American Supernatural Tales Part 34

More convincing, that way. He is staying dangerous.

Good.

And Blank Frank does, in fact, feel better.

Light springs, hard reddish-white now, behind him as he makes his exit and locks the door of Un/Dead. The night is cool by contrast, near foggy. Condensation mists the plasma globe as he strolls away, pausing once beneath a streetlamp to appreciate the ring on his little finger. He doesn't need to eat, to sleep.

Uninjured by the cataclysm, the Monster stumbles, grunting, away from the village and into the forest . . .

But this time, thinks Blank Frank, the old Monster knows where he's going.

He'll miss Mich.e.l.le and the rest of the club staff. But he must move on, because he is not like them. He has all the time he'll ever need, and friends who will be around forever . . .

Un/Dead blazes. The night swallows him.

Blank Frank likes the power.

JOYCE CAROL OATES.

Joyce Carol Oates was born in Millerport, New York, in 1938. She received a B.A. in English from Syracuse University and an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin. In 1962 she married Raymond J. Smith, settling in Detroit. There she wrote the novel them them (1969), a searing study of the race riots plaguing the city. Between 1968 and 1978, Oates taught at the University of Windsor in Canada; from 1978 onward, she has taught creative writing at Princeton University, where she is now the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities. Oates, one of the most prolific of contemporary American writers, has received many awards for her work, including the National Book Award and the Commonwealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature. (1969), a searing study of the race riots plaguing the city. Between 1968 and 1978, Oates taught at the University of Windsor in Canada; from 1978 onward, she has taught creative writing at Princeton University, where she is now the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities. Oates, one of the most prolific of contemporary American writers, has received many awards for her work, including the National Book Award and the Commonwealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature.

The supernatural has been a pervasive theme in much of Oates's work as novelist and short story writer. A series of four novels, Bellefleur Bellefleur (1980), (1980), A Bloodsmoor Romance A Bloodsmoor Romance (1982), (1982), Mysteries of Winterthurn Mysteries of Winterthurn (1984), and (1984), and My Heart Laid Bare My Heart Laid Bare (1998), applies the Gothic mode to American history and culture. (1998), applies the Gothic mode to American history and culture. Bellefleur Bellefleur features seven generations of grotesque characters, including a vampire, a mad scientist, and a ma.s.s murderer, dwelling in a haunted mansion. Much of Oates's horror work is nonsupernatural, as in the novel features seven generations of grotesque characters, including a vampire, a mad scientist, and a ma.s.s murderer, dwelling in a haunted mansion. Much of Oates's horror work is nonsupernatural, as in the novel Black Water Black Water (1992), the short novel (1992), the short novel Beasts Beasts (2001), and the novel (2001), and the novel The Tattooed Girl The Tattooed Girl (2003). (2003).

Oates has also utilized supernatural horror in many of her short stories. Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque (1994) contains the highest proportion of horror tales, but several of her other collections include one or more specimens. Oates has compiled the anthology (1994) contains the highest proportion of horror tales, but several of her other collections include one or more specimens. Oates has compiled the anthology American Gothic Tales American Gothic Tales (1996), the introduction to which elucidates her theory of supernatural writing. She has also edited (1996), the introduction to which elucidates her theory of supernatural writing. She has also edited Tales of H. P. Lovecraft Tales of H. P. Lovecraft (1997). (1997).

"Demon," a short story first published in the small-press chap-book Demon and Other Tales Demon and Other Tales (1996), is a gripping and ambiguous horror tale in which the supernatural may or may not come into play. (1996), is a gripping and ambiguous horror tale in which the supernatural may or may not come into play.

DEMON.

Demon-child. Kicked in the womb so his mother doubled over in pain. Nursing tugged and tore at her young b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Wailed through the night. Puked, shat. Refused to eat. No he was loving, mad with love. No he was loving, mad with love. Of Mama. (Though fearful of Da.) Curling burrowing pus.h.i.+ng his head into Mama's arms, against Mama's warm fleshy body. Starving for love, food. Starving for what he could not know yet to name: Of Mama. (Though fearful of Da.) Curling burrowing pus.h.i.+ng his head into Mama's arms, against Mama's warm fleshy body. Starving for love, food. Starving for what he could not know yet to name: G.o.d's grace, salvation. G.o.d's grace, salvation.

