by Brian Hodge
As he said this, tears for his lost friend spilled from Old One's eyes and carved a new river into the land.
CHRYSALIS
Fall, 1972
1
"You know, from this far away, if you squint your eyes, doesn't it sorta look like an ant hill?" Stan Walters said.
He and his older brother, Chet, were lying back on their elbows on a grassy slope, watching the Maine state highway construction crew at work. Both boys had heard plenty about the project to straighten out Route 25 south of their home town of Thornton. Day after day, their father complained about how many extra miles the detour added to his commute to work in Portland. In the distance, bulldozers, dump trucks, and men moved through billowing clouds of yellow dust that rose like sulfurous smoke into the heat-hazed July sky. All sound was lost in the distance except for the blaring beep-beep-beep of the backing-up warning buzzers as the heavy equipment carved away the hillside.
Stan's eyes darted back and forth as he tried desperately to keep track of all the activity. "Look at everything they've dug up. I'll bet I could find some really neat rocks for my collection down there."
"You know what I think?" Chet said lazily as he slid a spear of grass between his two front teeth and smiled. "I think you've got rocks in your head!" He waited a second, then swatted Stan on the shoulder. "Just kidding. But you know what really pisses me off is how they're ruining Watchick Hill. Damn! There ain't gonna be nothing left of it by the time those assholes are through."
Stan smiled at his older brother's use of profanity. Chet had just turned thirteen, and he took every opportunity to swear like a pirate whenever there weren't any adults around. Chet's swearing in front of him made Stan feel older, accepted—well, at least a little bit.
"I know, but look up there. See all those holes in the hillside?" Stan said excitedly. "There's gotta be more than twenty holes up there where they've been blasting. I think they might have opened up into a whole bunch of tunnels or something. I can just imagine the different kinds of rocks they're turning up—"
"Yeah, and I can just imagine the reaming we're both gonna get if we're not home in time for supper," Chet said. He hoisted himself to his feet, brushed off his butt, and started down the grassy slope to the road where Stan had left his bicycle. "And if you don't get your sorry ass moving, I'm gonna take your bike and ride it home."
"The hell you are!" Stan yelled as he leaped up and started running.
The race was on.
Chet had a good head start, and even though Stan knew it was hopeless, he ran full tilt down the hillside, his arms pumping madly as he chugged through tall, summer grass that whipped at his legs, threatening to trip him up. He watched in frustration as Chet easily outdistanced him. Once he was beside the bicycle, Chet turned and crossed his arms triumphantly over his chest while he waited until Stan was no more than ten feet from him. Then he picked up the bike by the handlebars, spun around on his heel, and started running. After a few quick steps, he vaulted onto the seat and started pedaling furiously. Derisive laughter curled like a scarf over his shoulder as he sped away.
"Come on, Chet!" Stan shouted. "That's not fair!"
His breath came into his lungs hot and hard as he cupped his hands on his knees and leaned forward, expecting at any second to puke his guts out. Sweat poured down the sides of his face and stung his eyes. His lower lip was trembling as he watched his brother easily put distance between them. For several pounding heartbeats, he watched helplessly, waiting for Chet to turn around and come back, but he rounded the curve and disappeared out of sight without a backward glance.
"Fuck you, you bastard," Stan muttered, shaking a clenched fist at the empty road. It was safe to swear—Chet was too far away to hear him, anyway. But he wasn't about to start crying.
No way!
Crying was for babies!
2
After a quick supper of a hamburger, French fries, and green beans—and a brief tussle with Chet for taking his bike—Stan went up to his bedroom. He got his flashlight and the burlap bag he used to collect rocks from his closet and ran back downstairs. As he raced out the front door, he shouted over his shoulder to his mother that he was going outside to play.
"Where are you off to?" she asked.
"Just out," he replied, letting the screen door slam shut behind him.
He was halfway down the walkway to where Chet had left his bike when his mother leaned out the front door and called to him, "Just make sure you're home before dark!"
Pretending he hadn't heard her, Stan slipped the flashlight into his hip pocket, wrapped the burlap bag around his handlebars, and started pedaling furiously down Elm Street. He had only one goal in mind; he had to get out to the construction site and check it out now that the highway workers were gone for the day. This was probably his best chance to find some new rocks for his collection.
His feet were a blur as he sped around the curves and up and down the gentle slopes of Route 25. The closer he got to the construction site, the more his excitement rose. It felt like a bubbling gush of cool water inside his chest. In spite of the cool evening air washing over his face, the exertion made him break out in a sweat. When he saw the flashing yellow warning lights up ahead, he squeezed the hand brakes, coming to a skidding stop just before the road changed from asphalt to hard-packed dirt. He swung off his bike and walked it along the stretch of stripped highway.
The hillside was strangely quiet in the gathering gloom of evening. White barricades with flashing yellow warning lights lined the strip of gravel the workers had laid down for the road base. Along both edges of a long, deep trench were round, black metal balls. The wicks at the top flickered with fat orange flames that gave of thick curls of sooty smoke. The yellow dust had settled, skimming everything with a hazy coat that reminded Stan of the scum of pine pollen that floated on Little Sebago Lake when he went swimming in early summer.
