by Sean Little
Shaw looked over her shoulder at Clarke. He shrugged. She frowned. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“Everyone is scared,” said Clarke.
“It’s worse than that. There’s something wrong in this town.”
Csupo stopped in front of a small tavern. Like many taverns in England, a wooden board with the name of the place hung over the door, but Clarke couldn’t read Romanian. Judging by the weathered painting beneath the name, Clarke would have called this pub “The Crying Pig.”
“You’ll find the path to the cave where the woods begin that way,” said Csupo pointing toward the pub. “It’s easy enough to find. It is well worn. The woodsmen used to use it every day.”
Shaw climbed down from the wagon and shouldered her pack. “We’ll be fine, I’m sure.”
Clarke climbed off the wagon and grabbed his things. Clarke was keenly aware they were being watched. He could see faces pressed to the cracks of shutters, staring at them. The door to the Crying Pig opened and a swarthy, heavyset man in a bar apron and a shirt that once was probably white, but was now a curious mixture of stains and gray. He shouted what sounded like a friendly greeting to Csupo in Romanian, and Csupo replied back, pointing at Shaw and Clarke. The barman listened for a moment and then nodded. He held open the door to his pub and beckoned Clarke and Shaw inside.
“Mr. Petran will take you to the forest edge,” said Csupo. “He doesn’t speak English, though.”
“We only require directions,” said Shaw. “I’m sure our lack of communication won’t be a problem. You may return to the castle and help the others ready the place to receive visitors. Although,” Shaw looked up and down the empty street, “I wonder how many people will actually brave the trip tomorrow.”
“If they won’t come to Bobbins, we will have to bring him to the village,” said Clarke.
“We will cross the bridge when we come to it.”
Clarke and Shaw followed Mr. Petran through his tavern and out his back door into a small alleyway. He led them through a path between houses and small sheds that housed horses or cows to the edge of the woods. A large milling saw stood silent next to a steam boiler that powered it. The fires had long been out, letting the machine grow cold. A stack of cordwood waiting to be cut stood next to the machine.
“Strange that they aren’t cutting lumber,” said Shaw. “I would think that the noise of the saw would keep animals away. Even werewolves.”
“I think some of the men probably would be if their wives and children would allow it.”
Petran showed them the path entrance. Years of foot traffic had worn away any sort of vegetation and the path had been trodden smooth and hard as stone over the centuries. Clarke and Shaw walked past Petran, but he stopped them. He put a meaty hand on their shoulders. A very serious look came over his face. He said something slowly in Romanian and kissed them both on the cheek. He turned and left without another word.
“Should we be worried?” asked Clarke.
“Men in Europe kiss all the time.”
“Not about that, about the ominous warning he just gave us.”
“Do you speak Romanian, Mr. Clarke?”
“I do not.”
“How do you know it was a warning?”
“I’ve heard enough of those speeches. They’re the same the world over.”
It was an hour and change of walking through dense, old-growth forest before they came to the end of the woodsman’s path. Throughout, there was evidence of trees carefully selected and taken by lumberjacks, and paths that lead into different directions off the main path. The trail ended in an open spot where trees had been felled and never replaced. It was a quiet, sunny spot for the men to take their lunches before going back to work. At the far side of the open area was a harder-to-spot path, a game trail that deer might use.
Clarke led the way down the trail, hacking through shrubs with his knife when necessary. This section of the forest was darker than the section they had just passed. The canopy overhead was thick and blocked the sun almost entirely. The shadows were heavy and black in this section. This area had not benefited from years of pruning and trimming by skilled woodsmen. Maybe someday they would get to this section, but with so much forest to take, maybe they wouldn’t.
Clarke and Shaw spoke to each other only when necessary. Both tried to be as quiet as possible. They listened to the forest. They listened for anything that sounded wrong. They listened for fast movement through the brush.
Clarke felt unsettled. Nervous. He wasn’t one to get nervous. When he was fifteen and facing down a Confederate charge, he’d made his peace with God, the universe, and everything else. He’d said to himself, If I die, I die, and he’d meant it. After that, fearing death wasn’t something upon which he spent time dwelling. It seemed a waste of his time and his soul to worry about something over which he had no control and couldn’t avoid in the end, so he just stopped worrying. Now, that unfamiliar sensation of worry was creeping hard into his chest and stomach. The proverbial butterflies flitted through his body from neck to groin. He started to feel eyes upon him, as if the forest itself was watching him. He didn’t say anything to Shaw, of course. He bit his tongue and kept silent.
They plunged through the forest for another hour before stopping for a short break. Shaw broke out the canteens and they both drank. She handed Clarke a piece of bread and a few slices of soft, white cheese. They ate in silence and drank again.
Shaw repacked the food and shouldered her ruck once again. She was the one to finally break the silence. “I don’t feel well,” she said.
“Sick?”
“Not sick. Just…not well.”
“I don’t feel very well myself,” said Clarke. “I think this place is getting to us.”
Shaw wiped sweat from her forehead. Her right hand rested on the pistol in her holster. “So much darkness. It’s not right.”
