Beckon (17 page)

Chapter 30

George snuck down the hall as Miriam flipped on the light. “We did see him come in here, right?”

Miriam shrugged. “There must be another way out. Some kind of hidden door?”

The room was small, with shelving units on both sides and a large pegboard with hanging hooks along the back. They inspected each of the walls and the floor, looking for anything that might be an entrance.

Miriam was shaking her head. “I don't like this. Why would they have a secret passage? What are they hiding?”

“I don't think I want to kn—”

Suddenly they heard muffled footsteps approaching and one of the hooks along the pegboard wall began to move, twisting to the left. George switched off the light and pulled Miriam into the corner just as a section of the back wall swung outward and a pale-green light shone in through the opening. They moved farther into the corner, behind the shelving unit, as a figure emerged.

In the shadows of the closet they could see it was Henderson again. He was still carrying the bucket, but his face looked somewhat distraught in the pale light. George held his breath as Henderson pulled the secret door closed again behind him. They heard a metallic click, and then Henderson exited the supply room through the main door. They listened to his footsteps retreat down the hall and climb back up the stairs.

Then they both breathed a long sigh.

“I'm too old to go sneaking around like this,” George whispered into Miriam's ear.

“We need to find out what's back there.”

“It's too dangerous.” George flipped the light on. “If they catch us . . .”

But Miriam was busy feeling around the wall where Henderson had emerged. “We've got to find out what's going on out here.”

George knew it was better not to argue with her. He pointed to the hook he'd seen move earlier. “I think this might be some kind of latch.”

He tried twisting it to the left and could feel it swivel on its mounting bracket. He continued turning until he felt it snap into place like a dead bolt. The doorway was disguised as a section of pegboard mounted to the cinder-block wall, hooks and all. The board had numerous mop heads and brooms hanging from it along with other supplies. It was ingenious, really. George never would have suspected it was a doorway had he not seen it in use.

The board loosened on its hinges, and George was able to push it outward. It opened into a rough-hewn tunnel carved into solid rock with a series of stone steps leading down and out of sight. A line of light fixtures was mounted to the rock ceiling, each with a pale bulb, casting a sickly glow into the tunnel.

George glanced at his wife, still not quite used to her youthful appearance. “What do you think?”

Miriam grabbed a flashlight from one of the shelves and handed it to George. Then she gestured into the tunnel. “Let's go.”

George nodded, his jaw clenching. “That's what I was afraid you were going to say.”

They stepped through into the tunnel beyond and George pushed the door closed behind them, turning the locking mechanism back into place. Then they crept down the stairway, ever listening for any sounds. George wondered how many of the other residents knew about this passage. He was certain that Vale did. And obviously Henderson was using it too. He also assumed Frank Carson knew about it, since he was the one who'd brought the woman down here in the first place. In fact, it wouldn't have surprised him if all the residents of Beckon were aware of the passage. And if that was the case, why bother keeping it a secret?

The lights were spaced every forty feet or so, creating brief, dimly lit patches amid lengthy sections of darkness. They descended the stairway as it curved away out of sight, making it difficult to see too far ahead at any given time. After several minutes of cautious descent, they arrived at a large wooden door. It looked to him like something out of a horror movie. Thick wooden beams held together with iron bands and bolts.

George put his ear to the wood but couldn't hear anything. He pushed against the handle and felt it swing open with a dull creak. On the other side the tunnel continued straight.

They had come this far; they might as well keep going. But once through the door, they paused to listen again, and what they heard sent chills down George's spine. Voices echoed up through the dark passage. Wailing and moaning as if in torment. George's heart pounded and his throat went dry. It was as if they had in fact descended into some subterranean dungeon of horrors. They had left the modern world behind them and gone back into the Dark Ages, into a torture chamber.

Miriam gripped his arm. “Those are people, George. . . . What is this place?”

George felt sick inside. The voices grew louder as they made their way down the passage, and soon they came across side tunnels off the main corridor. At this point, George was glad Miriam had found the flashlight in the supply room.

He shone the beam down one of the tunnels. There were in fact more doors built into the rock walls. It was a prison of some sort. They could hear a weak male voice pleading to them in Spanish, but George couldn't make out what he was saying.

