Deep Shadow

by Randy Wayne White

  Arlis said, “Are you sure?,” and was surprised that his voice wasn’t shaking. His eyes were locked on the pool again and he was as scared as he’d ever been in his life, which was a strange thing to admit at his age. But there was nothing to be gained by lying to himself. In his brain, he could picture the snake, with its burning orange eyes, swimming through the tunnel, getting closer and closer, while they wasted time talking.

  Arlis added, “I’m in sort of a hurry to get out of here. Did I mention that? And if there’s a faster way to do it—”

  “Do you think we’re enjoying ourselves?” Tomlinson laughed. “The smell’s about to kill us.”

  Arlis said, “Well, at least let me try it,” but he was thinking, That’s not the only thing down here that can kill us.

  A minute later, Will Chaser’s face appeared. Arlis realized the kid had moved Tomlinson out of the way and thought, Good. The boy ain’t as fond of conversation as the hippie.

  “Go ahead and shine the light,” the teen told Arlis. “We didn’t have time to look the place over good—he’s wrong about that. Could be there is another opening. If you think it would be faster, we might as well check. Our lights ran out of juice, so how would we know?”

  Arlis replied, “Okay, okay. I’m glad one of you has some brains.” He focused the light on the little pool, and he also got a good grip on the tire iron, as he said, “I’m all set. Stick your head under and tell me what you see.”

  Will Chaser said, “Now?”

  “Hell yes, now. What are you waiting for?”

  The kid sounded miffed when he answered, “Jesus Christ, that’s not going to tell us anything. Crawl over there and stick the light down in the hole. Aim it in our direction. That’s the only way we’re gonna see anything.”

  Arlis could feel the pressure in his head building, the blood moving through his damaged brain like sandspurs, but the boy was right, and he said, “Hold your horses, that’s what I was planning to do, anyway. Goddamn, you are one bossy kid.”

  He put the flashlight in his teeth, grimacing at the sulfuric taste of mud, and crawled toward the pool. A chunk of cow skull was in his path, as well as more bones and tree roots, and he had to use the iron to clear a path.

  Behind him, he heard Tomlinson saying, “Why don’t you leave the crowbar with us? I can start digging while you and Will experiment.”

  Before he could think, Arlis snapped, “You can kiss my ass in the county square if you think I’m doing this without a weapon,” and immediately regretted the sharpness of his tone. Tomlinson and the boy had been through enough without giving them cause to suspect they weren’t as safe as they thought they were—which they weren’t, not by a long shot.

  Tomlinson said, “A weapon? Why would you need to use a crowbar as a weapon?” He paused, thinking about it, then said, “Hey, man, there’s something you haven’t told us. Arlis? Arlis? What’s wrong? Did something happen to Doc?” After another pause, he added, “What really happened to your face?”

  Arlis was at the edge of the limestone pool now, where water was lapping from side to side, splashing up over the rim like water in a bowl that was being tilted back and forth. Something was definitely down there causing the water to move. He didn’t want to risk making more noise, but he had to answer Tomlinson, so he did, saying, “This is a tire iron, not a crowbar, you cotton-headed hippie. You being a damn sailor, I reckon that’s reason enough for you not to know the difference.”

  Slowly, Arlis leaned his head over the pool. He could see his own reflection in the black water. His skin was caked with blood from the beating Perry had given him and it was like seeing the face of a stranger. A tired old man stared up at him, a man who was shrunken by age and fear, and it caused Arlis to feel a jolt of sadness that was soon displaced by annoyance, and he thought, Screw it. I’d rather die here from a snakebite than die in a bed with tubes up me, and he plunged the flashlight down into the pool until water was up to his shoulder.

  After a couple of seconds, he yelled, “See anything?,” as he aimed the light toward the breathing hole. He forced himself to reach deep, and Arlis knew in that instant what it would be like to stick his arm into boiling water and hold it there.

  After several seconds, he heard a sputtering sound and then Will Chaser’s voice say, “Are you sure the light’s on? Move the damn thing around. I didn’t see anything.”

