The Shadow in the Dark (Part Eight)

 

“Ashlee! No! I mean it! Don’t go there!”

 

I smiled to myself as I placed my right foot on the swollen bridge planks. Just who was he to think he could give me commands? He was not my Master.

 

I stiffened as that unwanted thought entered my head. My Master? Why had I even thought that? No man was my master. I was a free, independent, wilful woman. I lived in the United States of America where women were cossetted, deferred to, and their views were always accommodated by acquiescent males. This was not some primitive dark age society where the male sex might be dominant simply because they were physically stronger than their women. 

 

What a brutal, oppressive time that must have been, when women, obviously the equal of men in all other things, had to submit to a man’s strength. Men can be such barbarians if they are not civilised and tamed by rules and laws. 

 

“I know what I’m doing,” I called back as I saw the Sheriff struggle to make his way down to the river bank. Unfortunately for him the approach from the top of the road directly above the bridge was some of the thickest thorn and bramble growth anywhere along the slope.

 

“Ashlee, please, wait for me!”

 

Please. I smiled to myself. He is begging now. How sweet. I would of course disregard his cries. Now there was some distance between us I felt more confident, and with that came a feeling of irritation with myself for having, even for a moment, considered him in some sexual way. We were law enforcement officers. We would conduct ourselves professionally at all times. 

 

Slowly, one step at a time, I began to walk across the creaking planks. The fast flowing Miskatonic river swept past under the bridge, but I felt strangely confident as I made my way forward for I had seen signs that the girl had gone this way. There were footprints in the mud leading to the point where a stout chain and heavy wooden board blocked the way. If she had been able to make it across then I would surely manage it, too. 

 

“Ashlee! Let me get down to where you are!” He was struggling, caught up in thickets that simply wouldn’t let him slip past easily.

 

I was five feet three inches tall and very light on my feet. I weighed 98 lbs. If the bridge couldn’t hold my weight then it couldn’t have held the girl’s, yesterday, when she fled headlong in panic. Another step, and then another, and then an ominous creaking of wood, but I quickly stepped past that section and onto firmer boards.

 

“Ashlee! Are you even listening to me?”

 

I would show him. I would show him that I was a woman who had a mind of her own. “She went this way. The tracks lead here.” The wooden planks continued to creak and groan as I skipped lightly across the narrow foot bridge. I was doing this. I was determined to find evidence that I hadn’t imagined the naked girl last night. I was also determined to prove myself after the series of bewildering moments I had experienced earlier today. 

 

Why had I licked my bowl clean of Nutri-girl?

 

Why had I even eaten the Nutri-girl in the first place? 

 

And how had I dressed myself without even thinking about it? I gazed down at the white and pink sparkly sneakers I wore with lace topped white ankle socks, and the light grey woollen pantyhose and the pink denim shorts, tight and smooth across my bottom. I hadn’t even asked for something different to wear. I’d just gone upstairs without a second thought and dressed myself in the teenage clothes Rosemary had laid out for me, as if it was perfectly normal. It had to be a combination of overnight fatigue and perhaps mild concussion from the crash. Perhaps Sheriff Root had been right to suggest I should see a doctor to check there was no significant damage to my head?    

 

Two thirds of the way across the bridge I felt it sway to the left as I saw a timber support had broken away. The other supports were still intact and so I skipped quickly across the remaining boards and made it to the other side, with just some ominous creaking by way of protest.

 

“I’m safe,” I called back, just as a bedraggled Sheriff Root managed to break through the thorn bushes lining the slope. He finally clambered down to the other side of the bridge. “I’m not sure it will take your weight though.”

 

“Ashlee, will you please come back?”

 

“Well, I’m across now.” I stood there facing him across the great divide. “I may as well follow the girl’s tracks while they’re still fresh in the mud from last night’s rain storm. Besides which, it’s probably safer that I don’t risk the bridge with a second crossing. Take the car round to the next available bridge and meet me on the other side.”

 

“Ashlee, I think you’re on private land. You don’t have a warrant. You need to be careful.”

