Deep Shadow

TWENTY-FOUR

AS ARLIS FUTCH HUNTED AMONG THE BUSHES, HE called to Tomlinson and Will Chaser, “You can quit making so much noise now—my God, you could raise the dead! I’ve got a good fix on where you are.”

Looking over his shoulder every few seconds, Arlis had used the tire iron to hack his way up the western side of the mound. When he had cleared enough cactus and bayonet plants, he tracked Tomlinson’s voice and the steady echo of the boy treading water until he found an opening in the rocks.

The hole wasn’t wide enough to crawl through, but it was large enough to poke the flashlight in and have a look. As he did, Arlis told them again, whispering, “Quiet down! I’m here, stop making so much racket. Do you see my light?”

They were close enough to the lake that the two convicts might be able to hear them—sound carried over water—which was risky enough. And Arlis sure as hell didn’t want that snake he’d seen, the monster with the orange eyes, to come cruising around. He wanted to concentrate on what he was seeing and not have to worry about someone or something sneaking up behind him.

Lying on his belly, he pushed the flashlight into the hole, then pressed his face close enough to see. Below was a bone-strewn animal den. It was a small cave, with tree roots hanging down. Near the far eastern wall, the floor of the chamber angled into a pool of water. When the flashlight hit the pool just right, the water was tannin red but clear.

Judging from the bones and the egg casings and the stink, Arlis guessed that the pool was somehow connected to the cypress head where he’d seen the massive reptile, and he thought, Dear God Aw’mighty, this is where the thing lives. It’s a by God snake den!

Near the center of the chamber, a karst vent creased the southern wall. There was a hole in the limestone floor there, water visible beneath. Tomlinson’s face floated within the hole, as if someone had taken his picture and placed it in a rock frame. His face was covered with mud, and he held up a hand to shield the light from his eyes until Arlis swung the light away.

Arlis called, “How the hell did you get down there? Where’s the boy, is he with you?”

Instead of answering, Tomlinson was already asking questions. “Where’s Doc? We heard him using the sand dredge. He signaled us a couple of times, but then he stopped. Is he with you?”

Arlis felt the pain in his head sharpen and he winced before saying, “Doc’s fine, don’t worry about him. Where’s the boy?”

Tomlinson’s face disappeared and Will Chaser’s face suddenly filled the little opening. The teen was grinning, but he sounded irritable when he said, “I’ve been digging at this hole for more than an hour! We’ve got nothing but one knife, and both our lights went out.” The boy’s grin widened. “Man! Never thought I’d say this, but it sure is good to see a bossy old redneck.”

Arlis laughed, feeling ridiculously close to tears. “I’ve got a tire iron—watch your eyes, and I’ll try to dig my way through.”

Will shouted, “No! You need a shovel and maybe a pickax. These goddamn roots are hard as iron.”

The boy had a mouth on him, and Arlis knew that he would soon be asking for Ford’s opinion. “I’ll do it my way, if you don’t mind,” he told Will Chaser. “Move aside or this bossy old redneck won’t rescue your mouthy young ass.”

Arlis thought for a moment and then said again, “And keep your voices down. This cave’s got an echo to it.”

The lake was on the other side of the swamp, less than a hundred yards away, and the punk killers might hear them. But he was also still thinking of that snake. If the thing had hatched eggs in the cave, it would be back.

“Why? What’s the problem with making a little noise?” the boy asked, sounding more suspicious than respectful.

Still whispering, Arlis said, “Just do it.”

Because of the bayonet plants—they were as sharp and hard as darts—Arlis was bleeding from puncture wounds on his arms and hands when he lowered himself into the cave. The space was less than five feet high, ceiling to floor, but it was wide and long, counting the pool of water at the far end of the chamber.

Arlis kept his eye on the pool, thinking, That’s how the snake comes and goes. These little lakes are all connected.

It wasn’t unusual in Florida for lakes to be connected by underground rivers or karst tunnels, as the man was aware. A good example was a sinkhole called Deep Lake, which wasn’t far from Copeland, off Highway 27, on the way to Everglades City. Every spring, ocean-going tarpon appeared in that little lake, rolling on the surface. By fall, they were gone—the fish had followed a tunnel or underground river back to the Gulf of Mexico, twenty-some miles away, to spawn. Arlis had witnessed it with his own eyes long ago when he was a boy, although it was the rare Yankee fisherman who actually believed the story.