  “It’s on, by God,” Arlis hollered. “But if you didn’t see anything, then there must be nothing to see. So I guess maybe Tomlinson was right, this is a waste of time.” He began to pull his arm out of the water.

  “No, stay where you are!” the boy ordered. “I’ll try again. Could be the limestone’s thick there. Can you reach any deeper? Give me thirty seconds or so and I’ll try to work my way closer.”

  Arlis said, “Well, hurry up—while I’m still young!,” trying to make a joke, but his voice broke.

  He heard another splash and he knew the teenager was underwater again, so he began to wave the light back and forth. To get the light even deeper, he used his boots to feel around until he felt a tree root and hooked an ankle around it. Slowly, he inched his body forward into the pool until his ear was suspended over the surface. The water felt cool against the side of his damaged face and he could taste sulfur and iron on his lips.

  Arlis hadn’t looked down into the water since he’d seen his own reflection, but he decided to look now. And what he saw caused him to almost drop the flashlight.

  The water was black and clear. The pool was deep enough to show bands of light piercing the darkness forty feet below, where there were boulders and more bones. Moving from beneath one of the boulders, Arlis saw a head appear, then a thick reptilian body.

  Frozen, that’s how Arlis felt seeing something so strange, and he continued to watch as if hypnotized.

  The animal turned and began swimming upward, and Arlis could now see two pale orange coals, which he knew were the eyes of the reptile. The eyes weren’t bright because he wasn’t pointing the light directly at the thing, but the animal was there, ascending toward the surface, swimming snakelike, the orange eyes swaying back and forth, the snake’s eyes getting bigger because the animal was gaining speed, coming fast toward the surface.

  Arlis thought, God Aw’mighty! I gotta move!, and he did. As he struggled to pull his body away from the hole, he focused the light directly downward and saw, full-on, a massive reptilian head swimming toward him that was unlike any snake he had ever seen. The damn thing looked like the head of a dinosaur, its grim mouth sealed tight against the force of water, its eyes two luminous balls that flared into explosions of gold as if detonated by the flashlight.

  Arlis rolled away from the hole, yelling, “Sweet Jesus, where’s the boy? Is he still underwater?” He had to feel around for the tire iron because he couldn’t take his eyes off the pool, where the surface was bubbling like a cauldron now—the animal was releasing air as it swam, Arlis realized.

  Behind him, Tomlinson was yelling, “What’s wrong? What did you see?,” as Arlis tried to get to his knees, but his boot was still wedged in the roots. He had the iron in his right fist, the flashlight in his left, and he finally had to put both on the ground to use his hands to pull his foot free of the boot.

  He yelled again, “Where’s the boy?,” and was relieved to hear Will Chaser’s voice answer, “How am I supposed to see the goddamn light if you’re sitting on your ass tying your shoes? Let me know when you’re ready, ’cause I’m not gonna waste my time—”

  Arlis didn’t hear the rest because the head of an animal bigger than any gator he had ever killed burst through the surface of the pool, throwing a wave of water that soaked him. The animal bobbed under briefly, then appeared to slow itself when it resurfaced, its head turning like a robot’s as Arlis tried to scooch himself backward, but tree roots blocked his retreat.

  When the animal saw Arlis, its mouth hinged open wide. A yard-long ribbon of tongue squirted toward him, flinging saliva as the animal
made a raspy hiss that filled the room with a clouding stench of carrion. Its teeth were jagged rows of brown, its mouth frothy with something that looked as black as blood.

  Will Chaser saw the reptile, too, because he was suddenly yelling, “Get out of here, Arlis! Run for it!,” but Arlis couldn’t move because of the roots and also because his body felt frozen, like in some slow-motion nightmare, as he watched the reptile’s head lean toward him, its goat-bright pupils constricting even though the flashlight lay in the mud pointed toward the wall.

  Arlis was trying to thread his body through the roots as he screamed at the thing, “Get out of here! Git!,” which had worked temporarily with the three little lizards that had been tracking him, but this one didn’t budge.

  Arlis watched the reptile draw its head back like a cobra while its claws found the lip of the water hole. Slowly, the animal pulled its shoulders up onto the floor of the cave. Its yellow tongue slapped the air, feeling for heat, the tongue snapping closer and closer, until the pointed forks were near enough to flick at Arlis’s bare ankle.

