The Serpents of Eden

By RW Goldsmith

Clay Middleton has made a career as a wilderness artist with his paintings of the American southwest. His remote desert journeys have also earned him the reputation of a deranged man who is best avoided. The reputation suits him, however, as other than for his immediate family, he prefers the company of cacti, coyotes, and sidewinders to the company of man. His idyllic life comes to an end when his wife dies, and his daughter abandons her son to his care. He believes things cannot get worse. He is wrong. His grandson is kidnapped by three supernatural beings, and Clay alone possesses the means to rescue the boy. But to do so, he must endure the incessant chatter of a young paranormal investigator as they pursue the kidnappers across alternate post-apocalyptic Earths in a race against the countdown to universal destruction. ,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Running Wild Press
• Release date: Jan 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9781955062794

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

It was the damnedest thing Clay Middleton had ever seen. Considering all the damned things he’d seen in his fifty-eight years, that was saying a lot.

Beside him, his ten-year-old grandson Dylan poked at the translucent material with a twig plucked from a nearby creosote bush. What do you think it is, Grampa?

Antlers on a jackrabbit, boy. Just plain don’t belong.

Well over a hundred feet across with an isle of craggy sandstone jutting up from the center, the circular oddity glared in the late-morning sun like an amber pool of still water. Only it wasn’t water. Not here among the desert scrub, rock, and sand, and not with the two-dozen or so people jabbering and shuffling about its surface.

A light gust whispered among the surrounding brush, carrying the aroma of wildflowers. Word of the object was spreading fast. Soon enough, the dominant scent around here would be that of sweat. Even now, more curiosity seekers were streaming in from the nearby town of Flatrock. When word got out to the media, there’d be no room to breathe around here.

The boy tapped the edge of the material with his foot. It looks like frozen pancake syrup or— He sprang back. Whoa!

What is it, boy?

There’s something in there. It moved. Dylan rubbed a hand over the anomaly’s glossy surface, as though wiping condensation from a window. It’s gone now.

Probably the shadow of a bird or something.

Dylan scanned the sky and shook his shaggy-haired head. There’s nothing there. Besides, it was way too weird for a shadow. It kind of looked like a snake all coiled up on the ground.

That’s probably what it was, Clay said with a shrug. This thing appears to be made of some sort of murky glass. You likely caught the light just right and got a glimpse of a dead snake underneath.

Yeah, maybe.

A ribbon of windswept grit drew Clay’s gaze to a couple of smudges in the glass a dozen feet away. He walked to the marks and peered down at the life-sized impressions of two bare feet. Human footprints in the glass-like anomaly, just as Dylan had said when repeating what he’d learned on the Internet the evening before. Clay had expected to find some vague impressions in the glass and nothing more. Had he been wrong. An inch deep, the prints were near perfect, as though someone had stood here while molten glass solidified beneath their feet. But no one could have endured such heat. And even if they had, what would someone with bare feet have been doing out here among the sharp rocks and cactus in the first place?

Clay thanked the stars he was just an artist and not the guy who had to make sense of this.

The footprints faced the rocky isle at the center of the glass field where a gangly young man in Bermuda shorts, a busy Hawaiian shirt, and a pith helmet stood conversing with a growing number of people. Of course, someone wearing a pith helmet was here. More surprising was the fact that no one in a tinfoil hat had yet shown up. Not that Clay wasn’t an oddball in his own right. The local residents had called him loco behind his back for years, which suited him fine; less chance of people attempting to get chummy with someone they believed to be nuts.

But the footprints in the glass, they went far beyond odd.

Dylan, who’d stayed up late soaking up all the internet speculation he could on the anomaly, had made a nuisance of himself until Clay agreed to drive him here. From what the boy had gathered, more than a single set of footprints were to be found in the material. A lot more, according to Mark Raft, the man who’d made the discovery. Of course, the man also claimed a UFO had created the glass. But then, who was Clay to say one hadn’t? At the moment, it was as good an explanation as any.

The back of his neck pricked with a sense of being watched. Peripheral movement drew his gaze to a ghostly shadow that flitted across the glassy surface, then vanished.

A small airplane droned overhead. Certainly, the plane had cast the shadow. But hadn’t it passed in the wrong direction? First Dylan and now him. Wasn’t the first time Clay had seen things in the desert that weren’t there. Best to focus on something else. Dylan, come check this out.

