Dead Five's Pass (10 page)

“Marc, tell them,” Carise said. “Tell them we have to end this.”

“She’s right, Marge, Frank. No one would believe us if we told them. We look like crazy murderers. There’s something up there in that cave Carise and I have to deal with—alone. But we’ll get the bodies of those other kids out of there so their families can grieve properly. We’ll explain it was a caving accident or…I don’t know, we’ll think of something. But whatever happens, no one can know about all this crazy stuff: the symbols, the bodies, the cave, nothing. We can’t afford this to blow up into some huge story. You understand?”

Both the old-timers nodded. Their eyes suddenly much older. With a weariness, Frank and Marge hugged each other tenderly before setting about cleaning the station.

Marcel gripped Carise’s arm and whispered, “What happened to you back there? You were in some kind of trance. What did you see?”

“Them, Marc. I saw them—it was if through Michael they were speaking to me.”

“There’s more than one?”

“So many…slumbering beneath the earth, beneath the mountains…it’s futile…we need to do something, at least with the one we know about, until we learn more about them. I suggest we continue with the plan. Erase the data on your laptop, delete the emails, and we’ll pay a visit to Derry’s and see what we can use. Can he be trusted?”

“I doubt it. They only hired me because Janis wanted me to leave the rescue team. I don’t really get along well with her family…or her really,” he added. “It’s basically over between us.”

Carise wasn’t sure how to respond. Plotting the destruction of a cosmic god-being wasn’t really the time to go into relationship stuff. “So, we’ll have to sneak out the explosives, is that what you’re saying?”

“I have the key and the codes. We’ll be in and out in five minutes. But first we should get you into some proper gear.”

She looked down at her clothes, the spare set from Marcel’s pack, and nodded her agreement. “Let’s go back to my place, get tooled up and make preparations,” she said.

“I’ll go speak to Smith, see if he’s up for this,” Marcel said. “Oh, and Carise, you will try and warn me if things get…you know…a little crazy up there.” He pointed to her head.

“I’ll try.” She forced a smile, but worried that the shadow lurking inside her would grow too soon, too quickly, and one way or another, she’d end up like Michael, or the girl.

* * *

The drive back to Carise’s cabin felt to her like a funeral march: forced to drive slowly because of the increasingly heavy snowfall and blustering winds. Each mile stretched out with a taut silence between her and Marcel, who was sitting back in the passenger seat, eyes closed. She wanted to ask what he was thinking, but if it was anything like the thoughts rattling around in her brain, she didn’t want to know. She took her mind off the fact that it felt like a last journey home and concentrated on keeping her truck on the road. If it was to be her last ride home, she was glad to have Marcel by her side.

Almost sensing they were getting near, Marcel woke from his light sleep, rubbed his eyes and said, “You got a cat?”

Carise stopped the truck outside of her cabin and pulled the parking brake. The cat sat in the kitchen window, silhouetted by a single light on inside.

“I wanted a bit of company, you know? She’s not particularly fond of me, but she tolerates my existence and occasionally stays in my bedroom at night. Not quite the same as…” She sighed, not wanting to reminisce too much. It wasn’t exactly the right time, what with the great evil lurking in the shadows just beyond in the distance, but then, given the way the bodies were stacking up, perhaps it was the right time.

“I miss you, Marc,” she finally said as she hopped out of the truck and rushed through the snow to her front door, and under her breath she muttered, “I always did.”

Before he had time to respond, Carise was already boiling the kettle and moving into her bedroom to find a fresh set of clothes more suitable for hiking and caving in frozen temperatures. Although, given her dip in that hideous lake, she doubted if she’d ever feel warm again.

“Shower’s down the hall,” Carise said, “and there’s clean towels in the hall closet.”

“Thanks.”

