The Croning Part 15

"No sir. The sink is stabilized for the moment. Obviously that's not going to last. I got some film on it, taking some readings with sonar. But, well..." The old man took Don's elbow and drew him aside from the vacuously stricken Ring and Burton who hung back near the longhouse, smiling his strange, devious smile and rolling a cigarette. "Sir, I was given to understand this is a feasibility study. We're looking for copper, gold, natural gas."

"That's my understanding as well," Don said.

"Okay, I'm game. No boat rocker. That said, you're a consultant. You aren't AstraCorp to the bone, am I right?"

"Where is this going?"

"I'm saying that if you're playing straight with me, then somebody on high is keeping information from us. I recognize Ring. He's famous. That physicist, Noonan, he ain't a slouch either. Ask yourself why the company needs a physicist on this job."

"Their business is their own. I'm also wondering why it's anything to you."

"It's on my mind because this hole isn't correct. You and I both can see that. The numbers are screwy." Ordbecker turned to regard the chasm. It ran along level ground for roughly seventy-five meters and dug into the flank of the hillside, a low mountain, gradually narrowing to a fissure before it disappeared among the underbrush. "What happened to Noonan is screwy too. Then there's the cave."

"I hadn't heard of a cave."

"See, that's what I mean. We're mushrooms-keep us in the dark and feed us s.h.i.t. Yep, yep, a cave just yonder in the heavy brush. Whoever built this place excavated the entrance of the cavern. Can't see why-no evidence of mining. There's a honeycomb under this mountain. A whole system, completely undoc.u.mented, unrecorded, maybe unexplored. Although, I ain't sure I'd bet the house on that last part."

Ahh, why did he have to say that? Don regarded the great trees and steep foothills. Birds chirped, water chuckled, and that was it. The sun tried to burn through the clouds and created that flat light that always gave him a headache if he didn't wear sungla.s.ses, and of course he'd forgotten to pack them. "With due respect, if there was a system around here it'd be in the books."

Ordbecker gave him a cynical smile, then lowered his voice even further and said, "Look, it's probably nothing. I checked the sink for gas, and it's real baseline methane venting. No radiation. Deep, though. I pinged two hundred meters and didn't hit bottom."

"Equipment malfunction. Gotta be."

"The crevice widens to the point there's...nothing. It's registering as an abyss. I'm hoping it's a glitch." The old man's eyes glittered with what Don finally recognized as fear.

Don said, "Okay. Leave it there for the moment. You check inside any of these structures?"

"h.e.l.l no. Mr. Ring can have that pleasure. Bet he doesn't find much. Fire burnt everything to a crisp from what I can tell." Ordbecker spit and stuck his hands into his pockets. "Got the feeling it's for the best, too."

Don thanked the surveyor and approached the near end of the creva.s.se. He'd disposed with thinking of the phenomenon as anything so mundane as a sinkhole the moment he'd seen it from the chopper. A creva.s.se, or if Ordbecker's readings were correct, an abyss. He stood at the rim where soil and rock crumbled into a gulf and eyed the striations and demarcations in the exposed substrata. A breath of subterranean air riffled his sleeve. It was dank and strong and cold. Faint metallic groans were carried on the breeze. He retreated several steps and called to Ordbecker. When the surveyor hustled over Don said, "Did you hear anything down there?"

"No sir."

"There's movement below. Major shifting. Stay the h.e.l.l away from this thing."

"I won't argue with you."

"Pack your gear. We can squeeze you on the chopper."

Ordbecker laughed. "I don't think so."

"Okay, take my seat. I need to hike to the station and try to coax Noonan down from his tree. You know anything about the man? Is he a drinker? Seem like a loon? Beyond the obvious, that is."

"Real pleasant fellow. Eager beaver. He was all over that sink. I had to drag him into camp for supper after it got dark. He stayed up by the fire for hours, going over some papers and a manual by flashlight. Next morning started fine, then around lunchtime he disappeared into the cave I told you about. I followed him for a few yards. Too spooky a situation, what with no supplies and n.o.body topside to come after us right away, so I retreated. Couldn't raise base camp on the horn due to interference. After maybe five hours I was getting a mite panicky. Noonan sort of stumbled from the cave. He didn't seem right. He turned and wandered up the mountain. Later, I managed to contact Smelser and he came and tracked our boy to the station. Couldn't make any progress, couldn't even get him to talk."

