The Boogens Read online

  Two soft thumps had sounded on the planked floor somewhere behind him. He turned quickly and stared, his heart now in his throat. Rats couldn’t have made a noise like that. Could they?

  The match sputtered and died. In the darkness his heart raced faster. He fumbled for another match but then hesitated. Instead of lighting it, he twisted the valve and returned the keys to his pocket. Then, his hands shaking, he tore out another match and struck it across the matchbook. He turned quickly and stared.

  The sounds were louder. Now they seemed to be accompanied by low growls and the rasp of heavy breathing. Ken’s eyes darted around the shadows and scanned the floor. Nothing seemed to be moving in the shadows. Nor was there anything on the floor but the lumber and a thick coating of dust.

  Then it happened—so fast he was too shocked to move for an instant. The flame of his match was beginning to die, and no more than three feet in front of him the grating over a large drain hole suddenly burst free of its moorings. One edge of the three-foot rectangle lifted a few inches above the floor and stopped. Beneath it, Ken could see nothing but a shadowy mass with two orange dots in the middle. The flame disappeared from his match.

  He fumbled for another one but held it poised over the booklet, not breathing for a minute. Mud? he wondered. Had the rain forced mud and debris under the basement and pushed the grating up? That had to be it. And the gurgling, rasping sounds were from the water running under the floor.

  He struck the match across the booklet, but it flared only half a second before it sizzled out. In that half second, Ken’s heart stopped beating. He saw the edge of the grate moving higher; he saw a slimy tentacle moving out from under the grate, and in the shadowy mass behind the tentacle he saw a pair of orange, luminescent eyes staring at him like two shiny copper pennies. He dove to the side, then scrambled back against the wall of the basement, staring incredulously at those orange eyes.

  His heart was beating again, but it was pounding so fast it was more like a wild flutter in his throat. What the hell was that thing? The eyes were moving now, the whole thing apparently sliding in his direction.

  The animal, or whatever it was, was directly between him and the bottom of the stairs. With one hand on the wall behind, he edged slowly to the side, hoping the thing would not change direction. But the unblinking eyes continued to stare directly at him, moving steadily closer.

  He moved again, more quickly this time, crossing to the adjacent wall. Then he froze as something wet and heavy slapped the floor in front of him.

  The eyes were still facing him, still moving forward. The gurgling and the rasp of breathing was louder than ever now. He flattened against the wall again and his foot touched something—the stack of old lumber. He reached down for the wood, feeling a splintery piece of two-by-four. He picked it up, sensing it was about five feet long. He edged back in the other direction, now holding the two-by-four firmly with both hands.

  The eyes followed his movement and came implacably forward. Ken lifted the wood and waited, his breathing now as loud as that of the animal. The thing was less than six feet from him. Then something else caught his eye and for an instant he stared past the animal, another wave of terror causing him to catch his breath. Two more pairs of eyes were rising from the direction of the drainhole.

  Ken brought the two-by-four down with all his strength, aiming it at a point directly between the closest pair of eyes.

  The blow landed exactly where he had hoped; there was no more resistance than if he had struck a giant sponge. The eyes came closer together for an instant, then separated as the two-by-four bounced away. He dropped the piece of wood and leaped as far as he could, hoping to get past the animal and make it to the staircase.

  For a moment he thought he had made it. His first stride landed on solid wood and he was well past the eyes. But his second stride landed on something squishy, and he sprawled headlong to the floor. His heart pounding, he scrambled forward on his hands and knees and reached the bannister post of the stairway. But then something locked itself around his left ankle and yanked him back, dropping him to the floor again.

  He rolled to the side, hoping to break the grip. But the thing held on, drawing him slowly backward. He grabbed the bannister post with both hands and pulled, at the same time kicking at the thing with his free foot.

  He couldn’t hold the post any longer. His hands and then his fingers slowly scraped across the wood and then broke away. Something wet and sticky slapped at his arm. An instant later it struck again, wrapping itself around his neck.

  Ken screamed as his body was twisted and then drawn slowly toward the two pairs of eyes near the drainhole. He pulled and dug his fingernails into the clammy tentacle that was encircling his neck, but he continued moving toward the hole, both his legs now firmly gripped and immobilized. Some kind of sticky liquid was now running down his face, burning his eyes and lips. He tried to spit it out as he felt himself being drawn into the hole.

  He grabbed at the side of the opening, but he no longer had the strength to resist. Something wet and clammy suddenly clamped over his face, wrenching his head violently to the side. Mercifully, he was unconscious as the creature closed its tentacles around him and they both dropped through the hole.

  2

  Brian Lockett waited by the unloading ramp of Western Airlines flight number 773 from Houston, patiently studying each of the passengers as they filed out of the accordioned tunnel. The plane had arrived on schedule, and from the number of people pouring through the door, it must have been full. But there was no way of his knowing which of them would be Chris Hurley.

  He had talked to her on the phone yesterday, and her voice was pleasant and young-sounding. But that could mean a woman of any age between twenty and forty. The conversation had ended with his saying he would meet her at the Denver Airport at noon. Neither of them had had the presence of mind to say what they looked like or what they would be wearing. Which meant she would be having the same problem.

  Brian moved off to the edge of the waiting crowd and smiled wryly to himself. It would have been simple if he could have told her to watch for a man who looked like Robert Redford. But he was too tall and rawboned for that. Abe Lincoln without a beard would have given her a better idea. Or maybe Gary Cooper without a horse.

  Most of the passengers were men. The first ones off were carrying briefcases, and they strode past the crowd without a glance. The first woman was in her fifties, apparently accompanied by a man carrying a heavy package. The next was in her late twenties; a tall, angular woman wearing custom jeans and carrying a flight bag over her shoulder. She looked more like a New York fashion model than a mining expert. Her big sunglasses made it impossible to tell if she was looking around the lounge, expecting to be met by somebody.

  The next woman was younger. She paused for a moment, scanning the lounge. