Siberius (23 page)

“I get that feeling too.” Nick screwed the cap back onto the canteen. “Something ain’t right in here.”

She did another quick study of the cavern. “On the contrary, I think something
is
right in here.”

“
I meant for our visitor,” Nick said. “He didn’t come in here last night for a damn good reason.” He walked over to the coffins, stood behind one of them and gave her one of those smug looks you give someone when you know something they don’t.

Talia joined him and said, “You think it stayed away because of mummies?”

He nodded. “I know how a scarecrow works. That thing didn’t come in here because it was afraid of this place.” He looked down at the shriveled forms and tried to put himself in the big cat’s position. He shuddered. They
were
scary.

“
Siberius? Afraid?” She scoffed. It was preposterous.

“
Hey, every animal feels fear,” said Nick, though he wasn’t really sure. “Right?”

“
Yes.”

He stood up straight. Now
he
was the scientist. “Fear keeps us alive. Sorta like a built-in alarm. We’re not going to do something if it’ll jeopordize our lives.”

“
Do you mean like going to war?”

“
Hey, even in war, it takes a long time to push fear aside. And even then, it’s never really gone. No such thing as fearless. There’s a lot of dead soldiers who tried to be fearless, and a lot of living cowards who couldn’t be. It’s hard to override that natural…” He stopped, searched for the word.

“
Instinct?” Talia offered.

“
Yeah. Instinct.”

“
Even if you’re right, you’re forgetting one thing.” Talia paceed around the coffins. “These mummies are thousands of years old.”

Nick shrugged and said, “All the better reason to be afraid of them.”

“You’re missing my point,” said Talia. “People have a natural tendency to humanize animals, saying animals fear this or love that. The reality is that there is no proof that animals have any
real
emotion whatsoever. Not what human beings would call emotion, anyway.”

“
I don’t know, I had a puppy once that I swear smiled every time I came home from school.”

“
That’s because you provided for the puppy. You were the alpha male, the leader, and it responded to you.”

Nick shook his head. “Well geez when you put it that way…”

“To say a lioness cares for her young out of love rather than instinct presents a whole slew of problems. For instance, if love were the reason to care for the cubs, wouldn’t hate be the answer if a rogue male invaded the pride and killed them? Such dramas took place in Africa, yet the mother of the slain cubs goes into estrus and mates with the very lion that killed them.”

“
Okay, that makes sense.” Nick’s interest was genuine. Talia was being patient in explaing things to him, and he appreciated it. He wanted to learn.

“
If these mummies are thousands of years old,” she continued. “Then how did our friend learn to be afraid of them? Because I can say with great confidence that there is no such thing as a living 2,000 year-old Smilodon.”

Nick thought for a second. “Maybe they’re born to fear us.”

Talia shook her head. “No, it doesn’t work that way. Innate fear of man is not present in any animal. We’re just not that important for nature to invent such a mechanism. Fear of man is learned behavior.”

“
I don’t know,” said Nick looking at the piles of Smilodon bones. “
I
wouldn’t take a chance if I was that thing.” He glanced over at the coffins. “Your Scythians knew how to take care of themselves. Tough sons of bitches, if you ask me.”

Talia nodded; at least she could agree with
that
. She looked around again, studied the cavern. There were deep recesses everywhere, some leading to tunnels while others lead to dead ends. It wasn’t hard to find the tunnel where the cat was. The overpowering scent of its urine mark acted as an olfactory beacon. “There,” she said as she approached a tunnel four feet high and wide.

Nick held his nose and breathed through his mouth as he slid up next to her. Inside the tunnel, the faint glow of blue indicated it opened up to the outside somewhere beyond.

Pinching his nose, Nick stuck his head through the entrance, glanced around. “What am I looking for?” The nasal tone of his voice might have been funny under different circumstances. “Because I don’t see any barbed wire or bars.”

Talia wanted, even hoped to see a natural barrier, but she did not. The tunnel opened up without obstruction. The Smilodon didn’t want to enter the cavern. When she glanced back to the fire pit, she saw that it was less than 10 yards away.
It had to see us
, she thought.
Or at least hear us
.

Nick moved away from the tunnel and unplugged his nose, then inhaled. “Sorry,” he said between breaths. “But this is no place for one of your cats, I don’t care how ferocious it is.”

She wondered if he was right. Something prevented the Smilodon from entering and killing them, but what? Her experience with them told her that they weren’t afraid of anything. She had never observed them shying away from any challenge, and yet, she herself was living proof that something had caused the animal to run away. Had the cat sensed the function of the cavern?

“
There is one option we haven’t considered,” she said and faced the tunnel again.

“
And what would that be?” Nick crossed his arms over his chest.

Talia looked at him, amused at his cockiness. She may have been unsure, but he sure wasn’t. “It didn’t want to come in.”

Nick laughed. “That’s rich.”

“
All I’m saying is it’s possible,” said Talia. She wasn’t sure about the theory, but Nick’s laughter forced her to make a stand for it. “Inactivity is just as valid as activity. Just because something
can
happen doesn’t mean it will.”

“
I’m sorry,” he said, chuckling. “You are right. It must be possible. But I like my own theory better. Yours is just a little too convenient, I think.”

While Nick walked over to the backpack and rummaged through it, Talia was thinking that maybe he was right.

It
was
too convenient.

They ate more dried meat and then Nick threw the pack on and cinched it up.

“
I’m sorry I laughed,” he said, then turned to face the urine-scented tunnel. Resigned, Talia gave his hand a squeeze, then ambled over and entered the cave.

“
Watch out for the urine mark.” She lead Nick into the tunnel.