Arlis stood there for a second, his mind playing tug-of-war with his courage. He thought, Crawling into this hole might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. And sure as hell the most dangerous.

Then he thought, What’s it matter? I ain’t never going to run away again. And I’m gonna die soon, anyway.

The man took a big breath, then ducked headfirst into the cave and began to shimmy his way through a curtain of tree roots. The floor was greasy slick with mud and moss, and there was no avoiding the bones, which rolled and levered beneath his feet. Twice, his boots nearly went out from under him, so he got down on his hands and knees and crawled in the muck. Crawling was easier here—no wonder the snake had chosen it as a good place to hatch its young.

As Arlis worked his way closer, Tomlinson and the boy took turns watching him. The hole was big enough to provide them both air, but just barely. The boy didn’t say much, but Tomlinson was even more hyperactive than usual, and he talked nonstop when it was his turn to push his face into the hole.

Arlis had noticed that reaction before in men who had come close to dying, and a thought came into his head. First time since I met Tomlinson that he’s ever behaved like a normal human being.

Tomlinson yammered away until the light must have hit Arlis’s face just right, which caused the hippie to pause, and then he said in a soft voice, “My God, Arlis, what happened to your face?”

Arlis hadn’t thought about what he must look like, but he knew that his left eye was almost swollen shut and the skin of his jaw was puffy tight with bruising and blood. It was embarrassing, in a way—Arlis had never been beaten so badly by another man, and he hated to lie about it but did. “I took a spill back there on the rocks. Probably because I’m not used to roaming around the woods at night clean sober, but here I am. So don’t worry about it.”

Still concerned, Tomlinson said, “Man . . . you need a doctor.” But then he sensed the old man’s embarrassment and recovered by adding, “I’ll buy us a twelve-pack on the way home. It’s important to stay hydrated down here in the tropics—a few beers will make us both feel better.”

Arlis was having trouble getting through the roots. Every few feet, he had to stop and whack at them with the tire iron before proceeding. During the pauses, Tomlinson continued to talk away, telling Arlis about the series of underwater landslides that had buried them and how they’d ended up here, several hundred feet from the lake. Of course, the hippie also repeatedly asked questions about Ford, which Arlis found disconcerting. He didn’t mind exaggerating a story—that’s the way stories were meant to be told—but he had seldom told so many outright lies in the space of only a few minutes.

To get Tomlinson off the subject, Arlis said, “Once you’re out of here, you can ask Doc your own self how he’s doin’. But right now, let’s focus on the best way to get this job done.” He shined the flashlight toward the eastern wall.

“There’s a pool of water there. See it?”

Tomlinson squeezed his face tighter against the rock hole before saying, “Not from this angle. Is it under the petroglyphs? I can only see part of the floor from here.”

Arlis said, “Petro-what?,” but then realized the man was speaking of the cave drawings on the wall. There was a bizarre-looking stick figure of a man with horns and what might have been a sun and a moon, plus a lot of other scratching.

Arlis had no interest in archaeology, but the stone drawings gave him an uneasy sensation in his belly. It was bad enough to be crawling around in a snake den where there were bones and chewed-on cow skulls, but the witchy-looking images gave him the feeling that the cave would be a dark place no matter how many flashlights a man brought along. The Indian mounds along the Gulf Coast all had this same heavy feel to them, full of shadows and weight, even at high noon.

“Jesus Christ,” Arlis said, “I mighta known a man like you would end up in a weird place like this.”

“Don’t blame me,” Tomlinson replied. “Will gets all the credit for this one. He’s on a journey, man. Will’s a shaman, he doesn’t even know it. His ancestors have something big planned for the kid, which I can explain later if you want. That’s why we ended up here.”

Arlis heard the kid say something sharp to Tomlinson about kicking his ass, but Arlis put an end to it by raising his voice, saying, “There’s a water hole there, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. An opening in the limestone wide enough for you to crawl out. Shut up long enough for me to make my point, if you don’t mind.”

Tomlinson shot back, “I’m only trying to help. Shallow-up, Arlis.”

Squeezing his way between two roots, only a few yards from the hole now, Arlis replied, “We don’t have time for you to help. Just be quiet and listen to what I’m saying! There’s a bigger opening in the floor of this dungeon. It’s right over there, no more than ten or twelve feet from where you are. I’m thinking the crevice you followed might be linked to this hole I’m looking at. Are you with me so far?”

