The Croning Part 12

"It peters out a couple of miles farther on," Kurt said over his shoulder. He and Hank wore big packs. Kurt seemed to be more comfortable than his huffing and puffing counterpart. "The brush gets thick and it basically disappears. We aren't going that far. I want to pitch the tent up ahead at this one spot-remember the fis.h.i.+ng hole, Pop? Then we can explore a bit."

Explore a bit. Don wondered what that meant. Kurt's sudden interest in checking out his old stomping grounds seemed increasingly out of character. He'd long since professed to set aside childish things in favor of career ambitions and the manly hobbies of collecting cars and women. He wants to find that pile of rocks. Lord knows why, but the boy's got his cap set. Don studied his son's powerful, determined stride. Maybe Kurt's dreams were worse than he let on. He was the stubborn type, p.r.o.ne to exorcising demons via head-on confrontation.

The lazy, golden afternoon was further mellowed by a cool breeze and lengthening shadows. The creek gurgled through rocks and rushes and songbirds chirped in branches that yet kept most of their leaves. Clouds hung white and fat; they s.h.i.+fted and wobbled and remade themselves as animals and faces. A flock of geese honked as it skimmed low over a marsh across the way, then climbed rapidly and vanished beyond the ridgelines. Thule barked and raced ahead, peeing on every other bush and hunting for more birds to rubberneck.

After a bit, Hank called for a break; he and Kurt lighted cigarettes while Argyle scoped the valley with a pair of Zeiss field gla.s.ses he claimed to have looted from the corpse of a German Lieutenant during World War Two. That would've made him a stripling pup of seventeen or eighteen, a mere four years Don's elder, but he figured the tale was true. Beneath the genteel exterior, Argyle seemed rather fierce. He habitually concealed a bayonet in its honing scabbard at his belt-another wartime memento. Don begged him to leave it home when they gathered at the tavern, convinced the old goat would stick some loudmouthed lout and get hauled to prison. Argyle grinned and told him not to worry so much-he'd go gray before his time.

Don shaded his eyes and studied the valley behind them. The house was tucked like a matchbox in a fold of the terrain, partially obscured by the barn and the trees; reddish, westerly light illuminated its walls, pooled in its dead gla.s.s windows. Don thought its windows resembled a spider's eyes, its body a spider's body, its legs folded in the waving gra.s.s. He considered b.u.mming a smoke from one of the guys and instead took a drink from his water bottle and watched Argyle who'd squatted near a rotten stump alive with termites. Don had an uncomfortable epiphany-he wondered who was watching him and his friends. A goose ran across his grave and the bucolic panorama attained a sinister grandeur.

Cigarettes finished and water swallowed, the party commenced moving again.

Eventually, they arrived at the proposed campsite, a shady bower beneath a stand of maples ten yards from a pool that teemed with minnows and trout. The area had overgrown in the many years between visits, but the four of them soon trampled the bushes and cleared off the ring of stones that formed a fire pit. Despite himself, Don was taken aback by the rush of memories of bringing Mich.e.l.le and the kids here to fish and tell stories around the fire, and after, look at the vast expanse of stars through the telescope he rescued from the attic and brought along on their excursions. Kurt and Don pitched the tent while Hank gathered deadwood. Argyle supervised, his professed area of expertise. Dinner was pork and beans and a half case of import beer.

Velvet darkness settled upon their tiny hollow of light. It grew chill and a damp breeze rustled in the branches and scattered leaves. Argyle announced he needed his beauty sleep and turned in. Hank followed suit a few minutes later, his face red from fatigue and too many beers.

Kurt said, "I think Winnie's going to leave me. At first I figured she was having an affair. It's been less than two years. That's not long, really. She's alone...her temp job at the college-she helps the Chinese kids who don't savvy English-it's only part time. I work fifty, sixty hours a week. I'm gone ten days out of the month. India, Asia, you know. Wherever. She's got a lot of time to kill. Bored and lonely can be a bad combination."

Don stirred coals with a stick and kept his mouth shut. The wind moaned and darkness s.h.i.+fted around them.

Kurt said, "Winnie started acting strange a few weeks ago. She'd be missing when I dropped in at the house unexpectedly. She'd be late from work. Then I caught her on the phone in the middle of the night. I'd been drinking, well, tying one on, I guess. So I woke up to take a p.i.s.s and she's gone. I'm groggy as h.e.l.l, but I decide to find her and she's in the den whispering on the phone. I can't make out much and she hangs up. I got back into bed and pretended to sleep just before she came sneaking into the room. She never said anything. I was upset, but I didn't confront her. Instead I intercepted the phone bill when it came in-she usually handles all that stuff. Know where she was calling?"