While she waited for Marcel to shower, she washed herself off in the kitchen sink, then went to her bedroom, and searched through her wardrobe, selecting various warm undergarments and heavy weather-proof outerwear for their second assault on the mountain—and what stirred within it. She couldn’t but help imagine its enormity resting within the rock and stone in a tomb of its own making. Just how many years had it slept there, waiting, biding its time?

“Heavy thoughts, huh?” Marcel said, making her jump. She hadn’t heard him leave the shower and approach her bedroom.

Marcel cast a shadow into the room as he stood in the door frame. He had a pained expression on his face, like he had the weight of humanity dragging him down.

“You look tired,” she said, and realized how dumb that sounded. “I mean, weary, like you’ve got a lot on your mind.” And that was no less dumb, she thought. “Sorry, I don’t mean to say the obvious, it’s just, what with—”

“I never stopped loving you, you know,” Marcel said, cutting her off, and simultaneously sending a bolt of electricity into her chest, jump-starting her heart into a frantic beat. “Even when you didn’t call for months after…the loss…even after I proposed to Janis, it was you I wanted.”

“What happened to us?” Carise said, ignoring the wardrobe and moving around the bed to face Marcel. “Why couldn’t I have kept you closer, instead of pushing you further and further away?”

Marcel moved farther into the room and stood close to her. His chest expanding and retracting in time with hers. Were they really going to do this—now? And then the thought of a potentially short mortality made it all the more urgent. She reached up to his face, and he placed his arms around her waist. Together they joined and kissed, before collapsing onto her bed.

For half an hour they both forgot about cosmic horrors, dead bodies, and the job that awaited them, and rekindled the fire they both had always carried for each other.

* * *

Huddled beneath the covers and wrapped in Marcel’s arms, she wished that it could last forever: that feeling of warmth and security. The feeling of everything being as it should. But within minutes she felt the chill in her bones again, and the images of that unfathomable thing’s great unblinking eye in its bulbous head dominated her thoughts and turned the world dark and cold again.

“We have to destroy it,” Carise finally said, breaking the spell.

* * *

In silence, as if shrouded in the quietness of a doom yet to come, they checked their gear: ropes, carabiners, knives, glow sticks, first-aid packs, radios, axe, flare gun, water. It seemed to Carise like they were preparing for war, only they were the only soldiers, and the fight was hidden from the world in the dark recesses of some ancient tomb, against an enemy they knew next to nothing about, except its desire for destruction and domination.

“This is crazy,” Carise said after packing the last of the items into her backpack. “That this thing exists…makes you wonder. What else is out there? Are UFO sightings real? Abductions? What about fairy tales and monsters?”

“I don’t know about any of those things. But what I do know is this thing, whatever it is, can be hurt, and it’s still hiding in its mountain like a scared recluse. We go to the heart of it, stare into it and end it.”

“What if it stares back?” she said, reminding herself of Nietzsche’s ideas about staring into the abyss. “What will happen to us? Will we be like Michael and the girl, will we take some of it with us?” Deep down she could already feel she had. Her little dip in the lake and subsequent wound had seen to that. And whether actual or psychosomatic, her ankle itched beneath the bandage.

Although no longer painful, she noticed the creeping black rot had grown up and beyond the cut and was encroaching on the smooth skin of her shin.

In the dead of night, they packed their equipment into the back of Carise’s truck and headed to Derry’s yard. The snow had abated, but still the chill winds blew through the sparsely populated village. The place was in darkness; everyone tucked up in their beds dreaming good things. Carise felt like some phantom, lurking through the shadows ready to face the evil in the darkness.

She pulled away from the mining yard and switched off her lights. They both sat there in the warmth of the truck’s cab observing the place, looking for movement. There was none.

Marcel turned to Carise. “We go in, fill a couple of bags and get out. Follow my lead, okay?”

“What if the alarm goes off?” she said.

“I know the codes and have a key, it’ll be fine. Besides, the other key holders are back in the village. We’ll have ten minutes or so before anyone can get here, and by then we’ll be miles away.”

