Something Down There

by Nancy Widrew

  Something Down There

  by

  Nancy Widrew

  Previously published work (short stories):

  "Tchotchke Lessions" published in Dark Fire Fiction

  "Losing It" published in SNL Horrror Magazine

  "To Dance With The Bogeyman" published in Absent Willow Review

  Something Down There

  By

  Nancy Widrew

  NOTE: If you purchased this book wihtout a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “Unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any parment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictiously.

  Some Down There.

  Copyright ©2017 by Nancy Widrew

  Cover by Circecorp

  Published by Azure Spider Publications LLC

  1051 NE Pepperwood

  Grants Pass, OR 97526

  www.azurespiderpublications.com

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017951754

  ISBN: 978-0-9974621-9-7

  ISBN: 978-0-9994071-0-3ebook

  First Edition November 2017

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is dedicated to my mother, Molly, who loved to read and write.

  Acknowledgments:

  I'd like to thank my husband, Ray, for his love and support. Without his knowledge of computers this wouldn't have been possible. I'd also like to thank the people atAzure Spider Publications for their help in polishing this story.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 1

  Fall, 1977

  Nearly one mile beneath the Earth’s surface, candles cast abstract patterns on the backs of nine people huddled together. The wind whipped the sooty air, causing flames to flash and sketch skewed halos across the participants’ heads. Someone groaned, others sighed, a testament to the evening’s grueling debate. Only their leader remained focused, smoothed over differences, preventing hurtful words or actions from spinning off into permanent wounds.

  “I’m willing to go over the issue again,” he said, “even though I doubt further discussion is necessary.”

  A female spoke up. “I don’t like any of this. Maybe we should just admit defeat.”

  The leader turned to her, his creased forehead and steely demeanor barely visible in the amber glow; still she felt his cool appraisal, and more significantly his release of animal pheromone, bending her to his will. She shrank back.

  “There’ll be no admission of defeat,” he said. “No giving up. Sometimes we have to make hard choices. Risk everything if necessary.” His voice was calm but with a serrated edge, since he had learned years ago that he could get more with subtle intimidation, using tricks as simple as flared nostrils. Of course, if more was needed, threats remained a viable option.

  Another man spoke up. “I’ve made my decision,” he said with a wink toward the leader, “and I’m ready to vote. We’ve been going round and round for the past month. I think we should just get this over with.”

  “I’m ready too,” said the leader. “But”—he held up a finger—“with one stipulation. Due to the subject matter, I don’t want to use secret ballots like we usually do. This must be a unanimous decision. I need to know we’re in this together.” He looked at each member. “Agreed?”

  There was fidgeting, murmurs, grunts, but finally nods of approval all around.

  “Good. Then let’s do it. Everyone knows my position. We’ve covered the pros and cons down to the last detail. So if you trust me, believe in me, you’ll follow my recommendation. Now those in favor, raise your hand.”

  Immediately, five hands shot up, then two others, and, after a protracted pause, an eighth. Only a half-smile appeared on the leader’s face since one more affirmation was needed to insure complete triumph. He narrowed his eyes to envelop the sole dissident, a plain-looking woman known for her stubbornness. “Mary, Mary, Mary,” he said, repeating her name with a shake of his head. Taken aback at being the lone holdout, the woman felt a catch in her throat followed by an acrid taste on her tongue, prompting second thoughts. Like a helium balloon, her hand soared into the air.

  “That’s better,” said the leader, staring at the troublemaker with a laser beam’s intensity. Springing to his feet, he rose on his toes, adding not only height but the illusion of strength. “The motion is approved,” he said, chest out, smiling ear to ear. “And now my friends, my dear, dear friends—I bid you a pleasant night with pleasant dreams.”

  #

  Worlds away in Baltimore, Maryland, Karen Dryer wished her husband dead. Until they met, she had never heard of caving or spelunking as he called it. He urged her to go. “Absolutely not,” she said, tossing aside his latest speleology magazine as if it were yesterday’s smelly underwear. “I have no intention of entering a black, muddy pit with rotting bones, bugs, and who knows what.”

  Fearing marital warfare, Jeremy reached for her hand. “You’ve got it all wrong, Karen. You’ll have one of the best days of your life. Guaranteed.”

  Knowing a spiel when she heard one, Karen looked up, studying the ceiling. Still she wavered and finally after pleas of “I’d do it for you” and “I’m only asking you try this once,” she gave in to his wishes; being married only eight months, she still wanted to please.

  But now peering through the open slats in the Venetian blind, she regretted her decision. Before her loomed night’s shrouded expanse, void of all familiarities that make life pleasurable during the day, and against her will an image took shape: a bleak rendering of a shallow mound bled into an unmarked grave with her below, a nobody so easily forgotten that it scarcely mattered she had ever lived at all.

  “I hate you,” she hissed to Jeremy’s outline, lying leaden beside her. Then guilt-ridden, she took a cleansing breath. Feeling better, she threw off the covers and toddled on Raggedy-Ann knees to the bathroom.

