by Rick Hautala
When they got back to where the corridor divided, Kip’s hands were still shaking as he lit another road flare and, kneeling, carefully planted it in the dirt in the center of the tunnel they had just left. Watson stood guard, watching the tunnel in both directions for any sign of the untcigahunk.
“It’s too damned quiet,” he said softly.
Kip looked up from where he crouched on the floor. “Maybe we scared them all away.”
Watson snorted with laughter. “You keep forgettin’ that these ain’t animals we’re dealin’ with.”
Kip almost said something about how neither one of them could be all that brilliant for coming down here in the first place, but he let it pass and instead just chuckled to himself to relieve his tension.
With the flare burning brightly behind them, they started down the corridor that branched off to the left. They had gone no more than fifty feet when the little brothers attacked again.
4
Bill was winded when he got back to the house, but he barely took time to catch his breath, get a quick drink of water, and tell Marty what he was doing before he grabbed a flashlight from the cupboard and then reached for the telephone. He hurriedly dialed the police station. On the second ring, Parkman picked up.
“Harry—this is Bill. I’ve been out and was just checking back to see if you—”
“No, I haven’t,” Parkman said, sounding impatient. “I haven’t had a chance yet. You all right? You sound out of breath.”
“I’m okay,” Bill said after taking a slow, deep inhalation. “Been out to the Indian Caves.”
“Uh-huh?”
“I’m not sure, but someone—I think it might have been Kip—moved the stone in the back and has gone into the tunnel. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Parkman cleared his throat. “I haven’t been out there in years, but yeah, there’s a tunnel leading back from the front chamber. What makes you think it’s Kip?”
“I just—” Bill looked up at the ceiling. “It seems like something he might do. Look, Harry, I know you’ve been busy, but I’m asking you now, as a friend, will you meet me at the house and come with me out to the caves?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Bill listened to Parkman’s steady breathing.
“Someone’s gone in there, and whoever it is, they might be in trouble.”
“Right, and I told you, I’m still dealing with the trouble we had out on Limington Road last night.”
“You also told me you’d have at least twenty men by noon,” Bill said. He could tell Parkman was in no mood to be pushed, so he made an extra effort to be calm. “All I’m asking is that you come with me out to the Indian Caves and see what’s going on out there.”
Again, there was a long pause, and Bill waited tensely.
“Okay, look. I’ve got just a bit more to do on this accident report. Then I’ll be over. Give me fifteen minutes, half an hour, tops. Can you wait that long?”
“Sure,” Bill said, glancing anxiously at the kitchen clock and trying not to feel as though every minute counted.
“Okay,” Parkman said, “I’ll be over then. If I get tied up, I’ll send Holden, okay?”
“Half an hour,” Bill said.
“At the most,” Parkman answered and, without another word, hung up.
Bill wished he could feel better about all of this, but he didn’t. He couldn’t stop thinking that someone—in all likelihood Kip—was down inside that cave and maybe in trouble. He turned to Marty, who was lingering in the doorway.
“Parkman on his way here. Tell him to meet me out at the Indian Caves, all right?”
“Sure,” Marty said, nodding. From what he had overheard of the phone conversation, he had some idea what was happening. His concern for Kip deepened, but he tried not to let it show.
“Okay. Great,” Bill said, and, gripping the flashlight tightly in one hand, he ran out the door and into the field. The knee-high grass swished at his legs as he ran toward the woods. Every now and then a thorn or thistle would snag his pant leg. The sun beat down on him with savage heat, and it wasn’t long before his shirt was soaked with sweat. He kept telling himself that he’d get his second wind, but right now, his lungs ached like he was inhaling fire.
He followed the path back to the Indian Caves, and the cooler air of the woods quenched the fire in his lungs at least a little. Dodging low-hanging branches and leaping over rotting deadfalls, he quickened his pace until he saw the turn in the path that led to the caves. He slowed his pace until he arrived, panting, at the cave entrance.
Before entering, though, he stretched his legs to avoid cramping. With his hands on his knees and his head down, he took several deep, rasping breaths. Even the small amount of water he had drunk at home sloshed in his belly, sending out needle-sharp cramps.
He knew he should wait for Parkman to show up, but he also was anxious to get into the cave and find out what had happened. If Kip was in there—if Kip was hurt— every second could mean the difference between life and death. Finally—after a wait which, according to his watch, was just over four minutes—he snapped on his flashlight and entered the cave.
Inside, the air was chilly. His sweat-soaked shirt clung to his back. Crouching low, he picked up the string and let it slide through his hands as he started down the passageway. His only thought was—what will I find at the end?
He got some idea when he found the first dead untcigahunk facedown in the dirt a short way inside the cave. At first, he thought it was a dead child.
Christ, no! Please don’t let it be Kip!
But then he saw it for the grotesque thing it was.
Even stretched out, the creature was short, not more than four feet tall. The skin was a roughly textured brown that looked more like tree bark than flesh. The arms and legs, though thin, were well-muscled, and the clawed hands looked sharp enough and powerful enough to gut a cow with one swipe.