Don noticed that Burton was watching them just out of earshot, grinning broadly now as he braced one boot atop a stump. What the devil is wrong with his face? Don had seen a few victims of cave-ins and fires and strokes, and the pilot's soft and drooping visage was similar, yet completely different. The skin fit like a bad mask. Syphilis? Syphilis could do it. Or St. Vitus's dance...Or leprosy. Does this guy have leprosy? Does leprosy make your face look like it's going to slide off at any second? Maybe he's not grinning and giving me the evil eye. Maybe his face is just screwed beyond repair.

Bronson Ford whispered, They took his skin and wore it for a while.

Don tried to remember when and where Bronson Ford had uttered such a cryptic line, and failed. "I get the picture, Mr. Ordbecker. Go on, then." He whistled to Burton and walked over and explained that the man was to return Ordbecker and Ring to base camp at once.

Ring overheard the conversation from where he'd knelt to take pictures of the charred and fallen center-beam of the longhouse. "Hold on a dang second there, Miller. We just got here."

"I'm aware of how long we've been here. Stuff your camera and get your b.u.t.t back on the chopper. That's not a request." Don kept his tone bland, but he secretly enjoyed Ring's shocked expression. Guys like Ring only respected brute force; to reason with them was to exhibit weakness. "You've got enough shots to get started. Pick a team, return to the site tomorrow." And as the archeologist took a breath to protest, Don finished with, "This is my call. In matters pertaining to company safety policy, I'm G.o.d. Want my head on a stick, file a report."

Ring stood and marched past Don toward the helicopter, jaw hard, brows furrowed. Ordbecker covered his smirk with a cough.

Burton said through his lazy grin, "What about you, G.o.d? Going up the hill to pay your respects?"

"Give me two hours," Don said. He checked the map he'd borrowed from Smelser, which showed the ranger station-the village had been penciled recently. He tucked in his shirt, nodded curtly to the pilot and the surveyor, and set forth, past the outskirts of the ruins, into the forest, up the flank of sleepy, lovely Mystery Mountain...

The Bobcat Peak Ranger Station loomed atop the crown of a bluff, forebodingly gothic; a medieval watchtower accessible solely by a vertical wooden ladder that ascended to a trapdoor. Its darkened ring of turret-like windows overlooked miles of wilderness. The station was a forest sentinel, weathered and battered by the many storms it had suffered over the decades, mute and grim and implacable.

A house of secrets. Don wiped the sweat from his brow with a bandanna. He cupped his hands to his mouth and called Noonan's name, listened to his voice boom from gullies and boulders until it became that of a stranger's and was lost. A carpet of fir needles lay underfoot, and beneath the tower proper were several dusty crates and a stack of gray and wasted firewood. This outpost obviously didn't see much action. Probably received an annual inspection and was staffed for a couple of weeks if the weather was dry, or was used as a staging platform for search and rescue operations. Otherwise, deserted as a tomb...

In a way he was relieved to receive no answer as his disgruntled determination had withered a bit in the face of the hike, the remoteness, and the gloomy menace of the station itself. Either Noonan had moved on (the guy had to return to camp sooner or later, or hike to a trailhead unless he wanted to starve), or he wasn't in the mood for visitors. Don didn't plan on attempting to force his way in either. So, duty dispensed, he tucked the bandanna into his shirt and turned to leave. The trapdoor creaked and dropped open, revealing a black rectangle.

"Hi, Don. Come on up. Tea's on." A man's voice, and familiar, though distorted by the acoustics of the building and the encroaching trees.

Don cursed his luck. He hesitated as the reality of his predicament crashed over him in a sea-cold wave. Was he really planning to blithely traipse his way into the lion's den? The scientist could be a lunatic, given the way he'd abandoned his work. Could be waiting to brain Don as he came through the door. "No thanks, doc. Why don't you come down? Chopper will be swinging back around. Everybody's worried about you."

