Still Life with Crows

by Preston; Child

  After a few minutes he realized something was wrong. The tunnel had curved back on itself somehow, and returned him to where he’d started. He set off down another tunnel, only to find that the same thing happened. His frustration grew until the red wash of his goggles seemed to dim from sheer rage.

  After returning to the chamber yet a third time, he stopped, raised his shotgun, and fired. The blast rocked the room, and feathery crystals tinkled gently down on all sides like giant broken snowflakes.

  “Motherfucker!” he screamed. “I’m here, come show your face, freak!”

  He fired a second time, and a third, screaming obscenities into the darkness.

  The only answers that came back were the echoes of the blasts, rolling insanely through the honeycomb of chambers, again and again.

  The magazine was empty. Breathing raggedly, Hazen reloaded. This wasn’t helping, hollering and shooting like this. Just find him. Find him.Find him.

  He plunged down yet another passageway. This one looked different: a long, glossy tunnel of limestone, little pools of water dotted with cave pearls. At least he had escaped the merry-go-round of endless returning passageways. He could no longer remember where he had been or where he was going. He simply plunged on.

  And then, off to one side, he saw a dark, hulking figure.

  It was the merest glimpse, just a shadow flitting across his goggles; but it was enough. He spun, dropped to one knee, and fired—long practice at the range paying off—and the figure dropped, tumbling to the ground with a crash.

  Hazen followed immediately with a second shot. Then he scuttled forward, ready to pump out the final round.

  He stared down, the red glow of the night-vision goggles revealing not a dead body but a lumpy stalagmite, cut in half by his gun, lying shattered on the cave floor. He resisted the impulse to curse, to kick the shattered pieces away. Slowly and calmly, he raised the shotgun and continued down the echoing tunnel. He came to a fork, another fork, and then he paused.

  He saw movement ahead, heard a faint sound.

  He moved forward more carefully now, gun at the ready. He swung around a rocky corner, dropped to his knee, and covered the empty tunnel ahead; and in doing so he never did see the dark shape that approached swiftly out of the shadows behind him until he felt the sudden blow to the side of his head, the brutal wrenching twist, but by then it was too late and black night was already rushing forward to embrace him and he didn’t have enough air left in his lungs to make any sound at all.

  Seventy-Five

  Perhaps, Corrie thought, it was all just a dream: this breathless, desperate dash through an endless gallery of caverns. Perhaps Agent Pendergast had never arrived and she hadn’t been rescued, after all. Perhaps she was still down at the bottom of the pit, in a nightmarish half-doze, waiting to be awakened by the return . . .

  But then, the ache in her wrists and ankles, the throbbing pain in her temple, would remind her that this was, in fact, no dream.

  Agent Pendergast raised his arm, signaling for them to stop. His flashlight bobbled as he consulted the strange, soiled map. This hesitation seemed to greatly agitate the man who was accompanying them. It had taken Corrie several minutes, in her near-stuporous state, to even notice that somebody besides Pendergast had been running along with them. He was a little man with a high voice, sandy hair, and a scraggly goatee. His police fatigues were splattered with mud and clotted pieces of something else she didn’t want to think about.

  “This way,” Pendergast whispered. Corrie roused herself to follow, feeling as she did so the vague, dreamlike sensation return.

  They passed through a low, chilly cavity that took a series of turns, first to the left, then to the right. And then quite suddenly, the ceiling rose into blackness. Corrie sensed, more than saw, that a large chamber lay ahead. Pendergast hesitated once again at its mouth, listening. When he had satisfied himself that there was no noise besides their own, he led the way forward.

  One step, then another, as the walls fell away from the beam of Pendergast’s flashlight. Despite her shock and exhaustion, Corrie looked wonderingly around at the extraordinary space that was revealed, in bits and pieces, by the FBI agent’s flashlight. It was an immensely tall chamber, of blood-red stone so wet and slick that it appeared in places almost to be polished. Pools of shallow water dotted the floor. Near the top of the chamber, the rock face was broken by a series of horizontal cracks, through which the long seeping action of water had built up veils of calcite. These immense white veils, draped over the red stone, gave the uncanny appearance of a richly appointed gallery in a theater.

