Midnight's Lair

  'Maybe…' Chris realized she was panting for air. Her heart was slamming. 'We… could ask her.'

  Hank didn't answer. He began tossing aside more clothes to uncover the girl.

  She wore a blue satin negligee with spaghetti straps. One of the straps had fallen, and the white, blue-veined mound of a breast was exposed.

  The negligee was taut against her rounded belly.

  'Pregnant,' Chris whispered.

  The girl looked no older than fourteen or fifteen.

  Chris stepped over her and lowered the lantern close to her face. Her eyes were open, but rolled up so that only the whites showed. Her mouth was shut.

  Hank opened the girl's mouth and fingered down her lower lip. Her pointed teeth were scarlet with blood from her broken gums. 'Do you believe those teeth?' Hank said.

  'I… feel like I'm going crazy.'

  'We had this thing figured out wrong. There's a lot more to it than Mordock bringing his victims down here for fun and games. Those teeth… she's pregnant…'

  'I don't get it.'

  'Neither do I. Let's get going.'

  'We can't just leave her. Shouldn't we try to wake her up and…?'

  Hank gave the girl's chin a small push. Her head flopped toward Chris. Her ear was bathed with blood.

  'What?'

  'She's dead,' he explained.

  Chris felt herself go numb. She heard her voice, distant and strange, say, 'No. She can't be. All you did was hit her once, and…'

  'Sometimes, it only takes once.'

  'But…'

  'I'm sorry, Chris. I'm sorry you had to see it.' He stood up and faced her. 'She was just a kid, and pregnant, but she was coming at me with a weapon. You don't fool around when that happens. You get just as dead from a kid. Come on, let's get out of here.'

  She stood there, staring down at the body.

  At the girl's distended belly.

  'I killed her, okay? I murdered her and her baby. Those are the breaks. She shouldn't have tried…' He suddenly rushed past Chris and the quickness of his movement broke through her daze of shock and regret and she wondered if he'd seen someone else rising out of the piled clothes. She twisted around.

  Hank, near the wall, snatched up the girl's weapon. He raced back with it, kicking up blouses and skirts.

  'What are you…?'

  'Keep an eye out. God knows, there might be more of them.'

  He dropped to his knees between the girl's legs. Clamping the bone in his teeth, he gripped the hem of the negligee and tugged. The fabric split up the middle, baring the dead girl's pubis and belly.

  'What are you doing?'

  He took the bone from his teeth. As he plucked out one of the razor blades, he muttered, 'I don't know what I'm doing.' Then he slashed the girl open. Coils of guts spilled out, steaming as they met the chilly air. Hank lifted them out in heaps and dumped them aside.

  Chris staggered backward. The pickaxe fell off her shoulder.

  She knew, now, what Hank was trying.

  No killer.

  Wonderful.

  And she also knew that her head was spinning and the light from the lantern was dim and she was seeing a blue aura around Hank as he disembowelled the girl and slashed with the razor. She carefully (wobbling) set the lantern down on the soft clothes and stumbled backward away from it before sliding down into darkness.

  ***

  'Wake up. Come on.'

  She opened her eyes.

  Hank was kneeling beside her, a bundle in his arm. 'It's a boy,' he said. 'Seems to be all right. She must've been pretty close to…'

  'You got it out?'

  'All yours.' He set the bundle down between her breasts. Chris felt its warmth. It was moving. She parted the sweater that was wrapped around it and saw a pudgy face with half open eyes.

  'God,' she whispered.

  'You're not much of a midwife,' Hank said, 'but at least you didn't set the place on fire.'

  Chris put her arms gently around the baby.

  'Come on,' Hank said. 'Let's get going.'

  ***

  'Lemme ha' s'more,' Kyle said, slurring his words as if he were drunk. Paula pressed the bottle against his belly. He took it, raised it to his mouth and upended it. Whisky sloshed against his pinched lips. He made swallowing sounds, then sighed, said, 'Goo' stuff,' and gave the bottle back to her.

  'Through the teeth 'n over the gums, watch out, stomach, here it comes.' He heard Paula drink. 'Good for what ails you,' she said. 'That's what my dad says, "Good for what ails you." '

  'Your dad drink a lot?'

