by Jim Beard
Cabot spotted an inn a few doors away from the telegraph office in front of which they paused, standing in the street with their bags in hand. They made their way to the establishment, checked in with a story of wanting to do a bit of climbing and bird-watching, and found the inn offered libations as well as meals. Shortly thereafter, the two agents leaned against a bar in one corner of the inn’s dining room and listened to a most amazing story related by the innkeeper himself, a man who introduced himself as Mr. Bamen.
“Go on,” Valiantine urged, taking another small sip of his beer. He disliked the stuff, normally, but found that by nursing a mug of it he won more confidences than mistrust.
“Well,” Bamen continued, his blonde slicked-back hair gleaming and long nose twitching, “these fairy lights come and go, come and go.”
Cabot had finished his own beer and ordered another; Valiantine approved of his tactics. “You say people also heard music? Surely that’s not unusual with other people around?”
Bamen chortled low in his throat. “It is if there ain’t no band about, sir, meanin’ no disrespect. We haven’t had a band in this town in decades, and we ain’t never had no orchestra. The constable himself heard the music, plain as day. I ain’t about to question his sanity. And he saw the lights, too.”
“Must be a lot of stories like that in this part of the country, eh?” Valiantine asked casually. “Legends, tales, that sort of thing.” He tried to sound indifferent about it.
“Sure,” Bamen said, “we have all of ’em, certainly. The black dogs and the wise babies and the frogs fallin’ out of the skies... even the big hairy men and the little wee ones, too. But I ain’t never heard much before about lights like giant eyes up on Massanutten accompanied by highfalutin’ music. No, sir, that’s downright strange.”
The lieutenant almost laughed at what the man considered “strange,” considering the laundry list of odd subjects he’d just rattled off. Instead, he looked Bamen straight in the eye and pointed a finger at him.
“What do you think of it all, Mr. Bamen? If you had to speculate; what would you say it all amounts to?”
The innkeeper paused in his wiping away at the bar top, obviously pondering the question. Finally, he spoke.
“I don’t like it, if I’m to be truthful about it. One queer thing, maybe that’s all it is. Two? Perhaps there’s a bit more to it. But when you have ghost lights on the mountain and phantom music and strangers passing through and the young man who got all bit up, well—”
Cabot’s hand shot out and clamped down on Bamen’s wrist. The man looked up at the Treasury agent, his eyes wide and his brow furrowed in confusion.
“Bit up? When? Where?”
“Three days ago,” the innkeeper said in a strangled voice. “Young feller from just outside of Luray. Bear got ’im. Mauled him something fierce. He lived, thank the Good Lord...”
Valiantine had set his mug down, unsure of whether or not to tell Cabot to release the man’s arm. “Where, Mr. Bamen?”
“Up on the mountain,” Bamen said, quietly, slowly, as if piecing something together. “But... it was a bear, I tell you!”
But he was addressing thin air. His two customers had moved to a table on the far side of the room and were deep in conversation.
“When?” Cabot asked, his face grim.
“Crack of dawn,” Valiantine replied. “But we may need some equipment. At the very least some better footwear. Heavier coats for both of us would also be nice; it will likely be cold up there, this time of year.”
His partner nodded. “He said ‘strangers passing through,’ also. Should we assume that there are two factions involved?”
“Dammit,” Valiantine said. “We’re making leaps in logic like March hares. But what else are we to do? We must assume that we’re in the middle of something and that we’re in danger of giving away our position at any given time. We’re alone in this now, Cabot; we have virtually no resources to fall back upon should things get dicey.”
“Did we ever?”
The lieutenant appraised the younger man’s question, nodding. “Unknown. So much is unknown. Let’s get a good night’s sleep and attack this full on in the morning.”
As it turned out, with constant thoughts about Mr. Bamen’s story, Valiantine didn’t sleep much at all.
The next morning the two agents sought out the general store in Luray and were pleased to find that it stocked proper boots and coats for climbing, as well as a few other provisions for their trek up Massanutten.
They also discovered the store’s proprietor had seen the lights on the mountain, too, and pointed them toward its northern section. Valiantine thanked the man with a friendly-yet-blasé tone and paused only briefly while exiting when the man urged Cabot and him to “mind the bears and rattlers.”
Scouting the base of Massanutten in the first rays of morning sun, they came upon what seemed to be an old trail, which began behind an ancient, immense tulip tree.
“Up the airy mountain, eh?” Valiantine said, looking at the mountainside.
“I’d rather the rushy glen,” Cabot replied, pulling his hat down tight.
Shortly into their ascent they decided their decision to forego actual mountain climbing gear such as spikes and ropes and the like was an accurate one; Massanutten was not steep, though it was not a walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon, either. Valiantine had scaled mountains as far off as Nicaragua, while Cabot’s experiences in more arduous forms of field work were not as extensive as his partner’s. Still, he did not complain and kept up with the army man.
