The Return

by Bentley Little

  She didn't have to explain; he knew exactly what she was talking about. Glen turned toward the northwest quadrant. His heart was hammering in his chest. He didn't really expect to see anything other than an empty hole, but a part of him was afraid to look, afraid that something might be there.

  Something?

  The skull. He was afraid the missing artifact would be nestled snugly in the ground exactly where he'd found it.

  "I'll check," he told Melanie.

  Glen made his way through the half-excavated pueblo to the room where he'd discovered the skull. To his great relief, he found only a ragged open cavity in the hardpacked ground. It had been expanded since he'd left--obviously Al had been looking for additional bones--and a chisel and trowel lay on the dirt nearby, but there was nothing weird or strange or out of the ordinary, and for that he was grateful.

  Melanie followed him. She looked down at Al's abandoned tools. "Who's going to notify their families?" she wondered.

  "I don't think anyone even knows this has happened yet. We're the only ones."

  "We have to tell the police, then. File a missing-person's report."

  She was right, of course, but Glen was embarrassed that such an idea had not even occurred to him. He looked at Melanie. He was her age, a little older actually, but she seemed more mature, able to operate more easily in the real world.

  "Maybe we should go now," she said, glancing around nervously. "It could happen again."

  Glen nodded. He thought it was over--whatever had happened here, they'd missed it--but he understood her worry, and the last thing he wanted to do was hang around this place.

  They started back toward the front of the pueblo, but when they reached the canopy, Melanie stopped. "Look." She pointed.

  Two boys on bikes were pedalling furiously toward them over the rolling countryside, jumping small indentations in the ground, speedily circumventing boulders and the occasional trees. He hadn't seen anyone on their way out here, so he figured the kids must have ridden across the grasslands from town rather than taking the roads. The boys drew closer, sliding to a stop as they reached the rope that cordoned off the excavation, and Glen was able to make out the expressions on their faces. They were terrified of something, and he automatically looked at the rolling plain behind them to make sure they weren't being chased. Melanie's grip on his hand tightened.

  The boys ran through the pueblo, jumping over shorter ruin walls, over to where he and Melanie stood.

  "Is Dr. Wittinghill here?" the shorter one asked breathlessly.

  Glen shook his head. No, he was about to say, but before he could even get the word out, the other boy was shouting.

  "Where is he?"

  Glen fixed the boy with a flat stare. "Who are you?"

  "Jerod. And that's Ricky. Where's Dr. Wittinghill?"

  "He's gone. We don't know where he is."

  "Then you gotta come with us."

  "Who are you?" Glen repeated.

  Ricky spoke up. "We're the ones who found the . . . the . . ."

  "Burial chamber," Jerod finished for him. "And--"

  "It's all different now. They changed it all."

  Jerod turned on his friend. "Just shut up and let me tell it, will you?"

  "I--"

  "Shut up!" Jerod yelled.

  "Calm down," Melanie said. "Just tell us what happened."

  "They moved," Jerod said.

  "What moved?"

  "The bones. We saw them move before, like they were alive or something. But now they made themselves into things. Like a fence. With a gate. And a table and chairs. And a . . . I don't know what. Like a sculpture."

  "It's scary," Ricky said, nodding his head.

  "It is," Jerod admitted.

  "And it's right below my house."

  "And we don't know what to do."

  "Did you tell your parents?" Glen asked.

  They looked at each other.

  "What?" Glen said.

  Ricky started crying. "I don't know where they are."

  Jerod nodded, swallowing hard. "His mom's supposed to be home, but she's not, and when we went down to his dad's store, no one knew where he was." Jerod licked his lips. "My parents are in Tucson. I'm staying with my grandma. But I don't want to tell her. I can't tell her."

  "I think they might be down there," Ricky sobbed.

  A shudder passed through Glen, quick and sharp like a piss-shiver.

  I think they might be down there.

  He hadn't wanted to see the burial chamber, even with Al to guide him, had been afraid of it even then. Now just the idea of that dark death cave caused him to suck in his breath.

