by Eric Ellert
"Hey," she shouted. Something was near; she heard it jump and land in the bushes just outside of the tree line with feet as light as birds'.
It growled and crept forward, testing the ground before it, as if to test where the shore began. Its huge head hung low on its chest like a bulldog's; its gaze followed Moren as she gingerly stepped on the sunken seawall. She missed it and fell, scraping her knee on the way down.
Moren retreated towards the boat, remembering not to turn her back on the wolf, but it gave her just a quick glance. It ran back into the woods, came back with two black-and-white dog pups in its jaws and dropped them into the water.
"Stop," Moren said.
It stalked her then ran at her as if it had no fear of the water.
Without thinking, Moren tossed one of the shark sticks at it.
It grabbed it out of the air and shook it in its jaws. The CO2 cartridge at the stick's top exploded and the wolf fell dead on the ground, its blood a cloud in the air.
For a moment, Moren couldn't move, then she ran past it, jumped into the water and grabbed the sinking pups.
They coughed up water. Steam rose from their coats and they didn't stop winging until she got them aboard and dried them off.
She was going to explore the island a bit, but in the silence, knew that nothing sentient could live in this place. People would live near bears, not wolves because wolves and people thought alike and a wolf could outsmart you. She placed the dog puppies into a cardboard box under the cabin desk mom had used to keep a change of dry clothes in.
Outside, the mournful cry of wolves filled the air. "New Jersey wolves," Moren said. "I'll have to call the cops."
"Hey you. Do you know what you have done?" a voice shouted.
It came from somewhere, but with the fog, somewhere was a mile wide. It might have been a mile away, or right at the edge of the boat.
Without thinking, Moren booted up the computer and touched the Finish Run tag on the screen. As the boat pulled away, she picked up the deck hose and sprayed it at the shore. She must have hit it because all the cursing and all the baying stopped and the thing screamed as if it was on fire.
***
Moren felt safer as the island disappeared and she made it a hundred yards from shore. She forced herself to listen to the engine, lost track of time and managed to get an e-mail out to the logging outfit. What a relief. If they could get some cash, physical money; they could escape this place. Rau might even go with them.
She wanted to see how many logs had drifted to the dam. She wasn't sure how to find their dock until the fog cleared but the dam's lights pointed to the northern edge of the reservoir. Somebody would come and retrieve the logs. Maybe she could wait?
She'd never been. She hadn't left town since they'd arrived and had slept in the car on the way in so she wasn't really sure where the highway was but she imagined the sound of fast cars hitting the section breaks of a concrete highway, going thud-thud-thud. There had to be a good access road near the dam that led to that highway. She'd go to the police, the real police. They wouldn't even have to believe her. She'd just have to tell them about one grave, Karen's. People came in but they didn't come out. No coroner, no undertaker, nothing and when they poked around, all the ooze would come out. Too bad about Faudron, if she'd been too foolish not to leave when she'd had the chance. Besides, she'd be with Rau.
She thought of the money she'd get, laid on a table of a house she'd buy. Free money for freedom. She slammed a hand on the throttle just to see if Das Boat had an ounce or two of extra speed in it.
Chapter 16
The tunnel broke into four and though Rau seemed sure of himself, Faudron guessed that he was just guessing and bore left out of habit as people who are lost tend to bear right until they're walking in a circle. Soon, the tunnel opened-up and the walls were painted in black paint that felt gooey like the asphalt they pour on rooftops.
Rau touched it a few times as if he didn't like it, as if the softer it became, the worse-off they were. In the dim light, his face looked sick as if he was worried about her. Faudron wanted to make a joke, say something like, 'pain is the mind killer,' but she doubted he'd read Dune. Everybody had, but he wasn't everybody, he was nobody, from nowhere, who knew nothing, watching the movies he made in his mind to stop from wondering what was out there. She smiled big as if for a photo and poked his elbow. "You ever think they'll let Buffy make another movie? Last one was so dark, and you'd never recognize her."
