Dead Five's Pass

by Colin F. Barnes

  Nothing. Just that slow, forlorn echo as Brick’s deep voice bounced around the rock.

  Brick slumped his head into his gloves and fell to his knees. He hung his head low and wept like a child. Michael shone his flashlight down into the pit.

  “Brick,” Michael whispered while patting his friend on the back with his free hand. “Down there. I saw something.”

  “What? Mouse?”

  “I dunno. Just look and see if you can make it out.”

  Sweeping the flashlight back and forth in long, slow movements, Michael seemed to catch something in the shadows. Not quite a reflection, but a dull shine like the sole of an old running shoe, rubbery and pliable—and quick.

  They both gasped. “Shit, there’s something down there.”

  And then Michael thought of the bones, and the ledge, and the height. If there was some creature, or some person down there, how did they get bones all the way up to the ledge?

  Michael backed away, kept his flashlight lowered to the ground, not wanting to see what was lurking in the depths.

  “What are you doing?” Brick said. “Mouse might still be down there.”

  “Mouse isn’t down there. He’s dead…like the other guy was, like we’ll be if we don’t get out of here…right now, this very fucking minute.”

  Brick darted forward and grabbed Michael by the lapels. “We can’t just leave him for fuck’s sake, he’s our friend!” Brick’s face contorted into twisted, ugly shapes and spittle shot from his mouth.

  Michael managed to get his free arm up between them and push him back. The flashlight’s beam flickered widely around the massive opening, and with each swing, Michael saw shapes like great bats peel away from the walls and the shadows. They moved slickly and silently.

  “I’ve got to get out of here, Brick, this place isn’t right. You know it too! You can feel it, see it...”

  He turned his back on Brick and sprinted towards the narrow cleft of rock leading to the lake, Brick’s hand grabbed his hood, pulled him back with a heavy yank. He smashed to the floor, heaving all the air from his lungs, and then Brick was on him, straddling across his chest, forcing what little air he had from out of his lungs.

  Brick’s hands tightened around Michael’s throat, cutting off his airway.

  “We have to save him, man, it’s Mouse—my Mouse. I can’t…” The pressure was too much and Michael started to see thick blobs of color in his vision. Groping his arm around the ledge, he found a rock, and without thinking, brought it up and over and struck it hard into Brick’s temple.

  The effect was instant: the big hockey player closed his eyes and slumped to the side, thudding into the detritus of broken bones and dust.

  Michael sucked in a lungful of air, coughed hard as the disturbed dust filled him. And then he thought about what made the dust: crushed bones, and he rolled onto his front, lifted himself to his hands and knees and coughed it all up until blood came from this throat.

  “Brick, I’m sorry. Get up, let’s go.”

  Michael leaned down and pushed his friend, but he didn’t move. A wide arc of blood had pooled around his head, and when Michael put his ear to Brick’s mouth, he neither felt nor heard him breathing. He took off a glove and tried to find a pulse, but either there wasn’t one, or his hand was too cold to feel it.

  * * *

  Nate heard a scuffle and the raised voices of Brick and Michael from down the tunnel. Frustrated at losing the call and unable to reconnect, he switched on his flashlight and went after his friends to see what the problem was, but the frantic voice of Brick saying something about Mouse set his nerves on edge. He followed their footsteps through the tunnel and left at the branch point until he arrived at the lake. Awed and concerned at the red glow coming from the lake, he saw shapes move in the shadows up ahead.

  He raised his flashlight and fluorescent markings glowed in the beam. It was one of them. “Hey!” he called, “is that you, Mike, Brick?”

  No answer came. Only the backward-shuffling figure of…who was that? Nate edged forward, all the time holding his flashlight up, and then he saw the blonde hair and realized it was Michael. “Mike, what’s happened?” He remained hunched forward, his head bowed and still shuffling backward. Nate realized then that he was dragging something into the lake’s chamber.

  Nate stood in confusion as Michael came closer. But as he drew nearer, he saw what Michael was dragging: Brick. A trail of dark blood followed behind.

