Blake wouldn’t be coming with coffee tomorrow. The whole thing was over. In the morning, security would no doubt be knocking on my door, but it wouldn’t be Blake; it would be someone telling me to pack my stuff and leave. Both of the men who’d gotten in the fight outside Unger Store had already been dropped from the cast, along with their families. They’d disappeared as quietly as the original citizens of Wildwood.
Sleep tugged at me, sudden, almost dizzying, insisting that I return to bed. The rope supports groaned softly as I pulled the quilt over the T-shirt and capris I’d kept on, unable to shed the feeling that I’d need to rise in the night and go find Kim. . . .
I dreamed of a day with my father. A perfect day, when he had taken me to the Santa Monica pier. A father-daughter excursion filled with Ferris wheel rides and carousel horses, sand and surf, and time to build castles and watch them wash away in the tide. In the dream, I was small again. Safe because my father was near. . . .
Allie. Allie, wake up. The voice was my father’s. He was shaking me. Trying to rouse me from a nightmare.
There’s a monster under the bed, I whispered, still groggy from sleep.
His arms circled me, held me against his chest, made me safe.
Then he faded even as I tried to cling to him, even as my mind grasped for the precious memory.
Blackness slipped in and thickened until there was nothing more.
I was falling, spinning down, down, down. I tried to cry out, but there was no sound, only a surrendering.
And then, nothing at all.
My head pounded, the pain so incredibly intense that I only wanted to sink into the blackness again and make it go away. My eyes throbbed like they were bulging out of their sockets, and when I tried to open them, everything was filmy, blurry, and gray. Water dripped somewhere nearby, the sound echoing and seeming to drill into my brain. Plink, plink, plink.
A shudder rattled through me, beginning in my stomach and radiating outward. I was so cold . . . shaking. My skin grated along something frigid, rough, and hard, my head bouncing against what felt like solid rock.
Where was I? What was happening? Was I still dreaming?
I blinked, then blinked again and tried to bring the world into focus, to decide what was real, but there was only a blur. My lashes tugged downward again. The blackness drew over me like a blanket, heavy, the weight suffocating.
Wake up, Allie-bear. Wake up, my father demanded.
Daddy? My voice was nothing more than an unintelligible groan. I looked for him in the darkness, but I couldn’t see.
Wake up, Allie-bear. Wake up now.
I pushed through the ink, swimming upward like a diver submerged in some immeasurable ocean, trying to find my way out, fighting for air and light before it was too late. The awareness of danger teased my senses, but I couldn’t define it. What was the last thing I remembered?
The night sky, the porch, the window. Blake wasn’t out there. . . .
I went to bed. . . .
Why was I on the floor now? No . . . not the floor.
My fingers slid over the dampness around me, discerned the cold unevenness of stone. And water. It was dripping nearby, splashing outward in tiny droplets. Icy cold.
Something was crawling on my arm. The sudden realization forced me awake. I jerked away, felt tiny legs dash across my wrist as I dragged my eyes open and tried to see.
Stone. There was stone all around. White sandstone, like the inside of the schoolhouse, but not blocks. No mortar. Just stone. My body was stiff and uncooperative. I hurt everywhere, the cold and pain a strange mix, sleep clinging to me, my stomach acid-filled. When had I felt this way before?
Yesterday. Yesterday when Wren came into the room and woke me.
Was that yesterday?
I was underground now . . . in a cave or something. Light flickered against the wall, barely enough to see by. Beyond its edges, impossible darkness swallowed any details.
A tiny creature skittered past the rim of my vision and disappeared under the tangle of red hair strewn beside my face. Gasping, I pushed upward, but the movement was slow and clumsy. A centipede as large as my index finger tumbled out and dashed away. Another shudder traveled through me, rattling my teeth and making my head pound.
This had to be a dream. A nightmare . . .
