by Jeff Strand
“Whoever did it is undoubtedly still here,” Cavenaugh said. He’d given his rifle to Kelsey, and was now crawling on the ground, sweeping the snow off the layer of ice. “I’d lay odds they knew exactly where we were staying and have been watching us the entire time. Probably the same thing that happened two years ago. They just waited until we split up and followed Will and Maura.”
“Will’s an experienced hunter,” Kelsey said. “He wasn’t the weakest link.” He looked pointedly at Gabriel and Jess.
“You keep saying ‘they.’ Do you really think there’s more than one of them?” Jess asked.
“I don’t see one person being able to overcome Will and Maura at the same time. Even Will by himself,” Cavenaugh said. He crawled closer to the edge of the water, still clearing away the accumulation. He paused and chiseled at the ice with his fingertips, then smoothed his palm across the surface. “I’ll bet they have us flanked right now.”
“Why do you think that? They could easily be miles away by now. For all we know they could have had a truck waiting down on the road and they could be anywhere.”
“These are the same people who killed our sisters, Jess. And probably Maura and Will as well. That’s nine people. Just that we know of. Why do you think they would run? They obviously have no qualms about killing, and they know these woods a hell of a lot better than any of us. Right now, they’re just playing with us, hunting us. They want us scared, and they want us to make the first move, to begin the chase. That’s the sport of it. And these aren’t the kind of people who are hoping to get a clean shot at three hundred yards. If that blood belongs to Maura and Will for sure, then these are men who thrill in working up close and personal. They enjoy the ritual of the kill, the feel of blood on their hands.”
“Or maybe they just feared we’d hear the report of a rifle,” Kelsey said.
“Possible, but I don’t think so. Those spatters indicate a startling level of savagery. No hesitation. No remorse. They’ve killed that way before.”
“So you’re saying we’re screwed regardless,” Gabriel said.
Cavenaugh looked up at him and flashed a crooked grin.
“That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
***
“Look here,” Cavenaugh said. He swiped away the wet snowfall that had accumulated on the ground in front of him in the last few minutes since he’d cleared it last. “The ice is uneven in spots. See? Some sections are elevated as though more water had been added on top of the frozen parts. Everywhere else, the ice is smooth and even. Why then should these sections be raised more than the rest?”
He looked up at them expectantly and waited for them to make the connection he apparently already had.
“We don’t have time to mess around,” Kelsey said. “They could be coming for us—”
“Bear with me,” Cavenaugh interrupted. “And if you look over here…”
He scooted closer to the edge of the water and brushed away more snow.
“Blood,” Gabriel said. It was barely discernible from the dark color of the rock under the frozen sheet, yet the way the droplets and smears were arranged, it was unmistakable.
“Right. Now if you run your palm across it, you can feel how it’s elevated from the ice. Just a little bit. What happened is that since the blood was still warm, it began to melt into the ice before transferring all of its heat, creating a kind of dimple for the fluid to rest in, a miniature cup to hold the blood. Once it cooled enough it couldn’t continue to melt through the ice, it started to freeze. And now that it’s frozen solid, there’s an uneven bump over the rest of the ice around it. You can tell this happened a while ago based on the amount of ice that has since frozen over the top of it. That’s why you can hardly see it now, but it still leaves a palpable lump.”
“We already know someone bled here,” Kelsey said. His eyes narrowed with impatience. “The evidence is spattered all over those rocks. We’re wasting valuable time. Time we don’t have.”
“You’re missing the point.” Cavenaugh was growing frustrated as well. “All that blood over there. The smaller spatters here by the spring. They were killed over there.” It was the first time one of them had phrased it as such. The impact served to silence whatever objections Kelsey had opened his mouth to make. “And they were carried, not dragged, over here to the edge of the spring, where they were thrown into the water.”
“That doesn’t change anything,” Jess whispered.
