Resurrection Pass

by Kurt Anderson

  Ahead of them, Hans tripped and pitched headfirst into the water. Jake saw him go down and waited for him to come back up.

  “Come on!” he shouted at Warren. Overhead, lightning cracked across the gray clouds.

  They charged forward, Jaimie’s battered heels leaving twin furrows behind them. Rachel and Parkson had stopped a few yards ahead, and they almost ran into them. In front of them, a yawning fissure had opened in the ground. The muddy water was pouring into it, clumps of sod breaking off and tumbling down. Hans was deep inside the crevasse, twisting and rolling as he tried to free himself from the writhing mass of tendrils that lined the sidewalls. The ground continued to separate in front of them, opening and deepening. Hans slipped deeper into the hole, his mouth covered with mud as he flailed, only managing to work himself deeper into the cut. The tendrils seemed to be passing Hans’s body downward, transferring him further into the earth.

  Jake stood at the edge, feeling his boots starting to slide into the hole. One of Hans’s hands broke free from the writhing nest, a glint of gold from his wedding ring. A tendril snaked out from the sidewall and wrapped around his hand, yanking it downward. The little circle of gold disappeared. Hans was five feet deep. Ten. Water continued to slosh and froth into the crevasse, cascading over the twisting and seeking tendrils. Then Hans was gone, just a vague shape underneath the muddy latticework of the tendrils.

  “Get back!” Warren shouted as the earth started to slip away under their feet. “Jesus, man, come on!”

  They yanked Jaimie around and stumbled after Rachel and Parkson, who were retreating to the north. They only went a few yards before stopping again. The same fissure that had swallowed Hans was curving around them, blocking their path to the top of the valley. Jake dropped Jaimie and spun around. All around them, the fissure was opening up, the water pouring into it, the rocks and boulders tumbling down in a series of small and large splashes. He saw tendrils pushing at the opposite sides of the opening, widening the gap even as it extended its length.

  Rachel pointed to the northeast and shouted something. There was a narrow path near a section of rocky ground, the bedrock forming a slender bridge back toward the river.

  “Go!” Jake shouted.

  She sprinted for it. Parkson thrashed his way after her, his foot below his injured ankle wobbling and flopping. Jake and Warren followed, holding Jaimie’s wrists and yanking her roughly along the ground. Her weight increased suddenly and their forward momentum slowed, then stopped. They turned. Jaimie had slipped down into the chasm at their heels, and her legs were snared by several tendrils. She had regained consciousness at some point, and the addled expression she’d possessed earlier, that strange combination of confusion and cunning, had disappeared. It was Jaimie, really Jaimie, her bloodshot eyes opening in fear and then pain as a large tendril snaked out of the earth and wrapped around her waist.

  Then Jake was falling, the ground giving way under him, Warren flailing for balance at his side. Jake sensed rather than saw something coming at him through the slimy ground. His boot kicked out into the air and found something solid to push off, one thought searing across his mind—God, please let that not have been Jaimie’s forehead. He kicked himself away from the chasm, back up and over the edge. Whiplike lengths fell on his back, his sides. One of them clutched briefly at his ankle, then slid off, the mud too slick to allow it to gain purchase. Then he was up and out of the collapsing hole, scrambling forward, first on all fours and then straightening and sprinting, Warren splashing after him. They could see Rachel ahead, the standing water over her ankles, Parkson flailing badly behind her.

  They scrambled across the ridge of bedrock after them, the soil falling away on either side. Rachel was running back down into the valley toward the river, now swollen and discolored. Jake glanced behind him. The entire length of the bottomland was split open, split lengthwise with the yawning fissure. The ridge of bedrock they had just crossed extended all the way to the thick rim of cattails that flanked the river. The same spine seemed to extend underneath the river to the far side, where a fan-shaped series of ledges in the bluff spread out in a sunrise pattern before narrowing to a single razorback, which led up at an angle through the otherwise vertical bluffs.