Pain drummed in my head, and blackness closed around the edges, tiny sparks dancing in empty space as I struggled to my hands and knees. Blinking, I fought to shake it off, to see what was out there, to finally rise to my feet and stagger to the wall, then brace one hand to keep myself upright. An agony of pin prickles shot through my legs with each step. My bare feet were so cold, I couldn’t even feel the rocks underneath.
The source of the flickering light was nearby. A lantern sat perhaps ten feet to my left. Not an old kerosene lantern like the ones we used in the village, but the modern propane type. The guys in crew camp carried them occasionally.
Was this all part of the show? Some kind of weird, twisted punishment for what I’d done? Was Rav Singh behind it? Had this project, his obsession with Wildwood, somehow driven him over the edge? Had someone else in Wildwood finally completely lost it? How closely had they checked the backgrounds of the people here?
I opened my mouth to call out, then stopped. If there was someone nearby, I needed to stay quiet to figure out what was happening, discover how I’d ended up here. I was okay as far as I could tell, just chilled and bruised.
I had to find a way out. Now. Before whoever had brought me here came back. Was I alone?
What was hiding in the darkness outside the lantern’s glow? One step, then two, then three. I squinted into the void beyond. Was someone watching me even now?
A movement teased my ear as I reached for the lamp handle. The soft echo of a woman’s voice. It was gone as quickly as it came, then, silence again, save for the water dripping. Maybe I’d only imagined it. . . .
The flame hissed and flickered as I grabbed the lantern. Its warmth melted over my stiff fingers, and I lifted it so that the light spread farther. Seeing more of my surroundings told me little more than I already knew. The chamber was perhaps twenty feet in height and roughly the same length, slightly narrower in width. Eerie shadows manifested on the walls, ghostlike as they outlined odd shapes carved into the limestone by flowing water at some time in the past. Nearby a small spring bled through the rock, its passage creating a waxy crystalline dome as it trickled downward and fell into a pool on the floor.
On either end of the chamber, darkness stretched toward what seemed to be narrower passageways. Which would lead out? How far was I from the surface?
The woman’s voice came again, faint and then gone. Was that someone outside I was hearing? Maybe someone who didn’t even know I was in here? I had to be near the lake or the river. Was it daylight out there? If it was, people might be close by, boating or canoeing, hiking or picnicking. Would they hear me if I called out?
The lantern flame danced and spit sparks as I inched toward the sound, shivering and crouching, picking my way carefully along the floor, slick and mossy beneath my feet. Something rustled in the shadows as I reached the room’s end and extended the light in front of myself so I could see down the tunnel. It was the larger of the two passageways, and it seemed logical that the larger passage might lead out, the cave narrowing as it went farther underground.
But there was no way to know. I could just as easily be going deeper.
Water trickled under my feet, icy as I crept along the shaft, bracing a hand on the wall to keep my balance. I was still so dizzy, my brain slow and foggy.
There was another chamber ahead. No light, other than what the lantern cast. If this was the passageway out, I was still far from the surface, but the tunnel was widening again, the lantern painting a wavering half circle that grew as I moved. Too late, I realized it would announce my approach to anyone inside. Pressing close to the wall, I covered my mouth, trying to stop my teeth from chattering as the water grew dee
per, covering my feet. My toe collided with something, and it rolled away. Bending over, I groped for it blindly, circled my fingers around it. A stick or rock, slightly curved. Not much of a weapon, but it was something.
Sound emerged from the chamber, louder, easier to make out now that I was closer. A woman moaning, trying to say something. The pulse in my ears sped up, pounded wildly. My senses became stark and acute, my thoughts focused on defense and survival.
The moaning increased in desperation as I stepped into the chamber. My fingers tightened around the stick, and the lamplight flickered outward. A rush of nausea and dizziness whirled over me, clouding my thoughts, making me struggle for balance, for reality. Around me, images spun like fins on a pinwheel. Limestone walls, strange shadows, bones, a remnant of fabric. Calico, the colors time-faded. A shoe—the black lace-up sort the women and children wore on the production, but this one was old, largely disintegrated, the layers of the sole fanned out like pages in a book.
