Inhabited

by Ike Hamill

  She waited.

  At one point, she heard a big expulsion of air and she ducked into her protective crouch again. Still, nothing happened. She straightened up and watched the flickering light grow. The light played strange tricks with the shape of the cavern. The walls themselves seemed to be undulating. Kristin imagined that she could feel the floor shifting.

  Air began to rush past her from deeper within the cavern. It was feeding the flames. She put her arm up over her mouth and nose so she could breathe through the fabric. The air was getting thick and acrid. Only the fresh air from deeper in the cave was really breathable.

  When Kristin coughed the first time, she realized what a horrible mistake she had made.

  She slipped and fell to her butt.

  Kristin whipped around, looking all around her in the yellow glow from the flames.

  It wasn’t a trick of the light—the floor was moving. Dirt filtered down on her head. She realized that the whole cavern was moving. She moved forward, even though it was towards the heat of the flames. She didn’t want to be caught under one of the low rocks as the space grew and shrank. It seemed like the cave was trying to chew her up.

  Chapter Fifty-Three — Quake

  IN JUSTIN’S DREAM, HE was falling. His eyes flew open and he realized that the dream was true. The ground was shifting beneath him and he was slipping down the side of the hill. He flipped over and clawed at the hillside, but it was no use. The loose sand and gravel flowed like a river and he was caught in the current. He was sliding back down towards the road.

  Justin looked over his shoulder and saw hungry shadows waiting for him. The sun was beginning to color the sky in the East. He imagined that the light was magnetic and was drawing him towards it.

  His foot caught a solid rock and he steadied himself. Just as he exhaled, the rock slipped. It became part of the avalanche. Justin rolled as he fell. He tumbled back towards the road.

  He landed on the shoulder and dirt cascaded down onto his legs. Justin scrambled to his feet. He couldn’t stand the thought of being buried again.

  The road itself began to shake and Justin dropped into a low crouch to stay upright.

  His head whipped to his right when he saw a new shadow appear in the middle of the road. He ran. Another shadow was spreading behind him.

  Justin stopped and spun in place, looking for a safe direction to flee. There was nowhere to go. A crack started to form in the dirt. His patch of road began to tilt. This was just how the Jeep was taken, and now he was going to be consumed by the same ravenous patch of road.

  Justin saw one chance—he could jump the new hole and maybe escape down the road. Yes, there were shadows down there, but anything was preferable to the chasm in front of him. He ran, even as the ground was falling away.

  A new light, even brighter than the emerging dawn, was coming up from the hole in the ground. It was a child’s conception of hell—a burning orange light coming from a crack in the soil.

  Justin leaped.

  The ground betrayed him. It shifted again and his momentum was sucked down by the falling earth. He didn’t clear the gap. He crashed into the far ledge with his upper body. His legs were dangling down into the chasm.

  Justin dug his fingernails into the dirt and pulled.

  A hand closed around his ankle.

  Chapter Fifty-Four — Lesson

  ROGER TRIED TO OPEN his eyes, but they were filled with sand. He coughed and spat out a mouthful of dirt. When the hand closed around his wrist, he screamed.

  The voice in the darkness was gentle.

  “Organic goes to the right. Metal goes in the middle. Synthetic goes to the left,” the voice said.

  “Let me go!” he yelled he pulled his wrist from Carlos’s grip and tried to get up. His head hit the rocks above and stars swam across his closed eyes. He blinked, scraping his eyes with sand, and saw nothing. There was nothing but blackness around them.

  He heard a smile in Carlos’s voice. “Organic to the right,” Carlos said. Something cold was pressed into Roger’s hand. He ran his fingers over it until he recognized the shape. The toes were what tipped him off. It was a foot, severed at the ankle.

  Roger screamed and dropped the thing.

  “No,” Carlos said. “To the right.”

  Roger felt the tickle of Carlos’s foul breath when he whispered into Roger’s ear. “If there’s still some flesh, you can eat it.” Carlos smacked his lips.

  Roger forgot about the rocks and tried to pull away again. He slammed his head a second time.

  Roger bellowed with fear and frustration.

  Chapter Fifty-Five — Free

  THE SHADOW WRAPPED AROUND Florida like a sticky membrane. She kept walking the best that she could, but it suddenly felt like she was moving through molasses. She leaned into the thing and drove her legs forward. There was weakness in the center. Florida pushed her hand forward and felt it pierce through the darkness and touch fresh air on the other side.

  The shadow began to withdraw, pulling her back into the mine. Florida didn’t waver. Her running coach had told her a simple fact that she applied to many aspects of her life—a marathon was two races. The first race was twenty-one point two miles, and it was the hardest thing she would do. The second race was the last five miles, and it was twice as hard as the first part. Florida was accustomed to digging in. She was accomplished at perseverance. With that in mind, she flexed her muscles and fought the shadow.

  She punched her other hand through the hole and felt the shadow weakening.

  Florida lowered her shoulder and fought.

  The shadow snapped away. It gave up and she tumbled out into the night. She looked around, confused. It had been daylight when she went in, and there had been a table set up with equipment. It was all gone.

