David Morrell - The Totem

They started through the new growth toward the compound. Dunlap took a photograph. "Hope the camera works." They continued walking.

"Sure," Dunlap said. "They used the timber here to build the barracks." He thought that Rettig had been accurate. With the difference that the walls were like log cabins, Dunlap was reminded of a deserted Army camp. Lanes and squares, a parade ground, everything was here. No, not exactly everything. He didn't see a flagpole. Hell, this kind of culture, they'd have called it a Maypole.

The compound loomed as they approached it, wide, the buildings all one story and with slanted roofs. At least the hippies knew enough to compensate for deep snow on the roofs in winter, Slaughter thought. And then he paused as Dunlap took another picture.

"Watch these branches on the ground here," Slaughter told him. "We don't want another accident."

Dunlap nodded, staring toward the compound as they walked around the branches, coming toward the nearest buildings. There were weeds and bushes, young trees growing in the lanes, and vines enmeshed around the shutters. There were broken windows, doors half off their hinges. And the slogans on the walls, the symbols, Day-Gloed green and red and blue, now faded, flowers, flags with rifles for the stripes and bullets for the stars, a skull and crossbones and a down with nixon, the down with slashed out, then to hell with scrawled above it, that too slashed, a simple fuck above it. vietnam will claim our children. Skeletons across a pentagon.

"Sure. They took the time to do all that, but they didn't even think to treat the logs for insects," Slaughter said and pointed. There were tiny holes in all the logs, and down below the holes, thick piles of what seemed sawdust, dirty, flecked with dead leaves from the vines.

Dunlap took more photographs. As they reached the buildings, Slaughter had the odd sensation that he'd been here before. "Is anybody around?" And then he knew what he was thinking of. Sure. Bodine's ranch when yesterday he'd gone there and he'd heard the kettle.

"You look in this building. I'll check the others," Dunlap said, and Slaughter stopped him.

"No, we'd better stay together."

"What's the matter?" Dunlap asked.

"Let's just say I've got a bad feeling. Anybody here?" he called again.

He waited, but no answer.

"No one's been here for quite a while," Dunlap said.

They stepped inside one building. There were bunk beds, wooden slats instead of springs, no mattresses, but many spiders, cobwebs, leaves piled in one corner as a nest for something. The floor-decaying planks-looked unsafe.

"Let's try a little farther on," Slaughter said.

But almost every building was the same. Slaughter glanced around to notice how the compound had been situated in a canyon, cliffs beyond the trees on three sides, and the slope behind them descending toward the loggers' road. A wind came from below there, rustling trees and cooling him. He took his hat off. Then his back felt unprotected, and he looked behind him. "Well, they picked a good spot anyhow. Except they would have needed water, and I don't know where they got it."

"Higher up. Those cliffs might have some streams."

"Could be. But I don't have time to look."

That made his point, Slaughter hoped. He didn't have time. He hadn't thought it would take this long getting up here. While he felt more sympathetic toward Dunlap, all the same he had his job to do, and he was anxious to get out of here.

Because you're thinking of Bodine? he asked himself. That feeling you had yesterday? You're scared. You might as well admit it.

No. Because I have to get back if there's trouble. Sure. And now he followed Dunlap past some bushes toward a larger building. Its door had toppled. The steps were rotted. They looked past the spider webs at what must once have been the dining room. Rettig had been accurate again. Logs made into trestles, tables that went down the whole length of the room. A bird sat in a glassless window, staring at them. Slaughter blinked, the bird flew away, and Slaughter felt that spot between his shoulder blades again. He turned, but there was no one out there.

"Are they hiding?"

"Little children laughing?" Dunlap asked. "What the hell is that?" "It's from a poem. T.S. Eliot."

"I know who he is. That's not what I meant." And Slaughter started running toward the small low building in front of the parade ground. "I saw something moving."

He ran harder, glancing at the buildings on each side, staring toward the trees beyond them, and he had his gun out, lunging past the listing door, finding just a table, spider webs and dirt, more pine needles.

But there wasn't any back door, and he didn't understand what he'd seen moving. Then he did. The wind blew toward him, and he saw the thick, rotted curtain moving. A blanket really. Torn in half and hung up on a branch before a broken window. He was nauseated by the smell that he'd been registering all along: must and crumbling wood, the fetid, sick-sweet smell of buildings left to ruin. Then he saw the hornet's nest in the far right corner. Something moved inside its portal, and he stepped out into the open.

Dunlap . Where was Dunlap? "Over here!"

Now he reads my mind, Slaughter thought as he ran toward the muffled voice inside another building. The emotion in Dunlap's voice worried him.

This building didn't have planks for a floor. Only dirt. There weren't any windows. Two big doors hung open. Dunlap stood in a shadowy corner, staring at dark stains on the ground.

"That's blood?" Slaughter asked.

Dunlap only shook his head.

"Well, what then? Christ, you scared me."

"Did I? Well, I didn't mean to. No." Dunlap picked up the dirt and sniffed it.

Slaughter suddenly was angry. "Tell me what that stuff is."

"Even after all these years, you can still smell the oil. This is where the Corvette would have been."

"Except it isn't."

"Where then?" Dunlap wondered.

"Look, there's no one up here. Quiller drove out years ago. He maybe let the others walk, but he kept the car in case he needed it to leave."

"I hate to say it, but I think you're right. And now my goddamned job is almost over."

"You can still track Quiller."

"No, it's finished. I'll be out of here by Monday. After I talk to Wheeler and see your records."

"And visit Parsons," Slaughter told him.

"Right. I haven't let that slip my mind."

"Twenty-three years? You really thought that they'd still be here?"

"Well, I had my hopes. I needed some big story to impress them."

"In New York?"

Dunlap's face was blank. "You're luckier than you imagine."

"Well, I made my own luck."

Dunlap took a breath and nodded. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe after this I'll have to spread out my own map." He looked all around. "The new republic." He snorted. "It's not all that failed." He started past the sagging doors, and Slaughter thought about the town as he went after him. The sun was descending. The wind had died. The compound felt lonelier than ever. Well, we'd better reach the car before the woods get too dark to see landmarks, Slaughter thought. "Let's get a drink," Dunlap said, and they walked along the lane between the ruined barracks.

It sniffed at the shoe. Mud and dampness. And it choked. It scurried back and settled on its haunches, puzzled by the odd sensation in its throat. Then the choking spasm passed, and it was staring at the shoe. It waited, almost sniffed the shoe again, then made its choice, and scuttled toward the pile of clothing in one corner. Blue and stiff, yet muddy, damp just like the shoe. And once again it felt that sharp constriction in its throat-which made it angry- and it cuffed at the clothing. Then it snarled.