CHAPTER 6

It wasn’t a cave-in, that much was obvious. The back of the cave was solid rock, unmarred by time and unbroken by human hand. No one had even etched their initials into it. Moss clung defiantly to crags and edges. It was disconcerting. Part of me insisted that it hadn’t been there the night before.

I was that sure of it. I felt like I’d been pranked. Like that, if I just pressed on the right spot of the wall, tugged at just the right bit of rock, then the wall would slide away into the ground and reveal the long passage into the dark. But after a few minutes of that, while Emma and Max looked me like I was losing my mind, it became clear that it was just rock and nothing more.

“This is weird,” I said. “This wasn’t here last night.” I didn’t have any proof of that, of course, beyond an odd feeling in the back of my brain. Like the first few notes of a song I’d heard years and years ago, one whose name I could not remember.

“Who’s to say we didn’t float through it like a ghost?” Emma asked.

Max stepped forward and gave the wall a good kick. “I doubt it. That’s solid rock.”

“Meters and meters of it,” I muttered. “But we all went down there, right? Didn’t we? Into the dark tunnel, the cave within the cave?”

Max gave me an skeptical look. “Caleb, why’re you putting it like that?”

“I don’t know. It just feels right.”

“Well, we’re looking at a dead end,” Emma said. “Either of you got any bright ideas?”

“Nope,” Max said.

“Okay. How about a stupid one, then?”

I ran my hands along the cavern wall again. The rock was rough and cool underneath my hands. There was that feeling again, that thought of a song. If I just focused on it, maybe...

“Hey,” I said. “Can you two get over here? Touch the rock for me. Do either of you hear that?”

They did so. After a moment, Max cocked his head to one side. “Yeah, it’s like—”

“It changed,” Emma said. “After we were here, it changed. It changed back. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it at the time. There was never any tunnel here. This is the cave I remember.”

“So, what, we just walked down some tunnel that doesn’t exist?” Max asked. “Did exist, but now doesn’t?”

“I guess,” I said. “But why?”

That was the question everything kept coming back to. Why, why, why. But there were no answers here. If there was some shadow there, whether it was the Grim Reaper or otherwise, and if he had done this, then it’d happened for a reason. Maybe it was a good sign. I drew my hands away from the wall and, after a moment, so did Max and Emma.

“A dead end,” I said, frowning. But, just for a second, I had an impression of being trapped in the dark beyond dark. Of wanting to be free.

Max said, “So, what do we do now?”

“Well, I didn’t have breakfast,” Emma said.

“Me either. I guess I was freaking out too much to remember to eat.”

“Lunch?”

“Sure,” I said. “Hogfather’s?”

----------------------------------------

“Is anyone else not really feeling the food here?” Emma asked, later.

I slurped from my shake, nodding absently. It didn’t really taste like anything. “Well, I think they screwed me on the chocolate syrup. How about you, Max?”

He was silent for a moment, finishing off the bite from his burger. “I love this place,” he confessed, giving us one of those winning smiles. “Like, I know I shouldn’t. This is a real guilty pleasure for me. I know it’s bad for me—but, God, the portions.”

He was right. The portions definitely made one reconsider the idea of generous servings, and maybe even the concept of generosity. “But,” Max said, and his eyes dropped to his mostly-uneaten burger, smile slipping from his face. “I have to admit. It’s not really grabbing me today.”

We’d gotten in just after the lunchtime crowd had wandered out. A few waitresses drifted through the diner, taking orders and delivering meals to the few patrons who were still present. It was one of the last stops out of Stonestead proper, so, Hogfather’s always did decent business.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Emma pushed her plate away. “Wait,” she said, looking at me. “Caleb, they screwed you on the chocolate syrup? That’s weird. That’s like the one thing they never skimped on. Well, when I worked here, at least.”

“You worked here?” Max and I asked in stereo.

“Yeah. Not for very long, mind you. The pay sucked, the hours sucked, and I got super into making coffee. Like, weirdly into it. Pretty sure I could’ve worked that coffee machine with my eyes closed.”

“How do you get weirdly into making coffee?” I wondered.

“Caleb,” she said, “do not ask.”

It was like it knocked something in the three of us loose. Max started laughing, then me, then Emma. Laughing so hard that Max ended up thumping the table. Laughing so hard we cried. Emma kicked me under the table. “Stop, stop, you fucking assholes,” but she was laughing, too.

Slowly, with heaving sighs, we found our breath again. It was odd. If not for the fact we’d all been involved in something bizarre, I would’ve assumed it was a nightmare. This was the most words I’d ever said to Maxwell Cheong, and the most I’d said to Emma that didn’t involve alcohol, a headset, or both. Maybe that was the point. Maybe it was all worth it.

Everyone was staring at us. Made sense, given that we were disrupting their day. Once we quietened down, the attention of the patrons and waitstaff went elsewhere. All except one.

