Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

ELEVEN

The Judean Wilderness

Dan wiped his face on his sleeve as they drove through the barren sandy hills.

“Let’s find a shady spot and take a break.”

“There is no shade,” Carrie said. “But I’ll drive if you want.”

He peered through the Explorer’s dusty windshield at the undulating landscape shimmering before them. They’d been wandering through the desert mountains most of the morning, following one wadi, then another, turning this way and that. Still Dan was unable get a handle on his surroundings. He’d never seen anything like it. So barren, so desolate, so close to the sky, so alone. No wonder the prophets went to the desert to find and talk to their God—this was a place devoid of earthly distractions.

Except, perhaps, survival.

“No. Better if I drive and you navigate.”

“Okay. But we’re going to find it soon. It’s somewhere up ahead, I just know it.”

“How can you possibly know it?”

She looked at him. Her face was flushed, just like it got in the shelter kitchen, but her eyes were brighter and more exited than he could remember.

“I can feel it. Can’t you?”

Dan shrugged. The only thing he felt was hot.

The air conditioner had given out somewhere around Enot Qane and they’d been sweltering ever since. At least Dan had. Not Carrie. The heat didn’t seem to affect her. Or perhaps she was too excited to notice.

Carrie had changed. She’d always been driven, and her boundless energies had been focused on keeping St. Joe’s homeless kitchen operating at peak efficiency, doing as much as possible for as many as possible. But her focus had shifted since that evening when she discovered the translation of the forged scroll. She’d become obsessed with finding this so-called Resting Place.

Nothing would turn her from the quest. Dan had argued with her, pleaded with her, tried to reason with her that she was falling victim to an elaborate hoax. He threatened to make her go alone, even threatened to expose to Mother Superior the true reason for the leave of absence she’d requested this summer.

Carrie had only smiled. “I’m going, Dan. With you or without you, whether Mother Superior knows or not, I’m going to Israel this summer.”

For a while he’d hoped that money, or rather the lack of it, would keep her home. Neither of them had any savings—their vows of poverty saw to that—and this pipe-dream trip of Carrie’s was going to be costly. But money turned out to be no problem at all. Her brother Brad had seen to that years ago when he’d presented her with an American Express card in her name but drawn on his account. Keep it handy in case of an emergency, he’d told her. Or use it to buy whatever you need whenever you need it.

Carrie had filed it away, literally forgetting about it until she decided that she needed two tickets to Israel. She said Brad wouldn’t mind. He had deep pockets and was always trying to buy her things...trying to assuage his guilt, she’d said, although she wouldn’t say what kind of guilt he was assuaging.

And so it came to pass that a certain Ms. Carolyn Ferris and a male companion arrived in Tel Aviv at the height of the summer, hopped a tour bus to Jerusalem where they spent two nights in the Hilton, toured the Old Town for a day, then rented a four-wheel-drive, off-road vehicle, stocked it with a couple of flashlights, a cooler filled with sandwiches and soft drinks, and headed south.

And now here they were, trekking through the Judean Wilderness—the Midbar Yehuda of yore—in a Ford Explorer on a wild goose chase. Carrie’s wild goose chase. And that was why Dan was along.

Weren’t you supposed to protect the one you loved from harm, from the pain of dashed hopes at the end of wild goose chases?

Well, even though Dan knew this quest of hers was a hoax, the trip wasn’t a total loss. They’d seen the Holy Land. During their day in Jerusalem they’d walked the Via Dolorosa—the original Stations of the Cross—and visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Garden of Gesthemane, and the Pater Noster Church on the Mount of Olives.

Through it all, Carrie had been so excited, like a child on her first trip to Disney World. “We’re really here!” she’d kept saying. “I can’t believe we’re really here!”

And all along the Via Dolorosa: “Can you believe it, Dan? We’re actually walking in Jesus’s footsteps!”

That look on her face was worth anything. Anything except...

He glanced over at her, sitting in the passenger seat, scanning the cliffs ahead as the Explorer bounced up the dry drainage channel. A yellow sheet of paper sat in her lap. Dan had drawn a large tav on it—the Hebrew equivalent of the letter T, or Th. Carrie was hunting for a cliff or butte in the shape of that tav. Dan doubted very much they’d find one, but even if they did, there’d be no Virgin Mary hidden in a cave there.