  Jake ran, his boots slipping and sliding on the rain-slickened rocks. The ground continued to fall away on either side, and tendrils reached out of the earth, brushing against his feet, his shins.

  Rachel plunged through the cattails and splashed into the river. It had risen almost a foot in the past ten minutes, the surface cratered by the huge raindrops. Parkson blundered after her, screaming with pain, his foot flopping from one side to the other. Rachel made it through the cattails, and seconds later her arms were cleaving through the muddy water as she swam for the far side. Parkson seemed foundered in the cattails, the seed heads erupting in clouds of white above him. They coated his muddy body as he thrashed forward, pitching to his knees.

  A large tendril lay across the ridge of rock ahead of Jake. He leapt over it, his rifle rising up on its strap and banging down against his shoulder blades. Ahead of him, Parkson gained his feet and stumbled forward into the river.

  Jake plunged into the cattails, coughing and hacking from inhaling the cattail fluff. Normally the river was narrow, just forty yards across, with little current. Now it was closer to sixty yards, and the current was up.

  He lifted one boot out of the water, severing the laces with his knife. He pulled the boot off, then did the same with his other foot. Warren waded past him and dove into the stained water, swimming toward the far shore with powerful strokes.

  Behind them, something slithered through the cattail stalks.

  Jake yanked a piece of shoelace free from the eyelets and used it to tie the boots together. He swung the tethered boots over his neck and started dog-paddling.

  The rain was still coming down very hard, the water splashing up into Jake’s eyes and nose. Rachel was nearly to the other side. Parkson was halfway across, swimming awkwardly, his body tilted to one side as he favored his good leg. Warren moved through the water with ease, overtaking Parkson, already closing in on the far shore. Jake continued his dog-paddle. He fought to control his breathing, to let his lungs fill with buoyant air.

  Ahead of him, Rachel had reached shallow water on the far side, the water up to her hips. Parkson warbled something to her, some desperate entreaty Jake couldn’t hear but didn’t need to. Parkson was drowning, or he thought he was. Rachel shouted something at Warren, who was just getting his feet under him. Warren ignored her, staggering onto the rocky shore and collapsing against the side of the rock bluff.

  Rachel dove back in. She reached Parkson and positioned herself behind him, one arm looping over his left shoulder. Parkson clawed at her, pushing himself up by pushing her down. Rachel tried to slide away, and Parkson reached out, wrapping his hand in her hair, and pulled her in close. They both went under, and then Parkson’s head emerged, sputtering, his hands pushing down in the water. Jake swam harder.

  When he reached them, Rachel was still underwater, her legs and arms flailing under the surface. Parkson was only barely above the surface. When he saw Jake he reached out, hands spread like claws. Jake hit him in the face, once, twice, three times, and Parkson let go of Rachel. Jake pulled her up, going under himself with the effort. His boots banged against the back of his neck, the cord tight against it.

  Rachel’s fist struck the top of Jake’s head. He saw a thumb coming at him and turned away, taking it high on the cheek instead of his eye. He parried another blow.

  “Rachel!”

  She blinked, caught herself from throwing another punch. She retched up a mouthful of river water.

  “Shore,” she said.

  “Go,” he said. “Right . . . behind you.”

  Parkson was a few yards away, thrashing at the surface but not making any progress toward shore, his breath coming in whimpers. Jake dog-paddled closer and caught his eye, white with panic. Jake held out
his hand. Parkson reached out tentatively, then his eyes widened even more. Jake spun clumsily in the water to see what had alarmed Parkson.

  Something was rushing toward them just under the surface of the water, its length extending all the way back to the shore. The water bulged above it as it closed in on them, twenty yards away, then fifteen. The surging water was three feet high, falling away to reveal a massive tentacle, larger than any they’d seen, washed pale gray by the river. Ten yards away now, and Jake could see the tip of it undulating just under the surface, like a hound dog casting its head back and forth for a scent. Jake was directly between the tentacle and Parkson, both of them still dog-paddling to stay afloat, staring.