Silence extended for a long, drawn moment. The hidden man chuckled, and again the familiarity of it chafed and aggravated. "Best scamper up here, old son. If not..."

"Or what?" Don wished he'd brought the revolver he kept stashed in the footlocker in the garage. A brute, heavy weapon that he didn't recall the model or make, a gun he'd fired once at the range in Poger Rock, then replaced in the case and forgotten. It would've felt comforting hanging from his belt right then.

"I've got something very important to tell you. It's about Mich.e.l.le."

Don's belly tightened. Was that even Noonan? That d.a.m.nably familiar voice... "Who the h.e.l.l are you? Show your face!"

The man chuckled again. "Come on. You aren't safe down there. The children keep pets in the trees. The critters come out of the woodwork at night. Gonna be dark soon."

Don glanced around, then at his watch which was still behaving erratically. He estimated it was around 11 A.M., surely no later than 11:30. "Hey, Noonan!" No answer this time, no chuckling, just the door, the black rectangle. He didn't know what to think except that whoever was inside, whether it be Noonan or whomever, knew something about Mich.e.l.le. Everybody did, it seemed. Baby, I've had it. We're having a little talk when you get home. He sighed, felt in his jacket for the folding knife he always carried while hiking. It was proceed or turn tail and wait for Burton in the clearing. Charging headfirst into what was potentially a dangerous situation bothered him less than spending more time with the creepy pilot.

He mounted the ladder and climbed at a measured but swift pace the three stories to the hatch and ducked through. The interior of the station was gloomy. To his immediate left were several more crates similar to those stacked below the platform; in the center of the circular chamber were tables and wooden chairs and a bank of equipment that included a shortwave radio set, reel-to-reel recording machinery, a seismograph, and a telescope mounted on a complicated dolly. The air smelled of must, mothb.a.l.l.s, and peppermint. A camp stove hissed upon one of the tables, and a pot of water emitted curls of steam.

The windows were shuttered except for a bank with an eastern exposure whence filtered dull hazy light. A man stood silhouetted against that bank of windows. He said, "Glad you could make it, Don." Barry Rourke's voice, clear now that the men were in proximity.

"Barry. What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you." Rourke was pale, his eyes sunken. "And you are here because I called you here." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and slouched over to the bubbling kettle. His back to Don, he took a pair of mugs from a cabinet and poured from the kettle.

"Did you say there are children here? Pets?"

"Yes, yes-actually servitor is closer to the mark than pet. Heh, as guard dog is to poodle, or minnow to shark. The Crawlers, the Limbless Ones; call 'em what you will, you don't want to meet one. Stay near me, you'll do okay."

"I think you'd better start from the beginning," Don said. He'd recovered from the scramble to the ridgeline and the subsequent climbing of the ladder, but now his breath came short and heavy and sweat soaked his shirt. He took a breath and considered his options. Obviously the man had cracked under the pressure. Likely things weren't rosy at the Rourke mansion; maybe he had a gambling debt or was being blackmailed by a lover. The possibilities were endless. Whatever the cause, it didn't require a medical degree to a.s.sess Barry Rourke as a mental case.

"Ask me anything," Rourke said. "I'm the answer man, tonight only."

Don said, "Are you in trouble? It occurs to me after the government spooks and all the secrecy surrounding this project that AstraCorp is pulling the wool over someone's eyes. I've seen these kinds of shenanigans. People cutting through the red tape any way possible. Are you trying to screw the BLM? Did you find native burial grounds and can't decide whether to hide the fact? It's only money."

"Ha! And exhibit A Miller remains poor to his dying day while the banker and the merchant die of gout on their yachts. Seriously, though. I'm pondering how to do this delicately. It's easiest to tell you that I belong to an order. A cult. This cult has taken in interest in you and your wife as we have certain members of Mocks and Millers for so many generations it would blow your mind like the heaviest dose of Windowpane you ever did."

Don kept the tension from his voice and smiled glibly. "Okay. The spooks at the reception were keen on grand conspiracies. Tell me about it, this cult of yours."

