Unbearable Read online

  “You drove that from Miami?” Nick asked Miguel as he climbed out of the car.

  In the last two days, Nick had become more like his old self. He even teased Nyanther about his new interest in all things technological, including thick magazines devoted to electronics that he had spent most of the journey from New York reading. Now he was giving Miguel hell about his car.

  Miguel grinned unabashedly. “I paid cash for it, amigo. Now I owe no one. Just gas for it to run, that is all.”

  “You’re not insured?” Nick asked curiously.

  Miguel glanced around, checking for strangers who might be listening. He did it without turning his head. “Insurance is for those with papers, Nicholas.” He patted the hood of the DeVille. “Or those with too much money.” He waved everyone toward the diner. “Let’s eat, my rich friends!” He plucked Riley out of Tally’s arms and bounced her on his hip and up into the air over his head, laughing as much as Riley did.

  Miguel ate enormously, while we all ordered coffee and watched. Even Tally declined to eat, which she had been doing more and more often lately. Finally, Miguel burped heavily and sat back with a satisfied sigh, tousled Riley’s curls and dug a crumpled map out of his jacket pocket.

  We cleared the table and he spread the sheet. It was a finely detailed map of Ocala county and there were crosses in blue ink scattered over the map. This was a typical hunter tactic—track reports and sightings, group them on a map and head for ground zero, where the sightings were most heavily clustered.

  Miguel pointed to the thatch of crosses to the east of Ocala itself. “Ocala National Forest,” he said. “Lots of water, lots of limestone cliffs and trees everywhere,” he added. “Just one problem.”

  “Tourists,” Tally said.

  Miguel pointed at her.

  “Even in January?” Nick asked.

  “Hey, even the bonita is wearing shades, man,” Miguel pointed out. “This is Florida. It don’t get cold here.”

  “The numbers of people will be fewer than spring or fall, I’m sure,” Tally said. “Besides, we can’t wait. Now is as good as it gets.”

  I didn’t feel any happier than Nick looked. People complicated matters. People made the work far more dangerous.

  As the waitress arrived with fresh coffee, Miguel put the map away, making it look casual. He chucked Riley’s cheek and looked around the table. “I, too will be a parent in the summer.”

  “That’s wonderful, Miguel,” I told him. “We didn’t know you were with anyone.”

  “We got married, Thanksgiving weekend,” Miguel said, grinning broadly. He leaned forward. “Tricky, though. These days, the government wants more and more proof of who you are.”

  Nick studied him soberly. “We have documentation,” he said gently.

  Miguel shook his head. “No, amigo. You just think you do. These days, one sheet doesn’t cut it. They want two or three and they have to have a photo. Use to be, you could use someone’s birth certificate to get a social security number, or a social security number you lifted from some poor sap to get a job. It don’t work that way now.”

  Nick didn’t answer. Because he had been prudent with money throughout his life, the need to get a job or account for himself in any official capacity had never been a great priority. Neither had it been critical for me. Basic IDs were easy to come by, but even we had found it more cumbersome over the last decade or so. Oscar, who had been a lawyer, had often nagged us about setting up more fool-proof identities, for the same reasons that Miguel was expounding now.

  “It’s the computers,” Nyanther said suddenly. “The government uses them to cross-check. If something doesn’t match across all the departments, it flags attention.”

  I knew very little about computers, except that they were big, expensive and only the government and multi-nationals could afford to use them. “They would use computers to hunt down illegals?” I asked, amused. “Isn’t that like swatting a fly with an atomic warhead?”

  Miguel sighed and sat back. He’d given up.

  Nyanther was the one to answer. “Everything will be run by computers, sooner or later,” he said. “No one will use actual money anymore. There will be computers in every store that take your details and take the money straight out of your bank account. I was reading about it on the way down.”

  We were all staring at him in amazement. I tried to imagine what it would be like to stand in front of a big tin computer silo at the bodega on the corner of our block and couldn’t do it.