"No, I don't think they ever will." He stopped and laughed. "Now why, would you be thinking of Dark Car?"
"Because it could have been great but it wasn't any good at all, all set and no script. See, at one time, she was going to play me in Moren and my imaginary movie and Michele Trachtenberg was going to play little-un, but after that last movie, I don't think they're going to let Michelle Geller make another. I think they do that for spite once in a while when you ask for too much money. Maybe this isn't the best time to talk about tv, or movies, or whatever it is you watch, but why is your Planet of the Apes different from ours?"
He sneered just for a second as if she'd caught him at something, showing some temper she didn't know he'd that rose to the surface and stopped just before the throat, before he said something he'd regret. When he spoke, his voice was too measured, as if talking to a subordinate. "I don't actually watch tv channels. I watch...I change all the camera angles. I change the meaning of it."
"It's too much, too time consuming, too lonely a hobby for you. I don't like it. It's not good for you."
"We've been out there. You see, your stories should be fuller. They should be about what you'd bring out there, not the gadgets you'd ride in. And all your sci-fi fighters look like airplanes. You're all so stupid."
She smiled, but had to turn away, hoping he'd say no more. She thought of those W.W.II stories where the airplane crashes on the island and the crew has beer in cans and lighters and radios and the locals end up building a wicker airplane to worship the flying men who gave them trinkets after the crews were rescued, which was kind of understandable, unless that's what Rau thought of her; then it was no good. She'd rather face the wolves. She almost said so, but remembered the old adage, 'cheerfulness under duress.' His duress not her's. "Am I in one of those movies?"
He thought a moment but had no answer for her.
"I better not be Zira. Or Nova. Unless of course you made Nova a rocket scientist, I might forgive you then."
"Then that's just how it is."
"I'll find out, I will. Did you see the new Star Trek movie? Why's everyone pretending to be a genius just because they can punch buttons really fast? Chekov was no genius, none of them. And did you get a load of little Kirk driving his step-dad's car off the cliff. First of all, those car's are baby boomers dreams, no one in the future would want one and secondly I was hoping he'd go off the cliff with it. But I suppose he'd end up here. He's definitely not going to be in our movie."
"Come one."
"Unless he plays you...for scale. That's what you deserve. Only bad people like Dr. Zaius."
***
Up ahead, chambers lined the walls; they peeked into one filled with bones. The bones gave off no odor, at least they were old. She stepped back, then realized they were pig bones. "At least they're neat about it," Faudron said, but Rau didn't answer. "What's wrong?"
"I've never been down here. I don't know what they do."
Faudron shuffled ahead, taking little steps, afraid she'd fall, and the floor held the dust of everything they'd ever dragged down here.
The next cut-out room contained cylindrical coffins with glass windows showing the perfectly preserved-faces of Nords. Faudron couldn't bear to look or ask Rau for an explanation; there could be no good one. She listened for a moment, at first not placing the sound it was so misplaced, but the coffins gave off a hum, like an electric transformer, like a place that offered no rest at all. She backed out of the room into the tunnel proper and tried to lead him away,
but in the distance, a light flickered.
Faudron swore she wouldn't let her self get scared, but anything that could bear to live down here would be a thing. She trembled then whispered, "Rau, people are easier to kill than pigs, aren't they?"
"Dunno."
Rau shut the flashlight off but what was the point of hiding? He dealt with things that saw, smelled and hunted with senses Faudron could only imagine. Spore and garbage lined the tunnel, the floor as sticky as a bad movie theatre. And the smell.
As if he'd read her thoughts Rau said, "There must be more here than I was told."
"Can we get out of here?"
He lit the flashlight for a second and motioned her forward.
The lit chamber up ahead was covered with steel bars and inside lay a werewolf but he breathed slowly, asleep. Nature could not make such a thing unless nature was so cruel that this was inside us too, Faudron thought. Rau had been right, these things had become what they had already been inside. She thought of that carni trick where the girl turns into a gorilla before your eyes. Everybody gets so scared, not because the gorilla might get out, but because it might happen to you.