And that worried him. He didn’t want to see Carrie hurt. She’d invested so much of herself in this quest, allowed it to consume her for months to the point where there was no telling what the painful truth might do to her. Let them spend their entire time here driving in endless circles, finding nothing, then heading home disappointed and frustrated that the desert had kept its secret, but leaving still alive the hope that somewhere in this seared nothingness there remained the find of the millennium, guarded by time and place, perhaps even by God Himself. Better that than to see her crushed by the realization that she’d been duped.

Ahead of him, the wadi forked into two narrower channels, one running northwest, the other southwest. The trailing cloud of dust swirled around them as Dan braked to a halt. He coughed as some of it billowed through the open windows.

“Where to now?”

“I’m not sure,” Carrie said.

Without waiting for the dust to settle, she stepped out and stared at the cliffs rising ahead of them. Dan got out, too, as much to stretch his legs as to look around. A breeze drifted by, taking some of his perspiration with it.

“You know,” he said, “I do believe it’s gotten cooler.”

“We’re finally above sea level,” Carrie said, still staring ahead as if expecting to find a road sign to the tav cliff. The light blue short-sleeve shirt she wore had dark rings of perspiration around her armpits and across her shoulder blades where they’d rested against the seat back. Her loose, lightweight slacks fluttered around her legs. She stood defiantly in the sun, unbowed by the heat.

Dan looked back the way they’d come. Rolling hills, dry, sandy brown, almost yellow, falling away to the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on earth—the world’s navel, someone had called it. The hazy air had been unbearably thick down there, chokingly laden with moisture from the evaporating sea; leaden air, too heavy to escape the fifty-mile trench in which it was trapped. Maybe it wasn’t cooler up here, but it was drier. He could breathe.

Above, the sky was a flawless turquoise. The land ahead was as dry and yellow-brown and barren as behind, but steeper here, angling up sharply toward a phalanx of cliffs. Looked like a dead end up there.

He plucked a rag from the floor by the front seat and began wiping the dust from the windshield.

“When’s the next rain?” he said.

“November, most likely.”

Dan had to smile. Carrie had done her homework. She’d spent months preparing for this trip, studying the scroll translation and correlating its scant geographical details with present day topographical maps of the area. He bet she knew more about the region than most Israelis, but that probably wasn’t saying much. They hadn’t seen another soul since turning off the highway. They were completely alone up here. The realization gave Dan a twinge of uneasiness. They hadn’t thought to rent a phone—not that there’d be a cell out here anyway—and if they broke down, they’d have to start walking. And if they got lost...

“We’re not lost, are we?” Dan said.

“I don’t think so. I’m sure he came this way.”

How could she be certain? Sure, she’d put a lot of research into this trip, but there hadn’t been much to go on to begin with. All they knew was that the fictional author of the scroll—”fictional” was an adjective Dan used privately when referring to the author; never within Carrie’s hearing—had turned west from his southward trek and left the shore of what he called the Sea of Lot to journey into the wilderness.

But where had he turned?

“I don’t know, Carrie...”

“This has to be the way. “She seemed utterly convinced. Didn’t she have even a shade of a doubt? “Look: He mentioned being driven out of Qumran—that’s at the northern end of the sea. He says he headed south toward Masada and Zohar but he never mentions getting there. He doesn’t even mention passing En Gedi which was a major Oasis even then. So he must have turned into the wilderness somewhere between Qumran and En Gedi.”

“No argument there. But that stretch is more than thirty miles long. There were hundreds of places we could have turned off the road. Why did you pick that particular spot back there?”

Carrie looked at him and her clear blue eyes clouded momentarily. For the first time since their arrival she seemed unsure of herself.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “It just seemed like the right place to turn. I’ve read the translation so many times I feel as if I know him. I could almost see him wandering south, alone, depressed, suddenly feeling it was no use trying to find other people to take him in, that he was unfit for human company, and turning and heading into the hills.”

Dan was struck by the thought that she might be describing her own feelings as a fourteen-year old entering the Convent of the Blessed Virgin.

That moment back on the highway had been kind of spooky. They’d been cruising south on Route 90 along the Dead Sea shore when Carrie had suddenly clutched his arm and pointed to a rubble-strewn path, little more than a goat trail, breaking through the roadside brush and winding up into the hills.

“There! Follow that!”

So Dan had followed.

