Hide and Seek (17 page)

I looked more closely. I saw broken concrete heaped to one side. As though the hole had been dug from inside the tunnel.

Beyond the foundation work the tunnel led back a few feet through solid rock and then turned a corner, so that the rest of it was blind, its depth unknowable.

I didn't want to go in there.

I seemed to know two things about it instinctively. There was something dead in there and something else alive. I could smell the death. Whoever or whatever was alive, it wasn't just Casey. I don't know how I knew that, but I did.

The match went out. I lit another, cupping it against the breeze.

"Case?"

Holding the match in front of me, I took a deep breath and held it in my lungs and worked my way carefully into the hole. It died before I'd gone two feet. I lit three of them together and got almost to the corner before they died too. The wind was stronger now. In the dark it seemed thicker, seawater damp. The rocks above and below me breathed moisture. My throat was bone-dry.

I lit up the rest of the pack and lurched ahead, holding the matches like a torch in front of me, and rounded the corner. It illuminated only three feet or so of what appeared to be a long tunnel, utterly black beyond the glow. But it was enough. Enough to see.

The green book bag lay almost beneath my hand.

I reached for it, gripping the tough cloth, something clean and fresh in that foul place, and dragged it toward me. I heard a rattle of lightweight metal. I reached inside. Two of the flashlights were still there.

I pulled one out and turned it on and threw its beam down the tunnel.

Like a child I wanted very much to cry.

The third flashlight lay five feet away from me, abandoned.

Beyond it I could see nothing but emptiness and sweating gleaming rock.

Twenty feet on there was another blind turn. I listened.

There was something alive out there.

Something alive on the wind beyond my beam of light.

I listened to it. And I knew it was listening to me.

It wasn't that there was any sound, just a presence. But a powerful one. Something that told me I dared not call out to her again, dared not move forward or even back. I froze. Whatever it was, it would be happy to kill me. I knew that. I knew it on some basic animal level where we all are hunters and hunted, where there are

still savannas and jungle moonlight. It was there, just around the corner. An intelligence that was not the same as mine. Measuring me.

I did something purely instinctive. I think it saved my life. I doused the light.

And waited. The smell of death in the air, mine or Casey's or perhaps its own. I would meet it in a matter of seconds now, and then one of us would see.

I waited. And for a longtime I didn't move at all. I tried to breathe evenly, quietly, calmly. And still I felt it measuring me, testing the air for the shrill scent of fear in me. I tried to shepherd the fear back to some deep place inside where calm could protect and shield me and maybe breed an uncertainty of its own. Moments passed.

While I waited, Casey could be dying.

There was no choice. I knew what I knew.

I heard it breathing. Shallow, moist and heavy. As though through clotted blood.

It was possible to imagine anything in there.

In the dark.

For a long while I was only a heartbeat. Then I sensed a change.

I waited to be sure.

Whatever it was, it was gone.

I didn't even bother turning on the light. I backed out the way I'd come. Fast.

With the flashlight in one hand and her book bag in the other, ran for the stairs. I sprinted them two at a time.

I remember only silence from this. Not the sounds of my own footsteps not the sounds of my own heavy breathing. Only silence. My own strange motion through the hall and up the second flight of stairs.

Down the corridor to Steve.

I think he must have taken one look at me and known everything.

With badly fumbling fingers I untied his wrists. It was no surprise that he'd already rid himself of the rope around his ankles. I blurted out the story. I watched his eyes get wider and wider.

"This is no joke?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

"Let's get Kim."

I handed him a flashlight and we ran down the hall. Our feet sounded heavy on the old rough floorboards. Beams of light swooped and skittered along the walls.

Kim was exactly as I'd left her. Except now she looked scared. I went after the rope around her wrists and Steve freed her legs.

"Jesus! What's going on? It was sort of fun till I heard you guys running around out there-" Her words played out into something like understanding. Her voice went harsh and bloodless. "Where's Casey?"

"Missing."

"There's a hole in the wall down there and some kind of tunnel. I found her book bag there. Two of the flashlights were in it. The other was lying in the tunnel. I don't think she left it there on purpose."

She looked at me. I could tell it wasn't registering with her.

"There's something in there, Kim. I don't know who or what but something. I think it's got Casey."

She swallowed. "Clan, please don't fool with me."

"I'm not fooling."

"Oh, my god."

"We've got to get help," said Steve.

"No."

I snapped it out at them. The two of them just stared at me. I could feel panic dart suddenly between us like bats in an unfamiliar room. I tried to explain, to keep it under control.

"I don't want to leave her. You understand? It's too late. By the time we got back here, she could be ...."

"Wait," said Kim. "Back up a minute. How do you know there's anybody in there?"

"How do I...?"

"Yes! How the hell do you know there's anybody in there with her? If she's alone we can just go after her, can't we? If she's just hurt or something?"

"She's not alone, Kim."

"How do you know?"

I remembered. And remembering must have showed on me. That feeling of something just out of reach in the dark. That terrible communicaiion.

"Believe me. I know."

^^H

I watched her stare into my eyes and shudder.

"I felt it there, Kim. Very close to me. And it was not like us. It

I saw them exchange glances. I knew what they were thinking. If it was as bad as I seemed to think, Casey could already be dead. But for me that didn't change a thing. Not as long as I still didn't know.