  'Yaaah, he's not a boozer. That what you mean? He's not a boozer, but he drinks. Has a couple 'fore dinner, but just on weekends. Used to be a boozer. Cause of Vietnam, Mom said. Then he smashed up the car with me 'n Mom in it. That was the last time he ever got slicko.'

  'I'zat when your Mom got killed?' Kyle asked.

  'Naw. Nobody got hurt. I was like two years old. Even remember the crash. Mom, she had a urinism.'

  'A what?'

  'A uri… aneurysm. A blood vessel in her brain. It just blew and she keeled over.'

  'Gcez.' Kyle put a hand on her knee. She was sitting beside him on the sleeping bag with her legs crossed. Earlier, he had unzipped the sleeping bag, spread it open and brought its end up to cover their legs. Paula's knee was warm. He slid his hand to the hem of her kilt, and patted her thigh.

  He heard Paula take another drink. 'Leas.'

  'It was quick, y'know? Better'n cancer or shit like that. Or AIDs. Jesus. Freaks me out, start thinking about shit like AIDs. 'Nough to make you stay a virgin.'

  'Me, too. It's too damn dangerous.' He realized he had forgotten to slur his speech, but decided it didn't matter. Paula was sounding pretty smashed - probably too smashed to notice. He'd taken a few swallows, at first, but had only pretended to drink once he realized the control he would have over Paula if he could get her sloshed.

  'You never… did it?' she asked.

  'Nope.'

  Amy Lawson, he thought, and suddenly felt hot and squirmy inside. What if Amy Lawson had it?

  'How'd your mother die?' Paula asked.

  'She didn't. She ran off with some guy.'

  'Oh yeah, tha's right. Ran off.'

  'Bitch.'

  'She visit?'

  'She doesn't visit, doesn't even send me a fuckin' Christmas card.'

  'Tha'sa pits.'

  'Haven't heard shit since the day she ran off. Four years. Didn't even say goodbye. Just left a note in the typewriter saying she was sick of wasting her life in "Hotel Boondocks" and she was going away with some rich guy who'd checked in the day before. Said that never saw me or Dad again, it'd be too soon. Milch. Hope she got an aneurysm.'

  'Oh, Kyle. I'm sorry.'

  'Yeah, Well. So much for mothers.'

  He heard the bottle clink softly. Then Paula twisted herself towards him, her knee nudging the side of his leg. He slid his hand farther up her thigh, and she didn't protest. He felt the softness of her breast against his upper arm. Her hand found his face and stroked it. The way she leaned on him, he couldn't have stayed sitting if he'd wanted to. He didn't want to. He let himself drop backward onto the sleeping bag and felt her smooth skin slide under his hand as she straightened out her legs. He felt her other thigh on the back of his hand. Felt the slick fabric of her panties. Heat.

  I didn't even do this myself, he thought. Just an accident. She did it stretching out like that.

  God.

  A delicious current seemed to surge from her body into his hand and up his arm - sizzling through his whole body, stealing his breath away, making his heart race, swelling his penis to a stout rod.

  Then her fingers gently wrapped his wrist and pulled his hand away from the silken fabric, away from the heat, and guided it out from under her skirt.

  Okay, he thought. Okay, don't want to spook her. He put that arm under her head and rolled onto his side. Paula kissed him, but there seemed to be no passion in it. More like a
goodnight kiss she might give her lather. Then she lay still except for a hand slowly caressing his back.

  Kyle slipped his hand under the front of her sweater and cupped her breast through the layers of blouse and brassiere.

  'Le's just hug, okay?' she said.

  He rubbed her breast.

  'C'mon, don't.' Her protest was feeble, lazy. 'Le's just snuggle.'

  He'd had her blouse open before the elevators fell. Now she didn't even want him touching her through the clothes. The booze was supposed to loosen her inhibitions, maybe even make her horny, but here she was acting as if she didn't want to mess around at all.

  Maybe she had too much, Kyle thought.

  Maybe she's going to zonk out.

  Yeah.

  'If that's what you want,' he whispered. He let go. Sitting up, he drew the top of the sleeping bag over Paula. Then he lay down beside her and covered himself. Paula squirmed closer, pressing herself gently against him.

