by Glen Krisch
"Found it, Momma." He could feel her pride, as soothing a balm as ice cream in July, though she no longer lived on this plain. "But you always knew it was here, didn't you, Momma?"
He would need to be sly. Slyer than he had ever been. Fulfilling his destiny, he would honor his mother's memories and the memories of past generations.
Now, he just needed to find one wall, find and breach one wall.
5.
Dr. Thompson's lantern sputtered and exhausted itself minutes after Jacob and Ellie decided to follow him into the tunnel under his tool shed. The old man sighed, exasperated, swore an oath, but continued on in the dark.
Their need for secrecy as well as the pitch black of the tunnel kept the children quiet. Otherwise, Jacob would have laughed a good stretch over the doctor's vulgarity, repeating it to himself to hear it issued in his own voice. But nothing seemed funny right now.
With the sudden darkness, Ellie held fast to Jacob's shirtsleeve. He could feel her quavering as she fought the urge to call out. But they remained silent, confounded by circumstance to follow the doctor through the low-ceilinged, downward-twisting tunnel.
In the absence of light, sound guided their way. Keeping a safe distance, they listened for Thompson's shuffled, unsure strides, his occasional grunts when he bumped into a wall or low passage, his labored, throaty breathing. They also listened when he picked up his mumbled train of thought concerning Jasper Cartwright. The crazed, one-sided conversation he'd begun in his car started again and halted, running in fits and starts as he made his way deeper into the earth. The doctor chastised himself (ostensibly spoken to his dear friend) for decades of cowardice made immeasurably worse by its accompanying guilt and shame; he rambled (is he still drunk? Jacob wondered more than once) about his need to rectify the situation, at least make an effort, no matter how feeble, after all these years of silence. Sometimes he would ask Jasper questions directly, as if the doctor's oldest friend walked at his side, and after a momentary lapse, Thompson would grunt, as if hearing just the right answer.
Jacob could guess what Ellie was thinking as they walked through this narrow vein of emptiness into an ever cooler unknown, for they would be the same thoughts as his: Who is this man they're following? How could you not know someone could be so… so strange? How could you not know about a seemingly endless tunnel burrowing in to the ground of your own hometown? Who else knows about the existence of such a tunnel?
And then suddenly, Jacob realized, there was no sound ahead. No aural beacon to hone in on.
He must have tensed at Ellie's side, because she broke their silence: "Where is he, Jacob? It's so dark down here."
"Shh."
"We should turn back. I think I can find our way. It's not too difficult. Only that one place where the tunnel split, otherwise, it's a straight shot to the tool shed." She would've said more if Jacob hadn't squeezed her arm.
In a voice no louder than an exhaled breath, he spoke with his lips brushing her ear, "Just because we can't hear him, doesn't mean he's not ten feet from us. Keep your voice down."
"I think we lost him," Ellie said, ignoring him. "Besides, it's Dr. Thompson. He's the nicest man I've ever met. So what if he hears us? He's our friend."
"Besides talking crazy, why's he ducking into hidden tunnels in the middle of the night? Remember, he mentioned Jimmy to Magee."
"I don't know, but we can't see a thing." Her voice rose in pitch, verging on panic. "It's cold and I'm scared. So are you, Jacob Fowler."
"An even better reason for keeping your voice low. Wait--feel that?" Jacob held her left hand with his right, while extending his other hand to feel their way down the tunnel. He lifted her hand, tracing it along the wall.
"What? What is it?" she said, this time barely audible. "Oh, another split. Which way? Which way did the doctor take?"
"I don't know, just give me a second--" he looked in each direction, but didn't find a clue to make their decision any easier. Turn left, turn right, go back the way they had come, no direction felt like the correct answer.
"Let's go right."
"Why right?"
He didn't say anything for a while.
Ellie nudged him, "Jacob, did you see something, hear something?"
"No. Just a gut feeling is all. Let's go right."
"Okay."
"Let's just be quiet about it."
She didn't say anything, merely took up her latch on his shirtsleeve. They started down the tunnel, ears and eyes alert, fighting phantom light and the sound of dripping water.