  The only problem was there wasn’t any exit at the far end. The dazed sense of relief that had been settling over Corrie was suddenly lost beneath a fresh wash of fear.

  “Where now?” the man in uniform said, panting. “I just knew it. This shortcut of yours led us to a dead end.”

  Pendergast peered at the map another moment. “We’re no more than a hundred yards from the public area of Kraus’s Kaverns. But a portion of that will be along the Z-axis.”

  “The Z-axis?” the man said. “The Z-axis? What are you talking about?”

  “Our route lies up there.” Pendergast pointed to a small arched opening that Corrie had not noticed before, situated about forty feet up one of the curtains of stone. A stream of water poured from it, splashing down the huge masses of flowstone and disappearing into a yawning crack at the cavern’s base.

  “Just how are we supposed to get up there?” the man asked truculently.

  Pendergast ignored him, searching the wall above with his beam.

  “You don’t expect to climb that, do you? Without a rope?”

  “It’s the only choice left us.”

  “You call that a choice? With that huge gaping hole at the bottom? One slip, and we’re as much as—”

  Pendergast ignored this, turning to Corrie. “How are your wrists and ankles?”

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I can make it.”

  “I know you can. You go first. I’ll follow and tell you what to do. Officer Weeks will come last.”

  “Why me last?”

  “Because you need to provide cover from below.”

  Weeks spat to one side. “Right.” Despite the chill damp air, the man was sweating: rivulets that traced clean lines through the muck that covered his face.

  Quickly, Pendergast glided toward the cave wall, Corrie following close behind. She felt her heart begin to beat hard and fast again, and she tried to keep her eyes off the rock face above them. They stopped a few yards short of the wide fissure in the floor. The spray of falling water formed a curtain of mist that coated the already slick rock. Without allowing her time for second thoughts, Pendergast gave her a boost, directing his light toward the initial footholds.

  “I’m right behind you, Miss Swanson,” he murmured. “Take your time.”

  Corrie clung to the rock, trying to suppress the pain in her hands and the still greater burden of her fear. To reach the opening overhead they had to climb diagonally, out over the yawning fissure. The ribbed limestone offered plenty of good hand- and footholds, but the rock was wet and smooth. She tried to think of nothing, nothing except raising first a hand, then a foot, and then pulling herself up another six inches. From the noises below, she could tell that both men were now on the rock face and climbing as well. Pendergast murmured directions, once in a while using his hand to direct her foot to one ledge or another. It was more frightening than it was difficult—the handholds were almost like the rungs of a ladder. Once she looked down, saw the top of Weeks’s head and the gulf that now lay directly beneath them. She paused and shut her eyes, feeling a reeling sense of vertigo. Again, Pendergast’s hand steadied her, his smooth, gentle voice urging her along, urging her to look ahead, not down . . .

  One foot, one hand, the other foot, the other hand. Slowly, Corrie crept up the rock. Now, blackness yawned both above and below, barely pierced by the glow of Pendergast’s f
lashlight. Her heart was racing even faster now, and her arms and legs were beginning to tremble from the unaccustomed effort of climbing. Somehow, perversely, the closer she got to the lip of the passage overhead, the more desperate she felt. She did not dare look up anymore, and had no idea if there were five feet, or thirty feet, still to go.

  “There’s something down here!” Weeks suddenly shouted from below, his voice pitched high. “Something moving!”

  “Officer Weeks, brace yourself against the rock and provide cover,” Pendergast said. Then he turned back to Corrie. “Corrie, just another ten feet. Pretend you’re climbing a ladder.”

  Ignoring the pain that shot through her wrists and fingers, Corrie grabbed the next handhold, found another foothold, pulled herself up.

  “It’shim! ” she heard Weeks shout. “Oh my God,he’s here! ”

  “Use your weapon, Officer,” Pendergast said calmly.

