by John Everson
There were thirteen stairs. He counted. And at the bottom, he straightened and looked above him to the tiny hole of bright blue that was the sky. It seemed impossibly far away from down here.
Joe shone the flashlight around, making a careful circle of light in the underground. The base of the stairs ended in a narrow corridor that led off to the left. Not away from the cliff’s edge, but parallel to it. It was a man-made hallway, with grouted stone on the floor, walls and ceiling. He felt as if he’d entered a catacomb.
That feeling intensified when he turned the corner. His steps echoed dully as he moved forward, and then went down another flight of thirteen steps. Again, thirteen.
Here the stonework vanished, and the walls reflected back a dull chiseled gray at the beam of his light. He walked forward, slower now as the comforting, familiar sounds of the mountain wind and the crying gulls disappeared completely. Here there was no sound but that of his own making. He could hear his heart beating through the stillness. It was not a comforting sound.
Something moved behind him, and he froze. He heard it again. A scuffing, like footsteps. The skittering sound of a rock falling.
Shit. One thing he hadn’t brought was a weapon. He hadn’t expected human interference in this little exploratory expedition, but that was stupid, wasn’t it? Joe thought about what the demon had done to Angelica on the side of the road not far from here. It hadn’t hurt her itself. It had used another.
“Joe?”
His heart skipped three beats.
“Joe, are you down here?”
He let out his breath in an explosion of relief. It was Cindy. It was only Cindy! But how the hell had she found him?
“Yes,” he yelled back. “Stay there, I’ll be right up.”
He turned back and started back up the steps to the man-made part of the corridor. But she was already there.
“Hey, I saw your car and didn’t see you. So I looked around a bit and saw all this stuff kicked around here at the old lighthouse spot. When I saw the stairs going down, I figured you must’ve turned archaeologist or something.”
“A little investigative reporting, that’s all. Let’s head back up.”
But she started down the stairs instead.
“No,” she said. “This is great. What’s down here?”
“We’ll come back another time,” he lied. “You’re not dressed for this.”
Cindy fingered her loose white cotton top and shrugged. “If this gets dirty, I’ll toss it. I’ve had it forever.”
“Actually I was thinking more of your pants,” he said, giving it one last shot. She was wearing those skintight stretch pants. Light blue. Very nice around the thighs and butt, he noticed again.
“Naah.” She grinned and tossed her head. “Let’s go. These are comfy for walking or climbing…or just about anything else!”
She bounced ahead of him, and they started back down the corridor once again, deeper into the mountain.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ken heard a voice ahead of him. A woman’s voice, it sounded like. But that was crazy! Who else would come this far into the bowels of the mountain? Had somebody already staked his claim?
He redoubled his pace and came to a fork in the tunnel. The path to the right sloped downward, and he chose it without even thinking. Had to go down to go out.
It wasn’t even ten steps to the right and the tunnel thinned and came to a wall.
Damn.
He started to back up, and then saw a black spot to his left. He’d walked past it, thinking it was a crevice. But when he shone his light into the gap, he saw that it was larger than that. It widened in the middle and tapered at the top and bottom, as if a bomb had blasted a hole in the middle of the wall. He stepped over the bottom ridge and ducked his head below its upper teeth.
The ground here was sandy, as if the ocean had once reached here. He was close, then!
Maybe that’s what the voice was. A swimmer in the bay? Could he be that near? But where was the surf? He couldn’t hear it…or…
No. There it was. Distant, but audible now. He began to walk across the sandy cavern. Then he saw her.
Staked to the ground near a wall dead ahead. A raven-haired beauty. She was in some wild-looking gold and purple getup. Baggy pants shone metallic from the light of his flash. And her blouse…three buttons were undone in front and even in the bad light of the cave he could see a hint of boob hanging out of the gap.
“Do you want her, Ken?”
He didn’t even question the voice this time. It sounded to him like the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or maybe a little like that fava beans–loving cannibal psycho. But the fact that there was nobody visible had ceased to impress him. Maybe his brain was too addled from the fall. Or maybe he’d already given in.
“Yes,” he said. His tongue got wet with anticipation.
“She’s yours. I’ve saved her here for you. Introduce yourself. You’ll find her…most enjoyable, I think.”
“Who’re you?” he asked, feeling a little strange about the transaction, but willing to accept the prize.
“Turn out the light,” she whined.
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” he apologized, and turned the lamp to face away from her eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked again.
She introduced herself, but he hardly heard. He was staring at the lacy black bra that he could see just beyond the opening of her blouse.
“I’m Ken,” he said, eyes never leaving the creamy skin of her chest. He was growing hot all over. The chill of the river had turned to molten fire in his veins.
“Ken Brownsell,” he added, and grinned. What a sweet prize this had turned out to be. It wasn’t a cavern to be named after him but—
“She can make you a child that we could name after you. How would that be, Ken?”
He shrugged silently.
“I was hoping I’d discover a good cavern while I was here.” He couldn’t keep from putting his hands on her. They seemed to move under their own power, without direction. He stroked her brow, and felt the sweat begin to stream down his back. He stared again at the mounds of her chest, thinking about the cave he had hoped to discover.