  The water from the showerhead massaged her skin with its dancing fingers, but as she scrubbed away yesterday’s grime, she realized the futility of her routine, knowing she’d soon be up to her elbows in muck. Shrugging off the deduction, she grabbed a towel, drying herself from top to bottom, the downward curve of her mouth a testament to dysmorphophobia, a distortion in body image.

  This distortion, a cognitive blip, prevented her from seeing the obvious: an attractive woman responsible for many a double take from passersby. Instead she fixated on minor imperfections, like her demitasse-sized breasts, and for a moment she considered buying a lacy pushup with padding. “No,” she muttered, knowing that wouldn’t solve the problem. Disheartened, she squinched her nose above compressed lips while adjusting her bra with a snap.

  After putting on the extra layer of clothes that Jeremy suggested, she started out the door as he brushed past. With eyes half-closed and wearing nothing more than a T-shirt, he reached for the sink to support his barely awake body. For the hundredth time, Karen questioned how he could be so casual with his nakedness while she
retained a hefty dose of modesty.

  Looking up at him, she smiled a good morning.

  “Whose idea was this anyway?” he asked, slurring his words.

  Her jaw tightened. “You know perfectly well who.”

  “Sorry, babe. Just kidding.” He bent down and planted a kiss on the top of her head.

  She stared at his face: handsome, almost perfectly so, with herolike looks and a cleft in his chin as if molded by some genetic demigod. I thought I was supposed to be the pretty one she’d often joke. Now realizing she meant every word, she turned away, disappointed, as if she’d been handed second prize at the fair.

  Once again, she started out the door.

  “Don’t forget the coffee,” he called after her.

  #

  Using a fat, black marker, Karen drew an x across October 15 on the calendar. With a new year creeping up, she crossed her fingers, wishing for a better one. She put the percolator on the stove and sat down to wait for the brown bubbles to appear. Furrows etched her brow. If only Carl and Joan hadn’t canceled.

  Carl worked with Jeremy at the Baltimore Beehive, an alternative weekly. Having both been hired the previous spring—Carl as a photographer and Jeremy covering local news—they soon became friends, particularly when they discovered their mutual interest in caves. Carl, however, was the expert, introducing Jeremy and other employees to spectacular caverns in West Virginia, and this time the wives were joining them.

  Unfortunately, Carl called the night before. Between coughs and shotgun sneezes, he spelled out the obvious, leaving Karen steaming, not at Carl but Jeremy.

  “We’ll go by ourselves,” Jeremy had said. “Remember you promised.”

  Angered by his brazen arm-twisting, she spit out a string of curse words, triggering Jeremy to strike back with his own nasty zings. This was followed by his-and-her shouts, slammed doors, and worst of all a pained silence lasting hours.

  Finally they made up with Karen capitulating, admitting a promise is a promise. Still, she held out hope for one last approach—a candid conversation—and with nothing to lose, she braced herself for the showdown.

  Alone in the kitchen, Karen clasped her hands in a white-knuckled grip. Feeling her fingers grow tingly, she pulled them apart, waving them pell-mell like an elephant flaps its ears. “Damn,” she yelled as she knocked over the sugar container, causing the table to tilt. After adjusting its misaligned leg, she cleaned up the mess, and poured herself a cup of coffee. Once again, she sat down to wait.

  “Everything all right?” asked Jeremy, walking in moments later. “I heard something fall.”

  “It was nothing,” she said, pausing to lift the mug to her mouth. “But, uhh … since you asked … no, everything’s not all right. I’d still rather wait until Carl and Joan are better.” She forced a smile. “Even that third couple canceled.”

  “That’s ’cause they’re also sick. But we’re fine. Look, we’ve been planning this for weeks, and I know what I’m doing. Besides you’ve been down before.”

  “Yes, but that was a commercial cave, and we were part of a group. I don’t like the idea of just the two of us fifty feet below. And what about that rule you told me about? ‘Never go below without three people, minimum.’ I haven’t felt so scared since—”

  Jeremy interrupted, finishing her sentence. “Since the day you almost stepped on a snake. And then it only turned out to be a common garter.” He held back a laugh, but his mouth zigzagged with the elasticity of a rubber band. Using a napkin, he attempted to hide his mocking smile. Unfortunately for him, Karen caught the ploy.

  “Don’t you dare make fun of me,” she said. “You think I’m blind? I saw that patronizing smirk.”

  Jeremy blanched under the remains of his summer tan. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Karen, no longer in a forgiving mood, said, “I’ll bet you’re sorry. Screw my promise. You can kiss today good-bye. I’m going back to bed.”

  Jeremy’s shoulders slumped at his blunder. He closed his eyes, thinking. “I don’t blame you, Karen, but if you give me another chance, I’ll change my behavior. Tell you what … tomorrow I’ll fill in for Joan at those movies you’ve been raving about. The ones with the tap dancing and goofy dialogue. I have a feeling she’ll be too sick to go anywhere.”

  “Really? You’ll do that? I love those old movies. They’re classics.”