  Arlis yanked one foot away, then another. He had managed to bull his upper body through the tangle of roots and now he had the fingers of his left hand in the muck, trying to drag himself out of the reptile’s range, while he stabbed at the cave floor with the flashlight, trying to anchor the thing for leverage.

  Will Chaser had stopped yelling. His voice became calm but intense as he called, “Arlis, listen to me. Use the light. Shine the light! Shine it right in the goddamn thing’s eyes!”

  Something about the steadiness of the kid’s voice snapped Arlis out of his panic. Never once had he taken his eyes off the reptile. The animal was still pulling itself from the pool—the thing had to be thirteen feet long—its claws making a sound on limestone so metallic that the stink of sulfur and carrion filled the room like sparks.

  Tomlinson was now saying, “Hey—what’s happening? Let me see!,” as Will ordered in a louder voice, “Arlis—the flashlight. Use it!”

  Arlis lifted the flashlight from the mud and swung it toward the animal, the bright beam panning along the cave wall, first showing roots, then the petroglyphs. The stick figure with horns appeared buckskin yellow behind the black bulk of the reptile, which had drawn its head back again, snakelike, its dull eyes beginning to glow orange as the light panned closer.

  Tomlinson’s voice said, “Mother of God! What is that thing?,” as Will continued calling directions, saying, “Right in its goddamn eyes! But turn it off first. Hear me? Arlis—kill the light first!”

  Arlis’s thumb explored the body of the flashlight, trying to find the switch. He understood what the kid was saying. Shock the animal with the light. It made so much sense that Arlis was surprised that he didn’t think of it himself because it might have worked if he had done it in time but he didn’t. He was just switching off the light when the animal struck, its head spearing forward so fast that the blur of movement continued to fill Arlis’s eyes even as darkness swamped the cave. He felt a thudding impact on his right calf that was like getting hit with an ax.

  “Shit!” he screamed. “It got me!”

  The cave echoed as Tomlinson hollered, “Arlis, are you okay?,” and Will was yelling, “Turn it on! Turn the goddamn light on, Arlis!”

  Arlis’s thumb punched the switch, and the flashlight drilled a silver beam through the blackness, a beam so intense that all he could see for an instant were the twin orange stars of the reptile’s eyes, its face separated from his own only by the space of a few tree roots.

  The animal hissed, flinging slobber, as it lurched backward. Arlis leaned toward the thing, jabbing at it with the flashlight, as he drew his legs under him and got to his knees. A chunk of flesh was gone from his calf, he noticed, the wound so fresh that it hadn’t yet started to bleed.

  For several seconds, the lizard held its ground, striking once at Arlis—or the flashlight—but it was disoriented by the light, or temporarily blinded, because its teeth came away with only a chunk of root, which it flung away with a slash of its head, before continuing to slide backward into the water.

  There was a swirl, then bubbles. The reptile submerged.

  In shock, Arlis sat back in the mud, breathing heavily, as he continued to aim the light at the pool. Behind him, he heard Tomlinson’s voice, slow with wonder, say, “A fucking dragon, man. I knew it—I knew this day was coming.”

  Arlis muttered, “What?,” as Tomlinson continued to talk, saying, “Those bastards have been tracking me for years.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES, I SNAKED AND SHIMMIED MY way through the darkness of the karst tunnel but gave up when I came to a dead-end chamber, where I found Will’s swim fins hanging motionless from the rock ceiling.

  Seeing the fins gave me an emotional boost at first. The boy and Tomlinson had been here, I was on the right path. But my optimism soon faded. There had once been an exit vent—that was obvious—but the unstable limestone had shifted, or collapsed, and I couldn’t find the opening they had used.

  I tried signaling—there was no response—so I searched and probed and dug carefully with my hands, but after another ten minutes I knew it was suicide to continue looking. My air was low. I had already broken the rule of thirds. And dying wasn’t going to help my friends. I would have to surface and return later with help.

  I was as disappointed as I was desperate, but I also took perverse pleasure in the knowledge that first I would have to deal with the two convicts. There was nothing to hold me back now. The sooner they were out of the way, the sooner I could call in a rescue team and press ahead with the search.

