Still Life With Crows

by Douglas Preston

  Cole! Larssen patted some more water into his face, gave him a few light slaps.

  Cole coughed, retched again.

  Cole!Larssen tried to keep the man on his feet, but his limp form felt like a sack of cement. Brast, help me, goddammit.

  How? I cant see.

  Feel your way along the rope. Do you know the firemans carry?

  Yeah but

  Lets do it.

  I cantsee, and besides, we dont have time. Lets leave him here and get help from

  Ill leaveyou here, said Larssen. How would you like that? He found Brasts hands and locked them together with his in a basket grip. Larssen guiding, they stooped together, embraced Coles sagging form, tried to rise again.

  Christ, he weighs a ton, Brast said, gasping.

  At that same moment Larssen heard a distinct splash, then another: heavy footfalls in the shallow pools they had come through just moments before.

  I tell you, theres something behind us, Brast said as he strained desperately to lift Cole. Did you hear it?

  Justmove.

  Cole slumped backward, threatening to slide out of their grip. They maneuvered him into place again and moved forward painfully.

  The splashing continued from behind.

  Larssen looked back but saw only indistinct washes of pinks and reds. He looked forward again, chose a narrow passage in the far wall that looked like it might be the right one, made doggedly toward it. If he could get to a defensible location, he could hold the thing off with his gun . . .

  God, said Brast, his voice breaking. Oh God, oh God . . .

  They ducked into the low passage, carrying Cole between them as quickly as they could. Larssen staggered as the rope caught his ankles; he straightened up, went forward again. After a short distance, the ceiling rose toward a weird formation of a thousand needlelike stalactites, some as thin as threads.

  Oh God, I dont remember that,thought Larssen.

  Another splash from the darkness behind them.

  Suddenly, Brast tripped against a rock. Cole slumped from their grasp and fell heavily onto his broken arm. He groaned loudly, rolled over, and lay still.

  Larssen let him go, fumbling with his gun, aiming into the darkness.

  What is it? Brast cried. Whats there?

  At that moment a monstrous shape came hurtling out of the darkness. Larssen cried out, firing as he stumbled backward, while Brast stood in terror, feet rooted to the ground, his arms clawing at the darkness. Jesus, dont leave me!

  Larssen grabbed his hand, yanked him away. As he did so, the shape fell upon the supine form of Cole. The two figures blurred together, a reddish tangle in the goggles. Larssen staggered backward again, tugging at Brast while at the same time struggling to get his gun back up. He heard a rending sound like a drumstick being wrenched off a turkey. Cole screamed abruptly: a terrible falsetto squeak.

  Help me! cried Brast, clutching at Larssen like a drowning man, knocking him back and spoiling his aim. Larssen savagely shoved him away while trying to raise the shotgun, but Brast was all over him again, sobbing, clutching at him like a drowning man.

  The gun went off but the shot was wide, sending long needles of limestone crashing to the ground, and then the shape was up and facing them. Larssen froze in horror: it was holding Coles severed arm in one fist, the fingers still pulsing spasmodically. Larssen fired again, but he had hesitated too long and the shape was rising toward them, and all he could do was turn and flee down the dank tunnel, Brast yelling incoherently and blindly at his back.

  Farther behind, Cole was still screaming.

  Larssen ran and ran.

  Sixty-Eight

  For a long time Corrie lay in the wet dark, confused and dreamy, wondering where she was, what had happened to her room, her bed, her window. And then she sat up, her head pounding, and with the return of the pain came the memory of the cave, the monster . . . and the pit.

  She listened. All was silent save the dripping of water. She finally stood, swaying slightly, the pounding in her head subsiding. She reached out and her hands encountered the slick, smooth wall of the pit.

  She made a circuit, running her hands up and down the wet wall, seeking handholds, cracks, anything she might use to climb out. But the walls were of the slickest stone, smoothed by water, impossible to climb. And what would she do once she got out? Without a light she was as good as trapped.

  It was hopeless. There was no way out. All she could do was wait. Wait for the monster to come back.