"It has been around since prehistoric times, when men gibbered in caves and dragged their knuckles. We venerate the Great Dark, the things that dwell there."

"Lovely. Satanism is big with the kids these days, I hear."

"Don't patronize me."

"Wouldn't dream of it. This is a lot to swallow. You don't seem..."

"Don't seem the type? Don't you know anything about the world besides plate tectonics and substrata? The rich are master cultists. We've the means, motive and opportunity to indulge our wildest peccadilloes."

"What I was going to say is that you seem to have such a stick up the a.s.s it kind of surprises me to learn you're a closet hedonist. What do you call yourselves anyway?"

"The cult is nameless. Chief among our deities is one known as Old Leech. Worship of Old Leech is the primary activity of the Terrestrial sect. This worship was transmitted to us by a race that exists on the rim of the universe and spreads like a mold crawling across meat. We call this race the Children of Old Leech. They dwell in the depths and the shadows, they inhabit the crack that runs through everything."

"Aliens with an alien divinity," Don said. "Chariots of the G.o.ds is Mich.e.l.le's favorite book."

"Aliens? Why not? Vampires, demons, devils. Hobgoblins of a thousand cultures."

"I have to admit this is some strange territory," Don said. He hastened to add, "Not saying I don't believe you."

"Look, Don, it's all true. The Rourkes, the Wolvertons, the Mocks, others in this state and across the world, all serve the Great Dark, each in his or her own way; some with enthusiasm, some with reluctance, but completely and without mercy. I can't explain everything. You don't want me to explain everything. Our cult is monolithic with tentacles in every human enterprise throughout history, into prehistory."

"Ah, like Amway."

Rourke smiled a real smile and laughed. It was only then that Don noticed the man was dressed in a stylish terrycloth robe and slippers a la Hugh Hefner, precisely as if he'd stepped out of the house to check the mail. His hair was mussed, and up close he appeared unwell-pallid, blotchy, exhausted. A jaundice victim. Tics and twitches raced across his cheeks and jaw. Rourke said, "Even we don't screw with Amway." He sighed and his eyes were oh, so cold. "Man, you don't know when to let sleeping dogs lie. Always meddling. You simply had to go hunting for Mich.e.l.le in Mexico instead of listening to sage advice and spending a couple extra days drunk at the hotel bar. Got crosswise with some real hardcore disciples. Those feds at the reception who were milking you for intel-couldn't just walk away, huh? Exactly the sort of s.h.i.t that's marked you G.o.dd.a.m.ned Millers since the days of yore."

"I don't like your tone."

"Like it or lump it. We've got important matters to discuss. You are a mosquito trapped in the sap of a sundew. Your existence hangs in the balance."

That definitely sounded like a threat to Don. "Where's Noonan?" The unasked question being: What have you done to Noonan?

"I'm fairly sure that Burton ate him. Or the servitors did."

Don couldn't think of a response to such an outlandish statement. He stared at Rourke's back in stunned silence, helplessly awaiting the punch-line.

Rourke said, "In case you hadn't noticed, Burton is...well, he's not really Burton...He's one of them, a Dark One, dressed to appear human. Cheap facsimile, though. How the h.e.l.l you got onto a chopper with him is beyond me. I mean, Jesus, Don. Didn't you see his face?" He ran his hands through his hair, and his shoulders trembled. After a few moments he collected himself and brought Don a mug of tea that smelled too strong, too sweet.

Don sniffed his tea. "Good grief, Barry. Fear tactics and propaganda I expect from government attack dogs. You really disappoint me. Are you doing your part to fight the Cold War? My wife on a list somewhere because she had drinks with the wrong professor in the 1950s? Or she accepted funds from a flagged trust? Are you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds after us because my grandfather p.i.s.sed somebody off during the Boer War? What the h.e.l.l is it with you people?"

"Dark Ones aren't people."

"Right; they're a bug-eyed alien species who vivisect cattle and abduct people on lonely highways and subject them to a.n.a.l probes and such."

"Would you care to know what their idea of fun is?"

"The Dark Ones?"

"Right, them."

"s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with my life? Administering a.n.a.l probes?"