  Nate stepped closer, saw the ugly, wet cut on the side of Brick’s face. Half of his head was caved in and bone and hair were mixed together, matted with blood.

  Nate’s legs were jelly and he ambled forward on his numb limbs. “Michael. Tell me what happened!” His voice breaking into a hysterical scream.

  Michael dropped Brick’s legs to the ground and turned to face Nate. His eyes were wide and pale as if they had rolled all the way back in their sockets. A bloodied rock remained in his right hand and before Nate could understand, Michael rushed him, bringing the rock down hard against his skull.

  * * *

  Marcel and Carise were staring out of the windows, looking for the standing stones. Smith had taken the chopper up and over the tree line and was now reducing altitude and passing in a slow circle, all while systematically scanning the ground below with the aircraft’s powerful spotlight.

  “There, that’s the kid’s truck,” Marcel said, recognizing it as previously belonging to Nate’s father. “Smith, go north from that road, we should see the standing stones in about five kilometers.”

  “Roger that,” Smith said and brought the helicopter about, setting it north.

  “So how did this cave come about?” Carise said. “I know that area well, there was never anything there before. I’d have seen it.”

  Marcel shrugged. “I don’t know, Cari. Maybe there was some kind of earthquake or pressure that split the rock. If there was a cave system in there before, then the rock on the outside may have fallen across it some time ago. Perhaps now, something meteorological has happened and it’s opened up.”

  “Can that happen? Earthquakes within a mountain?” She had to be honest with herself, it sounded sketchy, but then everything about this situation was.

  Marcel didn’t answer, continued to stare out of the window. She wondered what he was thinking about. Whether she was up to the job? Maybe he’d missed her and he was thinking of the good old days…or maybe he was thinking about the baby he never got to hold.

  She slumped back in her chair. It felt like there was a mountain between them, let alone in front of them. She wanted to say something, but it was all just too trivial. Better to focus on the job at hand.

  They flew in silence until the five-pointed fangs of Dead Five’s Pass were visible under the spotlight.

  “Okay, Smith, bring us down wherever it’s safe,” Marcel said.

  “What about over there by the tent? That’s fairly flat ground and if I remember rightly, it’s mostly flat rock,” Carise said.

  “Roger that, I’ll see how it is closer up. Hold on to your belts, we’re going down.”

  * * *

  “The temp seems to be dropping by the minute out here,” Marcel said, as he walked from the landed chopper and towards the tent, which blew every which way from the downdraft.

  Carise checked her watch with the temp gauge. “Minus thirty,” she called out, “a bit below average.”

  “There’s nothing here,” Marcel shouted over the chopper’s engines and blustering winds. The snow continued to fall, and they could just make out the standing stones, twenty meters into the blizzard.

  Carise arrived at the stones first, and as she turned to check on Marcel behind her, she caught something move under the snow from out the corner of her eye. She spun round, but nothing moved. When Marcel had caught up with her, he looked at her with concern. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing, I just…” She didn’t want to tell him she was seeing things. He’d think she was even more of a drunk
than she already was. “Look, I think that’s where the kids were digging.”

  She pointed to a mound of ice surrounded by spots of blood.

  “I’ll get the shovel,” Marcel said.

  While Carise was waiting for Marcel to return, she took a closer look around the area, and she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that someone was watching her. She took the flashlight from her belt and scanned around the trees and stones. No one stared at her, but the shadows shifted at the wrong time whenever she moved the flashlight, as if there was a time delay, or a lag, like the world’s processor was too slow to compute. But then she wondered if it was just her eyesight. Maybe she’d drunk more than she actually remembered. She didn’t feel drunk, but then that’s what alcohol abusers often said.

  She put the odd sensation behind her and inspected the spots of blood spattered in the snow. The whole area was covered in footprints but the mound itself was smooth—a freshly dug snow grave..