Tomlinson said, “Sorry . . . I get excited. This has been God’s own hell broth of a day, man. We’ve been time-traveling, Arlis, our asses on the line the whole time. It has been one continual monkey-fuck after another, but—”

“Quiet until I finish!” Arlis told him. “I can chop away at those roots, dig your hole wider and get you out. But all I got is this tire iron. It might be a lot easier for you to swim underwater to the next hole and climb out on your own.”

Tomlinson sounded dubious, saying, “I don’t know, man. I’ve had just about enough of swimming around in the dark.”

“At least take a look! I’ll shine the light on the water hole. Maybe you’ll be able to see it if you stick your heads under.” Arlis motioned with the flashlight toward the pool, its water blackish red in the light.

As his head turned to look, though, Arlis’s breath caught. The surface of the pool had been flat, glassy and still, when he’d first entered the cave. But now the water had begun to vibrate for some reason. The surface showed expanding, concentric rings that lapped against the rock perimeter. The waves sailed outward, as if the hole was connected to a distant sea.

God Aw’mighty, it’s that damn snake, Arlis thought. She’s left the cypress moat and now she’s swimming home to her den.

Tomlinson interrupted his thoughts, saying, “Hey—what’s wrong? What do you see over there?”

Arlis replied, “Jesus-frogs, you ask more questions than a schoolteacher. I’m trying to find a quicker way for us to get out of here, that’s all. Why are you being so pigheaded about it?”

“The openings aren’t connected,” Tomlinson replied, sounding sure of himself. “The chamber we’re in is only a little bit bigger than the one you’re in. We searched the ceiling before our lights went out.”

Arlis looked away from the water hole long enough to see Tomlinson blinking at him like a turtle, as Tomlinson continued, “Will was lucky to find this hole—he saved our lives. It wasn’t even big enough to grab more than a quick breath until he dug it out with his knife.”

Arlis said, “Are you sure?,” and was surprised that his voice wasn’t shaking. His eyes were locked on the pool again and he was as scared as he’d ever been in his life, which was a strange thing to admit at his age. But there was nothing to be gained by lying to himself. In his brain, he could picture the snake, with its burning orange eyes, swimming through the tunnel, getting closer and closer, while they wasted time talking.

Arlis added, “I’m in sort of a hurry to get out of here. Did I mention that? And if there’s a faster way to do it—”

“Do you think we’re enjoying ourselves?” Tomlinson laughed. “The smell’s about to kill us.”

Arlis said, “Well, at least let me try it,” but he was thinking, That’s not the only thing down here that can kill us.

A minute later, Will Chaser’s face appeared. Arlis realized the kid had moved Tomlinson out of the way and thought, Good. The boy ain’t as fond of conversation as the hippie.

“Go ahead and shine the light,” the teen told Arlis. “We didn’t have time to look the place over good—he’s wrong about that. Could be there is another opening. If you think it would be faster, we might as well check. Our lights ran out of juice, so how would we know?”

Arlis replied, “Okay, okay. I’m glad one of you has some brains.” He focused the light on the little pool, and he also got a good grip on the tire iron, as he said, “I’m all set. Stick your head under and tell me what you see.”

Will Chaser said, “Now?”

“Hell yes, now. What are you waiting for?”

The kid sounded miffed when he answered, “Jesus Christ, that’s not going to tell us anything. Crawl over there and stick the light down in the hole. Aim it in our direction. That’s the only way we’re gonna see anything.”

Arlis could feel the pressure in his head building, the blood moving through his damaged brain like sandspurs, but the boy was right, and he said, “Hold your horses, that’s what I was planning to do, anyway. Goddamn, you are one bossy kid.”

He put the flashlight in his teeth, grimacing at the sulfuric taste of mud, and crawled toward the pool. A chunk of cow skull was in his path, as well as more bones and tree roots, and he had to use the iron to clear a path.

Behind him, he heard Tomlinson saying, “Why don’t you leave the crowbar with us? I can start digging while you and Will experiment.”

Before he could think, Arlis snapped, “You can kiss my ass in the county square if you think I’m doing this without a weapon,” and immediately regretted the sharpness of his tone. Tomlinson and the boy had been through enough without giving them cause to suspect they weren’t as safe as they thought they were—which they weren’t, not by a long shot.

Tomlinson said, “A weapon? Why would you need to use a crowbar as a weapon?” He paused, thinking about it, then said, “Hey, man, there’s something you haven’t told us. Arlis? Arlis? What’s wrong? Did something happen to Doc?” After another pause, he added, “What really happened to your face?”

