The Man Who Wasn't All There by David Handler (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

They don’t imagine things, except in cartoons. And this isn’t a cartoon. You do know that, right?’

‘What I know is this mountain – better than anyone else alive. And I’m telling you there’s no one back there. Come on, get going.’

We got going. It was a nice, brisk day for a hike in the autumn woods. Just not a nice day for a seven-mile march up Mount Creepy with a deranged psychotic pointing a loaded gun at my back. He had to stop periodically to catch his breath, what with being overweight and lugging his duffel bag filled with junk food and Coke. I didn’t stop. Just kept putting one foot in front of the other as the trail grew steeper.

I heard a river rushing somewhere nearby when we finally arrived at the ruins of the remote Talmadge family settlement. There were the fieldstone walls, stone foundations, chimneys, kilns and root cellars that Jim Conley had spoken of. Also deep indentations in the stone ledge that had once been the caves where Native Americans had lived a long time before the Talmadges arrived. It was a special place. I saw the most vivid, electric-green moss growing there that I’d ever seen in my life. All sorts of wild mushrooms, lichen. And yet, as both Annabeth McKenna and Mr MacGowan had told me, it was not a peaceful place. Creepy was just the word for it. Evil things had happened here. I could feel it. So could Lulu, who let out a low, unhappy moan.

‘Why’s she doing that?’ Austin demanded.

‘I don’t know. She doesn’t always tell me everything.’ I came to a halt near the remains of a dug root cellar, glancing at Grandfather’s Benrus. It was just past three o’clock. ‘OK, now what happens?’

‘Now you take a nap,’ Austin answered, whacking me over the head with his hickory nightstick so hard that I saw purple and green stars bursting before my eyes as I felt him shove me down into the cellar.

I heard him yell something at Lulu. No idea what. I was somewhere else by then. I was gone.

Total blackness.

Again.

This time I smelled damp earth and I was very cold. I seemed to be lying on my side. The back of my head hurt like hell. I reached my fingers around to touch it and felt tender flesh and wetness. My hair was matted with blood. I had no idea how much time had passed since Austin whacked me. No idea of much of anything. I was in such a daze that I kept slipping in and out of consciousness. At one point I thought I heard voices off in the distance, though I might have imagined them. My ears were ringing and … then I was gone.

No idea how much more time passed before I came to again. Now my face was all wet and smelled like fish. Someone was licking me. Lulu. My hand found her in the darkness. I stroked her. She whimpered.

‘It’s OK, girl,’ I whispered to her. ‘We’re OK.’

Although I had no idea if we were. No idea of much of anything. All I knew was that I was lying there in total darkness with an awful headache. My Varaflame lighter. I dug it out of the pocket of my jeans and flicked it on.

We were trapped down in that shallow root cellar. The one I’d been standing next to before Austin whacked me. He’d moved a pair of flat, heavy stones over it to close it off like a tomb. It wasn’t airtight. We could breathe. But he must have used a pry bar to lodge them into place because when I reached up to push at them they didn’t so much as budge.

Lulu hadn’t been idle. She’d been digging at the soft, moist ground to widen the cellar and create a way out. Digging so furiously that she’d bloodied her paws. Now that she’d awakened me she went back to work, panting from the exertion. I wriggled over to her. Could see a crack of daylight in the space she’d created next to one of the flat stones. It was morning. I remember I’d checked my watch before Austin knocked me out. It had been around three p.m. That meant we’d been down there, what, sixteen, eighteen hours? I started digging with her, first with my bare hands, then with a sharp stone that I found. Working together, we managed to widen an opening between the damp earth and the stone that was just large enough for us to squeeze through. Lulu first, then me.

It was early morning. Chilly. The ground up there on the mountain was coated with frost. I saw no sign of Austin. I was incredibly dizzy. Lulu limped her way on her bloodied front paws to a small stream nearby and drank from it, thirsty from her labors. She was no doubt hungry, too, but there was nothing I could do about that right now. I fell to my knees next to her and drank. The water was ice cold. I splashed some on my face, climbed back up on to my feet and everything started spinning. I had to lunge for a tree limb to stay on my feet.

The trail before us was marked with a green arrow. If I remembered correctly from the big map at the park’s entrance it would lead us through the rest of the Talmadge settlement, then take us back down the mountain to civilization – hopefully without encountering Austin again.

We started walking, neither of us doing particularly well. I’d never seen Lulu hobble so slowly and painfully. My poor, brave girl could barely walk. And I was so dizzy that I had to grab on to any tree I could find to keep from toppling over. I did find a stout stick that helped steady me a bit as we made our way slowly along the trail. I could hear a waterfall now. Then I saw it as the green-arrowed path