Shifting

Twenty-Two

That night I sweated and dreamt that Monika and Vance changed into wet tentacled monsters but with their natural heads. I cut them apart while the Captain watched and gave me dispassionate pointers. Then I found my own tentacles, and I cut them away too…

I awakened, sucking air like a drowning man. My stomach was a knot and my heart was pounding. Monika murmured and I had to slide my arm out from under her neck delicately. It was tingling and half-asleep. I shook blood into it in the dark and pulled my boots on.

I stumbled out into the hall, strapping on my saber and checking my.45; the clip was full. I left the safety on. I was sure it was nothing but a dream, but these days I was determined not to ignore my instincts. In the hallway, I was surprised to see that dawn was a blue glow in the sky outside. Soon, the sun would rise out of the trees to the east. Sleeping in rooms with the windows blocked out made one lose track of nature’s alarm clocks. I found the Captain alone in the lobby.

He nodded appreciatively when he saw me. “Long day, hot night with that little girl of yours and you’re still up before dawn. You make a sharp troop, Gannon.”

I frowned at him, wondering what he knew about Monika. He ignored me, so I rubbed my eyes and groped for coffee.

“Good time to make plans,” said the Captain, “the cold morning air clears the head.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Nick Hackler brought word about the Preacher.”

I perked up. “What word?”

“Some kind of trouble. He said there were gunshots up there yesterday, after the storm. He heard them. No one else is up on that hill.”

I sat back, thinking hard. “We have to go check it out. One way or the other.”

“One way or the other,” he agreed while having a quiet morning cigarette. The drifting smoke made me want to cough, but I put up with it in silence. I wondered how many years it had been since a cigarette had been quietly smoked in that lobby. Probably thirty, maybe forty or more. Now, no one was likely to come and demand he put it out. Times had changed.

I got out the map that the Preacher had given me. I pondered it. There was a shift line on it, a blue one, across our path to his cabin. I showed it to the Captain. He showed me his teeth in return.

“I’m beginning to like your aggressive style,” he said to me. “More balls than brains and it’s gotten you quite a ways. What do you want to do, sneak around it or bull our way through?”

I looked at him and at the map. “There are some fair-sized caves up there, really close to that spot. I used to play in them as a kid.”

He nodded, looking at it. Monroe county was famous for its limestone caves. In Kentucky, to the south, every farmer seemed to have a cave on his property and that he tried to charge tourists a few bucks to see. Every year in elementary school they gave the kids long-winded speeches about staying out of those dangerous caves. Of course, a country boy like me who had grown up in these hills had often ignored the warnings.

“What if we could find a way through the caves that went under that line?” I speculated.

“Let me guess, you want to try out the cave idea.”

“We can’t just leave him up there. I might as well try out his theory. Maybe he’s dead up there, maybe not. Either way I want to do the last thing he asked me to.”

He nodded and leaned back. “Okay, I’m in, but if you turn into a fanged aardvark, I’m going to blow you away. Fair warning?”

“Fair enough, and the same goes for you.”

He grinned again darkly and nodded. I could tell by his grin he didn’t think I would be able to take him under any circumstances.

Vance didn’t think it was such a good idea when I bounced it off him. “Let me get this straight, you know where the change happens, so you are going to seek out this fantastic danger to your very soul. You’ll go there, down in a cave for crying out loud, with a psycho to cover your back.”

“The idea is to see if the cave prevents the effect. I think I can sense the effect now. I think I’ll know if I’m close to the danger point.”

“Gannon, did you ever read any stories about supernatural monsters and stuff? Did you skip that part of youth? Did you ever notice that they like caves? That monsters tend to hang out there in stories? When did you ever read a story where the cave was a good, happy place?”

The Captain appeared, “I, the psycho, agree with your ravings, boy.”

We both reddened. It was hard to keep a secret even if you whispered in this place.

“Here’s a new tactical plan,” he went on, undisturbed. “I’ll be the control on this little experiment of yours. I’ll take the long way around the blue line on the map, going about a mile or so out and swinging around to the cabin from the south. You two ladies will do the cave thing. It should slow you down enough that we should make it at about the same time. If we make it at all, that is.”

“I don’t want to go through the cave!” blurted Vance.

“No problem,” said the Captain with a grin. “I think we have a replacement for you right here.”

“I’ll go,” said Monika. She had been listening in the hallway and came out now. Her hair was tousled and she still wore that dark coat she had come to me in last night. In her hand, casually, she held that.32 pistol I’d given her. “I want to go with you, Gannon.”