David Wiltse - Into The Fire

There was a space behind it. Aural slipped behind the sheltering rock and tried to quiet her breathing. She knew she couldn't have much more time before Swann was in control of things again.

"Bitch," Swann yelled. "Cunt bitch."

He pulled the lighter from his pocket, snapped it on and held it high, the knife in front of him, half expecting the crazed woman to launch herself at him.

She was gone.

"Cunt," he raged. "Filthy cunt bitch." Then he realized his own noises had betrayed him. If he had been quiet he might have heard where she was going, but he had been too loud, groaning and cursing. He should have gotten the lighter first but he had been afraid she would get the knife and attack him in the dark.

Swann swung in a slow circle, holding the lighter in front of him as if it were a beacon, but it was a pointless exercise. There were too many shadows, too many areas where the light didn't reach. He would have to search for her foot by foot. And when he found her-when he found her.

His imagination carried him no further than that. It would depend upon her. If she resisted, he would probably need to kill her right then… but he did want to finish, oh, he longed to finish her the right way, the slow way, the only way that would satisfy his demon.

Oddly enough, his eye had stopped hurting him. Maybe she did heal him after all, he thought, no matter how deceitful her intent. He took two candles from the golf sack and lit them both, then used their flames to burn a hole in two empty cigarette packs. He inserted the base of the candles in the holes so that the wax would not drip on his hands, then began his search.

Aural could see the light flickering and jerking off the walls with his movements, but when she looked down at herself her legs and hands were still in darkness. The nook behind the stone was deep and secure from anything but direct light. He would have to be standing behind the recess himself before he could see her. And eventually he would be, she knew that, but she would hear him coming, she would see him coming by the approach of the candle, and she would be ready. She would have surprise and she would… she realized with horror that she had forgotten her own knife. It was still tucked away in the niche by her boots, useless, lost to her. A wave of despair washed over her and it was all she could do to keep from crying aloud in anguish.

Claustrophobia clamped down on Becker and shook him.

Uncontrollable tremors racked his body and he shivered as if he were freezing to death. His skin was cold and clammy but sweat sprang out all over it and grunts of panic burbled from his throat despite his efforts to remain quiet. He couldn't move, he could not force his body to take him either forward or back, and he squeezed his eyes closed, trying to escape the encompassing darkness of the tunnel for the safety of his mind. But his mind was no haven. He felt the walls of darkness close in ever more tightly around him, the stone seemed to be growing together, closing over him like a scar, encasing him forever in eternal blackness.

Entombed, buried alive, but not alone, for the blackness of his crypt was peopled by the monsters of his youth. The cavern gave way to the lightless cellar where he cowered as a boy, imprisoned for transgressions more imagined than real, awaiting with dread through the interminable night and day for- the heavy, drunken tread upon the stair that would signal the beginning of his long, long punishment that ended only with his father exhausted and unable to scourge him any longer.

Becker's ears filled with his own youthful cries and fruitless begging, his father's muttered curses and imprecations of damnation, the grunts of exertion that accompanied each swing of fist or belt or shoe; and with his mother's voice assuring him it was for his own betterment, acting as monitor to her husband's severity, never to ameliorate but only to judge and assess the limits of flesh and bone, calling all the while for Becker's repentance and self-improvement, as if a boy of five and six and seven were nothing but obstinacy and willful disobedience.

Afterwards, the sound of his own sobs making barely audible the creaking of the cellar stairs as his parents left him alone in the darkness-the better now to contemplate his behavior-his terror of being left alone in the blackness again surmounting even the pain of his tortured body.

Abandoned in the lightless hole while those he loved, those who professed to love him, moved about above him, not indifferent to his fate, worse, the agents of his fate, the architects of his misery.

Becker could hear again the sounds of their footfalls over his head, their voices in normal conversation, muted by floorboards and carpet, and occasionally laughter, the cruelest sound of all. They were happy above while he cringed in terror below, waiting intern-iinably for the shaft of light at the head of the stairs that would signal his release, the light that would seem never to come, the light that would be denied him until he screamed and screamed with the horror of his abandonment only to be chastised and punished again for such impertinence.

Eventually he learned to bear his torment in silence, listening for the weakness in others.

He heard the voice coming from the radio, filtered and distorted by distance as his mother moved about in the kitchen, turning to music to drown out the sounds of his whimpers, perhaps. Bluffed by its passage through the walls and floors, the voice was nonetheless sweet and pure, a voice filled with love and religious serenity… and Becker returned to himself and realized that he was not in the cellar of his tormented youth and the singing voice was not from a radio. Someone living, distant but alive, was voicing the old hymn, and the sound beckoned him like a siren's song.

Pegeen saw the light, at first not daring to believe her eyes. The tunnel passage had seemed so long that she had all but abandoned hope of ever getting out of it. Becker had vanished in the hole behind her. She had heard noises from him at times, muffled groans, and she had thought she should return to him, but then she knew that the real crisis lay ahead. Whatever Becker's torments, she knew they would not kill him; she had no such confidence about the woman who was somewhere in front of her. She heard the voice singing, incredibly singing in the blackness of the cave and shortly thereafter Pegeen saw the light, scarcely more than a pinprick at first, but it grew as she hurried towards it.

The singing stopped and Pegeen heard a drone of voices which also ceased abruptly and then the light vanished along with the sound. Pegeen pressed forward, hearing a man's voice calling out to someone, elevated and angry. Then light again, first the flickering light of a flame, then soon something steadier. She could see she was at the end of the tunnel, that the walls gave way and opened out and she hurried even more. Just as she reached the end of the tunnel the lights went out again and the man's voice lapsed into silence.

She paused at the end of the tunnel, not knowing what lay beyond, sensing only the hush of a crowded room that falls into quiet when a newcomer enters and all eyes shift to him.

Swann had put on his miner's hat and switched on the lamp. He left the candles several yards apart so they would illuminate as much of the cavern as possible, then began his search in the section of the cave that served as the latrine, thinking that Aural might have gone that way since it was the only place she had been before the light went out. He scoured that area, then returned to the area lighted by the candles and scanned the walls. He noticed a peculiar pattern of wave-shaped rock formations and started towards them when he heard something and froze in his tracks. There had come a noise from the tunnel and he knew immediately that it wasn't Aural. Incredibly, someone was there. Someone was coming into the cavern.