  Perry was too scared to risk swimming back to shore alone, which meant he was still somewhere above me floating on the inner tube. I knew how I would work it. I would surprise him from behind and then go after King. Somewhere in their clothing, or hidden nearby, I would find our cell phones and the VHF. Get rid of the killers and help would soon be on its way.

  I turned and worked my way out of the chamber, pushing my BC rig and the spare bottle ahead of me. It was slow going. I couldn’t hurry. Even though I had not passed any intersecting vents, I maintained contact with the monofilament lay line that was attached to the Penn reel, wrapping it inch by inch over my right wrist as I retraced my path, until I sensed the opening ahead of me.

  As I exited free into the blackness of the lake basin, I activated the night vision monocular and took my time searching the space above me and below me. As I searched, a Tomlinson superstition came into my mind. Thoughts are energy. They sculpt reality from the noosphere. Focus on a dream—or a fear—and it will happen.

  What I didn’t want to happen was to see the Komodo monitor waiting for me as I exited. But the axiom forced me into its own unavoidable paradox. Attempting to blank the creature from my mind only made the image stronger. Call the monster and the monster will appear, the axiom suggested.

  The monster did appear, although the coincidence proved nothing. Even so, the timing left me with the unsettling possibility that my fear had summoned a nightmare.

  Before exiting the tunnel, I took my time searching even though I didn’t have much air left. Finally, though, I abandoned the quasi-safety of the limestone hole and did a slow three-sixty as I swam upward. My fins worked slowly, propelling me at an angle that would allow me to approach Perry from behind and surprise him.

  The man was still above me, curled up in the inner tube, as I had hoped. I could see the silhouettes of the tube and his swim fins, although his feet weren’t in the water. That’s how bright the winter sky appeared as seen through night vision. It was all backdropped by stars, plus a pulsing illumination that I knew was firelight. It told me that King was staying busy collecting wood even though he had promised Perry to stand guard by the generator in case Perry called for help.

  That was good news for me, bad news for the two killers.

  The water clarity was flawless, but the green eye of the monocular had its limits. I wanted
to be certain that the Komodo monitor wasn’t lurking somewhere out there in the darkness at the edge of visibility, and I had only two options. I could use the spotlight, which might alert Perry, or I could flip on the little infrared light that was built into the system.

  I chose the invisible infrared . . . and that’s when I saw the monitor. It was hanging on the surface, over deep water, at the northern rim of the lake, forty yards away. The thing’s body drifted, motionless, pitched downward at an eighty-degree angle, its head above water, facing the inner tube. It suggested to me that the animal had recently surfaced for air and that it had spotted Perry.

  Now the monitor was waiting . . . watching . . . observing the habits of its prey before leveling off for an attack. Perry, who had been terrified of the lake from the start and who was probably now numb with cold and fear, wouldn’t see or hear the lizard approaching until it was too late.

  To me, it was exquisite irony. A killer who had stabbed or shot children, who flaunted his manhood with a dragon tattoo, was about to be attacked and possibly killed by a species that had existed unchanged for fifty million years.

  I stopped kicking toward the surface when I saw the lizard. I decided it was safer if I remained on the bottom, where I could watch events unfold, so I purged my BC and began to descend fins first, still focused on the creature.

  Maybe it heard the bubbles from my exhaust valve—that was the first explanation that came to mind, anyway—because the thing pivoted instantly and thrust its head beneath the surface and began searching the bottom.

  I remained motionless as I descended, watching the distant reflection of the monitor’s eyes. Most reptiles don’t have great eyesight, particularly at night. They can detect movement, but inanimate objects—even if warm-blooded—are invisible to them, which is why snakes and lizards rely on their tongues when hunting.

  I inhaled enough air to stop my descent, then held my breath. I could see the monitor’s tongue working, stabbing the water for information. A popular rural legend is that snakes and alligators can’t attack underwater, but it’s a myth. Reptiles have a palatal valve that prevents water from breaching their throats when they open their mouths underwater. They can attack, they can bite, they can feed.