The Mad and the MacAbre (26 page)

The flare diminished to a wan glow of
embers, and finally to nothing at all. In the dying light, he
thought he had seen movement ahead near the mound of rocks, a
shadow passing across shadows. The darkness wrapped around them
again with humid arms.

Gabriel felt Cavenaugh’s breath on his ear
before the other man whispered, “They dragged the bodies through
here. There’s blood all over the ground in front of us.”

There was a muted metallic clatter as
Cavenaugh ejected the spent metal flare casing and chambered
another.

“
We should have brought
flashlights,” Gabriel whispered.

“
You think?”

He’d obviously hit a sore spot. Cavenaugh
had gone to great lengths to outfit their expedition, but
apparently hadn’t foreseen every contingency.

Gabriel heard a shuffling sound beside him
and realized Cavenaugh was getting dressed. Following suit, Gabriel
stripped out of his wet clothes, unpacked the dry, and had only
begun to get dressed when a slosh of water and a gasp announced
Kelsey’s arrival. His reaction upon crawling out of the spring was
the same as Gabriel’s. He was still retching when Jess slipped out
of the water.

They dressed in a silence marred only by the
occasional zip of a zipper and scratch of Velcro.

“
Ready?” Cavenaugh
whispered. When no one immediately spoke up, he detailed his plan.
“We advance in a diamond formation. I’ll take the lead. Jess and
Gabriel, you’ll stay right behind and to either side of me. You’ll
carry the flare guns. Only fire one off on my signal. Kelsey,
you’ll bring up the rear. Walk backwards. Make sure no one tries to
sneak up on us from behind. Anything moves, shoot it. Got
it?”

Whispers of assent.

“
If you see or hear
anything—anything at all—stop where you are and tap the people to
either side. Keep the formation close, and no one strays away.
Understood?”

The stream hissed past them, an indifferent
serpent in their midst.

Kelsey checked to make sure a load was
chambered in the rifle with a clack.

The sound of their breathing grew harsh,
tense.

Something pressed into Gabriel’s stomach and
he took the flare gun from Cavenaugh. His palm was sweating so
badly it took several attempts to find the proper grip. A thought
struck him like a bullet to the temple.

They were all going to die in there.

“
Move out,” Cavenaugh
whispered, and took the first step forward into the
darkness.

***

The clatter of rock against rock signaled
Cavenaugh had reached the section where the roof had fallen. A
faint slant of mote-riddled gray light cut through the darkness
from a hole in the ceiling mere feet above the top of the pile.
Judging by the distance from the spring, Gabriel could only assume
that was where Oscar had entered from above.

“
Be careful and quiet,”
Cavenaugh whispered, and began his ascent.

Gabriel leaned onto the mound and tested the
boulders with a shove, but they didn’t budge in the slightest. He
reached out and found purchase on a rock. His hand slipped when he
tried to pull himself up. The surface was slick and damp. He prayed
it wasn’t blood from a body being dragged over them, and resumed
his climb. When he crested the top, he looked up into the hole in
the fractured ceiling, but couldn’t see the more than a few feet
before the passage bent to the right. Cold air blew in his
face.

The descent was more challenging as he
refused to turn his back to the unseen chamber beyond in order to
properly use his hands. Instead, he picked his way down on his rear
end, testing each step with his heels. At the bottom, he stood
beside Cavenaugh, where they waited for the others to join
them.

“
Jess,” Cavenaugh
whispered. “Flare.”

Again there was a whoosh and a scream as the
ball of fire sped into the darkness. It hit the ground and bounded
down the tunnel. Its momentum petered out after about fifty
yards.

Gabriel gasped. Nothing could have prepared
him for what he now saw.

“
Holy crap,” Kelsey
whispered.

The thin stream on the ground divided the
cavern into halves. To the left, a stained and aged mattress rested
against the rounded rock wall. Two rumpled sleeping bags were
spread out on it. The pillowcases at the head of the bed looked
like they hadn’t been washed in ages. There were two backpacks on
the floor, overflowing with clothes. A kerosene lantern rested
beside the bed. A bench had been constructed from tree trunks,
still round and flaking with dried bark. A black leather book sat
on the planks. It was embossed with three white words: The Holy
Bible. The pages were dog-eared and tattered. Another lantern had
been positioned next to it beside a reserve tank of kerosene.

