Tom Pawlik - Beckon

Jack scrambled to his feet, covered in yellow guts, and pulled himself up into the tunnel. “Go, go, go!”

Elina turned and climbed up the angled passage, scraping her hands and cracking her head against the jagged walls.

“I can’t see where I’m going!”

Jack lit a flare and handed it to her. “Last one,” he said. “Now go—hurry!”

Elina held the crackling flare in one hand and climbed as fast as she could up the tunnel. Water trickled down past her and she had to keep the flare from getting wet. At length the passage widened out and came to a dead end.

She crouched in the space and turned around. “What now?”

Jack was clawing his way up just a few yards behind her. “Up. Climb straight up.”

Elina could see a small opening above her, perhaps into another passage. Water was streaming down through it. She stood and tried to find a foothold but couldn’t reach the opening.

In moments Jack had joined her in the cramped space. He took the flare and boosted her into the opening. Elina scrambled up and found herself in a wide, low passage, worn smooth by a constant flow of water. She could feel it angling the other way, sloping down into complete darkness.

Jack struggled to climb into the passage. “Pull me up!”

Elina reached down through the opening and clutched his arm. Suddenly she saw something moving in the passage behind him. One of the spiders, a big one, was coming up fast.

“Jack!”

“I know!”

He turned, pointed the shotgun down the tunnel, and pulled the trigger.

Click.

He pumped and tried again but was clearly out of ammo. He jammed the gun diagonally into the passage, wedging it tight between the walls just as the kirac slammed into it, hissing and growling. Elina could see its fangs twitching. Its forelegs reached through and clawed at Jack’s feet, but the gun held fast.

Behind it, Elina saw movement. More were coming.

Jack turned and jumped for Elina’s hand. She caught hold and pulled while he scrambled up. “Don’t let go!”

Elina pulled his arms and shoulders into the passage.

“Pull me up!” Jack said frantically. “Pull me up!”

Elina strained, her muscles burning. She leaned back into the tunnel as Jack clawed at the rocks, trying desperately to pull himself up. She could feel her hands slipping.

Jack shook his head, his eyes wide in terror. “Don’t let go!”

Elina pulled with all her strength. But his hands slipped through her grasp and her momentum sent her sliding backward down the passage into the darkness.

“Jack!”

Elina slid through total darkness, clawing at the sides of the tunnel but unable to stop. She slid down the passage until she felt herself falling through empty space and plunging into icy waters. She surfaced, gasping for air, and felt a current pulling her along, swirling and spinning until at last she felt solid ground again under her feet.

A rush of terror swept over her. She was lost in complete darkness, and now she was utterly alone.

And Jack was probably dead as well. He had risked his life to save her, but she hadn’t been able to save him. Elina couldn’t hold back her tears.

Then, above the sound of the waterfall, she thought she heard another sound.

It was soft but grew steadily louder until she finally recognized it. It was Jack’s voice. She heard him emerge from the tunnel above her and splash down into the water.

Her hopes rose. “Jack!”

“Elina?” he called back.

She laughed as relief washed over her. They called out to each other in the pitch-blackness until at last she felt his hands. She threw her arms around him and hugged him tighter than she had ever hugged anyone in her life.

He was laughing. “I know where we are. There’s an underwater passage here that leads outside. All we have to do is wait until daylight.”

With Jack leading, they found the shoreline and collapsed on the soft, pebbled ground, flooded with relief.

Elina lay on her back, exhausted.

Jack woke up to a dim gray light filtering into the cave. His head was still buzzing from the horrors he’d seen back in the tunnels. And yet his chest ached at the thought of losing the amulet in the pit. He wondered what the artifact meant and what significance it held for the N’watu. He’d actually held it in his grasp for an instant, but now it was likely lost for good. His lips tightened. He’d come so close.

If only he’d had a few more seconds.

He touched Elina’s shoulder to wake her. “I think the sun’s up.”

He helped her up and led her along the shoreline until he could see daylight through the underwater tunnel. They plunged one last time into the water and swam through to the other side, where they emerged in the small lake under a blue sky.

They swam to the shore and lay in the dirt, soaking in the sunlight. After a minute, Elina crawled back to the edge of the water. Jack could see she was staring at her reflection. Her face was covered with black marks, obviously something the N’watu had done as part of their ritual.

Elina stood up to face him. “All I can say is this stuff better not be permanent.”

Jack looked her over now in the daylight. She had short black hair and beautiful brown eyes. But any other feminine softness her face might have held was tempered by a firm jawline and a two-inch scar that ran across her chin. She carried herself on a short athletic frame with a rugged sort of beauty. Jack could tell she had been a cop, and a tough one.

The black marks on her face had faded a bit from being in the water but were still fairly distinct. There was no telling what kind of substance the ink was made from. Jack grinned and tried to sound reassuring. “Actually, it’s kind of attractive.”

“Said the guy with no funky marks on his face.”

Jack laughed and pointed toward the trees. “C’mon. The road isn’t too far.” He led her through the woods, retracing the route he had taken only two days earlier.

“What day is it, anyway?” Elina asked.

“Uhh…” Jack rubbed his eyes, trying to calculate the number of days he’d spent in darkness and terror. “It’s Saturday. Or, no… Sunday, I think.”

At length they came to a highway. Jack explained that this was where he had first run into Malcolm Browne. He pointed up the road. “The town’s just up that way.”

Elina stopped. “We’re not really going back there, are we?”

Jack thought about that for a moment. “Well, Carson and that big guy are both dead back in the tunnel. And I think Vale was injured pretty badly too, so I’m guessing he’s either dead or will be soon.” He shrugged, recalling Dwight’s enigmatic message to him before he died. “Besides, Dwight said there was something in his office that I needed to see.”

“What is it?”

“That’s what I want to find out.”

They walked through the morning, slogging along the pavement without seeing a single vehicle. They passed the time talking, sharing their respective histories. It felt strange to Jack, but there was something about Elina that made him feel as if he’d known her for years. He told her more about his own journey and his father’s disappearance. Elina seemed fascinated by the mystery but stopped short of saying what Jack himself had been thinking all along, though his heart had not wanted to speak the words.

“I can’t bring myself to think about how he might have died,” Jack said finally. “That they would have sacrificed him to that—”

“But you don’t know that for sure,” Elina said.

Not knowing was of little comfort. Something inside Jack still yearned to find out exactly what had happened to his father. Despite how gruesome it might have been.