"Hong Kong?"

Kurt turned his head and actually laughed. "Nice one, Mr. Comedy. You're a regular George Burns. She called here. Three times in the middle of the night, each one maybe five days apart. You didn't talk with her, did you?"

"No. Are you sure you've got the right number?"

"I'm sure. She was calling Mom."

Don frowned. He couldn't recollect Mich.e.l.le taking any calls at odd hours. On the other hand, he usually slept like the dead and she kept her cell phone set to vibrate-a matter of habit from enduring a million meetings and debriefings with officials who weren't the type to brook interruptions. "Why would she call your mother? Are they close? She hasn't indicated they've talked outside of your visits."

"I don't know. There's something funny between them."

"Perhaps it's a conspiracy," Don said, trying to lighten the mood.

Kurt didn't laugh at this sally. "I've considered that. You learn to spot certain behaviors in my line. I work with human resources and screen a lot of employees. Our data is extremely sensitive and it'll sound corny, but we have to guard against corporate espionage. h.e.l.l, we've been compromised by foreign governments. Lemme tell you, I've got a keen eye for suspicious persons. Winnie and Mom...they worry me."

"For the love of...This is why you agreed to help me clean the house, I take it. To get me alone. Good grief, Son."

"Yeah. I wanted to sound you out on this. Win's parents were eager to get rid of her."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Dad. I thought there'd be trouble, her folks being well-connected; that maybe they'd think I was too low for her station. Her father made no secret he despised Americans. At the dinner they threw for our delegation, he joined the toast only after one of his superiors gave him a look. Should've seen his face, wrinkled like he was drinking vinegar."

"Well, maybe you won them over with the old Miller charm. Or, maybe they wanted your money-Mr. Big Shot corporate fella." Don winked.

"Her parents are loaded. They pushed her out the door. Winnie clammed up about the whole deal. Put it on the tab, I guess. I tell ya, Dad, I'm getting scared to see the bill."

"Well, she could be a corporate spy. Marries you to steal secrets. Pretty clever."

"Oh, G.o.d. Don't even joke about that."

Don sighed. "It's also pretty melodramatic. Didn't your company screen her? Good lord, all the questions your mother and I had to answer before they gave you the job..."

"She's not a spy, okay? No, I have a domestic crisis brewing here."

"Why would your mother conspire with her...take sides? She isn't the sort."

Kurt nodded, as if convincing himself of a dubious theory. "Jeez, I dunno. Probably Win's asking for marital advice. Maybe she's scared about the baby. When we were here last...When I whacked my head. I wasn't sleepwalking." He gulped the remainder of his beer and rolled the empty bottle between his big hands. "I'm a pretty light sleeper these days. Win had gotten up to use the bathroom or something. I went downstairs for a gla.s.s of water; y'know, feeling my way in the dark. Candlelight was coming from under the door to Mom's study. They were in there talking; who knows about what. Me, I bet. Anyway, I figured to h.e.l.l with Win if she wants to cry on Mom's shoulder. I went to the kitchen and got a drink."

"Then, what happened to your head?" Don felt uneasy now. He disliked the haunted light in Kurt's eyes.

"There's a mystery for you; I don't remember hitting it when I fell. Maybe I got short-term amnesia from the blow. The room sort of spun and I blacked out. Next thing I know, I'm in the greenhouse with Mom leaning over me, calling my name. It's weird, Dad. Really weird. Only thing is, I have this recurring dream of the incident, of being dragged. Like somebody had a hold on my pajamas and started pulling me away. There's giggling and whispering."

"I think maybe you did rattle something loose. You fainted, obviously. Then, delirious and disoriented, you crawled outside. Not much of a mystery if you ask me."

"Think so?"

"I do."

"You're probably right. I've just been doing the math and things don't add up, is all. Like, why Mom always insisted we spend the summer here. What is it about this house? None of us ever liked the d.a.m.ned thing. Except her."

Don wasn't feeling well; his skin clammy with thoughts of the lights in the bedroom, the long, strange history of inexplicable occurrences he'd learned to ignore. "You're drunk. Go get some sleep."

"I'm not drunk. And I'm serious about what I said."

"That seems to be the case. Let it lie for now, okay?"

