Primal Fear (23 page)

He turned to Charlie.  “It dips straight down about six or seven feet in.  I think we’re going to need the rope.”

Charlie nodded and unwound a coil of nylon rope from around his shoulder.  Working quickly, he secured its end to the loop in the winch cable with a complex series of knots and passed the rest of it on to Harry.

“Okay,” Harry said, addressing both of them this time.  “I’ll go in first.  It looks wide enough for us to get through, but you never know.  If it gets any tighter further down, I’m heading back and we’ll have to figure out something else.”  He peered closely at John.  “You up for this?”

“I’d better be,” John muttered. 

Harry turned and moved into the darkness, his flashlight trained on the hole in the center of the floor.

“Watch your step, Chief,” Charlie called out.  “Looks awfully icy in there.”

“Got it.”  He crouched beside the hole, letting the beam of his flashlight carve a path down its inside walls.  It was a bit narrower halfway in, but not enough to cause a problem, at least to Harry’s untrained eye.

The tunnel’s slope was steeper than he’d imagined.  This close to it, he could see it was almost a perfectly straight drop.  But he could also see its bottom, perhaps about ten feet below.  He looked up to see Charlie peering in at him.

“It’s like a chimney,” he said.  “John’s not going to be too happy with it, but it looks like it opens up quite a bit once we get down there.”

“Just take it slow.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Harry sat on the edge of the hole, his feet dangling into its center.  He lowered himself into it, his hands gripping the rope as firmly as his gloves would allow.  He descended smoothly and easily to the cave’s floor, moving a bit faster than he would have preferred but otherwise coming to rest safely on his feet.

Sweeping the inside of the cavern with his flashlight, Harry felt a twinge of nervous fear.  It wouldn’t take much to get lost down there.  Not much at all.  In the total blackness, if his flashlight were to die out, his sense of direction could become totally turned around. 

The cavern itself wasn’t much bigger than the inside of his truck, but he could see another tunnel at its far end, one that appeared to grow wider as it disappeared around a bend.

“You guys coming, or what?” he called out.

He’d barely spoken the words when Charlie’s feet appeared in the hole above him.  Harry stepped out of the way just as Charlie jumped down into the center of the space, the rope still trailing down from above.

John slid down less than a minute later, staring at the walls around him as he came to his feet.  His gaze flicked from corner to corner, as if trying to pick something out in the darkness.  He exhaled sharply, his breath forming a white cloud in the beam of Harry’s flashlight.

“I thought you said it opened up down here,” he said.

“I lied,” Harry admitted.  “I was just hoping to make you feel more at ease.”

“Got a picture of the sky I could look at?”

Charlie stepped up to them, placing a sympathetic hand on John’s shoulder.  “Try to think of something else,” he suggested.

“Like what?”

“Anything besides what you’re thinking about right now.  Trust me, I’m serious.  I’ve gone climbing with guys that are scared to death of heights.  Half the battle is being able to put it out of your mind.”  He paused, measuring the level of John’s discomfort.  “That’s easier said than done, I know.  But give it a shot.  At the very least, it’ll distract you for a few minutes.  That’s better than nothing.”

John nodded and took a deep breath.  He made an effort to keep his eyes from roaming into the blackness around him, centering his gaze instead on the hole overhead.

Harry turned to Charlie.  “Can I have the bag?”

His deputy unsnapped a lightweight climbing bag from its place on his back and handed it over.

“Thanks.”  By the light of Charlie’s flashlight, Harry unzipped the bag, fumbling around inside of it before coming across what he was looking for.  Producing a pair of compact, hand-held walkie-talkies, he handed them out to John and Charlie.  He placed his own radio at his feet and dug into the bag once more.

“Keep those radios on.  If we get separated for any reason, I want us to be in contact the whole time.”  He glanced at John, who was turning the radio over again and again in his hands.  “Ever handle a gun?”

“Only on a firing range.  I’m no marksman, but I get by.”

“Good.”  Harry held out a Browning 9mm handgun, his spare sidearm and an exact duplicate of the standard issue for the men of his force.  “I know it’s against the law to knowingly arm a citizen without a permit, but we have no choice.  Consider yourself deputized.”

Grudgingly, John accepted the weapon.

“Okay, Charlie, how about you?”

Charlie patted a bulge beneath his jacket.  “I’m good.”

“Perfect.”  Harry checked his own gun and tucked it away at the small of his back.  “Watch out for ice on the floor.  It isn’t exactly toasty in here.”