Sign of Satan: flamey-red ugly-pimply birthmark snake-shaped. On his underjaw, coiled below his ear. Almost you can't see it. A little boy he's teased by neighbor girls, hulking, big girls with t.i.tties and laughing-wet eyes. Demon! demon! Lookit, sign of the demon! Demon! demon! Lookit, sign of the demon!

Those years pa.s.sing in a fever-dream. Or maybe never pa.s.sed. Mama prayed over him, hugged and slapped. Shook his skinny shoulders so his head flew. The minister prayed over him Deliver us from evil Deliver us from evil and he was good, he and he was good, he was was delivered from evil. Except at school his eyes misting over, couldn't see the blackboard. Sullen and nasty-mouthed the teacher called him. Not like the other children. delivered from evil. Except at school his eyes misting over, couldn't see the blackboard. Sullen and nasty-mouthed the teacher called him. Not like the other children.

If not like the other children, the other children, then like then like who? what? who? what?

Those years. As in a stalled city bus, exhaust pouring out the rear. The stink of it everywhere. Your hair, eyes. Clothes. Same view through the same fly-specked windows. Year after year the battered-tin diner, the vacant lot high with weeds and rubble and the path worn through it slantwise where children ran shouting above the river. Broken pavement littered like confetti from a parade long past.

Or maybe it was the edge of something vast, infinite. You could never come to the end of. Wavering and blinding in blasts of light. Desert, Desert, maybe. maybe. Red Desert Red Desert where demons dance, swirl in the hot winds. Never seen a where demons dance, swirl in the hot winds. Never seen a desert desert except pictures, a name on a map. And in his head. except pictures, a name on a map. And in his head.

Demon-child they whispered of him. But no, he was loving, mad with love. Too small, too short. Stunted legs. His head too big for his spindly shoulders. His strange waxy-pale moon-shaped face, almond eyes beautiful in shadowed sockets, small wet mouth perpetually sucking inward. As if to keep the bad words, words of filth and d.a.m.nation, safely inside.

The sign of Satan coiled on his underjaw began to fade. Like his adolescent skin eruptions. Blood drawn gradually back into tissue, capillaries.

Not a demon-child but a pure good anxious loving child someone betrayed by squeezing him from her womb before he was ready.

Not a demon-child but for years he rode wild thunderous razor-hooved black stallions by night and by day. Furious galloping on sidewalks, in asphalt playgrounds. Through the school corridors trampling all in his way. Furious tearing hooves, froth-flecked nostrils, bared teeth. G.o.d's wrath, the black stallion rearing, whinnying. I destroy all in my path. Beware! I destroy all in my path. Beware!

Not a demon-child but he'd torched the school, rows of stores, woodframe houses in the neighborhood. How many times the smelly bed where Mama and Da hid from him. And no one knew.

This January morning bright and windy and he's staring at the face floating in a mirror. Dirty mirror in a public lavatory, Trailways Bus Station. Where at last the demon has been released. For it is the New Year. The s.h.i.+fting of the earth's axis. For to be away from what is familiar, like walking on a sharp-slanted floor, allows something other something other in. Or the in. Or the something other something other has been inside you all along and until now you do not know. has been inside you all along and until now you do not know.

In his right eyeball a speck of dirt? dust? blood?

Scared, he knows right away. Knows even before he sees: sign of Satan. In the yellowish-white of his eyeball. Not the coiled little snake but the five-sided star: pentagram. pentagram.

He knows, he's been warned. Five-sided star: pentagram. pentagram.

It's there, in his eye. Tries to rub it out with his fist.

Backs away terrified and gagging and he's running out of the fluorescent-bright lavatory and through the bus station where eyes trail after him curious, bemused, pitying, annoyed. He's a familiar sight here though no one knows his name. Runs home, about three miles. His mother knows there's trouble, has he lied about taking his medicine? hiding the pill under his tongue? Yes but G.o.d knows you can't oversee every minute with one like him. Yes but your love wears thin like the lead backing of a cheap mirror corroding the gla.s.s. Yes but you have prayed, you have prayed and prayed and cursed the words echoing not upward to G.o.d but downward as in an empty well.

