Darkscope

by J. Carson Black

  “Spooky,” Marie said, crossing her arms against the rushing night. Below, where the aviary rusted and moldered like an abandoned haystack, two dark shapes melted into the brush.

  “Faggots!” Jack spat, and Marie looked at him sharply. She had never heard that tone before. She shivered.

  A breeze sprang up and last year’s leaves scudded across the cement like brittle nails scratching against parched skin. Marie noticed that Jack was sweating, and he looked frightened.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing. I just don’t like zoos. Let’s get out of here.” He nodded to the undergrowth where the two men had gone. “This is one of their favorite meeting spots,” he added with disgust. “Come on.” He led Marie up one of the paths that honeycombed the hills. They reached the first stand of trees when Marie held back.

  “Only a little farther,” Jack coaxed.

  “I don’t know,” Marie said doubtfully. “It’s so lonely here. I thought we’d just take a short walk, then maybe go to a restaurant. I kind of feel like celebrating.”

  Anger simmered in Jack, rising almost to a boiling point. Watch it, he told himself. Don’t blow it now. “Just over this rise,” he said, his voice thick.

  “Jack. What’s the matter with—”

  He closed her mouth with a long kiss, winding his fingers in her hair, resisting the urge to cause her pain by pulling it. “Remember,” he whispered in her ear, “Remember that first night? That could be what did it.” His voice sounded dry as the leaves from the zoo. He wondered if she noticed. “Not far from this spot.”

  Marie’s expression softened. “I was thinking that myself. The first time.” She followed him willingly after that. He stopped occasionally to let her catch her breath. Once, while she was looking out at the city lights, he picked up a rock and hefted it.

  “Somewhere up here,” he said, following the path to another stand of trees. “Wasn’t it?” He held the rock in one hand, shielded by his body.

  “I don’t know. It all looked the same.” He could tell she was tiring of this adventure. He would have to act soon. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the zoo.

  The zoo had spooked him. He’d been here before, and it had never bothered him. After all, the animals were long gone. But suddenly he’d smelled that rank odor, that wild animal smell, and the memory had blotted out every other thought. He’d very nearly lost sight of what he was doing.

  But he had gotten control of himself. That was the important thing.

  “It’s so dark,” Marie said.

  “Romantic,” Jack replied, holding her hand more firmly.

  Almost there, he thought. Almost there . . .

  “Let’s go back,” Marie said. Jack detected a note of fear in her voice. It came out in a whine.

  “Soon,” he promised. He looked around him, straining his eyes against the darkness. Were there any late hikers in the area? Any lovers finding a dark place to be alone?

  No one.

  Marie pulled her hand away. “I’m going back,” she announced. “You can come if you want.” She started down the trail, and Jack saw all his dreams go with her.

  “Wait!” He caught up with her and pulled her around, careful to keep his body between her and the rock in his fist. “There was a reason to bring you here,” he said, thinking quickly. “I thought we might make love, a kind of . . . sacrament. To our marriage.”

  “Jack, that’s beautiful.”

  Jack looked over his shoulder at the oaks to their left, saw the black swatch of shadow. Now or never.

  Marie followed him to the oak stand.

  This was the moment. Jack’s heart beat so fast that he thought he was dying. His heart seemed to be everywhere, throbbing in his head, in his stomach, in his groin. It threatened to come up his throat, threatened to jam itself up against the back of his tongue and stop him from breathing. He swallowed a couple of times.

  “Jack?” Marie’s eyes were questioning.

  He imagined them lifeless.

  He couldn’t do it. He would let her go. He would tell her he didn’t love her. If she was pregnant, well, tough. He would tell her to piss off.

  And spare her life.

  Sweat was running into his eyes. She was asking him if he was sick. He tried to unstick his tongue from his lips, already picturing the scene that would ensue. You said you’d marry me! she’d whine. Her bleating already hurting his ears.