They moved off to the left, towards the opening in the wall.  Harry led the way, sweeping the flashlight from side to side in a slow pattern, trying to make out sinkholes or hidden shafts in the floor along the way.  The terrain was miserably uneven, the path strewn with rocks and frozen earth. 

The tunnel walls were cold and slightly damp, the rock covered with a thin layer of ice.  Whatever moisture gathered here in the humid summer months obviously remained to be completely frozen over later.  The ceiling became lower as they moved further along, and Harry had to walk slightly stooped over.  Perhaps thirty feet in, the tunnel began to slope downward again.  The grade wasn’t steep, but noticeable nonetheless.  Another bend loomed ahead, this time turning right.

Already Harry was beginning to question his sense of direction.  Sure, finding their way back would not be a problem, at least not yet; they’d yet to encounter a fork in the tunnel.  But whether they were still facing west was anybody’s guess.  For all he knew, the next turn could lead to another opening further along the face of the granite pit.

But no, that couldn’t be.  There was no wind, and no light.  And no sound.  The inside of the tunnel was as silent as a tomb.  Only the sounds of their own movements could be heard, echoing through the darkness.

As they moved around the bend, Harry glimpsed a wide opening in the tunnel’s left side, about ten feet ahead of them.  The first fork, and therefore, a decision to make.

He approached the opening, choosing his steps carefully.  “What do you think, guys?” he asked.  “Do we go in or—”

He broke off, peering into the opening, an odd arrangement of stones catching his eye.  There were five of them, each about the same size and fashioned into an open-ended circle in the center of the chamber.  Each stone was perhaps two to three feet high, positioned with precisely the same amount of space between them.

Harry turned the flashlight in their direction, but a sudden grisly instinct told him what he was looking at even before the light found them.  His stomach churned as his instincts were confirmed.

They sat in a perfect circle, one in which only a single space remained unoccupied, their bodies stripped bare and their sightless eyes gazing blindly into the blackness in their midst.

Harry felt a sudden wave of pity, one that welled up inside of him and threatened to drop him where he stood.  But he steeled his nerve and stepped into the chamber. 

He had to go on, had to perform his duty.  Because half of what they’d come here to do had just been accomplished.

“It begins with death,” Harry whispered.

Standing beside him, John could only nod in agreement.

They’d found the missing children.

Chapter Twenty

“Oh, dear God,” Harry whispered, his gorge rising in his throat.  “Oh, dear, sweet God.”  It was more of a plea than a prayer; a plea for someone to explain to him how this kind of thing could happen.

He’d always believed he had a basic understanding of the nature of man, of the sudden lapses that could set free the animal that lived inside of everyone.  After all, he made a living out of upholding the law.  His very purpose as a police officer was to deliver a criminal to justice, and that in itself required some sort of insight into the weakness towards violence that characterized the human animal.

But this . . .

This was far beyond his comprehension.  How anyone could be capable of perpetrating such an act was simply inconceivable to him.  And to choose a child as the victim . . .

It would take a monster, he decided.  A monster clothed in human skin.

He stepped into the circle, looking upon each child in turn, hating himself for even having the presence of mind to carry out an investigation of the scene.  In such a situation, such rationality should be well out of reach.  Grief should come first for these children, bitter tears for the senselessness of their loss.

But he couldn’t give it to them.  Not yet.  The instincts of duty were too powerful to ignore; he forced himself to follow them.

He heard the sound of someone retching behind him and knew immediately that it was Charlie, that the scene was too much for the younger man to bear. 

Falling into a crouch in the center of the circle, Harry stared hard at the bodies of the children.  His eyes absorbed every detail, his mind processed every fact.  And through it all, his thoughts rebelled, trying to force him away from this spot, away from this horror.

All of the children were female, the oldest perhaps twelve and the youngest surely no more than six or seven.  There didn’t appear to be any obvious signs of physical abuse; no wounds or lacerations that he could find.  Only the flesh around their wrists and ankles seemed bruised, indicating that they’d been bound, held against their will.  They were shameless in their nudity now, beyond such embarrassment or humiliation.

The cold had preserved their small bodies, leaving no foothold for the beginnings of decay.  But some of them had been here longer than others, of that he was certain.  Three of them were coated in the same thin layer of ice that covered the walls and floor.  A fourth seemed to be in the first stages of decomposition, but maybe that had started even before she’d been brought here, before the cold could have effectively halted its effects.

