by Xu, Lei
For the past who-knows-how-long I had been running on nothing but fear and adrenaline. Now it was finally over. A feeling of immeasurable relief washed over me. For a moment I relaxed my grip.
That was a mistake. Chen Luohu had risen to prospector from the lowest level of the engineering corps and in this instant he proved himself worthy. The guy was as strong as a bull and didn't lack for reflexes either. The moment I loosened my hold he twisted wildly around, freeing himself. Then he picked up the blade and ran at us, swinging it in long, gleaming arcs. Instinctively we made way, dodging to the sides of the narrow corridor. With his mad eyes fixed on the darkness beyond, Chen Luohu sprinted past and was soon out of sight. Ma Zaihai turned to give chase, but Wang Sichuan quickly stopped him.
"It's too dangerous to go after him right now," he said. "And anyway, we already have Yuan Xile."
Breathing hard, I slumped to the ground, my limbs so weary that they felt paralyzed. The pain radiating from my arm flooded my body. I leaned over and scooped up my flashlight. Its exterior was cracked from the fall. I switched it on and found that my entire arm was red, as if it had been dyed. Blood dripped from my shirtsleeve, but I rolled it up. The wound was deep and star-shaped and utterly nasty-looking. I guessed it was the work of some ancient military dagger or bayonet—amazing that after so many years it was still this sharp. After tearing off a piece of his shirt, Ma Zaihai squatted down beside me and tied it around my arm. The bleeding soon slowed and then stopped altogether.
Wang Sichuan remained standing, his eyes fixed in the direction Chen Luohu had fled. "What the hell is going on here?" he said quietly. "Everyone is losing their goddamn minds."
I looked over at Yuan Xile. She was huddled in a corner, her head between her knees and her entire body shaking with fear. It was a terrible sight. She was one of our generation's "Iron Women." She had studied in the Soviet Union and commanded her own team of prospectors. And now look at her.
I turned to Wang Sichuan. "Chen Luohu was always weak-hearted," I said. "This cursed place must have been too much for him. And who wouldn't have gone mad, all alone in the dark like that? But the real question is, how did the two of them end up here?"
He shook his head. "If one of us went mad, we wouldn't grab a knife and go for the heart. You saw the way he acted—that wasn't fear-induced madness. The man nearly sliced my hands off. And if we hadn't showed up when we did, you'd be sitting here with a blade in your belly."
He was right, and as I thought back on what had just occurred, I shivered—whether from fear or relief I don't know.
"This goddamn place," said Wang Sichuan, his eyes darting back and forth. "Something terrible must have happened here. Tengri protect us, we need to leave as soon as possible."
Ma Zaihai's head was drooped wearily between his legs as he squatted. Suddenly he looked up. "What if he was possessed?" he asked in a still tone. "After all, this place is full of dead devils..."
Wang Sichuan and I stared at him.
"That kind of thing doesn't exist," I said. "We live in the real world. Forget those supernatural beliefs."
"No wonder you never made squad leader," said Wang Sichuan sharply.
Ma Zaihai said nothing. We may have scolded him, but inside I was scared, too. Yuan Xile, Chen Luohu, the special emissary Su Zhenhua—everyone was losing their minds and it made me extremely uneasy. Whether it was ghosts or some resident evil lurking in the dark, it didn't matter; something was definitely wrong here, and I feared that the worst was yet to come. We had to get out of here soon. If not, we would surely go mad ourselves.
Kneeling down before Yuan Xile, Wang Sichuan tried to pacify her. It was no use. She refused to meet his eyes. And as soon as he stood up and walked off, her shaking became even more severe, no different than when we had first found her. It was obvious she wouldn't be able to tell us what had happened here.
