Thirty minutes after starting down from the ridge, Noro reaches the boulders that he’d pointed out. As usual, Anderholt is right behind him, the other dozen or so men bringing up the rear. Each has a machine gun shouldered. Noro knows the guns won’t be enough. Tanks wouldn’t be, he thinks.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Anderholt asks.
“I’ll go no further,” Noro says, “no Jicarilla Indian will.”
“You’ll go no…” Anderholt starts before trailing-off. He then crosses his arms over his chest and gives Noro an angry stare. “I’m paying you to go further, all the way in fact!”
Noro shakes his head. “No amount of money’ll be enough.”
“Money won’t, eh?” Anderholt says as he uncrosses his arms and lowers one down to his side, never taking his eyes from Noro’s. His fingers wrap around the handle of the Walther P38 he’d taken from a dead Nazi in a Berlin bunker years before. He slowly draws it from its holster then brings the weapon up and levels it at Noro, who’s standing just six feet away. “Then maybe this will,” he finishes.
Noro straightens, firming-up his stance while keeping his eyes locked on Anderholt’s. The men are of equal height, though vastly different experiences. Anderholt is a man of war, having fought in one and now overseeing the start of what’d likely be countless others. Noro, on the other hand, is a man of peace and the earth. He seeks way to resolve conflicts while Anderholt blindly charges forth, eager to create them. And am I ready to die for those beliefs? Noro thinks to himself as Anderholt continues to point that gun at him. The answer comes quickly: Yes.
Noro was about to voice that thought — in a vehement, “No!” that he expected would earn him the bullet that’d earn him his death, but instead a force seems to take him over and the words are unable to come out. He wants to speak out, but can’t. What he can do, and what his body seems to want to do against his own will, is turn around and continue on the last short bit to the entrance of the cave.
Lead him, a voice comes to Noro, a voice not his own. He narrows his eyes and glances from Anderholt to the other soldiers gathered about. None looked to have said a thing.
Noro looks back at Anderholt, his resolve to say, “No!” all the stronger. He manages to take a step forth to say the word, and although his mouth quivers with the effort of getting it out, nothing comes out.
Lead him… or die, the voice in Noro’s head comes again, and this time it’s accompanied by worst headache the Indian’s ever experienced. So strong is it that he sways on his feet, and nearly falls to his knees. He would have, he realizes a moment later when he’s able to open his eyes, had Anderholt not rushed forth to latch onto his arm.
“You alright?” the colonel says, a concerned look on his face. Noro can barely focus on that face, however, so searing is the memory of the pain in his mind. It lasted for only a second or two, but seemed a lifetime.
Lead him… the voice comes again, and this time Noro does focus on Anderholt’s face. He knows he’s the ‘him’ that they’re referring to.
“Noro?” Anderholt says, his eyes narrowed, though Noro now thinks the concern in them is more for the mission, not for his condition.
“I’ll take you to the entrance, no further,” Noro says in a shaky voice as he begins to push himself up. Anderholt takes one arm to help him.
“That’s all I ever asked,” the colonel says.
Noro nods to that and the small group starts down the trail once again. It takes them another few minutes to reach the boulders that Noro had pointed out from the ridge but then they’re there, and Noro is looking none too happy about it.
“All the way,” Anderholt says as the Indian stalls a bit, looking around instead of going behind the final boulder.
Lead him, the voice comes to Noro once again, and with it the slightest of sharp pains behind his temples. With a frown at Anderholt, Noro turns and heads to that final boulder.
It’s large but behind it is a slight crack, a sort of opening that perhaps two people can slip through at a time. Noro stalls again, but some loose rocks skittering behind him tells him that Anderholt is right there, likely with that gun of his still out and ready to use. Noro moves on, despite his better judgment, and passes behind the boulder.
Then he’s in, right at the opening to a very large cave. Its ceiling is high and the walls are spaced more than twenty feet apart. That’s not what Noro notices most, however. No, what really catches his eye are the bones on the floor, a large pile of them, perhaps a dozen or so men. Noro knows they’re Indian bones, those of his ancestors. Bits of decaying feather headdresses and the occasional arrowhead stick out here and there. Skulls stare out with empty eye sockets and wide, often toothless mouths. They look to be screaming, every single one of them that Noro can see.
The Jicarilla still speak of the legends when they occasionally gather around the fires on spring and summer nights. They speak of the daring braves that went forth long ago to look in the cave of evil, the cave of nightmares, the cave of… them. Noro knows he’s looking at those braves from long ago, and then a slight movement catches his eye from further down the cave. At that point he knows he’s looking at what killed those braves, he’s looking at them.
“My God!” Anderholt says behind him, though Noro doesn’t turn around. His eyes are locked on the same thing that Anderholt’s are — a large, spindly-armed creature walking toward them, large black eyes staring out from the head on its narrow neck. It has no clothes, nor any kind of sexual features. It barely has a mouth! What it does have, however, is a presence about it, a command authority that seems to take hold of Noro and Anderholt both, bowing them to its will. And then it speaks, though not with that tiny mouth, but with its mind.
Your kind is not to come here, you know this.
The thought is directed to Noro, but Anderholt can hear it as well and Noro knows it.
“I… I…” Noro manages to stutter, but that’s all. Without raising a finger or even moving at all, for all Anderholt can see, the Gray lashes out somehow at Noro. Perhaps it’s with its mind, or some other power. Either way, Noro begins to lift off the ground a foot or two, his feet kicking all the while as some unseen force latches onto his throat. It has to be there, Anderholt thinks, for the poor bastard is lashing and clawing there, as if some fist has hold of him. It does no good, other than to scratch away at the skin, which even causes some bleeding. Anderholt can only watch with wide eyes as it happens, as Noro is choked to death.
Then it’s done, and the unseen force holding Noro up lets him go. The Indian slams down to the floor near the pile of bones, his eyes wide and his mouth open in what looks like a silent scream.
Anderholt’s eyes go back to the alien in front of him, a Gray, he knows. It’s not just one though, he sees now, as another is visible, and another over by the side. He thinks there’s probably a lot more hidden away in the darkness further down that tunnel. The general stands stock still, his eyes wide and his hands out to his sides in a sort of stabilizing, defensive gesture. It was a stance that said, ‘whoa… what just happened here, and how can we make sure it doesn’t happen again?’