“Let’s do it.”

12

Marcel zipped his jacket up and pulled his hood low, not to hide his face from prying eyes, but from the slicing wind. They stalked through the trees that lined the approach to Derry’s Mining & Demolition Contractors yard. Marcel had walked that route many times in the past, but this time he felt like a stranger. The slush of the snow beneath their feet made a sucking noise, which seemed entirely too loud in the dead of night.

Carise was right behind him when they finally came to the ten-foot-high chain-link fence. An iron gate at the front was held closed by a series of thick, rubber-coated chains and locks that looked like iron bricks. To the side of those was a second lock integrated with the gate post, and above that a small box that held within it a keypad.

Taking a small flashlight and his keys from his jacket pocket, he set to open the main lock, but when he lifted the square metal device, he realized it was already open and the chains were only there for show. He unlashed them, placed them quietly on the ground. Perhaps one of the workers was in a rush—because of the weather—and hadn’t locked up properly behind him?

He tested the gate, and to his surprise, it opened; the electronic pass-system wasn’t active.

“I think we’ve got company,” he whispered to Carise and pointed to the left of the squat, single-story brick building. “The cameras are on the right side—where the storage room for the explosives are. We can enter through the front office. Stay low under the windows…just in case.”

“I thought you said we’d have the place to ourselves?” she whispered back, her voice shaky with nerves.

He shrugged. “Maybe they were in a rush and left it open, or maybe someone’s prepping for a big job and clocking some overtime.”

Marcel led Carise around the building to where the office entrance was located. They ducked beneath two windows, one of which showed a light on inside and a shadow told him that indeed someone was there doing work. As he got near the door, all the time keeping himself against the wall and under the windows, light from inside spilled out onto the snow, coloring it in sodium yellow.

Marcel stopped in his tracks and felt Carise bump into him. He turned and placed his fingers by his lips. His heart rate jumped a few notches and he waited for the person inside to discover him, but all he saw was smoke puff out into the chill air; long and snaking, it floated upwards. The stench of cheap cigarettes gave away the identity immediately. It was Derry himself, and when he spoke, Marcel nearly slipped over in the snow.

“Hey,” Derry said.

Marcel was about to answer from his hidden position in the shadow of the building when Derry followed up with, “Yeah, I’m good. What’s up, Janis?”

Daring to leave the safety of the shadow, Marcel could see Derry standing in the doorway, roll-up cigarette in his mouth, and a cell phone against his ear. He was talking to Janis…made sense, given the way Marcel had left her earlier.

“He did that? I always thought he was high-strung… Uh huh…sure…no, he won’t work here again…absolutely…if I ever see him…why?…the dirtbag deserves it… You should have stuck with that guy, what’s his name…the guy you met last month…yeah, Steve…seemed like a decent guy…okay…look, you take care of yourself and come stay with me for a bit, yeah?…sure, no problem. Gotta look out for my sis, right? Okay, Jan, I’ll see you shortly, I’m just finishing up the accounts and will be back in an hour or so. Yeah, let yourself in, Anne’ll be there, but I’ll text her to let her know you’re staying with us for a bit…no, she’ll love having you there, give her a bit of female company for a change instead of the boys. Okay…speak soon, bye, Jan.”

Marcel’s blood felt like it would explode right out of his skin at the revelation of this Steve guy.
How dare she!
Despite his feeling’s for Carise, he’d always remained faithful and gave Janis everything she wanted, but it was never enough.

Derry flicked the cigarette butt out into the snow and closed the door. Marcel quickly dashed past to the other side and knocked. The door flew open, Marcel stopped it with his boot, slammed it back into Derry’s face, knocking him onto his back, his head bouncing off the wood laminate with a dull crack. He gurgled something and tried to stand, but Marcel launched himself into the office, pulled Derry up by his collar, spun him round and struck him on the back of the neck with an elbow strike, knocking the other man clean out.