Dylan wove a zigzag path with arms spread like wings and circled Clay twice before he stopped and pointed to the impressions. Whoa, I told you there were footprints. He stepped into the impressions, squeaking his sneakers against the rust-colored glass. This is so cool. I wish Mom could see me. He slumped like a punctured balloon.

I know. Clay placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. I miss her, too.

I don’t care if she is sick. I wish she hadn’t left.

She’s still hurting from the accident. She’ll be home as soon as she feels better. The note Clay’s daughter had left him two days before made no mention of a return. Telling Dylan that his mother was receiving physical therapy in the hospital seemed kinder than the truth that she’d simply run off. How about we bring her here when she gets home? If he was going to lie to the boy, best he stuck to the story.

Dylan stepped from the impressions. Nah, that’s all right. She doesn’t believe in aliens, anyway.

So, you think aliens made this?

A glimmer of light brightened the boy’s features. Sure, don’t you? Mom says you’ve seen lots of weird lights in the sky.

Anyone who’s spent as much time in the desert as I have is bound to see weird things. Sometimes it’s strange lights. Sometimes it’s other things.

That’s so cool. Lots of people think extraterrestrials want to teach us stuff, but I think they want to take over the world so they can eat people and make ‘em their slaves, but that won’t happen to me, ‘cause I’ll steal one of their blasters and join the rebel forces.

Someone will need to try and save the world. Damned glad to know it’ll be you.

It won’t just be me. You’ll be the leader until I grow up.

Any rebel force that follows me will be doomed from the outset. How I’ve lived as long as I have is a bigger mystery than this slab of glass. For the world’s sake, it’s better if you lead ‘em, no matter how old you are.

I don’t care what you say. I’d follow you, Grampa, cause then maybe I’d get to see the weird lights in the sky, too.

Damn, what kind of piss-poor grandfather was he? In the three months Dylan and his mother had been living with him, he’d not once thought to take the kid on an overnight outing. What boy didn’t want to sleep out under the stars? You’ve got the week off from school. How bout we go camping for a few nights?

You mean it?

Course I mean it. Can’t promise you’ll see any UFOs, but the wildflowers are in bloom and they’re nothing to sneeze at. For a moment, the lost laughter of his late wife lilted through his head—the only person who’d ever laughed at his lame jokes.

Flowers are all right, I guess, but what I really want to see is a rattlesnake.

Never can tell what you’ll come across in the desert, but there are plenty of snakes out this time of year, that’s for sure.

Dylan shoved his hands deep in his pants pockets and hunched his shoulders. Ah hell, what about Mom? What if she comes home and we’re not there?

Don’t swear. She’ll kill me if she hears you talk like—

A shadow, diagonal to the sun, flowed from his sneakers and spread across the glass like wet paint running down a canvas.

He squeezed his eyes closed, shook his head, and opened them again.

The shadow was gone.

Dylan gazed at him with his head cocked to the side. You all right, Grampa?

Large as the shadow had been, Dylan would have seen it also had it been real. But what of the thing Dylan claimed to have seen moving within the glass only minutes before? Could both he and the boy be hallucinating?

Look, Grampa, Dylan blurted, pointing to the pith-helmet guy. It’s him. He’s here, just like he said he’d be.

Who’s here?

Mark Raft.

You mean the clown in the pith helmet?

What’s a pith helmet?

Jungle Jim hat. Doesn’t matter. The guy in the Hawaiian shirt, that’s him?

Yeah. He knows all kinds of cool stuff. I want to hear what he’s saying.

Clay enjoyed crowds as much as a flea did wash-the-dog day, but Dylan had stayed up half the night listening to the pith-helmet guy’s vlogging about the anomaly. Do I have a choice?

Come on. Dylan took Clay’s hand and tugged until he relented.

Several of the people listening to the man wandered off, while new ones took their place. Dylan hurried Clay along until they stood at the front of the crowd.

Clay pulled the brim of his ball cap down low. The last thing he wanted was someone to recognize the town of Flatrock’s infamous screwball artist while he was spending the day with his grandson.

Mark Raft appeared to be in early to mid-twenties with a face as white as a grub beneath the shade of his pith helmet and his exposed arms sunburned a fiery red. Clearly not an outdoorsman. Probably a computer nerd. Not that Clay held nerds in any less regard than he did the rest of the human race. It was simply an observation. How a man like this had come to discover the anomaly out here in the desert a solid mile from town might be a story worth hearing.