He called out, “Where are you?”

The voice grew more earnest, and in the beam of the flashlight George could see fingers reaching out from a slat in one of the doors.

Miriam rushed down the corridor to the door. “Here, George.” She pulled on the iron latch, but it wouldn't budge. “Help me open it.”

George followed her and inspected the handle. “They're all locked,” he said. “We have to try to find the key.”

Miriam peered in through the opening. “We'll get you out. . . . Don't be afraid. We'll find the key.”

Then George heard a voice from one of the other doors. A woman's voice, speaking English. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

George panned the light toward the new voice and saw a hand reaching out through the bars.

“Who are you?” the woman said again.

Miriam turned and clutched the woman's fingers. “Oh, my . . . don't worry. We're going to get help.”

“How did you get down here?”

George leaned in. “We were snooping around the lodge and found this tunnel in the basement. It's hidden. We're . . . we're just guests there.”

“Guests? You know Thomas Vale?”

“Yes, he invited us here,” Miriam said.

“Then listen to me. You're in danger too. You need to get out and call the FBI. You can't trust him. You can't trust any of them. None of the people in this town.”

“Who are you? Why did they lock you up down here?”

“I'm a police officer—from Los Angeles,” the woman said, her voice cracking with emotion. “My name is Elina Gutierrez. I was investigating a kidnapping. I followed the van here and they captured me.” Her tone became insistent. “You need to contact the FBI. They're engaged in some kind of human trafficking here. There's something horrible going on.”

George's head spun as he searched the corridor. These had to be the people they'd brought in the van and the woman he'd seen the day before. “We can't get these doors open. We have to go back and find the keys.”

“Please help us,” Elina pleaded. “You have to get help right away. Don't trust them. Don't trust any of them.”

Miriam was squeezing Elina's fingers through the bars. “We'll get you out of here. Don't worry. We'll get you out.”

Elina began weeping. “I was praying that someone would find us. I was praying He would send someone to save us.”

Miriam leaned close and said softly, through her own tears, “He heard you. God heard you.”

George suddenly felt as if the darkness were closing in on him. As if something were pursuing them. He grabbed Miriam's arm. “We need to go—now.”

He led her back up the tunnel as Elina's voice came from behind him.

“Listen to me,” she said. “Be careful. There's something in the caves. They said there's something terrible down there.”

George steered Miriam away. “Don't worry. We'll contact the FBI as soon as we can.”

They hurried back the way they had come. Through the wooden door and up the stairs. George was puffing hard as they climbed the stairs, but now Miriam pulled him onward, her new youthful stamina driving her.

“What is this place?” she was saying between breaths. “Why would they have these people locked up?”

“I don't know,” George wheezed. “I saw her . . . yesterday. . . . Carson took her away like a . . . prisoner.”

“What?” Miriam turned on the stairs and glared at him. “You
saw
her? You
knew
about this place and you didn't tell me?”

“I didn't know about this place,” George said. “And I didn't know . . . who she was. I just . . . didn't want to upset you until I found out what was . . . going on.”

Miriam started back up the stairs. “We have to call the state patrol or something.”

“I tried, but the only landline is in Vale's office, and you need a pass code to dial out.” George pulled Miriam's arm and she turned around. “Look, if Vale thinks we're going to cause trouble, he'll have us both killed.”

“How could you get mixed up with these people?”

“I was desperate!” George hissed in a hushed tone. “I would've done anything to save you. You have no idea what it was like living with you like that. All our money, and I couldn't even . . .” He could feel his emotions swelling up and choked off his words. In fifty years of marriage, he'd never cried in front of Miriam; he wasn't about to start now.

She hugged him. “I'm sorry, sweetheart. I don't blame you. But we have to get out of here. We can't stay here any longer.”

“We
can't
leave.”

“George.” Miriam looked him in the eyes. “I don't care what happens to me. I am not going to let you become Vale's slave for me. I won't let you live in that kind of fear.”

“I can figure out a way to get rid of him. I'm not afraid of him.”

“And
I'm
not afraid of death.”

They continued on to the top of the stairs. George pulled open the hidden door to the storage room. They both clambered through into the room and stopped in their tracks.