Twigs snapped to the east and both people spun, drawing guns as they did. A deer saw the movement and bounded away through the trees. Clarke lowered the Winchester. “Stupid animal.”
“Let us press on,” said Shaw. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave.”
They continued their walk, but Shaw never put away her pistol. She kept it clutched in her right hand as she walked.
The cave mouth was a leering wound in the side of a craggy rock race. This was no mine entrance, carved and smoothed from use and tools; this was a pit in the earth, formed from time and pressure. It was impossible to miss once they reached the base of the mountain, but just seeing it made Clarke want to turn and go. It was as natural as air and water, but it didn’t look it or feel it.
The scene of the girl’s murder was clear enough. There was still blood staining the rocks. Whatever memorial she had intended to leave there for her father was not there. A few paces further was a slightly faded blood stain, the spot where the hunter met his demise. The blood was still strangely red. Clarke had seen enough blood stains darkened and browned by time to know that it wasn’t real blood. It was a good likeness to fresh blood, but now, days later, it was plain that it wasn’t real. Why would someone stage a bloody mess like that?
“You see that?” Clarke pointed at the stains. “Not real.”
“Quite,” said Shaw. “Curious.”
Clarke dropped to a knee before the cave mouth and started taking out the lanterns and rope.
“You look worried,” said Shaw.
Clarke tossed her a length of thick hemp. “And you’re not? I ain’t claustrophobic, but it doesn’t mean I’m a fan of caves.”
“I was trapped overnight in a cave once when I was a child. Horrible experience. I still have nightmares about it.”
“How do you get trapped in a cave?”
Shaw lit the two lanterns with a match and waved the stick until the fire ceased. “You have a vindictive older sister with a serious cruel streak.”
“Sounds lovely,” said Clarke.
“Do you have siblings, Mr. Clarke?”
“Clarke slung a length of rope over his neck for easy access. “Had a brother when I was a kid. Haven’t seen him since I went to war. He might be dead now, for all I know.”
“Be glad. In my experience, they’re not worth the trouble.” There was a cold finality to her statement. Clarke knew better than to press for more information.
They gathered their things and moved into the opening of the cave mouth. The second they passed the mouth, Clarke felt panic rising in his body. This wasn’t the light anxiety he’d been feeling; this was a thick and hearty fear, one that rattled him. He was not a man who knew fear easily. The cave was frightening.
But why? Clarke thought. He’d been in caves before. They hadn’t shaken him to his core. This cave was making him rethink stepping foot into it simply by existing.
Behind him, Clarke heard Shaw give a loud gasp. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t go in.” Clarke turned to see her running for the trees. He followed to make sure she didn’t do something rash.
Shaw fell to her knees at the edge of the woods. She dropped her lantern and broke as it fell. The kerosene splashed onto Shaw, soaked the pine needles and detritus, and quickly caught flame. Shaw rolled away from the flames before they could catch her clothing and Clarke ran into the burgeoning flames and stomped them out with his boots before they could spread further. He ventured into the woods, found a pile of damp leaves and mud, and dropped it over the smolder, snuffing it out.
Shaw was leaning back against a tree. She clutched her coat around herself and sniffed. “I guess that wasn’t precisely who I wanted to be at that moment.” She wiped the back of her wrist against her eyes. “Stupid, isn’t it? To be scared of a cave.”
Clarke sank to his haunches before her. “Lady, if you hadn’t bolted just then, I would have a second later.”
“Stop trying to make me feel better. It doesn’t suit you.”
“I wasn’t kidding,” said Clarke. “I was two steps from pissing down my leg, I think.”
Shaw gave a half-laugh, half-sob. She sniffed back more tears and fought to regain her composure. “Honestly, stop it. I don’t need your comfort. I was just having flashbacks to that night in the cave from my childhood, and then the cave itself was just—”
“Terrifying,” said Clarke. “I know. I was scared to death.”
“Why? Were you ever trapped in a cave?”
“No, that’s just it: I wasn’t.”
Shaw’s face morphed back into her standard serious, calm expression. “You were scared? Of this cave?”
“Like I was a little boy back being scared of the monsters in the dark.”
Shaw held out a hand, and Clarke helped her back to her feet. “That’s not right,” she said. “One of us being scared beyond belief makes sense. But both of us?” She walked past Clarke, moving toward the cave. “Did it feel like you were entering a jelly made of fear?”
Clarke nodded. “I guess that’s as good a description of it as anything. It was like there was a tangible fear surrounding me. I’ve never felt anything else like it.”
“Like some sort of…magic.” Shaw jogged back toward the mouth of the cave. She held out her hands as if searching for wall she couldn’t see. “I can feel it. Can you feel it?”
The sense of fear was palpable, but at a certain point near the mouth of the cave it intensified. Clarke could feel it like a buzzing on his fingertips. He pressed into the cave and felt the fear envelop him like a blanket. It was everywhere, a skittery, dancing energy that made his bowels clench and his heart beat faster. Clarke backed out of the cave. He was sweating.
“What is it? It ain’t natural,” said Clarke.