“Of course it does,” Cavenaugh said. “Where are their bodies? Corpses tend to float, especially in a saline body like this. That’s why you always hear about murderers weighting down their victims with stones and concrete blocks.”
“So that’s what they must have done,” Kelsey said. “The water’s deep enough that we couldn’t reach the bottom, and with as cloudy and bacteria-riddled as it is, we can’t see very far down into it at all. For all we know, there could be a whole pile of bodies on the bottom.”
“It’s possible, however unlikely. Something would end up floating to the surface, especially considering the constant influx of water from the underground source of the spring. These things have to exchange hundreds of gallons of water a day to keep up with evaporation from the heat. No, I don’t think their corpses are in the spring at all.”
“But you just said that whoever attacked them threw their bodies into the spring,” Gabriel said.
“Exactly.”
There was that strange smile of excitement again. Coupled with the way he contradicted himself with every word, Gabriel suspected Cavenaugh teetered on the brink of a breakdown.
“You aren’t making sense,” Kelsey snapped.
“You’re missing the obvious,” Cavenaugh said. That smile was starting to grate on Gabriel’s frayed nerves. “Look back here, where we started. I showed you how the blood made the ice so that the surface wasn’t level. What do you think caused this?”
He gestured to several oblong stretches where the ice was thicker, almost like melted candle wax. There were dots where drops had fallen and other long lines of spatter, but in the center of each was a distinct shape that appeared the same to a large degree with each repeat occurrence.
“Don’t you see?” Cavenaugh asked. His smile faltered and he appeared exasperated. He turned to each of them in turn before finally shaking his head. “Watch.”
He raised his right foot and stepped down on the raised section of ice, then did the same with his left on the next instance. Then his right again on the third.
“Jesus,” Jess gasped. “They’re footprints.”
***
“So whoever dumped the bodies in the spring got in there with them, weighted them down, and then climbed back out,” Kelsey said. “That can only serve to help us. There’s no way they’re walking around out here with wet legs. They’d have frostbite long before they were able to either change out of their clothes or find shelter.”
“You’re right about that,” Cavenaugh said, “but you’re working under a faulty assumption. Look at the prints again. They’re narrowest here, on the end closest to the water, and wider on the leading edge. They were made by someone coming out of the water just like you said, but I believe they were made before the bloodstains.”
“What’s the difference? It doesn’t change the fact that we need to get off this mountain right now.”
“How do you think it’s possible that someone snuck up on Maura and Will without either of them noticing? You made the point yourself about Will being an experienced hunter. Once they found those bones, he would have been acutely alert and watching the forest like his life depended upon it. And we would have heard the report if he’d managed to fire the rifle,” Cavenaugh said. He unzipped his jacket and shed the hood.
“You’ve lost your mind,” Kelsey said.
“Give me the backpack.”
Kelsey pulled off the backpack and thrust it at Cavenaugh, who opened it and dumped the contents onto the ground at his feet. He removed his jacket a
nd shoved it in, then followed with a light jacket, a sweater, and a flannel shirt, until he was down to a single undershirt.
“What are you doing?” Jess asked.
“We know there’s a cavern underneath this mountain,” he said as he slipped out of his boots, then his snow pants and jeans. “We also know that the geothermally-heated water flows into this spring from somewhere. The footprints are coming out of the water, and we know that no one could survive very long out here if they were sopping wet.”
Cavenaugh now stood before them in only his undershirt, long johns, and a single pair of socks. The rest of his clothes were stuffed into the zipped backpack.
“You’re going to freeze to death if you do this,” Gabriel said.
“Someone just did this exact thing before we got here. There has to be a way to warm up, or at least dry off, inside the cavern.” Cavenaugh shrugged. “Worst case scenario, I’ll have to sit in this spring until help arrives if I’m wrong.”
“Are you willing to take that chance?” Kelsey asked. “You know that could exacerbate your condition.”
Cavenaugh cast him a sharp look.
“What condition?” Jess asked.
