Bone

by George C. Chesbro

  She remembered wondering how he had gotten permission to leave his assigned duties, for he had been at her office within thirty-five minutes. She had gotten into his van, started to turn toward him when a soft rag with a strong medicinal smell had been clamped over her nose and mouth. She had struggled briefly, but that was the last thing she remembered before waking up—here. The bruises on her body suggested to Anne that it had not been easy for Barry to carry her to wherever this place was; she had been bumped and scraped along the way a good many times.

  She wondered where Prindle was, remembered the suffocating panic she had experienced upon awakening to find herself alone and surrounded by darkness. Her first thought had been that she had been left alone to die, but then she had seen that there were ample supplies of food and water in the great stone chamber.

  Anne looked around her, shuddered once again as she saw the tangled bones protruding from the ceiling and walls of the cavern on the opposite side of the mud pool, to her right. Bone had been here, she thought; it was where he had obtained his femur. She understood now that the man she loved had stumbled across Barry Prindle doing—something.

  But what, she wondered, had Bone been doing down here?

  Her gaze fell to the blood-stained rock shelf before her, and she trembled. She heard a sound off to her left, started, then scrambled across the rock to her right, braced against a wall beneath a flickering Coleman lamp as Prindle approached her.

  "Don't come near me, Barry," she whispered hoarsely. "Please don't come near me."

  Prindle stopped a few feet away. He shut off the miner's lamp he wore strapped to his forehead, then squatted down, forearms resting on his knees, and stared at her. Reflected light from the Coleman lamps danced in his bright green eyes.

  "I wouldn't hurt you, Anne," the man said quietly. "I love you."

  Anne swallowed hard, trying to work up moisture in her mouth. "If you love me, why did you bring me down here? I'm terrified of the dark and closed-in places. You know that."

  "I had no choice, Anne. It was clear to me that Bone was close to remembering."

  "He came across you down here, didn't he? You were carrying a severed head."

  "Yes," Prindle replied in the same quiet tone.

  "What was he doing here?"

  "I don't know."

  "What happened to him, Barry?"

  "I don't know; I mean, I don't know how he survived. We fought. He backed off into that narrow tunnel across the way, and he fell down into some sort of hole. I thought he was dead." He paused, then murmured, "Nothing is ever as simple as it seems."

  "What?"

  "Nothing. It's not important."

  "Barry, why did you kill all those people? I would never have thought of you as being someone who would hurt anybody."

  "I never hurt them, Anne; I was putting them out of their misery. I sent them home to God." Prindle removed the miner's lamp and sat it down next to him, then passed a hand back over his widow's peak and sighed deeply. "I was certain you'd understand."

  Anne again swallowed hard, her mind racing as she wondered how one went about trying to reason with, or outwit, a madman. "I guess maybe I do," she said at last. "All of the people you killed were . . . like that?"

  "Except for Ali, yes."

  "How could you have killed Ali, Barry?"

  "He betrayed me once. I was angry."

  "Ali betrayed you? How?"

  "Never mind. I don't want to talk about that. It's not important."

  "But what about all the others? Were you angry at them?"

  "Oh, no, Anne. My heart was filled with pity for them."

  "Then why?"

  "I'm a priest, Anne, and I have a special commission from God Almighty. That's why I sent all those poor, helpless people home to God; because that was my job. As far as Bone and Ali are concerned . . . I was confused for a while, Anne. I thought God was trying to trick me by sending Bone to take you away from me."

  "I was never yours to be taken from, Barry. Can't you understand that?"

  Prindle shook his head. "You're wrong. The fact that you're with me now proves that you're wrong. God was testing me, using Bone. I failed once—but now He's given me another chance. You called me first, remember? It was meant for me to bring you down here with me, to my church."

  Anne looked around her, suppressed a sigh. When she spoke, her voice was firm. "Barry, you say you love me. Okay. I accept that, and I thank you. Now I'm telling you that I don't want to be in this place. If you love me, you'll take me out of here right now. I'll stick with you; I promise you that. But we have to go to the police and tell them what you've done. You need help, Barry. You'll get it, if you take me out of here. That would make me happy."

  Prindle slowly shook his head. "Please don't talk to me like I'm a fool, Anne."

  "Barry, I promise that I'll stand by you and do everything in my power to see that you get the help you need."

  "At the least, I'd be put in a mental hospital because people wouldn't understand. How could we be together then?"

  "I didn't say we'd be together, Barry," Anne said softly. "I said I'd stand by you."

  "But you don't love me?"

  "You asked me not to talk to you like you were a fool. Would you believe me if I told you I loved you?"

  "No. That's why we have to live here for a while."

  "Live here?"

  "Yes," Prindle replied matter-of-factly. "This is my church, given to me by God. I promise that you'll be comfortable. I'll take care of you. You don't have to be afraid."

  "Barry," Anne said, licking her lips, struggling to remain calm, "what if something happened to you? I don't know how to get back. I'd die down here."

  "Nothing's going to happen to me, Anne," Prindle said, smiling boyishly. "You can see all the food and water we have. There's good ventilation, plenty of kerosene for the lamps, and I bring down wood for fires. Also, there are plenty of blankets to keep you warm. I've saved several thousand dollars, so I have money to buy anything we need. When we do need things, I'll just go up to the surface and get them."