  “Okay,” Marcel said, bringing the shovel to the ice. “Let’s see what we’ve got here. You don’t have to look if you—”

  “No, it’s fine,” Carise said. “Let’s just hurry up and see what’s under there.”

  Marcel dug into the ice, and soon uncovered the remains of the body that the other boys had gathered together. He bent down, picked up a fragment from the pile of bones and clothes…and a face.

  “That’s not the result of any animal I know,” Marcel said, passing the object to Carise.

  She took from him a fragment of something…that looked like… “It’s a bone, but it’s twisted and looks like it was snapped off at the end. What the hell could have done this?”

  It was more rhetorical than anything. She really didn’t want to know. And it seemed Marcel didn’t either. Climbing out of the hole, he took the bone fragment from Carise and inspected it himself.

  “It’s a collar bone,” he said. “Or was…you can tell by the joint on the end there.”

  “What would have the strength to twist human bone?”

  “Maybe it’s some kind of weird medical condition. But either way, I think we should head up to the cave. Nothing more we can do here,” Marcel said. “I’ll let Frank know about the remains. Maybe he and the morning shift can come by and search for more evidence.”

  “I really don’t like any of this,” Carise said, heading back towards the chopper. “Wait…what’s that…” A rumble shook beneath her feet.

  It wasn’t coming from the rotors or the downdraft.

  She looked across to Marcel, who still stood by the stones, and saw the horror on his face. She knew she shouldn’t, but she followed his gaze.

  Her blood froze.

  8

  Carise screamed as she jumped back from the freshly dug hole and scrambled backward past the standing stones. A plume of ice and wind burst from under the shallow grave, sending snow and bone fragments into the air and carrying the stench of carrion with it.

  A black, leathery, tentaclelike appendage, at least a meter wide and ten times as long, extended up from the hole in the mountain and thrashed about as if it were sensing them, like a snake tasting the air and locating its prey.

  It eased farther from the ground, its tip now above the height of the standing stones. It whipped about the air like a frenzied eel. Its skin appeared clammy under the flashlight, but on its underside were rows and rows of curved hooks.

  “What the hell is that?” Carise screamed as she ducked under a wide, arching swipe; the hooks just brushing against her thick, winter jacket.

  “Whatever it is, let’s not find out just yet.” He grabbed Carise by the arm, dragged her away towards the waiting chopper.

  The ground shook, knocking Carise off balance. It was as if the entire mountain was pitching left and right, like a ship at sea. She managed to avoid a further swipe from the tentacle when a crack in the ice between them and the now panicked-looking chopper pilot opened up. The ground splintered, sending rock upwards at a steep angle.

  Marcel jumped and managed to cling to the edge of the rising rock.

  Carise followed and missed. Unable to get the height in her jump, her hands scraped the edge. She slumped down to the snowy ground as the tentacle thrust forward like an arrow, smashing just centimeters from her face into the wall of rock and ice. She screamed, fell onto her back.

  Marcel clung to the edge of the rising rock. And then above his head, a second tentacle appeared, swaying violently in the air.

  Smith increased the power in the chopper, lifted up from the shifting surface. He whirled his finger so that they understood he was coming back around for them. He navigated above the first tentacle and hovered down next to Marcel, who reached out and grabbed onto the landing skid.

  The second tentacle attacked like a cobra, catching Marcel with a glancing blow and sending him flying off the rock. Hanging by the rail of the chopper with one hand and his legs thrashing in midair, he shouted up to Smith, ordered him to land and rescue Carise.

  But the thing under the mountain had other ideas. Ignoring the stranded Carise, who flailed about the ice trying to get her balance, it whipped up and over her, slashing its hooks against the aircraft. The force of the attack rolled the chopper to one side, swinging Marcel against the raised rock. He lost his grip and slid down to the ground with a heavy thud.

  Smith righted the chopper, landed it on the tentacle. The weight barely dented the thing, but it prevented its furious assault. Even still, the thing’s strength managed to shift the chopper across the ice.

  “Get in!” Smith shouted over the loudspeaker.