“It’s no one’s business but my own.”
“The former Detective Cavenaugh here has esophageal cancer.”
“Former detective?” Gabriel asked.
“You didn’t really think any of this was sanctioned by the police, do you?” Kelsey asked. “The assault rifles, the communications system, the gear. Do you think the Denver Police Department just opened up the armory for Cavenaugh’s little shopping spree?”
“We don’t have time to do this now,” Cavenaugh said.
“That’s why you wouldn’t let me call the police,” Jess said. “You lied to us and jeopardized all of our lives—”
“Listen to me,” Cavenaugh snapped. He pulled off his long underwear and socks, and stood against the wind in nothing but a tee shirt and a pair of boxers, visibly shivering. “That doesn’t change anything. Run away if you want, but I, for one, intend to find out what happened to my sister before I die. Even if it kills me.”
He donned the backpack and snatched the rifle from Kelsey with a look that could have stopped a charging bull. A moment later he was sliding down the icy embankment into the spring. Two steps away from the edge, the ground fell away beneath him, and he plunged out of sight.
***
“Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire,” Jess whispered.
They stood at the edge of the spring, watching the burbling surface of the pink water and the red rocks beneath through the swirling steam. Cavenaugh had been down there for at least three minutes, and all of them knew there was no way he could have held his breath that long. Gabriel pictured Cavenaugh with his feet snared in a tangle of bodies on the bottom, struggling to free himself before finally taking that fateful inhalation of fluid. Somewhere down there, Gabriel imagined the stocky man’s lifeless body swaying on the current like a leaf of kelp. Worse, if Cavenaugh’s theory had been correct, he just might have found an underwater entrance to the cavern where the killers waited for him. Will hadn’t been able to fire a single shot in defense. There were no guarantees that Cavenaugh would be any luckier. Gabriel envisioned Cavenaugh crawling out of a small pool into a dark chamber where a shadowed form leaned over him from behind, grabbed him by the hair, and yanked his head back to expose his throat. A flash of steel and twin arterial sprays painted the walls.
Gabriel scrutinized the spring for any darkening of the already reddish water, half-expecting a rush of crimson from the intake that would dissipate—
The crown of a head broke the surface and there was a loud gasp.
Gabriel nearly squeezed off a shot, would have had his hands not been shaking so badly.
Cavenaugh paddled toward them, but as soon as his back crested the water, he thought better of it. The barrel of the rifle pointed over his right shoulder as the broken wing of an angel might. The strap crossed his chest. Steam twirled from his head in the cold air like a recently extinguished candle.
“I was right,” he said, still panting for breath. “There’s a tunnel down there. Leads right out from the bottom. Barely wider than my shoulders, but it goes…all the way into the cavern. Without light, I can’t…can’t tell how big it is, but I’d guess it’s pretty large by the acoustics.”
“Was there anyone inside?” Kelsey asked.
“Like I said. I couldn’t see a thing, but I could smell…” Cavenaugh paused and dunked his head again to replenish his warmth while he formulated his words. “There was definitely something dead in there. Once you’ve worked a homicide, you don’t forget the smell.”
“So what now?” Gabriel asked.
“We do some spelunking.” Now that Cavenaugh had regained his breath, his smile returned. “I don’t know what kind of geothermal vents heat that cavern, but it’s like a sauna in there. The backpacks are waterproof, so we can carry all our clothes through the tunnel and change once we’re in there. I already dumped mine.”
He produced the empty backpack and tossed it at Kelsey’s feet.
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going in there,” Kelsey said.
“Fine. Stay here. I’m going back in regardless. How about you two?”
Gabriel opened his mouth under Cavenaugh’s intense gaze, but no words came out. The prospect scared the hell out of him. He heard a zipper behind him and turned to see Jess shrug out of her coat.
“I’ll go,” she whispered.
“Gabriel?” Cavenaugh asked.