“Which way does it seem we should go now?” he said and knew right away from her expression that it hadn’t come out the way he’d meant it.

Her eyes flashed. “Look, Dan. I know you think I’ve gone off the deep end on this, but it’s important to me. And if—”

“What’s important to me is you, Carrie. That’s all. Just you. And I’m worried about you getting hurt. You’ve pumped your expectations so high...”

Her eyes softened as she challenged the sun with that smile. “You don’t have to worry about me, Dan, because she is up here. And we’re going to find her.”

“Carrie...”

“And now that I think about it, it seems we should take the south fork.” She swung back into her seat and closed her door. “Come on, Driver Dan. Let’s go! Time’s a-wastin’!”

Dan sighed. Nothing to do but humor her. And it wasn’t so bad, really. At least they were together.

‡

Almost four o’clock. Dan was thinking about calling it a day and heading back to the highway while there was still plenty of light left. Wouldn’t be easy finding his way back down in the light. No way in the dark. He was just about to suggest it when Carrie suddenly lurched forward in her seat.

“Oh, my God!” she cried, her eyes darting between the windshield and the sheet of paper in her lap. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, could that be it?”

Dan skidded to a halt and craned his neck over the steering wheel for a look. As before, the trailing dust cloud caught up to them and he could see nothing while they were engulfed. But as it cleared...

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

No, he thought. It’s got to be a mistake. The sun is directly ahead, it’s glancing off the dirt on the windshield. A trick of the light. Got to be.

Hoping, praying that his eyes were suffering from too much glare, Dan opened the door and stepped out for a better look. He shielded his eyes against the sun peeking over the flat ledge atop a huge outcropping of stone ahead of them, and blinked into the light. He still couldn’t tell if it—

And then the sun dipped below the ledge, silhouetting the outcropping in brilliant light. Suddenly Dan could see that the ledge ran rightward to merge with the wall of the mountain of which the outcropping was a part, and leftward to a rocky lip that overhung a sheer precipice bellying gently outward about halfway down its fall.

Damned if it didn’t look just like a...tav.

“Do you see it, Dan?”

He glanced right. Carrie was out of the cab, holding the yellow sheet of paper at arms length before her and jumping up and down like a pre-schooler who’d just spotted Barney.

He hesitated, unsure of what to say. As much as he wanted to avoid reinforcing her fantasies, he could not deny the resemblance of the cliff face to the Hebrew letter he’d drawn for her.

“Well, I see something that might remotely—”

“Remotely, shlemotely! That cliff looks exactly like what you drew here, which is exactly the way it was described in the scroll!”

“The forged scroll, Carrie. Don’t forget that the source of all these factoids is a confirmed hoax.”

“How could I possibly forget when you keep reminding me every ten minutes?”

He hated to sound like a broken record, but he felt he had to keep the facts before her. The scroll and everything in it was bogus. And truthfully, right now he needed a little reminder himself. Because finding the tav rock had shaken him up more than he wished to admit.

“Sorry, Carrie. I just...”

“I know. But you’ve got to believe, Dan. There’s truth in that scroll.” She pointed at the tav rock looming before them. “Look. We’re not imagining that. It’s there.”

Dan wanted to say, Yes, but if you want to perpetrate a hoax, you salt the lies with neutral truths, and the most easily verifiable neutral truths are simple geological formations. But he held his tongue. This was Carrie’s show.

“What are we waiting for?” she said

Dan shrugged and got back in behind the wheel. The incline ahead was extra steep so he shifted into super low.

“Can you believe it?” Carrie said, bubbling with excitement as they started the final climb. “We’re traveling the same route as Saint James and the members of the Jerusalem Church when they carried Mary’s body here.”

“No, Carrie,” he said softly. “I can’t believe it. I want to believe it. I’d give almost anything to have it be true. But I can’t believe it.”

She smiled that smile. “You will, Danny, me boy-o. Before the day is out, you will.”

‡

The closer they got to the rock, the less and less it resembled a tav...and the more formidable it looked. Fifty feet high at the very least, with sheer walls that would have challenged an experienced rock climber even if they went straight up; but the outward bulge and the sharp overhang at the crest made ascent all but impossible.

As they rounded the outcropping, Dan realized they’d entered the mouth of a canyon. The deep passage narrowed and curved off to the left about a quarter of a mile north. He stopped the Explorer in the middle of the dry wadi running along the eastern wall. Cooler here. The canyon floor had been resting in the shadow of its western wall for a while. To his left he spotted a cluster of stunted trees.

