Looking Backward in Darkness. Kathryn Ptacek
there, and knew then that what he had seen was false. He had been misled, deliberately. Whoever—whatever—was doing this wanted him to lose heart, wanted him to give up.
But he wouldn’t.
He took a deep breath, and followed the curve of the tunnel which was now heading downward slightly, and he wondered how far below the airport he was now. If that was really where he was.
Abruptly the tunnel ended, and there before him stretched a pool of water. He edged closer and saw reflected only himself.
Now what? he asked himself.
He inspected the wall beyond the water, the walls alongside him. Were there hidden doors somewhere? No. He knew that this was the way.
But if he jumped in, he would drown. Who knew how deep this was? He might just sink like a stone, and that would be the end of him. Or perhaps there were...things...slimy things waiting for him beneath the water, things that would suck the very breath from his body, and crush him with their rot-encrusted tentacles.
No, no, he couldn’t do it. He had to go back, had to find another way to rescue the baby.
No, said a voice in his mind, and he knew it was old Josanie. Think.
He studied the water’s tranquil surface. Nothing seemed to move below it. Nothing disturbed it.
Taking a deep breath, Chato took one step into the water and sank and sank and sank until he thought his lungs would burst from lack of oxygen, and then suddenly he was in another room, this one much larger than those lining the tunnel.
Firelight flickered, casting elongated shadows, shadows that seemed almost to move as if they were alive.
And there beyond the blaze stood the bruja, and she held the baby by its tiny heels, and dangled the child over the flames. The baby wailed miserably, and flailed its arms uselessly.
“You will pay,” the woman whispered, and in that moment he saw she was not an old woman as he had first thought, but that her skin was dark and mottled, like that of a lizard, and her teeth were long and yellowed, something red staining them. From her back arched wings of jade and ebony feathers, feathers that moved, from the lice and maggots that crawled across them. She looked like a feathered serpent.
He blinked, but the image stayed the same, and in that moment, he saw she wore his mother’s face, then that of Sunny, then that of a girl whom he had known long ago at the university, and then it was the face of the old woman, but only as she must have been long, long ago. She was at once beautiful and terrible to see, and he saw now that she was completely naked except for the necklace of bones draped across her full breasts, and her bronzed skin gleamed.
She smiled at him, and beckoned to him with one hand, and in that hand he saw an obsidian knife.
He remained rooted where he was.
Her skin was tattooed. At least he thought they were tattoos. Tattoos of eyes, like the masks in the tunnel: mere slits, round, tear-shaped, and then with growing horror, he realized the eyes were watching him and that some had winked.
The woman’s smile broadened. She raised her arm, the knife rising, and now he watched as the dagger came hurtling down and—
Without thinking, he threw himself across the fire. He was only dimly conscious of the sparks singeing his hair, burning his face and hands, and he grabbed the baby just as the knife slashed downward and pain shot through him as the obsidian cut through his sleeve into his flesh, and he yelled, and kicked out, and his boots connected with the woman, and she screamed as she lost her balance, and fell into the fire.
He scrabbled to his feet, the child cradled tightly in his arms, and watched as the woman writhed and howled as the flames licked up and down her body, melting the flesh away as if it were nothing more than thin tissue paper, and he watched as her bones burned, watched until there was nothing more than charred matter. Abruptly the fire died down, and there was only embers and what had been left of the bruja.
Tentatively he touched one of lumps with the toe of his boot, and he thought he could hear a faint cry.
He hurried away from the fire, then examined the room. It was elongated, the now-dead fire at one end, a pool of water at the other. He had come down before. Would he have to go down again? It didn’t make sense. After all, he wanted to go up, but then maybe none of this made sense, at least as far as the rules of science went. This was a matter of something much darker, much older than science, after all.
The baby was whimpering, and he tried to shush her, but he knew she must be scared and hungry, and with a prayer that this was the right thing, he jumped into the water, and suddenly he was bobbing up and up and up through clear water, and his head broke the surface and he scrabbled out of it before the baby could drown.
Once more he was standing in the tunnel, and as far as he could see there was still no exit. It looked liked he’d have to head up that slope. There was no way around it.
He clasped the infant closer to him and started toward the slope. He ignored the rooms on either side of him; he wanted to see nothing that they held. The walls seemed to grow closer upon him, and things with long plucking fingers reached out and grabbed at his tattered shirt, his burned skin, and he gritted his teeth against the pain.
Finally he came to the slope. He started climbing up, holding the baby with one hand, helping himself find a purchase with the other hand.
What if, he wondered halfway up, what if he got to the top, and he didn’t see a doorway, just like when he fell down the slope.
Believe, one part of his mind said, and it was his voice, though, not Josanie’s.
He reached the top, and rested, but there before him was the door. He pushed it open and stepped through, and he once more was in the airport terminal, and when he glanced around, there was only a smooth wall.
He hurried toward the nook, afraid now that he would find Gail gone, but she was there, sitting on her bedding. She leaped to her feet when she saw him and rushed over, and he handed the baby to her.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
He knew how he must look. His hair was partly singed, some of it laying in wet strands across his cheek and forehead. His face and arms were bruised, he had blood and cuts and dirt all over him, not to mention the burns and scorch marks.
He grinned.
“It’s a long story.” He took a deep breath and felt the sharp pain in his ribs; he had forgotten about them during all this; now he was very much reminded. “I think I’m going to wash up as best I can in the bathroom, and then I think we ought to get the hell out of here. You agree?”
She nodded. “I agree.”
When he came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, he found she’d make a makeshift bed for the baby from a small carton, and that she’d packed some of their things—mostly the food and drink and blankets—into a few other boxes.
“I didn’t know how far we’d have to walk,” she said.
“Walk? Hell, we’re going to drive,” he said, and he strode over to one of the rental car stations, and grabbed a handful of keys. “We’re going to go to the rental lot, and find what fits where, and when we do, we’re getting in and not looking back.” He didn’t mention the vehicles that he’d seen earlier, the ones that couldn’t get out of the airport. Not now.
He wasn’t about to stop for anyone or anything now, not after what he’d just gone through.
It took them half an hour but they found a blue T-bird, and got their boxes settled in. Gail strapped herself in, then held the baby tightly.
Chato got behind the wheel, put on his seatbelt, adjusted mirrors and seat, and turned on the car, and without thinking, flipped on the turn signal. He grinned when he realized it wasn’t necessary. Old habits.
Then they drove out of the deserted rental car lot, and into the outbound lane, and when they reached the shells of