Staring off into the darkness, Wang Sichuan asked me what I planned to do. I thought about it. For the moment it was hard to say. Should we go after Chen Luohu? I doubted that he would persist in this violent state for much longer, and if we abandoned him I knew he had almost no chance of finding his way back to the surface. Although I had forgotten about him for a while, he remained my comrade. We'd spent more than a month together on the surface. I had called him brother. His fate was not to be casually decided. In those days, abandoning a comrade was considered a terrible offense. In the movies characters that did this were always played by the vilest-looking actors, so that viewers would instantly despise them. Now I was considering doing that very thing. I felt deeply conflicted. But I had to be realistic. Even if we found Chen Luohu, bringing him with us—mad as he was—would be a great encumbrance. There was no way around it. We would have to leave him behind, at least temporarily. Once we reached a point where Wang Sichuan or I could travel safely back to headquarters with the film canister we could reassess, but for now we had no other choice.
I looked at Yuan Xile. What was she doing here? I wondered. Surely she hadn't crawled through the same ventilation shaft as us. This meant that we were on the right track. There had to be another way out, and it was most likely somewhere within these corridors. I thought again of Yuan Xile and Chen Luohu's silent disappearance from the caisson. They really had snuck out through the darkness. By then Yuan Xile had already gone mad, so who knows what she was thinking, but why had Chen Luohu followed her?
Having been part of the earlier prospecting team, Yuan Xile knew this place well. When the toxic mist first rose earlier, she had led Ma Zaihai and Chen Luohu into the caisson. Somewhere in her addled mind she must have remembered that it was safe. And after the caisson was dropped to the bottom of the dam, she'd immediately fled all the way here. I was sure there was a reason behind this as well. But what was it? I thought of all the mysterious rooms and equipment we'd seen, of the devils' abrupt and unexplained disappearance, and of my comrades who had gone mad down here in the darkness.
A terrible feeling crept up my spine. Something bad had happened here—was still happening here—and the sooner we left the better.
CHAPTER
10
The Unknown Threat
Not wanting Yuan Xile to run away again, we had no choice but to tie a leash to her. Ma Zaihai pulled a rope from his pack and we fastened it around her waist. Curious as I was to find out what had happened here, I didn't want to end up like Chen Luohu. We started back down the corridor immediately. Wang Sichuan led the way, cautiously sweeping his flashlight beam through the darkness. Chen Luohu could reappear and attack at any time, so we proceeded with great care. I watched Yuan Xile as we walked, hoping she might give us some sign we were heading in the right direction.
The system of tunnels and passageways here was immensely complex, filled with boarded-up rooms and intersecting corridors. By now we were paying very close attention to our surroundings. This part of the dam was different than any we'd previously explored. In other places the cement walls had yellowed with age, but here they were almost entirely covered in splotches of some unknown black substance. The stuff wasn't blood and it wasn't paint. It almost seemed to have seeped out of the walls. Under the beam of my flashlight, the cement appeared dressed in a patchwork of decay. Had the base of the dam begun to corrode? We continued on, the darkness around us so quiet my hair stood on end. Eventually, we reached a fork in the road. Yuan Xile abruptly stopped. I gave her a little push, but she refused to move, her eyes remaining fixed on one of the passageways. It was black as the mouth of a cave.
"This way?" asked Wang Sichuan, but Yuan Xile made no response.
I glanced over at him. He nodded. I led her towards the opening. She didn't resist. I allowed myself a satisfied smile—it was working. I motioned to Wang Sichuan and we stepped into the darkness. Before long we were splashing through a puddle of black water. The tunnel floor was covered in it. One step might be shallow, but the next would be deep and it was growing deeper still. The water was turbid, filthy, and our every movement onl
y made it worse. Mold bloomed across the walls, its scent overpowering, and unseen objects rubbed against the bottoms of our feet. After taking several more turns, we reached the source of the water. A hole had been smashed in the cement wall, revealing a complex skeleton of rusted pipes. Water dripped from a crack in the lowest pipe. To be sure, only a small amount of water was seeping out, but after this many years, it was bound to accumulate. A boarded-up entryway stood at the end of the passageway. The water had seeped into the wood and much of it had rotted away, leaving a ragged, person-sized hole. We climbed through.