  “Not use money?” Tally said dryly. “Impossible.”

  “Paper money,” Nyanther insisted. “Coins you can touch. It won’t disappear overnight but eventually, we’ll use computers more than we use cash.” He glanced around casually. There wasn’t anyone very close because it was still mid-afternoon. “Miguel is right. Once computers start talking to each other and cross-checking everything, if your driver’s license doesn’t have the name on it that the computer says it should, people will start asking questions. It will get harder and harder to prove you’re a legitimate human.”

  That Nyanther, who had been tipped into the twentieth century less than a year ago, was the one telling us this was ironic. Perhaps it was because he had just arrived here among all the fantastic and mind-bending things like airplanes and central heating and flushing toilets, that considering an impossible-to-imagine future came easier to him.

  Tally got to her feet and bent to unstrap Riley from the high chair. “People will always need money,” she said flatly. “It’s the only fair medium of exchange.”

  She was impatient to begin and coaxed all of us back out to the cars. It was a simple thirty minute drive out to the forest and I relaxed a degree or two when we saw very few cars on the highway.

  The parking lot was similarly unpopulated. There were three other cars, all parked at the end closest to where the trails started. Nick automatically picked a bay as far away from the other cars as possible, which put us close to the entrance. Miguel pulled up next to him and he hauled yet another map out of his pocket. This one was a map of the park itself, with the trails and facilities outlined clearly.

  There was a single trail running right down through the center of the park. Miguel pointed to it. “That’s the Florida Trail. Goes from one end of the state to the other. We’re here.” He pointed to the Juniper Springs Recreational Centre. Then he scored a cross in red pencil, just north of where the main trail did a big kink around something that wasn’t marked on the map. “There. Off the main trail, right among the big cliffs.”

  “Sounds promising,” Nyanther said. He looked at Nick. “Still think this is a bear?”

  “They do.” Nick nodded to where the trail began. There were placards nailed to trees warning people of bears in the area and suggesting they avoid leaving the trail for any reason and to carry pepper spray and bells with them.

  Miguel snorted. “It’s January, man. All the bears are asleep.”

  I think even I jumped in surprise. I had forgotten that bears hibernate, too. That made a difference. A big difference.

  “It’s a couple of miles to get there,” Miguel added. He looked at Tally. “Maybe someone should stay back here with the little one?”

  I kept my mouth shut. On any other day I would have volunteered. I was the default caregiver because Nick and Tally were uniquely talented and the only ones who could do this. Only, I’d promised to help Tally any in way I could to find Valdeg and Lirgon and now I had even more reason to want this whole gargoyle business finished, done and over with. I wanted Nick undistracted and guilt-free. I wanted him back.

  Nyanther shifted uneasily. “I suppose….” he began.

  “No. No more wasting time,” Tally said sharply. She moved around to the trunk, fitted the key and lifted the lid and hauled out the folding stroller, all while holding Riley on her hip. I don’t know how women do that. I would have had to put her back in the car seat while pulling gear out of the trunk.

  “Riley can come with u
s,” Tally said. “It will make us look more like tourists, anyway.”

  * * * * *

  The farther north we moved along the well-marked trail, the more isolated we began to feel. Even Miguel grew quiet and he is usually irrepressibly chatty. It wasn’t just that there were so few people around, because we did pass couples and groups. It was the silence in the forest itself.

  “No small animals or birds,” Tally observed.

  “Winter quiet?” Nick suggested.

  “Or a bigger predator is keeping them hunkered down,” Tally replied. She was pushing the stroller. The big wheels moved easily along the trail, which was bare, flat earth with sections of boardwalk planking. Riley was asleep, her thumb corked firmly in her mouth.

  The verdant southern forestation was thick overhead, cutting out the sunlight and leaving us in shadows. I was glad to have my coat, even though I had put it back on in order to carry my sword, as had everyone else.

