We took a few seconds to illuminate ourselves before Mel took a deep breath and turned to face the cave.
“Here goes nothing.”
“Aww,” I said, stepping up next to him. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re something. Not something good, but something.”
Mel rolled his eyes and started walking. I smiled after his back, following him when I was sure I wasn’t going to burst into a fit of nervous giggles. The glow sticks were brighter than I’d figured they’d be, but didn’t illuminate much of the cave around us. Mel had better eyesight than me though, and I’d put several around my ankles so I could at least see the ground. As we had the last time we’d been down there, we walked down one long tunnel alone for quite awhile. When the cave split, Mel pointed to the right.
“That’s the way we came before. I can still smell you. Come on.” Jerking his thumb to the left, he started walking again. I glanced down the other hall and then followed him, still silent. Every so often I’d hear Mel take a sniff, pause, and then keep moving. I kept my mouth shut, let him do his preternatural creature thing.
I wasn’t really of any help unless the spider showed up, so I just did my best to keep my empathy open, to make sure nothing snuck up on us and started diddling around in our brains.
“Well, this isn’t good,” Mel commented. I stepped up next to him as he crouched down, ran his fingers over something in the dirt. I peered down at what he’d uncovered for a second, before I let out a low, wordless sound of disgust. He’d discovered another body.
“This guy smells even older than the other guy we found. He’s been here awhile.”
“No wife?” I peered around, managing to keep half an eye on the partially uncovered hand sticking out of the dirt. Mel looked up at me and I noted the sadness in his eyes.
“No, she’s not around. Hopefully that means she’s alive. Although, if what we suspect is true, it might be more merciful if she’s already dead.”
Mel stayed hunched over the dead guy for another minute and I wondered if he was investigating or silently saying a prayer of some sort. When he stood, he sighed, stepped wide around the dead guy, and kept walking. I remained silent, glancing back several times, just as I’d done with the first corpse I’d found that day.
After what felt like an eternity, we discovered our path split off into three other directions, the worst Choose Your Own Adventure I could think of. Mel stopped, leaned close to the dirt and inspected it. I took a step past him, peering down one of the halls. I still felt no other emotions but if this passageway was anything like the one I’d discovered on my own before, I didn’t want to go down it. I’d lost enough body hair that day, thank you very much.
“You think there’s webbing down there?” I asked, turning back to Mel.
I was met with darkness. Immediately, I spun back around, wondering if he’d passed me and I just hadn’t noticed. Despite being able to see a short distance in each direction, I found no other sign of light. I was alone and the realization made me sick to my stomach.
“Mel?” I whimpered, feeling my lip tense and tremble. “Mel, you forgot about me.” I heard nothing except the sound of my own shaky breathing. My nerves were getting the better of me, creeping into my throat, threatening to strangle me. If I didn’t control my lungs, I was probably going to hyperventilate and make myself so dizzy I’d throw up.
Putting hands to my belly, I closed my eyes, forcing my breathing under control. The nausea receded slightly but when I opened my eyes everything looked like I was watching a 3D movie with my glasses askew. Despite the confusion between my eyes and my brain, though, I knew I was alone.
If Mel had left me I hadn’t heard it; even barefoot, he’d made some noise walking in the dirt. If he’d run off, I’d managed to miss it.
“Mel?” I asked again, taking a half step in what I thought was the direction we’d come. Still, I heard nothing. After a second, in which my heart started pounding and hammering and thudding and all the things hearts do in horrible situations, I swallowed thickly, tried my voice again. It was tough to speak over the strangling anxiety that had taken hold, but I managed.
“Judas Gopher? Is that you? If you’re playing a joke on me, it’s not very funny.”
Still nothing. Knowing it was fruitless, I slipped my phone out of my pocket; Mel had so thoughtfully charged it for me during our several hours of downtime at the house. It had full battery and the flashlight was raring to go but there was still no signal. I aimed it down each hall, trying to catch a glimpse of glow bracelets or a pile of clothes or something.
