Inhabited (27 page)

“She has a winch on the front,” Travis said. “Nothing to hook it to though.”

“If we looped it around, we could hook it to that that big rail over by the mine. The winch might spin the Jeep around and then drag it up.”

Travis looked in the direction that Justin was pointing and then locked eyes with him again.
 

“Yeah, but…” Travis started.

“Right,” Justin said. “Fuck that.”

“Exactly.”

“All right. If we’re walking, we might as well start walking. Wait—where’s Ryan?” Justin asked.

“He’s probably off trying to figure out which type of cactus will get him fucked up. We’re missing Joy, Kristin, and Ryan. If we head towards the highway, I bet we find at least two of them,” Travis said.

“Sounds like a plan.”

K
RISTIN
RAISED
ONE
FOOT
. The snake was coming right for her.

She had a rock in her hand, but it was the last rock she had. She wasn’t about to waste it throwing it at a snake. Besides, she would probably just make the snake angry if she hit it with a rock. She waited. There was almost nothing in the world that creeped her out more than snakes.
 

As it slithered, the snake moved it’s coils up the sandy slope just enough so that when it slipped back down it would stay on the path. This wasn’t a marked path, it was the tiny gap between two of the shadow traps. Kristin knew where it was because she had seen the traps deploy. She didn’t know how the snake sensed it.

The snake was ten feet away when it stopped. She couldn’t see it in the starlight, but she imagined its tongue flicking out, tasting the air, wondering what she was doing there in the middle of its desert.

The snake reached some decision and started moving again.

Kristin didn’t have a choice—she couldn’t move.
 

Her last few rocks had missed the mark, but she wasn’t sure they would have done any good anyway. Even when she hit the hole dead on, it didn’t seem to trigger the shadow traps anymore. They were growing accustomed to her trickery. They were figuring her out. The thought was chilling.

When the snake was only an arm’s length away, Kristin couldn’t stand it any longer. She threw her rock down at the thing.

She missed.

The rock hit the sand right in front of the snake. It jerked back, arching its neck into an S, and preparing to strike. They stared at each other for a few seconds. At least she assumed that the snake was staring at her. She couldn’t see its beady eyes in the starlight. The snake began to shift its body to the side, forming a coil so it could stretch out. It was big—probably big enough to reach her leg if it really stretched out.

Kristin glanced behind herself. She couldn’t go backwards. She didn’t have a good sense of where the shadow traps covered the ground back there. Kristin began to wonder if she could leap past the snake. Maybe if she could jump clear of it, she could balance on the same line that the snake had just showed her as it moved across the sand.

Whatever she was going to do, she knew she had to do it before the snake made its move.

As it drew its body beneath itself, one of the snake’s coils intruded into the shadow space.
 

Kristin nearly mistook the snake’s jerk for a strike. Instead of darting towards her, the snake was jerked backwards at a crazy speed as the shadow trap pulled it in. The trap on the other side was triggered as well. The desert brightened around her when the traps retracted.

Kristin ran forward. The trap that had taken the snake was re-deploying slowly. The other one flooded back out. Kristin pounded up the sand to get to the next ridge. The shadow traps didn’t seem to like ridges. If she could climb it, she would be able to walk along it for a bit.
 

Kristin’s feet churned in the sand.
 

She glanced back as she tried to ascend the sandy slope.
 

The shadow trap was lethargic after its capture of the snake, but it was still coming. It closed the gap towards Kristin’s useless feet. Every time she tried to throw herself up the hill, she slid back down even more.
 

She forced herself to slow down and dig in her foot before she put weight on it. With that one step accomplished, she tried the other. She nearly fell over backwards. She would have tumbled right back into the shadow trap. Kristin caught her balance and climbed another careful step. She pulled her lower foot up just as the shadow trap began to overtake her.
 

She dug in again and took a big step.

