Steve Tem - Excavation

She was young then, a daydreamer, and afterwards she’d find herself staring at her shadow now and then; seeing the way it distorted at times, wondering whether that’s what she really was if she could only see herself clearly enough.

Her shadow in this attic was distorted too, she realized—she hardly had a distinct shadow at all. It blended in with the other ancient objects. And was eaten by the darkness.

Her album was on the bottom. She lifted it out carefully and rested it on her lap. Pictures of Father, Hector when he was little, an old picture of her in a short dress with boats on it. Pictures of Janie and her together—Janie always the cheerful-looking one, with so many plans for herself. Always so mean when she didn’t get her way.

Inez realized she no longer thought of Janie as dead. It was a strange thing, but Inez knew she believed she could just go out in the woods and talk to her old friend.

At least Janie had become something; that was more than Inez herself could say. She chuckled. She was thinking like a crazy woman!

The morning sun was filling the small circular attic window, the mist outside breaking the light into long strands. It does look like burning hair, Inez thought.

If she hurried she could be halfway up Big Andy by midday, just above where the mist would have burned away, leaving clear sky as far as the eye could see. She’d be able to see most anything from up there: a woman with bright red hair, or even a bear.

Doris had slowed down to a trudge. She wasn’t sure where she was at the moment—somewhere behind the mining operation. No telling how far—she might have been wandering in circles. Her naked flesh was scratched and torn, and she seemed to have more bruises than she could ever remember having at one time, even after Jake beat her, but none of that really seemed to bother her. Or the cold; it could have been summer as far as she could tell. She felt hot, almost feverish.

Maybe Felix had struck her; she couldn’t remember. She shuddered suddenly, feeling all the cold delivered in the one memory. His face, last time she’d seen him: blue lips and pupils vanished into the white of his eyes. Blood lining the ravaged cavities of his head like rainbow-tinted shadows. The face of a dead man.

Rocks and sharp branches jabbed at her tender feet. She grimaced, but continued to walk. The burning woman had given her drive; her hips still ached with it, her breath still ragged and hungry. But Doris was beginning to hate the woman for it. She couldn’t stop the needs that were racking her, and they seemed to be emptying her out.

She couldn’t eat; she couldn’t sit down because of all her recently exposed need. Maybe she could go to the burning woman, get her to let her go.

Beg her. Or force her. This couldn’t go on much longer.

Audra had seen Reed drive by in his uncle’s pickup that morning. She had just awakened, was stretching before the small window near her bed, when he sped past, crouched over the steering wheel as if angry or drunk. She leaned her face into the window and was able to catch a glimpse of the truck as Reed left the town, rear wheels biting into gravel and spitting up dust as he negotiated the bend that led to the Pierce place.

She gritted her teeth. She could hate him, she surely could, if she just knew a little more.

But she didn’t know any more, and it wasn’t likely she ever would staying around the cafe while Reed was up at his daddy’s old place. And until she knew any more, she just had to love him, or pretend she did. For he was the only man who had ever paid any attention to her. He was all she had.

If she could only figure out what he was up to, why he was playing with her like this. He’d terrified her, made her afraid to walk the streets of her own hometown. She wasn’t likely to forgive him for that soon.

She should ignore him, forget all about him. Avoid him. But she couldn’t.

Audra didn’t dress in her uniform that day. She put on slacks and a sweater, and on second thought took her father’s old camping lantern out of the closet. She went out the front door, and, not surprisingly, no one was waiting for her to open. The street was deserted. She left the “Closed” sign out.

Her father’s discolored white Studebaker was parked in the alley at the side of the building. Jake had been tinkering with it so she knew it was running, though pretty roughly. If she pushed it hard, maybe Reed couldn’t keep too far ahead of her. She knew the roads better than he did.

Mr. Crouskey frowned. They’d ordered Emmanuel to come back, and bring some of the workers with him, so where was he? The man wouldn’t get another chance, not if he could help it.

They were no closer to finding the source of the mysterious flooding. They’d at last, after considerable digging, been able to rule out an underground spring or other natural source. But there weren’t any signs of a man-made device, either. It just didn’t make sense. The main office would never let him forget this one if he fouled up, but he didn’t know much more he could do.

Crouskey was afraid there might be big trouble here. The water had turned a slightly greenish color; the mist around it seemed to have thickened and was spreading, drifting out almost like the gas dry ice gives off, so that you couldn’t always tell how far up it had risen in the sinkhole.

But unless Crouskey was very mistaken, it was rising by the minute.

Felix Emmanuel was lost. He should never have wandered off the path, but he was afraid one of the company geologists would see him before he was well-hidden in the brush overlooking the mine.

He knew somehow that the sinkhole was going to be very important… he might even get his job back because of it. Before he left the mine, the water down in the sinkhole had changed, just perceptibly, and had continued to change by the second. Became greener, cloudier, and filled with shadows, things in there he couldn’t possibly recognize because the water was so thick now, and dark. But things were moving in there, he was sure of it. Something very nasty was beginning to happen—that wasn’t ordinary water.

And Mr. Emmanuel couldn’t say that he was very sorry about it. Not sorry at all.

There was something… he wasn’t sure… but it seemed to be something trying to be quiet in the woods. Trying so hard you noticed it. A shadow. A cold form. Maybe it was a wind moving in from the north. Or a gathering storm.

These were spooky woods. Felix Emmanuel would just as soon see them all cut down and the brush bulldozed under. He’d always wondered how people could stand to live around woods like these.

He picked up his pace a little, although it was hard. He didn’t think he’d ever been this out of breath.

And strangely, he felt he was running short on time. Whatever he was going to do he was going to have to do soon.

Something… shifted… back off to his right. He turned in that direction and stared for a while, not moving. Nothing. Nothing but the birds leaving the trees slowly, one by one. And that slight, very cold wind.

His right knee was aching; he’d probably pulled it when he climbed over the rock outcropping about a half-mile back. He began to slow down, and felt compelled to hold the knee with his right hand. The underbrush was slightly damp, the leaves and vines brushing his pants legs with broad, wet strokes. He could feel the water precipitating on his lower leg, collecting inside his shoe, drowning his socks.

Something shifting in wet vegetation, rotting timbers being slogged aside behind him. He stumbled and righted himself quickly, but not before a small animal cry escaped him. A soaked frond slapped him across the cheek. He grabbed at it but his fingers slipped off the slick green surface. Now the mist was rising around his shoes; he looked down and it appeared as if his feet had been amputated, his ankles ending in a wet, green-tinted fog.