It was the sound of dry, windblown leaves and loose paper hissing across concrete streets and sidewalks. But unlike steady gusts of Chicago wind, the new sound ebbed and flowed with a jerky, stop-start feel. It reminded Will of another noise, a noise he'd learned to watch out for since he'd started hiking into the mountains with Samuel and Douglas some three years ago — the malignant sound of a rattlesnake's warning.
He fought down a creeping panic and a sudden, clutching stab of claustrophobia. His reaction to the strange noise was primitive, instinctive, and raw.
Will rolled to his knees and peered into the hole he'd labored so long to create. He felt a strong urge to run, but his friends were in there. He stared into the tunnel, listening to the bone-dry hissing-rattling sound grow and swell — until another, more recognizable sound joined the approaching noise.
The sound of a man screaming billowed up from some unseen place far down the tunnel. Will knew it was Samuel, although he'd never before heard Samuel scream. It was a high, piercing noise, almost feminine, full of agony and terror that transcended either sex. The scream lasted only a few seconds, faded to a single, mournful, fearful moan, then ceased.
Will forced himself to remain rooted to the spot. He couldn't summon the courage to cram himself into the narrow opening, to crawl farther into the mountain's belly, but he could keep himself from a cowardly flight while his friends remained in the tunnel.
He saw a bouncing light before he heard the rhythmic pound of heavy footsteps and the strained breathing of a man running for his life. He recognized Douglas, pounding hard and fast up the sandy incline, blood smearing his face and covering his chest as if someone had splashed him with a great bucket of gore. Douglas fell hard, his face skidding in the loose dirt, his helmet rolling and bouncing like a decapitated head. Ignoring the lost helmet, he scrambled to his feet and ran some more, kicking up arcing streams of the fine cave silt with each desperate step.
Confusion and panic gripping his voice and thoughts, Will screamed to his friend. “Douglas! What's happening?"
Douglas said nothing. His eyes were wide, their whites shining intently in the glow of Will's headlamp.
Douglas closed the distance quickly. Will saw strange flashing lights and movement behind his sprinting friend — the subtle, rushing form of something his mind couldn't place. Before he could register the image, Douglas dove for the narrow opening and blocked all sight into the deep tunnel.
Douglas tried to worm his way through the tight bottleneck, but panic slowed his efforts. His hands lashed forward more like he was drowning than crawling through a mountain. His knuckles burst open each time they slammed into jagged, unforgiving rock.
"Hold on Doug, calm down!” Will grabbed at his friend's flailing arms and bloody hands. “Let me pull you out!” Douglas made noises that weren't words. Spittle flew from his wide-open mouth, splattering against his face, mixing with the blood that Will knew once belonged to Samuel.
Will pulled and Douglas started to slide through, but whatever had been chasing him caught up and pulled back — hard. Will lost his grip on Douglas's blood-slick skin. Doug's hands grasped desperately at the rocks, his fingers as taut and rigid as dry sticks scattered by the desert wind. Douglas's eyes somehow grew even wider and his mouth opened with a throat-ripping scream that made Will want to cover his ears and run.
Will once again fought down his urge to flee. He dove forward, grabbing Douglas's left arm just as the unseen assailant yanked again. Douglas lurched backward into the darkness, into the opening. Will pulled with all his might, fighting to keep his friend alive. The strange lights flickered inside the tunnel, coming from whatever played tug-of-war with Douglas's body.
Will planted his feet on the same boulder he'd worked so hard to move, arched his back, and heaved with every last ounce of strength.
From inside the opening, Will saw a flash of something silver. A sudden release of opposite pressure made him fall backward on his ass, as if his opponent in the tug-of-war had just dropped the rope.
Only it wasn't a rope he'd been pulling.
Will looked down, even as the urge to run claimed his mind, even as he scrambled backward, trying to get to his feet. In his grasp he clutched Douglas's bloody mess of a hand — which had been neatly severed just above the wrist with a cut as clean as that of a butcher's meat-saw.
Silhouetted in the lone spotlight of his headlamp, the only light in the eternally black cave, he saw blood patter down in long drips to the silt below. The radius and ulna gleamed white and oozed gooey marrow. The darkness seemed to close in around him like a noxious cloud.
But it wasn't all dark.
Flickers of colored light still sparkled from the opening, playing off the rough gray rocks as they quickly grew brighter — whatever had taken Samuel was coming through the opening.
Good-Samaritan time was over.
Will tossed the hand aside and scrambled to his feet. As he did, he heard movement, the scratchy rasp of something sliding through the narrow opening. It came after him, those strange lights flashing maliciously. Will didn't look back. Fueled by sheer terror, he scrambled up the narrow tunnel, attacking the incline like an animal dashing away from a predator. If he could just make it back to the opening, back to camp, out of the narrow tunnel and into the sunlight, maybe he could escape. Maybe this thing couldn't leave the cave.
He clung to that hope as he made his desperate dash. Chest heaving, limbs screaming white-hot from fatigue, at last he saw sunlight. With a last burst of energy, he escaped the shaft and made it to the small clearing outside.
Wilford Igoe Jr. didn't make it any farther.
Article from The Y News, Brigham Young University
April 4, 1942
Graduate Students Missing
Presumed lost in Caves
By Shannon Carmichae
Today police declared three Brigham Young graduate students missing. The three geology students were doing fieldwork in the Wah Wah Mountains in western Utah.
Samuel J. Anderson, 22, Douglas Nadia, 21, and Wilford Igoe Jr., 22, were doing research in the remote area. Officials became concerned when Anderson's parents contacted the university, saying that he was due home on March 27. Utah State Police hiked out to their last reported location, which sits at an elevation of 3,500 feet.
"It was difficult reaching the site,” said Henry Isbey of the Utah State Police. “We had a plane fly over their last reported location, but couldn't find anything. We hiked up and found no sign of them, not even a campsite."
Police officials said the search could prove difficult because of the terrain, and because the students have been in the hills for almost a month with no contact. Isbey added that it's impossible to know when the students ran into trouble.
"As far as we know, they may have been missing for two or three weeks,” Isbey said.
School officials said they would do anything in their power to help find the students.
Book One: Opportunity
Chapter One
Sonny McGuiness sat at a corner table, staring angrily at the longhaired Indian sitting across from him. The bar was dark with shadow despite the noonday sun that blazed on shuttered windows. They had the corner of the bar to themselves, not because there were only ten people in the place, but rather because both of them smelled as if they hadn't bathed in weeks. Sonny's shocking-white, unkempt beard framed a scowl that furrowed his deeply wrinkled, dark-black face. The skin around his eyes was somewhat lighter than the rest of his onyx complexion, a light chocolate color, giving him an odd reverse-mask appearance. He drank his beer as if it would douse his sudden burst of temper.