Dark Corner (28 page)

It was a typical, sweltering Mississippi summer day, with
the temperature in the mid-nineties. David was glad that he
had thought to pack a few bottles of cold water.

"I must tell you," Franklin said, getting in the Pathfinder,
"there have been further, possibly related, developments since
last night."

David put the SUV in gear, switched on the air conditioner, and rolled down the street. "What happened?"

"Ruby works at the local hospital a couple days a week.
She's the head nurse. She called me this morning about a
young lady who had been mauled by a rottweiler."

"Damn. That's terrible."

"Quite. The woman drove herself to the hospital late last
night. Evidently she had been with her boyfriend-who has
vanished, by the way. She drove to the medical center in his
car and collapsed shortly after the staff took her inside.

"The young lady was unconscious until this morning,
when Chief Jackson visited to question her. Ruby was bedside when the woman awoke and muttered about seeing a
man, and dogs. Ruby suspects the chief has some knowledge
of what she said, because he was visibly disturbed.
Unfortunately, the girl has lapsed into sleep again and cannot be roused"

"A man, and dogs?" David said. "I don't get it."

"I called the police station and spoke to Jackson," Franklin
said. "He denied that the woman said anything of importance. He was agitated and abrupt with me. I must say, such
behavior is out of character for Jackson. He's ordinarily a
cool customer."

"I remember thinking the same thing when he visited me
after I moved here. Seemed to be a laid-back guy."

"Anything that upsets the chief is worth investigating,"
Franklin said. "Being an indefatigable researcher, I made
some calls to various resources. I learned that a young woman
was reported missing, two days ago. She was baby-sitting
for a family when she disappeared. No trace of her has been
found"

"Two disappearances, in two days," David said. "The
woman's boyfriend, and the baby-sitter. In a town this small,
that has to be pretty damn rare"

"It's unprecedented here," Franklin said. "Include Junior's
unearthly experience at the cave, and the strange happenings
that you've seen-"

"Everything has to be connected," David said.

"Precisely."

"But how?"

"That, my friend," Franklin said, "is why we are going to
the cave. To discover answers to our questions."

Franklin, Nia, and David approached the dark mouth of the
L cave.

Using Franklin's map, they had navigated a route to the
forest that formed the southern fringe of the Mason property. They'd parked on the shoulder of a quiet road that outlined the edge of the woods. A steep hill led from the roadway
to the forest wall. They had hiked through the woods for
about a quarter of a mile before they reached a clearingand the cave.

David was drenched in sweat by the time they stopped
walking. He withdrew a water bottle from his bag.

"Only take a few sips, David," Nia said. She wore Bermuda
shorts, a tank top, and Nike running shoes, and she didn't
appear to be half as wrung out as he was. Light perspiration
gleamed on her skin, like polish.

"Still haven't gotten used to this heat," David said. He put
his hand against a tree to support himself while he drank.

He looked at the cave. A jagged black maw, perhaps seven
feet high and five feet wide, gave access to the cavern. Mounds
of rocks and dirt covered the ground outside the passageway.

The area was preternaturally still and silent.

Franklin's camera hung around his neck. He took a photo
of the entrance.

"David, take out the Bible, please," he said.

David did as he asked. Franklin stood beside him and
turned the pages, stopping at one of the illustrations: the
drawing of the large dogs gathered outside the cave's doorway, and a group of men crouched in the woods, watching as
if waiting to attack.

"The men huddled back there," Franklin said. He indicated the wall of trees and shrubbery behind them.

"You're right," Nia said, peering over David's shoulder at
the illustration.

"It's a good thing these dogs aren't here," David said.

"Not yet," Franklin said in a low voice. He looked around
warily. Due to the trees, cool shadows dwelled around them.

"I know what you're thinking," David said. "The girl in
the hospital was mauled by a dog, and mentioned something
about a man who used dogs to do ... something. Attack,
maybe ""

"You and I are on the same wavelength," Franklin said.

"We better hurry up, guys," Nia said. "Let's get inside
there and do what we came to do ""

"One moment," Franklin said. He raised his camera and
snapped another shot of the cave entrance.

"Now, let's proceed," Franklin said.

The first and only time David had ventured into a cave, he
had been eleven years old. They had been taking a family
trip to Chicago to visit relatives, and on the way they had
stopped in Cave City, Kentucky, to do some sight-seeing. On
their way down into the cavern depths, he'd seen a spider on
the wall as big as his face. The memory had stayed with him
ever since.

This cave was much smaller than the one in Kentucky,
but it was no less forbidding. When they stepped inside the
passageway, cool air swirled around them, like disturbed
spirits. The sound of their breathing was amplified, as if they
were shut inside a tomb.

David swept a flashlight across the limestone walls. Thank
God, he didn't see any giant spiders clinging to the rocks.

As they moved deeper within, a foul smell assaulted his
nostrils.

Nia wrinkled her nose, too. "What's that awful smell? It
can't just be old dirt."

"Death" Franklin came up behind them. "When I was in
graduate school, I worked part-time in a crematory. This is
the malodor of incinerated corpses."

David didn't need to ask why the stench of death polluted
the air. The guy who'd told Franklin about this place claimed
to have seen a heap of skeletons.

"Can we please hurry up and do what we have to do?"
Nia said. "I don't like the feeling this place gives me "

"Give me light, please," Franklin said. "I will commence
with my photographs."

They crept farther inside. As David and Nia shone the
flashlights around the area, Franklin snapped photos.

Ahead, a bend in the cavern awaited.

