David Barbour - Shadows Bend

AS THE CAVE-IN subsided, a fog of dust settled over the surface of the lake, and Glory, Lovecraft, and Howard swam back, struggling to keep their flashlights above water. They were so exhausted they could barely get their limbs to move through the resistance of the water, which felt icy after their exertions. Lovecraft and Howard clutched their rafts and kicked their feet, moving ever so slowly behind Glory.

“Why did it let you go?” asked Howard.

“I don’t know,” said Glory. “I don’t want to remember what just happened.”

“Neither do I,” said Howard. “I ain’t sleepin’ again as long as I live.”

“May I suggest we refrain from speaking in order to preserve our energies until we are safe?” said Lovecraft.

Howard grunted. They swam on in a solemn silence, hearing only the wet rippling and splashing of water and the occasional aftershock of the cave-in. Glory, the better swimmer, began to draw ahead.

The flashlight beams, jostling about on the rafts, illuminated eerie swatches of color and bizarre formations of rock, all the stranger because they were glimpses out of context. Glory began to imagine what the things might be: giant convolutions on the inside of a stone womb, the wrinkles at the edges of a mother’s aureola, the smooth texture of an infant’s belly. She tried to soothe herself as she slowed down and floated, waiting for the men to catch up to her. She wanted desperately to be out of the water, and yet she could not bear the thought of emerging by herself and waiting, all alone, not knowing whether they would ever reach the other shore of the lake.

Suddenly Glory heard a sharp intake of breath-almost a squeak behind her. She turned her head to see Lovecraft’s face go under, then bob back up, mouth agape and gasping wetly. He went down again even before he could cry for help, the water bubbling at the edge of his raft, where Glory could see his pale fingers clutching.

“HP!” cried Howard, flailing at the water. “Help him, Glory!”

He tried to keep Lovecraft in the beam of his light, but it was unnecessary. Glory spun in the water and swam quickly toward Lovecraft’s light, which jerked wildly underwater as he struggled with something, the dark thing that pulled him from below. Glory could not quite make it out, but in her imagination it seemed to be tattered fragments of blackness that reached upward from below, irregular bubbles of darkness attaching their weight to Lovecraft’s already exhausted frame. She dove down just as Lovecraft lost his grip on the raft and sank, trailing a froth of bubbles from his nostrils, his expression a grimace of fear and disbelief.

Kicking through the water with all her might, Glory caught Lovecraft before he was too far down, and she sank with him, struggling with the thing that had wound itself around his legs. She had to scissor her own legs around Lovecraft’s waist and contort her body downward to use her hands on the black stuff. It clung like viscous gobs of crude oil; it had an icy texture where she touched it, a debilitating coldness that cut into the flesh of her fingers. She clawed at the stuff, hooking her nails into it until she could feel Lovecraft’s skin underneath. A large, gelatinous clump came off in her hands, and she shoved it away as if it were some hideous black afterbirth, ripping and pulling at it, imagining the membrane of an unholy placenta, watching with surprise as it oozed a black blood that puffed into clouds like the inky discharge of a giant squid.

Glory held on as long as she could, until her lungs burned and her vision dimmed, and then she gave a final, desperate double-legged kick at the black mass. She suddenly felt it give, and she let go of Lovecraft to fight her way back up to the surface, where she broke the water with a tortured gasp.

“Glory!”

She heard Howard’s voice and squinted as his light caught her in the eyes. She tried to ask about Lovecraft, but was only able to sputter and wheeze until she heard the water break again.

Lovecraft’s purple face emerged, eyes red and bulging. He let out a frightening cry and broke into a terrible fit of coughing as the air entered his lungs. For a while there was nothing but the sound of coughing and labored breath echoing through the cavern; Lovecraft was too traumatized to offer his characteristic commentary.

Glory made her way back to her raft to catch her breath; she stayed afloat by bearing her weight on the raft, but when she stopped kicking, her legs sank into the water.

She was poised like someone with chin and arms along the top of a wall, looking over to the other side when she felt her legs grow suddenly heavier. The raft bobbed, and water splashed her face. She gasped in alarm and the sound echoed over the water.

“Glory?” came Howard’s voice.

“I—” The weight suddenly yanked her under the water, and as her flashlight tumbled down, spinning its light before it went out, Glory saw the large shadowy form of a multi-limbed creature, which she knew now, with an inexplicable certainty, was her death. She knew this calmly, as if were no surprise to her. She knew that it was impossible to fight its grip, which pulled like the force of gravity itself. She knew that her body would never be found. And yet she felt no anxiety at all. Not even the urge to breathe one last time as she glided down in the pristine water.

By the time Howard and Lovecraft had frantically paddled their way forward to respond to Glory’s cry, she was receding into the depths, already so far down that it was impossible for them to reach her. All they could do was watch, feeling sick and helpless as they trained the beams of their lights on her.

Glory’s wide green eyes looked up at them, and she reached her arms toward them as if to embrace them through the distance of the eerily clear water. But she did not struggle at all as the shadow engulfed her and pulled her down, farther and farther until finally she was lost in the darkness. A flurry of bubbles trailed up for a few moments, then fewer and even fewer, until only a last bubble or two marked her passing.

The water was still. Glory was gone.

Howard’s first impulse was to dive after her. He plunged his head in the water and angled himself downward, only to remember, suddenly and sickeningly, that he could not swim. While Lovecraft held on to a ledge of stone jutting into the water, Howard clung to his raft, and the two of them vainly shined their dimming flashlights down into the black shadows beneath them until the terrible futility was too much to endure any longer.

They spoke not a word to each other as they made their way back up to the pueblo and the star-filled night sky that awaited them outside. They had saved the world from an unpredicted Armageddon, but all they could think of was the ultimate sacrifice one woman had made for them.

ALL NIGHT THE DUST STORM did not abate. They drove on, south on Highway 285 down into Texas, both of them anxious about what might happen if the Chevy were to overheat and yet unable to make the rational decision to stop. They had to keep moving, to get as far from the caves as they possibly couldas if mere physical distance could somehow mediate the tragedy of what had happened-but as they drove it seemed that the car was simply humming in place, the tires spinning idly as the clouds of red dust whirled by in the dark. Toward dawn-at least it seemed to be dawn-the horizon lightened and they could see the road ahead of them, far enough to make out the boxy shapes of old adobe structures. Nothing stirred among the buildings as they approached, and the sign that read “San Robardo” was only a hundred yards from the first reddish wall.

“I’m stoppin’ here,” said Howard. “Give the car a rest, dust out the radiator before we go on. Maybe the storm will pass.”