Mark Raft squinted at Clay and widened his gaze. Looks like a lot of new people have joined us. Welcome. I’m Mark Raft, and not only am I the leading expert on this hundred-and-sixty-foot diameter circle of vitrified earth, I’m also the man who discovered it. As such, I’ve named it The Sage Circle. You know, like crop circle, only with sagebrush instead of crops. Feel free to ask questions.

A woman behind Clay said, Vitrified, that means melted. How’d that happen out here?

It’s global warming, plain and simple, a man said amid murmurs of agreement.

Mark raised his hands to quiet the crowd. Actually, there are several possibilities. A low-altitude meteor or comet explosion might vitrify the ground. So could a mega-lightning strike or solar burst. Of course, the best example of vitrified earth can be found at the Alamogordo nuclear test site out in White Sands. Thermonuclear blasts fused the earth there, though the glass is greenish in color and only about an inch thick as opposed to the five inches of orangish glass we have here. But don’t worry, I’ve been over the entire area with a Geiger counter and the readings are normal. Of course, any of the possibilities I mentioned would also have destroyed everything for miles, so we can rule them out. Then there’s also the fact that none of them can explain the footprints.

Dylan bobbed on his toes. We saw a pair. I stood in ‘em.

I hope you took a picture. There’s no telling how long it’ll be before the government fences the place off.

What about the prints? someone else said. How’d they get here?

There are nine sets in all, Mark said. Three are of bare feet; the rest are shoeprints. There’s a—

Clay rubbed his eyes. Behind Mark, the air rippled above the granite outcrop as though from intense heat. Only it was April, and the weather was mild. He looked away, then back. The rippling was gone. Just as the shadow had vanished earlier. If not for Dylan, he’d forego the Sage Circle talk and head home.

The prints, Mark said, are evenly spaced around the perimeter. Each of them faces these rocks as though the people standing here had been focused on something at the very center of the circle when the prints were formed.

Clay backed into the person behind him as the air above the rocks darkened and flickered like an old silent film projected on a screen of mist. The illusion, if it were an illusion, swelled and broke into three columns. Elongating upward, soaring high, the play of light and shadow took the form of bipedal giants. Clay tore his gaze from the apparitions and scanned the people around him. Other than for a man and woman who wandered away from the assemblage, the focus of everyone was fixed on the Sage Circle guy. Clay scrunched his eyes closed, then looked again. It didn’t help. Tall as the cloudless sky, the giants clawed at the sun with long stick-figure fingers at the ends of their long stick-figure arms. The apparitions reminded him of something, though he didn’t know what. Of course, they reminded him of something. They were constructs of his own mind.

Clay unslung his knapsack, pulled out a water bottle, poured half the water over his neck and down his back, and gulped down the rest. The apparitions remained. Solidifying and fading. Solidifying and fading. Real and unreal. Real and unreal.

Mark droned on. —believe I know who one set of footprints belongs to, and no, I won’t give you their name, although—

A rust-colored snake coiled around the sun, just beyond the reach of the giants whose dark cavernous eyes gazed upon Clay as though from a realm beyond mortal reach. Then came a quickening, a twisting implosion. In a shrinking whirlpool of sienna and ocher, the visions swirled out of existence.

Clay gripped Dylan’s shoulder. Intent on the man’s word, the boy stood rigid and stared straight ahead. No matter. They needed to leave this place. Now. Before Clay lost what remained of his sanity in the midst of all these people. Dylan, we need to go. I’m sorry, but—

His grandson took hold of his hand. It’s okay. I don’t feel so good, anyway. I want to go home, too.

The boy’s complexion was three shades of pale. Maybe he was coming down with something. Maybe they both were. That could account for the hallucinations. Fingers crossed that were the case.

As they hurried toward Clay’s Jeep, Mark Raft droned on. Their not remembering what happened to them makes perfect sense, seeing as short-term amnesia is the norm in cases of alien abduction.

Clay snorted and quickened his pace. A pity Mark Raft wasn’t the one hallucinating. Dollars to donuts, someone like him would welcome the experience.

CHAPTER TWO

Clay threw off the covers and switched on the bedside lamp, awakened by a dream of the exact things he’d hallucinated at the Sage Circle the day before. Exact? No, not exactly the same. Those in the dream had been sharper, more distinct, clear enough that he recognized them for what they were.

The hardwood floor cold beneath his bare feet, he padded down the hallway to the living room. Behind a desk cluttered with unopened mail, an overstuffed bookcase spanned the wall. He ran his hand along a row of sketchbooks, a year scrawled upon the spine of each.