“Aren’t those fig trees?” Carrie said.

“Not sure. Could be. Whatever they are, they don’t look too healthy.”

“They look old. Old fig trees... didn’t the scroll writer said he was subsisting on locusts, honey, and wild figs?”

“Yeah, but those trees don’t look wild. Looks like somebody planted them there.”

“Exactly!” Carrie said, grinning.

Dan had to admit—to himself only—that she had a point. It looked as if someone had moved a bunch of wild fig trees to this spot and started a makeshift grove...out here...in the middle of nowhere.

But that only meant the forger of the scroll had to have been here in order to describe it; it didn’t mean St. James had been here, or that the Virgin Mary was hidden away atop the tav rock.

But a big question still remained: Who had planted those fig trees?

He turned to Carrie but her seat was empty. She was walking across the wadi toward the tav rock. Dan turned off the motor and ran around to catch up to her.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Looking for a way up.” She was studying the cliff face as she walked. “The scroll says there’s a path.”

Dan scanned the steep wall looming before them.

“Good luck.”

“Well, this isn’t nearly as smooth as the far side. There could be a way up. There must be. We simply have to find it.”

Dan saw countless jagged cracks and mini-ledges protruding randomly from the surface, but nothing that even vaguely resembled a path. This looked hopeless, but the scroll had been accurate on so many other points already, there just might be a path to the top.

He veered off to the left.

“Giving up so soon?” Carrie said.

“If there is a path,” he said, “you won’t spot it from straight on. It’ll only be visible from a sharp angle. You didn’t spot one as we rounded the front of the cliff, so let’s see what things look like from the back end.”

She nodded, smiling. “Smart. I knew I loved you for some reason.”

Dan figured he’d done enough nay-saying. The only way to get this over with was to find a path to the top—if one existed—and convince Carrie once and for all that there was no cave up there and that the Virgin Mary was not lying on a bier inside waiting to be discovered. Then maybe they could get their lives back to normal—that is, as normal as life could be for a priest and a nun who were lovers.

He reached the northern end of the outcropping and wound his way through the brush clustered around its base. When he was within arms reach of the base itself, he looked south along the cliff wall.

“I’ll be damned...”

Carrie hurried to his side. “What? Did you find it? Is it there?”

He guided her in front of him and pointed ahead. Starting a dozen feet behind them and running up the face of the cliff at a thirty-degree angle was a narrow, broken, jagged ledge. It averaged only two feet or so in width.

Carrie whirled and hugged him. “That’s it! You found it! See? All you need is a little faith!” She grabbed his hand and began dragging him from the brush. “Let’s go!”

He followed her at a walk as she ran back to where the ledge slanted into the floor of the canyon floor. By the time he reached it she was already on her way, scrabbling upward along the narrow shelf like a lithe, graceful cat.

“Slow down, Carrie.”

“Speed up, slowpoke!” she laughed.

She’s going to kill herself, he thought as he began his own upward course along the ledge. He glanced down at the jagged rubble on the hard floor of the wadi below and quickly pulled his gaze away. Maybe we’re both going to get killed.

He wasn’t good with heights—not phobic about them, but not the least bit fond of them. He concentrated on staying on the ledge. Shale, sand, and gravel littered the narrow, uneven surface before him, tilting toward the cliff wall for half a dozen feet or so, then a crack or a narrow gap, or a step up or down, then it continued upward, now sloping away from the wall. These away sections were the worse. Dan’s sneakers tended to slip on the sand and he had visions of himself sliding off into—

“Dan!”

A high-pitched squeal of terror from up ahead. He looked up and saw Carrie down on one knee, her right leg dangling over the edge, her fingers clawing at the cliff wall for purchase. She’d climbed back into the sunlight and it looked as if her sharp-edged shadow was trying to push her off.

Dear God!

“Carrie! Hang on!”

He hurried toward her as quickly as he dared but she was back on the ledge and on her feet again by the time he reached her.

“What happened?”

Pale, panting, she leaned against the cliff wall, hugging it. “I slipped, but I’m okay.”

Suddenly he was angry. His heart was pounding, his hands were trembling...

“You almost killed yourself, dammit!”

“Sorry,” she said softly. “That wasn’t my intention, I assure you.”