A small flooded room lay beyond. Three iron beds, piled with things indiscernible in the dark, stood amid the stagnant water. We waded over. The beds were covered in equipment bearing the marks of the Chinese engineering corps. We investigated and inside one canvas bag I discovered Yuan Xile's work diary and a book in Russian. On one of the other beds Ma Zaihai discovered a pistol. It appeared to be Yuan Xile's.
"Look for the exit!" cried Wang Sichuan.
We immediately searched the room. Yuan Xile had clearly been through here—the place was still covered in her stuff, after all—and so we assumed this was just one stop on her way out of the dam, but the place was sealed tight. The only exit was the way we'd come in. There wasn't even an air vent.
Wang Sichuan sat down on the centermost bed, his face sunk in disappointment. "Dammit!" he said, looking over at Yuan Xile. "Why the hell did you bring us here?"
She didn't respond, but neither did she look as scared as before. She climbed onto the bed Wang Sichuan was sitting on, crawled to the far end and curled into a ball, her eyes staring dazedly off to the side.
And with that our hopes vanished. Frustrated, I took several deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. It would be good to rest for a moment, I told myself.
That's when Ma Zaihai abruptly yelled out, "Food!"
Turning around, I saw he'd located several cans of food in one of the canvas rucksacks. He handed me one. I was familiar with the stuff. It was certainly a lot tastier than the condensed grain rations we'd been given. Yuan Xile and the rest of her team had been treated well. I hadn't realized how hungry I was until that moment. Without a second thought, the three of us sliced open several cans and tore into the food. After untying Yuan Xile's rope, Wang Sichuan placed a can in front of her. She didn't touch it.
I looked at the water below my feet as I ate. Several vague shapes bobbed in the watery darkness. I scooped one out. It was a can, identical to those we were eating from but empty. Reaching back down, I grabbed several more and began to count them up.
"What are you doing?" asked Wang Sichuan.
"Look how many cans there are," I said. "She must have stayed here for a long time." I paused for a moment to think about my discovery. "You see how she behaved when we first arrived? I think she sees this place as some kind of safe room, somewhere to hide out."
Ripples formed in the filthy water as I continued to dredge up the cans. By now I had piled at least 30 on the bed, forming a little mountain. They were significantly heavier than our rations. No more than five were generally assigned per person. Carry too many and your strength would drain away. It would have taken seven or eight people to carry this many. It seemed Yuan Xile hadn't been alone. The place was damp and stinking and flooded with dirty water. If they'd needed somewhere to hide out, why hadn't they chosen one of the many rooms that lined the corridor outside? I thought again of Yuan Xile's sudden disappearance from the caisson. She had fled through the darkness, probably hoping to once more hide herself here. Clearly she believed it was the safest place to be. I racked my brain but could find no explanation for her behavior. Still, mad as she was, Yuan Xile knew the dam much better than us. If she felt this room was safe, then it probably was. With that thought in mind, I finally relaxed.
The bedposts were all sunk in the water and rotted, the beds themselves tilting unsteadily and wobbling with our movements, but the place was not awful. The moist stench in the air was bearable, the temperature not overly cold. Still, this was no time to rest. After quickly finishing our meals, we smoked cigarettes and got ready to set out. By now the spy had surely discovered our escape, and there was no way to know what his next move would be. Now it would simply be a matter of who was cleverest—us or him.
Ma Zaihai grabbed several more cans of food from Yuan Xile's bag and placed them in our own. Then we refastened the rope around Yuan Xile and tried to pull her towards the door. This time she wouldn't cooperate. Pulling herself free, she scurried back to the bed and curled up. Wang Sichuan was right behind her. He picked her up like an eagle plucking a baby bird. Immediately she let out an ear-piercing scream and raked her nails against his flesh. As soon as he let go, she crawled back to the corner of the bed and began to shake. Looking at the scratch marks she'd left on his arm, Wang Sichuan grimaced in pain. His eyes flashing in anger, he grabbed her rope and was about to yank her along when I stopped him.