  Corrie felt overwhelmed with a feeling of helplessness and misery so powerful it made her physically sick. Her despair was all the worse for the hope that had been raised in her brief dash to escape. But here, in the pit, there was no hope left. No one knew where she was, that shed gone into the cave. Eventually the thing would come back. Ready toplay.

  She sobbed at the thought.

  It would be the end of her miserable, useless life.

  Corrie leaned against the slick wall, sank to the ground. She began to cry. Years of bottled-up misery came pouring out. Images flashed through her mind. She remembered coming home from fifth grade, sitting at the kitchen table and watching her mother drink miniature vodka bottles, one after another, wondering why she liked them so much. She remembered, two years ago, her mother coming home at two oclock in the morning on Christmas Eve, drunk, with some man. No stockings, no presents, nothing that Christmas. It was a late, rise-at-noon, hungover morning like any other. She remembered the triumphant day when she was able to buy her Gremlin with the money she had earned from working at the Book Nook before its demiseand how furious her mother had been when Corrie brought it home. She thought about the sheriff, his son, the smell of the high school halls, the winter snowstorms that covered the stubbled fields in unbroken blankets of white. She thought about reading books under the powerlines in the heat of summer, the snide whispered comments of the jocks passing her in the halls.

  He was going to come back and kill her and it would all be gone, every miserable memory now crowding her head. Theyd never find her body. Thered be a halfhearted search and then everyone would forget about her. Her mother would tear apart her room and eventually find the money taped to the underside of her bureau drawers, and then shed be happy. Happy that it was now all hers.

  She cried freely, the sound echoing and reechoing above her head.

  Now her mind wandered further back, to her early childhood. She remembered one Sunday morning getting up early and making pancakes with her father, carrying the eggs around and chanting like the soldiers inThe Wizard of Oz. All her memories of him seemed to be happy: of him laughing, kidding around, squirting her with the hose on a hot summer day or taking her down to swim in the creek. She remembered him polishing his Mustang convertible, polishing and polishing, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, his blue eyes sparkling, holding her up so she could see her reflection in it, then taking her for a ride. She remembered effortlessly, as clear as if it had been last week, how the cornfields parted with their passing; the exhilarating sensation of acceleration, of freedom.

  And now, in the silence, in the absolute final blackness of the pit, she felt all the protective walls she had carefully built for herself over the years start to crumble, one by one. In this moment of extremis, the only questions that remained in her head were the ones she had rarely ever allowed herself to ask: Why had he left? Why had he never come back to visit? What was so wrong with her that hed never wanted to see her again?

  But the darkness would allow no self-delusion. She had another memory, not all that distant: of coming home and finding her mother burning a letter in the ashtray. Had it been from him? Why hadnt she confronted her mother? Was it out of fear that the letter wasnt, in fact, what she hoped it was?

  This last question hung in the blackness, unanswered. There could be no answer, not now. It would soon end, here, in this pit, and the question would be moot. Maybe her father would never even know she was dead . . .

  She thought of Pendergast, t
he only person who had ever treated her like an adult. And now shed failed him, too. Stupidly going into the cave without telling anyone. Stupid, stupid,stupid . . .

  She sobbed again, loudly, painfully, giving full vent to her feelings. But the sound echoed so horribly, so mockingly, around and above her that she swallowed, choked, and fell silent.

  Quit feeling sorry for yourself, she said out loud.

  Her voice echoed and died away and then she caught her breath. There was a distinct whisper in the dark.

  Washe coming back?

  She listened intently. There were more sounds now, faint sounds, so distant and distorted they were impossible to make out. Voices? Yelling? Screaming? She strained, listening.

  And then there was a long, echoing sound, almost like the roar of rolling surf.

  A gunshot.

  And suddenly she was on her feet, crying out,Here I am! Help me! Over here! Please! Please! Please! Please!

  Sixty-Nine

  Weeks struggled to keep up with Pendergast as the FBI agent hurried through the cave. The way the man flicked his flashlight around, Weeks wondered if he missed anything. Probably not. It felt a little reassuring.