"I'll let it lie, all right. Something else I gotta say, first. The story I told you guys about the seance at the Coolidge department store, how I saw a figure in the office..." Kurt let the moment drag on as he visibly steeled himself for whatever was to come. "To be honest, I actually got a better look at it than I let on that night we were sitting around with the storm going and such. Didn't feel right to say what really happened in that d.a.m.ned store. Not with Mom watching me like old Boris the cat used to right before he pounced and scratched the s.h.i.+t outta me."

"Why didn't you want to tell the whole story in front of your mom?"

"Because, that person I saw leering at us from the other side of the gla.s.s...the f.u.c.ked up witch-thing that terrified Reeves. It was her."

"Who?"

"You know."

Don rose as quickly as his creaky knees permitted. "Yep, past my bedtime." He made a point of not looking at his son on the way to the tent.

Asleep moments after his head hit the bedroll, his dreams were sepia-tone twilightscapes of taiga frozen to iron. His astral self rocketed across the wintry panorama at frightening velocity. A light drew him; the mother of all bonfires, and it was bones, just like the old tribes did it, that crackled and emitted sulfurous black smoke and gouts of red fire.

Mich.e.l.le, naked and lithe in a middle-aged incarnation, was chained to a boulder that had been shaped first by primitive hands, then eons of wind and rain. It was the lumpen altar of a nameless dark G.o.d. She smiled at him across time and s.p.a.ce as figures in cowls danced around the base of the rock. There was a dolmen nearby; a pile of henges large enough to entomb a giant. The dolmen radiated the implacable cold of s.p.a.ce; it hissed the frequency of gamma radiation, of stars.

"I love you," Mich.e.l.le said, her voice carrying faint as a ghost radio signal. "We all love you." Her face began to change and crack apart. He screamed and the vision shattered.

He lay sweating and shaking in the tent in the darkness and did not sleep again. Those long hours he spent yearning for daylight and cursing Kurt for putting such fool notions into his mind. Reinforcing notions in your mind, a submerged and less pleasant aspect of himself muttered from the cellar where Don routinely banished all unpleasant facets of his personality.

At dawn, heavy mist rose from the damp soil and drifted through the forest until it filled the valley. The men huddled near the fire, boiled coffee in a dented kettle and ate cereal for breakfast. Argyle dug a bottle of Irish whiskey from Hank's pack-he'd blithely loaded the poor sap like a donkey-and dumped a good pint into his thermos of coffee.

"Jesus, man! Did you haul a bar up here?" Kurt said. He lighted his cigarette.

Hank moaned and rubbed his thighs. "Ahh, my legs are sore as all h.e.l.l."

Don supposed racquetball and badminton at the health club weren't quite the same as a real hike. He stifled his own complaints and picked at his breakfast in morose silence.

"Well, this is pointless," the younger man said. "I can't see ten yards in this fog. Why don't we head back to the ranch, huh?"

"It'll burn off," Kurt said. Don very much disagreed. Possibly the fog would lift in a few hours, although he doubted Kurt would be patient enough to cool his heels that long. Still he kept his peace and waited to see if Argyle would weigh in to second the kid's sensible idea to trek home.

Argyle peered into the trees and rubbed his chin. "It might lift if you're willing to wait it out."

"Let's see what happens." Kurt took the pans and the tin plates to the creek and scrubbed them briefly. The other men exchanged glances.

"It won't do any harm to hold off a bit," Argyle said. "The lad's determined to track down this alleged site of his. I must admit I'm intrigued. This part of the country has had its share of unorthodox religious customs."

"Er, what kind of religious customs?" Don said.

"Oh, the usual-Wicca, the druidic orders. Satan wors.h.i.+p is another popular one."

Hank looked stricken. "No way."

"You must be kidding. I knew this was a dumb idea," Don said.

"Don't fret. Most of these people are amateurs. Kids acting out. You've seen the gothic silliness that's been the rage for years now. I credit rock bands for the whole mess. There's no real menace unless you happen to be a goat or a rabbit."

"Or a virgin."

"Haven't seen one in years."

Around noon things weren't much different except the mist was set afire and it hung in luminescent sheets. Kurt declared a brief foray into the forest. There were two compa.s.ses, thus the search would be most efficient if they split into parties. Don ended up with Hank. Thule abandoned him to trail after Kurt and Argyle. See where you're sleeping tonight, traitor!

After Argyle and Kurt and Thule disappeared into the mist, Hank said, "Y'know, we could just sneak back and call it a day..."

