Bentley Little - The Walking

'Then, I assume we're going that way," Hal said dryly.

Miles followed his pointing finger. The other canyons spoking off from this hub were typically barren, but the one at which Hal was pointing was different. There were... things growing here. Objects which must have been plant life but from this perspective could have been statues or could have been creatures, black-gray forms that dotted the alluvial fans adjoining the cliff sides and were scattered along

the floor of the gorge, giving the entire canyon a creepily dark and ragged appearance. The stench of sulfur issued from this direction as well, and Miles nodded slowly. "Yeah," he said. "That's where we're going."

Hal took out his revolver, opened the magazine, checked it, snapped it back into place. He did not put the weapon back into his shoulder holster but kept it in his hand. "All right, then. Let's do it."

Miles wished Claire had not come along, wished Janet were here instead, not only because he was afraid for Claire but because Janet was supposed to be here, because Janet was one of them, because she had witch blood.

Claire looked over at him, smiled wanly, as if she could read his thoughts. "At least we'll die together," she said.

"No one's dying," he told her.

But he could not make himself believe it.

The canyon was strewn with black rocks and unknown bones. Ugly weeds sprouted here and there, and stunted trees grew in strange disturbing shapes. There was no easy path, and they were forced to pick their way through what seemed to be an obstacle course placed purposely before them. The sulfur smell grew ever stronger. He could hardly breathe, Claire was gagging, but just when it seemed they would have to stop or turn around, the stench disappeared completely. It was as if they had passed through some sort of unseen barrier, and the air in his lungs was suddenly clear and very cold.

There were dead dogs in the trees, hanging by their necks from bare root branches. Beetles scuttled across the sand below, swarms of them circling the trees in a manner that was frighteningly deliberate. In the recesses of the rock wall were carvings, half obscured and only partially observed, that Miles almost recognized and that caused shivers to race down his arms.

Claire let out a small shocked cry and grabbed his arm

with her free hand. Next to her foot, a small stationary creature grew out of the crevice in a rock. Looking like a cross between an albino frog and an unshelled oyster, it stared up at them with slitted eyes and let out a gurgling cry that sounded like laughter.

They walked far around the creature, giving it a wide

Miles took the lead with Claire, and after a while he turned to check on the others. Hal was right behind them-But that was it.

Miles' heart lurched in his chest. "Garden?"

No answer.

He shouted it out: "Garden!"

All three of them stopped walking, looking around, calling, but there was no sign of their companion.

He was gone.

"Garden."

It was his daddy's voice, his daddy was here, and Garden stopped walking, turned, and looked into a long, high crack in the cliff side.

"Garden."

The voice was weak, barely above a whisper, as though his old man was trapped or had been here some time without food or water. It made no logical sense--he had left his daddy yesterday in Apache Junction--but he would recognize that voice anywhere. He stepped over the jagged rocks and into the cleft, angling sideways for several minutes until the fissure opened out.

"Garden."

It occurred to him that he was being intentionally led away from the others, and he wondered why he didn't call out, let them know where he was going was his mind being clouded?

--but these thoughts occurred to him at a remove, as if from afar, and the thought that was in the forefront of his mind was that he needed to find his daddy and get him the hell out of here. His daddy had probably followed him from Apache Junction, wanting to warn him away from Isabella, but he'd been too late, and he'd somehow ended up here, trapped.

Or captured.

Garden slowed his pace, suddenly wary of what might lie ahead. For the first time he thought seriously about going back, getting the others, doing a proper search, but then he heard his daddy's voice again.

"Garden."

And he pushed forward between the high dank walls until he was face-to-face wit ha dummy.

The figure propped in a sitting position against the step like rock ahead had obviously been intended to look like his daddy, but the resemblance was not even close. The head was the right shape but made of stuffed cheesecloth. The eyes were buttons and the rest of the face was painted on: a piggish nose, a goofy gap-toothed smile. The clothes on the dummy were of a style his daddy had once worn but had not owned for decades. There were no hands or feet.

This, however, was where the voice originated, and as he stood there, staring at it, a slight breeze whistled through the 'narrow chasm and, filtered through the unseen contents of the cheesecloth head, again whispered his name.

"Garden."

A chill passed through him. This was not right. Everything suddenly shifted into clear focus, and though he felt pressure on his mind, a strange insistent pulse that promised him everything was okay, this was the way it was meant to

be, he knew that he had been tricked to get him away from Miles and the others.

He reached into his left front pocket, feeling for the flattened frog that the old woman had given him for protection, but the pocket was empty. There was no hole in the material, and he checked his right pocket, but it was empty, too.

The frog had disappeared somehow, pushed up perhaps through the friction of movement to fall out of his pants unseen as he'd walked. He was filled with a dizzying sensation of panic.

Miles. he screamed. "Miles!"

He yelled at the top of his lungs, and the repeated word seemed to echo up the narrow space to the canyon rim, but he was not sure how far in he'd come, and didn't know if they could hear him at all. Because another sound was competing with him, a low guttural rumbling that came out of the earth itself, a sound he recognized but could not quite place.

Water.

He knew it now: the roar of a flood, the rush of a wave. The cleft began to fill with black brackish water. It seeped up from the rock beneath his feet at first, but almost instantly it began pouring in from both directions--the way he'd come and the way ahead. He was alone in this space with that hideous dummy, and it floated up on the tide toward him even as he attempted to find a handhold, a foothold, something that would enable him to climb out of this space before he drowned.

"Garden."

The dummy was still speaking his name, and when he looked down at the painted face, its smile seemed more malevolent than goofy. The right button eye, hanging by a thread, began flipping up and back, propelled by the streaming water, in chilling approximation of a wink.

There was no way to climb oat, no way to get up the ,-:-.

352 narrow cliff, and the water was now flooding in fast. The black liquid smelled strongly of sulfur, and he gagged, keeping his mouth closed, trying not to swallow any of it.

Maybe he could just tread water, float on the rising tide, wait until the chasm filled up completely and then exit through the top. : ....... "Garden."

The winking dummy now looked nothing like his daddy. Even the shape of the head was distorted. The dark water had stained the cheesecloth, and it looked more like a figure out of a nightmare. The dummy pressed against him, bobbed up, then sank and disappeared.

A second later, handless arms wrapped around his legs, feeling soft and spongy and frighteningly alive.

"Help!" he screamed.

And was pulled down into the water.