  "We'll come with you," Melanie told the boys.

  What? Glen blinked, looked at her face, saw that she meant it, and he realized that she had not had the same reaction to this as he had. He could still see the gooseflesh on his arms--pinprick points of raised skin that corresponded to individual hairs--but the skin of her arms was smooth and unaffected, the reassuring smile she directed at the boys honest and heartfelt.

  Ricky wiped his eyes. "I told you."

  Jerod looked skeptical. Relieved but skeptical. "What about Dr. Wittinghill?"

  "We'll let him know about it when we see him again. Right now, let's go. Toss your bikes in the trunk. We'll drive you."

  The boys shared a glance.

  "We can't--" Ricky started to say.

  "We're not supposed to ride with strangers."

  "We'll follow you," Melanie suggested. "You take your bikes, lead the way."

  Jerod nodded. "Okay."

  Ricky lived in a tract house in the newer part of town. Bower was not exactly a hotbed of growth, so the "newer part of town" consisted of a ten-year-old subdivision adjacent to flat, cleared ground overgrown with weeds where a second subdivision had been planned but never built. They walked through the house, Ricky calling out, "Mom! Dad!" just in case, but neither of his parents was home. They passed through a sliding glass doorway into a large backyard. On their right, near the side of the house, were several waist-high mounds of dirt.

  "It's over there," Jerod said, pointing.

  Glen and Melanie walked over the grass to the mounds, which he could now see continued into the side yard, where a tall sprawling clubhouse cobbled together from disparate boards and doors and discarded signs stood at the far end. Just before the clubhouse was a large pit about six feet in diameter.

  "Down that hole," Jerod said.

  Ricky was crying again.

  "Don't worry, hon," Melanie said. She put an arm around him. "We'll check down there, and if we don't find your parents--and I'm sure we won't--we'll go to the police and tell them, okay?"

  "The police?" Ricky repeated, panicked. "You think they're dead?"

  "No, no. They're probably just out shopping or something. Don't worry. The police do this kind of stuff all the time. They're not always out there catching bank robbers. Usually, they just help clear up misunderstandings. Like this."

  Glen wasn't sure she should be soft-pedaling what would probably turn out to be an unsolvable tragedy, but he knew enough to keep his mouth shut. He passed between the hills of dirt, stopping at the foot of the hole. A makeshift wooden stairway, more ladder than steps, descended into the darkness.

  He did not want to go down there.

  Nevertheless, he turned back around. "Do you have a flashlight I could use?"

  "There's one in the club," Jerod said. He ran up one of the mounds and leaped from top to top before sliding down the last one and kicking open a small hidden door in the clubhouse. He crawled inside, then emerged with a battery-powered torchlight. "Here. We use this for our camp outs."

  "Thanks." Glen took the light, flicked it on, and pointed it at the hole. The rickety, ladderish steps were illuminated all the way to the bottom, as were the sides of the sloping hole, but the burial chamber itself remained in darkness. Only a stray skull at the foot of the makeshift staircase was visible, black eye sockets and perpetual grin dari
ng him to come down.

  Glen fought the urge to turn away and flee.

  "Stay here," he ordered. Gripping the torchlight tightly, he started slowly down the steps. It grew colder as he descended into the ground. His nostrils filled with the unique musty scent of old death.

  He stopped at the bottom and shone his light around. The burial chamber was much larger than he'd imagined. The adobe-walled room extended farther than his handheld illumination could reach, and he understood Al's excitement. The professor must have been overjoyed at the sight of so many undiscovered Anasazi skeletons.