But it was the scarred hillside towering up against the darkening sky that held Stan's attention. Deep gouges lined the steep side of the hill where the men had blasted away the red granite ledges. Huge blocks of rock jutted out from the dirt like the rotten, crooked teeth of a long-buried giant. In the dimming light, Stan could see high up on the hillside more than a dozen dark tunnel mouths. They looked like black, sightless eyes. Piles of rubble lay at the base of the hill, waiting for the men to return in the morning to load them up and truck them off.
Did they even bother to check over these rocks to see if there was anything valuable? Stan wondered. Did anyone even bother to look inside those tunnels?
For all anyone knew, Watchick Hill might be honeycombed with caves that could be part of an old gold mine, or it might be loaded with Indian arrowheads or something else that was valuable.
He stared up at the nearest cave opening. It was no more than forty feet up the hillside and looked to be three, maybe four feet wide. Stan couldn't stop wondering what might lay hidden inside there.
"Only one way to find out," he answered himself aloud.
Unwrapping the burlap bag form the handlebars, he leaned his bike against one of the barricades, jumped the trench, and started up the hillside. The slope was steeper than it had looked, and he had to lean forward and paddle his hands on the ground in front of him for balance as he made his way up. Loose soil kept slipping out from underfoot, and just about every step started a mini-landslide. He found that by cutting across the face of the hill first one way, then the other, he could zigzag back and forth. Before long, he arrived at the narrow slanting ledge in front of the open cave mouth. Another, stronger shiver rippled through him as he got down to his hands and knees, and stuck his head into the dark hole. The air inside blew cold and dank from the tunnel into his face.
"What the—?" he whispered.
His voice echoed from the deep recesses of the cave with an odd reverberation. He knew if air was blowing out of the tunnel, that meant there had to be another opening somewhere at the other end.
Stan's footing was
n't all that secure. One foot kept skidding out from underneath him on the tilted, dirt-coated ledge. He knew that if he didn't find the courage to crawl into the tunnel soon, he would have to climb back down...before he fell down. Glancing at the roadbed forty feet below, he tried not to imagine how much it would hurt if he tumbled all the way in the dirt and gravel. And what if he started a big landslide, it might be enough to cover him beneath tons of dirt and debris!
He had to decide what to do—soon!
Night was coming on fast, and the workers would be back in the morning. Even if he left for home right now, he wouldn't be back before dark, so it was a safe bet that he'd be grounded for a couple of days, at least. By the time he was un-grounded, the whole hillside would probably have been leveled and hauled off. If he didn't check out this cave right now, he might never get to check it out!
But did he even dare to go in there?
After glancing over his shoulder at the blaze of sunset on the horizon, he took a deep breath, tucked the burlap bag into his hip pocket, took out his flashlight, and clicked it on. Holding his breath, he got onto his hands and knees, and edged into the doorway. The distorted oval of light illuminated a hard-packed dirt floor. Cool—actually cold air raised goose bumps on his arms as he skittered forward. Because of the low ceiling, he had to tip his head down and feel blindly for a handhold to pull himself all the way inside.
Even with the feeble glow of the flashlight, Stan felt deep rushes of nervousness as he started along the stone-lined tunnel. The walls seemed to narrow gradually, squeezing in on him from all directions. More than once, he considered backing out and was grateful, at least, that Chet wasn't here to call him a sissy.
But maybe being a sissy wasn't such a bad idea, Stan thought as he inched his way deeper into the earth. He tried not to think of the tons of earth and rock above him...earth and rock that could collapse in on him at any moment. After each lunge forward, he would look back over his shoulder almost longingly at the receding oval of burning, orange sky and think how pitifully small his flashlight beam was in the darkness that surrounded him.
"Damn it!" he muttered, when his hand holding the flashlight hit the ground hard, and the light flickered. His voice reverberated oddly in the narrow confines of the tunnel, but even before the echo died, he thought he heard something else—a soft, hissing, scratching sound—like ripping wet cloth.
He froze, directing his light straight ahead and craning his neck forward as he listened tensely for the sound to be repeated. He was positive of only one thing: he hadn't made that noise!
Ripples of fear raced up and down his back. In spite of the coolness inside the tunnel, sweat trickled down the sides of his face.
"All right, all right now," he whispered, trying to reassure himself as his eyes darted around, following the dodging flashlight beam. "Just take it easy... take it—"
His throat closed off, stifling a scream that would have resounded throughout the entire mountain when his left hand, reaching forward, touched...something.
He jerked back too quickly and bumped his head against the tunnel roof. The impact stunned him, and the flashlight dropped from his hand and winked out the instant it hit the ground. Dirt and grit showered down on him like rain on a tin roof as he reached forward, furiously groping for his light. His only fear was that he would touch that... that thing again. At last, his hand closed around the metal cylinder of his flashlight. His heart was pounding hard in his neck as he clicked the switch uselessly back and forth.
The light was dead.