He deposited a half-dozen volumes onto the desk with a thud and swept the mail onto the floor. Seated at the desk, he flipped through the pages of the oldest sketchbook. Not finding what he sought, he shoved the book aside and repeated the process with the next, then the next and the next until he came across a sketch made twenty-three years earlier.

Rendered in sepia and sanguine crayon, the sketch depicted an Indian petrograph he’d discovered among the myriad canyons that raked the Whispering Woman Mesa to the east. Beneath a coiled-spiral sun, wedge-shaped beings emerged from the page as though from a mist, the central-most figure pointing with a stick-figure arm to an overhead spiral sun. At the bottom of the page was written, cave entrance WWM. Seemed the apparitions had nothing to do with the Sage Circle and everything to do with these old rock paintings.

Twenty years had passed since he’d last visited the site. He’d taken his wife, Gale, and their daughter, Audrey, to marvel at the artwork for themselves. Audrey had been around Dylan’s age at the time, back when Gale was still young, vibrant, and… alive.

As soon as it was light, he’d return to the canyon. For whatever reason, the petrographs were calling to him. Either that or he was losing his mind. He’d have little trouble finding the canyon again. It was marked it on the map he kept in his knapsack.

He retrieved his knapsack from its hook by the front door and returned to the desk. Setting the pack beside the open sketchbook, he unclasped the top flap and inserted a hand into the side pocket where he stored the map. Stiff, crisp paper with sharp folds met his touch. The feel was all wrong.

He removed the paper and stared at a new Rand McNally Street map of Garrison City. This was not his map. His was so worn, the folds were held together with yellowed Scotch Tape. He ransacked his pack, then dumped the contents onto the desk. The map was gone. He hurled the McNally across the room.

Someone had made the switch, but who? More to the point, why? Even though the marks and legends he’d scribbled upon the old map made it look like a treasure map, it charted nothing more than the places he’d sketched and painted during the span of his career as a wilderness artist. Even though his paintings sold for obscene amounts of money, he wasn’t famous enough that the map was of much value to anyone other than himself.

Nevertheless, it was gone, and he sure as hell wasn’t the one who’d replaced it with a street map. So, who would desire the worthless old map enough to steal it? How about someone who might actually imagine it was a genuine treasure map? Was it a coincidence that someone who fit that description was presently asleep in the spare bedroom? Hell, what ten-year-old kid wouldn’t be tempted to borrow a ratty old treasure map? Rather than wake the suspect, he would confront Dylan in the morning.

With dawn an hour away, he busied himself preparing for the day’s journey. Even without the map, he’d find the petrographs. Of the Whispering Woman’s many canyons, he’d a fair sense of the approximate location.

He went to the kitchen and loaded his knapsack with three bottles of water along with a package of sunflower seeds and a couple cans of sardines, more than enough for a day’s outing. Unable to remember if the Jeep needed gas or not, he dressed against the chill spring-morning air and walked outdoors through the front door.

Heading for the carport, he slapped a twenty-foot-tall aluminum flagpole, evoking a resonating gong. Set within a three-foot-high rock-and-mortar foundation of his own construction, the flagpole served as yet another reminder of how his life had changed in the last year. Where his wife’s hand-sewn flags had once flown, the pole now stood bare.

Clay made his way around his white adobe home to a large carport boxed in on three sides by thickets of dense prickly pears where Gale’s Ram pickup truck and his beat-to-hell CJ5 were parked. After topping off the Jeep’s gas tank from a jerry can, he lowered the tires’ air pressure for the morning’s off-road trip and headed back to the house.

He shed his heavy coat in the foyer and hung it on its hook by the door. Stepping into the living room, he found Dylan, dressed in his red Spiderman pajamas and standing on the desk chair, staring at the petrograph sketch.

A mite early for you to be up, isn’t it? Clay said.

Dylan spun from the desk, eyes wide. Grampa.

What’s wrong, boy? There a scorpion in your shorts?

What’s this picture? Dylan scrunched over the desk, a finger pressed to the sketch.

Clay closed the distance between them. That? It’s an Indian petrograph I found in the desert a long time ago. Why aren’t you still asleep?

What’s a petrograph?

Old graffiti on rock. I asked you a question. What’s wrong?

Dylan kept his gaze glued to the book. I had a weird dream.

You want me to check under your bed for monsters?

I’m not five. It didn’t scare me. It was just really weird, is all. Dylan poked at the three entities on the page. Who are they, and what’s this squiggly thing here? he said, pointing to the spiral.

Hell if I know. The artist was probably stoned.