"Let me try," I said.
He shrugged as if he couldn't care less. Wearing my friendliest expression, I sat down beside Yuan Xile. "Engineer Yuan," I said in a soft voice, "it's time for us to leave. We are your friends and will protect you. There's nothing to fear." Yuan Xile's trembling had only grown more severe after I sat down. Now she stared at me, her face twisted into a horrible mask of terror. "It's okay," I said, "don't be afraid."
Remembering the leadership training classes I'd taken while studying in Xinjiang, I very slowly moved closer to her, then grasped her hand in mine. She had been down here for weeks, crawling through the caves, sweating in these same clothes, not bathing—she did not smell good—but her hand was still soft, smooth, and unmistakably feminine. When I held it my heart began to quiver. When one spends one's days exploring misty mountains and bushwhacking through dark forests, the mere sight of a woman is a rare treat. Relationships? Love? These things were near impossibilities. We were just happy to be around someone with two X chromosomes, even if for only a moment. And so, for these few seconds, I could barely help myself. I felt my pulse speed up and, although it was too dark for anyone to see, I'm sure I was blushing bright red. Luckily my back was to the others. Regaining my composure, I dispelled several distracting thoughts from my mind, and gently lifted Yuan Xile to her feet. Maybe it was my calm tone, I don't know, but Yuan Xile became placid, even docile. Her breathing steadied and she regarded me blankly.
Meeting her eyes, I nodded. "Trust me."
At last her shoulders relaxed, and after exchanging a glance with Wang Sichuan, I led her towards the door. Wang Sichuan and Ma Zaihai hefted their packs—all of us silent by tacit agreement—and one by one we climbed through the rotted opening and into the outer corridor. Yuan Xile made no resistance, but I didn't dare lose focus. As we stepped outside I felt her hand begin to tremble. Tightening my grip on her arm, I softly urged her along the pitch-black corridor. Suddenly, a blue-green light blinked on ahead of us, dimly illuminating our surroundings. The power appeared to be back on. The spy must have realized we were gone.
One after another, the lights that remained intact flickered to life. There were not many of them and were widely scattered. Every short, lonely stretch of light was followed by a length of utter darkness, as if the corridor were moving from day to night and back again. What a stroke of luck, I thought. Now we no longer needed to grope blindly through the blackness. We each switched off our flashlights. It was then I realized Yuan Xile's hand was shaking far more than before. I held firm, hoping to reassure her, but in a flash she threw me off, climbed back through the opening and retreated to the exact same spot on the bed as before.
This was beginning to get annoying. Wang Sichuan and I exchanged a glance. The rope was in his hands and from the look in his eyes I could tell he didn't give a damn anymore. He was going to tie her tight and drag her the whole way back if he had to. Seeing no alternative, I followed him over. That's when I heard it. Yuan Xile was speaking. At first I thought she was reciting a prayer, but, drawing closer,
I realized she was repeating the same two sentences over and over again.
"Turn off the lights," she murmured. "Ghosts live in the shadows. Turn off the lights. Ghosts live in the shadows. Turn off the lights..."
CHAPTER
11
Ghosts in the Shadows
I stared at Yuan Xile. Then I looked back at the dimly lit hallway. A shiver ran down my spine. It wasn't her words that scared me. It was her expression as she said them.
Clearly she was terrified of the lights in the hallway. Given how well she knew this place, I didn't doubt that some new danger was going to appear now that they'd been switched back on.
"Ghosts live in the shadows."
The special emissary Su Zhenhua had said almost the same thing back in the abandoned warehouse. What did it mean? What ghosts lived in the shadows? Hearing Yuan Xile's plea for us to turn off the lights, I suddenly remembered where we'd first found her. She'd been wandering through the pitch-black caverns for who knows how long, all without a flashlight or any other kind of light source to shine the way. I didn't believe in ghosts, but two people had said this same thing to us, and both had gone crazy. We'd be fools not to take it seriously.
