Mists of Dawn (78 page)

Of
course,
getting
out
again
would
be
another
matter.
But
there
in
the
coldness
of
the
night,
with
the bestial
half-men
snarling
furiously
as
they
raced
toward
them,
there
was
but
one
way
to
go—forward.

Together,
with
only
Tlaxcan’s
fitfully
burning
torch to
guide
them,
they
entered
the
cave.
Fang
sniffed
at the
cave
mouth
and
drew
back,
whining.
The
half-men screamed
behind
him,
and
Fang,
growling
deep
in
his throat,
trotted
hesitantly
through
the
entrance
and
followed
the
flickering
torch
into
the
uneasy
darkness below.

The cave sloped downward, and Mark could feel his steps quickening on the slanting floor of rocks. He could hear the Neanderthals growling in the darkness, and judged that they were grouped around the cave mouth, trying to decide whether or not to go in. The hollow, tubular caverns did strange things with voices however, taking them and twisting them grotesquely out of all recognition. It was almost impossible to tell whether a sound came from just over your shoulder or hundreds of yards away. The growls and mutterings chased each other down the black echoes and lost themselves among the uncaring rocks.

Fang
stayed
so
close
to
him
that
he
constantly
entangled
himself
in
Mark’s
legs;
he
had
to
push
him away
forcibly
in
order
to
keep
on
going.
The
dog
was obviously
afraid
of
something,
and
Mark
had
a
grim suspicion
that
what
he
feared
waited
ahead
of
them in
the
depths
of
the
cave,
rather
than
behind
them where
the
half-men
whispered
their
fury.

Mark
had
a
continual
feeling
that
he
was
about
to step
off
into
a
bottomless
pit;
there
was
not
enough light
to
see
by,
and
he
simply
had
to
follow,
as
best 
he
could,
the
light
from
Tlaxcan’s
torch,
as
it
wound on
down
into
the
cave.
He
knew,
of
course,
that
where Tlaxcan
had
gone
he
could
also
go,
but
it
was
weirdly uncomfortable
to
have
to
put
his
feet
down
on
rocks that
he
could
not
see,
feeling
all
the
while
that
he might
just
go
on
forever,
down,
down,
down
.
.
.

The
dank,
unpleasant
smell
increased
as
they
pushed on
through
the
caverns.
Mark
could
not
quite
decide what
it
was
about
the
smell
that
was
so
oppressive;
it was
a
nameless
thing,
all
the
more
chilling
because
he could
not
positively
identify
it.
It
was
not
merely
a dead
smell,
although
the
cave
had
the
stench
of
death about
it
somehow.
Nor
was
it
only
the
dampness,
or the
stifling
closeness
that
one
often
knows
deep
in
the earth,
with
the
untold
tons
of
rock
pushing
down
on you
from
the
clean
world
above.

It
reminded
Mark
of
a
sewer
pipe
he
had
once crawled
into
as
a
child.
The
pipe
had
stopped abruptly
and
turned
into
a
stone
tunnel,
where
the sewer
line
ran
under
a
railroad
track.
He
had
groped forward
in
the
darkness,
the
batteries
in
his
small
flashlight
beginning
to
give
out.
He
splashed
excitedly through
the
murky
ooze,
still
on
his
hands
and
knees, putting
one
hand
ahead
of
the
other
to
feel
his
way along.
First
his
right
hand,
then
his
left
hand,
then
his right
hand,
then
his
left
hand
touched
something.
It was
cold,
cold
and
slippery.
Horrified,
he
could
not take
his
hand
away.
The
thing
was
round
and
soft
and flexible.
Mark
ran
his
hand
along
it,
shocked
almost out
of
his
senses.
It
was
long.
His
other
hand
shaking so
that
he
could
hardly
hold
the
flashlight,
he
turned the
fading
beam
downward.
There
on
the
rocks,
dead glazed
eyes
staring
at
him,
was
a
six-foot
rattlesnake that
had
been
dead
too
long
.
..

That
was
the
way
this
cave
felt.

Down
and
down
Tlaxcan
went,
not
even
bothering to
look
behind
him.
Mark
could
not
hear
the
half-men now.
Had
they
given
up?
Were
they
squatting
around the
cave
mouth,
waiting?
Or
were
they
stalking
them in
silence
through
the
Stygian
blackness,
their
red
eyes fixed
on
Tlaxcan’s
dwindling
torch
even
as
Mark’s were?

Fang
whined
loudly
and
then
subsided
into
silence as
Mark
patted
him
with
a
reassurance
he
did
not
feel. Mark
tried
to
tell
himself
that
he
just
had
the
willies, that
the
worst
was
over,
that
Tlaxcan
clearly
knew
what he
was
doing
and
where
he
was
going.
That
helped some,
but
the
eerie
feeling
persisted.
Mark
kept
seeing that
dead
snake,
soft
and
horrible
under
his
hand.

Tlaxcan
fired
up
another
torch
from
the
dying
flames of
the
first
one
and
hurled
the
first
one
away.
It
sizzled and
hissed
as
it
fell
into
a
shallow
basin
of
oily
water, and
then
winked
out.
The
new
torch
chased
the shadows
back
momentarily,
and
Mark
caught
a
sudden glimpse
of
fantastic
rock
formations
all
around
him
in a
somber
and
brooding
series
of
archways
and
branching
tunnels,
rearing
stalagmites
and
hanging
stalactites. It
was
weirdly
beautiful,
and
yet
infinitely
dead.
It looked
like
the
cold
surface
of
the
moon.