'Shitfire, honey, I just wanted to include you in, that's all.'

  Mavis squeezed his arm. 'Your compliment is duly noted. Just don't go announcing it to the world.'

  ***

  The walkway ended, and Darcy stepped onto the rock floor of the area known as the cathedral. She raised her flashlight. Its beam wasn't strong enough to reach the far end of the chamber, but she knew that the elevators were just ahead in the darkness.

  The area seemed deserted.

  'Hello?' she called.

  No answer.

  So Lynn and her group had made it to the top before the power failure. Lucky for them.

  We've been pretty lucky, ourselves, she thought.

  She could hardly believe that the trek had gone so smoothly. There'd been no shouts of alarm. Apparently, no one had tripped or strayed from the route or panicked.

  She turned around and walked back. Greg's light was a beacon, held high and shining down on the tourists, sweeping from side to side, up and down.

  'We've made it, everyone!' she called.

  Her announcement was greeted by subdued applause, a few cheers and a whistle.

  Facing forward, she spotted the elevator doors at the faint, far end of her light. She walked toward them.

  Leaning between the elevator doors, rump against the rock wall, Darcy asked, 'Any trouble?'

  There were murmurs. Nobody spoke up.

  'I want you all to stand still for a minute. Greg's coming up, counting noses to make sure we didn't lose anyone.'

  She switched off her flashlight to save whatever dwindling juice might still remain in its batteries, and watched Greg move through the people.

  What if we did lose someone?

  Unlikely. Possible, though.

  I'd have to go back and search.

  Greg walked up to her. 'They're all here,' he said. 'Thirty-eight, including you and me.'

  'I'd say we pulled that off rather smoothly. Thanks for all the help.'

  'Am I dismissed?' he asked.

  'Do you have someone to go back to?'

  'All by my lonesome.'

  'Then stick around, why don't you, and help me hold up the wall.'

  'I won't be needing this.' He handed the flashlight to Darcy, then took his place against the wall close by her side.

  Darcy raised the flashlight. 'Okay, folks,' she said, 'the tricky part's over. All we have to do, now, is sit tight and wait. Obviously, none of us knows the reason for the power failure. I don't think that speculating on it will do anyone much good. Let's just look at it as an irritating fact of life - like a traffic jam.

  'I don't want to raise any false hopes,' she continued. 'It may be a while. God knows, I never expected it to last this long. The important thing to keep in mind, though, is that we aren't in any danger. None at all.

  'If you get cold, snuggle up with someone. We have plenty of water. As for food, I can't promise that we won't get hungry. But nobody is going to starve. I can't imagine that we'll be down here for more than a few hours. It may be just a minute before the power is restored. They know we're down here, and I'm sure that getting us safely to the top is the major priority right now.

  'Why don't you all sit down and make yourselves as comfortable as possible? If you want to smoke, go on ahead. I'm going to turn off the flashlight in a minute to conserve the batteries, so it will be totally dark in here, and I'm sure a few glowing cigarettes would be welcomed by everyone.

  'If anybody needs to go to the bathroom, call out and either Greg or I will come to you with a flashlight. The important thing is for nobody to go wandering around in the dark.'

  Darcy played her flashlight over the people until everyone was seated. Then she turned it off. For a few moments, there was silence. Darcy heard her own heartbeat and the quiet whisper of the River Styx. Then came a few soft voices.

  'Black.'

  'Christ on a crutch.'

  'Can't see my hand in front of my face.'

  'Are you there?'

  'Is that you?'

  Darcy spoke up. 'Unless you've been in a cavern before, probably most of you have never experienced this kind of darkness. This is a total absence of light, darker than any night. As an experiment, a man once left a roll of film exposed in a cavern for two weeks. When the film was developed, it was found to be completely blank.

  'Living creatures that have adapted to cave life are usually blind and without any pigmentation due to the lack of light.

  'Which reminds me - though your are adjusting to the darkness, you won't be getting any night vision. There has to be a small amount of light for that, and there is none.'

  Darcy stopped talking. There was silence. Then the voices started again. She thought it sounded like a classroom when the teacher was out, a dozen or more quiet conversations going on at once, creating a steady murmur.

  Here and there, matches or lighters flared. They fluttered in front of faces with cigarettes or cigars clamped between lips, and formed pools of light throughout the group. Darcy saw that everyone was seated. Most were in small clusters of two or three. The brightness didn't last long. Then the chamber was dark except for half a dozen spots of glowing red.

  'Guess I'll sit down and make myself comfortable,' she whispered.

  She sat on the stone floor and crossed her legs. Something bumped her knee.

  'Sorry,' Greg said.

  'It's okay.' She reached out and touched his leg. He was beside her. Before she could bring her hand back, he took hold of it.

  'Do you mind?' he asked.

  Darcy answered by squeezing his hand, 'It's nice to have a friend in the dark.'

  'Or any other time.'

  'How'd you end up here?' she asked.

  'One of my secretaries told me about it. She got married in the Bridal Chamber.'

  'Recently?'

  'Six years ago.'

  'I wasn't here, then
,' Darcy said.

  'No kidding. You would've still been in diapers.'

  She laughed softly. 'Thanks a bunch. I'm not that young.'

  'Let me guess, then. You look about eighteen, but the way you've been handling yourself, you act about thirty. Add them up, divide by two, we get your true age of twenty-four.'

  'Nifty gimmick, but you're three years high. What kind of law do you practise?'

  'Some criminal, mostly personal injury defence. And I do the usual odds and ends - probate, divorces…'

  'Like it?'

  'It's exciting. Though not as exciting as being trapped in a cavern.'

  'This is a thrill I could do without.'

  ***

  'This wouldn't be so bad,' Kyle whispered, 'if it weren't so cold down here.'

  'I don't think it's so bad,' Paula said.

  Neither do I, Kyle thought. But he made his voice shake as he said, 'That's because you've got a sweater. I wasn't cold, either, when I had my jacket. I gave it to Darcy.'

  'The guide?'

  'Yeah. I figured she needed it more than me - after being in the water.'

  'That was a sweet thing to do.'

  'Sweet, but dumb.'

  'Want to wear my sweater?'

  'Maybe if I just put my arm under it. That'd help.'

  'Sure, okay.'

  He trembled as he slipped his hand beneath her sweater, but it had little to do with the chilly air. Paula's back felt warm through the thin fabric of her blouse. She wore a bra with a wide strap.

  Kyle moved his hand across her back and curled his fingers into the warmth of her armpit.

  'Just don't tickle,' she warned.

  'I won't.' He uncrossed his legs and scooted closer until he felt his hip against her.

  Paula put her arm on his back. 'Is that a little better?' she asked.

  'A lot.' He could feel the soft warmth of her breast pushing his side.

  'For me, too.'

  This isn't too bad at all, Kyle thought. She's no Darcy, but she's okay.

  And cooperative. So far.