Still Life With Crows

And yet it went on. Ithad to. He could hear Lefty’s voice echoing back from the unknown darkness beyond, strangely distorted, calling uselessly for the dogs to heel.

“The dogs have a trail,” Hazen said over his shoulder. “And it looks like a hot one!”

Fifty-Nine

 

Corrie lay still, her hands behind her back. He had laughed when she screamed: a horrible, high-pitched laugh that sounded like the squeal of a guinea pig. Now he was doing something to the corpse of Tad. She kept her head turned, eyes closed. She could hear the sound of rending cloth, then a horrible wet tearing sound. She scrunched her eyes tight shut and tried to mentally block out the sound.He was only a few feet from her, humming and talking nonsensically to himself in a singsong while he worked. Every time he moved, a terrible reek washed toward her: sweat, mold, rot, other things even worse.

The horror, the sheer unreality, was so intense that she found herself shutting down.

Corrie, just hold on.

But she couldn’t hold on. Not anymore. The instinct for self-preservation that had prompted her to free her hands had faded with the reappearance of thatthing, lugging the dead Tad Franklin.

Her mind began to wander, curiously numb. Fragmented memories drifted across her consciousness: playing catch as a young child with her father; her mother, wearing curlers and laughing into the telephone; a fat kid who was nice to her once in third grade.

She was going to die and her life seemed so empty, a wasteland stretching back as far as she could remember.

Her hands were untied, but what did it matter now? Even if she got away, where would she go? How would she find her way out of the cave?

A sob escaped her lips, but still the horrible thing paid no attention. He had his back turned. Thank God, thank God.

She opened one eye and let it fall on the lantern. He had placed it in an angle of rock, where its glow was almost completely obscured. Its ancient metal shutters were closed, letting out only the barest slivers of light. He didn’t like light, it seemed. God, he was sowhite, so pasty white he was almost gray. And that face, the sight of that face, the wispy little beard . . .

A wave of terror washed over her, disordering her mind. He was truly a monster. If she didn’t get out, what had happened to Tad Franklin was going to happen to her.

She felt her breath coming faster as the desperate need to take action returned. Her hands were already free. There was a lantern here: she had light. And at the far end of the little cavern, she could see a well-worn trail leading into the darkness. It might, it just might lead out of the cave.

Another memory came back to her with an almost piercing clarity. She was out in the grassy softball field behind the trailer park, learning how to ride the two-wheeler her father had just bought for her seventh birthday. She’d tipped and fallen into the sweet grass, again and again. She remembered how her father had wiped away her tears of frustration, had talked to her in the soothing voice that never seemed to grow angry or upset: Don’t give up, Cor. Don’t give up. Try again.

All right,she said to the darkness.I won’t give up.

By inches, she began shifting her body around, searching for the sharp outcropping of rock, careful to keep her hands behind her back. Locating it, she raised her tied ankles and began rubbing them slowly back and forth across the edge, trying to be as quiet and inconspicuous as possible. But he was so engrossed in his work that he didn’t seem to notice what she was doing. She watched his back through slitted eyes while she chafed the fraying rope against the sharp edge of calcite. He had temporarily left Tad’s corpse and was now hunched over what appeared to be three small burlap bags, stuffing them full with . . . She turned away, deciding she’d rather not know any more.

She scraped and scraped, and at last felt the rope give. She twisted her feet back and forth, loosening it further. One foot slipped free, then the other.

She lay back again, thinking. She was free. What now?

Grab the lantern and make a run for it. She’d follow the trail. It had to go somewhere.

Yes: she’d grab the lantern and run like hell. He’d pursue her, of course, but she was fast, the second fastest girl in her class. Maybe she could outrun him.

She lay there, breathing deeply, her heart pounding with fear at what she was about to do. Now that she was about to take action, she began to think of a dozen reasons why it would be so much easier just to lie there quietly. He had something else to keep him busy. Maybe he’d just forget about her, and . . .

No.One way or another, she had to get out.

She glanced around once more, orienting herself. She took a deep breath, let it out, took another, held it.

And then she counted to three, leapt up, grabbed the lantern, and ran. A loud, inarticulate bellow sounded behind her.

She skidded on the wet stone; almost fell; found her feet again; and ran headlong into the dark vertical maw at the far end of the cavern. The slot led to a long crack that opened into a strange gallery of thin, dripping cave straws and evil-looking ribbons of hanging limestone. Beyond was a shallow pool where the ceiling dropped precipitously; she splashed across the water and scrambled through the low place, holding the lantern high. Then she emerged into a larger cavern, filled from floor to ceiling with thickly-tiered stalagmites, many joined with the stalactites overhead to form strange yellow and white pillars.

Washe following? Was he right behind, about to clutch at her again . . . ?

She caromed between the pale, glistening pillars, gasping with terror and exertion, light flashing off the great trunks of stone. The lantern banged and the candle flickered, and Corrie was seized with a new fear: if the candle went out, it would all be over.