Twenty-six years old, shaved head glinting blue. Luminous s.h.i.+ning eyes women in the street call beautiful. In the neighborhood he's known by his first name. Sweet guy but strange, excitable. A habit of twitching his shoulders like he's shrugging free of somebody's grip.

Fast as you run somebody runs faster!

In the house that's a semi-detached rowhouse on Mill Street he's not listening to his angry mother asking why is he home so early, has a job in a building supply yard so why isn't he there? Pushes past the old woman and into the bathroom, shuts the door and there in the mirror oh G.o.d it's there: the five-sided star, pentagram. pentagram. Sign of Satan. Embedded deep in his right eyeball, just below the dilated iris. Sign of Satan. Embedded deep in his right eyeball, just below the dilated iris.

No! no! G.o.d help!

Goes wild rubs with both fists, pokes with fingers. He's weeping, shouting. Beats at himself, fists and nails. His sister now pounding on the door what is it? what's wrong? and Mama's voice loud and frightened. It's happened, It's happened, he thinks. His first clear thought. he thinks. His first clear thought. Happened. Happened. Like a stone sinking so calm. Because hasn't he always known the prayers did no good, on your knees bowing your head inviting Jesus into your heart does no good. The sign of the demon would return, absorbed into his blood but must one day re-emerge. Like a stone sinking so calm. Because hasn't he always known the prayers did no good, on your knees bowing your head inviting Jesus into your heart does no good. The sign of the demon would return, absorbed into his blood but must one day re-emerge.

Pushes past the women and in the kitchen paws through the drawer scattering cutlery that falls to the floor, bounces and clatters and there's the big carving knife in his hand, his hand shuts about it like fate. Pushes past the women now in reverse where they've followed him into the kitchen knocks his one-hundred-eighty-pound older sister aside with his elbow as lightly as he lifts bags of gravel, armloads of bricks. Hasn't he prayed Our Father to be a machine many times. A machine does not feel, a machine does not think. A machine does not hurt. A machine does not starve for love. A machine does not starve for what it does not know to name: salvation. salvation.

Back then inside the bathroom, slamming the door against the screaming women, and locking it. Gibbering to himself, Away Satan! Away Satan! G.o.d help! Away Satan! Away Satan! G.o.d help! With a hand strangely steely as if practiced wielding the point of the knife, boldly inserting and twisting into the accursed eyeball. And no pain-only a burning cleansing roaring sensation as of a blast of fire. Out pops the eyeball, and out the sign of Satan. But connected by tissue, nerves. It's elastic so he's pulling, fingers now slippery-excited with blood. He's sawing with the sharp blade of the steak knife. Cuts the eyeball free, like Mama squeezing baby out of her belly into this pig trough of sin and filth, and no turning back till Jesus calls you home. With a hand strangely steely as if practiced wielding the point of the knife, boldly inserting and twisting into the accursed eyeball. And no pain-only a burning cleansing roaring sensation as of a blast of fire. Out pops the eyeball, and out the sign of Satan. But connected by tissue, nerves. It's elastic so he's pulling, fingers now slippery-excited with blood. He's sawing with the sharp blade of the steak knife. Cuts the eyeball free, like Mama squeezing baby out of her belly into this pig trough of sin and filth, and no turning back till Jesus calls you home.

He drops the eyeball into the toilet, flushes the toilet fast.

Before Satan can intervene.

One of those antiquated toilets where water swirls about the stained bowl, wheezes and yammers to itself, sighs, grumbles, finally swallows like it's doing you a favor. And the sign of the demon is gone.

One eyesocket empty and fresh-bleeding he's on his knees praying Thank you G.o.d! thank you G.o.d! Thank you G.o.d! thank you G.o.d! weeping as angels in radiant garments with faces of blinding brightness reach down to embrace him not minding his red-slippery mask of a face. Now he's one of them himself, now he will float into the sky where, some wind-bl.u.s.tery January morning, you'll see him, or a face like his, in a furious cloud. weeping as angels in radiant garments with faces of blinding brightness reach down to embrace him not minding his red-slippery mask of a face. Now he's one of them himself, now he will float into the sky where, some wind-bl.u.s.tery January morning, you'll see him, or a face like his, in a furious cloud.