  'Cozy,' she whispered.

  'Yeah.'

  Kyle didn't move again until, from the deep slow sounds of Paula's breathing, he was pretty sure that she was asleep.

  She moaned slightly but didn't wake up when his fingers curled over her breast.

  He found the top button of her blouse. He was about to unfasten it, but changed his mind. If she woke up and her blouse was unbuttoned, she would know what he'd been up to. He moved his hand down. Her blouse was untucked. He reached beneath it. Her blouse was roomy inside. He fondled both breasts, listening for changes in her breathing.

  She's totally out of it, he thought.

  Fantastic.

  Carefully, he slid a bra strap off her shoulder. His hand fitted easily under the loosened cup. He held ho bare breast. The skin was so warm, so smooth. Hr fingered her nipple. She squirmed a little, but didn't wake up.

  ***

  'I don't like this,' Katie whispered. 'Not one little bit.'

  'There's nothing to be afraid of, honey,' Jean told her.

  'Darkness isn't my favourite thing.'

  From where Wayne Phillips sat with his family, he could see into both elevators. The flames in the elevator to his left had died out a while ago. Those in the other elevator had burned longer, but the last of them had just fluttered out. Now, there were only red, glowing embers.

  Darkness isn't my favourite thing, either, Wayne thought.

  The embers gave off some light, but not much. Only enough to see vague shapes.

  Pretty soon, he thought, even that will be gone. It'll be black as a pit.

  'Look on the bright side,' he said, as much to still his own uneasiness as to comfort Katie. 'I'll make a book out of this and we'll get a lot of money. Then we'll go to Disney World.'

  'Oh, sure.'

  'Honest. Have I ever lied to you?'

  'When you said there was a bone-cruncher living under my bed that was gonna chew off my foot. When you said about the troll under the house. When you said there was Madman Murray sneaking to our front door every night and trying to come in. When…'

  'Those weren't lies.'

  'Don't start, Wayne.'

  'They were just stories.'

  'A story is a lie,' Katie told him.

  'Not exactly.'

  'It is, too.'

  Wayne sighed. 'Anyway, I'm not lying about Disney World. I'll write a really scary book about all this, and we'll get piles of money and go to Disney World. It's a promise.'

  'We'll hold you to it,' Jean said.

  'Make sure you take them to the Epcot Center.'

  The woman's soft voice didn't startle Wayne, but he was surprised by the discovery that someone was sitting so close to them. Close enough to hear every word. 'Yeah,' he said. 'We'll go there, too.'

  'It's not to be missed.'

  'I've heard it's very good,' he said.

  Right behind me. Christ. I'd better watch my language.

  'Does anyone object if I smoke?' she asked.

  Several nearby voices urged her to light up at the same time Wayne said, 'No, go ahead.'

  He heard quiet sounds, probably the woman searching inside her handbag. Then came a crinkle of cellophane. He looked over his shoulder in time to see a tiny spray of sparks as the match snicked across the striking surface. The matchhead flared. The sudden brightness stabbed Wayne's eyes. He squinted. Around the brilliant flame was a tremulous, yellow-orange aura that illuminated not only the woman with the cigarette in her lips but a few other people seated nearby.

  The woman, well over fifty years old and probably tipping the scales at three hundred pounds, wore her grey hair in a Buster Brown cut and glasses as round as her face. She was wrapped in a cable-knit shawl. Her faded dress reached only to her knees. Her calves, the size of hams, were encased in 'knee-high' hose, the tops of which sank into her flesh and were overhung by tyres of blubber.

  A real looker, Wayne thought.

  Her handbag rested on the tilted platform of the dress stretched taut across her thighs. She dropped the match-book inside. With a flick of her wrist, she shook out the flame and vanished.

  All that remained was the glowing tip of her cigarette.

  Wayne thought of the Cheshire Cat. This woman's cigarette was like the cat's smile, staying behind after the rest was gone.

  I'll have to use that in my book, he thought. The Cheshire Cat bit.

  She would make a good character. A minor character, but sufficiently grotesque to make the readers uneasy. Cook up a nasty ending for her.

  Wayne turned away from her and gazed at the embers inside the elevator cars.

