Tom Pawlik - Beckon

Henderson nodded and his lips grew tight. “I’ve seen it before. There have been others. The day you fail him or the day he decides you’re no longer useful to him, he cuts you off.”

Jack fell silent for a moment, taking this all in. Then he snorted. “So basically your whole job here is to find new victims for the N’watu to sacrifice.”

“Because if we don’t, the flow of perilium stops. And we all die.”

Jack stared at the first terrarium. The kiracs had picked clean both the carcasses of the rat and the guinea pig. All that was left were bloodstains and bones scattered around the cage.

“What happened to you?” Jack asked. “You’re a doctor. You used to value human life, didn’t you? You should know better.”

Henderson issued a long sigh. “You need to see things with a little more objectivity.”

“Objectivity?” Jack said. “You kidnap innocent human beings and bring them here to die.”

At that point the door opened and Vale entered, shaking his head as if he’d been listening in on their conversation the whole time. “You know, Jack, I was really hoping you would work out here. That you’d be able to see the bigger picture.”

“I’ve seen enough,” Jack said, his teeth clenched. “I’d tell you how wrong all this is. How evil. But I’m guessing you’re beyond even grasping those concepts.”

Vale chuckled. “It’s funny how quick people are to judge evil, while so blind to seeing it in themselves.”

“Don’t you drag me down to your level.”

“Oh, I think you would be capable of greater things if properly motivated. We’re all willing to sacrifice others for our own purposes.”

“Not like this,” Jack said. “Not like you.”

“No? Tell me, Jack Kendrick, what moved you to come here in the first place? What drove you to search those caves? Something did. Some ambition. What was it, Jack?”

Jack’s jaw clenched. Did he dare bring up his father? Would these people know what had happened? Or had his father just been one of a multitude of victims? Despite how painful the truth might be, Jack needed to know.

“I came here to find out what happened to my father.”

Vale narrowed his eyes and the corner of his mouth curled up slightly. “Your father?”

“His name was David Kendrick, and he disappeared somewhere out here twelve years ago.” Jack found his voice quaking slightly. “He was an anthropologist doing some research. I’m guessing you probably remember him. You know what happened to him.”

Vale merely shrugged. “But unfortunately I don’t.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Vale said. “It’s sad, really. You coming all this way, looking for answers and not finding them. And it sounds to me like your friends paid the ultimate price for it.”

Jack opened his mouth but could find no answer. His anger drained away as he pictured Rudy’s terrified convulsions and death. And he could still hear Ben screaming as he was pulled back down the tunnel by the same creatures.

“So was it worth it, Jack? Was it worth their lives?”

Jack stared at the floor. “I… I didn’t kill them.”

“No? It was your obsession… your desire to find answers that killed them.”

Vale gestured to Frank Carson, who entered the room with a dark grin. Fear and anger gripped Jack as he snapped out of his guilt and looked for some way of escape. But there was only the one door, and his hands were still bound behind his back. Still, he made a dash for the doorway, trying to plow through Carson. But Carson grabbed him and wrestled him to the floor, knocking a table over in the process and scattering papers everywhere.

He yanked Jack to his feet and slapped the back of his knuckles across Jack’s face. Jack swooned momentarily and his legs buckled as he struggled to stay standing. He blinked the stars from his eyes and looked up at Vale.

“What… what are you going to do with me?”

Vale’s yellowish eyes stared at Jack, seemingly void of any emotion. “Unfortunately you pose too great a risk for us. So you might say we’re donating your body to science.”

Jack felt himself being half carried, half dragged through darkness as the world spun around him. His head and jaw throbbed from where Carson had belted him, and Jack dimly added a concussion to his mental list of injuries. Only vaguely aware of his surroundings, he could tell he was descending deeper into darkness as shadow and cold folded around him and a sickly familiar scent of damp earth and stone filled his head.

Fear swirled inside his chest, though he was too groggy and disoriented to realize just how afraid he should be. Far down in his consciousness, he knew they were taking him back into the caves. Back into the horror from which he had barely escaped.

He heard metallic sounds: the jingle of keys and some kind of latch and then the dull wooden creak of a door. And then he fell flat onto a cold, hard stone floor. Human voices wailed and moaned in the darkness.

Above them all, Carson’s harsh voice muttered something, but Jack couldn’t respond; then the sound of their footsteps quickly receded into the darkness. And as Jack lay on the floor, he felt an insurmountable sense that he was completely alone.

“Hello?”

A woman’s voice echoed somewhere nearby. Jack wondered if he was dreaming. Then a male voice—also nearby—responded. Jack thought he was speaking Spanish.

Jack opened his eyes. He lifted himself off the ground and surveyed his surroundings. He could see the vague rocky surface of walls. Along one side, a pale beam of green light streamed in through an opening. Like a small window in a door. Jack squinted. A prison door.

He rubbed his head and jaw, which still throbbed, though less intensely now. Carson’s punch had packed considerable wallop. He almost thought he had heard voices calling to him.

“Hey in there… can you hear me?” The woman’s voice came again.

Jack felt his way to the door and peered out into what looked like some kind of tunnel. Across from him, he could see another wooden door with a small window cut into it. Iron bars were embedded in the wood. A sick feeling grew in the pit of his stomach.

“I… I can hear you,” he said.

There was a pause. Jack was both relieved and disconcerted to hear others down in the darkness. Obviously this was where Vale was stockpiling new victims for his monsters. Then the voice came back.

“My name is Elina Gutierrez. I’m… I used to be a police officer from Los Angeles.”

“Los Angeles?” Jack said. “How did you get here?”

“I was looking for my cousin, Javier. He’d been kidnapped and brought here. I followed their van from California but they caught me, too.”

At that point Jack heard another male voice off in the darkness, speaking Spanish. Elina responded in Spanish as well.

“Who are they?” Jack said.

“That’s Javier. They brought a whole vanload of workers—they said they had jobs in Las Vegas but then brought them here four weeks ago and locked them in this place. I think they’ve been doing this for a while.”

Jack grunted. “Huh… I guess that makes sense.”

“Why? What are they doing to them?”

Jack leaned his forehead against the bars. “You don’t want to know.”

“They said there’s something down in the caves. Do you know what they’re talking about?”

Jack couldn’t bring himself to tell them what he knew. He could barely stand to think of it himself.

After a moment Elina’s voice came again. “What’s your name?”

“Jack.”

“Jack… how did you get here?”

Jack closed his eyes for a second. He had lost track of time. It had been only a matter of days, yet it seemed like forever. “I was in the caves, trying to find some evidence of an old Indian legend….”