Hunched over, the backpack bumped against the tunnel’s low ceiling, snagging a few times before Nick got down into a duck walk. His hands caressed the fractured walls as he moved forward.

Talia saw the daylight grow brighter and brighter, yet the tunnel continued on. It was longer than she had thought, and the hunched position made her back ache. Reaching an incline, the floor became a babbling creek that ran for a few feet before vanishing into a crack in the limestone. “Watch your footing,” she said, then heard Nick splash through. Soon, she saw the vague shapes of trees outside the tunnel’s mouth.

Irregular blue sky greeted her as she exited, squinted and inhaled deeply. She hadn’t noticed how stale the air in the cavern was, or how dead her nose had become from the urine. Outside, the air was sweet, and Talia craned her neck to the broken clouds and shards of sunlight. Nick exited beside her and howled, happy to be outside.

“Great goddamn day in the morning-” was all he got out before Talia wrapped her hand around his mouth, cutting off his words. He saw why at once.

The Smilodon lay in the shadows of a fallen tree 100 feet away. Its shaggy head jerked toward them, its eyes wide with bewilderment. It looked like it just woke up.

Talia removed her hand from Nick’s mouth and then whispered “Back into the tunnel.”

Nick inched backwards, keeping his eyes on the big cat, while it kept its eyes on them. He stooped low to clear the ceiling, then turned and entered. Less than a foot inside the tunnel entrance, the screaming began.

“Run,” Talia cried, then Nick felt a push against his back. The sounds of four massive paws slamming into the ground hit Talia’s ears. It was charging them. “Go, Nick, for God’s sake.”

They rushed back into the tunnel. Talia bent over just low enough to miss the low tunnel ceiling, but Nick had to duck walk to avoid snagging the backpack. His muscles burned as he tried to maintain balance.

Behind, Talia could hear the panting monster enter the tunnel and she dared not look back. The tunnel cut a sharp left, narrowed, then turned right. She hoped the cat would have to slow to negotiate the turns. Descending a steep grade, they rounded another bend and Nick stopped, jerked backward by a powerful force. Talia slammed into him, knocking the wind out of her, and she fell backward to the wet floor.

“
I’m caught!” Nick said. He couldn’t turn around in the confined space.

Shaking it off, Talia looked up, saw the top loop of the pack caught on a rock. Nick struggled to see behind him, turning this way and that while trying to reach the entangled strap. Talia spun around and saw a black silhouette negotiate the bend in the tunnel. Green eyes blazed like emeralds against black velvet, growing larger as the cat got closer.

She sprang up and rammed herself into Nick’s back, ripping the pack’s cloth loop and sending Nick flying into the main cavern. Looking back, Talia was surprised to see the charging beast already upon her. Its hot breath hit her face and she knew, in that instant, that it had her.

Surprised it had caught up to them, the big cat struck Talia with the crown of its furry head, shooting her from the mouth of the tunnel like a cannonball. She sailed over Nick’s head and landed among the stone coffins with a thud.

“Talia!” Nick cried out, then was silenced by the deafening roar of the Smilodon. He turned and saw it crouched at the entrance. Grunting and snarling, it clawed at the floor with hooked talons, kicked up dust. Swinging its mighty head back and forth, the cat made no attempt to enter the cavern. In awe of its simple presence, Nick watched it before remembering Talia. He got up and ran to her side.

“
You okay?” he said, kneeling down and lifting her head into his lap. She laid on her back between two of the coffins, her legs folded beneath her. Before she could answer, the Smilodon roared again. Out of frustration, Nick grabbed a cat skull from one of the coffins and threw it at the Smilodon. It landed and rolled to the tunnel entrance, stopping at the beast’s paws. Squelching its roar, it hunched down, and with the demeanor of a common tabby, sniffed it. Shrinking back as if it had just smelled an unpleasant odor, the Smilodon grunted and shot snot from its nostrils, then backed up into the tunnel. Like a wisp of wind, it was gone.

Nick turned to Talia as she stood up, leaning against a coffin. He held her shoulders and said, “What’s the damage?”

“Bruised and battered,” she said, and then winced as Nick hugged her. “I think you might be right. It
is
afraid of this place.”

“
Yeah,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “I hate to leave.” They scanned the surrounding walls.

“
One of these other tunnels should lead to the outside,” said Talia. They navigated around the cave walls, checking the other tunnels. Talia stopped at one as a light breeze blew through. “This one. We’ll need a torch.”

In a minute, Nick had made a torch from old animal skins and a stick. Setting it aflame, he lead the way into the tunnel.

There were fewer pictographs the deeper they went. Soon, the walls were naked, unblemished by human hands. The tunnel lead somewhere, Talia was sure of it. She just hoped it was outside.

They continued on for a while, and as the tunnel sloped downward, the ceiling grew higher. They now had to zigzag around larger and larger stalactites. Nick couldn’t help but note how the long pointed stone columns resembled huge teeth.

“
I just want to know why it’s following us,” he said. He waited for Talia’s response, but she didn’t have one. He came right out with it. “You know, don’t you?”

             
At any other time, she might have relished a conversation like this, but right now, Talia’s body pulsed with bruises. What she wanted was to lay down in a soft, warm bed and rest. The thought of Nick Somerset in bed with her had crossed her mind, but that was a picture she did everything she could to forget. It would do her no good to indulge in such fantasies; they were fighting for their lives and thus, she kept her focus on survival.

             
“Its not acting as a predator normally would, that’s true,” she said, unable to contain herself. “And these animals are nocturnal. This one is ignoring its natural aversion to hunt during daylight hours.”

             
“Just our luck, huh?” said Nick prodding.