They stayed in that formation for a long, straight stretch of tunnel, softly shifting their feet along the damp cold floor, fingers flailing ahead, touching the walls as if searching for directional signs written in Braille.
A groan came from somewhere ahead; a raspy sigh swimming with pain, abruptly stifled. Or it could have been from another direction--the cavern walls distorted and so recklessly tossed about sounds that a person familiar with the tunnels would have been left confused. They couldn't turn around, not now. They had come too far. What if that sound was coming from Jimmy? Could they turn their back on him when they were on the verge of reaching him?
They heard the groan again, and this time they were ready for it. Without a doubt the sound was coming from in front of them. "Let's check it out," Jacob said.
"I don't want to."
"Have a better suggestion?"
Though reluctant, Ellie went along as they inched forward. The groan became louder. It was a man; he could hear it in the muscular quality of the voice. It was deep-sounding, wounded, irrevocably broken. Not Jimmy. No, Jimmy didn't sound like that. Jacob hoped he didn't sound like that. If he did he was in a world of pain, and he didn't know if he could see his brother in such a state.
Around a zigzag in the tunnel, they came across an area where a wan light washed over the walls, defining the craggy surfaces, revealing bottlenecks and small cubbyhole rooms.
Another bend in the tunnel revealed the light's source. A dying torch hanging in an iron ring. The flame had marred the wall with a black halo, and on the yellowish floor, an expansive depression nearly filled the small room, appearing like an embedded, unblinking eye.
Ellie screamed, her fingers clawing Jacob's arm. A second later, when he saw what had frightened her, he hoped his eyes were deceiving him.
A Negro man writhed on the floor, or rather, a mere torso straining to pull himself toward the dilated emptiness in the floor. His insides were no longer inside; guts trailed behind him, shredded flaps of flesh slimed with blood and mucus. His face and neck were a mass of scabs, some old some fresh, while his grimace was a testament to his effort to simply move.
He groaned, pulled his arm forward, slapped his palm down, found purchase and pulled again. He gained an inch, maybe two along the floor. But still, he started again, this effort just as vigilant as the last, his motions the final struggles of a dying swimmer.
Jacob felt like screaming too, but wouldn't. He couldn't let himself lose it, no matter how he felt. Ellie was counting on him, Jimmy was counting on him. His mother would never recover if he didn't keep a level head and get out of this predicament unscathed.
Ellie couldn't take the sight. She released her grip on his arm, and not taking her eyes from the man struggling on the floor, bolted down the tunnel. She would have made a good clip, putting distance behind her, but she slammed into the twisting tunnel wall, stunning herself. She slumped to the floor, blinked a few times, but didn't lose consciousness.
Jacob approached the man, careful to avoid the puddle of blood flowing down a slight dip in the floor.
As he got closer, he could see the man was naked, and that below his ruined entrails, there was nothing. No hips, no legs or feet. Yet, he was alive.
"Hello?" Jacob said, not sure what to say.
The man kept at it, fighting to move, his eyes blinking through sweat cooling into a pasty sheen on his skin.
Jacob stepped closer and touched the man on h
is meaty shoulder. The man jerked his head aside, crying out. He radiated fear like a cookstove's heat.
"I, uh, my name's Jacob." The man looked at him, as if not comprehending. But Jacob could see his mind at work, trying to understand something. The man wouldn't stop blinking, his lids fluttering like a butterfly's wings, shedding tears or sweat or both to stream down his cheeks to meet at the point of his chin.
"I know you." The man reached for Jacob. "I know you."
Jacob ignored the man's ravings. There was no way he could know this Negro. He didn't know a single one, was proud of the fact he didn't. His kind didn't belong in a Fowler's life. He inched away from the Negro's grasping fingers. "What is this place?"
"Hell, boy. You're in hell. Help me up now. We gotta get to digging."
Jacob glanced at Ellie. She was staring at the last bit of the torch's flame as it struggled to stay alight. She seemed unaware of their exchange. For the first time since they found her brother's body, he saw her sucking her thumb.
