The Gorge

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Derek Samford hadn’t died instantly, as his partner believed.

He’d been keeping an eye out for Ace Goodall, tightening the rope as Castle climbed out of the hole. He wasn’t sure what type of explosion had triggered the landslide, because earthquakes were rare in the Appalachians. The mountain range was so ancient that some believed it had existed before the continental drift and ran beneath the Atlantic Ocean. The far end of the chain wasn’t in Maine, but Scotland. Those rounded hills amid the misty lochs shared a lot of geologic characteristics with these rocky, worn ridges. That much was in the research Samford had absorbed when he’d first gotten the assignment.

He had a week’s notice, and he’d met Castle only three days before they were dropped off at the border of the wilderness area. He’d heard of Special Agent Jim Castle, of course. Castle was the kind that fellow agents admired but the brass tried to bury. Funny that it turned out the Earth itself had tried to bury Castle.

And the sky had yanked Samford away.

Samford blinked against the darkness. It was complete, as solid against his skin as water. He was lying on a cool, hard surface that wasn’t quite flat. The air was stale and held a faint stench of fur and decay, like the den of a hibernating animal.

He couldn’t remember what had happened after the vicious jerk to his shoulder. His first thought had been that Goodall had crept up on him and grazed him with a bullet. Though Samford had never been shot before, he knew a bullet would have delivered a more powerful punch, shredding meat and bone. This wound had been cleaner, colder.

He reached to touch it now, his arm heavy and slow, and felt the soggy fabric of his insulated vest. He eased a pinkie tip into the gash. It didn’t hurt. Not much, anyway. He wondered if shock were setting in, or something worse.

He couldn’t trust his senses, and the total blackness disoriented him. He squeezed his eyes shut so hard his cheeks quivered, and then flicked his eyelids wide open. Still dark. He tried to rise, but his chest and head were sandbags. Sleep tugged at him from somewhere in the base of his skull and he found himself smiling.

Death in the line of duty. That wasn’t so bad.

Except Goodall had nothing to do with his current situation. Samford had been plucked from the ground like a trout on the hook end of a fishing line. Fighting the drowsiness, he searched the muddy avenues of his memory. Images fell against each other like a domino game played with funhouse mirrors:

The spurt of blood arcing from his shoulder.

The rush of air up his windpipe, his own scream taking forever to reach his ears.

Scabbed, gnarled fingers making a noose around his ankle.

The world going upside down.

The rake of branches across his face as he was lifted.

Down in the hole, the pale and confused oval of Castle’s upturned face.

The sweep of wind as he rose higher.

The river far below, cutting a silver thread between the rocky cliffs.

Then, his vision clotting to gray.

Waking up here.

Or maybe not awake.

Maybe he was dead. That would explain some things. But his chest rose and fell, his fingers moved, his eyes opened and closed. The numbness of the wound had worn off, and though the pain still wasn’t great, it was enough to remind him that his nerves still functioned. And, apparently, his blood still flowed.

Something clicked to his right, a distance of maybe ten feet away, maybe twenty. The acoustics were strange, the sound eliciting a single muffled echo, suggesting he was in an enclosed space. He held his breath for a few seconds, listening. When the sound wasn’t repeated, he exhaled though his nostrils. He was in a cave. That explained the stale air.

But he would have to be deep in the Earth to be without light. Even the gloomiest, most overcast night held the faint gray of obscured stars. Maybe he’d fallen into the hole while helping Castle and had been hit on the head, and a landslide had sealed him up like a pharaoh tucked under a pyramid. Goodall could have rigged some type of follow-up bomb. That would explain Samford’s lack of consciousness, but it didn’t explain those disturbing memories. He reached for his face, felt the smile still frozen on his lips, and ran his fingers over his scalp and around his skull. No lumps, no other wounds.

Besides the gouge in his shoulder and a little exhaustion, he was fine. Nothing to do but wait it out and recover his strength, then get up and explore. In the meantime, he could play over Goodall’s assessment and guess the bomber’s next move, because Castle would want to resume the hunt once they were both The clicking sound came again, closer. Five feet, maybe. He thought again of hibernating animals. Animals didn’t hibernate in the fall. This was the season they spent growing fat, packing on pounds for the long winter ahead.

Samford willed his lungs to work steadily, though his heart banged against his rib cage like a meth junkie in a jail cell. Quantico didn’t train for sensory deprivation. Being held captive in a mountain cave wasn’t one of the scenarios designed by the FBI theorists. But was he really captive?

If he weren’t so tired, he would find out.

The click again, and behind it, a sinister rasp.

A click to his left, above him. The cave must be larger than he’d first thought. Enough headroom to stand.

Another click, and farther away, another. A soft flutter, then another, erupting into flapping.

Wings.

Bats.

Samford relaxed a little. Of course there would be bats in a cave. The winged mammals were as ubiquitous as mice, and, unless they were infected with rabies, were utterly harmless. Their sonar would detect Samford’s movements and inform the creatures that Samford was much too large to serve as prey.

The flapping grew more agitated, and was strong enough to stir the fetid air of the chamber. Perhaps full dark was coming on outside and the brood of bats was preparing to alight as one, to sweep out of the cave’s opening in that iconic and primordial image that launched a hundred spooky movies. But those images had always been accompanied by frantic squeaking. Why were these so silent?

The next click, like fingernail on bone, was so close to his wounded shoulder that he felt its vibration.

The flapping became frenetic, and a leathery wing brushed his face. The fluttering hovered nearer, and there must have been dozens of them. He tried to picture their faces, those wrinkled slits where eyes should be, their moist gray noses, tiny teeth behind black lips. The image didn’t comfort him.

It was touching his shoulder now, not with a finger, but with something softer. Even with the numbness, he could feel its velvety texture, with just enough abrasion to tickle him. It was the moist, sandpapery flesh of a tongue, one much too large to belong to a bat.

The tongue played around his wound as if wielded by a lover in the early stages of oral sex. Samford, despite the horrifyingly pleasant sensation, would have slapped it away, but his arms had become as heavy as his head. The drowsiness returned, and his groin flooded with warmth. He had an erection.

The tongue teased, and there was something doubly disturbing about it. There was no breath behind it. Whether a bear, a fox, or an oversize bat, it should be panting as it licked.

A memory rushed up, the image of the thing that had borne him aloft and carried him to this chamber that would serve as his sepulchre.

The tongue found the heart of the wound and entered. It grew more vigorous, wiggling as it found the nourishment it sought. Lips smacked with sticky residue. Another tongue joined the first, the flapping became a percussive rattling, the air of the chamber buzzed with clicking, slithery movement.

Through it all, Samford kept smiling, even as he screamed.