  No guts, sonny. I don’t have ‘em, an’ you don’t either. The old man, his eyes glittering like black raisins. Shaking his taloned finger, broken, yellowed nail and all, that smug know-it-all look on his face.

  Anger, thick like bile, rose in Jack’s throat. Hammered through his veins, sent bursts of adrenaline to his extremities. He flexed the fingers of his left hand, felt their power. Tightened his grip on the rock behind his back.

  “Jack?”

  Tell her you don’t love her. Let her go. It’s your last chance.

  No sound. Hushed stillness.

  “I love you,” Jack said softly.

  Her voice was petulant. “I wish you’d brought a blanket.”

  Her eyes registered surprise—no, more like puzzlement as he brought the rock down on her head with all the force he could muster. She made a choking sound and collapsed in the grass. Blood welled up from the wound near her hairline. A hand reached out, skittered in the dry earth, then fell limp.

  It was better to be safe than sorry. Jack hit her several times. It was easy to do, because he hated her so much. This was what she got for trying to trap him, for trying to spoil his chances for a good life. She deserved it. Every last stroke. Each time the rock connected there was a thud and a squish, and he liked the sound and liked the power in his arms. Fury coursed through his veins and mingled with his pleasure at the sound, and soon he was hitting her because his arms couldn’t stop.

  And then—just as quickly—his anger abated, his arms weakened. He heaved the rock as far as he could and looked down at what was left of Marie. Heart thudding, he dragged her deeper into the brush and covered her with branches he pulled down from the tree. He went down another path to the zoo, standing for a moment at the lip of the tunnel where the steps led down to an underground exhibit.

  He stood quite still, sniffing the air. No animal smell.

  He should get out of here. No telling if there were people (faggots!) in the bushes below, watching him. But Jack felt there was no hurry. It seemed that at this moment, no one could touch him. No one could hurt him. He was invincible. He felt . . . exalted.

  I did it. I did what I had to do.

  No one was in the clearing. Jack stood at the edge of a large slab of cement, pushing the dirt away from some spray-painted graffiti with the toe of his shoe. Raul loves Marco.

  He kicked the dirt back over. The moon seemed inordinately bright all of a sudden, blanching the littered foundations.

  This place must have been built a long time ago. In his mind’s eye, he could see the lion’s cage, as it must have been new, with a pacing, angry cat inside. Its buttery tail would twitch, and when it opened its jaws, the roar would thunder through the park.

  Painfully bright, the memory of that day filled his mind. He remembered the man’s screams, the sickening sound of a bone breaking: snap! Just like that.

  Off to the left, he heard a rushing sound. Furtive, slinking. Like a big cat.

  His heart pounded painfully in his chest. But the exhilaration—of doing it—made him brave. He shook his head. Imagination, that was all it was.

  Jack hurried down to the car. He was confident that no one would find Marie’s body for a long time. And when they did, the papers would call it just another senseless Los Angeles murder. God knows, there were enough of them.

  And Jack could get on with his plan.

  Eighteen

  “I wouldn’t have figured you for the New Age type.”

  Involuntarily, her arm came out to cover the stack of books on the table before her.

>   “Self-conscious?” Ben sat down opposite her, his expression vaguely predatory.

  “Shhh!” An older woman in the corner of the library glared at Ben. Grinning, he gave her the thumbs-up sign.

  I’m busy,” Chelsea said.

  “I can see that. Quite an eclectic reading selection you’ve got there. Parapsychology in the Modem World. Hauntings: an Anthology of the Weird. The History of Photography. Tintypes: An Anthology of Antique Cameras.” He nodded to the photographs on the tables beside the books. “Now I get it. It’s a new wrinkle in modem art. You tint the photographs and sell them. Am I right?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure, that’s it. You’re an artist.” He leaned forward. “What do you do? Travel around the country and sell them at craft fairs? I have to admit, you’ve got to have a steady hand. That’s close work.”

