Beckon (6 page)

Chapter 11

“Get back against the side,” Ben said, herding Jack along the ledge.

Jack's throat was dry with fear as he flattened himself against the rock wall. His head was still spinning from witnessing Rudy's death. And now, when he thought things couldn't get any worse, they had. The day had begun so innocuously but had suddenly turned into a nightmare of epic proportions.

He could hear voices echoing faintly down the passage—deep and guttural sounds, but distinctly human. And there were more than one. Jack could tell some sort of conversation was taking place, though he couldn't discern anything specific. No recognizable words. And in moments he understood why.

They weren't speaking English. In fact, it didn't sound like any language he'd ever heard before.

The light coming down the tunnel was growing brighter and the voices more distinct. Jack's heart pounded, and he fought every instinct inside him that screamed for him to run. It was an unnerving experience to feel so trapped, yet so completely exposed to whoever—or whatever—was approaching through the tunnel.

Ben tapped Jack's shoulder and made some gesture, though Jack could barely see him against the glow emanating from the passage beyond. Jack shook his head, trying to indicate he didn't understand what Ben was trying to communicate.

Ben pointed over the ledge into the pit and whispered, “We have to hide.”

“What?
I'm not going back down there.” Not with those spiders lurking about. Not where what little was left of Rudy's body lay torn to pieces.

The voices were growing steadily louder.

Ben moved to the rim of the ledge and pointed straight down. “We can hide in the bones.”

The bones? Jack blinked.
The bones?
He wondered now whether this whole situation had caused Ben to completely lose touch with reality. But before he could say anything further, Ben crouched down and slipped over the edge, disappearing into the darkness. Jack could hear the clack and rattle of bones below him. He pressed one hand to his eyes, grimacing with frustration. Now he really
was
alone.

He leaned his head back against the rock and tried to slow his breathing. He had to control his thoughts and analyze the situation. It might be possible that the men in the tunnel weren't even dangerous, though his gut told him that was extremely unlikely. Everything he had witnessed—everything he had learned about this place—told him otherwise. Whoever was approaching most likely knew their way around these caves well enough. And the watch Rudy had discovered earlier seemed proof that whatever horrific events had led to this chamber of corpses were still going on to this day.

In any case, the spiders appeared to have departed, and the men in the tunnel would surely find him if he stayed where he was. So Jack knew with a sickening realization that Ben's plan—as crazy as it seemed—had actually been the best course all along. Jack scooped up the backpacks and paused a moment to gather his courage. Then he lowered himself over the edge.

He landed in the pile of bones, sinking to his waist in human remains. Fighting back his nausea again—which was easier now since he no longer had anything left in his stomach anyway—Jack rolled slowly to the bottom of the pile and burrowed underneath a mass of skeletal pieces. The stench was overwhelming, reminding him of a time he'd gone to the beach with his father as a boy and discovered that the tide had deposited a horde of dead fish onto the sand. He had all he could do to keep from gagging in the darkness.

He couldn't see anything but utter blackness and hoped desperately that he was buried far enough to remain hidden from whatever might be coming along. He wondered again if some of these could be his own father's bones. If his dad had met this kind of horrible death alone in these caves twelve years ago. But Jack pushed away those thoughts, determined to keep his wits about him. He had to keep still and stay quiet.

The voices continued in a stilted, halting conversation above him. Jack couldn't tell how many men there were. At least three, he guessed. Maybe four. And the words themselves were a guttural, throaty dialect.

Jack wondered if it was possible that a remnant of an ancient tribe could still be living in these caves. Had they remained concealed from all modern knowledge? Or was it merely some bizarre cult that was using a hidden entrance to come and go from the cavern, bringing terrified victims for their demonic death rituals? Whoever they were, he could only assume for now that they were responsible for the horror in this place. The cave spiders were just animals, predators doing what they needed in order to survive. It was the humans who were the real monsters.

Jack could see a faint light glimmering across the cavern from above. He peered out through a patchwork of bones and bone fragments. Minutes passed with occasional verbal exchanges from the men standing above him. Jack closed his eyes. Deep breaths would prove useless in the rotting stink around him.

After a minute or two there came another sound, a sort of soft rustling. Jack resisted the temptation to crane his neck for a better view. Meanwhile the faint light above seemed to grow brighter as well. He could hear more movement, this time clear and distinct. He wondered where Ben had gone, whether he had disappeared down one of the side passages leading from the main cavern or if he too was hidden inside the pile of bones. But all Jack could do was wonder and hope. He didn't dare risk trying to communicate.