  "Oh, God. Barry. How long will we have to stay here?"

  Prindle slowly straightened up, and his smile vanished. He stepped forward, reached out and tentatively touched Anne's shoulder.

  "You're trembling."

  "Yes, Barry, I'm goddamn trembling. What the hell do you expect? I'm afraid."

  "Of me?"

  "Of you; of this."

  "We'll stay here until you're no longer afraid—and until you learn to love me, Anne. I'll know when that time comes, so it won't make any difference what you say. I'll know in my heart when you truly love me." He paused, then hesitantly reached down and rubbed the back of his hand against Anne's left breast. "We'll be happy together, Anne. You'll see. When I know that you love me and won't try to run away when I take you back up to the surface, then I'll take you out of here. By then, the police will have stopped searching for us; they'll think we're both dead. We'll travel to another part of the country to live. We'll be married, and we'll have lots of children. It's God's plan."

  "Barry," Anne said in a voice just above a whisper, "you're forgetting about Bone. His memory is returning; he'll find his way back here."

  Prindle shrugged, then turned to look behind him at the narrow tunnel he had just emerged from. "I think that's unlikely, my love. But even if, in the unlikely event, he does remember how to get back here, he'll find a few nasty surprises waiting for him. He won't survive all of them."

  "Barry, what have you done?"

  "A man has a right to defend his home," Prindle said, turning back to Anne.

  "Traps," Anne said in a small voice.

  The big man reached down with both hands, stroked Anne's shoulders. "I've wanted you for such a long time," he said hoarsely. "You're the answer to so many of my problems."

  Anne shuddered at Prindle's touch, but she began to unbutton her blouse with trembling fingers. "I'm not the answer to any of your problems, Barry. But i
f you intend to rape me, there's nothing I can do about it; we might as well get it over with."

  "Please don't do that," Prindle said tersely, wrapping his fingers around Anne's wrist and pulling her hand away from her blouse. "Not yet. I don't want to take you like that."

  Anne watched anxiously as the man turned and stepped back toward the rock shelf, where he had placed a black plastic garbage bag. He reached into the bag, drew out an embroidered, purple priest's chasuble, which he slipped over his head.

  "Barry, what are you doing?"

  "I'm a priest, Anne. I'm going to marry us before we make love."

  "And if you marry us, then it won't be rape?"

  "That's right; a man can't rape his own wife."

  Despite her lingering terror, Anne suddenly found herself wanting to laugh. 'Barry, unless there have been changes in the church that I haven't heard of, I don't think priests are supposed to marry."

  "I have special permission. God wants us to marry."

  (iii)

  Bone, the gash in his belly secured with a second set of stitches, clamps and a pressure bandage, sat at the small table that had been brought into his hospital room. Zulu and Perry Lightning looked over his shoulder as he pored over the detailed drawings he had laid out over the surface of the table and the surrounding floor.

  "So that's a Niele-MacLain map?" Zulu said in his low, rumbling voice. "It looks to me like a whole lot of maps."

  Bone grunted as he drew his index finger along a line on one of the maps. "You're right. Niele-MacLain is constantly being updated. These are maps of all the underground streams, lakes and what-have-you that are known to exist under Manhattan. The maps also indicate man-made structures that were built in the last century and might have been forgotten. Matthew Tolovich sent me maps like this. I just wanted to check to make certain that that cavern system I found isn't listed. Unfortunately, it isn't."

  He shifted in his chair, grimaced against the pain in his abdomen, then took a felt-tipped pen from his shirt pocket. He searched around on the floor until he found the sheet that he wanted, put it on the table and drew a small circle over the center of Broad Street. "This is where I first went in," he continued. "An aqueduct built by Aaron Burr's water company is down there, and I wanted to see it. Then I branched out. I happened to find a very narrow cave high up on one of the walls of the main tunnel; it wasn't the kind of opening many people—especially those working for a salary—would care to go into, for fear of becoming stuck. I gave it a try, and I found the dry river channel."

  "Which isn't on the map," Lightning said. "Shit."

  Bone searched among the sheets until he found one indicating a small area under Manhattan's West Side. He drew a large circle in the center of the map. "My best guess is that the chamber where I ran into Prindle is somewhere down here."

  Lightning said, "We found Prindle's HRA van collecting tickets at the corner of Ninth and Forty-eighth."

  Bone nodded. "Obviously, Prindle found his own way into the system, and for some reason never reported it to Empire Subway."

  "I'll have some of my men start searching underground there."

  "Don't bother, Lieutenant. All they'll find are the subway tunnels, water and gas mains that are indicated here. They could look for months and never find the route he uses to get into that system; he may even have it disguised now."

  Lightning sighed heavily. "Then we have to go the long, hard way."

  "Yes," Bone replied evenly. "We go the long, hard way."

  (iv)

  Naked, Anne lay in a pool of flickering firelight staring up at the pitted stone of the domed ceiling high above her. In her was a mixture of fear and pity.