A spill of hair, reflecting the light.
A groan.
Movement.
A hand covered with bleeding blue-white flesh.
I saw my own fingers, wrapped around something white with a ball-shaped end. A socket. A bone. My fingers jerked apart. It fell, clattered.
The noise echoed through the room, escaped among the corridors, the vibrations telling me there was no way out of this place other than the passage that had brought me here. This was the end. The deepest part of the cave.
I turned toward the sound of the woman, letting the light discover her as her moans intensified.
Kim?
Her body lay splayed in the dirt, unnaturally twisted, her brown dress torn and bloodied.
“Kim.” I rushed toward her, set the light just beyond the spill of her hair, and knelt down. Her skin was like the water seeping from the rocks, damp and frigid to the touch.
“Leee,” she murmured. My name, I thought. Her fingers opened slightly, seeming to beckon mine.
Something chalky white at the edge of the lamplight caught my eye. A skull, resting against the wall like a movie prop, the remains of a bonnet still clinging to it, a ragged hole in the dome of the forehead.
I could only stare, clutch Kim’s hand, and think . . . This isn’t real. My mind searched for an explanation, any explanation, however irrational.
How could this be happening? How long had Kim been here? How long had I?
Someone had brought me here. But who? Why? Did Kim know?
I touched her face, tried to rouse her, but she barely responded. “Kim, wake up.” I checked her injuries. The blood seemed to be largely from scrapes and scratches and a small gash on her forehead. Beneath it, her skin was purple and swollen. Had someone hit her, or had she fallen? Her legs lay bent behind her body. Were they broken?
“Kim, what happened? How did you get here?”
She didn’t answer but seemed to sink farther away, suddenly quiet.
What now? Did I keep trying to wake her? Search for a way to safety and bring back help? I couldn’t possibly carry her out of here. How far underground were we? Were we alone?
My mind circled around again like a roulette wheel slipping past the same numbers over and over on every rotation. Who would do something like this? Why? This couldn’t be random. There were over seventy cast members in Wildwood, as well as an entire crew. It couldn’t be a coincidence that someone had brought both Kim and me here.
I stood, raised the lamp, and let it burn away the darkness, illuminating the debris along the walls. The shapes were covered in dusty sediment, some sealed partially into limestone formations created over countless years as water dripped through stone, leaching minerals slowly downward, building conical stalagmites and perfect domes over protruding bits of bone.
The evidence was unmistakable. Those were human beings, or they had been once. Their remains lay scattered like random debris, the surfaces dotted with a ragged scrap of faded calico, the brim of a disintegrating bonnet, a bit of leather, a length of rope, the wire frame of a pair of spectacles.
Who were they? How many? How had they ended up here?
Were these the citizens of Wildwood? Had they been here, hidden beneath the earth all this time?
A breath of must and silt shivered through my lungs, pressed a cough into my throat. I swallowed hard to silence it.
Behind me, Kim groaned, a sound of wrenching pain. Squatting down again, I leaned close and touched her forehead, then whispered against the chill of her skin, “I’ll be back. Don’t worry. I have to find a way out.”
The lantern hissed and threatened to die. I held it up, for the first time noticing how light it felt. The fuel canister was probably almost empty. If I didn’t go now, while the flame was still burning, we might never get out.
Holding the lamp low to quell the arc of light, I crept back through the passage to my original chamber, passed by the mark my body had left on the silty floor. That could have been my final resting place. It might be, still.
The darkness seemed to close around me as I entered the boulder-strewn passageway on the other side. My heart thudded painfully, trying to break free of the trembling cage of my body, crowding my ears as they strained toward every sound. Was someone out there? Did I hear breathing, or was it just the air panting from my own lungs?
The bone. The weapon I’d found earlier, I should have brought it with me. But it was too late now.