  But the boys were right. Things had changed. From Al's description, this had looked like a mass gravesite, whole skeletons lying next to each other on the dirt floor, placed into niches in the walls, a mountainous accumulation of bones stacked along the far end of the crypt. But now it looked like . . . nothing he had ever seen. There was not a complete skeleton to be found. All the bones and skulls had been separated and rearranged into a king-size table and half a dozen chairs and, like the boys said, a low fence that ringed the chamber and appeared to have a working gate. There were piles of smaller bones, bastard complements of the dirt mounds up above, as well as shelves, a trunk, a chest of drawers, a bed, and several freestanding lamps, all made from the fleshless remains of long-dead people. He did not know what was holding the bones together, and he did not want to know. It was like a room in Hell, and dominating everything was what the boys had called the "sculpture," a horrible travesty of art that stood fifteen feet high and consisted of stacked and fitted skulls. It resembled nothing so much as a Cubist-constructed demon, a twisted distorted figure with a square disproportionate head. What lay beyond that, in the darkness, he could not tell.

  "You want me to come down?" Melanie shouted from the top of the stairs.

  "No! Stay up there!"

  "I'm coming! Shine your light on the steps!"

  He heard her footfalls on the wood above him and swiveled his light so she could see where to walk. She descended slowly, holding on to the rickety wooden rail with one hand, the other balanced against the adobe wall. When she reached the bottom, he moved the light so she could see the chamber, and he heard her sharp intake of air.

  "Yeah," he said.

  She was silent as she took it all in. "Do you see anyone down here?" she asked finally.

  He shook his head.

  "Hello!" Melanie called, and he wanted to put his hand over her mouth, afraid that she might be alerting something to their presence.

  "Anybody here?" she yelled out.

  "Mom!" Ricky called from above. "Dad!"

  "Stay up there!" Glen said sharply. "Don't come down here!"

  "We're not!" Jerod shouted.

  Glen breathed deeply. He was jumpy. He had believed the boys even before coming down here, but now that he'd seen it for himself, he was much more frightened.

  And Ricky and Jerod were right about the bones.

  They were moving.

  He saw nothing overt, nothing that he could prove, but he heard noises, sounds, the dry scrape of bone on bone, the click of hard calcium striking its counterpart. Each time he swiveled his light to look, everything was still, but when he turned back again, he always noticed some slight difference. When he saw the expression on Melanie's face, he knew that she was aware of it, too.

  He took a step forward, felt Melanie's restraining hand on his arm.

  "Let's file that missing-person's report," she said.

  Glen nodded. He wanted out of here, and he was grateful to Melanie for insisting that they leave. He didn't know what was causing all this, or what it meant, but like that room in Chaco Canyon with the wild-haired figure, this chamber felt evil.

  Evil.

  If he'd been anywhere else, the thought would have made him laugh. That word was not even part of his ordinary vocabulary. It seemed like something from the past, an archaic term for an outmoded concept.

  But he knew now that there was evil. It was real, and it was here.

  They piled the boys back into the truck and headed to the police station, following Melanie's direction. They were nearly there when she suddenly sat up sharply in her seat. "Ron!" she exclaimed excitedly, turning toward him.

  Ron! Of course! They'd forgotten all about Ron and his midnight bust.

  "Maybe he can help us!" Melanie said.

  "If he's still in jail."

  He was. And after explaining to the desk sergeant what the boys had told them and what they'd seen at Ricky's house, after each of them filled out and signed a report about it, after they gratefully pawned off the kids to a detective who promised to track down Jerod's parents and then find Ricky's, after they filled out their own missing-person's reports for Al, Judi, Randy, and Buck, he and Melanie met with Ron in a locked, bare visitation room.

  The young man was angry.

  "Where's Al, goddammit? He said he was going to get me a lawyer and arrange bail, but I've been sitting in here for the past three days and haven't heard word one!"

  "Three days?" Melanie asked.

  He sensed something in her voice because the anger was instantly replaced by wariness. "Yeah," he said. "Since Tuesday morning." He looked from Melanie to Glen. "What's happened? Why are you here?"

  They told him.

  "Fuck howdy," Ron breathed, sinking back in his chair.

  Glen leaned forward. "We thought you might be able to tell us something--"

  "Are you kidding? I don't know what the hell's happened. I'm more in the dark than you are."

  That was true.

  "They're gone? Really? All of them?"

  Glen nodded.

  Ron shook his head, stunned. "Fuck." He looked up. "So where does that leave me?"