"You've got it," said Kim. "But what can we do? We don't have guns.

We don't have anything."

"There's stuff in the cellar."

I guess I'd made the rope too tight on her. She rubbed her wrists hard to restore circulation. She winced and looked at Steve.

And for a moment I felt their confusion. Real fear will do that to you root you dumb and empty to the spot, bankrupt of ideas. I could feel a whirling inside me.

"Look," said Steve finally, "I think you're right. We have to try to find her. But we won't be doing any good going off half-cocked, will we. I mean, what if this is just some elaborate asshole practical joke of hers? You know Casey. Whatifshe'sjustspoofingyou? You didn't actually see anything. How can you be sure?"

Try mixing terror and frustration together sometime. You get a fine rage. I felt like I was exploding. My hands were making fists on his shirt collar before I even knew what I was up to.

"You want to see the fucking joke? You want to see it? Come on!"

I dragged him to his feet. He didn't fight me. I pushed and dragged him down the hall, anger pouring out of me in huge burly waves. Kim followed, trying to get me off him. She hadn' the muscle for it. When we got to the stairs, I shoved him to one side and marched down in front of them, through the kitchen and down into the cellar.

The anger made me stupid and careless. If anyone had been waiting for us it would have been a very simple matter bringing me down. I was lucky, though. The basement was empty.

I waited for them at the foot of the stairs. I walked them past the piles of storage and threw my beam on the hole in the wall. Seeing it made the fury rumble up again. I grabbed Steve by the back of the neck. I forced him down in front of it.

"Smell it," I hissed at him. "Smell it, goddamn you! Inside. That's where I found her bag. She's in there. You think it's fucking funny?

You think that's a joke?"

I saw something tumble off his cheek.

"Clan, I..."

I let him go. He pulled away. I'd wounded him, all right. I watched him wipe his eyes. I felt great and wonderful. I felt like a damn bully.

Kim moved between us and faced me.

"Are you through now?"

Her voice was ice water. It was good for me and bad too. The shame was as strong as the anger had been. Nothing Steve had said was particularly out of line. It was only reasonable from his point of view. Another time it might have been typically Casey. I couldn't blame him for wanting to believe this was like the others. He hadn't sat in that tunnel like I had. He had no way of knowing.

"Clan ... I... I was trying to say..."

"I'm sorry, Steve. I'm just scared, I guess, that's all."

He stopped stammering.

"I was trying to say that I'll help you. Only..."

"Only he's not quite as dumb as you are, Daniel. Suppose you're absolutely right. Suppose there's someone or something in there. Then suppose we go in, and it's something big enough so that three rusty knives can't quite handle it. What happens then? Sorry, Casey? We tried?

"I don't think that's good enough, Daniel. Not good enough for Casey, or for us."

I looked at them. There was no need to apologize further. They knew.

They were pretty good people and they knew.

Her voice was calmer now.

"Look," she said. "I could take the car and go for the police. You and Steve could stay here and do whatever you can. I can drive as fast as either of you and I'm a lot more persuasive. But I'm telling you, I don't like the look of that hole. Not one bit. I don't think you should try to go in there."

"We've got to."

"What else can we do?" said Steven.

"Stay here. In case she comes out again. You are not heroes for Christ's sake! I want you to promise me you won't try."

"But what if she..."

"What if she NOTHING! You don't know what's in there; you don't knowifthedamnthingcavedinonher! Jesus! Could we please stop arguing?

We're wasting time."

"Okay," I said. "Go."

"Promise me."

Steven hesitated, glanced at me. I nodded.

"I promise," he said. "All right."

"Clan?"

"We'll be here. You know the way all right? You can find the way back to the car?"

"I'm already there.

I put my flashlight beam on the staircase for her and watched her run up the stairs and disappear around the corner through the kitchen. A moment later we heard the front door open and then slam shut again.

The house was silent.

"I'm sorry, Steve. I mean it."

"It's okay. I... care for her too."

We stood there together listening, hoping for sounds behind the wall.

Woman sounds. Alive sounds.

There weren't any.

It seemed as though a longtime passed. But in the rational part of me!

know it wasn't longa tall It was the standing there that made it seem so, listening to our heartbeats pulse down into something a little more like normal, staring into the dark corners of the room, everywhere seeing Casey.

But Kim was as good as her word. In a while we heard the car start up outside and two long blasts on the horn. They sounded very far away to me.

"What are we going to do?" whispered Steve.

"What do you want to do?"

He stared at me a moment and then bared his teeth, the best approximation of a smile he could manage at the time. I gave him one back that had to be just as bad. My guess is we looked like a couple of wolves in feral display.

"I'm not going to like waiting," he said.

"Neither am I."

"It's a half hour into town."

P "Twenty minutes if you push it. So what do you think? "I think we should have a look inside." "I was hoping you'd say that." He shrugged. "I know you were. I'd been very much hoping I didn't." We went through the stuff on the floor.

It was good to do that. It gave you a sense of purpose, of something leading to something, of potency and judgment. We were quiet and thorough and very content to be rooting around in there.

Personally I liked the pitchfork.

There were two tines missing on the left side but the head fit soundly into the shaft, so it didn't wobble, and the shaft was long enough to keep whoever we were liable to meet a good few feet a way. Steven found an axe handle. It was sturdy, with about five pounds of weight.