  The air of purpose that radiated from the agent had helped steady Weekss shattered nerves. He even felt some vestiges of his old aggrieved self returning. And yet he could not get out of his mind the image of the dog being ripped limb from limb by that . . .by that . . .

  He stopped.

  Whats that? he asked in a high, quavering voice.

  Pendergast spoke without looking back. Officer Weeks? I expect you to follow my lead.

  But I heard something

  Pendergasts slender white hand landed on his shoulder. Weeks was about to say more but fell silent as the pressure on his shoulder grew more intense.

  This way, Officer. The voice spoke with a silvery gentleness, but it somehow chilled Weeks to the bone.

  Yes, sir.

  As they proceeded, he heard the sound once again. It seemed to come from ahead, a drawn-out, echoing noise that reverberated back and forth through the endless caverns, impossible to identify. A scream? A shotgun blast? The one thing Weeks felt sure of was that, whatever the sound might be, Pendergast was going to head directly for it.

  He swallowed his protest and followed.

  They moved through a narrow warren of passages whose low ceilings were covered with glistening crystals. Weeks scraped his head against the needle-sharp crystals, cursed, and ducked lower: this wasnt the way hed come with the dogs. Pendergasts light moved back and forth, exposing nests of cave pearls clustered together in chalky pools. The sounds had finally died away, leaving only the faint plash of their own steps.

  Then Pendergast halted suddenly, his light shining steadily on something. Weeks looked. At first he couldnt make out exactly what it was: an arrangement of objects on a shelf of flat stone, clustered around some larger central object. It looked like a shrine of some kind. Weeks leaned closer. Then his eyes widened with shock and he stepped back. It was an old teddy bear, furred with mold. The bear was arranged as if it were praying: hands clasped before it, one beady black eye staring out from creeping tendrils of fungus.

  What thehell ? Weeks began.

  Pendergasts light shifted to what the bear had been praying to. In the yellow glow of the flashlight, it was little more than a mound of silky mold. Weeks watched as Pendergast bent over and, with a gold pen, carefully pulled away the mold, exposing a tiny skeleton underneath.

  Rana amaratis,Pendergast said.

  What?

  A rare species of blind cave frog. You will note the bones were broken peri-mortem. This frog was crushed to death in somebodys fist.

  Weeks swallowed. Look, he ventured one last time, its insane to keep going deeper into the cave like this. We should be getting out of here, getting help.

  But Pendergast had returned his attention to the objects around the teddy bear. With care he exposed more small skeletons and partially decomposed insect bodies. Then he went back to the teddy bear, picked it up, brushed off the mold, and examined it carefully.

  Weeks looked around nervously. Come on, comeon.

  He shut up as the FBI agent turned toward him. Pendergasts pale eyes were distant, focusing on some inner thought.

  What is it? Weeks breathed. What does it mean?

  Pendergast returned the bear to its place and said merely, Let us go.

  The FBI agent was moving faster now, stopping only infrequently to check the map he was carrying. The sound of water was louder now, and they were now wading almost constantly. The air was so chill and damp that their breath left trails. Weeks tried to keep up, tried to keep his mind off what hed seen. This was insane, where the hell were they going? When he got backifhe got backthe first thing hed do was put in for disability leave, because hed be lucky if posttraumatic stress syndrome was all he got from

  Then Pendergast halted suddenly. His light disclosed a body lying on the cave floor. The figure lay on its back, eyes wide open, arms and legs flung wide. The head was strangely elongated, like it had expanded and flattened, and the back of the skull had burst open like an overripe pumpkin. The eyes were bugged out, looking in two different directions. The mouth was wide opentoowide. Weeks looked away.

  What happened? he managed to say, struggling to hold back the terror.

  Pendergast raised his light toward the ceiling. There was a dark hole in the roof of the cavern. Then he let it fall once again to the body. Can you identify him, Officer?

  Raskovich. The campus security guy from Kansas State.

