Jack could see where this was going. He suddenly realized that the less he knew, the safer he might be. “Uh… no. I haven’t been in any cave. I’ve just been out hiking—”
Vale waved off his attempt at a lie. “Because you may just be the only person to have ever made it out of there alive.” He circled Jack as if inspecting him. “I can’t tell you how fascinating that is. I have a million questions.”
“So do I.”
“They tell me you’re some sort of anthropologist, yes?”
Jack shook his head. “I’m not answering any questions until I get a phone. I want to call—”
“Call who? The authorities?” Vale gave an icy chuckle. “Jack, in this town I am the authority.”
“What’s going on here? Who are you people?”
Vale ignored him. “It’s pretty impressive, really. I mean… finding a way into those caves was unlikely enough. But actually finding your way out again… well, that was just extraordinary. You have no idea how lucky you are.”
“Funny, I don’t feel very lucky at the moment.”
“Oh, but you are,” Vale said. “You see, the N’watu hate outsiders with a passion. And for you to have survived your encounter is nothing short of amazing.”
Jack leaned forward. “What do you know about them?”
Vale scratched the back of his neck. “Not nearly enough, I’m afraid. Though probably more than anyone else.”
“Who are they?”
“The last remnant of a pre-Columbian civilization that predates the Mayans. Probably even the Olmec.”
Jack frowned. His father’s theories continued to be validated—a fact that both thrilled and frightened him as he feared he would never escape to share the discovery with anyone else. There was something obviously sinister going on in this town, and Jack wondered if his father had stumbled across this place and perhaps been kidnapped as well. In either case, he needed more information. He needed to find out what this guy knew about the N’watu.
“And they still exist today, living entirely underground?”
“Yes…” Vale looked almost giddy, like a parent talking about his child. “The truly incredible thing is that their culture has survived essentially intact for thousands of years, completely undetected by the modern world.” He paused, and his expression grew somber. “Of course, my intention is to keep it that way.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Vale looked incredulous. “You’re an anthropologist, aren’t you? To preserve their culture. To protect them from the invasive scrutiny of modern society.”
Jack scowled. “But science is all about scrutiny. It’s about exploration and discovery.”
Vale clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Perhaps some things weren’t meant to be discovered. I’d have thought you would understand the consequences to their way of life if news of their existence ever got out.”
“Way of life? What kind of a life do these people have? They’re living inside a cave at a Stone Age level of existence.”
“This culture has evolved in a completely isolated subterranean environment. The N’watu live their entire lives underground. And yet somehow they’ve managed to survive. Think about how remarkable that is.”
“I guess I just don’t share your enthusiasm,” Jack said. “Besides, I think they’ve had more contact with the outside world than you’re leading me to believe.”
Vale’s eyes flicked to the three other men in the room, then back to Jack. “Do you have any clue what kind of secrets such an ancient culture might hold? And what we can learn from them?”
“Oh? Like offering human sacrifices?”
Vale leveled his gaze at Jack. “You say that with such vitriol and judgment. But is our modern, civilized society any better? How many innocent lives have we surface dwellers taken in the name of progress or security? Or just plain convenience?”
“So I assume you know about their bone pit.”
“I’ve never actually been that deep into the cave,” Vale said. “But I don’t presume to judge their religious practices.”
“Religious? They’ve been practicing ritual human sacrifices for years. And I’m guessing you’ve either known about it or have been directly complicit in the act.”
Vale laughed and shook his head. “I don’t think you have a clue what’s going on here.”
“I think I’ve seen enough.”
Vale nodded to his men. “Excellent; then let’s see how much you know.”
Carson yanked Jack backward, and they followed Vale down a corridor off the main room. Browne and Henderson brought up the rear. They turned down a narrow side hall, where Vale led them through another door and descended a flight of stairs.
They arrived in a dimly lit basement, where Jack found himself in a narrow concrete-block corridor with three metal doors: one on each side of the hall and a third at the far end. Vale opened the door on the right and ushered Jack into a large room lined with cabinets and shelving units and lit by two rows of cold fluorescent lights. Situated throughout the room were several long tables, each one cluttered with a variety of laboratory equipment.
At the far end of the room was a pair of enormous glass terraria, five or six feet in length. Vale strode to the first terrarium and tapped on the glass. “Have you fed them yet today?”
Henderson cleared his throat. “Uh… no. I figured you might want to do that yourself.”
Vale waved Jack over for a better look, and after a sharp nudge from Carson, Jack complied. He could see that the bottoms of both tanks were covered with a layer of mud, pebbles, and small rocks. On one side of each tank was a large pile of leaves and sticks. Jack could see the leaves jittering as Vale tapped the glass.
“Bring me a rat, please.”
Henderson went over to one of the shelving units along the wall. It was packed with rows of wire cages. And each cage contained one or more of a variety of rodents: rats, mice, guinea pigs, and even a few rabbits.
He retrieved a white rat by the scruff of its neck and handed it to Vale. Vale flipped open a small plastic hatch in the cover and dropped the rat into the terrarium.
The rodent sat there for a moment, its whiskers twittering as it inspected its new surroundings.
Suddenly the leaves shook as something emerged from under the pile. Jack let out a yelp and jumped backward.
Vale grinned. “You’ve seen this before, yes?”
Jack’s throat was dry. “Yes.”
The armored arachnid was a miniature version of the monsters Jack had seen inside the caves. It was only six or eight inches across but had the same dark coloration on its top and a pale-gray underside. It reared back, raising its saber-like forelegs in the same menacing pose that Jack had seen before. Its two palps slapped together in rapid bursts, creating a soft but all-too-familiar clicking sound that sent chills down Jack’s spine. And while this spider was much smaller, it looked no less fierce under the brighter lights. A moment later three more had appeared from under the leaves.
Vale leaned close to the glass as the creatures pounced on the hapless rat, overwhelming it. Fangs punctured fur and skin. Claws dug deep into its flesh, twisting and yanking the limbs in various directions, and their tiny jaws tore off bits of tissue while the rat squealed and writhed. Jack grimaced as he watched the horrid spectacle.
Thankfully, the rat was dead within seconds, and the spiders began systematically dismembering its corpse.
No, Jack thought, it was hardly systematic. It was a frenzied, monstrous attack like he had seen in the caves. Vicious and chaotic. One of the spiders clutched a hind leg with its fangs and forelegs and spun its body to twist off the limb much like a crocodile would do to an antelope. The others tore into the carcass with their claws, gnawing flesh off bone. A flurry of blood and fur spattered the glass. Jack had never witnessed anything so brutal in his life.