Page 44 of What Remains (John Worthy #3)

He froze, still half-in, half-out of his tunic. Sudden gooseflesh pebbled his naked flesh. The fine hairs along the back of his neck stiffened. His tongue seemed to shrivel to a piece of old shoe leather while his pulse throbbed.

Someone here. A person? Animals, especially big ones, could moan like that.

He listened hard over his banging heart but heard nothing.

Because it had been nothing? What made a sound like that?

Had there been tracks? Had he seen any blood or bits of hair?

No, no, he hadn’t. Really, he should throw on his clothes and run. On the other hand?—

The moan came again.

Oh. Fear made him shrink into himself, try to grow small.

Slowly, carefully, he smoothed his tunic down over his body and reached for his pants.

He had to get out of here, he had to run.

But, as he slipped his trousers out from under his belt, the steel claw of his hammer scraped rock like something from a horror movie: screeee.

Oh! Still crouched, he stopped moving for a second. Be quiet, be quiet!

Another moan.

His heart banged. He should leave, right now! He could run, couldn’t he? There’d been a movie Baba had about an American Eskimo who ran, naked, across the ice and he lived.

That was a movie. This was real life. Moving the hammer to one side, he stood, got one leg into his trousers and then the other. He got his socks on and then his boots. Buckling his belt, he picked up the hammer in one hand and the flashlight in the other.

Now, back out. Go slow. Once he was around the bend, he would turn and?—

That moan, low and guttural, came again.

And he paused. He stayed where he was even as his brain screamed that he was an idiot, he needed to run, to get out!

Except…that sound was a little off. Camels lowed like that. So did cattle. But, again, the absence of tracks?—

He pulled in a sudden gasp. No tracks. But no snow or ice at the entrance either. Hadn’t he just noticed that? Yes, but he’d assumed that the spring’s heat had somehow kept the cave’s entry clear.

Except that had never happened before.

Say, an animal decided the cave was a good place to die.

He knew from all his reading that animals often intuited when death was near.

They frequently stole away to someplace quiet where they could die in peace.

So, this might be an animal, wounded and dying or just old and drying. He could buy that.

What he could not buy was that any animal would know to sweep away its tracks.

Another long moan.

There was enough natural light from the opening overhead for him to see a clear path. Stepping carefully, he eased his way along the stream, passed its mouth, and then slid to the extreme left of the entrance into that next chamber. Pressing back against the rock, he listened. Nothing.

Although he now detected a bizarre mélange of odors that did not belong.

One, so thick and potent that Poya’s eyes watered was unmistakable. Anyone who had ever visited an outhouse or, come to think of it, a public toilet recognized the stink was of stale urine and old feces.

His father had been a doctor. So, Poya knew quite a lot.

When people or animals were near death, their bowels went, their bladder emptied.

Whatever was in there was probably on the brink and crawled in here to die.

Maybe best, then, to come back later and take the corpse far away, let the leopards or wolves eat their?—

Another low groan.

The other smell was meaty and fusty. The odor reminded him of Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, when goats were slaughtered and the meat offered to everyone in the village.

The herdsman for whom he'd worked in Sarhad had shown him how to soothe the animal then turn it to face Mecca, bring it down on its left flank then make a quick, clean cut with his sharpest blade through the carotid arteries, windpipe, and jugular veins so the blood gushed out.

In this way, the herdsman said, the animal died quickly, and its meat would be halal.

Poya never forgot that peculiar stink of wet copper, and he smelled it now, which meant that, in the next room, something was bleeding or had bled?—

“Ahhh.” The exhalation was breathy and long. “My God...”

Oh! Poya had to clap a hand to his mouth to catch the cry that wanted to leap from his tongue.

A person, there was a person in the next room!

Man, woman? Poya couldn’t tell. But those shots.

He remembered the crisp, brittle snaps cracking the early morning air, the booms of return fire—and now here was this person who had crawled somewhere dark the way an animal did when it felt the press of death.

His mind raced. What should he do? Try to help? No, that was stupid. If this person was really badly hurt, what could he do? But if he ran to get help, then what? How would he explain being up here in the first place?

Did that even matter when a life hung in the balance?

Yes. A small voice from a back corner of his mind. Of course, it matters. You’re on your own. There’s no one to help you. If you go in there, you won’t be able to undo that.

Which was true. If he went for help, he would lose this place forever and with it, any plan to escape. The end result would be that, eventually, Amu would discover his secret and then ?—

And then, as whoever was in that next room let go of another moan, Poya realized he had a third option.

He could kill whoever was in there. Do that, and his secret was safe.

But with what? There was the folding knife he’d stolen, but the blade was small, and he would have to stab this person many, many times. Unless he cut an artery, this person wouldn’t die fast.

Which left his hammer. Yes, better to bash in the man’s head. It would be bloody. The man in there would suffer. But caving in his skull would be faster. Once the man was dead, Poya would drag the body far from the cave and let the leopards and wolves do their work. Destroy the evidence.

What would Mami or Baba have said or done? The same? Or would they have tried to help? What kind of person would he become if he killed this person?

Conscience is a luxury you do not have. That small voice, again. Do what you must. Time for you to become what you pretend you are.

Cocking his arm, readying himself to swing that hammer with all the force of his fear, Poya wheeled around the edge of the cavern’s mouth and flicked on his light.