Jack's heart began racing faster as a yellow light came into his field of view, lowering from above. He concentrated on moving only his eyes to track the light. Any turn of his head could cause the bones around him to shift, giving away his position. The light paused, lingering at the edges of his vision for several seconds, then continued its descent.

Within seconds, Jack could recognize the source of the light. A lantern of some sort was being lowered on a rope into the pit. It clanked softly against the cave wall and spun on the rope. Jack couldn't see much detail, only that there was a pale-yellow glow inside it.

It descended like a spider on a line of silk into the pit until it finally came to rest on the floor of the cave no more than thirty feet from him. It had a square metal frame with a large ring at the top and dusty glass plates on each side. He couldn't see a flame inside the glass, yet it lit up the surrounding area with a sickly yellow light.

Just behind the lantern, Jack spotted a second rope descending. Or rather, a crude ladder. A series of rough-hewn wooden boards with holes in each end were suspended between twin lengths of knotted rope.

Jack concentrated on his breathing. The terror welling up inside him had tightened his chest, constricting his airflow. So he found himself unintentionally gasping for air, yet he knew he needed to keep absolutely still.

The bottom of the ladder began jiggling and wafting back and forth. Someone was obviously descending it.

Jack caught his breath as a figure came into view.

It was human as far as he could tell. From his limited vantage point Jack could see only a torso, tall and rail thin and almost entirely naked. The skin was an abnormally pallid hue—very nearly translucent—and he was clad only in a loincloth tied around his waist with a crudely beaded length of twine. Moreover, his flesh looked to be covered with a jagged network of delicate black lines. Jack at first thought it was some sort of woven netting, but as the gangly limbs moved about, he could tell it was a body etching or tattoo of some kind. The markings looked similar to the characters Jack had seen written on the wall earlier and in his father's drawing, but he couldn't make out the details in the dim light.

Nor could Jack see the man's face, merely his arms and torso up to the sinewy pectoral muscles. He was extremely thin though not sickly or malnourished. Rather, his musculature appeared to be quite well defined, enhanced perhaps by the lack of pigmentation in the skin. His hands bore long, curving fingernails also black in color. Jack guessed they'd probably been decorated by the same procedure with which the man had marked the rest of his body.

The figure stood motionless, half-crouched as if poised for action. Jack guessed he was listening for some sign of the spiders. Whatever the creatures used it for, the clicking sounds they made at least gave away their presence and warned of their approach. But other than the gentle echoes of water trickling somewhere in the big chamber, there was only silence.

Jack held his breath and waited. The man was no more than ten or twelve feet away, and Jack could hear something that sounded like sniffing. He bit his lip, hoping desperately that the man wouldn't smell him, and after several seconds he strode off, out of Jack's line of sight. Jack was amazed that with such a gangly body, the stranger moved with a fluid, almost-graceful manner, slipping barefoot across the stones without making a sound.

Terror and fascination each fought for dominance as Jack's mind bristled with questions. Could this stranger really be one remnant of a lost tribe of humans? Had the N'watu actually survived in these caverns all this time? How many more of them were there? How could they possibly have gone undetected by the modern world for so long? And were they as primitive as they appeared? Little more than a Stone Age culture? The lantern they carried seemed to indicate that they'd had at least some interaction with the outside world.

But more immediate than all of these questions was, what would they do to
him
if they discovered him hiding here? His heart pounded against his ribs as he worked to remain still.

Meanwhile the rope ladder continued swaying.

Soon another figure descended into view. The second N'watu reached the bottom and stood facing the direction in which the first one had gone off. A moment later Jack heard a voice coming from the darkness. The first man spoke in choppy, guttural syllables. But in a hushed tone. The second N'watu, standing in front of Jack, replied in a similar volume.

The first N'watu moved back into Jack's view carrying something. Jack suppressed a gasp as he saw what it was: Rudy's tattered nylon jacket. It looked like it'd been ripped to shreds. And it was covered in blood.

The two men faced each other, the one holding up the jacket in front of the other. Jack could only imagine what they were saying—no doubt discussing how someone had gotten into their cave undetected. They would probably assume the intruder had not been alone, for that's what Jack would've assumed. Living in this dark, dangerous environment, their senses—especially their senses of hearing and smell—were most likely heightened. Maybe they could even smell Jack from where he lay, under a pile of human remains.