Without thinking, Faudron pressed her face between the bars. Books lined a shelf above the creature. With his blue and red striped-tie hanging neatly over a pressed, but faded-white shirt, he looked so much like the man in the painting in Rau's house and might have inhabited a Victorian funeral.
"Don't look," Faudron said.
Rau tried the handle and it was locked.
Faudron wanted to slap his arm, but didn't want to make a sound, but Rau wouldn't stop tapping the bars.
He reached in and touched a spear lying against the wall then pulled his hand back. "Not like this. Not in front of you."
"And plunge it into the sleeping monster's heart? I don't care what they say;` he's your brother."
"You think?"
Rau's eyes looked pained as if he was going to change his mind about the spear, then he shook his head. When he let the bars go a pinging sound filled the tunnels.
They hurried back the way they had come.
"We must be in the city," Rau said. "The city beneath the sea. I was told the entrance was much deeper and it was empty. Whatever they did to the walls, that's why I couldn't find him. They said he would be above ground."
"One does not run as the other wolves do."
"Hm?" Rau asked.
"Nothing." It was something Moren had said, but the less Rau knew about her the better. They were never going to let him leave.
Faudron walked by Rau's side, trying not to look at his face. She'd been foolish to think he'd feel the things normal people felt. He'd wanted to kill Kau, not had to, wanted to. He'd been raised to, probably with morbid nursery rhymes, slapped like Spartan children had been until he had no heart, pushed to endure heat and cold and extreme exercise until he was. She stopped trying to think of the word. Yes, until he was like us. She couldn't imagine an army that would send one brother to slay another. It was like a goal inside a ritual, anticipated for so long, the ritual took the place of the goal. Who knew what he really felt about things or what he'd be like if he ever did kill Kau?
Faudron couldn't judge distance down here, the night lit by a laser-thin beam from Rau's flashlight and time was iffy as well but she counted steps and did a quick calculation -- five blocks, maybe.
She walked ahead of Rau. The walls felt like they were spinning she became so dizzy. The air shimmered and felt hot and cold at once and Faudron saw Nords and NASA personnel walking about as if on duty. They appeared spectral as the flashlight beam shined on them.
Faudron took the flashlight from Rau's hand, turned it to a wide beam setting and scanned the wayward, shadow men. The light went through them, making them waiver and disappear. She tossed the flashlight back.
A moment later, she saw the shadowy people again. "Rau, shine it on them, please."
One figure held his hands up to block the light. He tried to move his mouth as if shouting and when Rau turned the beam to a narrow setting, the man disappeared like soot in a movie screen.
"Rau, he saw me."
"The Back Beyond," Rau whispered. "They were there, but not in the sense that you and I think of things as being here, are here."
"Stop talking like that."
"They're in the past -- re-used."
She took the flashlight back, shook it, but couldn't get the narrow beam to come back on and tossed it to Rau.
"What are you mad at?"
"It was an excuse," Faudron said. "How could people so advanced be shot out of the sky so easily? They wanted an excuse to hide the fact that they were already here. Back Beyond, back of my ass beyond."
He put an arm on her shoulder, laughing and held her tight in a one-armed hug, then pushed her gently away to look at her face. "Would you not have done the same?"
"But we didn't."
"You couldn't," Rau said.
"Dr. Zaius was just a college-professor-weenie with tenure living off the mortgages of his students' parents, reeling off balderdash. I remember the screams. They just wanted to cut people's brains out, like he did. They wanted to make new people so they could say they weren't people and own them. And they hit a dead end....they couldn't. Whatever could is, it isn't could as nerds like you say could was, or is. Got that?"
"I'm on your side."
And in the darkness, she believed him but when they ran ahead, the tunnel narrowed, moisture on the floor, a rough-cut look to the walls and it didn't matter; she was sure they'd never get out of here.