 

I looked about the sparse woodland that stretched away from me. Further in, the trees seemed to grow denser in their configuration. “I’m not doing any harm. If I meet anyone I’ll just say I strayed off the road by accident. A girl can get away with that sort of thing. I just have to flutter my eyelashes and look endearingly lost.”

 

“Stay where you are. I’ll bring the car round. There should be a road running through the wood from memory. If you stay by the bridge I’ll find you.”

 

“Better hurry then.” I watched as the Sheriff marched back along the narrow river bank and began to climb back up to the road at the point where my car was lodged between the sloping tree trunks. And then he disappeared out of sight.

 

Good. Now I could get to work without a man thinking he was my superior. I crouched down and examined the structural supports beneath the bridge, confirming what I had vaguely suspected as I had crossed it just now. While the bridge was certainly derelict and the wooden planks were rotting away, some effort had been made to ensure the bridge itself wouldn’t collapse into the river below. Hidden from casual sight, there were recently added supports running along the underside of the bridge. Yes, the original planks would creak, groan and bend when weight was applied, but there was no way the bridge was actually going to fall apart. It was essentially still functional, but didn’t look the part. A rotten plank or two might split underfoot, but the bridge was still serviceable, despite the warning sign hanging from the chain. 

 

I straightened up and considered this for a while. Someone still used this bridge but wanted to make it look like it was too dangerous for anyone else. It was essentially a secret and private crossing point over the fast flowing Miskatonic river.

 

I brushed my hands together, to clean them of dirt and then I turned to gaze into the woodland that rose on a gentle slope away from me. The ground was still fresh from last night’s rain, and I could clearly make out the girl’s footprints. The tread showed no sign of shoe patterning, suggesting she had run barefoot. I would make enquiries later on as to who owned this land, but for now I would just follow the trail while it could be seen. It would amuse me to present all the facts to the Sheriff without his help. Then he would realise he was dealing with a highly trained Federal agent, despite the embarrassing way I was dressed.  

 

The trail of footprints led up the slope, snaking their way between thick bushes and in-between trees. The girl had been running in the dark so the trail was haphazard, but she seemed to be changing direction from time to time. First she would head to the left, and then she would suddenly change tact and run to the right, only to then turn tail and run back to the left, but all the while heading in a singular direction, albeit in a zigzag pattern. Her trail seemed to resemble the way a wild animal might be herded by huntsmen and their dogs. 

 

Soon it was easy enough to anticipate when I could ignore an abrupt turn in the direction of the tracks and assume instead that the girl would in time return to the singular route she seemed to be following. I reminded myself that it had been dark and she had seemed scared, and so this zig-zagging pattern was not unreasonable under the circumstances. No one would actually have been herding her. 

 

I had walked for perhaps ten minutes before I came to a clearing deep within the woods. The ground here had been cleared away and a curious series of stone steps had been built in a spiral pattern running counter clockwise towards a central hole in the ground. The ruins looked old, with stones worn away over many centuries. To one side was a small stone outbuilding, perhaps twenty feet by thirteen feet. There were no windows on any of the walls, and only a single door that seemed to be made of metal. A lever mounted lock secured the door in place. 

 

I paused for a moment and took a drink of water from a water bottle that Sheriff Root had given me earlier this morning. It was a warm day and I was already feeling thirsty. What I wasn’t feeling, though, was hungry. The small bowl of Nutri-girl had surprisingly satisfied my hunger this morning. I had read that girls who dieted on Nutri-girl found it easy to avoid snacking. Was there possibly some sort of appetite suppressor in the gruel mix? If so, I could imagine how popular that might be amongst women who wanted to control their calorie intake. 

 

I screwed the cap back on the water bottle and walked round the circular staircase pit to where the outbuilding stood. The door locked by pushing down on a heavy lever lock on the outside which required a key to release it. I suspected the door had restraining bolts through the top, middle and bottom, activated by the lever. It seemed overly secure for what was plausibly just a storage shed. I walked round the walls and spotted a discarded sandal lying in amongst the wild grass. It was a woman’s shoe – a strappy three inch heel, badly weathered, suggesting it had lain there for many months. The leather was peeling away and rotting, and the main strap had broken. I returned the shoe to where I’d found it, straightened up and walked over to one of the flights of stone steps that spiralled around the inside of the shallow pit towards the central hole. 