The second man strode off into the dark and returned with the corpse of the spider Ben had killed. He held it up by its big front legs as the others dangled down, limp. Its punctured underside still dripped yellowish fluid. They talked further in what Jack thought sounded like an argument. Perhaps they were debating their next moves. Should they search for other possible intruders? Or maybe just let their spider friends take care of them?

The first N'watu kept shaking Rudy's jacket. He seemed to be insisting on a particular point or a course of action. But his comrade did not appear convinced, nor was he quite as agitated. After another minute or two of discussion, the second man started climbing back up the rope ladder, carrying the enormous spider corpse along with him by a front leg.

The first man remained behind. He turned and faced out into the cavern again, perhaps searching for some sign of additional intruders. By now, Jack's body was aching from remaining still so long inside the reeking mound of bones.

Then Jack noticed movement in his field of view. Something dark and shaped like an overturned coffee cup with multiple legs was crawling across the bones directly in front of his face. It was one of the species of beetles he'd seen earlier.

Jack gasped and jerked backward with an involuntary spasm. The bones shuddered and immediately the N'watu's torso spun in his direction.

Jack could see the man's sinewy abdomen moving with slow, steady breaths. He held out the lantern toward the bone pile and took a hesitant step closer. Jack fought the impulse to flee. Every nerve in his body screamed at him to jump out from the cover of his hiding place and run. But his sense of reason—as if barely clinging to the edge of a cliff—kept that impulse in check.

The N'watu held the lantern out before him and crept closer. In two cautious strides he was standing directly over Jack's hiding place and crouched down to inspect the bone pile.

Then Jack got a look at his face.

Chapter 12

The face Jack saw staring in at him appeared only remotely human, marred by the same black etchings that covered the rest of his body. Jack gazed into white irises, void of any pigmentation at all and glowing eerily in the light of his lamp. His gaunt cheeks and bizarre tattoos created a face that looked more like a skull covered by a pallid layer of skin. And his head was completely hairless. Not even eyebrows.

The face moved still closer. Large, moist nostrils undulated as they sucked in the scent. Cautious, translucent eyes peered in directly at Jack. Suddenly the face reared backward. Jack cringed as the N'watu thrust one of his hands into the bone pile. He knew his life was over; this human monster was going to yank him out by his hair.

But instead of grabbing Jack, the N'watu pulled his hand back again with a softball-size beetle wriggling in his grasp.

The insect's legs clawed at the air as the N'watu held it up to the lamp, inspecting it with his ghostly, colorless eyes. Then his lips parted, revealing a mouthful of discolored, crooked teeth. He sank them into the beetle's soft underside with a sickening crunch and tore off a stringy chunk of its innards. The beetle squealed, flailed its legs, and went limp as the N'watu chewed as casually as if he'd bitten into an apple. The tip of a leg protruded from between his lips.

Jack had all he could do to fight his gag reflex.

The N'watu took a second bite, ripping out more meaty guts and a couple more legs, crunching on them with ghastly relish. He polished off the remainder of the bug in two bites, wiping out all the juicy remnants from the inside of its shell and sucking them off his fingers like a kid cleaning the last drops of ice cream out of a bowl.

He tossed aside the beetle's outer shell and wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. Then he looked around the cavern once more before climbing up the rope ladder, carrying Rudy's shredded jacket with him.

Jack could hear the N'watu arguing on the ledge above him for several minutes. He tried again to determine how many of them there were altogether, but he couldn't be sure.

The discussion continued as the rope ladder drew up out of sight, followed by the lantern, leaving Jack engulfed in darkness. In minutes, the voices faded as the N'watu moved off down the tunnel.

Jack closed his eyes, still afraid to move but too afraid to stay where he was. Then he heard Ben's voice calling softly to him from out of the darkness.

“Jack? Are you here?”

Jack breathed a sigh. A wave of relief washed across his mind.

“I'm here,” he said and began digging his way out of the bone pile. “Where are you?”

A light flicked on in the darkness. Jack could see it sweeping across the chamber as he pulled himself free of the heap. He crawled out, onto the cold mud-and-gravel floor, and lay on his belly. He didn't care about the cold or the mud. He was just glad to be free of those bones—the remains of people who'd once been living, breathing souls like himself, but who had each most likely died horrible deaths, like Rudy. He could almost hear their screams and shrieks of terror in his head.