Thomas Vale stood in the open doorway. Frank Carson and Henry Mulch stood behind him in the basement corridor, arms folded.

Vale sighed and shook his head, a look of disappointment on his face. “I suppose it's too much to hope that you were just out for a morning stroll.”

Part IV

The Soul Eater

/  //  /

You don't
have
a soul. You
are
a soul. . . . You
have
a body.

Walter M. Miller Jr.,

A Canticle for Leibowitz

Chapter 31

Twelve hours later

It was going on eight o'clock in the evening and Jack was huddled in the back of the rust-colored pickup as it wound its way up a gravel road through looming pines to the top of a craggy bluff.

His clothes were torn and muddy from his ordeal in the caves. The gash in his leg was bandaged and his hands were cuffed behind his back. And the sheriff they had called Carson—who Jack now knew was no real sheriff at all—sat beside him with a gun in his hand pointed at Jack's chest. Malcolm Browne, the guy who had first picked Jack up on the highway, was driving. And the doctor named Henderson, who had bandaged Jack's leg, was sitting beside Browne in the cab.

They continued up the wooded hillside until the road leveled off and the trees parted to reveal the enormous log-beam mansion perched near the top of the bluff. It was quite impressive—a place that normally he'd like to spend a week in. Though considering his current circumstances, Jack could only feel a sense of great peril waiting for him inside.

Carson yanked him out of the truck and ushered him up the gravel drive through the main entrance. He escorted Jack across the foyer into an expansive central hall.

A man stood with his back to a wide bank of windows. He was lean and quite pale with a thick mass of black hair and very light-green—nearly yellow—eyes that gave his appearance a disturbing, vampirish feel.

He strode across the room somewhat casually, as if to give Jack a closer look. “Welcome to Beckon. My name is Thomas Vale. They tell me your name is Kendrick. Is that right? Jack Kendrick?”

Jack looked around at the others. “Do I know you?”

“No,” Vale said simply. “They also say you've been inside the caves.”

Jack could see where this was going. He suddenly realized that the less he knew, the safer he might be. “Uh . . . no. I haven't been in any cave. I've just been out hiking—”

Vale waved off his attempt at a lie. “Because you may just be the only person to have ever made it out of there alive.” He circled Jack as if inspecting him. “I can't tell you how fascinating that is. I have a million questions.”

“So do I.”

“They tell me you're some sort of anthropologist, yes?”

Jack shook his head. “I'm not answering any questions until I get a phone. I want to call—”

“Call who? The authorities?” Vale gave an icy chuckle. “Jack, in this town I
am
the authority.”

“What's going on here? Who are you people?”

Vale ignored him. “It's pretty impressive, really. I mean . . . finding a way
into
those caves was unlikely enough. But actually finding your way
out
again . . . well, that was just extraordinary. You have no idea how lucky you are.”

“Funny, I don't feel very lucky at the moment.”

“Oh, but you are,” Vale said. “You see, the N'watu hate outsiders with a passion. And for you to have survived your encounter is nothing short of amazing.”

Jack leaned forward. “What do you know about them?”

Vale scratched the back of his neck. “Not nearly enough, I'm afraid. Though probably more than anyone else.”

“Who are they?”

“The last remnant of a pre-Columbian civilization that predates the Mayans. Probably even the Olmec.”

Jack frowned. His father's theories continued to be validated—a fact that both thrilled and frightened him as he feared he would never escape to share the discovery with anyone else. There was something obviously sinister going on in this town, and Jack wondered if his father had stumbled across this place and perhaps been kidnapped as well. In either case, he needed more information. He needed to find out what this guy knew about the N'watu.

“And they still exist today, living entirely underground?”

“Yes . . .” Vale looked almost giddy, like a parent talking about his child. “The truly incredible thing is that their culture has survived essentially intact for thousands of years, completely undetected by the modern world.” He paused, and his expression grew somber. “Of course, my intention is to keep it that way.”

“Why?”

“Why?”
Vale looked incredulous. “You're an anthropologist, aren't you? To preserve their culture. To protect them from the invasive scrutiny of modern society.”

