I followed, watching Kem-cat move upstream, muscles bunching beneath his skin, Rick close on my trail. The path quickly narrowed between thigh-high weeds, briars, poison oak and ivy, native plants and ones that had escaped from gardens, flowering with yellow, purple, and shades of pink and red. It was rocky going, the soles of my hiking boots gripping and releasing. We worked up a sweat, despite the cooler temps near the water.
We had been on the path for a couple of miles when Kem rounded a curve of the creek and disappeared, melting into the shadows of midday like smoke. When Rick and I got to the curve, we discovered a feeder creek, a foot or two wide and only inches deep, with a ten-foot waterfall that was breathtaking. And a pile of scat, marking Kem-cat’s territory for us to step over. The smell of grindy was so intense here, I was sure he was right around the corner, but Kem had trodden through mud and leaped up the ten foot height. He was crouched beneath a laurel, staring down at us, a predator estimating the weight and danger of prey.
Beast slammed into my mind again and glared. Growled. Kem blinked. A moment later, he slid into the shadows. I looked at Rick who was watching me, amusement, speculation, and something warmer hiding in the deeps of his eyes. He held out a hand, indicating the nearly sheer wall, wet with falling water. “After you.”
I grabbed a root and gave a tug. It held. I started the climb. At the top, a fresh breeze slapped me in the face. It was heavy with the stink of old blood and rotting flesh.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Get Your Own Damn Shoes
Two miles and sixty minutes of hard hiking later, we were in a narrow cleft of mountain, far from any path. The temps had fallen, and I was wearing my jacket; my feet, even in my hiking boots, were again wet and icy from walking in the only place a human could—the rill of water. I was out of sorts, the lack of sleep was catching up to me—that and the constant smell of death on the breeze, as if the entire mountain breathed with the stink of rot and grindylow. The hair on the back of my neck went stiff, as buzzards soared overhead, ghosting through the rising air currents.
The way ahead was blocked by dead trees; one gigantic white oak had come down, taking half the saplings on the mountainside with it, and together, they had blocked the cleft and backed up the creek, except for the small rill we had been following.
I started yet another hard climb, using the shattered limbs lodged with stone. I heard Rick follow, and knew he had put me ahead so he could catch me if I fell. It was totally unnecessary, and so sweet I couldn’t keep the silly grin off my face, in spite of the putrid stench and buzzards soaring. Hand by hand, I pulled myself up the dead-tree-and-rock wall and reached the top.
The water was backed up into a pool about twenty feet long, less than ten feet wide, brown with tannins from decomposing leaves, but clear. On the far slope were corpses. Deer corpses, bones and hide in a jumble, in various stages of decomposition; the most rotten ones were at the bottom; a well-picked, fresh corpse was on top. Maybe four deer, all small. There were also fish bones and several turtle shells. Buzzards lined the tree limbs staring at Kemnebi and the human intruders, alien emptiness in their eyes. Mixed with it all was the smell of the grindy. And an occasional whiff of something like the stink of sour cheese, if you first mixed it with dead fish and added in some vomit. Yuck.
“Dead deer,” I murmured, thinking of Angie Baby and her nightmare. Beast-fast, I pulled blades. If she were seeing my future, then something bad might happen here. If.
Kemnebi lay only feet away on a downed tree, his belly off the ground, staring at the corpses across the small pond. He was breathing too fast, a shallow pant, his muscles tense, shoulder blades up high. He looked like a scared cat. I licked my lips.
“Cave,” Rick said.
Beyond the pile of deer was a slice of blackness. The Appalachians were riddled with caves: limestone, mines through solid rock, narrow places where underground creeks once ran. Hundreds had been mapped. Hundreds more had yet to be discovered. And when they were, they were often hard to access. The mouth of this one was clear of brush and detritus. A well-trodden path led up to it, to the pile of bones, and to the water. It was covered with the three-toed and three-clawed paw prints of the grindylow. The entire area was covered with grindy markings, slashed into rock and trees.