  She didn’t wait for an explanation.

  She ran.

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  The first few turns were uneventful. Florida settled into an easy jog down the dirt road. She wished she had been paying more attention when they pulled in. It was tough to make out the twists and turns by moonlight.

  In the next depression, she saw a flowing creek. With her next few strides, Florida realized she had been mistaken. It wasn’t a creek—it was a shadow flooding into the low part of the road. She didn’t stop or turn back.

  She ran faster.

  Florida jumped at the last second, hurdling the growing pool of shadow. She imagined that she could feel it tugging at her feet as she soared over it. Florida increased her speed. By the top of the next hill, she was panting for air, but she kept accelerating.

  Florida felt the ground move underneath her and ran as fast as she ever had in her life. This wasn’t her long-distance pace. This was her sprint. Her form suffered and her breath burned her throat, but she didn’t allow herself to slow.

  She could feel the desert gathering around her. Something was mustering all its strength for one last attempt at taking her life. Florida used the thought as motivation to pump her legs even faster. Her breath evened out as she poured on speed.

  She saw the place ahead where the dirt road became asphalt. The black line of pavement ran all the way to the highway. To her, the solid road mean civilization. It was the border where human achievement had conquered nature. If she could just reach it, she thought she might be okay.

  There was one more dip in the road between her and that freedom.

  At the bottom of that dip, the shadows had flooded. She couldn’t see anything of the gravel road down there.

  Still, she ran towards it.

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  It was way too far to jump, but she tried.

  Florida planted her foot at the edge of the shadow and threw herself into the night. She pumped her legs and her arms, trying to get every last inch out of the leap. It wasn’t going to be enough. She saw the swirling shadows beneath her and knew that she was going to come down in that pool of darkness.

  On the hill above her, at the edge of the pavement
, a set of headlights pierced the darkness.

  Florida yelled her frustration as her feet came down in the black. She tipped forward, grabbing useless handfuls of sand and rocks. With one glance down, she saw the awful truth. Her legs were submerged up to her knees. When she tried to pull a leg free it was black, like it had been dipped in oil.

  Chapter Fifty-Six — Fight

  JUSTIN KICKED AT THE grip that was pulling him down. He could feel the hot flames wafting up on rising air from below. He pulled with all his strength. If the demon holding onto his ankle refused to relinquish its grip, it was going to be pulled aboveground with him.

  Justin got lucky. His fingers caught a hard edge buried in the soil.

  His fingers felt like they would rip from his hand as his fear powered his muscles. Every inch was agony.

  “Let go!” he screamed. He thought that if the weight were just removed from his leg, he could easily make the climb.

  The hand around his ankle only tightened. It was soon joined by a second hand.

  Justin’s fingers trembled with the effort. His grip was just about to fail.

  He imagined slipping backwards and tumbling down into the pits of hell. He clenched his teeth and banished the thought.

  Something soft hit his face.

  Justin looked up. A rope was hanging down the slope. He couldn’t see its source, but at that point, he didn’t care. Justin grabbed the rope with one hand and then the other. As soon as his weight was committed, the rope began to pull.

  It lifted him with agonizing patience. His fingers slipped against the rough fiber and the grip on his ankle never relented. When his thigh crested the edge of the chasm, Justin thought that his leg would be broken in two from the weight. He rolled, taking the pressure from his thigh and shifting it to his knee.

  Justin cried out from the pain. He thought for sure that his flesh would be ripped in two between his grip on the rope and the claws holding his ankle.

  As his shin carved a groove in the edge of the pit, he saw the fingers for the first time. He heard a woman’s groan.

  From above, he heard a delighted cackle. Justin looked up. He couldn’t see the person’s face, but he saw a hunched form silhouetted by red lights from behind.

  Justin’s fingers slipped. A layer of skin stayed put on the rope and was torn from his hands. He bit the rope to take some of the pressure from his hands. It smelled of tar and gasoline. He was dragged upwards at the same slow pace.

  Below him, the person attached to his ankle began to crest the lip. As the weight diminished on his leg, the hands began to climb him. One hand moved to his calf and the other reached up to his knee. Justin looked down and saw her head for the first time. Kristin’s face was blackened with soot. Her eyes were crazy. Her hair was backlit by the flames. She had been transformed into a demon and she pulled as she climbed.

  Justin tried one more time to shake her loose. His hands slipped again on the rope. He found a knot at the end and he dug his fingers into it.

  “Two for one,” the voice above him said. The statement was followed by another cackle.

  They continued to rise.

  Justin could hear an engine idling above him. He could hear a grinding motor that vibrated down the rope. The ground beneath him began to level off, but he didn’t let go of the rope. Kristin tugged at his legs again and then she climbed up beyond him.

  She ran past the hunched man and his vehicle. Justin pushed up to his knees and climbed the rest of the way up the slope. He looked down at his bleeding hands and then met the eyes of the old man.

  His silver beard was draped around his smiling mouth. His eyes were nearly lost in a million wrinkles. The old man pulled something from a back pocket and tossed it to Justin. It was a red rag. It looked clean enough. Justin dabbed it on his rope-burned palms.