“Just slow down, will you? I don’t want to lose you.”

That smile. “That’s nice to hear.”

“Here. Let me slide past you and I’ll lead the way.”

“Not a chance. I’ll take my time from here on up.” She held up two fingers. “Promise.”

Carrie kept her word, taking it slow, watching her footing, with Dan close behind. They reached the sunlit summit without another mishap. He glanced around—no one else here, and no place to hide.

“Oh, Lord,” Carrie said, wandering across the top of the tav toward the far edge. “Look at this!”

Dan caught up to her and put an arm around her shoulders, as much from a need to touch her as to stop her from getting too close to the edge. The sun cooked their backs while the desert wind dried the sweat from the climb, and before them stretched the eastern expanse of the Midbar Yehuda, all hills and mounds and shadowed crags, looking like a rumpled yellow-brown blanket after a night of passion, sloping down to where a sliver of the Dead Sea was visible, sparkling in the late afternoon sun.

Breathtaking, Dan thought. This almost makes the whole wild goose chase worthwhile.

Together they turned from the vista and scanned the mini-plateau atop the tav. It ran two hundred feet from the front lip to the rear wall, and was perhaps a hundred and fifty feet wide. And against that rear wall, to the left of center, lay a pile of rocks.

Carrie grabbed his upper arm. He felt her fingers sink into his biceps as she pointed to the rocks.

“Oh, God, Dan! There it is!”

“Just some rocks, Carrie. Doesn’t mean—”

“She’s there, Dan. We’ve found her! We’ve found her!”

She broke from him and dashed across the plateau. Dan hurried after her.

Here it comes, he thought. Here’s where the roof falls in on Carrie’s quest.

By the time he reached the pile, Carrie was on it, scrambling to the top. The jumble stood about eight feet high and she was already at work pulling at the uppermost rocks to dislodge them.

“Easy, Carrie.” Dan climbed to her side and joined her atop the pile. “The last thing we need is for you to slip and sprain an ankle. I have no idea how I’d get you back down.”

“Help me,” Carrie said, breathless with excitement. “She’s just a few feet away. We’re almost there! I can feel it!”

Dan joined her in dislodging the uppermost rocks and letting them roll to the base. The first were on the small side, cantaloupe sized and easy to move. But they quickly graduated to watermelons.

Carrie groaned as she strained against one of the larger stones. “I can’t budge this. Give me a hand, will you?”

Dan got a grip on the edge of the rock and put his back into it and together they got it overbalanced to the point where it tumbled down the pile.

Dan saw even bigger stones below.

“We’re going to need help,” he said, panting and straightening up. The sun was still actively baking the top of the tav rock and he was drenched. “A lever of some sort. We’ll never move those lower rocks by ourselves. Maybe I can find a tree limb or something we can use to—”

“We’ve got to get in!” Tears of frustration welled in her eyes as she looked up at him. “We can’t stop now. Not when we’re this close. We can’t let a bunch of lousy rocks keep us out when we’re so close!”

With the last word she kicked at one of the larger stones directly below her—and cried out in alarm as it gave way beneath her. Dan grabbed her outflung hand and almost lost his own footing as the entire pile shuddered and settled under them with a rumble and a gush of dust.

“You all right?” Dan said, pulling her closer.

She coughed. “I think so. What happened?”

“I’m not sure.” The dust was settling, layering their skin, mixing with their sweat. Even with mud on her face Carrie was beautiful. Over her shoulder, down by Carrie’s feet, Dan saw a dark crescent in the mountain wall. “Oh, Jesus.”

Carrie turned and gasped. “The cave!”

Maybe, Dan thought. Maybe not. The only sure thing about it is it’s a hole in the wall.

But he knew it was the upper rim of a cave mouth. Had to be. Everything else in this elaborate scam had followed true to the forged scroll. Why not the cave too?

But what sort of ugly surprise waited within?

Before he could stop her, Carrie had dropped prone and pushed her face into the opening.

“We left the flashlights in the car,” she was saying. “And I can’t see a thing.”

Quickly he pulled her back. “Are you nuts?”

“What’s the matter?”

“You don’t know what’s in there.”

“What could be in there?”

“How about snakes or scorpions? Or how about bats? It’s a cave, you know.”

“I know that, but—”

“But nothing.” He pulled her to her feet. “You keep your nose out of there while I go get the flashlights.”