The Treasury man offered a suggestion early in the climb: to give themselves time to observe their surroundings and catalog it for future reference. This he supported by another of his Yankee Bligh bon mots, one which Valiantine realized was sound and logical. They’d be away from civilization while on the mountain and, depending upon what they’d encounter there, likely to have to move about it in less than optimal conditions, meaning, in the dark, under fire, chased by wild animals, or any of a dozen or so other extreme situations.
They met with wild turkey, deer, and definite signs of bear. The trail they’d accessed was sparse at points, wholly disappearing into wildflowers and other flora at others. Valiantine had never fully grasped the intricacies of trailblazing and tracking, so he trusted his instincts and Cabot’s keen eyes to keep their feet on solid ground and moving ever upward.
By dusk, the two men had gained a height of almost two-thousand feet, more than two-thirds of Massanutten’s full elevation. They’d also seen the track of some large animal of which neither of them could wholly identify.
“Why music?” Cabot asked as they rested for a moment on a shelf of sandstone, near a grove of trees. Branches from a dead oak lay all about them.
Valiantine took his meaning immediately. “It does seem incongruous, doesn’t it? Hallucinations by the witnesses? Interpreting something else as music they recognize?”
Cabot chewed on that one for a few seconds. “Those vapors we discovered at Carnavon’s compound play some important role in all this. I feel fairly certain of it.”
“Absolutely,” Valiantine said, looking up at their destination again, the mountaintop, as it faded into the night. “I’m thinking along those same lines. What if—”
A bestial howl split the somber atmosphere of the mountainside. Both men’s hands flew to their coatpockets, fingering the revolvers within.
“Coyote?” Cabot asked.
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“I’m guessing that’s not a deer or a snake, then.”
“If it is,” Valiantine whispered, “then we are in for a bit of trouble.”
As it turned out, they were in for quite a bit of trouble.
Valiantine, pistol in hand, waved at Cabot. “Down, down; present as small a target as possible.” He himself lowered his center of gravity and extended one knee to the ground, looking all about him, urging his eyes to acclimate to the darkness.
A huge, black figure rose up not thirty feet from them, from behind a gigantic fallen tree they’d passed on the way up, and sprinted lightning-fast past them, passing within only five feet or so of their position.
Valiantine tracked the thing with his pistol, finger tensing on its trigger.
“No, wait!” Cabot said, grasping at his partner’s hand. “Don’t fire!”
A resounding, guttural growl filled their ears as the dark shape gained a spot on the other side of them, between two trees. It stopped there, and both men could see that it swung around to face them.
“Are you mad, Cabot? If that’s the... if it’s... I won’t sit here and—”
The thing flung itself abruptly from its hiding spot, running directly toward them, howling, arms extended in front of it.
Valiantine fired. The thing flinched from the bullet’s impact on its shoulder, but kept moving.
The lieutenant took an instinctual step backwards, his foot slipping on the loose rock shelving behind him. A drop-off. They were near a drop-off. But how far down did it go?
Cabot discharged his own pistol. The thing’s left arm flew up in a strange way. It howled in pain, but did not slow in its headlong sprint toward them.
Valiantine grabbed at a large, forked branch that lay on the rock next to him. The very second he set its one end into the ground by his feet, pointing its fork upward, the great, dark figure was upon him.
Catching it with the branch, he put all his strength into taking the impact of the flying body. A loud crack like a gunshot told him the branch snapped under the pressure, but he tried to use his assailant’s momentum to drive it past him.
The figure flew over his head, a huge black monstrosity. Something caught at his scalp and he felt a sharp pain there.
Howling like an Irish banshee, the creature toppled past the rock shelf and down into even deeper darkness below it.
Huffing and puffing, Valiantine finally came to rest on solid ground many yards from his starting point. Fear had propelled him from the site of the attack, but it had subsided and he felt he could stop running with some modicum of safety.
He was not ashamed of allowing fear overtake him; he knew well that it had saved his life on other occasions and when to allow it free rein.
Breathing somewhat more regularly, he looked around and found himself immersed in almost total darkness. He tasted something salty on his lips, felt a warm, wet sensation on his scalp and forehead, and knew he was bleeding. This was confirmed when he reached up and probed the wound on his head; it was long and fairly deep, slick with blood.
The lieutenant let out a sigh, his fingers trembling slightly. A jolt of panic coursed through him, but he fought it back and tried to discern his surroundings, realizing with a start that he was alone.
“Cabot!” It came out of him with more volume than he intended. When he received no reply, he began to grow angry. “Cabot, dammit; where are you?”
“Here...”
The voice of his partner came from somewhere nearby, and from a slightly higher elevation than that which he currently occupied. He started to move toward it, pushing aside thick vegetation and colliding with tree trunks. Finally, he saw night sky and stars.
The silhouette of Cabot stood out against the sky; Valiantine could tell his partner was looking back over his shoulder at him, but also pointing to something he did not immediately see at first.
“There,” the Treasury man said, calmly, as if pointing out another wild turkey or a peculiarly colored gentian.
Valiantine followed the line of Cabot’s index finger up and toward the mountain. He saw the light his partner indicated.