  Chelsea stared at Ben. “Are you out of your mind? I’ll tell you one more time. I found these pictures. I’m as mystified by them as you are. Maybe somebody did tint them, but it wasn’t me! And how do you know I’m an artist?”

  “I asked around.”

  “And what, pray tell, do you do for a living? Spy on people?”

  “I run a stud farm.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He handed her a card. It said: THE SARUM PARTNERSHIP—CABALLO ROJO FARM—BEN FLETCHER AND FRANK CARRERA OWNERS—TRAKEHNERS AND THOROUGHBREDS.

  “A stud farm,” Chelsea said.

  Ben shrugged. “I let Sarum, my stallion, do most of the work.”

  I’ll bet you do,” Chelsea said dryly. “Now if you don’t mind—”

  He pointed at the top photograph. “Who is she?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “What did you do, find the negatives somewhere and decide to get them developed?”

  Exasperated, Chelsea demanded, “Does it make a difference?”

  “I guess not.” He studied the picture. “Local girl, I’d say. This looks like the early 1940s. Why do you want to know who she is?”

  “I’m curious.”

  He dropped the snapshot on the table. “I bet I know someone who’d know. Could you let me have one of these pictures?”

  Chelsea hesitated. Why not? If it would help her discover the girl’s identity . . . She handed him the photograph on top. “Be careful with it. It’s one of a kind.”

  They exchanged phone numbers. After Ben left, she turned back to the books.

  She’d learned from her reading so far that sometimes (if you believed this junk) an inanimate object could be possessed by a malevolent spirit, like the Plymouth Fury in Stephen King’s Christine.

  I should count my blessings, she thought. At least I’m not in danger of being run down by a box camera.

  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Gary said. “I don’t like signing a release.” Chelsea poked him in the back. “Come on, Mr. Intrepid, you’re holding up the line.”

  The Copper Queen Mine Tours was housed in a metal barn of a building. Gary and Chelsea filed in a human assembly line between a long counter and shelved walls; a miner at each stage outfitted them with slickers, battery packs, and helmets.

  “I just hope it’s safe.” Gary worried the thought like a puppy with a shoe.

  “Thousands of people come through here every year,” Chelsea replied as a tour guide belted the battery pack around her waist and draped the attached light over her shoulder.

  “As long as thousands come out.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ve got these things.” She gestured to the metal tag pinned to his slicker. These tags had been issued to every person on the tour, to ensure that everyone was accounted for at the tour’s end.

  Chelsea, for one, was glad to think about something else. She had spent hours with the parapsychology books, but her skepticism grew as she read them. Perhaps the paranormal approach fell short because it tried to explain something that the hairs on the back of her neck told her was just plain weird.

  Chelsea decided that the best thing to do was make sure the dark-haired woman really existed. She would take the photographs around town and see if they rang a bell with anyone.

  So why wasn’t she out there right now, pounding the pavement? Admittedly, it had been easy to put off her plan for the day. First of all, she didn’t relish lying to people about where she’d found the snapshots. And it would be nice to shut the door on the maelstrom of theories whirling around in her mind, even if that respite only lasted for the duration of the mine tour.

  The corrugated tin door rattled open, and the party trudged briefly into the sunlight and then into the mine.

  As they walked single-file along the ore cart tracks, Chelsea was amazed at how quickly the cold air seeped into her bones. She shoved her hands into her pockets. The only sounds were footfalls on wet sand and an occasional dripping of water on limestone. Dark walls of jagged rock loomed up on either side, shiny in places from the water. Chelsea’s breath came shallowly; a fine, wet dust penetrated her lungs.

  The tour guide led the group up wooden steps opening into a large cavern, called a stope. This was an area where the miners had drilled and blasted. When they were finished, they left a hole deep in the bowels of the mountain. Multiply it by seven levels, countless stopes on each level, and the result was a hill with the consistency of Swiss cheese. Fortunately, many holes were filled in with concrete. It didn’t take a genius to realize that working underground was dangerous and—Chelsea coughed at the musty odor blanketing her throat and nostrils—uncomfortable.