"They worship a deity that ate the f.u.c.king dinosaurs, several species of advanced hominids and the Mayans. Opened a gate and slurped them through a funnel."

"I'm not going to say that you're crazy, because I don't wish to belabor the obvious. Let's try this: put on a coat and follow me down to the river. We'll chuck some rocks, take in the sights, wait for Burton to fly us home. Whatever b.o.o.by hatch they stick you in, I promise to visit once a month. We can shoot the breeze and play cribbage. Or backgammon. I got the feeling you're a backgammon man."

Rourke smiled sadly. "Tell me, how bad has it gotten-the memory loss, the blackouts? You convinced it's early dementia? That's not what's happening. I bet you're healthy as an ox with a memory like an elephant. You're a smart fellow, too. No, no, Don. You aren't addled. The masters have this effect on people. They exude an aura that kills little patches of brain. It's like radiation poisoning of the mind. After a few exposures, your memories begin to rot and fall out. You're not really going senile, but isn't that what you've feared?" He sipped his tea, then quickly stepped forward and blew a cloud of steam into Don's eyes.

A gong sounded in the recesses of Don's consciousness and sent bats winging toward the light. He dropped the mug. The scent was that of Bronson Ford's miracle weed, albeit steam rather than smoke. Its effect was much more visceral. Don understood this wasn't marijuana; it was a more ancient, more primitive extract, a hallucinogenic of frightening potency.

A kaleidoscope of images fractured in his mind's eye: Frick and Frack hunting him at the Wolverton Mansion; naked men dressed as horrors from Aztec mythology menacing him with axes and knives; a ruddy young man in a ridiculously tight sweater stepping into a dolmen; Kurt, bronzed and middle-aged running through the woods, screaming, screaming; Bronson Ford, bloated to gigantic dimensions plucking Don from the floor of a dim museum gallery in one huge paw- He blinked and his hands were leathery and gnarled; the hands of an old man; and his clothes hung on his shriveled and stooped frame. Were there a mirror, Don knew it would reveal a few wisps of white hair on a bald pate and a face carved like a bust from granite. His knees buckled and he collapsed into a wooden chair, still gawping at his withered hands, and as he watched they shifted back to their customary musculature, then shriveled again. The oscillation reminded him of acid tracers. "Please, help me. Tell me what's happening." He could scarcely whisper. The room undulated as though it was a heat mirage.

Barry Rourke said, "I am trying to help you. Alas, you married poorly. The Mocks are favorite pets of my masters. Your wife is the last of that line and I know they want to keep her happy and compliant. Only reason I can figure that Bronson Ford didn't swallow you whole. Or drag you screaming into the dark. One of your ancestors made the mistake of crossing the Dark Ones. I get the feeling you're being preserved for something quite hideous. The Children of Old Leech have long, long memories. But you aren't important. You're a flea on the belly of a mastodon." He grasped Don's arm and helped him stand, led him to a window.

The sun was an orange streak descending behind the summit of the mountain. As the man had said, night was coming fast. A handful of c.u.mulus clouds scudded past, images in a frame traveling at 4X normal velocity. Don bit hard into the palm of his hand to stifle a giggle. Were he to laugh now there was no telling where it would end.

Rourke said, "Steady, steady. Give it a moment, let the wave roll on by. You've tasted the nectar of the void before, eh? Not to worry-this stuff is more concentrated and it filters through the blood rapidly. It's not my intention to drug you. I only want you to have a moment of clarity before your Swiss cheese brain gets fogged in again. There is something you need to see."

Rourke spoke the truth in regard to the drug-within a few minutes Don's disorientation eased and he came to his senses bit by bit. His resurgent memories lingered, frightful acuity mitigated by their fragmentary nature; a ten-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle cast into the air.

"We have to move," Rourke said. He snapped on a flashlight and guided Don to the trapdoor and threw it open. Night had descended with unnatural swiftness and Rourke's beam illuminated a narrow shaft, the first half dozen rungs. "I'll go first. Whatever you do, don't look down."