  Five yards. The tendril was slowing as it got farther out from shore, losing some momentum, but still moving faster than either of them could swim.

  Three yards.

  Jake let his arms and legs go still. He sank, drifting in the current. The tentacle brushed against his back. He drifted a few more feet, motionless, down and downstream, the tentacle a giant wedge-shaped shadow above him. Wait, wait. No movement, not a twitch. Be the rabbit in the briar, the whitetail buck in the thicket. Finally the need for breath overrode all other thoughts, and he kicked for the surface.

  He broke the surface and spun around. Parkson was perfectly still, his hands pressed down hard against something that was not moving. He locked eyes with Jake, lips pressed into a thin gray line, and then he was yanked under the surface in a massive swirl.

  Jake put his head down and swam toward shore, no longer dog-paddling, his head under water more than it was above. He breathed in sips of air mixed with water, fighting the urge to hack it back out. Eventually his feet kicked against gravel, and he scrambled onto the bank. Rachel grabbed his hand and pulled him up, toward the hogback ridge and away from the narrow cobble beach. Warren was already ten feet above them, and he reached down to help Rachel onto the thin shelf of rock where he had stopped. Both of them pulled Jake up, his rifle clanging against the rock.

  He coughed out water, looking at the river through bleary eyes.

  Something was twisting and turning at mid-river, leaving a trail of swirling wakes on the surface. Parkson’s hand broke the surface, then part of his shoulder and neck. A second later his shoulder disappeared and the water went still.

  Jake pushed himself up on one elbow. “Is he—”

  Parkson’s head emerged out of the water, eyes blank. He slowly settled into the water, pausing when his mouth was at the water’s surface. A trail of bubbles blew from his mouth, then another.

  “He’s breathing,” Warren said. “It looks like he’s trying to say something.”

  “We have to go back in,” Rachel said.

  Jake reached up to his shoulder and unslung the Winchester. His boots were gone. He brought the gun up, ignoring Rachel’s cry, then slapping her hand when she tried to push the barrel away. He swung the barrel back over and lined up the shot, the front sight a small bronzed point of light, nestling down into the rear notch. He squeezed the trigger, the gun bucking under him as the water exploded two inches to the right of Parkson’s ear. River water fountained down on Parkson’s face with the raindrops, splashing into his open eyes.

  “What are you doing?”

  Jake turned to Rachel. “He didn’t blink.”

  “What do you mean?” Warren said. He was looking at Jake’s gun as though he had just recognized it as more than a chunk of steel and wood.

  “You know what I mean,” Jake said. “It wants us to go in and save him. Just like Greer.”

  And Jake heard Greer’s words again, his larynx flexing and twisting under that awful manipulation: Helllp meeeeeee . . .

  “So now what?” Warren was talking to Jake, but he was looking at the far side of the valley, at the epicenter of the split and muddy ground encircling the crumpled remains of the tarp lean-to containing the samples of promethium. Jake gazed up the length of the hogback ridge. It ran at a forty-degree angle for almost a mile, ending in a notch at the top that reminded him of the gap in the Winchester’s sights. There was a Resurrection Valley, and there was also, high up on this far side, a Resurrection Pass. The spine of rock that led to the pass was folded up and out of the bedrock like hands steepled in prayer, a knife’s-edge of granite thrust out of the earth by subterranean forces unimaginable.

  He looked down at his stocking feet, then up to Rachel. She nodded, motioned him forward. Above them, more lightning crackled across the gray sky.

  Chapter 11

  “I seen it,” Pierre had said, lying on his narrow bed.

  “I seen what the Whitigo done to them people.”

  He twisted in his bed, grimacing as he spoke, perhaps from the cancer, which had joined dementia in the battle for which affliction could wreak the most havoc on his bent body. Perhaps the grimace came from the memory. It didn’t matter to Henry, who wasn’t sure what was more horrifying, the story itself, or whether this awful tale indicated what was left of his father’s mind.