Gravel crunched underfoot, and Jack opened his eyes to see Ben standing over him, shining the flashlight in his face.

“You okay?” Ben said.

Jack nodded. He was struggling through the numbing shock of Rudy's death. But he also knew he was on the verge of confirming his father's theory.

Ben helped Jack to his feet. “Was it the N'watu? Did you see them? I was hiding on the other side of the pile. I couldn't see anything.”

“Yeah, I saw them.” Jack shuddered. “Almost wish I hadn't.”

“What'd they look like?”

Jack forced his sorrow and shock to the back of his mind as he described the lanky bodies and the disfigured face of the N'watu. Ghostly, pale skin and demonic, colorless eyes. “They almost didn't look human,” he said. “They were covered with some kind of markings. Tattoos or something—I don't know. And they looked to be pretty primitive. Although they did have a lantern with them. An old-fashioned metal one. It looked like they'd filled it with the slime we found. Like maybe they use it for their primary light source.”

“All the legends say they were very clever,” Ben said. “They made good use of their resources.”

Jack flashed his light to the ledge. He was quiet for a moment, trying to determine what to do next. They couldn't very well stay down in this pit. Not with the spiders still lurking about. Their best option seemed crazy on its face, but Jack decided it might be their only one.

“I think we should follow them,” he said. “Try to see where they went.”

“Follow them?” Ben gestured to the bone pile. “Maybe you haven't noticed, but these people don't take kindly to outsiders.”

“Well, it's either them or the spiders. What do you feel more lucky with?”

Ben stared at him a moment and then grunted. “That's like asking if I prefer leukemia or pancreatic cancer.” He sighed and peered up at the ledge. “I hate to admit it, but it's probably the best chance we have of finding an exit.”

They climbed back up the bone heap and onto the ledge, where they took an inventory of their supplies before continuing. They still had two flashlights, both video cameras, a couple packages of flares and glowsticks, plus a fair amount of food and water. They loaded everything into their two backpacks for ease of transport. Jack also made sure he still had the spider appendage they had found and the specimen of slime Rudy had taken, glowing faintly inside the Ziploc bag. They were too important to leave behind. He had to get them out for someone to study. For Rudy's sake.

They shouldered their packs and moved slowly into the tunnel in the direction the N'watu had gone. The passage ran thirty yards and then turned to the left. From there it narrowed sharply and wound in a zigzag path that slowed their progress considerably.

They moved in silence. Jack couldn't stop thinking about the N'watu's bizarre appearance, and after some time he spoke up. “Y'know, the tattoos they had all over them looked like writing—like the lettering from my dad's drawing.”

Ben shrugged. “It doesn't look like any Indian script I've ever seen.”

“That's what's so weird about it,” Jack said. “That they should look so unique. Typically neighboring tribes would tend to influence each other's cultures, language, and communication. You'd think the N'watu would have at least
some
connection—some similarities to the surrounding tribes.”

Ben was silent for several seconds. Finally he issued a pensive grunt. “What if they're not even human?”

“What?”

“I mean, what if they're not even from . . . y'know . . .
here
.”

“You mean aliens?” Jack shook his head. “I don't think there's any reason to assume that.”

“You said yourself they didn't look human. Maybe they're
not
. Or maybe they're some kind of hybrid. There are stories that say the N'watu were descended from a race called the Old Ones that originally came to Earth thousands of years ago from another world. Maybe they even brought those spiders with them.”

Jack's chest tightened as he wondered what Rudy would have said to that. “Giant
alien
zombie cave spiders?”

Ben shrugged. “Just a thought.”

They continued on, and Jack—against his better judgment—began rolling that idea around in his head. History was replete with those kinds of stories. Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, and Indian cultures all had similar themes in their mythologies.

“What exactly do those stories say?” he asked after a moment.

Ben paused in the tunnel. “One of them says that the Old Ones came to Earth and built a huge city or fortress under the mountain. But they were dying. They . . . I don't know—they had some disease and were all going to die. And for some reason they couldn't reproduce, so they would take human women to try to preserve their line.”

“So where was this underground city?” Jack said, now intrigued.

Ben shrugged. “I always thought it was here in these mountains. But I don't think anyone knows for sure.”

They crept deeper into the tunnel until they came at last to a dead end. Ben's light shone against a smooth black surface. As they moved closer, Jack could see it was made of wood. Rough-hewn wooden planks covered with a sticky black substance. He couldn't see any indication of how the planks were bound together.

