Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds

by Fiction River

  “You don’t think this thing that’s visiting your kitchen is a killer, do you?” Retsler asked.

  “Naw. It’s been coming here since we reopened. It gets mad, but it don’t hurt anyone.”

  “But it causes damage,” Retsler said.

  “Some,” Stanley said. “Don’t think we need to waste your time catching it.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about catching it.” Retsler tried not to shudder. He’d actually touched some of the supernatural creatures he’d seen on the coast, and he didn’t want to touch any of them again. “However, if it is a ghost, we might be able to put it to rest. I’ve helped with that before.”

  “I don’t think it’s a ghost,” Stanley said. He looked pointedly at Ron. “I know some of the others think it’s one of them poltergeists, but I don’t. I can’t find nothing about anyone what died in that kitchen.”

  “What about on the land before the kitchen was built?” Bronly asked, with enough force in her tone to make Retsler realize she had asked this before.

  “Naw, nothing,” Stanley said. “Not even a worker died while putting this thing up, and considering all the problems the WPA guys had sometimes, and the fact that nobody thought anybody what worked up here was worth much, that’s kinda surprising. They had to snowshoe out, you know.”

  “What?” Retsler asked.

  “Freak September blizzard. We’re high enough to get that kinda thing once in a blue moon.” Stanley cut more pie.

  The waitress came by with both burgers. She set them down with a flourish. Retsler’s looked fat and juicy and damn near perfect, like burgers he’d had as a kid.

  “They ran out of supplies,” Stanley said as the waitress walked away, “and no one could get to ’em. So they had to snowshoe out. All of them come back, though. Brought supplies up with a sled. Finished the job. “

  “Back in the days when men were men and sheep were nervous,” Bronly muttered so softly that only Retsler could hear her. He was glad he hadn’t taken a bite of burger. He would have choked on it as he stifled his laugh.

  “So,” he said to Stanley, “no one died here that you know of.”

  “That’s right,” Stanley said.

  Retsler picked up the burger. Juice dripped along his fingers. He took a bite. The burger was better than he expected, marinated in something before it was placed on that grill.

  “What about in the Caves?” Retsler asked. “Anyone die in there that fits the description of this guy—or whatever?”

  “Cook’s kid or a cook?” Stanley asked.

  “Or someone who wanted to be chef, or maybe a tourist?”

  “Hell,” Stanley said, “lots of people have died in those Caves, more than the Park Service wants us to admit.”

  “All before the Park Service took over,” Bronly said primly. She clearly didn’t want Retsler to think something bad could happen in the Caves. Or maybe she was still protecting the area’s reputation.

  “Most of ’em did die before anyone kept records,” Stanley said. “And the ones we know about got written up in the papers. But I figure lots of folks got killed and left wherever. You know, they died deep inside, got stuck or something, couldn’t get out, never was heard from again.”

  “The Caves still haven’t all been mapped, even now,” Bronly said. “Although I’ve never heard of anyone finding a skeleton inside one.”

  “But if there are other creatures living in the Cave…?” Retsler let his voice trail off.

  Both Stanley and Bronly looked at him. He immediately regretted the choice of the word “creatures.”

  “I mean,” he said, “you know, cougars, raccoons, rats, anything going in and out that might feast on a carcass. Something like that might mess with the bones as well. You wouldn’t find any then.”

  “Well.” Stanley ostentatiously ate the last piece of pie, chewing and talking at the same time. “Things get ate all the time up there. And we do find bones, just not human bones, so far as I know.”

  Retsler ate some of his burger, thinking.

  “So,” he said after a moment, “what you’re telling me is that we have no idea if someone died in those Caves who had a connection to this hotel or this land, and we have no way of finding out.”

  “I don’t think it’s a ghost,” Stanley repeated.

  “Why not?” Retsler asked.

  “Don’t act like a ghost,” Stanley said.

  “A stereotypical ghost,” Bronly corrected.

  “No,” Stanley said. “A ghost. We got ’em all over the hotel. You know, folks die in their rooms or whatever. We got ghosts, we got stories, and this one, it don’t repeat actions like ghosts do, and it don’t seem stuck in the past like ghosts are. It interacts. That’s why I don’t think it’s harmful. I just think it’s young.”

  Retsler looked at Stanley. “Young? What do you mean young?”

  “It acts like a kid. It tosses stuff around that it doesn’t like. It gets angry when you tell it no. But it watches, like it’s learning.”

  Retsler set down the last part of his burger. “When you were looking at the Caves this afternoon, when you were talking to me, what did you see?”

  “I told you. I didn’t see nothing.”

  “The area looked normal, then,” Retsler said.

  “I didn’t say that neither.”

  Bronly leaned around Retsler. “If you saw something, Stanley, tell us about it.”

  “I didn’t see nothing,” Stanley said with the same emphasis as before.

  Retsler frowned. The key to talking with people, he had always thought, was listening. And he hadn’t been listening.

  “What kind of nothing?” he asked.

  “You know,” Stanley said. “Like fog. Like a cloud rolled in over the mountain, but just for a minute. Then everything was clear again. It wasn’t nothing.”