The right side of the room was something
else entirely, as though the occupants had created their version of
heaven on one side, and hell on the other.

There was a pallet composed of uneven tree
trunks lashed together with various thicknesses of rope. A rusted
ax stood at an angle from where the blade was buried in the wood.
Chips and wedges had been stolen from the trunks through repeated
use. Its function was no mystery, as Maura’s and Will’s bodies were
sprawled across it. They had been stripped, their wet clothes piled
beside them in twin heaps. Their flesh had paled dramatically in
stark contrast to the vicious red wounds across their chests and
throats. Oscar sat in the crook of Will’s neck, worrying at a
sizeable gash with his teeth. He secured a mouthful and darted
deeper into the tunnel without a backwards glance.

Various animal carcasses were scattered on
the floor, the bones bleached, presumably from being boiled in the
carbon-scored pot sitting on the charcoaled remnants of an
extinguished campfire.

Gabriel caught a reflection from the wall
above the carnage and looked up to see a half dozen necklaces
hanging from the imperfections in the stone. His eyes were drawn to
one in particular, from which a small golden cross dangled. There
were five small diamonds set into the design, one in the center,
and one at each end.

He recognized it immediately.

The flare died, and again the darkness
enveloped them.

Gabriel stifled a sob, but couldn’t prevent
the tears from streaming down his cheeks. He felt like someone had
reached inside him and torn out all of his bowels. His stomach
roiled and his head spun. Whatever hope he had held out that
Stephanie might still be alive had been crushed. Rage and anguish
warred within him. He wanted to rip the rifle out of Cavenaugh’s
hands and run screaming down the tunnel, to make someone pay for
his sister’s death. All he could see was an image of Stephanie’s
naked, lifeless body spread across that hideous chopping block,
covered with blood, while a faceless shadow stood over her, raised
the ax, and—

Thuck. Followed by an angry hiss.

“
What was that?” Jess
whispered.

The sounds had come from deeper in the
mountain, where Oscar had just fled.

“
Someone’s down there,”
Kelsey whispered.

“
They’ve been leading us in
that direction the entire time,” Cavenaugh whispered. “They’re
waiting for us.”

***

Cavenaugh led them through the pitch black,
slowly, silently. The ground began to slope upward ever so
slightly. Once they reached the point where the flare had died,
they halted and closed rank.

Gabriel heard a rustling sound behind him
and turned. Something warm and wet slapped him across the face. A
salty, metallic taste filled his mouth and he had to swipe the
fluid from his left eye. He froze. His mind raced in an effort to
comprehend what had just happened. His first thought was that
Kelsey had stomped into the stream, but there hadn’t been a
splashing sound to match.

Gabriel spat out the foul substance, then
whispered, “Kelsey?”

There was a scraping noise mere feet away
from him, but he couldn’t see a thing.

“
Kelsey?”

“
Gabriel,” Cavenaugh
whispered. “Flare. Now.”

Gabriel pointed the blunted gun back in the
direction from which they had come and pulled the trigger. The
tunnel bloomed orange as the fireball streaked away into the
darkness with a shriek and collided with the wooden pallet where
the corpses still rested, and burned, hot and fast.

The ground at Gabriel’s feet was sloppy with
blood, and, as he could now see, so was he. A wide smear led back
down the tunnel, terminating in a pair of boots. Kelsey was
sprawled on his stomach, his head and shoulders under the water,
arms pinned beneath his chest.

Jess ran to him, rolled him onto his back,
and cradled his head to raise it out of the stream. The laceration
across his neck opened like a second mouth into a soundless
scream.

A shadow darted along the wall to Gabriel’s
left in the dying light, but by the time he turned, there was no
sign of movement.

The flame fizzled and extinguished,
stranding them in the impregnable blackness.

There was the clatter of rock on rock and
the soft sound of footsteps, and then nothing at all.

Jess whimpered and started to cry.

Gabriel spun in a circle. It felt like he
was surrounded, as though there were people so close he could feel
their breath on his face.

“
Fall back,” Cavenaugh
whispered.