  “I suppose we better catch up to the lady before she falls into more trouble,” the old man said. He began to shuffle towards the driver’s door of his old truck. The truck was backed up to the sloped road. The man hit a switch on his way by and shut off the motor that had been winding the rope onto the reel.

  The door creaked as the old man opened it.

  “Are you coming?” he asked.

  Justin didn’t even glance back. He ran for the passenger’s door.

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  The old man drove slowly and they gradually caught up to Kristin, who was running down the road.

  “Who are you?” Justin asked.

  “My name is Bertrand Ulrich,” the old man said. He held out his hand and then saw that Justin had the rag wrapped around his right hand. Bert withdrew his hand and cackled.

  Justin’s brain immediately tried to place the name. When it did, he blurted out what he had read without thinking. “You killed Charles.”

  A cloud passed over the old man’s jovial expression. He reached forward and shut off the radio with a click.

  “You better talk to the lady,” Bert said as he pulled alongside Kristin.

  Justin found the crank for the window.

  “Kristin, get in.”

  She looked at him with her crazy eyes. He noticed that her hair had been burned in the back. Her shirt was burned, too.

  “Get in,” he said again. Justin turned to the old man. “Can you stop for a second?”

  The truck skidded to a stop on the gravel road and Kristin kept running. Justin opened the door and realized that he didn’t want to get out. If he got out, the old man might drive away and they would be left to contend with the shadows again.

  “Will you wait for me?” Justin asked the old man.

  The sparkle had returned to his eyes, and the smile to his lips. Bert nodded.

  Justin stepped down out of the truck and moved around the door. He began to jog after Kristin. His heart fell when he heard the truck drop into gear behind him. He knew what would happen next—the old man would speed past him, abandoning them once more.

  He was wrong.

  The truck kept pace, but didn’t overtake him as he chased after Kristin.

  “Kristin!” he yelled.

  She glanced back but kept moving.

  “Kristin!”

  She jogged on, towards the highway. Justin wasn’t able to match her speed and she gradually pulled away. Until she tripped, he was sure that she would run forever. Her spill didn’t look too bad, but it took her to the ground. When Justin caught up, she was on the ground, curled into a ball.

  “Kristin?”

  Justin reached down and touched her leg. She pulled away from his touch.

  “Fuck you!” She flailed her arm in his direction. “Just leave me here. That’s what you’re going to do, so do it.”

  “Kristin, I’m not leaving. Bert is waiting to give us a ride. We can get out of here now.”

  “Why should we trust some dirty old man in the desert?” she asked. “Just go away.”

  Justin tried to straighten back up, but his legs gave out. He fell back on his ass.

  “Because I’ve been exactly where you are,” the old man said. He stepped in front of the headlights and cast his hunched shadow over them. “I sat on this very stretch of road and wept. It wasn’t tears of joy that were falling from my eyes—it was pure guilt. Why was I the one who made it out, and how could I have left all my friends? Hell, I killed my own cousin down in that wretched hell.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kristin asked.

  Justin was relieved to see that she was beginning to sit up.

  The old man scratched his white beard before he continued. “I was a miner from ’91 to ’93. In three years it felt like I spent a lifetime down in that hole.”

  “You can’t be that old,” Kristin said. She wiped her eyes with the back of one of her blackened hands. The motion left clean streaks in the soot on her face.

  Bert cackled again. “I turned ninety-six last February, and with a little luck I’ll live to see ninety-seven. And after all those years, I was beginning to think that I would never repay the
favor. But I made a promise, and I’ve been out here on June 1st every year since.”

  “What promise?”

  Bert nodded and cast his eyes over towards the rising sun. “There’s always one who stays behind, and always one that gets away. That’s what the man told me, and that’s what I’m telling you. I didn’t figure on two of you. I always have been extra lucky.”

  “Can we go?” Justin asked. Rolling onto his knees, he pushed back up to his feet. He put out his hand and was surprised when Kristin took it. He helped her up.

  “That’s a good idea,” Bert said. “It would be a shame if the ground opened up and took one of you back in.”

  Justin and Kristin rushed back to the truck while the old man laughed.

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  He slowed as the truck neared the highway. They watched a car go by and Bert brought his truck to a stop.

  “Now before I take you away from here, I need a promise,” Bert said.

  Kristin and Justin looked at each other, and then turned their attention back to the old man.

  “Someone else is going to need your help. I can’t say if one or both of you should come. Maybe you could take turns.” The thought brought a smile to Bert’s face for some reason. “But someone has to be out here for the next poor soul who tries to escape.”

  “Escape what?” Kristin asked.

  “The mine,” Justin whispered.

  “No, I know that. I’m asking what the hell is down there. What killed our friends?”

  Bert shook his head. His constant smile evaporated. “I can’t say. Something lives down there, and it feeds. It feeds off of the unlucky desert animals who stumble into one of the holes. Every now and again it has a feast of foolish men who venture underground. That patch of dirt is inhabited.”