As she pushed off to climb, her toe slipped down. When it touched the shadow, it felt like her foot had been magnetized and was being attracted to a giant piece of iron. The shadow tugged on her toe with a gentle but undeniable pull. The pull increased with each millisecond. Kristin threw herself forward and grabbed the branch of a thorny bush. She pulled on it, letting the spikes pierce her fingers. Her foot popped free and she clawed her way up through the sand. She reached the top of the hill and turned.
 

The shadow trap was fully spread out below her. It was no longer advancing. She sighed as she collapsed to the sand. She looked to the other side of the ridge. There was no telling where the shadows might have laid their traps. Until she saw them retract, the desert all looked the same. She pushed to her feet.

-o-o-o-o-o-

She was careful to keep her balance as she walked down the ridge of sand. In some places, the footing was solid. In others, the sand fell away and threatened her balance. When she found a few rocks, she gathered them eagerly, filling her pockets.
 

Kristin scanned the landscape, looking for a likely target.

It seemed like the shadows were darkest near one of the thorn bushes about thirty paces away. The distance was at the limit of her accuracy. She let the rock fly and listened to hear it hit. As with most of her throws, she never actually saw the rock land. It was lost to the dark when it left her hand.

She hit the bush! Its leaves rattled and the rock clunked down into the hole below it.
 

The shadow surrounding the bush didn’t change at first. Kristin frowned. This is what she expected. The shadow traps had learned her technique and they were resisting reaction.
 

Something was changing though. She stared at the bush and tried to figure it out. Her eyes widened as the change made sense. The shadow trap was growing. It was deploying even farther and was actually climbing the hill that she was standing on. Kristin didn’t have much time. She ran along the ridge of sand, trying to escape before the thing crested her hill.

The shadow trap didn’t like the hill and it spilled to the side much faster than it climbed. Kristin was able to easily outrun it. She stood as it reached its limit. Now that she had seen it move, she understood the thing’s boundaries. Unfortunately, there was no margin between it and the next suspicious shadow. She wouldn’t be able to shoot the gap. Kristin continued down her ridge.

Up ahead, the hill fell away at a sharp angle. Sand gave way to rocky scree. At the bottom, she saw the access road. All of her wandering in the desert had finally led her back to the damn access road. She had tried to save time and had only managed to add hours to her trip.

Kristin shook her head and laughed at herself.
 

She started a small avalanche as she began to descend. Rocks tumbled down the slope. Kristin paused and let them fall. She saw something terrible. A few of the rocks bounced into the road and the shadows down there grew. One of the shadow traps was actually intruding on the road. From what she could tell, the thing pooled across, blocking her exit.

She eased down until she was sitting on the slope. She tried to memorize the outline of the shadow trap. This one was huge. It would be nearly impossible to navigate around, and it spanned the road. She put her head in her hands.

F
LORIDA
PACED
IN
A
tight circle. She gestured with her hands as she talked.

“This just can’t be,” she said, shaking her head. “This room was cut from the rock, right? I mean, look at the floor. You can see the marks where they made this flat floor. And someone took the time to frame and hang that door. Why the hell would you do that?”

“Maybe they were going to cut a passage through there, but they hadn’t gotten to it yet?” Roger asked. “We’ll just go back the way we came. There has to be something we missed, right?”

“People have been here,” she said, pointing down. “More than that—they’ve spent time digging and building here. There has to be an exit around here somewhere.”

“Don’t rocks move? Maybe there was an earthquake that caved something in, right? Maybe it used to connect but doesn’t anymore. Let’s not get obsessed.”

“I don’t think a cave-in looks like that,” she said, stabbing her finger towards the solid rock on the other side of the door.

“Okay,” Roger said. “I know you’re frustrated. I am too, but there’s nothing more to do here. Let’s turn back and we’ll head back towards those portraits. I’m sure we’ll see something we missed.”

Her eyes practically sparkled with frustration. She balled her fists and swung them down.
 

“Damn it,” she said. “When I saw that door, I was so sure that this was the way out. I can’t even tell you how mad it makes me.”