Arlis was at the edge of the limestone pool now, where water was lapping from side to side, splashing up over the rim like water in a bowl that was being tilted back and forth. Something was definitely down there causing the water to move. He didn’t want to risk making more noise, but he had to answer Tomlinson, so he did, saying, “This is a tire iron, not a crowbar, you cotton-headed hippie. You being a damn sailor, I reckon that’s reason enough for you not to know the difference.”

Slowly, Arlis leaned his head over the pool. He could see his own reflection in the black water. His skin was caked with blood from the beating Perry had given him and it was like seeing the face of a stranger. A tired old man stared up at him, a man who was shrunken by age and fear, and it caused Arlis to feel a jolt of sadness that was soon displaced by annoyance, and he thought, Screw it. I’d rather die here from a snakebite than die in a bed with tubes up me, and he plunged the flashlight down into the pool until water was up to his shoulder.

After a couple of seconds, he yelled, “See anything?,” as he aimed the light toward the breathing hole. He forced himself to reach deep, and Arlis knew in that instant what it would be like to stick his arm into boiling water and hold it there.

After several seconds, he heard a sputtering sound and then Will Chaser’s voice say, “Are you sure the light’s on? Move the damn thing around. I didn’t see anything.”

“It’s on, by God,” Arlis hollered. “But if you didn’t see anything, then there must be nothing to see. So I guess maybe Tomlinson was right, this is a waste of time.” He began to pull his arm out of the water.

“No, stay where you are!” the boy ordered. “I’ll try again. Could be the limestone’s thick there. Can you reach any deeper? Give me thirty seconds or so and I’ll try to work my way closer.”

Arlis said, “Well, hurry up—while I’m still young!,” trying to make a joke, but his voice broke.

He heard another splash and he knew the teenager was underwater again, so he began to wave the light back and forth. To get the light even deeper, he used his boots to feel around until he felt a tree root and hooked an ankle around it. Slowly, he inched his body forward into the pool until his ear was suspended over the surface. The water felt cool against the side of his damaged face and he could taste sulfur and iron on his lips.

Arlis hadn’t looked down into the water since he’d seen his own reflection, but he decided to look now. And what he saw caused him to almost drop the flashlight.

The water was black and clear. The pool was deep enough to show bands of light piercing the darkness forty feet below, where there were boulders and more bones. Moving from beneath one of the boulders, Arlis saw a head appear, then a thick reptilian body.

Frozen, that’s how Arlis felt seeing something so strange, and he continued to watch as if hypnotized.

The animal turned and began swimming upward, and Arlis could now see two pale orange coals, which he knew were the eyes of the reptile. The eyes weren’t bright because he wasn’t pointing the light directly at the thing, but the animal was there, ascending toward the surface, swimming snakelike, the orange eyes swaying back and forth, the snake’s eyes getting bigger because the animal was gaining speed, coming fast toward the surface.

Arlis thought, God Aw’mighty! I gotta move!, and he did. As he struggled to pull his body away from the hole, he focused the light directly downward and saw, full-on, a massive reptilian head swimming toward him that was unlike any snake he had ever seen. The damn thing looked like the head of a dinosaur, its grim mouth sealed tight against the force of water, its eyes two luminous balls that flared into explosions of gold as if detonated by the flashlight.

Arlis rolled away from the hole, yelling, “Sweet Jesus, where’s the boy? Is he still underwater?” He had to feel around for the tire iron because he couldn’t take his eyes off the pool, where the surface was bubbling like a cauldron now—the animal was releasing air as it swam, Arlis realized.

Behind him, Tomlinson was yelling, “What’s wrong? What did you see?,” as Arlis tried to get to his knees, but his boot was still wedged in the roots. He had the iron in his right fist, the flashlight in his left, and he finally had to put both on the ground to use his hands to pull his foot free of the boot.

He yelled again, “Where’s the boy?,” and was relieved to hear Will Chaser’s voice answer, “How am I supposed to see the goddamn light if you’re sitting on your ass tying your shoes? Let me know when you’re ready, ’cause I’m not gonna waste my time—”

Arlis didn’t hear the rest because the head of an animal bigger than any gator he had ever killed burst through the surface of the pool, throwing a wave of water that soaked him. The animal bobbed under briefly, then appeared to slow itself when it resurfaced, its head turning like a robot’s as Arlis tried to scooch himself backward, but tree roots blocked his retreat.