“Hey,” I said to Max and Emma. “Do either of you know her?”

“Who?” Max asked.

“Over there, with the purple streak in her hair.”

Both shook their heads.

“Huh,” I said. “Well, she’s staring at us.” Everyone else had looked away once we’d calmed down and started acting like good citizens. She hadn’t. She still was.

“That just proves she’s got a working pair of eyes and sense of good taste,” Max said, grinning.

Then, she stood up, and crossed the diner, heading in our direction. It struck me first that she was tall. As tall as Max, if not an inch or two over him. Purple looked like her color of choice—not only was there a streak through her long black hair, but so was her striped two-tone hoodie. She was neither ugly nor pretty, but sharply distinctive. I’d never have picked her out of a crowd but I was struck by the thought I’d never lose her in one, either.

“Hey,” Max said, taking the lead. “What’s up? Can we help you with something?”

“I’ve been looking for you,” she replied, looking at each of us in turn. “All of you, it appears.”

“Okay,” Max replied, like he was responding to something reasonable. “What can we do for you, then?”

“What happened last night?”

I glanced at Emma, caught her looking at me. Max’s smile twitched only ever so slightly. “Pardon?” he said.

“At the cave,” the newcomer said. “What happened at the cave?”

“There was a big party out that way, wasn’t there?” I half-asked. Obviously, none of us went. Not the popular guy, not the pretty blonde, and certainly not the guy who looked like the concept of sunlight was more of a suggestion than anything else. It was a lie, and a bad one. It wouldn’t hold up if she knew who we were. But I got the impression that she had no idea.

"I don’t care about that,” she said, lowering her voice. “What I do care about is that the cave, and the area around it, was saturated in beyondic emanation. What did you do?”

“We didn’t do anything,” Emma replied. “You know, I don’t recognize you—which school do you go to, purple-streak?”

“I’m home-schooled.”

“Well, that explains your attitude.”

The newcomer frowned. Emma gave her a pleasant smile that said ‘bite me.’ Max intervened, holding up a hand. “I think we got off on the wrong foot, Miss...”

“Kree,” she said. Then, after an awkward moment: “Johnson-Smith.”

Yes, she said her name was ‘Johnson-Smith.’

“Look, Kree,” I said, “we’ll be honest—we don’t know what happened there last night. Something happened, yes. We were there and we went into the cave, but we don’t have a clue about any of that emanation stuff.”

“That’s not possible,” she said. “Look, we’re wasting time. If I have an attitude, it only comes from a proper understanding of the stakes. The three of you are in danger. You are, all of you, radiating beyondic energies.”

“What, like radiation?” I asked. Could that have been why none of us were hungry? That was a symptom of radiation sickness, wasn’t it?

Kree’s expression was odd. “Have none of you been synergized?”

“Syner-what?”

Her frown deepened.

“Then the danger is even worse than we thought,” Kree said. “I’m not the only one who has your trail, and you are defenceless.”

Max said, “But you were here before us.”

“You have to come with me. The three of you. Now.”

I shook my head. “Not before we get some answers. Why were you looking for us?”

“Because we’re the only ones who can help you.”

“Hey,” Emma said. “Who’s we?”

Then, it was like a tremor ran through the diner. People standing up, moving away from the windows. Panic expressed like a ripple in water. First slowly, then with more energy. One waitress dropped her tray of drinks. Someone, about to step out the front door, turned about and double-timed it toward the back. In fact, everyone was heading toward the back of the diner, for the storerooms and kitchen, instead of daring going out the front door—or being anywhere near it.

“What the hell?” Max murmured, watching the ripple spread. I craned to look past him as Kree’s gaze snapped to the front door. The bell jangled.

What entered made me think of a wolf, only it was much too large, and with a brawny build that brought to mind something closer to a bulldog. But that was about where the resemblance to anything terrestrial ended—it had skin, yes, but also a structure that looked crystalline, with sinew and muscle overlaid. Its pelt made me think of the night sky I’d been looking up at just the night before—purple and black and iridescent, like it had depth you could fall into. Its head reminded me of more a horse than any kind of dog, if not for the crystalline fangs, and two long tentacles curled back over its body from where any animal would’ve had ears, wafting in the still air. It had no eyes, merely the suggestion of where eyes should’ve been.

“What,” I began, “the fuck is that.”

Max whirled in his seat as the thing sniffed at the air and opened its vast jaws. A tongue that had to be a meter long danced in an exhalation of stars and smoke. Not breath, I knew somehow. Nothing like that needed to breathe.

“That’s one weird looking dog,” Max murmured.

Kree pushed herself off the table, stepping back. “That is not one of your dogs,” she said, voice grim. “That is a predator from beyond the threshold—a gulfhound—and it has your scent. Has had it since last night. And it knows you’re here.”