Whispers in the Night

by James Hunt

  But around her, for a radius of twenty yards, hundreds of lines came to life in the sand, moving and writhing, circling Amy.

  “No,” Amy whispered.

  The snakes moved quicker, pushing themselves into a frenzy. Their scaly backs protruded from the desert-like small mountain ridges and their motions became more sporadic the closer they moved toward her.

  Trapped, Amy watched as hundreds of fangs emerged from the sand, a chorus of hissing echoing in a coordinated cry of their attack. She lifted her hands to shield herself, screaming from the reptilian onslaught.

  The snakes launched themselves from the sand, their fangs puncturing skin, pumping venom that made Amy collapse to the ground. The reptiles smothered her, the venom numbing her mind and body.

  With their venom dispensed, the snakes slithered away, leaving Amy covered in bite marks, numb and motionless in the sand.

  Unable to move, her pulse slowing and every heartbeat hitting her body like a bass drum, Amy rolled to her back. She choked for breath, her throat closed up, and she lay still, eyes open, burning beneath the sun like the rest of her body.

  Amy’s blood boiled, the sun cooking her from the inside out. Nausea overwhelmed her senses and foam bubbled up from her mouth, dribbling down her cheeks, the venom working its way through her system.

  Time slowed, and while the physical pain kept her pinned in the sand, it was the mental horrors flashing across her memory that triggered the tears from her eyes.

  Amy watched her daughters beg for her to save them, to stop their pain, but she could do nothing but sit and watch. She said nothing. She did nothing. Finally, they wasted away into nothing but dust and sand, joining the desert landscape. Stoic, the tears flowed until they were soaked up by the sun.

  Only after witnessing both of her daughters’ demise did Amy wiggle a finger. Then another. Eventually, she lifted her head and gathered enough momentum to roll to her side. She glanced to the sand, finding it still. She waited for another attack, but none came.

  Finally, Amy stood, slowly regaining her motor function as she limped forward. She blinked, hesitant with each step, turning sharply every few seconds, her mind and body left paranoid from the potential of another attack.

  Amy stumbled forward, her tracks still washed away the moment her foot left the sand. Out there against the horizon was something she wasn’t seeing, something she wasn’t understanding. She stopped, frowning, recalling what Running Water had told her before she was transported to this realm.

  “You must face what you fear,” Amy said, repeating the words as if she’d forgotten them. And what did she fear? Snakes? Heat? Dying?

  She shook her head.

  Amy pushed herself up from the sand, her muscles still shivering from the hundreds of snake bites that had nearly driven her to the edge of death, only to be pulled back at the last second so she could experience even more pain.

  The flashes of her daughters’ imaginary deaths still plagued her, and Amy shut her eyes. This place wasn’t real, at least not to the extent where it would cause her real damage to her real body sitting back in the tent with Running Water.

  So what did she fear most? She circled the question, but she knew the answer. It wasn’t snakes or monsters. It was something far simpler. It was the death of her children.

  55

  Terry bounced his leg nervously the entire ride from the hospital back to the mine. When the driver pulled into the abandoned Ghost Town, he was out of the car before the muscled driver put it into park. He ran toward the mine and Mulaney, who stood beneath the mine’s entrance.

  “How close are you?” Terry asked, looking past Mulaney and into the darkened tunnel where his daughter was buried.

  “Close,” Mulaney said, his tone indifferent. “Shouldn’t be much longer.”

  “I want to go down now.” Terry nearly dropped to his knees and begged. “I have to be there when it’s cleared.”

  Mulaney clapped Terry on the shoulder. “We’ll go down there together.”

  Flanked by Mulaney’s bodyguards on the way down, the elevator was cramped. The voices from the workers below echoed between the mechanical hums of the elevator shaft, and by the time they reached the bottom, their sounds drowned out the motor and mechanical noises of the crew below.

  The metal grate door slid open, and Terry was the first out of the elevator, sprinting to the forefront of the action and ignoring the warnings issued by the crew working below.