"Gosh, and miss all this wilderness adventuring? In for a penny, sadly enough."

"I hope you brought a flashlight. We're gonna get lost and spend the night out here. Yep, I can feel it."

Don sighed. He checked his canteen and took a compa.s.s reading. They set out toward the northwest as agreed upon earlier. The plan was to move generally north in a vee pattern for no more than three-eighths of a mile and then sweep back toward the camp. Even stubborn Kurt conceded that would be sufficient for this particular trip. Either they'd stumble across the site, or late afternoon would find them trudging home.

Hank stepped behind a tree to "get rid of some coffee" and Don ambled on another twenty or so paces to give the fellow privacy. He stood quite still, and listened to faint woodland rustles, the drip of the branches. Trees and underbrush were black silhouettes floating in the s.h.i.+ning white. The foliage blocked the sky, but for notches where sunrays slanted into the steaming earth. Birds called far off. He flicked his compa.s.s open to take a reading and found the gla.s.s was milky with internal condensation; no amount of rubbing with his sleeve helped. The silence began to creep into his ears and he abruptly called out for Hank. His cry echoed impotently, quickly snuffed by the smothering fog. He knew with the certainty of a lucid nightmare Hank wasn't going to answer.

"Over here," Hank said. A whisper that might've originated inside Don's head. Only the voice, though. Hank remained hidden by brush and mist.

My lord, I'm turned around. Hank had replied from a completely different direction than he'd expected. Thank goodness Mich.e.l.le isn't here to see this debacle. She'd fall down laughing at me...

"Hey, Mr. Miller!" This time the younger man shouted, and from a good forty or fifty feet behind Don.

Don homed in on Hank, caught sight of him stepping from the shadowy bulk of a fir. They joined forces again, Hank patting him on the shoulder in pa.s.sing, a gesture of sympathy. "Take it easy, old-timer. You look a little green around the gills. Bring your glycerin? Think I got hemorrhoids. Of all the luck."

"Don't concern yourself with me, young master Hank. I'm...fit as a fiddle." Don faked a smile. As they continued onward, he sneaked a few glances over his shoulder without the faintest notion of who or what he expected to see lurking back there. Shadows, mist, a wall of sodden shrubbery; he was a young explorer again, brush knife in one hand, map in the other, with a cave to discover, groundwater to divine, a seismic survey to initiate, and anywhere from days to weeks before he'd stumble forth from temperate rainforest or highland desert to civilized, pacified lands once more.

Sure, sure, rejuvenated, reincarnated and on the doorstep of adventure... Yet had he been so skittish in the halcyon days of yore? Was it a consequence of age-the night terrors, paranoia toward Mich.e.l.le, his fear of the dark, and now hallucinations of voices in the gloom? He had to ask himself just how much more of this getting-old stuff he could take.

A sharp slope greeted them. It was littered with rotted logs, a loose bed of slimy leaves. Underbrush thinned near the brow of the hill and the forest peeled away to reveal a clearing.

Don gasped. "What the d.i.c.kens?" He knew, though. He'd seen it in the photograph. It had awaited him since forever.

"Funky ol' rock, ain't it?" Hank said, bored and weary.

The clearing was nearly level; a semi-crescent of dark, gritty soil patched with weeds. Wisps of mist rose like smoke. At the heart of the opening lay a ma.s.sive boulder rooted deep in the black earth. The boulder rose to eight or so feet and was easily double that in circ.u.mference. Twined with creepers and evil green moss, it radiated an aura of malignance like a slumbering beast from a fairytale, one of the awful kinds in Mich.e.l.le's books. This illusion was reinforced by the joyous dirge of nearby crows. More rocks lay scattered across the field, some as small as a man's skull, others on the order of a compact car. The trees that hemmed the clearing were quite large, old-growth forest to rival the twin monsters in Don's yard.

Don wasn't much of a tracker, but he figured no one had set foot on this ground for decades. His chest pained him and sweat and rocketing blood pressure clouded his vision, and he staggered. The big central boulder was without question the same as that in the photos, yet his sudden queasiness sprang from a darker, hidden source that he couldn't name. He imagined debauched reeds and clas.h.i.+ng cymbals, demonic masks bathed in b.l.o.o.d.y firelight, an axe...

"Hang on, old-timer," Hank said and helped him kneel. "You having a heart attack? Oh, man alive-don't do that to me. Here, take a drink." He pressed his canteen to Don's lips.