The creature’s chest and one side of its face had been blown away, obviously by a shotgun blast. Bill looked around until he saw two empty shotgun shells in the dirt. Picking them up, he sniffed each. The smell of spent gun-powder was strong. He threw the casings down and turned back to the dead creature.
It was the one remaining eye—cold and dead—that fascinated him. It was too large for the creature’s head. Then he realized that, if this creature lived underground, larger eyes made sense. Didn’t fish and other creatures that lived deep within caves all have bulging eyes like this? He couldn’t push aside the impression that when the creature had been alive, the eyes must have flashed with an intelligent evil.
He wished he could bring himself to touch the thing, if only to make sure it was dead. He might be able to determine how long it had been dead. Certainly the signs of the scuffle looked fresh. The blood that had puddled on the cave floor was barely congealed.
Worst of all, he couldn’t help but be afraid that something like—if there were more of them—might harm Kip.
If he’s in these caves, could he have killed this...this thing?
And if not him...who?
Bill spent several minutes studying the dead creature, feeling equally horrified and fascinated. In spite of its pointed, ratlike face and hooked claws, it had an almost human cast to its features. In many ways, it looked like what Bill would have imagined a goblin would look like, an odd distortion, almost a parody of humanity.
Even in death, the thing looked evil. The mouth was open, exposing a row of tiny, backward pointing, chisel-shaped teeth. Bill could imagine how teeth like that could grab hold as they worked their way through an arm or leg. And those claws...
But what in the name of Christ was this thing?
Cautiously Bill licked his fingertips and brought them close to the creature’s nostrils to feel if there was any trace of breath. As his trembling fingers came closer to that savage, open mouth, he expected the creature to lurch up suddenly and bite his hand, swallowing it to the wrist and grinding its teeth bac
k and forth as muscle and bone ripped apart.
“You’re dead meat,” Bill muttered when he didn’t feel even the faintest stirring of breath on his fingers. He sat back on his heels and let out a slow, whistling breath. Now more than ever, he wished he had waited for Parkman. If there were any more creatures like this one in the caves, Parkman, at least, would have a gun.
Balanced against his caution was his escalating fear that Kip was in the caves. Bill stood up and, holding the string loosely in his hand, continued down the corridor, now certain that Kip was down there and in serious trouble.
The string played loosely through his fingers as he followed it. When he came to the downward incline, he skittered down the slope and cautiously crossed the open chamber. He couldn’t help but notice the bats, swirling around overhead, and the fresh tracks that led across the accumulated mat of rotting bat shit.
But the thought that Kip might be at the end of the string—and the deeper, scarier thought that he might be injured or worse—pushed aside any uneasiness he felt about bats or not waiting for Parkman or anything else he might encounter in the cave.
He had to find Kip.
He crossed the chamber without incident, pausing every now and then to direct his beam to one side or another when he thought he saw something wiggling in the thick mat of bat shit on the cave floor. Letting go of the string, which had grown taut in the center of the chamber, he scrambled up the slope where, from halfway across the chamber, he had noticed a dull red glow. He didn’t know if he was relieved or not when he found a burning road flare flickering in one of the entrances.
He knew Kip didn’t have a shotgun, and he was pretty sure he didn’t have access to road flares, so if Kip was down here, he had to be with someone else. Judging by the footprints he saw in the bat shit, it looked like two people had passed through here recently—a kid and an adult.
When he turned to look back at the chamber, he saw for the first time the glow of another road flare in one of the branching tunnels behind him. He couldn’t help but wonder what all of this was for, but he was encouraged when he realized that whoever had lit the flare had done so within the last half hour or so. Those things don’t burn much longer than that.
He followed the string down the corridor to the right and then, after a few paces, jolted to a stop. He stood there, staring straight ahead, his mouth gaping in amazement. Sprawled on the floor were more bodies—a lot more bodies—of those things. All around, the cave floor was stained deep brown with their blood. There were deep scuff marks in the dirt, signs that whatever struggle had occurred here had been ferocious.
So there are more of them, Bill thought, tensing as he knelt down, taking a little time to study the corpses.
At least all of them were dead, and there were no human bodies.
Still, he had no idea how this had happened or who might have done it. If there were— How many? Bill glanced around and counted the bodies sprawled on the cave floor. Seven dead creatures. That certainly didn’t mean it was all of them. There could be dozens or hundreds of these things down here.
The hairs at the nape of his neck stirred as he considered that he might run headlong into one or more of these things. Without some kind of weapon, he might end up like these things, dead and forgotten in the depths of the earth. He thought longingly of the rifle he had in the closet back home and of the service revolver riding on Parkman’s hip.
If only he had waited.
But he couldn’t wait. If Kip was down here, he was in real danger.
When Bill stood up, the ligaments in his knees snapped, sounding like crackling ice underfoot. He had to decide which way to go now. If he went ahead unarmed and encountered any of these creatures alive, he was as good as dead. But if Kip was down here—and from what Marty had said and from what he had seen, he had every reason to think he was—then he had to find his son and get him out.