  Terry stopped only when the wall of rock and dirt blocked his path, the same rock and dirt that cut him off from his six-year-old daughter. He ran his fingers through his hair, overwhelmed by being so close, yet separated by so much.

  Terry pressed his palm against the granite and dirt. “I’m here, baby.” He spoke softly, barely able to hear himself over the hum of machinery behind him. “Daddy’s right here.”

  “Hey, buddy,” the foreman yelled. “We’re gonna set our last charge. You need to step back.”

  Terry dropped his hand and then slowly backed up, but never took his eyes off the wall of granite. The foreman made sure to pull him back behind the point of safety.

  “Charge set! Charge set! Charge set!”

  The order was echoed down the line, and everyone braced for the explosion, save for Terry, who stared straight ahead at the mountain of rubble blocking his path to his daughter.

  Three seconds passed, and then explosives detonated. It was designed to implode, loosening the rocks and soil to make it easier for the rescue workers to remove debris.

  One of the workers grunted, heaving one of the larger rocks from the pile, which triggered a mini-avalanche of dirt and pebbles. “We’ve got a hole!”

  Terry rushed forward and pressed his hand against the nearest rock and peered through the open crevice. He practically stuck his head through, trying to get a better look, but he didn’t get much of a chance.

  Workers moved in, helping clear the rest of the path, the hole growing larger and larger.

  “All right, we’ve got a path,” one of the workers said, stepping out of the cleared rock. “Let’s get in some— Wait!”

  “Maisie!” Terry stormed into the space, searching blindly in the dark, which caused him to spin around and extend a hand. “I need a light.”

  A worker passed a light through, and Terry flicked on the light and penetrated the darkness. The rubble on the ground spewed from the opening like guts from a gunshot wound.

  The farther Terry stepped into the void and separated himself from the opening, the colder and darker it became. “Maisie?” The farther he journeyed without finding his daughter, the more the darkness and madness of this place took hold of him.

  He hyperventilated, shifting the flashlight in quick jagged motions, scouring the ground, walls, even the ceiling in his hastened panic. The circular beam of the light revealed only the darkened granite of the earth, the violent grooves and cracks that traveled like veins through the old tunnel.

  “Maisie,” Terry whispered to himself, stopping with slumped shoulders. He circled slowly, passing over the hole in the back of the wall, the lights from the rescue crew faded and small.

  If his daughter wasn’t here on the other side of the collapse, then the only other place for her to be was beneath the rocks. His little girl, his youngest daughter, crushed beneath tons of rocks. Her body wouldn’t be recognizable.

  The sweet face, the kind eyes and smile, the fragile body, it was all shattered like glass. But while Maisie might have been as delicate as glass, he knew that what they’d find would be more gruesome.

  Blood, bone, and flesh would leave behind a different residue.

  Terry dropped the light, covering his mouth and sobbing silently to himself in the darkness. Grief brought him to his knees, and he slowly bowed his head, touching his forehead to the hard granite. He had nearly lost his daughters once, and now his youngest was really gone. No tricks. No more hope. One daughter’s life had been snuffed out, and another was barely hanging on bac
k at the hospital.

  56

  Her shirt soaked with sweat, Amy’s pores had dried up. Salt had crystallized on her skin, and the sun had baked her to a fine crisp. She dragged her feet through the sand. The landscape hadn’t changed for hours, for days really. She had been walking forever, and there was no end in sight.

  Amy’s innards were as dry as the arid conditions she traversed. Her mouth hung slightly open, and she didn’t know what else she could do to get out of this mess.

  There was no sign of anything other than sand and death and the horrors that she had trekked through. Snakes. Scorpions. Heat. All of it had brought her to the edge of death, and then pulled her back just before she fell, allowing more horrors to repeat themselves.

  Exhausted, Amy dropped to her knees, and she choked for breath. If she had believed in a higher power, she would have prayed, but she barely had enough concentration to keep herself upright and she was no closer to finding the spirit lake than when she first started. The situation was hopeless.

  “Mom?”

  Amy lifted her gaze from the dull view of the sand, her heart skipping beats in her chest as her eyes fell upon her oldest daughter.