Dylan gave him a puzzled look, then frowned. How far away is it?

How far is what?

Dylan jabbed at the sketch. This.

Why’s this drawing got you so riled up? Clay said, uncertain if he truly wanted the answer.

I have to go there. Please. I have to see it.

Clay fought to keep his voice steady against his mounting apprehension. Why? What’s so important about some old rock art?

It just is, okay? You gotta take me there.

Why?

Cause it’s what I saw in my dream, okay?

Clay stepped back and plopped onto the arm of his easy chair. You dreamed it?

Yeah. I’m not making it up.

Clay pushed up from the chair and stared down at the boy. How could they have both dreamed of the same petrograph? There had to be a way to make sense of this. Have you ever looked through my sketchbooks before?

No. Mom told me not to touch your stuff.

Then what about her? Did she ever show you the sketch?

No, I never saw it before. And it wasn’t just the dream. I saw the same thing yesterday, too.

Clay took a deep breath to steady the blood pounding at his temples. At the Sage Circle?

Yeah. These spooky looking guys, they came out of the Sage Circle and stretched all the way up to the sky. I thought they were those things people see in the desert that aren’t real until I saw this picture.

What you saw weren’t mirages, boy.

Then what were they?

I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Get dressed. We’re going for a drive.

CHAPTER THREE

Gaudy in his lime-green windbreaker, Dylan stabbed an invisible bad guy with a pretend sword of manzanita he’d found at the mouth of the canyon. I bet the cave is in this one.

Clay removed his sweat-stained ballcap and brushed a wisp of dark hair from his eyes. There was little to distinguish this canyon from the four they’d already explored. I’d know exactly which canyon if I had my map.

I didn’t take your map, I swear.

Doesn’t matter. We’re in the general vicinity of the canyon. If the cave isn’t in this one, it’ll be in the next.

Woohoo! Dylan raced ahead with his sword, slashing and jabbing his way among the limestone walls of coral pinks and pale yellows.

You stay in sight, you hear? I don’t need you getting lost. Not that there was much chance of the boy getting lost in a box canyon with only one way in or out.

All right. Dylan roared a war cry and charged around a bend and out of view.

Dylan! Did the boy listen to anything he was told? Clay hurried after, rounded the bend, and halted inches from bowling the boy down. Before them the canyon widened to the size of a football field.

This is it. He directed Dylan’s gaze to a shadowy section of wall. You see where the cliff is scooped out?

Yeah.

That’s where the paintings are.

And the cave?

"Yeah, that too. Go on. Check it out.

Dylan dashed off across the canyon’s sandy floor, whooping battle cries and slashing make-believe enemies with his make-believe sword.

Clay called out before Dylan rounded a corner and sped from sight. You’re not to go inside by yourself, you hear?

The boy ceased his whooping and yelled back, Then shake your leg, Grampa, cause I’ll probably forget.

"It’s shake a leg, Clay muttered, and I’ll be there when I get there." Fat chance the boy would forget. He likely remembered what he’d had for breakfast the Tuesday before last.

Clay strolled on, savoring the orange-pinks and yellows of the sunlit cliffs. So many years had passed since he’d last come to this place. Had that been the time he’d brought Gale and Audrey here? Audrey had loved this place as much as he had, and she’d often asked him to bring her back. He never did. How poorly the human body was designed that it could not kick itself in the ass.

Up ahead, Dylan halted before the cavity in the cliff where the petrograph waited. He stood still for all of three seconds, then hollered, Awesome, at the top of his lungs, the lone word echoing amid the canyon walls.

The petrographs peered from the shadowy depths of a cavity within the vertical canyon face. Nearly ten feet above the canyon floor, a ledge of terraced rock led to the cave entrance, a three-foot-tall cleft in the limestone wall. White, sienna, and black-pigmented handprints framed the opening. Dylan stood pressing his hand to a print.

Clay joined the boy, and together they studied the hollow-eyed giants until Clay broke the silence. Spooky, huh?

Yeah, it’s like they see and know stuff. Scary stuff. Least that’s the feeling I had in my dream.

Thanks. That’s just the thought I need floating around inside my head.

But I don’t think they’re evil. They just look that way.

No, Clay said. I never thought of them as evil, just creepy. And the sense I got from the dream was of longing, or maybe loss.

I woke up feeling sad, Dylan said, and pulled his palm away from the handprint. Is that what you mean?

Pretty much, yeah.

Can we go inside the cave now?