  “Well, classics or not, they’re torture for me, but if it makes you happy, I’ll go. In fact, let’s call it a date—a real date, like before we were married. Maybe we can eat out afterwards. You’ve been wanting to try that Mexican place. And as for today”—Jeremy shrugged—“it’s your choice.” While pausing to let her think and hopefully reconsider, he washed his mug and hers, moving his hands back and forth, up and down, with flamboyant Liberace-like gestures to make sure she noticed. “Hey you know what?” he said, glancing sideways. “I’ve got an idea. We’ll go to a different cave. Dinky Cave. It’s so easy that the three-person rule won’t apply. You’ve nothing to be scared of. I swear.”

  By this time Karen barely heard, already ensconced in a bubble with the 1940’s Brazilian bombshell, Carmen Miranda, known for wiggling her hips like a hybrid hula-belly dancer. As Carmen coyly trilled “Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat,” Karen, still in her chair, hummed and shimmied to the catchy number, risqué for its day, with scantily clad women waving six-foot bananas. She moved her upper torso so enthusiastically that even her small breasts jiggled. Taking that as a favorable sign, Jeremy chuckled as Karen cocked her head and nodded.

  #

  Although they took Karen’s car, Jeremy did the driving, allowing her to rest and, hopefully, unwind during the two-hour-plus trip to the cave he had selected in the Shenandoah Valley. With the highway a boring array of signs advertising gas, food, and lodging, Karen set the radio dial to easy-listening music. Tapping her foot to a snare drum’s backbeat, she pictured long-past bucolic summers where cows grazed and goats nibbled, but her chain-saw tooth grinding testified failure.

  The main problem, she realized, went beyond the cave. Ever since they had left New Hampshire, just six months before, she had struggled with that damned black cloud floating above her head. While she felt happy for Jeremy’s good fortune, her personal sacrifices—particularly the relinquishment of her job—coalesced into a non-healing scab, and although she had prepared herself for difficulties, she never imagined anything like this. It seemed that every high-school English teacher in the United States had also moved to Maryland, and the challenge of maintaining an optimistic outlook quickly dimmed.

  “Something wrong?” asked Jeremy, noticing her half-chewed nail.

  “Nothing,” she lied. “Just tired.” Actually she was afraid to speak, afraid of what she might say, particularly after last night’s major battle and this morning’s minor one. But if only she didn’t feel like a dupe, always giving in, making the concessions; still, that was the price she paid for love and love mattered, dammit. Besides, she had acknowledged before they were married that Jeremy had the more forceful personality. Or maybe she just loved him more than he loved her.

  Absentmindedly, she spit out the tip of the nail she’d been nibbling, leaving a jagged edge.

  #

  They stopped for breakfast just over the border at a gray clapboard structure, serving as both restaurant and country store where locals could eat, purchase small items, and, most importantly, gossip about the goings on in the lives of their neighbors. A sign on the road read KATE’S PLACE and depicted a cheery woman holding a coffee pot. Jeremy held the door for Karen to walk through and the smoky smell of bacon hit her like a slap to the face. Karen’s mouth watered.

  A brusque, sleepy-eyed hostess, obviously not Kate, led them to a booth with red vinyl seats and a standard Formica table screwed to the floor. The seat was lumpy with duct tape running across the middle to cover a tear. Karen shifted her weight, trying to get comfortable. There was no point in asking to be moved since morning business was brisk.
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br />   Their waitress’s name was Betty, made clear by the plastic tag pinned to the front of her uniform. She raised her arm to direct their attention to a glass coffee pot which looked like a natural extension of her hand. When Karen and Jeremy nodded yes, she flipped over the cups already seated in their saucers and poured. “Be back in a couple of minutes with menus,” she said, “unless you want the house special; it’s our best deal.”

  “What’s that?” asked Jeremy.

  “OJ and coffee. Two eggs, two bacon, two sausage, home fries or grits, and toast.”

  Jeremy said, “Can I have beans instead of fries or grits?”

  Betty put down the pot, removed the pencil from behind her ear, and licked the point. “You mean baked beans?”

  “That’s right,” said Jeremy.

  The waitress squinted and looked at Karen for an explanation. “I’d prefer beans too,” she said.

  Betty jerked her head back and twisted her mouth. “Okay,” she said, writing it in her pad with an underscore. “To each his own, I suppose.” She hitched her shoulders and walked off to have a good laugh with the cook.

  Karen pressed an elbow against the table and rested her chin in her palm. “I guess she’s never been to New England.”

  “Yeah, I miss it too, but next spring I’ll have two weeks of vacation saved up. We can go back, visit friends and family, eat at the Red Arrow every morning if you like.”

  “Really?” said Karen.

  Before Jeremy could respond, two plates were plopped down on the table. “Be back in a sec with your b-e-a-n-s,” said Betty. She dragged out the last word as if it held some sort of contaminant. Nevertheless, two bowls promptly arrived. “It’s kinda liquidy so I didn’t put it on the same plates with your eggs. I also brought extra spoons in case you prefer them to forks for your b-e-a-n-s.”