  Liz was pale, piqued, and looked one breath away from death. She looked how Amy felt.

  “Mom, you need to hurry,” Liz said, hunched forward, pleading with every ounce of emotion that remained to her. “Please! It hurts, Mom! It hurts!”

  Amy’s lip quivered. “I’m trying.”

  Liz’s expression changed, and it grew angry. “You’re not enough. You’ve never been enough. That’s why you nearly killed me and Maisie in that car!”

  “No,” Amy said, shaking her head as the words left her lips in faint whispers. “I didn’t mean to do that. It wasn’t—”

  “You should have died in that car.” Liz thrust her finger in Amy’s face. “It would have saved us a lot of fucking trouble. I know it, Dad knows it, even Maisie knows it.”

  Amy trembled in terror and denial. “No. I can fix this. I can help you!”

  “Help us?” Liz asked. “How can you help us? You can’t even take care of yourself! If you were a real mother, then you’d put us out of your misery right now!” Liz brandished a knife and held it to her wrists. “Or maybe I’ll just do it myself.”

  “NO!” Amy lunged forward. “Wait!” She caught her breath, still on her knees, her daughter towering above her, with the sun and sky in the background. “I love you.”

  Liz’s anger faded, melting away into a stoic apathy. “You love me?” She removed the edge of the blade from her wrist.

  Amy stood, slowly, but kept her distance, not wanting to startle her daughter. “You and Maisie mean more to me than anything in the world.”

  A tear of blood rolled down the corner of Liz’s left eye. “Then make the pain stop.” She wiped her nose, smearing blood onto her hand and arm.

  “I will,” Amy said. “Just drop the knife, sweetheart.”

  Liz examined the blade in her hand, turning it over, the steel gleaming under the sun, the reflection of the deadly metal blinding and powerful. Then she slowly extended her hand. “You have to do it.”

  Amy shifted her gaze between the blade in Liz’s hand and the expression of longing on her daughter’s face. She shook her head. “I won’t do that.”

  “But you said you’d make the pain stop,” Liz said. “Don’t you want it to stop?”

  “Of course, but I—”

  “Please, Mom!” Liz dropped to her knees, screaming as she hunched forward.

  Amy saw the pain on her daughter’s face as more blood dripped from her eyes, nose, and ears. “I can’t.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  Defeated, Liz stared at the blade, then quick as a snake bite, flipped it around and plunged it into her stomach.

  “NO!” Amy lunged forward, but it was too late.

  Blood burst from her daughter’s stomach, and her hands fell from the blade’s handle as the life drained from her body and stained the white sand red. Liz smiled, then lay still. Dead.

  Amy screamed, rocking Liz in her arms. She held on tight, but Liz slipped through her fingers, sinking into the sand. She tried to keep Liz above ground, but the desert wouldn’t be denied.

  “Liz-LIZ!” Amy held onto Liz’s hand, her own arm being pulled into the sand, until she couldn’t hold on any longer. “NO!”

  Amy dug into the sand, searching for her daughter, but Liz was gone.

  On her side, Amy let out intermittent wails into the hot desert air, the sun and the sky the only witnesses to her sorrow.

  “Mother?”

  Amy lifted her head. Her jaw dropped.

  Liz stood in front of her, holding a knife, looking just as ragged and helpless as she had moments ago. “Mother, please, help me.”

  Truth and fiction had blurred together. It was like Amy’s mind was being split in two.

  Amy shut her eyes. “No. No, this isn’t real.”

  “Mom, please!” Liz’s cries grew more panicked and scared. “Mom, look at me. Help me! Please!”

  But Amy kept her eyes on her feet. She didn’t dare look up. She had already watched her daughter take her life once. She couldn’t handle watching it again.

  Slowly, Amy walked, making a wide berth around her pleading daughter, and left her behind. She did her best to block out the cries for help, but no matter how far she walked, it was like Liz’s voice was right in her ear.