  “I seen it,” Pierre said again from his deathbed. “And no matter how much I tried, I can’t never unsee it.”

  Henry lay at the top of the bluff, elbows pressed against the rocky ground, thoughts of his long-dead father coming to a halt with the sound of the rifle shot below them.

  They had been here for an hour, worming their way to the rim of the valley, reconning just like they would when they were out hunting. The forest behind them was thick with balsam fir, and the needles had drifted down over many decades to form a dense carpet on the rocks. The rain filtered through the needles, and the ground wasn’t too wet. A northwest breeze had developed, the first wind of autumn shaking the last of the rain out of the pine needles.

  Below them, a battlefield. Henry did not know how else to characterize it. The ground on the far side of the river was split and marred; it looked like a giant child had slashed the valley open with his equally enormous sword. The gashes were filled with muddy water, and one ran almost the length of the valley, zigzagging among the rock formations at the base of the far slope. The drill rig no longer smoldered, but they could see the scorched grass around it, and a few yards away some sort of shelter that had fallen down. Henry could make out the bright domes of several tents on the far ridgeline, above the mess.

  Almost straight below them, three figures scrambled up the narrow spine of rock that led to the pass. The hogback would bring them to just a few feet away from where Henry and the rest lay waiting underneath the balsams. Henry could not make out their faces or tell who they might be, but the fact that they had crossed the swollen river and were moving away from their tents told a story, too.

  “Twenty bucks,” Garney said. “I can get them with three shots. Boom, boom, boom. Weasel, gimme your. 308.”

  “Shut up,” Darius said. “No guns, not yet.”

  Yes, Henry thought. Let’s have some patience. They needed to know who these people were, what they wanted, what they had done. He was surprised at the damage they had done to the valley in such a short amount of time, especially since he could see no heavy machinery.

  If it was even these people who did this, Henry thought, the moisture wicking up from the pine needles into his still-damp clothes.

  His thoughts returned to his father, to the last story he had told Henry. It was not long after the Great War, but before Henry’s father had gone to Holland with the Second Armored to fight the Huns in World War II. There had been a string of incredibly harsh winters in the Highbanks area. Back then it had been just a loose collection of rough cabins and shelters, a few whites around but mostly just the Swampy Cree. The winters had started early and ended late, sometimes lasting into May or even June before the grass turned green. And while there were always a few who experienced the awful sickness sometimes referred to by the innocuous term cabin fever—a certain percentage who could not withstand the mental toll that these winters brought—it was during this time that there was an unusual amount of killings, an uptick in
gruesome murders. Of things worse than murder.

  It was unclear whether Pierre’s account was based in fact or was a product of his dementia; all Henry knew was that nobody, not even his own mother, had heard it before.

  * * *

  Pierre had been in his teens. It was late April, and he had been making his way through the snow-covered woods, his rifle at the ready. The winters had been hard on the moose numbers, and the caribou had migrated far to the south, so it was not only long, cold nights and lack of warmth that weighed on the people, it was hunger. Raw, screaming hunger, almost all of the people emaciated, able to count not only ribs with their shirts off but also the indentations and bumps along sternum and clavicles, able to identify healed broken bones as easily as with an X-ray. A technology, even at that early age of the technological era, which was already being used to identify illnesses. But even this emerging technology would not have been able to diagnose the malady Pierre was about to witness.

  He was far out in the forest on this day when he smelled charred meat. It was not a smell Pierre could have ignored if he tried; he had been physically unable to slow himself in his headlong charge to find the source of the scent. He plunged forward on his snowshoes, tripping several times before making it to the small clearing where a low, rough cabin sat soaking in the April sunshine, smoke seeping out of a crude stone chimney. The snow around the cabin was littered with frozen turds and yellow with urine, and the ammonia smell was finally enough to cause Pierre to pause, to survey where he was. He was old enough to understand that just because a person had found game did not necessarily mean that person would be willing to share. Or that such a person would welcome company of any kind, especially when that person lived so far out in the bush.