  What kind of nasty ending? he wondered. You're lumping the gun. Haven't even figured out what's nailing the people. They're trapped in the cave. Something or someone starts ripping them off.

  What if that gal has evil powers? She's a sorceress, warps the minds of the people trapped down here, turns them against each other? I can use the bit with Calvin flaring into that asshole. God, I could pretty much use of it whole scene just the way it happened.

  But that's just the start. Really bad shit starts to happen.

  Maybe the fat gal's doing it with her magic, or maybe its the evil in all these people coming to the surface because they're tired and frightened. Is it black magic or human nature causing the mayhem? Really play that up, and you'll give the thing some depth, it'll look like more than just a cheap horror novel.

  Throw in some scapegoat stuff. They blame the fat gal, call her a witch, burn her at the stake - burn her in one of the elevators.

  Shit, this is really shaping up.

  Wayne grinned.

  'How's it going, Katie?' he asked.

  'I'm not having a very good day.'

  'Nobody is, honey,' Jean told her.

  'Oh, I'm starting to have a pretty good day,' Wayne said. 'I think this little cloud has a silver lining that's going to make us all very happy.'

  'Bug squat,' Katie muttered.

  ***

  'I'm feeling a chill, Calvin.'

  'So's everyone else, I suspect. Do you want to move closer to the elevators? They've got good beds of coal built up, probably giving off considerable heat if we hauled ourselves near enough to feel it.'

  'Oh, I don't know. It's so dark. We'd trip over people.'

  Calvin wondered why she had even bothered to complain about the chill if she wasn't willing to put herself out some to get warm. Just for the sake of hearing herself talk, more than likely. 'Want me to lay on you?' he asked.

  'Shhhh. People will hear you.'

  'I reckon I could warm you up right quick.'

  'Calvin.'

  Grinning, he patted her thigh. 'Don't you worry, hon, I won't do nothing to embarrass you.'

  'A little bit late for that.'

  'Shitfire, here we go again.'

  'You like to've killed that man.'

  'I'd like to've killed that man, truth be known.'

  'You don't mean that. Calvin, you'd burn in Hell for eternity.'

  'Mavis, darling, any God that'd
send a man to burn in Hell for eternity 'cause he rid the world of a misbegotten son of a whore like Slick over there - well, I reckon he can just take his Pearly Gates and…'

  'Don't you dare say such a thing! Lord, you'll get yourself in Dutch for sure.'

  'Afraid he'll send down a bolt of lightning to… CHRIST!' Calvin blurted as a blast roared in his ears and he thought, Holy jumping Jesus, I'm a dead man! But others were yelling, too, over the deafening noise. Calvin felt a cold mist on his face. Drops of water pelted him.

  The roar seemed to come from the elevator car several yards in front of him. The red glow in its centre was blotted out. Around the blackness, sparks and embers exploded upward and died. In seconds, every trace of light from inside the elevator had been obliterated.

  The noise faded, then came again.

  A fire hose, Calvin thought. They must've shot a gusher straight down the shaft. Now the fire in the other elevator was being doused.

  A few moments later, the roar diminished, then ceased altogether.

  'Yuh, I'm drenched!' someone complained.

  Another voice muttered, 'All over me.'

  The darkness seemed heavy with char-smelling steam. Here and there, people clapped and cheered.

  'All right'.'

  'Won't be long, now.'

  'Took 'em long enough.'

  'Apparently,' someone said, 'there wasn't any Third World War up there.'

  'Never thought there was, jerk-off.' That was Slick's voice. Calvin shook his head. The fella'd taken a whooping and got his hair burnt off, but it hadn't straightened out his disposition.

  'Can't wait to sink my teeth into a thick, juicy sirloin.'

  'I wanta wrap my lips around a bottle of Molsons.'

  'I'm gonna reacquaint myself with my old pal Jack Daniels.'

  'All I want's a long, hot bath.' That was a woman, of course.

  'If I never see another cave, it won't be a moment too soon.'

  'Oh, don't be such a downer, Brian. It's been a marvellous adventure.'

  'HELLO, THE CAVERN.' The voice boomed through the darkness, silencing everyone.

  A bullhorn, Calvin thought.

  'This is Chief Richmond of the Pleasant Valley Fire Department. Is anyone there?'