Beyond the Pale —Part 101
Aug. 29th, 2006 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
secret_historyHola, gentle readers! Another palindrome instalment! I really like palindromes, but then I've always had a thing for symmetry.
Anyway, we return today to your regularly-scheduled programming, having given y'all a glimpse behind the scenes last week, so to speak.
*****
"Vicky. Vicky! Snap out of it! Hey!"
The world came back into focus with a jolt that made her teeth rattle. Someone, she realised with mild surprise, had slapped her. Her head hung at an awkward angle now, wedged between the cavern wall and her shoulder blade.
"Sorry." Monroe looked sheepish as he straightened her head for her. She glared at him.
"What the hell was that for?" she demanded. She felt strangely disoriented, as though she'd received a blow to the head. Her mind was whirling with disconnected images of blood and shrieking spirits and dying men, and for a moment she wondered if she was going to be sick.
"You were acting funny."
"What?"
Elijah Blanton supplied a more coherent explanation. "Your eyes rolled back in your head and you started talking in this weird tongue none of us could understand. Well, except maybe that priest. He looked like he understood some of it, but he wouldn't tell us what you said. It sounded like you were speaking in tongues. It was pretty creepy."
"What happened to you, anyway?" Monroe's brow was furrowed.
Vicky closed her eyes for a moment, trying to capture the fleeting images that still lingered in her mind. There had been fighting of some sort, some giant battle taking place somewhere she'd never seen before. Indians fighting each other, blood spilling into the ground, and… she didn't know what the creatures were that she had seen, but the mere thought of them chilled her to the bone. Whatever it was, she wished she could remember it more clearly: it seemed dreadfully important while she had been there. She opened her eyes again.
"Did you see the battle?" she asked, watching with mounting anxiety as dark clouds began to gather overhead: they were due for a storm, unless she was much mistaken, and out here there was little shelter to be had, even in the cave. She might not be affected, but the others might well die of exposure, and she wouldn't be in much of a position to help any of them, herself included.
Monroe raised an eyebrow at her and shook his head. "What battle? There's just us here, Vicky, and the pirates are long since gone. I didn't see much of what happened there anyway, since I was a little busy trying not to drown."
She wasn't sure how to respond to that. "I thought… never mind. Maybe I was just dreaming. It still happens. Did you find firewood?"
"Better than that," Reverend Stone's voice sounded from somewhere off to her left where she couldn't see him. "I think I've found a way out of this God-forsaken place."
It turned out that, perhaps a hundred yards further than Monroe had gone in the cave the floor sloped upward. Stone had followed it for the better part of ten minutes, and seemed confident that it led further up and inland.
"Are you sure it's not a dead end?" Blanton seemed reluctant to venture far into the inky darkness of the cave without assurances that there was indeed sunlight to be found at the other end.
"No, but it's better than sitting here and waiting for the tide to swallow us." Monroe pointed behind Blanton.
Turning around, the kid uttered a yelp of dismay: whereas before there had been a good forty or so yards of beach, there was now only about twenty yards of gravel visible. The rest was covered in the slippery-grey water of the Maze, the waves lapping gently but inexorably ever closer.
"We can't stay out here, anyway," Monroe continued. "There's a storm brewing. Even if the tide doesn't reach us –and it will– we don't stand a chance if we're caught outside during a storm."
Blanton whimpered faintly, earning himself a scornful look from Stone. The priest was looking more disreputable than ever before: a dark five o'clock shadow had appeared on his jaw, making his thin features appear even more gaunt, his hair was dishevelled from the soaking he'd received in the waters of the Maze, his clothing rumpled, although the heavy duster he wore showed no signs of wear whatsoever. He still had his gatling pistol in its holster.
"Okay, Mr. Pinkerton, why don't you show us what you've found?" Vicky couldn't quite keep the sarcasm from her voice.
"I'm not a Pinkerton," Stone said mildly, though the look he gave her was anything but friendly.
"You could have fooled me."
"We're a… different branch of the government. That's all you need to know, and probably more than you need to know, all things considered."
"Right. You're 'U. S.'" she said, pronouncing it 'us.'
"That's right, and don't you forget it."
"Could we just go?" Monroe was exasperated.
"You'll get no argument from me," Vicky supplied, eyeing the rising waterline.
"I don't suppose anyone can make her stop talking?" Blanton asked feebly.
"No. Now shut up."
"I'll shut up if she shuts up."
"This isn't a negotiation!" Monroe turned on Blanton with a snarl. "Let's go now! Padre, now's a good time to start leading. Let's go! All of you!" Without waiting for anyone else's assent he bent down and slung Vicky over one shoulder in a fireman's carry, motioning impatiently with his free hand.
The severed vertebrae in her neck grated horribly with every step Monroe took, and Vicky found, much to her annoyance, that once again she could only see the ground moving past at a maddeningly slow rate. The others walked in grim silence, and soon they found themselves plunged in almost complete darkness. Every now and then Vicky would catch sight of shadows flickering out of the corners of her eyes, and she guessed that Stone was striking a match to make sure he wasn't taking a wrong turning along the way. Not that they knew what the right turnings were, but at least they were keeping track of where they were going.