When the animal saw Arlis, its mouth hinged open wide. A yard-long ribbon of tongue squirted toward him, flinging saliva as the animal made a raspy hiss that filled the room with a clouding stench of carrion. Its teeth were jagged rows of brown, its mouth frothy with something that looked as black as blood.

Will Chaser saw the reptile, too, because he was suddenly yelling, “Get out of here, Arlis! Run for it!,” but Arlis couldn’t move because of the roots and also because his body felt frozen, like in some slow-motion nightmare, as he watched the reptile’s head lean toward him, its goat-bright pupils constricting even though the flashlight lay in the mud pointed toward the wall.

Arlis was trying to thread his body through the roots as he screamed at the thing, “Get out of here! Git!,” which had worked temporarily with the three little lizards that had been tracking him, but this one didn’t budge.

Arlis watched the reptile draw its head back like a cobra while its claws found the lip of the water hole. Slowly, the animal pulled its shoulders up onto the floor of the cave. Its yellow tongue slapped the air, feeling for heat, the tongue snapping closer and closer, until the pointed forks were near enough to flick at Arlis’s bare ankle.

Arlis yanked one foot away, then another. He had managed to bull his upper body through the tangle of roots and now he had the fingers of his left hand in the muck, trying to drag himself out of the reptile’s range, while he stabbed at the cave floor with the flashlight, trying to anchor the thing for leverage.

Will Chaser had stopped yelling. His voice became calm but intense as he called, “Arlis, listen to me. Use the light. Shine the light! Shine it right in the goddamn thing’s eyes!”

Something about the steadiness of the kid’s voice snapped Arlis out of his panic. Never once had he taken his eyes off the reptile. The animal was still pulling itself from the pool—the thing had to be thirteen feet long—its claws making a sound on limestone so metallic that the stink of sulfur and carrion filled the room like sparks.

Tomlinson was now saying, “Hey—what’s happening? Let me see!,” as Will ordered in a louder voice, “Arlis—the flashlight. Use it!”

Arlis lifted the flashlight from the mud and swung it toward the animal, the bright beam panning along the cave wall, first showing roots, then the petroglyphs. The stick figure with horns appeared buckskin yellow behind the black bulk of the reptile, which had drawn its head back again, snakelike, its dull eyes beginning to glow orange as the light panned closer.

Tomlinson’s voice said, “Mother of God! What is that thing?,” as Will continued calling directions, saying, “Right in its goddamn eyes! But turn it off first. Hear me? Arlis—kill the light first!”

Arlis’s thumb explored the body of the flashlight, trying to find the switch. He understood what the kid was saying. Shock the animal with the light. It made so much sense that Arlis was surprised that he didn’t think of it himself because it might have worked if he had done it in time but he didn’t. He was just switching off the light when the animal struck, its head spearing forward so fast that the blur of movement continued to fill Arlis’s eyes even as darkness swamped the cave. He felt a thudding impact on his right calf that was like getting hit with an ax.

“Shit!” he screamed. “It got me!”

The cave echoed as Tomlinson hollered, “Arlis, are you okay?,” and Will was yelling, “Turn it on! Turn the goddamn light on, Arlis!”

Arlis’s thumb punched the switch, and the flashlight drilled a silver beam through the blackness, a beam so intense that all he could see for an instant were the twin orange stars of the reptile’s eyes, its face separated from his own only by the space of a few tree roots.

The animal hissed, flinging slobber, as it lurched backward. Arlis leaned toward the thing, jabbing at it with the flashlight, as he drew his legs under him and got to his knees. A chunk of flesh was gone from his calf, he noticed, the wound so fresh that it hadn’t yet started to bleed.

For several seconds, the lizard held its ground, striking once at Arlis—or the flashlight—but it was disoriented by the light, or temporarily blinded, because its teeth came away with only a chunk of root, which it flung away with a slash of its head, before continuing to slide backward into the water.

There was a swirl, then bubbles. The reptile submerged.

In shock, Arlis sat back in the mud, breathing heavily, as he continued to aim the light at the pool. Behind him, he heard Tomlinson’s voice, slow with wonder, say, “A fucking dragon, man. I knew it—I knew this day was coming.”

Arlis muttered, “What?,” as Tomlinson continued to talk, saying, “Those bastards have been tracking me for years.”