Jack scowled. “But science is all about scrutiny. It's about exploration and discovery.”

Vale clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Perhaps some things weren't meant to be discovered. I'd have thought you would understand the consequences to their way of life if news of their existence ever got out.”

“Way of life? What kind of a life do these people have? They're living inside a cave at a Stone Age level of existence.”

“This culture has evolved in a completely isolated subterranean environment. The N'watu live their entire lives underground. And yet somehow they've managed to survive. Think about how remarkable that is.”

“I guess I just don't share your enthusiasm,” Jack said. “Besides, I think they've had more contact with the outside world than you're leading me to believe.”

Vale's eyes flicked to the three other men in the room, then back to Jack. “Do you have any clue what kind of secrets such an ancient culture might hold? And what we can learn from them?”

“Oh? Like offering human sacrifices?”

Vale leveled his gaze at Jack. “You say that with such vitriol and judgment. But is our modern,
civilized
society any better? How many innocent lives have we surface dwellers taken in the name of progress or security? Or just plain convenience?”

“So I assume you know about their bone pit.”

“I've never actually been that deep into the cave,” Vale said. “But I don't presume to judge their religious practices.”

“
Religious?
They've been practicing ritual human sacrifices for years. And I'm guessing you've either known about it or have been directly complicit in the act.”

Vale laughed and shook his head. “I don't think you have a clue what's going on here.”

“I think I've seen enough.”

Vale nodded to his men. “Excellent; then let's see how much you know.”

Carson yanked Jack backward, and they followed Vale down a corridor off the main room. Browne and Henderson brought up the rear. They turned down a narrow side hall, where Vale led them through another door and descended a flight of stairs.

They arrived in a dimly lit basement, where Jack found himself in a narrow concrete-block corridor with three metal doors: one on each side of the hall and a third at the far end. Vale opened the door on the right and ushered Jack into a large room lined with cabinets and shelving units and lit by two rows of cold fluorescent lights. Situated throughout the room were several long tables, each one cluttered with a variety of laboratory equipment.

At the far end of the room was a pair of enormous glass terraria, five or six feet in length. Vale strode to the first terrarium and tapped on the glass. “Have you fed them yet today?”

Henderson cleared his throat. “Uh . . . no. I figured you might want to do that yourself.”

Vale waved Jack over for a better look, and after a sharp nudge from Carson, Jack complied. He could see that the bottoms of both tanks were covered with a layer of mud, pebbles, and small rocks. On one side of each tank was a large pile of leaves and sticks. Jack could see the leaves jittering as Vale tapped the glass.

“Bring me a rat, please.”

Henderson went over to one of the shelving units along the wall. It was packed with rows of wire cages. And each cage contained one or more of a variety of rodents: rats, mice, guinea pigs, and even a few rabbits.

He retrieved a white rat by the scruff of its neck and handed it to Vale. Vale flipped open a small plastic hatch in the cover and dropped the rat into the terrarium.

The rodent sat there for a moment, its whiskers twittering as it inspected its new surroundings.

Suddenly the leaves shook as something emerged from under the pile. Jack let out a yelp and jumped backward.

Vale grinned. “You've seen this before, yes?”

Jack's throat was dry. “Yes.”

The armored arachnid was a miniature version of the monsters Jack had seen inside the caves. It was only six or eight inches across but had the same dark coloration on its top and a pale-gray underside. It reared back, raising its saber-like forelegs in the same menacing pose that Jack had seen before. Its two palps slapped together in rapid bursts, creating a soft but all-too-familiar clicking sound that sent chills down Jack's spine. And while this spider was much smaller, it looked no less fierce under the brighter lights. A moment later three more had appeared from under the leaves.

Vale leaned close to the glass as the creatures pounced on the hapless rat, overwhelming it. Fangs punctured fur and skin. Claws dug deep into its flesh, twisting and yanking the limbs in various directions, and their tiny jaws tore off bits of tissue while the rat squealed and writhed. Jack grimaced as he watched the horrid spectacle.

Thankfully, the rat was dead within seconds, and the spiders began systematically dismembering its corpse.