I turned, checking each of the four walkways several times, hoping something would jump out at me—ah, bad choice of words. Hoping something would appear to me, harmless and ready to help. Nothing did, at first.
Then, something moved at the edge of my light just as I heard a high, flat sound.
“Mel?” I asked, swiveling my light to catch whatever had moved. The cry came again, longer this time, sounding somewhere between an excited cat and an angry baby. There went my heart again, trying its best to tear my ribs apart like Superman and fly away. I stepped toward the sound, caught the movement again. Something occurred to my brain but my eyes cried, Objection! and refused my brain’s input. Even as I approached the tiny form on the ground, I couldn’t seem to translate what I was seeing into something I understood.
The baby below me wagged a tiny fist, cried out again, and my eyeballs finally stopped fighting the truth.
“Oh god,” I moaned, dropping to my knees in front of the infant. He cried as I touched him, as I felt along his wriggling limbs to check for injuries. When I found none, I stuffed my phone in my pocket so the light poked over the top, slid my hands under the baby’s naked armpits, and pulled him to my breast. His chubby little legs kicked once more, his arms beating against my shoulder and chest as I pushed to my feet. I murmured comforting sounds, turning back in the direction I’d come.
Another cry came from behind me, freezing me in place. The baby in my arms started whimpering and I felt my throat sting in preparation for doing the same. In an effort to stop the baby in my arms from going full on tantrum, I hugged him close, whispered soothing nonsense. Twisting back, I caught sight of another baby, wriggling and crying, just as naked and alone as the first.
“I got you,” I said, rushing forward. The baby in my arms cried out again, beat me in the breast with his fist, and I patted his back. As I kneeled to scoop my arm under the second baby, I heard yet another cry. I wanted to tell myself it was just one of the two babies I’d already rescued, that we would be safe as soon as I figured out which way to go to get out of here. The babies in my arms shared a whimper, their tiny hands grasping each other, before they went for twin, full-body spasms. In answer, the third baby outside of my view cried out, demanding my attention.
I wailed, glanced up, considered yelling for Mel again. As I got to my feet, the third cry became a chorus of third, fourth, and fifth cries. All different pitches and intensities, they made me feel like the worst nurse in the worst maternity ward ever. The two infants in my arms leaned forward, knocking their chins against my collarbone, wriggling some more. I glanced down at them helplessly, looked up toward the other children again. How many babies had this fucking spider forced these women to have?
And why the hell wasn’t it taking better care of them?
The chorus of tiny, impotent outrage got louder, reminded me that I was alone and babies were coming out of the woodwork. I took another few steps, looked down at the third baby. She was Asian, with chubby cheeks and dark hair. Her little fists were pumping up and down, her legs kicking out spastically. She noticed me standing there, staring at her instead of helping, and started to cry. I didn’t blame her; I wanted to start crying too.
I couldn’t rescue them all; I just didn’t have the arms for it. Judging by the growing sound further down the cave, babies were appearing faster than I would have been able to handle, even if Mel had been there to help.
“This is like the worst I Love Lucy parody ever,” I whispered, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “I can’t just stuff you all down my shirt, so we need another plan.” The second baby started crying, which got the first one started, and then the third. The noise in the cave was immense, overwhelming. The sadness I could hear from their little mouths was going to make me ill. I dropped down to sit in the dirt, staring back down the hall as if it held the answers.
“Mel! Please be there!” I called, lowering one of the babies into my lap. I cradled him there, but he didn’t stop crying. “Okay, we can fix this! I know someone who knows how to take care of lots of babies! Just hold on, I’ll—just hold on!” I pulled my phone out of my pocket, hoping the sickness in my stomach would go away, hoping my phone would work down in the caves this time.
As I closed the flashlight app, blinking at the brightness I’d unintentionally blasted directly into my eyes, the babies all disappeared. My lap was empty, the cave was silent. Once again, I was completely alone.