  Pendergast nodded and looked back up into the narrow hole overhead. It would seem Mr. Raskovich had a great fall, he murmured, almost to himself.

  Weeks shut his eyes. Oh, my God.

  Pendergast motioned him forward. We must go on.

  But Weeks had had enough. Im not going one step more. Just what do you think youre doing, anyway? The panic elevated his voice louder and louder. The dogs dead, Raskovich is dead. Youve seen them both. Theres a monster down here. What more do you want?Im the one thats still alive.Im the one you should be worrying about right now.Im

  Pendergast turned back. And Weeks stopped in mid-rant, involuntarily, at the steady, contemptuous gaze of the FBI agent.

  After a moment, Weeks averted his eyes. Anyway, what Im saying is, were wasting our time. His voice cracked. What makes you so sure this girl is still alive, anyway?

  As if in answer, he heard a response: faint, distorted, and yet unmistakable. It was the sound of someone crying for help.

  Seventy

  Larssen ran like hell, Brast behind him, holding on to the rope, careering from rock wall to rock wall, somehow managing in his blindness to keep up. It had been a couple of minutes since the screaming had stopped but Larssen could still hear it in his mind, playing over and over again like some infernal recording: the final scream of Cole ending abruptly in the sound of cracking bones. Whatever had done thatwhatever was pursuing them nowwasnt completely human. It really was some kind of monster.

  It couldnt be true. But hed seen it. Hedseen it.

  He paid no attention to where he was going, what tunnel he was in, whether he was heading back toward the surface or deeper into the caverns. He didnt care. All he wanted to do was put distance between himself and thething.

  They came to a pool, pale, shimmering red in the goggles, and Larssen waded in without hesitation, the icy water eventually reaching his bare chest before shoaling. Brast followed blindly, as best he could. On the far side, the ceiling of the cave became very low. Larssen moved forward more slowly, sweeping his gun back and forth, breaking off the sharp stalactites that hung before his face. The ceiling dropped still farther, and there was an ugly noise, followed by a desperate curse, as Brast hit his head against it.

  Then the ceiling rose again, revealing an odd, broken room with cracks leading off in myriad directions. Larssen stopped, looking up and down and sideways, and felt the scrabbling Brast blunder into his bac
k.

  Larssen?Larssen? Brast clutched at him as if to make sure he was real.

  Quiet. Larssen listened carefully. There was no sound of splashing behind them. The thing was not following.

  Had they gotten away?

  He checked his watch: almost midnight. God knows how long they had been running.

  Brast, he whispered. Listen to me. Weve got to hide until we can be rescued. Well never find our way out, and if we keep wandering around well just run into that thing again.

  Brast nodded. His face was scratched, his clothes muddy; his eyes were dumb, blank with terror. Blood was running freely from a nasty gash in his crew-cut scalp.

  Larssen looked forward again, shining his infrared headlamp around. There was a crack high up on the wall, larger than the others, vomiting a frozen river of limestone. It looked just big enough to admit a person.

  Im going to check something. Give me a hand up.

  Dont leave me!

  Keep your voice down. Ill only be gone a minute.

  Brast gave him a fumbling hand up, and within moments Larssen was into the high crack. He looked around, bare arms shivering in the chill air. Then he untied the rope from around his waist and dropped one end back down to Brast and hissed for him to climb up.

  Brast fumbled and pulled his way up the slippery rock wall.

  Larssen led them deeper into the crack. The floor was rough and strewn with large rocks. After a few yards, it became a tunnel that opened up enough for them to proceed in a crouched position.

  Lets see where it leads, Larssen whispered.

  Another minute of crawling brought them to the edge of blackness. The tunnel simply ended in a sheer drop.

  Larssen put a steadying hand on Brast. Stay there.

  He peered carefully out over the edge of the hole but could see no bottom. He reached for a pebble, lobbed it in, and began to count. When he reached thirty, he gave up.

  Overhead was a sheer chimney, with a thin thread of water spiraling down at them through space. There was no way the thing could come at them from that direction. He could come up only from the crack through which theyd just come.