CAITLIN R. KIERNAN.

Caitlin Rebekah Kiernan was born in 1964 in Skerries, Ireland, but came to the United States as a child, shortly after the death of her father. Her family lived in several locales in the South before settling in Birmingham, Alabama; in spite of her birth in Ireland, Kiernan now identifies herself as a Southern author and draws upon the heritage of Southern culture in much of her work. After receiving a degree in vertebrate paleontology from the University of Colorado, Kiernan returned to Birmingham to work at the Red Mountain Museum. She has published several scientific papers in such journals as the Journal of Paleontology Journal of Paleontology and the and the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, and her scientific background is an essential component in several of her novels and tales. and her scientific background is an essential component in several of her novels and tales.

Kiernan began publis.h.i.+ng short stories in the 1990s, and they have now been gathered into five volumes: Candles for Elizabeth Candles for Elizabeth (1998), (1998), Tales of Pain and Wonder Tales of Pain and Wonder (2000), (2000), Wrong Things Wrong Things (2001; with Poppy Z. Brite), (2001; with Poppy Z. Brite), From Weird and Distant Sh.o.r.es From Weird and Distant Sh.o.r.es (2002), and (2002), and To Charles Fort, with Love To Charles Fort, with Love (2005). Her work came to the attention of Neil Gaiman, who commissioned her to do much of the writing for (2005). Her work came to the attention of Neil Gaiman, who commissioned her to do much of the writing for The Dreaming, The Dreaming, a successor to Gaiman's successful graphic novel a successor to Gaiman's successful graphic novel The Sandman; The Sandman; Kiernan scripted Kiernan scripted The Dreaming The Dreaming from 1997 to 2001. Her first novel, from 1997 to 2001. Her first novel, Silk Silk (1998), fuses supernatural and psychological horror in its account of the demons that emerge from a young woman's memories of her father's abusive treatment of her; it won the International Horror Guild award for best first novel. (1998), fuses supernatural and psychological horror in its account of the demons that emerge from a young woman's memories of her father's abusive treatment of her; it won the International Horror Guild award for best first novel. Threshold Threshold (2001), a cosmic novel that draws upon (2001), a cosmic novel that draws upon Beowulf, Beowulf, Algernon Blackwood, and others, won the IHG award for best novel. Algernon Blackwood, and others, won the IHG award for best novel. Low Red Moon Low Red Moon (2003) is another cosmic novel; (2003) is another cosmic novel; The Five of Cups The Five of Cups (2003) is a vampire novel; (2003) is a vampire novel; Murder of Angels Murder of Angels (2004) is a sequel to (2004) is a sequel to Silk, Silk, while while The Dry Salvages The Dry Salvages (2004) is a dark science fiction novel. (2004) is a dark science fiction novel. Alabaster Alabaster (2006) is her latest story collection. (2006) is her latest story collection.

"In the Water Works (Birmingham, Alabama 1888)," first published in Tales of Pain and Wonder, Tales of Pain and Wonder, effectively utilizes both Kiernan's knowledge of science and her sense of place in its evocative account of an ambiguous monster lurking in a tunnel in Birmingham. effectively utilizes both Kiernan's knowledge of science and her sense of place in its evocative account of an ambiguous monster lurking in a tunnel in Birmingham.

IN THE WATER WORKS (BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA 1888).

Red Mountain, weathered tip end of Appalachia's long and scabby spine, this last ambitious foothill before the land slumps finally down to black-belt prairies so flat they've never imagined even these humble alt.i.tudes. And as if Nature hasn't done her best already, as if wind and rain and frost haven't whittled aeons away to expose the limestone and iron-ore bones, Modern Industry has joined in the effort, sc.r.a.ping away the stingy soil and so whenever it rains, the falling sky turns the ground to sea slime again, primordial mire the color of a butchery to give this place its name, rustdark mud that sticks stubborn to Henry Matthews' hobnailed boots as he wanders over and between the spoil piles heaped outside the opening to the Water Works tunnel.