“It looks like some kind of doorway,” Ben whispered, inspecting the perimeter. “The wood is covered with tar or something.”

“Probably to preserve it from all the moisture in here,” Jack said.

Jack was fascinated by the structure. He could see the framework of an imposing doorway—over eight feet tall and four feet wide. The posts, header, and threshold were also formed of timber and covered with the same sticky substance. Around the perimeter was what looked like a gravel-mortar mixture that filled all the gaps between the timbers and the rocky wall of the passage, sealing it off completely. He could only guess what lay on the other side.

Ben patted the wooden surface. “It feels pretty solid. Like they were definitely serious about trying to keep something out.”

“It could be the gateway to their city,” Jack said. “We have to see what's on the other side.”

Ben shone his light along the edges of the wooden doorway, revealing several markings carved into the wood. Jack could see they looked nearly identical to the marks he'd seen at the entrance to the tunnel and on the N'watu themselves.

“I wish I could translate this,” Jack said. “It's not pictographic at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Primitive cultures basically use pictures in their written communication. They draw images or symbols to represent objects in the world around them. But as a culture develops over time, their written language usually becomes less picture-based and uses more abstract symbols instead. And this stuff—” Jack tapped the symbols on the wood—“looks like a completely abstract alphanumeric system. That makes it harder to translate, but it's also indicative of a more advanced culture. At least more advanced than the two guys I saw wandering around here in loincloths.”

Ben stared at the doorway. “So we have no idea if this says ‘Exit' or ‘Warning: Giant spiders behind this door.'”

“Exactly. And since we didn't see any other side passages, we can assume our N'watu friends came this way and got through somehow.”

Ben pushed against the timbers, but the door didn't budge. “You think it's locked from the other side?”

Jack studied the crease between the door planks and the outer frame. “There's no handle on this side. I assume it opens inward, but I also don't see any sign of a hinge system. We can't even tell if it opens to the left or right.”

“It doesn't matter if they have it locked or barred from the other side.”

They spent the next several minutes pushing against alternate edges of the door but had no luck. Whoever built this door had definitely constructed it with an eye toward security.

By now, despite everything that had happened, Jack felt a pang of hunger and checked his watch. It was nearly five o'clock, and he had no desire to spend a night in this place. They decided to break for water and food. Once he'd had a chance to sit and think further, Jack hoped an idea or opportunity might somehow present itself.

As he ate, he studied the door, feeling an almost-irresistible compulsion to press on. Now more than ever—not only for his father's sake but for Rudy's as well. He'd found evidence that there was in fact a remnant of a lost civilization hidden away in these caves. A barbaric and brutal culture to be certain, but one that might hold untold secrets of the ancient world. And Jack needed to bring it into the light. It was the discovery of a lifetime. It would silence his father's detractors once and for all. And maybe, in some small way, it might bring Rudy's death some meaning.

Jack stared at the doorway. After a moment he shone his light along the bottom and crouched down to inspect it more closely. “There's a little slot cut into the wood here. I wonder if this is some kind of keyhole.”

Ben peered over his shoulder. “Maybe it's like a garage door and swings up from the bottom. If it's hinged near the top, it'd be easy to push open from the inside but more difficult to pull it up from the outside.”

Jack leaned back on his heels. “They'd just need to bring some kind of tool with them. Like a handle they can stick inside to pull it up.” He gathered his courage and felt inside the groove. “Yeah, there's a space here. Do you have something we can wedge in here?”

They searched through their packs, and Ben pulled out one of his C-shaped metal carabiners. He worked it into the groove and twisted it to the side until it wedged into the wood. Then he pulled.

The door swung up toward them easily with only a soft creak.

“It's lighter than it looks,” Ben said.

As the door swung upward, Jack could see a series of primitive ropes and wooden pulleys on the inside. “Looks like they have some kind of counterweight system rigged.”

“That's not very secure.”

“It doesn't have to be.” Jack shrugged. “All it needs to do is keep the giant spiders out.”

The doorway opened onto a narrow passage, so long and deep that their flashlight beams seemed to get swallowed by the black void.

Jack could feel his chest thumping but fought back his fear with a sober determination. He knew the answers he was seeking lay somewhere in the darkness ahead, and that compelled him forward despite his apprehension. “I guess we keep going, then.”

Ben removed his carabiner and let the door close behind them.