  She had known that it would be useless to resist Barry Prindle's advances; also, she suspected that he could shift emotional gears at any time. Her life depended not only on the man not killing her, but on his eventually being persuaded to take her out of this massive stone coffin. She was, she thought, totally dependent on him. She did not know if Bone would ever remember how to return to this place, and did not know if Bone and the police would even realize that she was being held prisoner. Indeed, now that she knew that Prindle had set traps, she was not even sure that she wanted Bone to try to rescue her.

  Realizing that her most realistic chance for survival lay in somehow persuading the serial killer, her former partner, to lead her out, she had done her best to respond to him sexually after their "marriage."

  Their attempted coupling had been a disaster, and it had not taken her long to realize that Prindle was impotent. No matter what she had done to him, or allowed him to do to her, he had been unable to get an erection. Exhausted, he had finally stopped trying. He had not dressed. Now he squatted in silence, unmoving, a few feet away, facing the opposite wall. He had been that way for almost an hour. Once or twice she thought she had heard him sob, but she could not be certain.

  What she was certain of, without knowing exactly why, was that she was in considerably more danger now than she had been before the man had "married" them and tried unsuccessfully to make love to her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  (i)

  There obviously hadn't been too many seven-foot underground workers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Zulu thought with a wry smile as, bending low, he followed Perry Lightning and Bone through a wooden aqueduct that had been constructed before the Civil War.

  It had been three days since Bone's ascent of Hook Mountain. The doctors had wanted him to wait at least a week before attempting this journey through the cavern system beneath Manhattan, but Bone had insisted that he was ready. Zulu knew that his friend was in pain, although Bone's face and manner gave no indication of it.

  Zulu had felt his heart begin to pound from the moment they had entered the very old Croton water system, and then proceeded into and through even older structures. Zulu carried two backpacks, one across each shoulder, filled with medical supplies, food, water, a collapsible litter and various pieces of equipment Bone had asked for. Perry Lightning carried a rifle with a sniper scope, while Bone, in the lead, carried a large coil of strong but lightweight nylon rope slung around his shoulders. At Bone's direction, they each wore heavy canvas pants and shirts, and sneakers. Each man wore a miner's lamp strapped to his forehead, and carried a powerful flashlight. In Zulu's backpacks were extra batteries, and infrared night-vision goggles for later use.

  There were rats in the tunnels—lots of them. Huge Norway rats skittered over the wood, rock and earth as the beams of light passed over them. Bone appeared to pay no attention to the animals, while Lightning was constantly starting and cursing under his breath. Zulu found that he was getting used to the rats—but he had tucked the cuffs of his pants into the tops of his sneakers.

  Suddenly Bone stopped walking and pointed the beam of his flashlight high on the earthen wall to their left. "There," he said curtly.

  Zulu and Lightning looked up to where remnants of wood piling and siding had rotted away to reveal what appeared to be the mouth of a small tunnel.

  "That goes about twenty yards," Bone continued, "and it connects with the riverbed. Zulu, you'll go first. Take out some of that olive oil and smear it over your shoulders."

  "Why does he go first?" Lightning asked.

  "Because of his size," Bone replied, turning to Zulu. "If you get stuck, it will be a lot easier to pull you out from here than it would be to push you from the other side. It'll be a tight squeeze all the way, but if you use the technique I talked about, pushing with your heels and the palms of your hands, you should be able to make it through. Your shoulders may tend to swell. Just remember to stay calm, breathe regularly with your mouth to the side, and don't force it."

  "What if I can't make it through, Bone-man?"

  "Then you miss the trip."

  Zulu removed the miner's lamp from his head, set down the backpacks, opened one and took out a bottle of olive oil. "I'll make it," he said quietly.

  Zulu smeared oil over his shoulder
s and chest, turned to allow Bone and Lightning to smear his back. Next, Bone knelt on the floor and tied one end of the rope loosely around Zulu's ankles.

  "Whatever happens in there," Bone said, straightening up, "don't panic. If you get stuck, we'll get you out; count on it. Hut you mustn't try to force your way through. If you think you're in trouble, you probably are. If things get too tight, don't push; you'll just wedge yourself in deeper. Just stop, give us a call, and we'll get you back. If you do make it through, you'll pull through the equipment, and we'll follow. Still want to do this, Zulu?"

  "Yeah. Uh, what are the chances that I'll meet up with rats in there?"

  "The chances are good," Bone replied evenly, "but it's best not to even think about them."

  "Oh," Zulu said, and smiled wanly. "Then I won't think about them."

  "You'll go head first, arms to your sides, shoulders as sloped as you can make them. No sudden movements with your head. It's all wrist, ankle and heel action; everything will start to ache like hell after a short distance, but just keep pushing away. Again: don't try to force anything."

  "Jesus, Bone-man. You went in there like that alone?"

  Bone shrugged. "Sometimes you have to risk going into small places so you can find the big places beyond. Ready?"

  "Ready," Zulu said, and stepped close to the wall. With a boost from Perry Lightning, he pulled himself up to the mouth of the tunnel, twisted around, put his arms to his sides and began to squirm backward into the tunnel.