  That’s right, Retsler thought. It wasn’t nothing. It was something. But he didn’t speak out loud. He didn’t want to derail Stanley.

  “Where was this fog?” Retsler asked.

  “Right near the gate.” Stanley gave Bronly a perplexed look. “You know what I mean. We get that kind a thing all the time up here.”

  “Not in the summer,” she said. “Fog’s for fall.”

  “Or spring,” Stanley said. “We got lots of ground fog in the spring.”

  Ground fog. Retsler mulled that over for a moment. Oregon had all kinds of fog that he hadn’t encountered since he’d left. Montana didn’t have nearly as much fog because it didn’t have as much moisture in the atmosphere.

  Fog, ground fog, light fog, freezing fog.

  Freezing fog.

  Something that should have been impossible up here in these temperatures. Like ice cold footprints. Like a childish figure that overturned tables and handed cooking ingredients to a chef.

  He went back to ground fog for just a moment. He hadn’t seen any in years, but he remembered it clearly. It always looked like it was seeping out of the ground, not forming in the air around the ground. He’d always thought ground fog spooky and Halloweenish, like something out of a Vincent Price movie or out of a Scottish ghost story.

  Covering the ground. Brushing the ground.

  Hiding footprints—his and the ice prints. Covering. Brushing. Hiding.

  “Dammit,” he said softly.

  “What?” Bronly asked.

  “Do you have a book of local legends?” Retsler asked.

  “Upstairs,” Stanley said as if he’d been waiting for Retsler to ask. “Gift shop.”

  “All right then. I’ll go check those books out.” But Retsler didn’t leave immediately. He had to finish that spectacular hamburger first.

  ***

  The gift shop was in a room just off the registration desk. The room had beautiful wood walls, so lovely that no one dared hang anything on them except photographs and single t-shirts on hangers. The rest of the merchandise stood on freestanding displays. Snacks, sundries, and local jams covered one display. A large art portfolio
filled the area farthest from the window, and the clothing hung on racks in the middle of the room.

  It took Retsler a moment to see the books. They were on built-in shelves behind the cash register.

  The woman behind the register gave him a friendly smile. “Go ahead,” she said in a tone that told him other customers had hesitated to go back there as well.

  He did. The store carried some mass market paperbacks, some used books, and a whole bunch of local color. Books on the Oregon Caves, books on the Park Service, books on Southern Oregon, and books on the great lodges of the Northwest dominated. He saw a few books on the WPA plus a film of the building of the hotel. Then he saw the books that Stanley had mentioned, huddled together like forgotten children on the bottom shelf.

  Retsler crouched, then sighed.

  Ghosts of the Northwest, Oregon Folklore, Monsters of the Mountains—he’d seen all of these before. He hadn’t really looked at them with Marble Village or the Chalet in mind, but he didn’t trust the authors of these tomes as far as he could throw them.

  But Stanley had recommended them, so maybe there was a kernel of truth in them.

  “You’re the new police chief?” the woman asked.

  Retsler grabbed the Monsters book. It was covered with dust.

  “We haven’t gotten that far yet,” he said, knowing it was a lie. He’d already told Bronly he wouldn’t take the job, but he didn’t feel he should confide in this woman.

  “I’ll bet you Stanley sent you here, didn’t he?” the woman said. “He thinks those books have truths in them.”

  “You don’t?” Retsler opened the Monster book. Just like he remembered: hand-drawn images and tiny type. He had tried to read this thing once and hadn’t been able to.

  “Oh, they have little bits in them,” she said, “but nothing like what really goes on up here.”

  Retsler set the book down, wiped his hands on his pants, and stood. He hadn’t expected her to say anything like that. He had expected her to tell him that Stanley was a bit nuts, that he imagined all kinds of things.

  “What goes on up here?” Retsler asked, looking at the woman carefully.

  She was middle-aged, carrying just enough weight to make her seem matronly. Her hair was going gray but hadn’t gotten there yet. When it did, someone would describe the color as gun-metal gray. Right now, it dulled her red-brown hair. She’d spent too much time in the sun, judging by the faint wrinkles on her skin, and her current tan. But she had spectacular green eyes. She hadn’t been a beauty in her day, but she had turned heads.

  She said, “You’re asking about the child in the kitchens, aren’t you?”

  “You think it’s a child?” Retsler asked.

  “I certainly hope so,” she said.

  She sounded certain, as if an adult would be a bad thing. Retsler frowned. “Why?”

  “Because we live on the shadow side,” she said.

  He leaned against the counter. “That’s the second time someone mentioned the shadow side to me, and frankly, I’m confused. There is no shadow side to a mountain. The sun hits all parts eventually. I know there’s a shadow side in different seasons—”

  “The sun does not hit all parts,” she said. “Some sections never see sunlight. They have overhangs or side croppings or there are trenches—”

  “All mountains have that,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said a little ominously. “Yes, they do.”

  He took a deep breath, trying to control the sarcasm that wanted to flow out of him. That sarcasm had almost gotten him in trouble with Bronly, and it was going to get him in trouble here, if he wasn’t careful.

  He extended his hand. “Dan Retsler.”

  “MariCate Webber.”