The passage continued, the tunnel seeming as endless as the catacombs of the Berman Theater in my dream. Kim’s sounds faded and disappeared, and a sense of aloneness overwhelmed me. The lantern spit sparks, burning low. The darkness beyond was impenetrable, terrifying.
Please, please help me. The plea whispered through me, and I thought of Blake’s words. You end up in a situation where you might meet your Maker anytime, you think a whole lot about what you believe. I understood it now—that kind of faith that’s born on the battlefield, the reason Blake went outside alone at night when he was haunted, the reason the original citizens of Wildwood gathered to worship when they could have been focused on all the hard work of surviving in the wilderness.
It was also the reason it had always been so easy for me to slide away when I left Grandma Rita’s each year. My life hadn’t been nearly as tough as I’d thought it was. Life had never brought me to the breaking point, to the point of either giving up or reaching outside myself.
Now here I was, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I couldn’t find the way on my own.
Moving downward in the tunnel, I quickened my pace, ducking under formations in the ceiling, squeezing past outcroppings of rock, my feet leaden and numb, save for the stab of a thousand tiny needles brought by each step.
The sound of water grew louder, from drips and trickles to a stream, the echo telling me of a chamber ahead even before the tunnel opened into a boulder-strewn slope. Inching forward, I held up the light, looked into the widening cavity. In front of me, the slope led at least twenty feet downward into a pit. A stream of water flowed along one side, moistening the coating of dried moss and lime that painted everything but the chamber’s ceiling. Clearly, the area had been underwater fairly recently. The bones of some sort of enormous fish lay along one edge. Bits of driftwood dotted the rocks leading into the pit, and up the slope on the other side, a long snakeskin lay diaphanous as a bridal veil.
The passageway on the far end seemed to hold the faintest light of its own. Sunlight, or another lantern? I had to be close to the surface now. The only way out was through the pit . . . and through whatever lay beyond.
Below me, the surface of the water sat black and ominous. How deep was it? What if I stepped in and there was no bottom? What if I lost the lantern while trying to cross?
Just go slow. Just go slow. The voice of survival was in my head as I started down the slope, crab-crawling on the loose rocks but trying to hold the lantern level to keep it burning.
A strange sort of calm eclipsed all else. I could do this. I
would do this.
The water was warmer than I’d expected. The stream running down the rocks had to be coming from outside, from the lake, rather than leaching in from an underground spring.
A faint rumble rattled the chamber around me. Thunder. The water seemed to tremble, circling my knees, then my thighs, slowly growing deeper as I felt my way across the pit. It was raining outside. If the lake rose, Kim could end up trapped back there. The front end of this cave had been below the surface before, probably for years. Only the recent drought had exposed it.
The thunder died, and the sound of movement somewhere above caused me to freeze and hold the lantern close to the pool, shielding the light with my body. A ripple circled my leg as if something had passed by below the water. The urge to scream welled up, and I covered my mouth. What might be living in here?
Everything in me wanted to run for the opposite shore, but I couldn’t. There was no choice, other than to move as silently as my stiffened body would allow. My legs were softening slightly now, growing more cooperative, warmed by the water, but I was still too off-balance, too weak to run. If someone or something waited up there, I’d never get past.
The slope on the opposite shore was moist, slippery, hard to navigate. The cold air of the cave teased my skin as I left the pool, climbing carefully, bracing the lantern ahead of myself, pausing and holding my breath as loose rocks slipped and bounced downward into the water.
Each time, no sound from above. No evidence that anyone was up there waiting.
The muscles in my arms and legs burned, and my breath came in short, ragged gasps, my head swimming before I finally reached the top of the slope. Pausing momentarily, I lay against the rocks, pulling in air, trying to clear my thoughts.
I was so tired. So cold. The wet clothes clinging to my body felt like a layer of frost. My brain wanted to surrender, to sink into sleep. . . .
Outside, the rain fell in earnest now, and along the sidewall, the flow of water had swelled, weaving its way over the rocks and down to the pool. There wasn’t time to waste. I had to keep moving.
Wildwood Creek Page 30