And all of them, without exception, had been set in precisely the same position.  Their tiny bodies had been seated in a relaxed posture, one that was unsettling in its simplicity, legs crossed before them in a variation of the lotus position.  They each faced forward, hands in their laps and eyes gaping blindly into the dead air in the middle of their circle.  A small lantern had been placed in their midst, cold and dark at the moment but its wick blackened by recent use.

The spot at the head of the circle remained empty, perhaps left vacant for the presence of the killer, to sit in on whatever he’d imagined was supposed to eventually take place here.

Or maybe Slater had planned on bringing a sixth child here, the final component to complete this terrible circle.  Whatever the explanation, Harry felt certain this configuration had not been chosen at random.  It was sure to hold some significance, at least to the killer himself.

A monster clothed in human skin . . .

If Slater had indeed carried out these horrible acts under the influence of Wyh-heah Qui Waq—a possibility that John had suggested and that the strange wording of Slater’s suicide note strongly supported—would the positions of the bodies themselves be an integral part of that influence?  And, if so, what purpose would it serve?

He looked up, hoping John might be able to answer that question.

Out in the tunnel, John was squatting beside Charlie, trying his best to help the deputy through this awful moment.  He looked up when Harry called to him, his eyes purposely avoiding the children and centering instead on Harry’s face.

“I need you to come look at this,” Harry said.  “Tell me if it means anything to you.”

John rose to his feet and approached the circle, clearly on the verge of becoming sick himself.  But he did as Harry asked, examining the careful postures of the children, slow understanding dawning in his eyes as he looked them over.  The dread in his expression was not lost on Harry.

“Tell me.”

“It’s . . .” 

He faltered, his hands rising to rub at his eyes, as if he could wipe this vision away forever.  Keeping his voice low, with Charlie too far away to be able to hear, he said, “I’ve seen this before, in one of my books.”

“I don’t understand.”

“One of my text books, it covers part of the legend of Wyh-heah Qui Waq.  An anthropological excavation of part of the Tesmacha Forest back in ‘81 uncovered the bodies . . . the bodies of six Eskimo children, almost perfectly preserved, mummified by the cold.  They were . . . oh, Jesus . . . they were arranged exactly like this.  Exactly.  I’ve seen the pictures.  In fact, I think one of the books I brought with me might even have a picture of it.  It’s back at the house, when we get back I can show you . . .”

John was speaking rapidly, his voice swiftly approaching the same level of panic that Harry could see reflected in his gaze.

“John,” Harry said sharply, “calm down.  Slow down.”  He rose to his feet, facing John in the dim glow of his flashlight.  “One step at a time.  Why were the children arranged that way?”

John dropped his eyes, examining the floor.  “The anthropologists couldn’t explain it.  But others who were more aware of the old legends put two and two together and formed their own opinion.”

“What?  What was it?”

“They theorized that the children had been sacrificed to the demon of the wind, slaughtered as part of the ritual of summoning.”

“Jha-Laman’s kids.  The ones you told me about.”

“His and the children of the other shaman.  To appease Wyh-heah Qui Waq.”  John shook his head.  “I never believed it myself.  Never wanted to believe it.  But this . . .”  He gestured towards the bodies.  “This tells me I was wrong.  The shaman murdered their own children to prepare the gateway between our world and the spirit world, to allow Wyh-heah Qui Waq to cross over.”

“But these kids . . . how did . . .”

“It’s only a guess, but I think Slater was being manipulated.  His own desires . . .  The demon must have used them against him, and used him to bring these children here.  One more and he might have made it.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know.  This just doesn’t add up.”

Harry turned, staring in numb fear at the single empty spot in the outer rim of the circle.  “Even though Slater never finished the job, can it still come back?”

John nodded.  “As soon as Mahuk is gone, it’ll be free.  And that’s just it.  Wyh-heah Qui Waq doesn’t need the circle to come back, not this time.  The death of Mahuk’s bloodline will bring it back.  There’s no need for a gateway, because the demon never crossed back.  It’s been imprisoned here all this time.”

“So why was it making Slater rebuild the circle?”

“I don’t know,” John admitted.  “All I know is that we’re probably lucky Slater never completed the gateway.  I’m not sure what else might have come through if he’d managed to finish the circle.”

Charlie stood up and approached them, clinging carefully to the wall to maintain his balance.  “I’m sorry, Harry,” he muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  “I just . . . I didn’t think . . .”

“Don’t worry about it, Charlie.  I know how you feel.  Believe me.  This kind of thing never gets any easier.”