The floor of the cave began to slope upward, slowly at first, then faster, until the gradient was so steep that Vicky found herself almost dangling over a precipice.
"Umm… what's it looking like up there?" she asked, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt. If Monroe let her fall now…
Monroe answered. "Looks like we're heading up a natural chimney of some kind. I think I can see daylight up there."
"Oh. Good."
"You know, you're pretty heavy for a dead person."
"Shut up."
"How much further is it, anyway?"
"Don't ask stupid questions, Blanton. How the hell are we supposed to know?"
"Well, you said you knew where we were going…"
"No, I didn't. I said I thought I found a way out. There's a world of difference. What the hell do they teach you kids in New York, anyway?"
"Look, don't you patronise me. Besides, you're not from Out West anyway. I can tell from your accent."
"I'm not from New York. Apparently they've dumped something into your water supply that makes you terminally incapable of not saying every damn fool thing that pops into your head."
Blanton lapsed into mutinous silence after that, for which Vicky found that she was very grateful. At least Stone appeared to be good for that one thing at the very least. The going got increasingly arduous, and while she could see next to nothing, she heard the others straining for breath as they climbed. Even Monroe's strength began to flag after a while, burdened as he was with her inert form. She wished she could do something to ease his load, but she was quite literally nothing but dead weight right now. Starving dead weight. She was glad that her stomach appeared incapable of growling.
The "daylight" Monroe had thought he could see turned out to be a kind of luminous mushroom which grew in great clusters in a wide section of the chimney. Both Monroe and Stone cursed fluently when they discovered this, for the chimney continued upward, though the slope was gentler now. They stopped for a rest, propping themselves against the walls of the passage as best they could.
"What are we going to do when we get to the top, anyway?" Blanton wanted to know. "I mean, didn't you say there was a storm coming out there? I don't want to be stuck on top of some God-forsaken mesa with some freak electrical storm all around."
"Obviously we're not going to head out in the middle of a storm," Monroe said a bit testily, his patience long since worn thin. "Storms don't last that long out here anyway: they spend themselves against the cliffs. Given how long we've been walking, the whole thing's probably already blown over. If it hasn't, we'll just shelter until it's over."
"How are we supposed to get off the mesa, anyway? We don't have a boat or anything that can get us over the water, and I can't swim at all and neither can she…"
Monroe shrugged. "One problem at a time, Blanton. First, we get out of this chimney.
"We'll worry about the rest when we haven't broken all our necks."
*****
Anyway, we return today to your regularly-scheduled programming, having given y'all a glimpse behind the scenes last week, so to speak.
"Vicky. Vicky! Snap out of it! Hey!"
The world came back into focus with a jolt that made her teeth rattle. Someone, she realised with mild surprise, had slapped her. Her head hung at an awkward angle now, wedged between the cavern wall and her shoulder blade.
"Sorry." Monroe looked sheepish as he straightened her head for her. She glared at him.
"What the hell was that for?" she demanded. She felt strangely disoriented, as though she'd received a blow to the head. Her mind was whirling with disconnected images of blood and shrieking spirits and dying men, and for a moment she wondered if she was going to be sick.
"You were acting funny."
"What?"
Elijah Blanton supplied a more coherent explanation. "Your eyes rolled back in your head and you started talking in this weird tongue none of us could understand. Well, except maybe that priest. He looked like he understood some of it, but he wouldn't tell us what you said. It sounded like you were speaking in tongues. It was pretty creepy."
"What happened to you, anyway?" Monroe's brow was furrowed.
Vicky closed her eyes for a moment, trying to capture the fleeting images that still lingered in her mind. There had been fighting of some sort, some giant battle taking place somewhere she'd never seen before. Indians fighting each other, blood spilling into the ground, and… she didn't know what the creatures were that she had seen, but the mere thought of them chilled her to the bone. Whatever it was, she wished she could remember it more clearly: it seemed dreadfully important while she had been there. She opened her eyes again.
"Did you see the battle?" she asked, watching with mounting anxiety as dark clouds began to gather overhead: they were due for a storm, unless she was much mistaken, and out here there was little shelter to be had, even in the cave. She might not be affected, but the others might well die of exposure, and she wouldn't be in much of a position to help any of them, herself included.
Monroe raised an eyebrow at her and shook his head. "What battle? There's just us here, Vicky, and the pirates are long since gone. I didn't see much of what happened there anyway, since I was a little busy trying not to drown."
She wasn't sure how to respond to that. "I thought… never mind. Maybe I was just dreaming. It still happens. Did you find firewood?"
"Better than that," Reverend Stone's voice sounded from somewhere off to her left where she couldn't see him. "I think I've found a way out of this God-forsaken place."
It turned out that, perhaps a hundred yards further than Monroe had gone in the cave the floor sloped upward. Stone had followed it for the better part of ten minutes, and seemed confident that it led further up and inland.
"Are you sure it's not a dead end?" Blanton seemed reluctant to venture far into the inky darkness of the cave without assurances that there was indeed sunlight to be found at the other end.