Scarecrow tall and thin, young Mr. Henry S. Matthews, lately of some place far enough north to do nothing to better the reputation of a man who is neither married nor church-going, who teaches geography and math at the new Powell School on Sixth Avenue North and spends the remainder of his time with an a.s.sortment of books and rocks and pickled bugs. The sudden rumble of thunder somewhere down in the valley, then, and he moves too fast, careless as he turns to see, almost losing his footing as the wet stones slip and tilt beneath his feet.

"You best watch yourself up there, Professor," one of the workmen shouts, and there's laughter from the black hole in the mountain's side. Henry offers a perfunctory nod in the general direction of the tunnel, squints through the haze of light October rain and dust and coal smoke at the rough grid of the little city laid out north of the mountain; barely seventeen years since John Morris and the Elyton Land Company put pen to ink, ink to paper, and incorporated Birmingham, drawing a city from a hasty scatter of ironworks and mining camps. Seventeen years, and he wonders for a moment what this place was like before white men and their machines, before axes and the dividing paths of railroad tracks.

The thunder rolls and echoes no answer he can understand, and Henry looks back to the jumbled ground, the split and broken slabs of shale at his feet. The rain has washed away the thick dust of the excavations, making it easier for him to spot the sh.e.l.ls and tracks of sea creatures preserved in the stone. Only a few weeks since he sent a large crate of fossils south to the State Geological Survey in Tuscaloosa, and already a small museum's worth of new specimens line the walls of his cramped room, sit beneath his bed and compete with his clothing for closet s.p.a.ce, with his books for the shelves. An antediluvian seash.o.r.e in hardened bits and pieces, and just last week he found the perfectly preserved carapace of a trilobite almost the length of his hand.

A whistle blows, shrill steam blat, and a few more men file out of the tunnel to eat their lunches in the listless rain. Henry reaches into a pocket of his waistcoat for the silver watch his mother gave him the year he left for college, wondering how a Sat.u.r.day morning could slip by so fast; the clockblack hands at one and twelve, and he's suddenly aware of the tugging weight of his knapsack, the emptiness in his belly, hours now since breakfast but there's a boiled egg wrapped in waxed paper and a tin of sardines in his overcoat. The autumn sky growls again, and he snaps his watch closed and begins to pick his way cautiously down the spoil towards the other men.

Henry Matthews taps the brown sh.e.l.l of his hard-boiled egg against a piece of limestone, crack, crack, crack, soft white insides exposed, and he glances up at the steelgray sky overhead; the rain has stopped, stopped again, stopped for now, and crystalwet drops cling to the browngoldred leaves of the few hickory and hackberry trees still standing near the entrance of the tunnel. He sits with the miners, the foreman, the hard men who spend dawn to dusk in the shaft, shadowy days breaking stone and hauling it back into the sunlight. Henry suspects that the men tolerate his presence as a sort of diversion, a curiosity to interrupt the monotony of their days. This thin Yankee dude, this odd bird who picks about the spoil like there might be gold or silver when everyone knows there isn't anything worth beans going to come out of the mountain except the purplered ore, and that's more like something you have to be careful not to trip over than try to find.

Sometimes they joke, and sometimes they ask questions, their interest or suspicion piqued by his diligence, perhaps. "What you lookin' for anyways, Mister?" and he'll open his knapsack and show them a particularly clear imprint of a snail's whorled sh.e.l.l or the mineralized honeycomb of a coral head. Raised eyebrows and heads nodding, and maybe then someone will ask, "So, them's things what got buried in Noah's flood?" and Henry doubts any of these men have even heard of Lyell or Darwin or Cuvier, have any grasp of the marvelous advancement that science has made the last hundred years concerning the meaning of fossils and the progression of geological epochs. So he's always politic, aware that the wrong answer might get him exiled from the diggings. And, genuinely wis.h.i.+ng that he had time to explain the wonders of his artefacts to these men, Henry only shrugs and smiles for them. "Well, actually, some of them are even a bit older than that," or a simple and noncommittal "Mmmmm," and usually that's enough to satisfy.