Don swallowed and coughed and in a few moments the fugue lifted and he was himself again, but for trembling hands and a racing heart. "Thanks, lad. No, I'm A-okay. Getting too old for this nonsense, heh."

Hank had already turned away, rubbing the neck of the canteen on his sleeve before he screwed the cap back on. He stared at the mossy boulder, c.o.c.king his head. "Man, something odd about that d.a.m.ned rock, ain't there? Rest a minute, huh? I'm going to check it out." With that he slung his canteen and tiptoed across the clearing. His tracks, scuffing aside dead leaves and needles and indenting the soft, dark earth, were the only tracks. No animal sign. The drone of flies and mosquitoes, nothing larger.

Don stood, and quieting a chorus of ghostly misgivings that arose from the pit of his subconscious, he carefully made his way to Hank's side, snapping a few pictures to compare with the set at the house.

A portion of the boulder was concave along its vertical axis and a broad, shallow channel scored its length. s.p.a.ced at wide intervals were four brackets of tarnished and corroded bronze. He had no difficulty imagining a figure pinioned spread-eagle upon the stone, manacled hand and foot. Several feet off center, and obscured by a layer of needles and dirt, was the fire pit-one of several that lighted the scene of ritual and revelry. He said with a lightness that was superficial, "Argyle wasn't kidding. People getting up to hijinks and such." But not children, not amateurs. This was too elaborate, too serious.

"I dunno," Hank said. "Kinda weird. Yeah." He scratched his head and frowned, conveying annoyance rather than curiosity. Obviously the implications of the groove, the brackets, the fire pit, were lost on him. Likely he was too young to appreciate the mult.i.tude of Hammer films that Don and Mich.e.l.le had devoured in their prime (this despite the fact such fare always gave Don dreadful nightmares). Don knew how this went down in the creepy occult flicks of the gory-h.o.a.ry '60s and '70s.

"I'm going to ring our fellows. Kurt will be ecstatic." Don hit Kurt's number on his cell. While listening to the rings, he adjusted his gla.s.ses and scanned the surroundings, momentarily visualizing a mob of hooded figures poised to swoop from the forest, scythes waving with murderous intent. The call went to voicemail. "Well, that's odd."

"Odd, what's odd? Don't say 'odd' in the woods. You got service? I got bars on mine. Lemme try." Hank did indeed attempt to raise Argyle, with no effect. "Not answering. What the h.e.l.l are they doing that they can't answer huh?"

"Let's not fret. They'll be along soon." Don skirted the edge of the boulder, noting that its creepers and vines appeared simultaneously vibrant and voluptuously decayed; spoiled sap and pulp had burst through and made puddles in the weeds, and these reeked as befouled vegetation does. On the far side, the clearing narrowed to a saddle between the trees. On either side of the four-foot span was a sheer drop of fifty or sixty feet into a tangle of brush and more big rocks.

The narrow ridge had once served as a path; the depression made from countless tramping feet remained in evidence despite encroaching bushes and weeds. Ahead was another opening ringed by a stand of old firs, and within was what Don took as a queerly jumbled pile of huge white stone slabs. "Oh, my Jesus," he said after a moment, and stopped. The vertigo returned, as did the pain in his chest. He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing slowly, calming his thoughts. He looked again, and the pile was still there. "Oh, my Jesus."

"Hey, I've seen this before." Hank stepped past him. "On National Geographic, or on one of those history shows. It's a megalith."

"No, it's called a dolmen," Don said, professional pique overriding his anxiety for the moment. "A tomb. Maybe a tomb. n.o.body is certain."

"Cool as h.e.l.l. Indians built these?"

"Neolithic tribes constructed them. But not here. Dolmens are in Europe, some other foreign locales. There aren't any in North America."

"Huh. Well, I'm looking at one, yeah?"

"So it seems." Don wiped his gla.s.ses and then simply gaped in amazement. The dolmen was built from a horizontal slab of granite weighing at least one hundred tons, supported by several crudely shaped vertical stones of similar size; these pillars were carved with mostly obliterated symbols that might've been an alphabet. The entrance was an off-kilter rectangle, and overhung by vines and morning glory. Its lintel was fas.h.i.+oned into a visage ruined by decay and mold. The faint light coming through the canopy combined with the mist, tinting the structure an eerie blue, as if he were observing it through smoke or a distorted camera lens.

"Lover mine, this is a bad idea," Mich.e.l.le said. Don whirled, almost spraining his knee, and a few dead leaves fluttered past. His heart, his heart... He rubbed his chest and groaned.