“This one looks like a beaut.”
“Yeah,” Angelica answered. “It’s, um, very nice. Would you mind untying my arms?”
He moved a hand to start unbraiding the knot for her, but then the voice pierced his skull.
“No!” it yelled in his head. “I tied her up so that you could take her here. On the floor. Against her will. It’s more enjoyable that way.”
“I don’t think so,” he said to her.
And his hand slid from her forehead, across her chin, down her neck and down the front of her shirt, catching and then popping each button in turn.
“Please, God, no,” she whispered to him. Her eyes pleaded with him to stop. And yet he could see in them a certainty that he wouldn’t. He could see himself reflected in her eyes. He looked like a monster.
“That’s right,” the voice soothed. “She really does want it this way. Take her. Take her now. And Ken…enjoy yourself for me. Let’s both enjoy ourselves….”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Karen couldn’t shake the feeling that things were going wrong. It was indefinable, but ever present through the day. What if they had killed Angelica by tying her up the way they had? She had never wanted to kill anybody, least of all an old friend.
No, just her kid. She laughed inwardly at herself.
Thinking back on the years since they had first ventured into that secret cavern in Terrel’s Peak, she realized that they had all fucked it up right from the start. They may not have gotten out of the cave alive if they hadn’t agreed to the spirit’s bargain, but if the deal with the devil was a given, none of them had made good use of their gains.
The paintbrush will allow you to paint the most realistic artworks you can imagine. The brush has kissed the lips of saints and copulated with the diseased cunts of h
ell.
So He had promised her, and the one time she had used the brush, she had made an indisputable work of art. Something that could have started her down a phenomenal career path. But instead, so afraid of the unnatural ease with which the brush allowed her to create, Karen had hidden it away.
Only Angelica had made much use of her gift, and even she had underused it. Why else was she living in a shack on the outskirts of town? Hell, with the talent the creature had given her, she should have been able to go national.
Although, even as she thought about that, she realized He wouldn’t have allowed that, would He? They had all had their incidents in trying to escape Terrel. And He hadn’t let one of them leave. Trapped here by an ocean, a mountain and a jealous demon who thrived on sacrifices. The human kind. They were trapped by their choice. Trapped by their murders.
Karen shook the tear from her cheek and rubbed her eyes wearily.
Black, dead eyes stared her down, a bloody grin stretching across Bernadette’s/His face….
“No.” She shook the image away. Not now. She closed the door behind her and walked to the van. It was a walk of finality. She wasn’t sure if she’d be coming back after this trip. Despite the promises of their spirit, she had a dark foreboding about this night. Maybe the sisterhood would close the circle of death…or in their passing, open a new one.
Still, she started the engine and eased the van out of the driveway. Perhaps Rhonda’s brutal energy would save them. Certainly Monica was of no use when it came to strength. They would look to Karen to find the answers; they always had. But she was out of answers. Her shoulders slumped as she drove the six blocks to Rhonda Canady’s house and pulled into her friend’s driveway with a jarring bump against the curb. She had served as pro tem leader of this little band for long enough. All her life, really. And she was ready to retire.
Rhonda came out of the house before she’d even put the van in park. She was grinning in a way that Karen found both disturbing and promising.
Maybe it was Rhonda’s chance to shine.
“You ready?” Rhonda huffed as she stepped up into the passenger seat.
“Yeah,” Karen answered. But she didn’t sound too sure.
“Let’s go find out where the damn kid is, then. She’s bound to be ready to talk now. After a night in that place…”
“Maybe.”
“What’s a’ matter, Kar?” Rhonda looked over and stared at her friend’s face. The lines there had deepened these past couple years. The shadows beneath her eyes were as dark as bruises.
“Tonight has to be it,” Karen answered. Her voice was beaten, quiet.
“Maybe it will be,” Rhonda answered.
“Maybe.”
Monica’s house was on the far side of town, past the decaying, ironically named Terraced Gardens trailer park and the public works water tower. There were only a few houses out this far, and not one counted its years below fifty. But the trees here grew tall and heavy, and shielded Monica’s sagging white-frame farmhouse from the nearby sagging 1950s trailer homes. She came out of the house a few moments after Karen’s honk, carrying a bag and hustling with the jerky shuffle of an old woman.
A winning crew we are, Karen thought.
“Whatcha got?” Rhonda asked once Monica had settled herself and her bag in the backseat.
“Made some ham sandwiches.” Her voice trembled slightly. “I thought Angelica might be hungry after a night down there.”
Rhonda laughed—a big belly laugh that traveled through the seat to Karen, who smiled in spite of herself.
Bernadette laughed low and evil, salt water dribbling down the sides of her mouth to splatter and cool the naked, blood-smeared girls beneath….
Karen blinked the image away.
“I’m betting food isn’t the first thing on her mind right now,” the larger woman said. “Now, don’t go giving her a thing until we’ve gotten what we need outta her. Or we’ll be leaving her there overnight again.”