“All right,” she said reluctantly as she allowed him to guide her down to the bottom of the pile. “Can’t see anything anyway.”

“Precisely. So you just wait here while I go back to the Explorer.”

“Okay, but hurry.” She squeezed his hand. “Don’t hurry so much you fall, but hurry.”

Dan made the round trip as quickly as he could, hugging the cliff wall all the way, concentrating on the path and not looking down. He did spot another cave in the far wall of the canyon—probably where the fictional author of the scrolls supposedly had lived. He reminded himself to check it out before they left.

The sun had continued its slide and the shadow of the canyon’s western wall had crawled three-quarters of the way up the tav by the time he returned to the top with the two flashlights.

He stood there a moment, panting, sweating from the climb, before he realized he was alone on the plateau.

“Carrie?” He dashed toward the rock pile, shouting as he ran. “Carrie!”

“What?”

Her head popped up atop the rock pile, smiling at him, and as he clambered up the boulders he saw her lying on her belly with her legs and pelvis inside the opening. She looked like someone half-swallowed by a stony mouth.

“My God, Carrie, couldn’t you wait? Get out of there!”

“I’m fine.” She reached a hand out to him. “Flashlight please.”

“I’ll go first.”

“No way. You didn’t even want to come.”

Dan was tempted to withhold the flashlight, make her climb out of there and let him shine a beam around inside before she crawled in. But the excitement, the child-like eagerness in her eyes weakened him. And after all, this was her show.

He flicked one on to make sure it worked, then slapped the handle into her waiting palm.

“Be careful. And wait right there. Don’t go anywhere without me.”

“Okay.”

Another smile, so confident looking, but Dan noticed the flashlight shaking in her hand. She pushed herself backward and slipped the rest of the way inside.

A chill of foreboding ran through him as he saw her disappear into that hole, swallowed by the darkness. God knew what could be in there.

“Carrie? You there? You okay?”

Her face floated back into the light. “Of course I’m okay. Kind of cool in here, and dusty, and it looks...empty.”

I could have told you that, Dan thought, but kept it to himself. He’d give anything to make this right for her, but that was impossible. So the least he could do was be there when the hurt hit.

“Stand back a little. I’m coming in.”

Dan slid down onto his back and entered the opening feet first. A tight squeeze but he managed to wriggle through with only a few minor scrapes and scratches.

Carrie stood a few feet away, her back to him, playing her flashlight beam along the walls.

“You’re right,” he said, coughing as he brushed himself off. “A lot cooler in here. Almost cold.”

Quickly he flashed his own beam around. Not a cave so much as a rocky alcove, maybe a dozen feet deep and fifteen wide, with rough, pocked walls. And no doubt about its being empty. Not even a spider. Just dust—dry, powdered rock—layering the floor. Only Carrie’s footprints and his own marred the silky surface.

What do I say? he wondered. Do I say anything—or let Carrie say it first?

As he stepped toward her, Carrie suddenly moved away to the left.

“Look. I think there’s a tunnel here.”

Dan caught up to her, joined his flash beam to hers, and realized that what he had thought to be a pocket recess near the floor of the cave was actually an opening into another chamber.

Carrie dropped to her hands and knees and shone her light through.

“See anything?” Dan said, hovering over her.

“Looks like more of the same. Tunnel’s only a couple of feet long. I’m going in for a look.”

Dan squatted behind her and gently patted her buttocks. “Right behind you.”

Carrie began to crawl, then stopped, freezing like a deer who’s heard a twig break, then quickly scrambled the rest of the way through.

“Oh, Dan,” he heard her say in a hoarse, quavering voice just above a whisper. “Oh-Dan-oh-Dan-oh-Dan-oh-Dan!”

He belly-crawled through as fast as his elbows and knees could propel him and bumped his head on the ceiling as he regained his feet on the other side.

But he instantly forgot the pain when he saw what lay in the wavering beam of Carrie’s flashlight.

A woman.

An elderly woman lying supine in an oblong niche in the wall of the chamber.

“It’s...” Carrie’s voice choked off and she cleared her throat. “It’s her, Dan. It’s really her.”

“Well, it’s somebody.”

A jumble of emotions tumbled through Dan. He was numb, he was exhausted, and he was angry. He’d been preparing himself to comfort Carrie when she discovered she’d been played for a fool. Entering the cave was supposed to be the last step in this trek. Now he had one more thing to explain.