  Desperately, Corrie grabbed a fresh handhold, found a higher ledge for her foot. It slipped and her heart almost froze with terror as she lurched away from the wall. But Pendergast was there once more, his hand bracing her, steadying her, guiding her foot to a better hold. She stifled a sob; yet again, she was so frightened she could barely think.

  “He’s gone,” Weeks said in a tight voice. “At least, I can’t see him.”

  “He’s still there,” said Pendergast. “Climb, Corrie.Climb. ”

  Corrie, gasping with the effort and pain, pulled herself up. Peripherally, she was aware that Pendergast, with a lithe maneuver, had turned himself around on the ledge to face outward. His flashlight was in one hand and his gun in the other, its laser sight scanning the cavern below.

  “There!” cried Weeks.

  Corrie heard the deafening blast of his shotgun, followed by another. “He’s fast!” Weeks screamed. “Too fast!”

  “I’m covering you from above,” Pendergast said. “Just hold your position andfire with care. ”

  There was another blast from the shotgun, then another. “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,” Weeks was saying, over and over, sobbing and gasping.

  Corrie ventured a glance overhead. In the dim glow of Pendergast’s flashlight she could see that she was now just five feet below the lip of the archway. But there did not seem to be any more handholds. She felt around, first with one hand, and then with the other, but the stone was smooth.

  Another scream, another wild shotgun blast.

  “Weeks!” Pendergast rapped out. “You’re firing wild!Aim your weapon. ”

  “No, no,no! ” The shotgun went off yet again. And then Corrie heard the clatter as Weeks threw his empty gun down in a panic and began climbing furiously.

  “Officer Weeks!” Pendergast shouted.

  Once again, Corrie reached out with her hands, fingertips splayed, looking for a purchase. She could find none. With a sob of terror, she looked down toward Pendergast, appealing for help. And then she froze.

  A shape had flashed out of the darkness below, leaping upon the rock wall like a spider. Pendergast’s gun cracked but the shape kept coming, scrambling up after them. For a moment, Pendergast’s light fell directly on it, but it gave a grunt of rage and ducked away from the beam. And yet it was enough for Corrie to see, once again, that great moonlike face, inhumanly white; the wispy trailing beard; the little blue eyes flecked with blood, staring out from below long, effeminate lashes; that same strange, intent, fixed smile: a face that seemed as ingenuous as a baby’s, and yet so very alien, rent by thoughts and emotions so bizarre as to scarcely seem human.

  Even as she watched, the figure ascended the rock with terrible speed.

  Pendergast’s gun cracked again but Corrie saw that Weeks, climbing desperately, had come directly between him and the monster and the FBI agent no longer had a shot. She lay against the rock face, her heart like a hammer in her chest, unable to move, unable to look away, unable to do anything.

  The killer reached the frantically climbing Weeks, brought his pistonlike arm back, and smashed the man in the back, cracking him like a bug. With a scream of pain Weeks peeled off the rock and began to slide. The massive arm cocked back again and this time struck a sideways blow that rammed Weeks’s head against the rock. Corrie watched in frozen horror as Weeks simply dropped, down the wall and into the great fissure below, his body making no sound as it plunged out of sight through the veil of mist into the unguessable depths beneath.

  Then immediately there came another shot from Pendergast’s gun, but the man, with a great apelike leap, dodged sideways and once again began scuttling up the rock face with almost unbelievable agility. Before she could even draw breath he was on top of Pendergast. There was a blow and the agent’s gun fell away, clattering onto the cavern floor below. Then the thing’s hammerlike fist drew back to deliver another, fatal blow and Corrie, finding her breath, screamed, “No!”

  But when the fist came down, Pendergast was no longer there, having jumped sideways himself. Now the agent raised his hand, fingertips curled tightly in against themselves, and thrust the meat of his palm violently up into the man’s nose. There was a cracking sound and a jet of crimson blood. The man grunted in pain and lashed out again, knocking Pendergast roughly from the wall. The agent teetered, slid, then managed to halt his fall, reestablishing a grip on the stone several feet below.