The Negro caught Jacob's pant cuff, and he instinctively smacked him away. He felt bad as soon as he did. "Hey, what is this place, this room? That pit?"
The man groaned again, whirled his arm in front of him, pulled himself another meager inch. Toward the pit. Biting cold wind blew from the void. Jacob was shivering. Ellie's lips were turning blue. The man reached the lip of the precipice. "It's the end, boy. It better be. Better be." Exhausted, he rested his head against his forearm, his gaze longing for the black emptiness of the abyss.
Such a pathetic sight, Jacob had never seen.
The man twitched, then quite silently, began to cry. He couldn't do it, couldn't reach the pit in order to end his life. Couldn't just die. Some unnatural force kept him breathing and alert with full understanding of his awful predicament.
Jacob couldn't stand it any longer. Something inside him snapped. If the man had been an injured dog, he would have stomp his skull, but instead, he reached into the muck remaining at the man's waist, grabbed two fistfuls of something slithering and rope-like, then manhandled the Negro the final six inches. Instantly, the man was gone. His descent didn't make a sound. He never cried out. He was simply no longer there.
Jacob peered over the edge, and though he couldn't see into the pit, his stomach swirled with vertigo. The harsh wind stung his cheeks. When he stepped away, his feet slipped in the cold sludge of spilled blood.
He took the dying torch from its mount, then helped Ellie to stand. She went willingly, letting him guide her as if she were a blind person negotiating a busy street. Before the light could wink out for good, he ripped a strip of cloth from his shirt, and wrapped it around the torch, careful not to snuff it out. Luckily, the flame caught hold of the fabric, fed off it, brightening the tunnel. His footprints looked like long brushstrokes in the trail of blood. He could feel it still on the soles of his shoes. It sickened him knowing where it had come from. And worst of all, knowing what he had done.
"You found a light." Ellie perked up at his side. "We can leave now." She sounded relieved, reminding him of when they saw Cooper's porch and knowing they would be able to ride out the storm there.
"Let's just keep quiet. Please?"
She was, and they made their way.
6.
"Did we lose them?"
Cooper didn't give Jane an answer. He wanted to say yes, but that would've only been a guess. At first, they'd seen flickering light trailing them and heard the unnerving growl of their pursuers. After moving at a breakneck pace for several minutes, the light dimmed, then was gone. The sound, Cooper had never heard anything more strident and hateful, soon seemed to scatter, at moments sounding behind them, while at other times seemed to echo from branching shafts ahead of them.
"Ted?"
"I… I don't know."
"Who are they?"
"I can't say who they are now."
"Damn it, Ted, talk to me!" Since they entered the dark tunnel he had kept track of her by listening to her steps, but now she'd stopped. He couldn't remember a time he felt more alone. "Did Greta tell you who they are?"
"No, not Greta. Horace and Eunice Blankenship."
"They're dead, Ted. This is crazy. This is so unbelievably crazy."
"I know what you're thinking, but you have to--" he was going to ask her to trust him. He seemed to ask that of her a lot. But why did she have to trust him? Why would she?
"Okay. This is going to sound crazy, and no matter how crazy this sounds, don't stop me, because if you cut me off, I don't know if I could start again."
"Okay. Fine."
He waited, listening for any signs of pursuit. All seemed clear. He fumbled for Jane's hand, and it gave him a feeling of calm when her hand found his first.
"Okay, here goes--" he said, then proceeded to tell Jane about the strange pull he felt toward the Blankenship home, and about how after he bought the place he started to hear noises, then to see things. "You saw for yourself. The spirits, they're real."
"I never thought… well, I guess…" Jane stammered, but let him continue.
He told her about his onslaught of dreams, the most telling dream revealing the details of the murder of Horace and Eunice Blankenship.
"The men chasing us were bounty hunters?"
"Yes. Ethan Cartwright, his toady Arthur Scully, and a set of triplet brothers."
"They're the men chasing us?"
"Yes. And no, I have no idea how this is possible."