  But Amy never looked back, not even when she heard the knife plunge into her daughter’s stomach, and the last gurgling spats of life erupted into the desert air and the dull thump of her body smacking the sand when she died.

  Amy shut her eyes, convincing herself that this wasn’t real, searching for any root of truth that would allow her to maintain her sanity.

  “Mother?”

  Amy froze, a chill running the length of her spine despite the heat that plagued her. She opened her eyes. Liz was there. Again.

  “Please, Mother,” Liz said, that same strained pleading tone laced in her voice. “I’m in so much pain, please!”

  “I can’t,” Amy said, reaching her breaking point. “I can’t do it.”

  “You can save me,” Liz said, extending the knife to her mother. “You can save me right now, Mom.”

  Amy stared at the knife, and then Running Water’s words pricked the back of her thoughts. “You must conquer what you fear.” She looked from the knife back to Liz. She studied the features of her daughter’s face, hoping to find some inconsistencies, something that made her less real. But every line and freckle, every strand of hair was accounted for. It was her daughter. But in Amy’s distressed and ragged mind, she was unsure of how she got here in the first place.

  “Please, Mom,” Liz said, again with blood flowing from her eyes and down her face. “Help me.”

  Amy extended her arm, reaching for the knife in her daughter’s hand. She gently picked up the handle, pinching it between her thumb and forefinger as if the blade would shatter if handled roughly.

  Blood poured from Liz’s mouth, and she dropped to her knees. “Mom, please!” She writhed on the ground, her body wiggling like the snakes that had attacked Amy earlier in her journey. “Please, make it stop!”

  Amy slowly curled her hand around the knife’s handle, watching her daughter lose all control of her mind and body, pain overriding everything else. Amy’s heart pounded so fast that she thought she might have a heart attack watching her daughter writhe on the ground.

  Liz screamed, and her face was coated in blood. Her beautiful blue eyes had gone red, the crimson shimmering beneath the sunlight. It wasn’t anything that she ever wanted to see again.

  Amy walked to her daughter’s side, Liz’s arm smacking against Amy’s shin. Her daughter’s voice had transformed into a wounded animal, her scream inhuman as she begged for the end of her pain. And while Amy wanted to ease that pain for her daughter, she never thought that it would come at the cost of her daughter’s life, and she never would
have imagined that her soul would hurt as much as it did at that moment.

  Amy stared directly into her daughter’s eyes. “I love you so much.”

  “No,” Liz said, shaking her head. “No, Mom, wait. I-I changed my mind, I—” She coughed. “I don’t want to die.”

  “I know you don’t,” Amy said. “But you’re not real.”

  The betrayal transformed into anger, and Liz grimaced. “I hate you. I hate you! You’re a terrible mother. You’ve always been a terrible mother! You’ve—”

  Amy plunged the knife downward and into Liz’s stomach, who buckled from the sudden thrust. Amy’s arms shook, looking away.

  A light smile curved up Liz’s cheek, her teeth stained red, her entire face bathed in blood, and the black of her hair the only other color beside the bright of the red. “You will never save her.”

  Amy turned back to the creature that had taken Liz’s form and frowned.

  “You will fail,” Liz hissed, baring her teeth, eyes wide, and lifted her head from the sand, which started to consume her body. “You do not have the strength! Both your daughters will die!” She laughed, triggering more blood to spew from her lips like a geyser of death.

  Eventually Liz sank and disappeared into the earth, leaving behind only the knife that had plunged into her stomach, which stood vertically in the sand, the handle exposed.

  Amy approached it wearily, then bent down and gripped the handle. She pulled, but it didn’t give way. She reached with her other hand and pulled again, heaving her weight behind the motion, but still the blade wouldn’t budge. She tugged harder, her arms, back, and legs burning from the effort. She screamed, lifting her head toward the sky, and offered one final yank, which finally released the blade from the sand.

  Amy landed hard on her backside, knife in hand. The ground rumbled and she lifted her head, looking to the spot where she’d removed the blade, and found water bubbling up through a hole. It rushed toward her, soaking her clothes and washing away the blood that had spilled over her body.