  Ahead, through the thick growth, I spotted something white and watched it until I had identified it. There was bright, pure white cliff face just ahead, peeking from among vines and trees.

  The trail turned sharply to the right, the cliffs were to the left. A faint trail ran off to the left.

  I halted.

  Nick turned back instantly. He was hyper-alert.

  I pointed to the secondary trail. “And there are cliffs, through there.”

  Nick glanced at Tally. It was a silent question.

  “Yes,” she agreed and turned the stroller carefully, to avoid waking Riley.

  The going was slower on the narrow trail, yet there was still enough of a clear path and room for the stroller and we hurried ahead, not talking.

  The trail opened out into a clearing. Ahead was the back slope of the cliffs and the entrance to a cave mouth, which had been framed with concrete and featured concrete steps leading down into the cave itself. There were a dozen or more cross-country bicycles chained to the guardrail running along the footpath, with helmets slung over handlebars.

  “People inside,” Nick said, pushing his sword back into his coat. “Lots of them. Slow and stealthy, while we look around.”

  Tally eased Riley out of the stroller and she began to fret as she woke. I took her from Tally and settled her against my shoulder. “You need both hands,” I told Tally.

  She rested her hand against my other shoulder briefly. “Thank you.”

  We climbed cautiously down the damp steps into the cave proper. There was concrete walkway leading deeper into the cave and lights, making it bright and warm. There was signage everywhere, with history about the cave complex, warnings about wandering off the path and trivia about the cave itself.

  I don’t think I have seen a less gargoyle-suitable cave than that one. We might have been strolling through a museum display. I hitched Riley into a more comfortable position and patted her back as she resettled with soft baby sounds. “You two should go ahead,” I told Nick and Tally. “If Lirgon is here, he’s not going to be sitting out where the tourists can see him. You’ll have to step off the trail and explore.”

  Tally looked at Nick.

  “Well, we’re here now,” Nick said philosophically. “It will eliminate this cave, at least, if we search it properly.”

  They moved ahead faster than the three of us. Farther back into the cave system I could hear the echoes of the bicycle group, laughing and talking, throwing rocks and shouting to set up even more echoes. Nick and Tally would have to skirt around them, too.

  Even more distantly, at the farthest extent of my hearing, I could hear water dripping into a bigger pool of water, making it splash and ripple.

  “We should walk through, too,” Miguel said. “Nyanther and I can step off and check things out if we need to.”

  “It will pass the time,” Nyanther said in agreement and from his tone, I knew he had reached the same conclusion. There was no possible chance that Lirgon was hiding out in here. It was too commercial. Too populated.

  We strolled along the smooth, flat pathway, climbing steps occasionally and traversing plank bridges here and there. There were more signs, pointing to highlights and more warnings about moving off the path. We stopped at each viewpoint and read the signage and looked up as directed.

  After ten minutes of it, I realized that my chest was tight and my heart was beating by itself. Miguel seemed to be oblivious to the thickening atmosphere. I glanced at Nyanther. He was frowning down at the ground.

  He met my gaze.

  “Something….” I said.

  He nodded and reached inside his coat and gripped the handle of his sword. He didn’t draw it, because we could stumble upon humans at any point.

  Part of the reason for my growing tension occurred to me. “Sunset,” I breathed.

  Miguel looked at me sharply, then looked around the narrow traverse we were in. The wooden bridge we were on was twenty feet above the rocky, uneven floor. There was nowhere to go except backward or forward.

  “Move on,” Nyanther said, his deep voice rumbling. “There’s nothing behind us.”

  “I should take Riley back,” I said.

  The scream was inhuman, pitched at a point that would be beyond most human hearing. It was agony-filled and died away, leaving the very air throbbing around us.

  “Too late,” Nyanther said, pulling his sword out.

  Miguel hurried forward and we followed him.