“Oh god,” I mumbled, feeling saliva rush into my mouth. It wasn’t nerves this time, I knew. As I leaned over, vomited into the dirt, and felt my vision blur, I realized I’d been tricked. I’d been fooled into losing my way down a darkened tunnel, something I would never have done if tiny humans had not been in grave danger.
I coughed, spat, and pushed up, stumbling back from the smell. There was no way I could tell what direction I’d come from but I wasn’t just going to sit in one place and wait to be eaten by something that already had a taste for my blood. The dizziness intensified as I started moving, making me pause and reconsider. If I was getting worse, I was probably getting closer to the unktomi. I stumbled against the wall, twisted, and took three steps back in the direction I’d come.
A low growl echoed through the cave.
“Mel?” I whispered, still using the wall to keep from toppling face first into the dirt. I squinted into the darkness, watched as a speck of light moved toward me. The bigger it got, the blurrier my vision got. I tried closing one eye, turning slightly to the side, but nothing worked; the one patch of light had split into five. I heard the growl again, telling myself it was coming from behind me where I’d established the unktomi waited, and pushed forward.
Mel had mentioned dryads and my brain latched onto that fact, convincing me that I was about to be rescued by beautiful wood nymphs. Any second, now, three lovely, womanly shapes would bounce daintily toward me, take me into their arms, and whisk me away from this terrible place.
“Help,” I wheezed as the dizziness grabbed hold again, threw me against the wall. I put a hand to my mouth, doing my best to keep in any further vomit, and squeezed my eyes shut. As I tried my damnedest to breathe slowly and calmly through my nose, I considered that this had been a really bad day for making decisions.
I’d decided to explore a cave all by myself, decided to have sex with Mel, and then decided to join Mel back in that same cave. These were, by far, some of my worst life decisions; being in this dank hole definitely topped my previous biggest regret of cheating on my husband. Clearly, as I was getting older I was getting dumber. I was no longer to be trusted. I promised myself that, if I got out of this place alive and intact, I would never make another decision on my own again.
“Any time now, nymphs,” I mumbled against my hand, before pushing against the wall to get myself going. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the lights hovering in the darkness had paused as I did. The closest light shot toward me like a missile and I caught a flash of bright blue eyes.
“Don’t!” I yelped.
For some reason, it echoed through the air as, “Get it!”
“What?” I asked aloud, cracking one eye open. The heat of a furry body slammed into me and I felt the dry pads of paws smack against my throat and shoulder. Fur grazed my face before my back hit the ground, my head following suit immediately after. I groaned, seeing stars for an instant. I could feel the softness of fur along my arms as something growled above me. The growl was so close I could smell it.
It smelled like dog breath. Dog breath I recognized.
“Mel?” I wheezed, doing my best to roll onto my side. My lungs felt like they wanted to explode and I was reasonably sure I’d been hit by a truck at some point in the last few seconds. Despite the paws pinning me to the ground and the saliva dripping onto my neck, I couldn’t stop myself from trying to roll away. I lifted one hand to check my head for blood, but the furry creature above me had other ideas.
Canine jaws grabbed my forearm, worried it. I felt my flesh tear, felt blood smear, before the softness of a tongue pressed briefly against my skin. The teeth yanked away on a whimper that was instantly lost to my own scream of pain. My stomach heaved once again and I fought it, my brain forced to make the hard decision to let me breathe or to force me to vomit. My throat seized up and I was briefly unable to do either one.
Curiously, I could hear my voice, even though I was still gagging against the dirt.
“Did you kill it? Is it dead?”
Gasping in a huge gulp of air, I rolled onto my back, filled my lungs as much as I could muster. After a second, I coughed.
“Not dead. Kind of wish I was,” I wheezed into the still air. As I cradled my bloody arm to my chest, feeling the sharp pain of rent skin, I cracked an eye open, searched for a clue as to what was happening. Mel in wolf form, was pacing off to my left, glancing between the me on the ground and another, uninjured me further down the hall. Despite the pain, I made a thoughtful sound as I met the eyes of the other me. She glared, rushed forward, and pointed at the wheezing me on the ground.