Monica agreed and the women fell silent, only the throb of the van’s engine filling the cabin as it sped past the main drag of Terrel and up the road to the beach. The sun was setting across the water, a bloody orange globe pressed on velvet blue. Karen thought it was the most beautiful sight she’d seen in her life.
“Look at that sunset.” She pointed as she pulled off the road near the ocean. The other women oohed at the sight.
Let’s hope we get to see the sun again, Karen thought, and turned the key to shut off the motor.
“Let’s go find us a kid to kill,” Rhonda barked bitterly. Nobody laughed.
In her mind, Karen could still hear the twisted, low voice of Him.
Let’s make us a little Covenant.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“It’s chilly down here,” Cindy said, clutching her arms to her chest.
“Why don’t we go back up, then?”
“No.” She stopped and turned back to look at Joe. His eyes were worried, and she mistook the reason.
“I’m fine. You were down here looking for something, and I want to help you find it. Just keep that flashlight pointed ahead and let’s do it!”
They had been walking for more than ten minutes, the pathway leading ever downward, the air temperature dropping steadily. At first Joe had been afraid they would need to turn back because the branching tunnels might confuse them. But there had been no confusion.
There had been no branches.
The cold gray limestone passage, which was just low enough to make them walk slightly stooped, continued on and on without interruption. Their steps echoed eerily around them as they continued downward. Joe began to wonder if he had made a horrible mistake in coming here. In bringing Cindy here. What if the ceiling fell in behind them? There would be no way to go but down. And if his flashlight burned out…
He wrestled to squelch the growing alarm in his belly as they walked. But it was no good. Cindy skipped along ahead of him, a vision of sensual youth in her skintight pants. He had grown to care for her so quickly, it surprised him. When he left Chicago, he had sworn off women. He didn’t want the responsibility. Couldn’t trust himself with it. But in the past month he had somehow become responsible for not one, but two women.
Who, as it turned out, were mother and daughter. His stomach fluttered at the thought. Shit. What had he gotten himself into?
“Joe, look up there,” Cindy cried. She pointed ahead and to the right.
The tunnel was widening, and in the distance, something glinted just at the edge of the dim reach of his flashlight beam. They quickened their pace and seconds later entered a wide cavern. Joe slowly made a circle, flashing his light in a 360-degree arc.
They both gasped.
Wherever his light touched, it set the room aglow with shimmering, reflecting light. They were standing in a kaleidoscope. Fed by the light, the colors splintered, amplified and bounced back at them in a fabulous rainbow. It was the most beautiful thing Joe had ever seen.
“It’s like we’re in a gigantic geode,” Cindy whispered.
“Exactly,” Joe breathed.
“It’s incredible!”
Joe shrugged off his pack and set it in the archway of the tunnel they had just left. Three more tunnels left the glowing chamber, each spaced equal distances apart. He didn’t intend to get confused about which one was the exit back to the surface. Each exited the room through gently rounded arches, each nearly identical. It would be easy to lose your bearings with just two or three turns around the room.
“They should be giving tours here,” she said, moving along the walls, gently caressing pink and clear crystal outcroppings as she went. She turned back to Joe, a huge smile on her face. She was nodding vigorously, hands clenched to gether in a single shifting fist.
“This is where He lives,” she said.
“Who?”
“Him!” she said. Her eyes grew heavy-lidded, soft. “The spirit of the cliff.”
She turned and turned like a dancer,
arms outstretched to the ceiling. “Are you here?” she called out.
“No, Cindy, don’t!”
“It’s okay,” she said, ignoring him. “I’ve talked with Him before. He’s very nice.”
In Joe’s chest, an avalanche began to fall.
He raced across the room, grabbed her shoulders and stopped her spinning.
“What do you mean you’ve talked with Him. You never told me!”
“I don’t have to tell you everyone I talk to, you know,” she said, lower lip bulging. “And anyway, I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“Cindy, that thing kills people! You don’t want Him to notice you, let alone talk to you!”
She looked around the cavern, anywhere but at Joe’s face.
“He said you wouldn’t understand. That’s why I didn’t tell you. That’s why I’ve spent so much time up on the peak at night. He comes into my head and just…makes me feel good. He wouldn’t hurt me. I know it.”
Joe couldn’t believe what he was hearing. All this time, he had been trying to protect her from the thing in the cliff, and here she had been communing with it. He thought about all the things he’d said to her about his investigations…had he given anything away?
“Okay, tell me,” Joe said, pushing her down to sit on the ground. “Tell me what He said to you. What did He tell you about me?”
“He says nice things. He says I’m beautiful…and…when I lie there under the moon, He makes me feel warm all over. Loved. He wouldn’t hurt me. And He doesn’t ask me for anything either. Well, mostly He doesn’t. The other night, when you were chasing after Angelica, He did ask me to keep you occupied, because He had business to take care of with her and didn’t want you mucking it up.”
“Keep me occupied?”
Joe pulled back in horror. “You mean, all that stuff we did in the car…you were just doing that to please Him?”
“No, silly! I wanted you anyway. He just gave me a little…push, that’s all.”
“The same kind of push He gives to kids at the top of the cliff?”