“Come on,” Roger said. He began to move back towards the passage where they’d entered. The rocks over there were jagged. He had to place his bare foot carefully. It was getting tender from all the abuse.

As Roger squeezed his way out, Florida was slapping her palms against the flat rock. He paused for a second and then decided that she needed a moment alone. Roger inched through the gap. Bracing his hands against the walls helped. It took some of the weight off his foot.
 

Roger’s hand slipped. One of the jagged rocks scraped his palm.

“Shit,” his whispered. He turned his hand towards his face and saw the white edges of flesh just before his blood began to seep. It wasn’t a bad cut, but it served as a good warning. There was no sense in favoring one body part just to injure another.

When Roger looked back up, his heart stopped beating in his chest.

The man was standing just a few paces away. His face looked serene in Roger’s headlamp. His clothes were dirty tatters—the front of his pants were yellow with urine stains. His armpits were circled with crusty-white salt. His hair hung in greasy clumps.

The man’s beard was gray with brown and yellow streaks. It reached down to his chest.

To Roger, the most alarming thing were the man’s eyes—they were closed.

-o-o-o-o-o-

When Florida put her hand on Roger’s back, he screamed.

“What?” she asked.

He pressed himself to the side.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“You didn’t see him?” Roger asked.

“Him? Who?” Florida asked.

“That guy. There was a guy right there,” Roger said.

“Where?”

Roger threw up his hands. He moved his light around wildly. The passage wasn’t very large, but Roger’s light was getting dim and didn’t penetrate far into the darkness.
 

“I don’t see anyone,” Florida said. “Do you still see him?”

“I’m not crazy, Florida,” Roger said. “There was a man here.”
 

Roger began to hop forward. Florida hung back a bit and moved her light around to try to see past him. When he got beyond the jagged rocks of the narrow passage, Roger started moving his hands over the walls, searching frantically. Florida caught up with him as he spun and shifted to the walls of the other side.

“What are you doing?”

“He must have some secret here. Maybe we can’t see it for some reason. Maybe you can’t see it with your eyes, you know?” Roger asked.

“Hey, Roger?”

He stopped and looked at her. His eyes blinked compulsively. It looked like a mixture of excitement and fear in his eyes.

“What?”

“You remember when you told me to not get obsessed a few minutes ago?” Florida asked.

Roger turned back to the wall, feeling the surface for some mysterious passage.

“I think you’re getting a little freaked out here,” Florida said.

“I just saw a guy,” he said. He didn’t turn to address her. He began feeling along the floor.

“Right,” she said. “We both have seen things that don’t make sense. Remember the climbing guy. He looked like a movie or something being projected on the rocks as we got closer. Maybe there are gasses down here that create hallucinations. Maybe we’re just going a little crazy because we’ve been cooped up underground for too long. Our lights are getting pretty dim. It’s easy to see weird stuff in low light when you’re freaked out.”

“I could
smell
him,” Roger said. “He smelled like a homeless guy who has been out in the sun for too long, you know. He smelled of piss, and sweat, and shit. Whoever it is, he’s been down here a long time.”

Florida nodded. She moved beyond Roger and started to walk up the passage as he massaged the rocks. “What was it you suggested earlier? Maybe we should head back to the portraits and see if there’s something we missed? That’s a good idea. Let’s do that. There was that one crack that looked like it might go somewhere. You remember that?”

She forced herself to keep walking. She needed to establish her independence again. She was starting to feel too tied to Roger. If he went off the rails, she didn’t want to be dragged down with him.

Still, she felt more comfortable when she heard his lopsided footfalls behind her. Roger kept up well, despite his footwear issues.

“I’m still encouraged by that door,” she said, turning. “At least it means…” She trailed off. Roger was still back there on the floor, feeling up the wall. She glanced around herself with quick, jerky motions, wondering where the sound of footsteps had come from. She shook off the question. It must have been some weird echo. “Come on, Roger. Let’s get out of here.”