Rau stopped.
"Hey."
"Listen," he whispered.
Howling came from every tunnel. Glowing eyes approached; the musty smell of werewolves' clothing filling the air.
"Your lighter."
"I don't smoke," Faudron said.
"Liar."
Faudron had to unzip her suit to find the lighter in her pocket. She handed it over.
Rau made a stirrup of his hands. "Up there. The aluminum pipe."
Faudron held the flame against the overhead pipe until her gloves singed but nothing happened. Then a plug shot out of the pipe, fell into her collar and down the front of her space suit, burning against her skin until she could find it and get out.
The first werewolves appeared, the trap so well-executed, Faudron could almost applaud them. When they were a few feet away, an alarm went off and gas poured from the pipe and soon from every tunnel.
Rau hugged Faudron.
"You think it's really the time."
"Stupid." He tugged at the Velcro sleeve pouch on her back and pulled out two canisters with worn, plastic mouthpieces. "Breath."
She pulled at the coppery-tinged oxygen, something unhealthy about it but a moment later, the lighter went out in her hand as the anti-fire system filled the tunnel with CO2.
The nearest werewolf fell to the ground so hard it cracked its head and twitched. Then another and another.
Faudron was too nervous to listen closely to Rau's shouting but when he nodded, she knew they'd have to step over them to get back and when she did, they smelled like a swamp forest, grime and urine. Some still had their eyes partially open and clawed at her legs as she hopped and skipped and jumped over them.
Faudron tried to speak but couldn't get Rau to look at her. She pulled at his arm.
Rau tapped his watch.
Faudron wanted to laugh. He wouldn't get it through his thick skull that she couldn't read that faceless watch but some of the wolves tried to rise.
She and Rau hurried down the tunnel. Faudron cursed the black-painted walls that seemed to go into forever.
Rau slowed what must be his normal pace for her sake but each time they passed a doorway, some of which led to rooms, some to other tunnels, he got down low and tiptoed to the corner, something lupine about his movements, using some other sense than sight to conquer this ever night. Even now he couldn't give up the hunt.
The tunnel narrowed and headed
down and Faudron had to duck to miss hitting her head on the ceiling. Just a few steps later, the walls changed abruptly, the stone smooth and decorated with motifs as if this portion of tunnel had been carved not for a mine, but for the entrance to a city. Even in the dim light, the blue tiles on the wall shimmered like the gate's of Babylon in its glory.
Rau touched his mouthpiece. Instinctively, Faudron tried to stop him.
He pulled the mouthpiece out. "It's all right," he said as he took a breath. "I think."
"Well?"
"Can't hear anything." He leaned forward touching his ear. "I've got good hearing but I haven't a clue where we are, but we lost them."
She was going to mention Splinter's fishtank, but if Rau gave her the wrong answer, she'd be sick.
He gestured at the two tunnels before them. "Your guess is as good as mine."
Faudron said the first thing that popped into her head and pointed at the right tunnel. "This one smells, that one don't. Let's take the bad one."
He didn't seem to like that.
"You asked."
Rau pointed at her mouthpiece and she put it back in. "Floor's slippery, careful."
He must have lied about never having been here before because the floor didn't become wet for many yards ahead. The walls were covered in hairy green seaweed as if they were walking underwater, and for that matter under an ocean. They slipped as the tunnel's downward pitch increased and they almost ran like deer, bouncing from place to place, each hop faster than the one before. Faudron kept wondering when it would go up, up had to be better than down; down was surely Hades' address. Though, for all she really knew, that's where Rau had come into the world from.
Faudron took a particularly big leap and knocked her head on something hanging from the ceiling. She was shook-up when she landed and her legs buckled. She slid on the green ground for six feet. She stopped when she bumped into some kind of box, like a crate washed off a sinking ship. She grabbed Rau's pen light and shined at the box, a coffin. She breathed out to stop herself from breathing in.