Valiantine reached Cabot and they stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing at it, a mildly bright orb of illumination that seemed to bounce a bit in the air, not unlike a child’s balloon on string, buffeted by a spring breeze.
“I’m sorry I could not shoot at first,” Cabot said. “But after what I saw in Kentucky...”
“Forget it,” Valiantine said. “Damn thing got me good, though.”
He sensed that Cabot turned toward him in the darkness. “Bad?”
“No,” the lieutenant replied, “I said ‘good.’ It struck me a winning blow. I’m bleeding. Badly.”
“Then let’s—”
Valiantine cut him off by placing one hand on the man’s arm and turning him to look back at the light, or the absence thereof. It had gone out.
In its place stood a structure, a high tower of a sort.
“No sounds,” Cabot said. Valiantine thought he was urging him to be quiet, but realized his partner meant to point out the complete absence of noise in the area. They were encased in a zone of absolute silence: no birds, no insects, nothing.
All at once, a light blinked on in the sky to the south of their position, drawing their attention from the tower. There was no way to discern the distance or size of it, but the light did not falter, merely glowed steadily.
Suddenly, the new light began to blink on and off. From their vantage point, the two agents could see the tower and the light in the sky were related, and the latter seemed to be trying to signal to the former.
“Code?” the lieutenant asked, in awe of the spectacle despite himself.
Cabot wagged his head. “None that I know of. Not Morse, though there is...”
The tower light returned, a quick burst that disappeared as quickly as it came. A heartbeat or two later, the other light went away. Darkness prevailed again.
“Let’s get in closer to that tower.” Valiantine pointed to their right, and Cabot seemed to take his meaning: skirt the small clearing in front of the structure and stay to the tree line.
With wary glances skyward, they inched closer to the base of the tower.
“That was answer and response,” Cabot noted. Valiantine grunted his agreement.
When they got within twenty feet of the tower, they observed the structure. Constructed of stone block and immense lengths of wood, Valiantine had never seen anything quite like it. He could not fathom how it could have been built so far up the mountainside, though he admired its stout look and obvious structural integrity. Past that, its architectural style defied his categorization. It appeared wholly alien to him, though he’d been around the world and seen much in his career.
From its extensive weathering and cracking, they found the tower’s base to be older than the rest of the structure, guessing it to be at least thirty years old or more. Cabot opined that it may have been built during the war, or shortly before it.
The Treasury man also pointed out the dome that sat at the top of the tower, some one hundred feet above the structure’s base. It looked to be made entirely of metal, with gigantic seams running from its top, central point to its circumference.
“Good Lord,” Valiantine whispered, “is that an observatory?”
They sat in silence for several minutes, assessing the scene, and watching the night sky for the return of the light. Either something had been approaching the tower and completed its flight in total darkness, or it still hung in space at some unknown distance from the structure, waiting for who knew what.
“We need to get in there,” Valiantine said, nodding. “This may be the key to it all.”
The two men continued their trek along the tree line and carefully approached the tower’s base. Touching it, feeling along the length of its stone construction, Valiantine felt justified in his guess at its age; it was clear that the tower was built atop the foundation of an older structure. Though it appeared strange in its design, its materials did not show the extensive age of its base.
“If we find there’s someone inside this,” Cabot began, pointing at what looked to be a doorway set into the base, “we must assume they may be joined by others.” The younger man tipped his chin upward to indicate the night sky to the south.
“Agreed,” Valiantine said. Finding a wide metal door with a handle, he pulled on it and found it unlocked.
With Cabot right behind him, they
entered the tower.
Five sets of eyes turned their way. Valiantine could see they were not expected.
The interior of the tower was lit, but by what means was not immediately evident. The air was hazy, even murky; it felt very familiar to the lieutenant. The room they’d entered was fairly large, a square that seemed to occupy the entire base of the structure, with a high ceiling that he wanted to observe, but didn’t dare take his eyes from the tower’s inhabitants.
There were four men and a woman. Each of them wore a one-piece garment that covered them from neck to toe, a comfortable looking arrangement with no clear buttons or fasteners. Valiantine thought the fabric looked something like what they’d found in Kentucky, or one of the samples, at least. The men wore their hair short, cropped close to the scalp; the woman sported a short bob.
One of the men stepped toward the agents. When he did, Valiantine caught sight of a corner of the immaculately clean room that was strewn with straw and featured a large, heavy chain bolted by one end to the wall.
The room was silent save for the soft strains of a symphony that he didn’t immediately recognize. This too, like the illumination and the haze, presented no clear source.
“I... I don’t understand...” the man said, stopping roughly ten feet from the agents. “How did you get up here?”
Valiantine produced his pistol, pointed it at the man. Out of the corner of the eye he saw Cabot did likewise.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “Please identify yourselves.”
The man hesitated. Valiantine caught a quick, minute glance upward. Risking it, he turned his own eyes to the ceiling of the room and discovered there wasn’t one. Above them, the walls of the tower stretched up to what seemed to be the metal dome they saw from the outside, but he couldn’t be sure, for the damnable haze was thicker in the space. He also saw what looked to be stairs that wound around the inside of the tower.
