mountains.
It was after seven o’clock when he finally came across a narrow, paved highway. Jack laughed and knelt down to kiss the asphalt. He knew his chances of finding help had just improved 1,000 percent. Plus, the pavement was smooth, requiring less energy to traverse.
He paused, trying to decide which direction to take. He figured that he’d already hiked a mile or two from the lake. He decided that his best bet for finding civilization was to head south. At least that would take him back in the general direction of the area where he had parked the RV.
But he had no water bottle and no food and had long ago grown thirsty. His clothes had dried and now were growing damp again with his sweat. Jack continued along the road, keeping an ear open for the sound of vehicles.
He had walked another half hour and the pain in his leg was just becoming unbearable when he finally heard a car approaching from behind. Jack turned and waved his arms as a rust-colored pickup truck appeared around the curve.
It approached, slowed, and pulled to a stop. Jack’s heart felt a wave of relief as the driver rolled down his window and leaned out. He looked like a cowboy’s cowboy. Lean and sinewy with short reddish hair and a large mustache sweeping out beneath his nose.
The guy nodded at Jack. “Need a lift?” His voice carried a heavy Western twang.
“Man, am I glad to see you. I got an emergency.”
He looked Jack over. “You all right?”
“Do you have a cell phone I can borrow?” Jack said. “I have to get in touch with the state patrol.”
The guy shook his head and waved Jack around to the other side of the truck. “You won’t get any cell signals out here, but there’s a little town a couple miles up with a landline.”
Jack climbed in, noting how incredibly comfortable the torn-up leather seat felt after spending the day crawling around inside a cave.
The guy put the truck back in gear and continued on. “Name’s Malcolm Browne.”
Jack shook his hand. “Jack Kendrick. Thanks for stopping.”
“So what’s up? You get in an accident or something?”
“Something like that.” Jack leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “We were exploring a cave up in those mountains. Two people—the two guys I was with—died in there.”
“Died?” Browne gaped at Jack. “What happened to them?”
“They were… killed.” Jack rubbed his eyes. “There’s something—some kind of animals inside that cave. I just need to get the authorities up here right away.”
“Well, you can get ahold of the sheriff in town. And Doc Henderson’s got a phone you can use,” Browne said, shaking his head. “I didn’t even know there was a cave around here. What kind of animal was it? A bear or something?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Jack’s voice trailed off and he shuddered.
They continued on for another mile or two before Jack spotted buildings through the trees. A wooden sign on the side of the road read:
A weathered old gas station and garage stood on the outskirts of the town, welcoming visitors with a dirt- crusted red-white-and-blue Standard sign posted out front and a small salvage yard behind it. Within the sagging wooden fence, the battered remnants of cars lay hidden by weeds and brush like an automotive graveyard. Their burned-out frames, fenders, and hoods were all smashed and rusted beyond recognition and stacked in forlorn piles, overgrown by prairie grass. Next to the service station sat a general store and, beside that, a building marked Saddleback Diner. Across the road was a row of shops and storefronts. Behind them, several houses were huddled amid the trees. And beyond the houses rose a steep, wooded bluff with an enormous log home perched on an outcropping near the top. Directly behind the great lodge, Jack could see the looming steel-gray mountain peak.
Browne pulled to a stop in front of the doctor’s office, and Jack stumbled out of the truck. His leg was beginning to stiffen up, and the pain was getting worse.
Browne helped him hobble inside to a small waiting area with an empty receptionist counter and a closed-off section behind it, where Jack assumed the exam room was.
“Hey, Doc,” Browne called out. “You got a patient here.”
The doctor emerged from the back room. He was a bookish fellow of medium height and build, clean-shaven with light-brown hair that was sort of greased down and parted neatly to one side. To Jack he looked more like an accountant than a doctor. His eyes fixed on Jack and his forehead wrinkled. Jack assumed the guy didn’t get many strangers walking into his clinic right off the street like this.
“I picked him up on the highway,” Browne explained. “Just outside town. He said he had run into trouble in some caves.”
“Dwight Henderson,” the doctor said, shaking Jack’s hand. He nodded toward Jack’s leg. “Looks like you got a pretty good gash there.”
“I scraped it on some rocks. But I really need to use your phone.”
“Sure, just let me take a look at your leg first.” Henderson motioned for Jack to have a seat in the waiting area while he retreated into the back room.
He returned a moment later with what looked like a first aid kit and pulled up a second chair. He inspected Jack’s leg more closely. “We need to clean this out. You said there was some trouble in a cave?”
Jack nodded. “Yeah… it’s kind of a long story. But I need to contact the state patrol or somebody. Two guys—my friend and a guide we had hired—were killed.”
Henderson glanced at Browne and gestured toward the door. “Go on and get Carson. He’s gonna want to hear this.”
Browne nodded and bolted out of the office.
“Who’s Carson?”
Henderson began cleaning Jack’s wound. “The local law enforcement. He’ll get in touch with the authorities. But your friends—how were they killed?”
Jack winced as the doctor wiped iodine into the torn skin. “I don’t think anyone’s gonna believe me. It was some kind of… I don’t know, giant arthropod. Like a spider.”
Henderson looked up. “Spider?”
“That’s the best way I can describe them,” Jack said as a shudder raked through him. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. They’re huge. And they have a hard shell—like a crab—but they were more like spiders. They have venom that’s extremely poisonous. And they’re carnivorous. They hunted like a pack of wild dogs.”
Henderson looked incredulous. “How big were these… spiders?”
“They were huge! The biggest ones were… I don’t know—they had maybe four-foot leg spans. They were like big dogs.”
Henderson wrapped gauze around Jack’s calf, shaking his head. “Dogs? There’s no way…”
Jack studied the guy’s reaction. It seemed some part of him believed the story, and yet another part of him refused to. Like he was having some kind of internal battle. As if he didn’t
Jack grunted. “Look… I really don’t know what they are. I’m guessing they’re an entirely new species.”
“And you say they’re poisonous?”
Jack shuddered again as his mind replayed Rudy’s gruesome death. “My friend died from a bite in only a few minutes.”
At that point Browne returned with a guy Jack assumed was Carson. He had a couple days’ growth of black stubble on his square jaw and wore a tan shirt with a sheriff patch and a silver badge. A gun holster hugged his waist and a weathered black cowboy hat rode tight and low on his forehead.
Carson stood in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips. “Malcolm here tells me you had some kind of caving accident.” His voice was gravelly and terse.
“Uh… yes.”
“Some members of your party died?”
“Yes, two of my friends.”
“And where exactly is this cave?”