  She stood at the wooden rail, peering into a pit filled with jumbled rocks.

  “See those shiny specks in that rock there? That’s silica.” The tour guide’s light played over the rock surface above. “In the early days, they didn’t have water in the compressors to wet down the dust, so the miners would breathe in the silica. A lot of them died of silicosis.”

  I can see why! Chelsea’s throat was raw. She hugged the slicker tighter around her shoulders. It was fifty degrees in here.

  “Let me tell you about the rats. There was a rule in the mine: never kill a rat. The miners used to feed them, because the rats could tell if there was going to be a cave-in or a fire. They’d get out of here in a hurry, and every miner knew that if he saw the rats run, he better be right behind them. When I first started to work underground, I was over in another mine, only that mine wasn’t cold like this one. It was almost a hundred degrees . . .” The singsong Hispanic voice faded away, like a bad radio signal. Chelsea felt a sudden jolt at the base of her skull. The helmet seemed to press in on her tightly, like a vise. The odor of freshly turned dirt, heavy with silica dust, filled her nostrils.

  “What—” The helmet pressed into her forehead relentlessly. Chelsea flailed her arms, unable to retain her equilibrium. She felt as if a flock of blackbirds were beating their wings around her head.

  Darkness swarmed before her eyes, almost palpable, and fear gripped Chelsea like a cold fist.

  Her vision cleared.

  Everyone was gone!

  Heart thumping, Chelsea realized that the cavern was darker, smaller. Rising up around her was a network of timbers forming squares high enough for her to stand in, joists flush with the rock face above. She recognized them. Square sets. She’d read about square sets; they were used to reinforce a stope where miners were working.

  “Chelsea? What’s wrong?” Gary’s voice came from beside her. She felt a tug at her elbow and saw out of the corner of her eye that the yellow slickers and lights were back. Gary said something else, but his voice was muffled, as if her ears were submerged in water.

  “I can’t hear . . .” Chelsea turned to talk to Gary, but he wasn’t there. In Gary’s place stood a man in a suit wearing a scarred, black helmet. Attached to the helmet was a big, round light. The light was much brighter than her own, and a blue flame flickered through a small pinhole in the center, accompanied by a slight hissing sound. Uncle Bob had shown her
a lamp like it once before, had demonstrated how it worked. It was a carbide lamp, and they hadn’t been used in mines for at least forty years.

  Behind her, Chelsea heard the tour guide speaking. “Okay, folks, we’re going back down to the tunnel. Watch your step.”

  Chelsea peered over at the stope’s entrance, where the steps started. People were obediently funneling into the narrow opening. The square sets flickered eerily. One moment they looked solid; the next, merely gray outlines.

  I should go with them, she thought. I should get out of here. But she couldn’t move.

  “If we step up copper production now, we’ll be ready if and when we go to war.” The voice came from where Gary had been only moments before.

  “Excuse me?” she asked, turning to face a second man, who seemed familiar even in the darkness—staring right through her. His suit was pin-striped and double-breasted, a handkerchief neatly folded in his breast pocket. The jacket had padded shoulders and was covered with a fine powdering of dust. It was too dark to see his face clearly, but Chelsea sensed that she was on the verge of recognizing him.

  “We’re still recuperating from the slump.” The other voice chilled Chelsea’s blood. This was the first man she had seen, and now she could see his features better. His face was like a mask, stiff and tight-lipped. He had taken his hat off and was smoothing his hair. The hair was parted in the middle and shot through with grey. Chelsea had seen him before, too, but she couldn’t place him.

  Chelsea’s gaze darted back to the cave entrance. With relief she saw that the people in yellow slickers milled not twenty feet away. Some were standing by the rails, aiming their lights at the ceiling, waiting their turn to walk down the steps. Their shadows drifted like ghosts between the forest of wooden beams.