 

Why were there so many stone stairways radiating towards the same hole? I chose one at random and followed the steps down to where the deep shaft was located. Careful, Ashlee, there are no hand rails. The steps narrowed the further down I went, and I had a sense of giddy vertigo as I considered there was very little to prevent me falling down into the hole if I slipped. It proved impossible to descend all the way down as the steps either ran out entirely, or became increasingly treacherous when there was still ten feet or so remaining above the hole. I pressed my back against the side of the stairwell and breathe deeply as I kept both feet firmly on the narrow final step that was possibly only eight inches wide. I leaned forward a little, hoping to peer into the cavern that had to exist beneath the hole, but it was too dark to see anything and I felt an alarming wobble to my sense of balance as I tried. I crouched as best I could and picked up a small stone that I then dropped into the shaft. There was a splash within a second or two. Well, obviously the rain had to go somewhere. I had no idea how deep the water might be, though. 

 

There was no way the naked girl would have gone down that hole, but in the dark, in the middle of a ferocious rain storm last night, I couldn’t rule out the possibility that she might have stumbled this way, not seen the steps in the darkness, and fallen all the way down. 

 

“Hello?” I felt a bit foolish calling down through the shaft, but if there was a girl down there I had to at least check. “My name is Ashlee. Is anyone there?”

 

Silence.

 

Well, that made things a little easier. Of course I couldn’t rule out that there was a girl’s body lying dead down there, but the chances were she had just run past the clearing without even noticing the circular steps or the wide shaft at the bottom of the pit. Sheriff Root might know of this structure if it was some local landmark, and there might well be maps of the caverns below. Undoubtedly there was another entrance somewhere. There always was. 

 

I was suddenly snapped out of my reverie by a sound coming from deep within the hole.

 

No, I was imagining things.

 

Wasn’t I?

 

I strained to listen, but the sound didn’t repeat itself. But for one moment I had thought I had heard the soft weeping of a girl in the far distance.

 

“Hello?” I called down again, as I maintained my balance on the narrow and treacherous eight inch step. My back was pressed firmly against the circular wall, and I stretched out my arms to lean against that wall. “Is there someone there?”

 

No reply.

 

I had imagined it. There had been no weeping. How could there be? If someone was down there they would have heard me and called out for help. My imagination had run wild with me.  

 

I moved my left foot just a little and as I did so flints of loose stone cracked away and sailed down the hole to further splashes. Careful! I quickly hugged the wall again with my shoulders and outstretched arms. Time to go, Ashlee. I gazed up at the summit of the stairs and immediately recognised that the sideways shuffle back to the top would be more difficult then the climb down had been. Now that I was peering back up to the top I could see many steps where the edges had worn away. The damage to the steps hadn’t been quite so obvious as I’d climbed down. 

 

I had my handbag on its shoulder strap, but now wished I’d looped it over my neck as well as my shoulder. Too late for any regrets in that respect. Just take the ascent carefully, one step at a time. It would be easier once I reached the halfway point and the stone steps widened outwards. But then as I took my first few steps I suddenly froze as I heard men’s voices from somewhere above me; somewhere close by.

 

“She came this way. She tripped a couple of motion sensors as she climbed up from the bridge,” came the first voice.

 

“So much for the warning signs to keep out. Miss Emerson won’t be happy,” said the second voice. 

 

“That snotty bitch never is,” said the first man again. “It’s a shame we can’t take a whip to her.”

 

“Whoever the trespasser is, it looks like she was following the footprints in the mud. They’re still visible after the storm last night. Anything registering on the motion sensors to the north?”

 

“Nope. Not a thing, which means she’s either been very lucky, or…”

 

“Or she’s still close by.”