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!”