Steve Tem - Excavation

The dark waters rose rapidly, full of dark forms, hands reaching, faces straining with joy or agony, he couldn’t tell. And although earlier he had been able to make out individual identities among those inside the flood—not believing his own eyes even then, for some of the people he thought these were had been dead thirty years and more—he could recognize no one now, although he could see their faces quite clearly. They had lost their hair; their faces had been rubbed nearly blank. Death had made them all the same.

There were little girls, lots of little girls, and women, too, in the flood. But he couldn’t recognize any of them. If he ever survived this… he was going back to Cincinnati. Maybe he could still find them, be a father to his little girl again.

But there didn’t seem much chance of that. The boarding house was completely flooded; he heard the things crashing inside, felt the walls crumbling far below his feet. The roof rocked violently, making his stomach heave. Most of the men around him were crying. He’d have been crying too if he’d had a better grip on himself.

The roof buckled; several pieces floated away. A dark wave pushed itself over one side of the roof, like a solid thing, taking three of the men with it. Joe sprawled on the roof and made a grab for one of the salesmen. The man held on a moment, and he, too, had an expression somewhere between grin and grimace. It confused Joe; he wanted to scream at the guy. But then the salesman was gone, jerked out of Joe’s grip and washed over the side.

Then the roof was loose, completely detached from the Pierce boarding house, spinning away in the dark. Joe saw the last wall crumble behind them as the swift current suddenly shot them forward, away from Simpson Creeks. Debris was everywhere, flying in the wind and thrown by the waves. The men were screaming so loudly Joe thought his ears were going to bleed. He stared straight into a pitch-black wave that held the face of Amos Nickles, then Amos Nickles grew long shark teeth and rushed at him.

There was a crash as the dark wave descended.

A few minutes before the roof of Inez Pierce’s boarding house separated from the structure that had been the Pierce family home for almost a hundred years, and just as Audra’s last scream pierced the roar of the flood, Ben Taylor pulled up on the High Mountain Road across the hollow from his late brother’s home. Charlie and Inez were squeezed into the cab with him.

All three heard Audra scream. All three saw her fall into the fog and water. But at the moment none was moved to action. They were too entranced by the nightmare landscape before them. A landscape no one but a fool or a crazy person would have any eagerness to enter.

“That’s… impossible, ” Charlie said. No one answered him. The impossibility was self-evident, but they had all seen the impossible become commonplace this evening.

The remains of the old Taylor place still stood as Ben remembered them, nestled in the middle of what had been a quiet valley. Behind that house, however, was the flood, rising up to the very top of the trees, but contained as if behind an invisible wall. It wasn’t a complete, break less wall, he could see; water leaked out of several spots and was snaking toward the house. And in other places, halfway up the border of trees, fingers and thumbs of water pushed their way out now and then, as if seeking escape. The area reminded Ben of an arena, like the Romans had, although whatever was holding the arena together, holding the water back, seemed to be weakening. He wondered how much time he had to get Reed out of that house.

He ignored the most amazing thing about this landscape, however, until he could ignore it no longer. Just south of the Taylor place was the cliff, almost completely shrouded by the fog; the tall trees bordering it—where he had last seen Audra—were almost completely submerged in the flood. But then, for a width of about a hundred yards, there was the largest waterfall he had ever seen in his life, dropping to the valley floor. Where the water just disappeared. It roared, however, roared like nothing he had ever heard, the sound increasing in volume and depth even as he watched.

He couldn’t make any sense of this at all. His first impulse was to turn the truck around and get as far away from this valley as he possibly could, ignoring all the objections he knew both Inez and Charlie would have. But this was impossible. This was unreal; there was no way to fight something like this. But more than that, there was something even scarier about this place, this waterfall, than anything else Ben Taylor had seen that night.

Somehow Ben knew, looking at the water leaking out of the forest behind the old house, watching the waterfall roar over the lip of forest and ghost-flood, disappearing when it touched the bottom, that this was a flaw, a break in the magic. Big Andy was waiting for something in that house to conclude. Then the water dropping down the fall would stop disappearing; the trees would let the wall of water escape. The flood would have full reign here, and his brother’s house would vanish beneath the waves.

“Look up there!” Inez shouted, and pointed.

A figure was struggling to the top of a tree near the cliff. Ben put the pickup in gear and sped down the road. If the Cliff Trail was still passable, they might just be able to get close enough…

Audra struggled to the top of the tree and clung there. Her clothes were ripped in long lines down her body. Her skin might be ripped, too; she couldn’t tell. She was so cold. Her eyes burned; she couldn’t see very well. She could be bleeding to death and not know. So she clung to the tree, whispering, praying, crying… all the same.

Her father almost got her… he almost had. But she’d gotten away; she’d been too smart for him. She giggled. He just didn’t know who he was dealing with. Never had. She’d felt his hands grabbing at her, pulling, trying to find something to hold onto, but she’d always slipped away. She was too smart for him.

But his nails had gotten to her. His fingernails. And those had cut her, wounded her bad.

From this tree she could see the waterfall. It was beautiful. The water just fell through the clouds, dropping to the ground far below. She wondered if there were lots of rainbows there. She wondered.

Over the lip of the waterfall she could see the Taylor place. She really needed to talk to Reed. It all looked very beautiful from up here. It almost made her want to let go, to let the water take her, to drift down to the valley below. To talk to Reed.

Maybe he really loved her after all.

Reed had been running through the house, trying to get away from the image of himself that stepped out of the darkened mirror. A false image. A lie. He didn’t think the house could be that big; it seemed as if he had been running forever. It had seemed that big to him when he was a child, of course; it had seemed enormous. When his father chased him he had run and run and had never been able to get to the right door. The house had been huge, and the doors impossibly far apart.

The dark, tattered image of himself, like an unfocused photograph, a self-portrait gone sour, didn’t run, but walked behind him, and yet had no trouble keeping up. Every time he looked back over his shoulder he was there, just a few steps behind.

Looking just like him… but darker, hungrier, with sharper teeth.

Here, Reed… here, boy. It seemed the entire house was whispering to him. I’m the one you came for… I’m the one you needed to talk to. Why don’t you stop and play?

Reed whimpered. The words struck a chord. He’d come back to face these things, he’d come back to face his family. But this. This he could not face.