"No, but it's better than sitting here and waiting for the tide to swallow us." Monroe pointed behind Blanton.
Turning around, the kid uttered a yelp of dismay: whereas before there had been a good forty or so yards of beach, there was now only about twenty yards of gravel visible. The rest was covered in the slippery-grey water of the Maze, the waves lapping gently but inexorably ever closer.
"We can't stay out here, anyway," Monroe continued. "There's a storm brewing. Even if the tide doesn't reach us –and it will– we don't stand a chance if we're caught outside during a storm."
Blanton whimpered faintly, earning himself a scornful look from Stone. The priest was looking more disreputable than ever before: a dark five o'clock shadow had appeared on his jaw, making his thin features appear even more gaunt, his hair was dishevelled from the soaking he'd received in the waters of the Maze, his clothing rumpled, although the heavy duster he wore showed no signs of wear whatsoever. He still had his gatling pistol in its holster.
"Okay, Mr. Pinkerton, why don't you show us what you've found?" Vicky couldn't quite keep the sarcasm from her voice.
"I'm not a Pinkerton," Stone said mildly, though the look he gave her was anything but friendly.
"You could have fooled me."
"We're a… different branch of the government. That's all you need to know, and probably more than you need to know, all things considered."
"Right. You're 'U. S.'" she said, pronouncing it 'us.'
"That's right, and don't you forget it."
"Could we just go?" Monroe was exasperated.
"You'll get no argument from me," Vicky supplied, eyeing the rising waterline.
"I don't suppose anyone can make her stop talking?" Blanton asked feebly.
"No. Now shut up."
"I'll shut up if she shuts up."
"This isn't a negotiation!" Monroe turned on Blanton with a snarl. "Let's go now! Padre, now's a good time to start leading. Let's go! All of you!" Without waiting for anyone else's assent he bent down and slung Vicky over one shoulder in a fireman's carry, motioning impatiently with his free hand.
The severed vertebrae in her neck grated horribly with every step Monroe took, and Vicky found, much to her annoyance, that once again she could only see the ground moving past at a maddeningly slow rate. The others walked in grim silence, and soon they found themselves plunged in almost complete darkness. Every now and then Vicky would catch sight of shadows flickering out of the corners of her eyes, and she guessed that Stone was striking a match to make sure he wasn't taking a wrong turning along the way. Not that they knew what the right turnings were, but at least they were keeping track of where they were going.
The floor of the cave began to slope upward, slowly at first, then faster, until the gradient was so steep that Vicky found herself almost dangling over a precipice.
"Umm… what's it looking like up there?" she asked, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt. If Monroe let her fall now…
Monroe answered. "Looks like we're heading up a natural chimney of some kind. I think I can see daylight up there."
"Oh. Good."
"You know, you're pretty heavy for a dead person."
"Shut up."
"How much further is it, anyway?"
"Don't ask stupid questions, Blanton. How the hell are we supposed to know?"
"Well, you said you knew where we were going…"
"No, I didn't. I said I thought I found a way out. There's a world of difference. What the hell do they teach you kids in New York, anyway?"
"Look, don't you patronise me. Besides, you're not from Out West anyway. I can tell from your accent."
"I'm not from New York. Apparently they've dumped something into your water supply that makes you terminally incapable of not saying every damn fool thing that pops into your head."
Blanton lapsed into mutinous silence after that, for which Vicky found that she was very grateful. At least Stone appeared to be good for that one thing at the very least. The going got increasingly arduous, and while she could see next to nothing, she heard the others straining for breath as they climbed. Even Monroe's strength began to flag after a while, burdened as he was with her inert form. She wished she could do something to ease his load, but she was quite literally nothing but dead weight right now. Starving dead weight. She was glad that her stomach appeared incapable of growling.
The "daylight" Monroe had thought he could see turned out to be a kind of luminous mushroom which grew in great clusters in a wide section of the chimney. Both Monroe and Stone cursed fluently when they discovered this, for the chimney continued upward, though the slope was gentler now. They stopped for a rest, propping themselves against the walls of the passage as best they could.
"What are we going to do when we get to the top, anyway?" Blanton wanted to know. "I mean, didn't you say there was a storm coming out there? I don't want to be stuck on top of some God-forsaken mesa with some freak electrical storm all around."
"Obviously we're not going to head out in the middle of a storm," Monroe said a bit testily, his patience long since worn thin. "Storms don't last that long out here anyway: they spend themselves against the cliffs. Given how long we've been walking, the whole thing's probably already blown over. If it hasn't, we'll just shelter until it's over."
"How are we supposed to get off the mesa, anyway? We don't have a boat or anything that can get us over the water, and I can't swim at all and neither can she…"
Monroe shrugged. "One problem at a time, Blanton. First, we get out of this chimney.
"We'll worry about the rest when we haven't broken all our necks."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 05:48 pm (UTC)Stone becomes more interesting, as well, but I don't know if I *like* him or not. Blanton needs to get kicked in the jimmy or somesuch. 'Course he'd probably just whine *more* :p