“That is what we must discover,” said Shaw.
Buoyed by the discovery of the energy field, Clarke and Shaw pressed into the cave once again. This time, they made it several steps before the fear became overwhelming. Knowledge of what they were facing helped, but the physical ramifications of the field were harder to overcome. The energy field, the magic—whatever it was—wreaked havoc with their bodies. Their muscles twitched. Their guts churned. They began to sweat.
“It’s not real,” Clarke said more for his own benefit than Shaw’s. “It’s not real.”
“Press on then,” said Shaw. “I’m right behind you.”
Clarke held his lantern aloft, casting its meager light into the abyss. Every shadow became a demon waiting to kill them. Every crevice was a black void.
Thirty yards into the tunnel, it began to descend at a strong angle. The decline helped blot out what little light was coming from the mouth of the cave and put Clarke and Shaw into heavier darkness. The ceiling declined severely and the walls seemed to shrink inward, giving them barely enough room to stand and walk normally. A heavy sense of claustrophobia crept on them. The fear only intensified. Clarke knew the Winchester wouldn’t help him in these close quarters. He tied the gun to his ruck with a length of rope and went with the long-barreled Colt revolver for protection instead. The heavy gun felt solid and comforting in his hand. He’d seen what a Colt at close range could do to a man. It wasn’t pretty. He liked his odds against a werewolf with the Colt on his side.
When the tunnel leveled flat again, Clarke noticed footprints in the dust. He knelt and illuminated them with the lantern. The footprints were long, too long for a man’s foot. There was pads on the foot that pressed into the dirt and the hint of claws at tips of the long, finger-like toes. Clarke had never seen any animal make tracks like that.
The tunnel split into two at the end of the decline, as well. “Which way?” said Clarke.
“Which way feels the scariest?”
Clarke moved down the left corridor, and then the right. The buzzy fear sensations were stronger down the right. There were also footprints heading down the right corridor. They went right.
In the dark, moving slowly in such a confined space, it was nearly impossible to tell how far they had gone. A few feet felt like a mile. The cave was nearly silent, too. All sound died a dozen feet in from the cave mouth, and only the muffled sounds of their steps and their gear made noise that was quickly snuffed out in the cool, dead air inside the cave.
It was Shaw who broke first, which surprised Clarke. He thought he would have broken, given how the fear was making him feel. Sweat-drenched and trembling, Shaw fell to her knees. “I can’t go on.”
“It’s in your head,” Clarke reached out to her, but she swatted his hand away.
“I physically can’t go on,” she said. “I know it’s in my head, but this force—it’s physical, too. It’s crippling me.”
They only had the one lantern. Clarke had wood and pitch in his ruck to make a crude torch. He broke it out and quickly assembled a simple light for her, lighting it on the lantern flame. The wild flame on the end of the torch danced and threw even more shadows. Shaw took the torch from him. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll push on further, and then come back for you.”
“What if—”
“Shoot. Shoot a lot. I’ll come back as fast as I can. I just want to see where this goes.” Clarke turned to go further into the tunnel.
“Clarke?”
He stopped and turned to look back at Shaw. “Yes?”
“Hurry.”
It was the first time he’d ever seen the woman look vulnerable. When they’d run from the cave the first time, there was a simmering strength to her fear. Now, there was just an innocence to it. Clarke wondered if it was genuine or merely influenced by whatever this penetrating fear-force was. He didn’t think a woman like Shaw could be vulnerable. He nodded at her, but couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
The tunnel continued to wind and list its way down. It was a natural cave, formed by nature, not miners, and it meandered deeper into the earth than Clarke would have thought possible. He followed the footprints when he could, and pressed against the fear-force when there were no prints to follow. When he thought he was going to collapse himself, when the sensations were the strongest, the
tunnel simply ended. There was a small, round cavern at the end of the tunnel and that was all. There were beastly footprints all around the cavern, but nothing else.
Clarke squatted in the center of the room, feeling the buzz and roil of the fear-force. He cast the lantern light over the floor. Something glinted in the dust and rock. Something metal. Clarke moved toward it, sifting it from the dust. It was a thin metal cog with almost no rust, its teeth worn slightly from use. There was no reason for a manufactured mechanical part to be that deep in a natural cave.
Clarke pocketed the cog and went back to Shaw. He helped her walk back toward the entrance until she regained control of her legs.
He went back and explored the right corridor until it came to its natural end. There was a considerable crack in the stone at the end of the corridor. Clarke used his lantern to shine light into it. He could tell there was a cavern beyond the crack, but couldn’t tell how large it was. The small crevice was much too narrow for even a beanpole of a human to slide through, so Clarke discounted it. Two dead-ends.
And a shiny metal cog.
CHAPTER SIX
The Primar Meets His People
Clarke and Shaw made it out of the cave without incident. In the dimming light of the late afternoon, they had to refrain from shouting with joy, feeling somewhat free of the choking cloak of the fear force for the first time in hours. They could still feel the unsettling presence, but in the woods away from the cave it was hardly a thought after they’d been facing it down all day.