  But it was too late. The thing, bloodied and frothing, had gotten past Pendergast and was now scrambling up the rock face toward Corrie. She was helpless; she could not even release a hand to defend herself; it was all she could do to cling to the cliff.

  He was on top of her in a heartbeat and the great callused hands closed once again around her throat, with no hesitation now, no humanity in his dead eyes, nothing but a sense of anger and the desire to kill. And the sound of her gagging was drowned out by his own brutal roar.

  Muuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhh!

  Seventy-Six

  The wind was blowing even harder now, and Shurte and Williams had retreated into the shelter of the cut leading down into the cave. It wasn’t exactly where the sheriff had ordered them to be, Shurte knew, but the hell with it: it was past one in the morning, and they’d been standing in the cold and rain for over three hours already.

  He heard Williams groan, then swear. He glanced over. Williams was huddled farther down the cut, holding the propane lantern. Shurte had dressed his partner’s bite, using the first-aid kit from the cruiser. It was an ugly wound, but not nearly as bad as Williams was making it out to be. The real problem was their situation. The police-band radios were silent, the power was out everywhere; even the few commercial radio stations that reached this far into the boondocks were off the air. As a result, they had no information, no orders, no news, nothing. Three hours Hazen and the others had been in the cave, and the only one to come out had been one of the dogs with half his jaw ripped off.

  Shurte had a very bad feeling.

  The cave exhaled a smell of dampness and stone. Shurte shivered. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way the dog had come tearing out of the darkness, trailing blood. What could have ripped a dog apart like that? He glanced at his watch again.

  “Jesus, what the hell are theydoing down there?” Williams asked for the tenth time.

  Shurte shook his head.

  “I should be in the hospital,” Williams said. “I might be getting rabies.”

  “Police dogs don’t have rabies.”

  “How do you know? I’m getting an infection, for sure.”

  “I put plenty of antibiotic ointment on it.”

  “Then why does it burn so much? If this gets infected I’ll remember who dressed it,Doctor Shurte.”

  Shurte tried to ignore him. Even the banshee-like moaning of the wind across the mouth of the cave was preferable to his whining.

  “I tell you, I’ve got to get medical help. That dog took a chunk out of me.”

  Shurte snorted. “Williams, it’s a dog bite. Now you can put in for a Purple Heart Ribbon for being wounded in the line of duty.”r />
  “Not until next week I can’t. And it hurtsnow, damn it.”

  Shurte looked away. What a jerk. Maybe he should request a rotation. When the going got rough Williams had crapped out. A dog bite. What a joke.

  A bolt of lightning tore the sky in half, briefly painting the mansion a ghostly white. The huge drops of rain were propelled like bullets in the howling wind. A river of water was running down the ramp into the cave.

  “Fuck this.” Williams got to his feet. “I’m going up to the house to relieve Rheinbeck. I’ll take a turn watching the old lady and send him on down here.”

  “That wasn’t our assignment.”

  “Screw the assignment. They were supposed to be in and out of the cave in half an hour. I’m injured, I’m tired, and I’m soaked to the skin. You can stay out here if you want, but I’m going up to the house.”

  Shurte watched his retreating back, then spat on the ground. What an asshole.

  Seventy-Seven

  The roar of the monster was suddenly drowned out by a second roar, sharp and deafening in the confines of the cavern. Corrie felt the horrible weight of the brute suddenly slam against her, pressing her cruelly into the rock face. He was roaring violently in her ear as if in pain, the bellowing filling her nostrils with the smell of rotten eggs. The great paw around her neck loosened, then released, allowing her to turn her head and gasp for air. She had a brief glimpse of a face inches from hers: broad, unnaturally smooth, pasty white, little eyes, bulbous forehead.

  There was another blast, and this time she heard the slap of buckshot against the rock face nearby. Corrie gulped in air, clinging hard at the slippery purchase. Someone was firing a shotgun at him from below.

  The monster slid away from the rock, then regained his hold, scrabbling frantically and roaring like a bear in the direction of the blast.