His empty hand clenched and unclenched as he directed the flashlight beam forward, then back the way he had come. A rapid pulse throbbed in his neck, and the hammering in his ears sounded like muffled drums booming deep within the cave. His thoughts churned like fetid swamp water, but he knew he had reached the only decision possible.
Armed or unarmed, if he didn’t find out for sure if Kip was down here, he wouldn’t want to survive the day.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he stepped over the bodies of the dead creatures and kept following the string—Kip’s string, he was sure—deeper into the caves. He proceeded as slowly and as silently as possible, every nerve alive and tingling as he waited for some indication that the creatures were near. He had just turned a corner where the floor slanted downward when double thump of distant gunfire echoed in the tunnel.
5
Parkman left the station in a hurry to go back out to the accident site on the Limington Road. On his way there, he told Holden to go over to Bill Howard’s house and help him check something out. He didn’t say what, and it wasn’t until the station door slammed shut behind Parkman that Holden realized something. He wasn’t sure if the police chief meant Bill Howard’s old house or the new one he was building out on Kaulback Road.
He strapped his service revolver onto his hip and went out to the cruiser, but when he tried to raise Parkman on the radio to clear up the confusion, he couldn’t get him. Frustrated and angry because he would much rather have been out at the accident site instead of dicking around with Bill Howard, he started up the cruiser and headed out of town, figuring he’d check out the new house first.
A plume of dust spun high in the air as he pulled into the driveway and killed his engine. Hefting his gun belt, he stepped out of the car. He tilted his hat against the sun and looked up at the foundation site.
“Yo! Anyone here?” he shouted.
His voice bounced back from the surrounding woods with an oddly distorted echo. Wind hissed in the branches overhead, but other than that, there was no answer.
Holden swung the cruiser door shut, locked it, and pocketed the keys. As he started up the driveway toward the foundation, his shoes kicked up puffs of yellow dust. His polished leather belt was making loud squeaking sounds that reminded him of an old door hinge in need of oil. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, the stillness that engulfed him was getting on his nerves.
“Howard! You here?” he called out. The echo from the woods made him think someone was hiding there, mimicking him.
Halfway to the foundation, he paused and scanned the area. No car. No Bill Howard. No nothing. He figured he must have guessed wrong and come to the wrong place, and was just about to turn to leave when a loud, sharp cracking sound, like a piece of wood breaking, drew his attention.
“You up there, Bill?” Holden yelled, cupping his hands to his mouth.
The sound had been real. He knew it wasn’t just his imagination playing tricks on him. It had come from the foundation hole. He unsnapped his revolver and, resting his hand lightly on the gun butt, started slowly up the hill.
Again, louder, he heard the sound of wood splintering, and he looked up at the foundation just in time to see a small board, broken off at each end, fly up out of the foundation hole and land in the brush.
“Who’s there?” Holden shouted as he eased the revolver from his holster. Crouching low, he continued up the hill until he could look down into the foundation hole. Deep shadows stained the ground floor.
“What the—?” he muttered, seeing no one there. The ground was marred, looking like someone had been down there recently. Probably Howard, he figured. But now it was empty. He wondered if maybe he had been hearing things, but when he glanced over at the brush, he could still see the splintered piece of wood lying there.
No, this is real, all right.
There was no way a piece of wood could fly up into the air on its own. There had to be someone down there, hiding, but where? Then he noticed what looked like a boarded-over doorway at the far end of the foundation. It was dark down there, even at this time of day, but as he
stared at the doorway, he saw a ripple of motion behind the boards blocking it.
Someone’s definitely hiding down there, he thought. Maybe someone was playing a practical joke...or maybe it was that missing kid.
Holden straightened up and jumped down into the foundation hole. With his revolver drawn, he approached the doorway, step by cautious step, straining to see if someone was boarded in behind the doorway. He backed up a quick step when the boards suddenly sagged outward. The loud cracking sound of rusty nails cried out as weight pressed against the boards.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Holden shouted, his voice low and commanding. “This is a police officer, and if you’re—”
But he said no more. He didn’t have the chance. His voice changed into a horrible, rising scream as the gray boards suddenly exploded outward in a shower of splinters.
Holden stood there in disbelief as a mass of animals with snarling mouths and raking claws poured out of the doorway and bore down on him. They moved like a freight train, and Holden was frozen. He never had a chance to raise his revolver and shoot. In an instant, he was buried, crushed beneath a tangled mass of limbs. Claws slashed like razors through clothes and flesh, laying bare bones and spilling organs to the ground. Blood spurted in a wide arc from the gash in his throat. As he fell, his hand holding the revolver clenched involuntarily. The loud report of the gun cut through the angry squeals, silencing them, but only for an instant. The bullet lodged in one of the creatures’ brains, but Holden never knew it. He was already dead and half-eaten by the time his body hit the ground.
6
The little brothers came at them from the front this time, and it was only the narrow corridor that saved Watson and Kip from being overwhelmed. After a quick glance backward, to make sure they were secure from the rear, they braced themselves for the attack. Kip didn’t notice when his ball of string fell to the floor and bounced off into the darkness. He stood next to Watson, ready to fight side by side.