"If I didn't see what I saw at your house, I would never believe--wait, did you say Cartwright?"
"I know. Jasper. It's his father, Jane."
"Why didn't you tell me any of this sooner?"
"Because it's just like you said, you wouldn't have believed unless you'd seen it. It's crazy--the whole damned story. I could have told you after I met with Greta--that's when things started making sense to me. But I didn't want you to learn a family secret of mine. I think it's my family secret that's caused me to feel such a connection with the Blankenships. Why they might have chosen me to help them."
"Don't tell me, you're a son of one of those sons'a bitches?"
"No, nothing like that. Do you remember when I said my grandmother came to stay with my family?"
"How could I forget?"
"Well." He paused, but before he could have second thoughts, he blurted it out, "It turns out she was colored."
Three feet away, there was a scratching noise and a small flash of sparks. The flame danced from the cigarette lighter, shedding light on a face beset with quickly healing lesions and gaping wounds. It was one of the overall-clad triplets. He was laughing to himself, apparently proud to have gotten so close without them knowing.
"This whole time we been chasing you, I never did know you was a nigger. But then again, only a nigger would run away like you did." The man's laughter sprayed tobacco juice from his grizzled maw.
Jane glanced at Cooper before returning her frightened gaze to the undead bounty hunter. In that brief glance he saw such unabated disappointment. As if he had just revealed that he'd spent the day of the potluck (was that really today? it seemed so long ago) pissing in her iced tea.
When he looked back at the bounty hunter, Cooper had just enough time to duck under a swiping blow from the hunter's machete. It whirred an inch from his scalp and crashed into the wall behind him.
Jane screamed, no longer caring to hide their location. He took Jane's hand once again (did he feel reluctance in touch?) and they took off down the tunnel as the bounty hunter worked to free the machete. Cooper glanced over his shoulder. Having placed the cigarette lighter in a nook in the wall, the bounty hunter's anger welled--his mouth sputtered oaths and spit as he worked the blade free--just as his brethren closed in bearing torches.
Several long minutes passed with their hearts racing madly. The other bounty hunters joined the machete-wielding triplet as they took up the pursuit. Their healing bodies moved more swiftly than aboveground and they quickly gained ground. A sense of hopele
ssness grew within Cooper, but after turning down a branch in the tunnel, light was shining ahead, bright light that could only signal a large gathering of people.
"Gonna get you, nigger!"
7.
Almost to his disappointment, the Bradshaw girl hadn't fought Charles. Oh sure, at first she cried a bit, tried prying her arm away from him, but he made sure she didn't get any disagreeable ideas. He raised the carving knife at her. At first she'd shied away, shielding her face with a flung hand, but then he lowered the blade to her belly. When that notion settled in, the starch fell off her convictions. She became timid as a lamb. From the time he shoved her into his wagon, and even as they entered the Underground from a hidden tunnel entrance near the town dump, she didn't try anything.
Torchlight reflected the hatred simmering in the girl's eyes. Five feet away and draped in shadow, she crossed her arms and shifted on the coarse limestone floor. She didn't look away, not for a moment, as if her scathing stare alone could scar him. He paid her no mind; in fact, he should accept whatever vengeance her mind toyed with. He deserved no less.
He mirrored her positioning on the floor, but with his back to the wooden door he so often visited when dark moods swept over him. "You look sweet as a peach."
She spit in his face, quick as a snake strike. He didn't bother to wipe it away as he chuckled to himself.
With the knife pressed against her belly, she'd barely made a peep the whole way. Probably trying to think of a way to outmaneuver a drunk man getting drunker by the minute.
But, oh that would never happen.
His thoughts were never so clear as when he could scarcely stand and his words were all a jumble. His inebriated actions might not mirror his thoughts, but drink allowed him time to think, to ponder, to self pity.
As if she could read his mind, Mabel scraped her claws on her side of the rough door. She whimpered, a gruff choke of corrupted flesh.
At hearing Mabel for the first time, the girl jumped as if she'd sat on a pushpin.
"Cha-chaaa."