Charlie made no sign that he’d overheard them, apparently too taken aback by what he’d seen to absorb the details of the conversation.  Harry could see he was making a great effort to pull himself together, forcing himself to stand fully erect and rubbing his temples, as if trying to work out some of the revulsion that had swept over him at the sight of the children.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of.  We’re all feeling this one.  We’re all going to be feeling this one for a long time.”  Harry went on.  “Now, I’ve got something I need you to do.”

He held up his radio.  “This isn’t strong enough to contact the station.  Even if it was, I don’t think it’d do much good in this storm.”

“I don’t think so either.  I still have the two-way in my Jeep, though.”

“That’s what I’m getting at.  I need you to get back topside and call this in.  We’ve got to get these kids out of here.  Tell Dana I don’t care what it takes, but we need a crew out here.  And if you get through to her, tell her to put a call into Del Hughes.  He’s going to have to take a look at this.  You got all that?”

Charlie nodded.  Harry thought it would do him some good to get away from the scene for a few minutes, even if it meant scaling the icy rock face again and venturing out into the storm.  At least it would give him a chance to clear his head.

“Once that’s taken care of, I want you to shag ass back down here,” Harry instructed.  “And whatever you do, I want you to stay in touch over the walkie-talkies.  Once you’re out in the storm, you’ll be out of range, but otherwise, I want to be able to find out exactly where you are the whole time.”

“You got it.”  Charlie started to make his way down the tunnel, but stopped and looked back at Harry.  “Thanks, Chief.” 

“Be careful,” Harry murmured and turned back to find John.

“You have to tell him,” John said, his back to the circle now, as if he couldn’t wait to get it out of his sight.

“I will.  As soon as he gets back.  Hell, it’s bad enough I dragged him into all this, I should have been straight with him from the start.”

“How do you think he would have reacted?”

“Probably a lot like I did at first.”

“And now?”

Harry considered the question for a moment, taking into account the sobering effect that the discovery of the children had had on all of them.  “It would depend how I told him, I guess.  But coming from me, he’d probably cut us a little slack.”

“So maybe you did the right thing by waiting.”

John stepped back to the opening, guiding his flashlight further down the tunnel, in the same direction they’d been headed before.  “It’s here somewhere,” he said quietly.  “I can feel it.”

“It’s getting stronger, isn’t it?”

“Without a doubt.”  John’s reply was barely a whisper, as if he feared that simple confirmation of the fact would somehow make the situation worse.  “We have to hurry.”

“I know.”  Harry lifted his walkie-talkie and thumbed the switch.  “Charlie.  Where are you?”

There was a moment of silence, followed by a short crackle of static that distorted Charlie’s response.  “I’m at the rope, still inside the lower tunnel, just about to climb up.  You should hear it out there.  Sounds like the wind’s picking up.”

“Watch yourself,” Harry warned.

“—I will—don’t wor—”

“Signal’s breaking up already,” Harry sighed, mentally reconstructing Charlie’s path.  Ascending the rope would be no problem for him.  Out in the storm, however, scaling the rock face would be another story entirely.  Without any serious problems, it would still be another ten minutes or so before Charlie even reached the Jeep.

“I think we should keep moving,” John said.

Harry shook his head.  “No.  We’re not going anywhere until Charlie gets back.  I can’t take the chance of the two of us splitting up.”

“We don’t have that kind of time.”  John’s voice was hoarse, his tone strained.

“We’re staying put.  That’s all there is to it.  I don’t know what else you expect—”

“Mahuk is dying,” John said.  “He doesn’t have much time.  Neither do we.”

“How do you know?”

“I just . . . I just know it.  I can feel it.”

Harry turned around just in time to see John doubling over in pain.  His back was to Harry, his face hidden from view, but there was no mistaking his body language.  His shoulders were hunched, his arms curled tightly around his midsection.

The flashlight tumbled from John’s fingers, its lens cracking wide open on the bare rock at his feet.  The bulb flickered once and then died, cutting off half the light in the cavern.

Harry stabbed his own light in that direction, moving as quickly as he could on the slippery floor to come to John’s aid.  By the time he reached him, John had gone down onto one knee, his head turned down into his chest as if he were trying to curl himself into a ball.  A low moan escaped him, the sound of a man in agony.

“John,” Harry said, laying a hand on his shoulder.  “What is it?”

“. . . so much pain,” John stammered.  His words came weakly, with obvious effort.  “I can feel it.  God . . . I can . . . feel everything.”

“Is it Mahuk?”

“Yes.  He’s dying.  Dying and he wants . . . to warn us.”

Harry lowered himself to his knees, trying to turn John around to face him.