For several seconds, Stan remained motionless, listening to his racing heartbeat until it started to slow down. A sheen of sweat had broken out like dew across his forehead. He couldn't stop thinking about whatever that was he had touched. It had felt cold—almost dead cold, clammy and sticky, like a dead animal or something. The tunnel was too narrow for him to turn around, so, still shaking, he started retreating backwards, fighting the urge to scramble out of there as fast as he could.
But wait a second! He thought, suddenly halting his backward retreat.
He hadn't found any rocks worth beans, but what if that thing was something neat?
Crouching in the pressing darkness, he felt equally compelled to go forward to find out what that thing was and to get the hell out of here while he still could...at least until he got another flashlight. His pulse thumped heavily in his ears as he debated what to do. In the end, curiosity won out. His whole body was trembling as he started forward again, reaching blindly ahead until his fingers once again grazed the squishy, cold, dead-feeling thing. He jerked his hand back, fully expecting the thing to move even though he knew, just by the touch, that whatever it was, it certainly wasn't alive. It may have been once, but it was stone cold now.
"Oh, shit!" Stan whispered when—once again—a soft, rustling noise echoed from deep inside the cave.
It sounded like someone dragging something heavy across the dirt floor. Although the sound had definitely come from up ahead, in the echoing darkness, Stan had the illusion that, like the rock walls, it was all around him. With steadily rising terror, he grabbed the burlap bag from his hip pocket, spread the mouth open wide, and, without touching the thing any more than he had to, shoved it into the bag. The mere touch of it made him feel queasy, and he was relieved once he had it bagged.
He started working his way backwards again, probing his path with one foot so he wouldn't lose his way or go screaming out off the ledge and down the slope. As he dragged the bag along behind him, his fear-heightened state made the return trip seem infinitely longer. He tried to sort out his impressions of what the thing he had found might be. It had felt rubbery and cold, just about the size of a football, maybe a little bit narrower. He thought it felt like it was composed of thick, segmented rings, like donuts that came to a blunt point at each end.
The sun had set, so as he neared the cave entrance, he wouldn't have known it except for the strong draft of cool, fresh air that curled up around him. He shivered, wondering what the hell this thing in the bag was. It made him feel woozy, almost sick to his stomach just remembering how squishy and cold—how dead it had felt. Try as he might, he couldn't get rid of the thought that he had discovered a dead man's severed arm.
Finally, over his shoulder, Stan could see the circle of star-lit sky drawing ever closer. He sighed deeply with relief when his foot kicked out free in the open air. Scrinching up his legs, he spun around and hung his feet out over the slanting ledge. Just as he was about to push off down the slope, he heard again that hollow rasping sound—much louder now, and coming closer. Its rippling echo filled the cave.
Whatever it is, it's coming this way! Stan thought as a white bolt of panic shot through him.
Intense pressure squeezed his bladder as he leaned back, stuck his feet out in front of himself, and began a slow, controlled slide down the slope, all the while clutching the burlap bag tightly against his chest. It may have been just his imagination—it must have been—but he was positive that the instant he pushed off the ledge, something rushed up to the cave mouth and either threw something at him or else made a quick grab at him. He had no idea what it was, but he heard and felt something whisk by his head close to his ear, like a bat unseen in the dark. He didn't have any time to think, though, because just then his left foot snagged on a rock and catapulted him forward. Before he could recover, he was tumbling head over heels down the gravely hillside. His long, trailing scream filled the night as he and a building wave of dirt and gravel rushed headlong toward the roadbed.
Stan was knocked nearly senseless when he came to rest flat on his back at the bottom of the hill. Loose dirt hissed like angry snakes as it slid down around him in his wake. Shaking his head, he leaped to his feet and hurriedly brushed himself off with one hand. There wasn't a square inch of his body that didn't feel battered and bruised, but a quick inventory proved that he wasn't hurt except for a single stinging cut above his left eye. He sure as hell felt as though he had just been put th
rough a high-speed meat grinder. Unbelievably, he had managed to hold onto the burlap bag throughout his fall. He wanted like hell to see what was in it, but there wasn't enough light to see by. The image of a dead man's severed arm rose again sharply in his mind, making him feel rubbery and sick inside.
He was dazed from his fall and kept rubbing his head to reassure himself that it was still attached. Lit only by the flames of the smudge pots and the blinking yellow warning lights, the night pressed in around him. For a panicked instant, he imagined that he was still inside the cave. His head throbbed with pain as he started running toward the road. He had to stop every few steps and shake his head, hoping that the waves of dizziness would pass soon. Once, when he turned and looked back up the hillside at the cave mouth, he was sure he saw something moving up there. He tried to convince himself it was just a trick of the eye, but it sure as heck looked like something dark shifting against the darker black of the cave opening.
Trembling, he was just turning to leave when a hand shot out of the darkness and grabbed him by the neck.
3
"I knew I'd find you out here!"
Chet's voice drilled into Stan's ears as he spun him around and gave him a shove that sent him staggering backwards. Stan's mouth opened, and his lips moved to scream, but the only noise that came out sounded like air hissing out of a punctured bicycle tire.
"Mom's been hollerin' and hollerin' for you for the past half hour," Chet said. "I figured you'd be out here collecting rock, right?" His face glowed eerily in the flickering strobe of the warning lights.