The scroll, the careful and clever descriptions of this area of the Wilderness were one thing, but this was going too far. This was...ghoulish was the most appropriate word that came to mind.

“It’s her. Look at her.”

Dan was doing just that. The woman’s robe was blue, its cowl up and around her head; short, medium build, with thick strands of gray hair poking out from under the cowl. Her wrinkled skin had a sallow, almost waxy look to it. Her eyes and lips were closed, her cheeks slightly sunken, her nose generous without being large. Even in the wavering light of the flash beams, she appeared to be a handsome, elderly woman who might have been beautiful in her youth. She looked so peaceful lying there. He noticed her hands were folded between her breasts. Something about those hands...

“Look at her fingernails,” Carrie said, her voice hushed like someone whispering during Benediction. Obviously she shared his feeling that they were trespassing. “They’re so long.”

“I hear they continue to grow...the nails and the hair... after you’re dead.”

Carrie stepped closer but Dan gripped her arm and held her back.

“Don’t. It might be booby-trapped.”

Carrie shook off his hand and whirled to face him. He couldn’t see her face but the anger in her whisper told him all he needed to know about her expression.

“Stop it, Dan! Haven’t you gone far enough with this Doubting Thomas act?”

“It’s not an act, and I wish there was more light.”

“So do I, but there isn’t. I wish we’d brought some sort of lantern but we didn’t. This is all we’ve got.”

“All right. But be careful.”

Dan fought a sick, anxious dread that coiled through his gut as he watched her approach the body. And it was a body. Had to be. Too much detail for it to be anything other than the real thing.

But whose body? What sort of mind would go to such elaborate extremes to pull off a hoax. A sicko like that would be capable of anything, even a booby trap.

Of course, there was the possibility that these actually were the earthly remains of the mother of Jesus Christ.

Dan wanted to believe that. He dearly would have loved to believe that. And probably would be fervently believing that right now if not for the fact that the scroll that had led them here had been proven beyond a doubt to have been written less than a dozen years ago.

So if this wasn’t the Virgin Mary, who was she? And who had hidden her here?

Carrie was standing over her now, staring down at the woman’s lifeless face.

“Dan? Do you notice something strange about her?”

“Besides her fingernails?”

“There’s no dust on her. There’s dust layered everywhere, but not a speck of it on her.”

Dan stepped closer and sniffed. No odor. And Carrie was right about the dust: not a speck. He smiled. The forger had finally made a mistake.

“Doesn’t that indicate to you that she was placed here recently?”

“No. It indicates to me that dirt—and dust is dirt—has no place on the Mother of God.”

As he watched, Carrie sank to her knees, made the sign of the cross, and bowed her head in prayer with the flashlight clasped between her hands.

This isn’t real, Dan thought. All we need is a ray of light from the ceiling and a hallelujah chorus from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to make this a Cecil B. DeMille epic. This can’t be happening. Not to me. Not to Carrie. We’re two sane people.

Impulsively, gingerly, he reached out and touched the woman’s cheek. The wrinkled flesh didn’t give. Not hard like stone or wood or plastic. More like wax. Cool and smooth...like wax. But it wasn’t wax, at least not like any wax Dan had ever seen.

He heard a sob and snatched his hand away...but the sound had come from Carrie. He flashed his beam toward her face. Tears glistened on her cheeks. He crouched beside her.

“Carrie, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I feel so strange. All this time I thought I believed, and I prayed to her, and I asked her to help me, to intercede for me, but now I get the feeling that all that time I didn’t believe. Not really. And now here she is in front of me, not two feet away, and I don’t know what I feel or what I think.” She looked up at him. “I don’t have to believe anymore, do I, Dan? I know. I don’t have to believe, and that feels so strange.”

One thing Dan knew was that he didn’t believe this was the Virgin Mary. But it was somebody. He played his flashlight beam over her body.

Lady, who are you?

Another thing he knew was that Carrie was heading for some sort of breakdown. She was teetering on the edge now. He had to get her out of here before she went over. But how?

“What do we do now?” he said, straightening up.

He felt her grip his arm as she rose to her feet beside him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’ve found her...or someone...or something. Now what do we do?”

“We protect her, Dan.”

“And how do we do that?”

Carrie’s voice was very calm, almost matter of fact. “We take her back with us.”