“
What about—?” Jess
whispered.

“
Leave him. There’s nothing
any of us can do for him now.”

“
But I just saw
someone—”

“
I said fall
back.”

Gabriel felt a hand shove him between the
shoulder blades from behind and started walking. He could no longer
tell if his eyes were open or closed.

There was a splashing sound from his right.
A few seconds later, a wet rifle was thrust into his abdomen. He
shoved the flare gun into his jacket pocket and cradled the rifle
across his chest, sweeping it in front of him in jerking
motions.

“
Jess,” Cavenaugh
whispered. “Fire another flare.”

Light exploded from the barrel and hurtled
away into the living quarters. The flare struck the mounded rocks
and bounded back toward them. The area was momentarily illuminated
by a wavering peach glow, casting shadows from every object like
black flags, before the ball of flame bounced into the stream and
darkness raced back in with a hiss.

“
Give me the flare gun,”
Cavenaugh whispered.

A dozen more echoing footsteps and the light
blossomed again. With a scream, the flare flew into the corner of
the dead end, ricocheted from the boulders and then from the wall,
and came to rest beside the bed. Cavenaugh passed the smoldering
pistol back to Jess and walked directly toward the lantern on the
ground.

“
What are you doing?”
Gabriel asked.

“
What we should have done
from the start.” Cavenaugh picked up the lantern, removed the glass
housing, and held the broad wick to the flare until it lit. After
dialing up the flame, he replaced the top and held it up to light
the room. “I thought we’d make easy targets walking with the
lantern. Apparently we did a good enough job of that without
it.”

The dancing flame and the refractions
through the glass brought the furthest reaches of the lantern’s
light to life with shifting shadows.

“
How many flares are left?”
Cavenaugh asked.

“
I have one,” Jess
whispered.

“
Same here,” Gabriel
whispered.

“
Then we don’t have much
margin for error,” Cavenaugh said in a normal tone. The lantern was
a handheld bull’s-eye. It didn’t matter now if their voices
betrayed their location. “Jess, do you think you can carry that red
canister?”

She lifted the container easily by the
handle and sloshed the fluid. It sounded like there was maybe half
a tank. Cavenaugh passed her the lantern, which she held aloft in
her free hand.

“
Gabriel,” Cavenaugh said.
“You stay in the rear. Walk backwards. I’ll lead. Jess, stay
between us and keep the lantern raised high enough that we can
see.”

He started walking back toward Kelsey’s
body.

“
What are you doing?”
Gabriel asked.

“
I just told
you.”

“
We need to get out of
here. I thought that’s what we were doing.”

“
No,” Cavenaugh said. He
turned. The expression on his face was frightening. “This ends here
and now.”

“
You’re out of your mind.
Think about what just happened to Kelsey. We need to get the hell
out of here while we still can. Let the police and the FBI come in
here after them.”

“
We leave now and they’ll
be gone before reinforcements arrive. If we don’t do this now,
we’ll never know what happened here.”

“
It’s pretty obvious,”
Gabriel said, gesturing to the corpses on the other side of the
stream. “What more do you need to know?”

“
I need to know why!”
Cavenaugh shouted.

Gabriel retreated a step. Cavenaugh’s eyes
were wide and wild, his red face contorting awkwardly with emotion.
Gabriel was debating the merit of turning his rifle on Cavenaugh
when the man spoke again, this time more softly.

“
I’ll be dead inside three
months. The cancer’s metastasized to my stomach and lungs. In a
matter of weeks, I won’t be able to breathe without oxygen or
swallow anything solid. Radiation will just prolong the process.
There’s nothing I can do to change that. And I can’t go back
empty-handed. There isn’t anything for me to go back to anyway. All
of this equipment? These guns? You’d better believe someone’s
noticed they’re gone by now. The department’s probably pretty
anxious to have a little chat with me, one that starts with ‘You
have the right to remain silent.’ So, as you can imagine, this is
my last chance. My little sister died here. She never had a chance
to get married or have children, to find happiness. All I want from
the time I have left is to make sure that Jenny’s life mattered,
that it counted for something. I don’t care if you come with me or
not. Run away. That’s fine by me. But there’s something I want you
to think about before you do.”