Let me take a look first. Clay removed a flashlight from his knapsack, crouched before the entrance, and played the beam over the interior. Years earlier, he’d taken Audrey into the cave while Gale fretted outside. Not all that far in was a large chamber, which had enthralled Audrey with its subterranean beauty.

Looks clear from here, he said. I think maybe you should go first. That way, if there’s any cave bears, you can fight them off with that stick of yours.

Nuh-uh. You’re making that up. There’s no bears.

You sure?

Yeah, you’re just trying to scare me.

Did it work?

No.

Good, cause nothing ticks a cave bear off like the smell of fear.

Grampa!

Just saying.

Dylan crossed his arms. You go first.

It opens up after a few yards. Stay close. Pushing his knapsack ahead, Clay crawled into the hole.

Soon, the flashlight alone illuminated the way. Shoulders brushing the walls, he shuffled his way ahead. Three feet in. Another three. And another.

How much farther? Dylan said.

Not much. It had better be. The air in the narrow passage already seemed too thin to breathe.

Are there bats?

There weren’t the last time I was here, but you never know.

I hope not, Dylan said. They’ve got rabies.

Leave them alone, and you’ll be fine.

Even if they’ve got rabies?

Even if.

The passage widened. The ceiling rose. Clay stood and ran his flashlight beam down the corridor. Its furrowed floor twisted upward beneath an arched ceiling a few feet above his head.

I thought there’d be more to see, Dylan said.

What were you expecting, crystal gardens and halls of giant mushrooms?

No, but more than this.

Just wait.

Knapsack in hand, he headed through the corridor, playing his light about the floor and walls. The passage soon leveled off and a domed chamber opened before them. He danced the beam along the left wall where the rust-colored rock resembled stacked heaps of melted candle wax. Mottled light and shadow hinted at a back wall.

Whoa, Dylan said.

Yup.

Dylan activated a flashlight app on his cell phone.

The splunk of dripping water resonated from the left.

Dylan directed his light to the sound. Look, Grampa.

The light shone upon a pool contained by a shallow, thin rim of rock. The clear water rippled with the splunk of another drip from a cluster of small stalactites above.

Clay played his own light along a natural ramp to the right that edged along the wall to a ledge some twenty feet up. The cave continues on up there.

Where’s it go?

That’s as far as I’ve gone. Come on, there’s something you should see over here.

He led Dylan to the base of the ramp where scores of painted and carved images packed the wall. Bipedal beings similar to those in the petrograph outside stood among a mash of cross-hatchings, wavy lines, and coils. At the foot of the wall, a four-foot-wide spiral lay engraved in the rock floor.

Dylan traced the engraving with his sword. There was something like this in my dream too.

Same here, Clay said. I’d hoped coming here would help make sense of things, but I’m as much in the dark as ever.

He fanned the flashlight about the cavern. From the shelf atop the ramp, a small shiny surface reflected the light. There’s something up there.

Dylan discarded his stick-sword beside the spiral. What is it?

Don’t know. Let’s check it out.

At the top, the slope leveled off to a kidney-shaped plateau. Situated about the floor were an aluminum cooking pot that had reflected the light, a single-burner camp stove, an oil lantern, and a canvas sleeping bag spread out beneath a wadded up red and cream striped Indian blanket.

Dylan zipped around, touching this and that. Who’s this stuff belong to, Grampa?

Clay ran the light back over the sleeping bag. He knew exactly who the gear belonged to, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to tell the boy. Don’t know.

There was no mistaking the blanket’s stains, nor the thick-yellow thread used to mend rips in the canvas sleeping bag. The were his. So were the rest of the items. The dings in the stove and the lantern, the peculiar way the pot’s handle was bent, he knew the histories of each. He’d used them only a few months before, before returning them to the storage shed.

There was only one explanation for their being here: Audrey. Definitely not something he wanted Dylan to know. Not yet. Not until he knew she was safe.

Clay cupped his hands to his mouth. Hello? His voice echoed about the chamber.

You think they’re still here, Grampa?

Shhh, I need to hear. But for the plunk of a water drop, the chamber was silent as a gnat’s breath. He called out again. Same result. Audrey knew better than to get herself lost in a cave. She also knew better than to abandon her child to her grouchy father, but how’d that turned out? Piss-poor father that he’d been, he was probably to blame for her behavior.

He wanted to call out to her by name, but checked himself. He wasn’t yet ready to admit he’d lied to the boy about his mother’s whereabouts. A distraught child would only complicate the situation further.

Clay called out again. Hello?

Hello? cried