"This looks like the illustration in the Bible," David said.
He fumbled out the book. He found the representation of the
four remaining men, armed with weapons, walking deeper
into an earthen tunnel.

"Unlike those valiant men, we didn't have the foresight to
arm ourselves," Franklin said. "Let us hope that it won't be
necessary."

They walked around the corner. Nia gagged. David covered his mouth with the edge of his shirt.

"We've discovered the source of the stench," Franklin
said. He took a picture.

A brownish-gray mixture of dirt and ashes covered the
cavern floor. Walking through it was like stepping through a
sandbox.

"Junior said he saw bodies back here," Nia said. She
coughed. "Someone must have burned them"

"To hide evidence," David said.

"But whose bodies were here?" Nia said. "God, I'm
going to have nightmares for a week after this."

David turned to another drawing in the Bible. It depicted a
swarm of savage-looking people, dressed in rags, crowded
inside the cave.

"Maybe it was these people," he said.

"I'm sure it is the vicious mob illustrated there," Franklin
said. He had walked forward through the ashes, and begun to
study the wall. "Both of you please, come. I'd like a light
here" He pointed.

David and Nia went behind Franklin and directed the
light at the area he indicated.

Large symbols were engraved in the stone. It was a language that David did not understand.

Franklin clicked a couple of photographs. "This is a west
African tongue. Malinke, I believe, a Manding language
from the Niger-Congo family."

"Really?" Nia said. "Can you read it?"

Franklin squinted. "It has been many years since I have
encountered this." He traced his hand across the carved symbols.

David glanced at Nia. She shrugged.

Franklin abruptly looked at the ground. He tested it with
his foot. His boot found a depression and sank in deep enough
to swallow his ankle.

Mumbling under his breath, Franklin took the Bible from
David. He paged to another drawing.

"Okay, what are you thinking, Franklin?" David said.
"Have you figured this out?"

"Look." Franklin tapped the page. This illustration portrayed the Goliath of a man who was trapped behind a crumbling rock wall.

"This character in the drawing," Franklin said, "he was
buried here, I think."

"Buried?" Nia said. "But the others, according to Junior's
story, were piled on the ground."

"Not this one" Franklin's eyes gleamed. "No, he was special." He pointed to the engraved symbols. "Translated from
Malinke, this says, roughly, `I shall rise again to slay my enemies.' Diallo signed his name to this vow. Have you ever
heard of him?"

"Never," Nia and David said together.

Franklin looked excited. "Diallo was a prince in eighteenth
century Mali. A prince and a warrior, in fact. After losing a
battle, he was captured, sold to European slave traders, and
shipped to America, at which point, as it was with so many
of our ancestors, we lost track of him and his lineage."

"How do you know that the same Diallo wrote this stuff
on the wall?" Nia said. "Thousands of slaves came from that
area of Africa, from what I remember from my history
classes."

"I'm taking an intuitive leap," Franklin said. "In the absence of complete data, historians must often use their imagination to connect the dots, if you will. It feels genuinely
correct to me"

"Let's say you're right," David said. "How did he come to
be buried here? And why is he featured in drawings in this
Bible?"

"Valid questions," Franklin said. "But our most urgent
question is: where is he now? As you can see, his body is
gone"

"The man in black," Nia said. "Junior said that the man in
black, and another guy, were in here. What if they dug up his
body and took it somewhere?"

"Why would they do that?" David asked.

"I don't know," Nia said. "But it makes sense, doesn't it?"

"I must consider these questions." Franklin pressed his
hands to his temples and closed his eyes. "I must consider
them carefully before I reach a conclusion."

"My conclusion is that we get the heck out of here," Nia
said. "We've seen everything we need to see, and I can't
stand any more of this place."

An alarming sound suddenly reached them: the echo of
barking dogs.

This is unreal, David thought. It's like something out of
one of these Bible illustrations.

"Grab some stones," David said. He reached down and
scooped a couple of rocks in his hands, each stone roughly
the size and heft of a softball. Franklin jammed his camera
into his bag, and set about retrieving rocks. Nia did the
same.

The dogs' barking grew louder. Closer.

"They're right outside," David said. "We can't stay in
here, or we'll be trapped. We have to go outside. Follow me"

He led them around the bend in the cavern, toward the entrance. The dogs' snarling and snapping rang off the walls in
staccato bursts. He was unable to figure out how many
hounds were out there, but there were at least two, for sure.

He was wrong. There were four.

He crept through the passageway and into the daylight.
Four large, muscular canines surrounded the cavern mouth.
They were spaced equidistant from one another, like soldiers
in formation.

Running to escape was out of the question.

The dogs had trapped them. There was nowhere to run.

Although David held heavy rocks in his hands, he thought
that throwing them would be a bad idea. These canines looked wild, vicious downright strange, actually. Their eyes were
rimmed with red. Mucus crusted their nostrils. Thick strands
of saliva hung from their lips.

And their teeth-especially their canines-were longer
and sharper than usual.

What was going on with these animals? Were they genetically engineered attack dogs or something?

The dogs had ceased barking, but their muscles were tense,
ready to pounce. They glared at David with baleful, intelligent eyes, as if challenging him to flee or fight.

"It's Malcolm!" Franklin said. He pointed at the dog on the
far left. "That's my dog. Hey, boy! Hey, Malcolm!" Franklin
whistled.

The dog, a mixed breed, growled.

"He must not remember you, Doc," Nia said.

"That's impossible," Franklin said. "I fed him for a year,
spent time with him daily, until he ran away a few days
ago.. ." His voice trailed off. He frowned.