Gabriel stared down at the rifle for a long moment before passing it to Kelsey. He reached for the zipper on his coat with trembling hands.
“You can’t leave me out here alone,” Kelsey said.
“It’s your choice, doctor,” Cavenaugh said. His grin now had teeth.
“What if they come back? How could I possibly—?”
“If I’m right, they’re already inside. You’ll have nothing to fear unless they get past the rest of us.”
“You think they’re in there, waiting for you, and you still want to go in after them? After they’ve already proven their willingness to kill?”
Cavenaugh’s face remained stoic.
“You’ve lost it.”
“The floor of the tunnel is littered with bones, Kelsey, and the current runs directly toward the end of the spring over there where all the rest are piled. Are you following my logic? If you want to figure out what happened to Levi…the only way to do so is by going in there.”
“Where there are people waiting to butcher us.”
“The rifles are waterproof as well.”
“I don’t share your death wish. I have a wife, and a respectable practice—”
“Suit yourself,” Cavenaugh said.
Gabriel stood in his underwear and tee shirt, the rest of his clothing stuffed in the backpack beside his socked feet. He shivered and his teeth chattered. What in the name of God was he thinking?
“Make sure to pack both flare guns,” Cavenaugh said. “We’re going to need them.”
Gabriel wedged the bulky gun and spare cartridges into the bag and zipped it closed again. The frigid wind felt as though it blew right through him. The time had come to decide. Either he unpacked his clothes and got dressed again before he froze to death, or he forced his legs to propel him forward into the water. Jess emerged from his peripheral vision in only her bra and panties, a mismatched set of pink and white, and slid down the rocks into the water, dragging her backpack by the strap. She waded out a couple steps and dropped into the deep water with a startled cry. A heartbeat later, she returned to the surface, coughing and spitting out the vile liquid.
One step at a time, Gabriel eased closer to the spring. He felt a sense of detachment, as though he had somehow separated from his body and were merely watching himself inching toward the spring from afar. At the edge of the bank, he lowered himself to his rear end and slid down into
the water. He scooted forward to the edge of the rocks and plunged into the depths. About eight feet down, his feet met the bottom, which he used as leverage to launch himself back up into the cold air.
“The opening to the tunnel is pretty much right under us,” Cavenaugh said. “It’s roughly fifteen feet long and the current will be pushing you right in the face. You’re going to need to take the biggest breath you can hold and use your arms to pull you through.”
“What about the backpacks?” Jess asked.
“Loop the straps around your ankle.”
“What if it gets stuck?” Gabriel asked.
“Then ditch it and we’ll go back for it.”
“What if—?”
“It’s now or never,” Cavenaugh said. “Follow me if you want, or stay if you don’t. At this point, I don’t care. Either way, I’m going now.”
He took a deep breath and was about to dive under when Kelsey spoke.
“Wait.”
***
Gabriel waited a moment after Jess dove, drew as much air as his lungs could hold, and dove under the water. The salt content stung his eyes so badly he could barely keep them open, but he managed to see Jess’s feet before they disappeared into the rocky mouth of the tunnel. The red bacterial sludge grew over everything, covering the uneven rocks and the scattered, strangely shaped objects he assumed were bones. He couldn’t help but wonder about the consequences of exposing his bare eyeballs and the sensitive membranes to the foreign microorganisms.
Gripping the stones at the edge of the opening, he pulled himself ahead into utter darkness. His shoulders scraped against the walls, ripping his shirt. The skin on his fingertips threatened to peel away and he was certain he was going to lose a nail, but the pain was nothing compared to the pressure in his lungs. He already needed to take a breath. It felt like his chest was full of smoldering coals. The irrational panic cut through what little semblance of control remained, and he began to thrash. Tearing open the skin on his elbows and knees, on his scalp and toes. Colored amoebae floated across his vision and the entire tunnel rotated around him. He clawed forward, faster and faster, not caring if he flayed every inch of flesh from his bones, until his head slammed into something hard.