But today is different and the men are quiet, each one eating his cold potatoes or dried meat, staring silent at muddy boots and lunch pails, the mining-car track leading back inside the tunnel, and no one asks him anything. Henry looks up once from his sardines and catches one of the men watching him. He smiles, and the man frowns and looks quickly away. When the whistle blows again, the men rise slowly, moving with a reluctance that's plain enough to see, back towards the waiting tunnel. Henry wipes his fingers on his handkerchief, fish oil stains on white linen, is shouldering his knapsack, retrieving his geologist's hammer, when someone says his name, "Mr. Matthews?" voice low, almost whispered, and he looks up into the foreman's hazelbrown eyes.

"Yes, Mr. Wallace? Is there something I can do for you today?" and Warren Wallace looks away, nervous glance to his men for a moment that seems a lot longer to Henry who's anxious to get back to his collecting.

"You know all this geology business pretty good, don't you, Mr. Matthews? All about these rocks and such?" and Henry shrugs, nods his head, "Yes sir, I suppose that I do. I had a course or two-"

"Then maybe you could take a look at somethin' for me sometime," the foreman says, interrupting, looking back at Henry, and there are deep lines around his eyes, worry or lack of sleep, both maybe. The foreman spits a s.h.i.+tbrown streak of tobacco at the ground and shakes his head. "It probably ain't nothing, but I might want you to take a look at it sometime."

"Yes. Certainly," Henry says, "Anytime you'd like," but Warren Wallace is already walking away from him, following his men towards the entrance of the tunnel, shouting orders, and "Be careful up there, Mr. Matthews," he says, spoken without turning around, and Henry replies that he always is, but thanks for the concern anyway, and he goes back to the spoil piles.

Fifteen minutes later it's raining again, harder now, a cold and stinging rain from the north and wind that gusts and swirls dead leaves like drifting ash.

May 1887 when the Birmingham Water Works Company entered into a contract with Judge A. O. Lane, Mayor and Alderman, and plans were drawn to bring water from the distant Cahaba River north across Shades Valley to the thirsty citizens of the city. But Red Mountain standing there in the way, standing guard or simply unable to move, and its slopes too steep for gravity to carry the water over the top, so the long tunnel dreamed up by engineers, the particular brainchild of one Mr. W. A. Merkel, first chief engineer of the Cahaba Station. A two thousand, two hundred foot bore straight through the sedimentary heart of the obstacle, tons of stone blasted free with gelignite and nitro, pickaxes and sledge hammers and the sweat of men and mules. The promise of not less than five million gallons of fresh water a day, and in this bright age of invention and innovation it's a small job for determined men, moving mountains, coring them like ripe and crimson apples.

A week later, and Henry Matthews is again picking over the spoil heaps, a cool and sunny October day crisp as cider, an autumnsoft breeze that smells of dry and burning leaves, and his spirits are high, three or four exceptional trilobites from the hard limestone already and a single, disc-shaped test of some specie of echinodermia he's never encountered before, almost as big as a silver dollar. He stoops to get a better look at a promising slab when someone calls his name, and he looks up, mildly annoyed at the intrusion. Foreman Wallace is standing nearby, scratching at his thick black beard, and he points at Henry with one finger.

"How's the fis.h.i.+n', Professor?" he asks, and it takes Henry a moment to get the joke; he doesn't laugh, but a belated smile, finally, and then the foreman is crossing the uneven stones towards him.

"No complaints," Henry says and produces the largest of the trilobites for the foreman's inspection. Warren Wallace holds the oystergray chunk of limestone close and squints at the small dark Cryptolithus Cryptolithus outstretched on the rock. outstretched on the rock.

"Well," the foreman says and rubs at his beard again, wrinkles his thick eyebrows and stares back at Henry Matthews. "Ain't that some pumpkins. And this little bug used to be alive? Crawlin' around in the ocean?"

"Yes," Henry replies, and he points to the trilobite's bulbous glabellum and the pair of large compound eyes to either side. "This end was its head," he says. "And this was the tail," as his fingertip moves to the fan-shaped lobe at the other end of the creature. Warren Wallace glances back at the fossil once more before he returns it to Henry.

"Now, Professor, you tell me if you ever seen anything like this here," and the foreman produces a small bottle from his s.h.i.+rt pocket, apothecary bottle Henry thinks at first, and then no, not medicine, nitroglycerine. Warren Wallace pa.s.ses the stoppered bottle to the schoolteacher, and, for a moment, Henry Matthews stares silently at the black thing trapped inside.