No, Jack thought, it was hardly systematic. It was a frenzied, monstrous attack like he had seen in the caves. Vicious and chaotic. One of the spiders clutched a hind leg with its fangs and forelegs and spun its body to twist off the limb much like a crocodile would do to an antelope. The others tore into the carcass with their claws, gnawing flesh off bone. A flurry of blood and fur spattered the glass. Jack had never witnessed anything so brutal in his life.

He noticed Browne and even Carson kept their distance from the terraria.

But Vale seemed positively giddy and grinned at Jack. “The N'watu call them kiracs. It's derived from their word for
terror
. Aptly named, wouldn't you say?”

Henderson sounded less enthusiastic. “We believe they live in a colony structure with dozens or even hundreds of male hunters serving a single queen.”

Vale leaned close to the glass, pointing at the carnage. “See . . . the males—the warriors—they'll eat anything. Bugs, birds, reptiles, mammals . . . even each other.”

Then he straightened up and moved to the second terrarium. “But the female, the queen . . . now, she's more discriminating in her tastes. She's far more . . .
refined
.” He tapped the glass.

Jack's eyes widened at what he saw.

The queen kirac crept out from under the sticks and leaves, revealing her gnarled, armored bulk inch by inch. She was at least three times the size of the males and completely black with yellow spots dotting the top of her jagged shell. She moved slowly and deliberately . . . menacingly . . . clicking her palps in search of prey.

Vale motioned for Henderson to bring him another rodent. A guinea pig this time. Vale held it by the scruff of its neck outside the glass. The queen seemed to ignore it completely, though the guinea pig wriggled and twitched at the sight of the kirac, struggling to free itself from Vale's grasp.

“See, the queen doesn't eat flesh,” Vale said. “She only drinks the blood. But here's the thing: it has to be a living victim.”

He lifted the lid and dropped the guinea pig into the cage. The queen turned, clicking her palps in short flurries. She seemed to locate her target quickly. The rodent scrambled away, instinctively backing up to the glass. Its nose and whiskers twitched furiously as it rose up against the glass in search of an exit.

The queen crept closer with slow, menacing strides. She first backed the guinea pig into the corner and then quickly moved in for the kill. The rodent jerked and struggled in a futile attempt to flee, but the queen clutched it with her massive forelegs. Jack could see the agitated animal growing increasingly desperate as the queen closed her legs around it, pulling it tightly into her embrace. It kicked against the rocks but couldn't free itself from her bony grasp.

Vale had a look of pride as if watching his prize hunting dog corner a fox. “And she doesn't poison it, either. She overpowers it, holds it tightly, and sucks out all of its blood.”

Jack saw the queen sink her long fangs into the throat of the guinea pig. The animal's sides pulsed with each frantic breath but gradually slowed and within a minute had stopped altogether.

After another minute, the queen slowly loosened her grasp and moved off toward her lair, leaving the rodent's corpse lying in the mud.

Henderson lifted the lid and picked up the limp guinea pig with a pair of tongs. Then he dropped it into the first terrarium, where the ravenous males dispatched the carcass with the same speed and ferocity as they had the rat.

Jack swallowed back his nausea. “So she lives off the blood?”

“It's more than just blood. We think there's something else.” Vale glanced at Henderson, who seemed to take his cue.

“We know she won't touch a corpse,” he said. “She has to have live prey. But when we give her a choice between two identical rats, one of them sedated and the other fully conscious, she'll ignore the sedated one even though it's an easier kill.”

Jack frowned. “She only picks the conscious one?”

“Every time. She won't feed on a sedated animal even if that's her only option.”

“So . . . her instincts are based on movement?”

Henderson shook his head. “That's what we thought at first, but when we suspended a sedated rat from a string to keep it moving, she still wouldn't go for it.”

Jack nodded. “She must be keying in on something else. Maybe respiration or heart rate . . .” Jack recalled something Running Bear had said. The N'watu believed that Sh'ar Kouhm—the Soul Eater—fed on emotions.

On fear.

“The Caieche said the Soul Eater feeds on fear and anger.” Jack scratched his head. “So what if she can sense fear in her prey? Fear has a physiological effect on the body. Elevated heart rate, respiration . . .” He shrugged. “Maybe she has a taste for adrenaline.”