Tracy roused with a start.

He had not intended to sleep. Must've dozed off due to exhaustion.

Dying embers were all that remained of the small fire. The dust storm outside pressed against the mouth of the cave, sounding like a high wail. In their own small room, Cora and her boy slept, wrapped in each other's arms.

Movement deeper in the cave caught Tracy's attention. He blinked. A dark figure moved again.

Tracy scowled. Roy must've gotten loose from his cuffs somehow. That snake. Trying to get away by delving deeper into the cave while the storm's wailing outside covered his escape.

Getting to his feet slow like, so as to not alert the fugitive, Tracy drew Judge from the holster and followed, lowering the goggles so he could see better in the near black of the back of the cavern.

The uneven cave took a steep decline, weaving through the solid canyon wall.

Always, Roy stayed ahead of him.

Tracy picked up his pace. He carried on for a time until they went so deep that the howling of storm stopped echoing. Or the storm subsided.

How Roy stepped so quickly without making much noise, he did not know. It was like the fugitive knew this cave intimately. For all Tracy knew, this cave was a secret secluded haven for Roy. In which case, he might be following the fugitive into a trap.

At one point the walls closed in so that Tracy had to turn sideways and shimmy through two jagged walls to get to the path on the other side. He found himself stuck. He could not budge. Tracy threw his arms and head and front foot forward, but only managed to wedge himself tighter. Panic threatened to overwhelm him. But then he stopped, gathered his strength, exhaled completely, deflated his torso and threw himself forward.

He broke through, crashing to the floor of the cave. He hit a patch of gravel, and slipped down a steep slope. He tumbled head over heels several times until bashing his body against a stone wall at the bottom.

Pain laced his body, but no serious injuries. He hoped. Dusting himself off best he could, Tracy braced himself against the wall and climbed to his feet. Eyeing the spot his hand rested on, he let out a gasp.

An inscription or symbol was etched into the wall right where he placed his hand. That it was made with intention and intelligence was obvious. It's meaning eluded Tracy. Its strangeness bothered him, but he could not understand why. Perhaps because it was a shape with no name, a symbol unknown that no human would ever think to scrawl. It was, in a word, alien. It sent shivers up his spine.

But the main reason it worried Tracy to the core was not its unsettling, irrational, mysterious design, but the fact that Tracy had seen it before.

"No. Can't be real," he whispered.

The symbol scratched at his brain, nagging on memory of a memory. Tracy had seen this sign before. But he knew not where, or how. It felt at the same time recent, and eons ago.

He knew from experience that Mars was not just the home to Earth colonizers, but that an alien predator existed. But that thing that consumed the rustler seemed to him an unintelligent beast guided only by urges and not a being capable of an inscribed language.

He pressed on, turning a corner, and approached an ancient archway not carved by human hands. He stepped through into the chamber beyond. The ceiling fled, ascending to unknown heights, lost in the black. Every cautious step echoed off of symmetrical pillars. Cut from solid stone, it was as if the walls, pillars, and archway had been shaped in impossible intricate shapes before the rock hardened, then solidified after artisan master craftsmanship was complete.

His jaw dropped. His breath caught in his throat.

This structure suggested intelligent design. More than that, it suggested ancient life on Mars, rich history, culture, lives lead and lost, long, long before mankind ever set foot on the dead planet.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

But he didn't have time to wonder. A shifting shadow darting between pillars stole his attention.

Tracy snarled. "Surrender, Rothspalt."

Tracy was done playing hide and seek.

"Come out Roy. Don't make me shoot you."

He expected laughter, or a snide remark. He did not expect hissing that morphed into a moan. His stomach roiled like he'd eaten spoiled food. His grip on Judge and Jury tightened.

A strange sensation strangled his courage, but he couldn't put a name to what he felt.

Wait? Which direction was out?

He understood the strange sensation. He'd lost his sense of direction. Tracy never lost his way. Never.

He spun, peering every which direction, but only darkness abounded, even with the goggles on.

Small rocks clattered in the distance. A cold wind blew over the backs of his ears.

Something watched him. The gloom thickened.

The hairs on his neck stood on end.

He adjusted the goggles for the sudden lack of light. But the goggles stopped working.

Footsteps prowled around him, but every step he took near them, they vanished.

He closed his eyes, listening. A pitter patter of feet sounded to his left.

Pew.

The sparking blaze at the end of his gun strobed, cutting through the dark.

A tatterdemalion hunched over, reeling from the shot.

No. It couldn't be. Even though he caught a faint glimpse of it, the silhouette of a slender figure draped in flowing robes struck a chord in his mind. It resembled the thing from the nightmare he'd forgotten, an eldritch apparition from the darkest recesses of his psyche. Terror tried to throttle the marshal, but he tore away from its grasp.

"Die," yelled Tracy.

Judge and Jury roared as his fingers plucked the triggers, unleashing a fusillade, riddling the cloaked specter. The first few shots pierced the target, but the last shots hit nothing but the tendrilled wisps of a xanthos mist. The thing evaporated, vanished right in front of Tracy, melding with the shadows, as if it stepped behind a veil of darkness.

He blinked, mouth ajar.

What was that thing? Where did it go?

A woman's shriek echoed through the cave into the ancient ruins.

"Cora. Aston."

Tracy bolted through the archway, barreling up and out of the passageways, slipping and clawing on craggy handholds, scraping his way up the sloped cave floor. By the time he arrived at the mouth of the cave, everyone including his steeder was gone.