"Where did this come from?" he asks, trying not to show his surprise but wide eyes still on the bottle, unable to look away from the thing coiling and uncoiling in its eight-ounce gla.s.s prison.

"From the tunnel," the foreman replies, spits tobacco juice and glances over his shoulder at the gaping hole in the mountain. "About five hundred feet in, just a little ways past where the limerock goes to sandstone. That's where we hit the fissure."

Henry Matthews turns the bottle in his hand, and the thing inside uncoils, stretches chitinous segments, an inch, two inches, almost three, before it snaps back into a legless ball that glimmers iridescent in the afternoon sun.

"Ugly little b.a.s.t.a.r.d, ain't it?" the foreman says and spits again. "But you ain't ain't never seen nothin' like it before, have you?" And Henry shakes his head, no, never, and now he wants to look away, doesn't like the way the thing in the bottle is making him feel. But it's stretched itself out again, and he can see tiny fibers like hairs or minute spines protruding between the segments. never seen nothin' like it before, have you?" And Henry shakes his head, no, never, and now he wants to look away, doesn't like the way the thing in the bottle is making him feel. But it's stretched itself out again, and he can see tiny fibers like hairs or minute spines protruding between the segments.

"Can you show me?" he asks, realizes that he's almost whispering now, library or cla.s.sroom whisper like maybe he's afraid someone will overhear, like this should be secret.

"Where it came from, will you take me there?"

"Yeah. I was hopin' you'd ask," the foreman says and rubs his beard. "But let me tell you, Professor, you ain't seen nothin' yet." And after Warren Wallace has taken the bottle back, returned it to his s.h.i.+rt pocket so that Henry doesn't have to look at the black thing anymore, the two men begin the climb down the spoil piles to the entrance of the tunnel.

A few feet past the entrance, fifteen, twenty, and the foreman stops, stands talking to a fat man with a pry bar while Henry looks back at the bright day framed in raw limestone and bracing timbers, blinking as his eyes slowly adjust to the gloom. "Yeah," the fat man says, "Yeah," and Warren Wallace asks him another question. It's cooler in the tunnel, in the dark, and the air smells like rock dust and burning carbide and another smell tucked somewhere underneath, unhealthy smell like a wet cellar or rotting vegetables that makes Henry wrinkle his nose. "Yeah, I seen him before," the fat man with the pry bar says, wary reply to the foreman's question and a distrustful glance towards Henry Matthews.

"I want him to have a look at your arm, Jake, that's all," and Henry turns his back on the light, turns to face the foreman and the fat man. "He ain't no doctor," the fat man says. "And I already seen Doc Joe, anyways." ain't no doctor," the fat man says. "And I already seen Doc Joe, anyways."

"He's right," Henry says, confused now, no idea what this man's arm and the thing in the jar might have to do with one another, blinking at Wallace through the dancing whiteyellow afterimages of the sunlight outside. "I haven't had any medical training to speak of, certainly nothing formal."

"Yeah?" the foreman says, and he sighs loudly, exasperation or disappointment, spits on the tunnel floor, tobacco juice on rusted steel rails. "C'mon then, Professor," and he hands a miner's helmet to Henry, lifts a lantern off an iron hook set into the rock wall. "Follow me, and don't touch anything. Some of these beams ain't as st.u.r.dy as they look."

The fat man watches them, ma.s.sages his left forearm protectively when the schoolteacher steps past him, and now Henry can hear the sounds of digging somewhere in the darkness far ahead of them. Relentless clank and clatter of steel against stone, and the lantern throws long shadows across the rough limestone walls; fresh wound, these walls, this abscess hollowed into the world's thin skin. And such morbid thoughts as alien to Henry Matthews as the perpetual night of this place, and so he tells himself it's just the sight of the odd and squirming thing in the bottle, that and the natural uneasiness of someone who's never been underground before.

"You're wonderin' what Jake Isabell's arm has to do with that d.a.m.ned worm, ain't you?" the foreman asks, his voice too loud in the narrow tunnel even though he's almost whispering. And "Yes," Henry replies, "Yes, I was, as a matter of fact."

"It bit him a couple of days ago. Jesus, make him sick as a dyin' dog, too. But that's all. It bit him."