Don was too busy concentrating on maintaining a death grip on the ladder to worry about looking anywhere besides his knotted, arthritic hands. Maneuvering his decrepit self was difficult enough; meanwhile, memories (precognitive visions?) continued to leak through the ruptured membrane: the twins as middle-aged; of Argyle ageless and peering through binoculars; of a beefy young fellow named Hank slipping into the maw of a dolmen- His treacherous fingers lost hold and he would've fallen, except Rourke caught him under the arms and righted him without much effort. Don was a sack of feathers. I dried up like a prune in my dotage.

Rourke set aside the flashlight and ignited a torch-the old-fashioned kind with a big crown oozing pitch that shed a reddish glow and fumed with smoke. The torchlight revealed the shadowy contours of a cliff covered in brush and saplings. A cave waited. The approach was split by the sinkhole/abyss, that narrowed here to a crack six of seven feet across. Mist drifted from the crack and mingled with the torch smoke.

Christ, this has to be a dream. There's a field at the bottom of the tower, a ridgeline. I'm high off my a.s.s. None of this convinced him. The crunch of gravel beneath his shoes, the scents of sap and soil were too pungent. The rock wall and the cave were too solid. Don thought of Milton and Dante and had a keen urge to pee.

Rourke said, "This is the cave in the woods at Y-22. A bit of trivia: Your elder cousin burned the village down in 1923. Admittedly, the burning was a consequence of a gun battle when the villagers ambushed Miller and his fellow loggers with the intention of sacrificing them to Old Leech. What the h.e.l.l your cousin and his friends were doing this far from Slango is a mystery. Did your father ever mention the incident?"

"No." Don hadn't heard of this particular family legend. He was aware of distant relatives having served as snipers and spies during World War I, and another who'd been a so-called great white hunter during the 1920s and '30s, and another who'd died of a wasting illness after a.s.sisting with an excavation of a tomb in Egypt about that same period. Certainly there was Dad and Granddad, villainous heroes in their own right. As for this yeoman logger and his link to the Slango vanishing, nada.

Rourke gestured with the torch and led the way into the earth. As they walked, Don caught hold of Rourke's belt for balance. He recalled a similar cavern system in Mexico and the men who'd beaten him and laid him upon a prehistoric altar to some prehistoric G.o.d. He remembered their shrieks as they were s.n.a.t.c.hed away into the shadows. What had occurred thereafter was yet a blank.

The tunnel twisted in steady descent and after a while opened into a grand cavern bristling stalact.i.tes. The cave was bone dry and sh.o.r.ed by rude timbers. Its walls were scribbled with chalk drawings of stick figures bowing en ma.s.se before towering worms with humanoid skulls, and stranger things. "I've seen a painting of this." That wasn't quite accurate-I will see a painting of this. In the attic at the farmhouse. About thirty years from today. Nearby were several formations, their true parameters distorted by eons of flowstone; and a pit that exuded a foul odor.

Don knew this place. "It's the same gallery as one I saw in Mexico."

"All caves are the same. All of them lead to the Great Dark." Rourke advanced several steps and the fire illuminated a stone structure not unlike a ziggurat, the whole of it rising to thrice the height of a man and encased in flowstone.

The stone was miraculously translucent and studded by myriad knurls and odd disfigurations. Rourke beckoned him and Don reluctantly approached the edifice, immediately noting two details: a perfectly round hole penetrated the ziggurat at eye level; the disfigurations were the intact skeletons of children. Hundreds of them, petrified and preserved as foundational calculus, mortar between bricks.

"The Dark Ones don't procreate as we do," Rourke said. "Their system of reproduction is via a.s.similation, absorption, transmogrification. Babies and toddlers are a delicacy. Much as I groove on a plate of nice Beluga caviar, they munch on fetuses. Although, toddlers are preferred for peak sampling, that fine line between ripeness and self-awareness. Screaming turns them on. The men and women who dwelt in the hamlet over a hundred years ago worshiped the Children of Old Leech as G.o.ds and offered their newborns as sacrifices. The women here were always pregnant. Such was their purpose in life; to breed as animals do, to provide grist for the hungry darkness. Our capacity to breed like rats is a real selling point. That and our quaint fear of the night."