  Sensing her chance, Carise pulled herself up, grabbed Marcel by his hood, and scrambled across the still-shaking earth. The second tentacle had risen farther from beneath the mountain and was now seeking them over the splintered rock.

  Jumping into the open doors, Carise and Marcel scrambled into the cabin just as the trapped tentacle freed itself and slashed across the closing door. The hooks rendered deep scratches into the Plexiglas and it reared up for another assault—but it went too high, slicing the tip into the rotors, splashing a viscous black fluid down the sides of the chopper.

  A hideous roar erupted from beneath the ice.

  “There’s more of them,” Carise said, pointing to three further eruptions in the pass. Stone, ice and snow exploded into the night sky as more of the hook-covered limbs burst forth. One of them extended up towards the chopper, slashed its hooks at the windshield.

  “Take her up, Smith,” Marcel shouted. “Do it now.”

  “I’m trying,” Smith yelled back as he pulled on the flight stick and gunned the engine. It lifted a meter off the ground before the engines whined and labored.

  “It’s grabbed on.” Carise pointed to the side of the cabin. One of the tentacles had wrapped around the landing skid and was pulling them back down to the ice.

  Smith eased the throttle, tried again, powering up the engines. The chopper jolted up farther before the tentacle tensed against the force of the engines and pulled it back down slowly to the ground.

  “Shoot the damn thing,” Smith said, thumbing behind him to the location of a rifle attached to the rear cabin wall. “We keep it for bears, it might not—”

  Before he had chance to finish his sentence, Marcel had located the weapon, pulled it free from its straps. He pulled the ammo box free and loaded the high-caliber rifle.

  “Hold me still, Carise,” Marcel said as he opened the cabin door a crack and pointed the barrel towards the tentacle.

  Carise gripped him around the waist and tried to steady him against the rocking of the chopper as the other tentacle smashed against it.

  Marcel fired three rounds, one after the other, and the mountain shook again with a roar. This time, no new tentacles burst forth, just a deep howl of pain and anger. Smith wrestled with the controls and they broke free, sending the chopper high into the sky and eventually above the height of those thrashing and groping hooked limbs.

  “We’re clear,” Smi
th said. “What in baby Jesus’s name was that thing?”

  “Something from hell,” Carise said solemnly, still holding Marcel around the waist, who sat with his head against the headrest, his eyes closed.

  Marcel turned to her and muttered, “What have we awoken?”

  “I have no idea. But we’ve got to get to that cave. There’s still a group of kids in there,” Carise said, dreading what they might find there.

  “How’s the ol’ bird, Smith?” Marcel said. “Think you can get us to the eastern outcrop and back to the station in one piece?”

  Smith checked his gauges and fuel levels. “Should be fine, as long as visibility don’t get worse; that goddamned thing scratched the hell out of my windshield, and I don’t know what kind of damage it did to the landing skid.”

  “Okay, take us up there,” Marcel said. “We have to at least try.”

  Carise peered through the Plexiglas and watched as the tentacles disappeared beneath the earth. It wasn’t so much the size of those thick limbs that worried her so much, it was the size of the thing they were attached to.

  9

  Smith landed the chopper on top of the outcrop—there was a wide, flat, rocky surface and during previous rescues had landed there before.

  “She seems okay,” Smith said, winding down the engines. Despite the bent landing skid, it remained solid. The spotlight lit up the rocks below.

  Marcel helped Carise into her harness and Carise did likewise. They both checked each other’s ropes and knots, and hooked their gear into the chopper’s various safety holds. Marcel abseiled off the edge of the aircraft and down past the outcrop. Carise observed as he lowered himself down to the bottom of the great rock stairs. Bathed in the light from the spotlight, he squinted and gave a thumbs-up.

  Before she followed him, she packed the rifle and ammo box into her rucksack. Despite what Marcel said about the dangers of firing a weapon inside a cave—an unexplored one at that—she’d feel a lot better knowing they had more than Marcel’s ice axe to protect themselves.