  A hundred yards on, the zig-zagging bridge turned back into concrete walkway as the ground rose up to meet it and the way ahead opened up in to a large cavern. Naked light bulbs were strung around the edges of the cavern, but the roof was far too high to see. Only a dozen yards ahead the walkway turned into another bridge, this time spanning a pool of water that glowed unearthly blue. There was a wider platform in the middle of the bridge for looking down into the water without holding up other tourists.

  To our left, where the walkway was still concrete, there was a fold in the wall that created a shadow, narrow and black. My night vision compensated and I saw that the shadow was in fact a vertical crevasse and deeper inside the shadow there was movement.

  “Nyanther,” I breathed, nodding toward the crack.

  “I see it,” Nyanther said softly.

  From the far end of the cave, where the walkway dove into another transition, came a voice, still far away. “I tell you, I heard something and it didn’t sound good.”

  The footsteps were coming closer.

  Nick stumbled out of the narrow cleft, walking like an automaton, his movements jerky. There were two swords in his hands. Both his and the katana were covered in inky black ichor. His shirt was covered in blood. Human blood.

  I stopped thinking. I deliberately made myself not think, except for immediate concerns. I shoved Riley into Nyanther’s arms and ran across the rock and shale floor of the cavern toward Nick. “Miguel!” I called softly and he followed me.

  The footsteps of the bicycle group were coming closer.

  I pulled the swords out of Nick’s hands and shoved them at Miguel, then yanked out my own. “Get Nyanther’s, too,” I said urgently. “Take them somewhere and stash them. Not in the cars. Somewhere unconnected. We can’t be found with them on us.”

  Miguel’s eyes were large. He nodded as he gripped the swords.

  “Then leave,” I told him harshly. “You can’t be processed and this is going to be messy. Go!”

  He slipped and skidded back down to the walkway, yanked Nyanther’s sword right out of his hand and started to run, the swords clinking unmusically together, their normally sweet notes ruined by the ichor. He disappeared around a twist in the walkway.

  “Oh my god…that’s blood!” came the exclamation.

  Then someone started to scream, the sound echoing and booming in that cold place.

  January 6, 1984

  There isn’t much left to tell in this tale. You already know the hard facts. Natalia Grey Connors died on January 5, 1984, from what authorities presume was a hibernati
ng bear that she must have disturbed when she ventured off the safe pathway of the public caves. What no one mentioned was that she was found lying upon a bed of pebbles and dirt, in a cavern with a floor worn smooth by a river, some eon in the past. The only pebbles anywhere in that cavern were the ones she laid upon.

  I managed to rouse Nick enough so that when the police arrived, the ambulance crew just behind them, he could respond almost normally. I didn’t want some over-anxious medical assistant to try treating him for shock and find that he didn’t have a heart beat and his body temperature dropped off the bottom of the chart.

  Nyanther gave Riley back to me after that and she sat in my arms the entire time we were questioned. After several hours we were allowed to leave, but had to hold ourselves available for more questions.

  I don’t think Nick noticed that we followed the stretcher with Tally’s body out into the night, which seemed much warmer than the interior of the cave by then. He was in no state to drive, so I drove back to Ocala, while Nyanther watched out for the hotel the police had directed us to, with the implication that they wanted to be able to find us there when they came looking for us again.

  Nyanther asked for his own room, but came with us into ours. I put Riley to bed, surrounded by a pillow dam so she would not roll off the big bed. Then I pushed Nick into the one armchair the room provided.

  Nyanther sank down onto the end of Riley’s bed.

  For the first time, I let myself think properly. That was when the shakes set in. The overwhelming fact of her death was shouting at me. Now I could afford to think, I couldn’t think of anything else but the one horrible fact.

  None of us moved or spoke, after that. Not until Riley woke early the next morning, hungry and demanding, which stirred us back into the human concerns of daily life.

  * * * * *

  The police cleared us of any wrong-doing. The condition of Tally’s body and the medical examiner’s conclusions did that on their own. No human would be capable of rendering a body in that way, not with bare hands and Nick had only had blood on his shirt from picking her up and holding her. There had been none on his hands.