  They shook, and that gave him a moment to get himself under control. He remembered Denne once saying to him, Either you accept this stuff or you don’t, Dan. You’re an evidence guy. How much evidence do you need to realize that strange things exist?

  “So,” Retsler said, “what’s wrong with the shadow side here?”

  “Our shadow side isn’t unique,” she said. “But that child is.”

  “You’re convinced it’s a child.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I haven’t seen it, but others seem to believe it.” Then he winced. That “seem to” would have gotten Denne to jump all over him.

  MariCate didn’t seem to notice. Instead she offered what seemed like a nonsequiter. “My grandfather helped build this place.”

  And suddenly Retsler understood why Stanley had sent him up here. Not to see musty old books, but to talk to MariCate who, like most people in an area routinely flooded by tourists, wouldn’t answer direct questions, but might talk to someone she trusted.

  “You know they got snowed in,” she said.

  “Stanley told me they snowshoed out.”

  “They did, but not to escape or get supplies. That’s the cover story.”

  “What’s the real story?” Retsler asked.

  She smiled. “It was a rescue.”

  He didn’t follow. “Leaving was a rescue?”

  “No, no,” she said. “Stanley must’ve also told you no one died building this place.”

  “Yes, he did,” Retsler said.

  “Which is true. You, as a policeman, probably know that truth hides in the words you choose.”

  Somewhere in this conversation, he had stopped leaning. He placed his hands on the polished wood countertop.

  “People did die then,” he said after a moment. “Just not building the place. They died during the blizzard…?”

  “No,” she said. “They died in the Caves. Where they went for shelter. Most of a family died. The cook, his wife, and his adult son.”

  “Most?” Retsler’s palms felt damp. He removed them from the wood, saw the prints he left, then shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “The twelve-year-old daughter, she got out. They rescued her and four other children.”

  “What were children doing up here?” Retsler asked. “I thought this was a WPA project.”

  “It was,” MariCate said, “but a lot of families, you know, were homeless then. And when the man got work, sometimes the whole family came along. They weren’t supposed to, but they camped nearby, on Cave Creek, and probably got sheltered in the buildings the men made for themselves.”

  “Probably?” Retsler asked. “You don’t know?”

  “There’s a lot I don’t know,” she said. “My grandfather didn’t like talking about this. He was 81 when I divorced and moved up here. He tried to talk me out of it. He didn’t want me on this side of the mountain.”

  “The shadow side,” Retsler said.

  “You didn’t notice, did you, when you drove in that this is a kind of high valley? Marble Village is actually in a box valley, at 4,000 feet, mind you, but a box valley just the same. Only one real way in. At least there’s light there.”

  “And not here? I seem to see quite a bit of sunlight around this place.”

  “Around parts of it. But there’s never sunlight from the kitchen to the Caves. You didn’t notice that, did you?”

  He hadn’t noticed it. He would check out what she said later. “Why didn’t your grandfather want you here?”

  “He said it was dangerous. He especially warned me out of those Caves. The access here isn’t used at all by the Park Service. It’s mapped, but it’s blocked inside and out, except for a tributary of the River Styx that they couldn’t block without hurting the rest of the Caves.”

  “Why is it blocked?”

  “Oh,” she said with that smile. It was impish, and he rather liked it. So far today, he’d found two women his age attractive. Maybe he had been alone too long. “They’ll never say why. They’ll say it’s too dangerous for tourists, which is true, and they’ll tell you that there’s nothing to see, which isn’t, and then they’ll tell you that it hasn’t been mapped, which is an out-and-out lie.”

  “They won’t tell me,” Retsler said,
“but you will.”

  Her smile widened into a grin. “As my grandfather spins in his grave, certainly. The reason is that people die in this part of the Caves, and not normal dying either. They freeze to death, sometimes in a matter of minutes and sometimes over days.”

  “I thought the Caves were forty-one degrees,” Retsler said.

  “They are,” she said.

  “The people just get chilled then,” he said.

  “If exposure can turn you into a block of ice, then yeah, they just get chilled,” she said.

  “Block of ice.” He wasn’t even trending toward sarcasm now, not with that icy footprint. “So you think the child is an ice-ghost? One of the children that died in there while this hotel was being built?”

  “Children didn’t die in there,” she said. “That’s what I was telling you. One got out—a girl. She came back to the men huddled in their cabins during the storm. How she found them, well, that’s subject to conjecture, because you know how hard it is to find anything in white-out conditions.”

  He hadn’t known that until his sojourn in Montana. The scariest day he’d had as chief there had been during a severe and sudden snowstorm, one that had stranded him beside the highway. Fortunately, he’d pulled off, or his jeep would’ve been totaled by the idiots trying to drive blind.

  He nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Well, she told them that the cook’s family was in there, and a few of the kids, who’d been playing near the River Styx, and asked them to get the family out. The men waited until the snow had eased, thinking the family would be safer in the Caves. By the time they got there, there was a snow barrier, or so it seemed, covering the entrance. Avalanche, they thought, or something. Anyway, as they tried to dig out, they kept hitting rock. They were using their hands and some shovels that broke. They needed more equipment.”