  "I don't know." Glen looked over at Melanie, who shrugged helplessly. "Did Al get you a lawyer or anything? Have you met with--"

  "I haven't met with shit. I've just been . . . waiting." Ron took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "I guess that explains why Al's been MIA."

  "I don't know how these things work," Glen admitted. "What I know about jail and lawyers I learned from television."

  "Me, too," Melanie said.

  "You think I'm some expert? I know about as much as you do." Ron stood, clearly exasperated. "You can't let me rot in here. Somebody has to get me out." He seemed almost ready to cry. Despite the shaved head and all of the tattoos, he looked like a lost little boy. "I didn't even know she was underage. And she agreed! I have her release form!"

  "Are they mistreating you?" Melanie asked.

  "No. There's no one else even in the jail except me right now, and the cops . . . they treat me all right, I guess." He shook his handcuffs. "But I've never been in jail before. I have to get out."

  "Did you call your parents?"

  "No, I can't. They wouldn't understand. And I don't want them to know."

  "We'll call ASU," Glen told him. "Maybe Al already got the ball rolling. They have to have some kind of legal aid. You're a student, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, there's probably some sort of student services that could help you. I'll call. Find out."

  "Couldn't you . . . ?" Ron cleared his throat. "Don't you have some money? I'll pay you back, I promise."

  "How much is your bail?"

  "I don't know. I'm not sure it's been set yet. If it has, no one's told me."

  Glen looked over at Melanie, sighed. "I'll see what I can do."

  "We'll be back," she promised. "With help."

  Walking up the cinder-block hallway to the lobby of the police station, Glen shook his head. "We came here to file missing-person's reports because everyone at the site vanished after we found the skull of an unknown monster that may be responsible for wiping out an entire race of people a thousand years ago. So how did we end up trying to find legal aid for a pornographer?"

  Melanie smiled, and took his hand. "The Lord works in mysterious ways, my son. The Lord works in mysterious ways."

  Eight

 
1

  "Get back, everyone! Please! Get back!" Lieutenant Armstrong stood at the barricade with a bullhorn as other officers walked the line, making sure no one tried to get into the ruins.

  And a lot of them wanted to.

  That was the weird part, Cameron thought. They could see what was going on, but they still needed to feel it, touch it, experience it for themselves.

  God damn, adults were stupid sometimes.

  Maybe not, he thought. Maybe it wasn't their fault. Maybe they were being drawn in there, pulled, like metal to a magnet.

  He shivered.

  He and Jay were standing across the street from Pima House Ruins, had been there for the past two hours. The ruins were just down the street from their neighborhood, off Camelback Road near downtown Scottsdale, and though it was a state park and a famous place and within walking distance, the only time he'd actually been there was on a field trip in third grade.

  But they'd heard this morning from Fat Josie, who lived over on Arbor and who'd ridden over on her bike specifically to tell them the news, that cops were roping off the ruins and keeping people out because there was, like, a Bermuda Triangle in there. A man had walked into the ruins and just disappeared. And then another man had gone after him and then he'd disappeared. And then a police dog had vanished. Now they were roping off the whole place.

  So he'd told his parents he was going to Jay's, Jay told his parents he was going to Cameron's, and the two of them immediately sped over, watching from across the busy street as the crowd swelled, as more police arrived, remaining on this side of Camelback because they were afraid to move any closer. Noises were rising from within the ruins, horrible hackle-raising sounds that were not screams, not growls, not thunder, but somehow incorporated all three.

  Cameron also saw movement in there, a furtive rushing from adobe wall to adobe wall by someone or something that could not be clearly seen, even in broad daylight. It was this that kept them waiting, watching, rooted in place.

  Just then an old man tried to sneak under the sawhorses and yellow ribbon that blocked of the ruins. Cameron was glad they hadn't decided to cross Camelback and stand on the sidewalk with the rest of the onlookers. These attempts to pass through the barricade and see what was going on definitely seemed like the result of some strange draw or force rather than simply stupid curiosity, and he was thankful they were far enough away that they were not affected by it.