I heaved, unable to tolerate being so close to the unktomi. Mel whimpered again, paused next to me in his pacing. He’d put his back to me, blocking the unkto-me from getting any closer. She was pointing at me, insisting that he’d been tricked, that she could tell what I really was.
I was starting to really hate myself in that moment.
“Mel,” I wheezed, before spitting out vomit and trying to push myself up. My body gave out partway up and I slammed back, my bloody arm sliding across the dirt like it was trying to steal home.
I cried out, swore like a sailor on leave. Mel twisted around to look at me, his head tipped in a little doggy ‘baroo?’ expression. The other me stomped her foot, pointed at me again, and demanded Mel finish the job. Mel turned back to her and I saw his stance shift, his front legs spreading slightly apart. His head lowered and I heard the growl again.
I reached out, touched his foot, and mumbled, “Atta boy.”
The other me disappeared and the abrupt lack of extra emotional input was almost as nauseating as having the unktomi right in my face.
“Oh god,” I grumbled, shoving at the dirt, trying to push away from the puddle of sick. The pain in my arm surged up through me, making me swear and whimper again. My chosen string of profanity made very little sense, but can you blame me?
“Shitting cucumber cock-bagged mother goddammit!”
I felt hands grab my shoulders, pick me up like I weighed nothing. My feet flattened against the dirt and I teetered, my legs deciding they’d already, in that single moment, had enough of this standing shit. A warm, bare chest pressed against my face and I felt strong arms slide around my shoulders. My arm continued to bleed at my side, unaware that the rest of me was being sweetly comforted.
“I am so sorry,” Mel said into my hair.
“Me too,” I said, before shoving at him with my good arm. He let me back up, made a small sound of disgust as I leaned to the side and attempted to throw up yet again. Luckily for both of us, dinner had been just awkward enough that I hadn’t eaten much; my stomach tried its damnedest, but couldn’t evacuate anything else. Fighting my legs as they demanded to be relieved of duty, I stood, bent at the waste, gagging into the air and still bleeding, still sore from the beating I’d taken.
As my raw throat returned to its regularly scheduled breathing, I felt Mel pull me upward and turn me gently so he cou
ld see my face. I blinked at him, let out a long, “whoa.” He’d gone human so quickly he hadn’t thought to grow any of his hair back. Mel looked positively ridiculous without any eyebrows or eyelashes and his bald head looked misshapen in the low light.
I let out a low giggle and Mel gave me a gentle shake.
“Are you with me? How’s your—oh Jesus,” Mel hissed, letting go of my shoulders and grabbing for my arm. I screeched when his hand touched my wrist, slapping at him and trying to pull my injured limb back as he inspected it. He ignored my attack, twisted my forearm in the light and glowered down at the rough tears in my flesh, muddied by my own blood and the dirt of the cave. I was surprised I wasn't bleeding more, but maybe the dirt was helping me clot.
“You need to clean that, but we can’t really do that down here.” He winced, swallowed thickly and I considered that Merrin’s necklace was a saving grace in that moment. Pain on top of sickness was bad enough, but if I’d had to also endure his rolling guilt, I may have just considered suicide.
“Until we can clean it, I’m going to wrap it. Give me a second.” Mel bent down, grabbed my left pant leg, and ripped it. He managed to pull enough denim off that, before I knew it, he’d fashioned crude strips perfect for wrapping around the arm of an adult woman who won’t stop fighting and screeching.
He had to pin me against the wall with his back and hold my arm under his to keep me from ruining the wrap, but he managed to cover up my wounds. I can’t explain to you why I fought like a wounded animal, but I just couldn’t seem to help it. Every time he’d touch me, the pain was horrific and I reacted like I wasn’t a sane, adult capable of understanding that what he was doing was for my own good.
Cold Feet (Empathy in the PPNW Book 3) Page 21
