“Well,” Miller said after consideration, “I can see why you might’ve kept that to yourself.”
“Yeh. I wish them ol’ coons had stayed back. Maybe we could a blasted our way out with their guns and ours.”
Miller didn’t think so. “Maybe. Catch some shut eye. Sunup in a couple hours.”
Stevens rolled over and set his hat over his face and didn’t move again. Miller watched the stars fade.
∇
They left the cave at dawn and descended the hill into the ruins of the village. Ashes turned in the breeze. The tower stood, although scorched and blackened. Its double doors were sprung, wood smoldering, hinges melted. Smoke curled from the gap. Many of the surrounding houses had burned to their foundations. Gray dust lay over everything. Corpses were stacked near the longhouse and covered with a canvas tarp to keep the birds away. Judging from height and width of the collection, at least fifteen bodies were piled beneath the tarp awaiting burial. Twenty-five to thirty men and women combed the charred wreckage. Their hands and faces were filthy with the gray dust. Some stared hatefully at the pair, but none spoke, none raised a hand.
Miller and Stevens trudged through the village and onward, following the river south as it wended through the valley. With every step, Miller’s shoulders tightened as he awaited the inevitable musket ball to shear his spine. Early in the afternoon, they climbed a bluff and rested for the first time.
After Stevens caught his breath, he said, “I don’t understand. Why they’d let us live?” He removed his hat and peered through the trees, searching for signs of pursuit.
“Did they?” Miller said. He didn’t look the way they’d come, instead studying the forest depths before them, tasting the damp and the rot and the cold. He thought of his dream of flying into the depths of space, of the terrible darkness between the stars and what ruled there. “We’ve got nowhere to hide. I had to guess, I’d guess they’re saving us for something very special.”
So, they continued on and arrived at the outskirts of Slango as the peaks darkened to purple. Nothing remained of the encampment except for abandoned logs and mucky, flattened areas, and a muddle of footprints and drag marks. Every man, woman, and mule was gone. Every piece of equipment likewise vanished. The railroad tracks had been torn up. In a few months forest would reclaim all but the shorn slopes, erasing any evidence Slango Camp ever stood there.
“Shit,” Stevens said without much emotion. He hung his hat on a branch and wiped his face with a bandanna.
“Hello, lads,” A man said, stepping from behind a tree. He was wide and portly and wore a stovepipe hat and an immaculate silk suit. His handlebar mustache was luxuriously waxed and he carried a blackthorn cane in his left hand. A dying ray of sun glowed upon the white, white skin of his face and neck. “I am Dr. Boris Kalamov. You have caused me a tremendous amount of trouble.” He gestured at the surroundings. “This is not our way. We prefer peaceful coexistence, to remain unseen and unheard, suckling like a hagfish, our hosts none the wiser, albeit dimly cognizant through the persistent legends and campfire tales which please us and nourish us as much as blood and bone. To act with such dramatic flourish goes against our code, our very nature. Alas, certain of my brethren were taken by a vengeful mood what with you torching the village of our servants.” He tisked and wagged a finger that seemed to possess too many joints.
Miller didn’t even bother to lift his rifle. He was focused upon the nightmare taking shape in his mind. “How now, Doctor?”
Stevens was more optimistic, or just doggedly belligerent. He jacked a round into the chamber of his Winchester and sighted the man’s chest.
Dr. Kalamov smiled and his mouth dripped black. “You arrived at a poor time, friends. The black of the sun, the villagers’ holiest of holy days when they venerate the Great Dark and we who call it home. Their quaint and superstitious ceremony at the dolmen cut short because of your trespass. Such an interruption merits pain and suffering. O’ Men from Porlock, it shan’t end well for you.”
Stevens glanced around, peering into the shadows of the trees. “I figured you didn’t come for tea, fancy pants. What I want a know is what happens next.”
“You will dwell among my people, of course.”
“Where? You mean in the village?”
“No, oh, no, no, not the village with your kind, the cattle who breed our delicacies and delights. No, you shall dwell in the Dark with us. Where the rest of your friends from this lovely community were taken last night while you two cowered in the cave. You’re a wily and resourceful fellow, Mr. Stevens, as are most of your doughty woodsmen kin. We can make use of you. Wonderful, wonderful use.”
“Goodbye, you sonofabitch,” Stevens said, cocking the hammer.
“Not quite,” Dr. Kalamov said. “If we can’t have you, we’ll simply make do with your relatives. Your father still works for the post office in Seattle, does he not? And your sweet mother knits and has supper ready when he gets home to that cozy farmhouse you grew up in near Green Lake. Your little brother Buddy working on the railroad in Nevada. Your nephews Curtis and Kevin are riding the range in Wyoming. So many miles of fence to mend, so little time. Very dark on the prairie at night. Perhaps you would rather we visit them instead.”
Stevens lowered his rifle, then dropped it in the mud. He walked to the doctor and stood beside him, slumped and defeated. Dr. Kalamov patted his head. The doctor’s hand was large enough to have encompassed it if he’d wished, and his nails were as long as darning needles. He flicked Stevens’ ear and it peeled loose and plopped wetly in the bushes. Stevens clapped his hand over the hole and screamed and fell to his knees, blood streaming between his fingers. Dr. Kalamov smiled an avuncular smile and tousled the man’s hair. He pushed a nail through the top of Stevens’ skull and wiggled. Stevens fell silent, his face slack and dumb as Ma’s had ever been.
“Reckon I’ll decline your offer,” Miller said. He drew his pistol and weighed it in his hand. “Go ahead and terrorize my distant relations. Meanwhile, I think I’ll blow my brains out and be shut of this whole mess.”
“Don’t be hasty, young man,” Dr. Kalamov said. “I’ve taken a shine to you. You’re free to leave this mountain. There’s a lockbox in the roots of that tree. The company payroll. Take it, take a new name. And when you’re old, be certain to tell of the horrors that you’ve seen…horrors that will infest your dreams from today until the day you die. We’ll always be near you, Mr. Miller.” He doffed his hat and bowed. Then he grasped Stevens by the collar and bundled him under one arm and into the gathering gloom.
The lockbox was where the man had promised and it contained a princely sum. Miller stuffed the money in a sack as the sun went down and darkness fell. When he’d finished packing the money he buried his head in his arms and groaned.
“By the way, there are two minor conditions,” Dr. Kalamov said, leering from behind a stump. The flesh of his face hung loose as if it were a badly slipping mask. His eyes were misaligned, his mouth a bleeding black slash that extended to his ears. He had no teeth. “You’re a virile lad. Be certain to spawn oodles and oodles of babies—I must insist on that point. We’ll be observing, so do your best, my boy. There is also the matter of your firstborn…”