And "Oh," Henry says, unsure what else he should say and beginning to wish he was back out in the sun looking for his trilobites and mollusks with the high Octoberblue sky hung far, far overhead. "How deep are we now?" he asks, and the foreman stops and looks up at the low ceiling of the tunnel, rubs his beard. "Not very, not yet . . . hundred and twenty, maybe hundred and thirty feet." And then he reaches up and touches the ceiling a couple of inches above his head.

"You know how old these rocks are, Professor?" and Henry nods, tries too hard to sound calm when he answers the foreman.

"These layers of limestone here . . . well, they're probably part of the Lower Silurian system, some of the oldest with traces of living creatures found in them," and he pauses, realizes that he's sweating despite the cool and damp of the tunnel, wishes again he'd declined the foreman's invitation into the mountain. "But surely hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions millions of years old," he says. of years old," he says.

"d.a.m.n," the foreman says and spits again. "Now that's somethin' to think about, ain't it, Professor? I mean, these rocks sittin' here all that time, not seein' the light of day all that time, and then we we come along with our picks and dynamite-" come along with our picks and dynamite-"

"Yes sir," Henry Matthews says and wipes the sweat from his face with his handkerchief. "It is, indeed," but Warren Wallace is moving again, dragging the little pool of lantern light along with him, and Henry has to hurry to catch up, almost smacks his forehead on the low, uneven ceiling. Another three hundred feet or so and they've reached the point where the gray limestone is overlain by beds of punky reddish sandstone, the bottom of the Red Mountain formation; lifeblood of the city locked away in these strata, clotthick veins of hemat.i.te for the c.o.ke ovens and blast furnaces dotting the valley below. "Not much farther," the foreman says. "We're almost there."

The wet, rotten smell stronger now, and glistening rivulets meander down the walls, runoff seeping down through the rocks above them, rain filtered through dead leaves and soil, through a hundred or a thousand cracks in the stone. Henry imagines patches of pale and rubbery mushrooms, perhaps more exotic fungi, growing in the dark. He wipes his face again and this time keeps the handkerchief to his nose, but the thick and rotten smell seeps up his nostrils, anyway. If an odor alone could drown a man, If an odor alone could drown a man, he thinks, is about to say something about the stench to Warren Wallace when the foreman stops, holds his lantern close to the wall, and Henry can see the big sheets of corrugated tin propped against the west side of the tunnel. he thinks, is about to say something about the stench to Warren Wallace when the foreman stops, holds his lantern close to the wall, and Henry can see the big sheets of corrugated tin propped against the west side of the tunnel.

"At first I thought we'd hit an old mine shaft," he says, motions towards the tin with the lantern, causing their shadows to sway and contort along the damp tunnel. "Folks been diggin' holes in this mountain since the forties to get at the ore. So that's what I thought, at first."

"But you've changed your mind?" Henry asks, words m.u.f.fled by the useless handkerchief pressed to his face.

"Right now, Professor, I'm a whole lot more interested in what you you think," and then Wallace pulls back a big section of the tin, lets it fall loud to the floor, tin clamor against the steel rails at his feet. Henry gags, bilehot rush from his gut and the distant taste of breakfast in the back of his mouth. "Jesus," he hisses, not wanting to be sick in front of the foreman, and the schoolteacher leans against the tunnel wall for support, presses his left palm against moss-slick stone, stone gone soft as the damprough hide of some vast amphibian. think," and then Wallace pulls back a big section of the tin, lets it fall loud to the floor, tin clamor against the steel rails at his feet. Henry gags, bilehot rush from his gut and the distant taste of breakfast in the back of his mouth. "Jesus," he hisses, not wanting to be sick in front of the foreman, and the schoolteacher leans against the tunnel wall for support, presses his left palm against moss-slick stone, stone gone soft as the damprough hide of some vast amphibian.

"Sorry. Guess I should'a warned you about the stink," and Warren Wallace frowns, grim face like Greek tragedy, and takes a step back from the hole in the wall of the tunnel, hole within a hole, and now Henry's eyes are watering so badly he can hardly see. "Merkel had us plowin' through here full chisel until we hit that thing. Now it's all I can do to keep my men workin'."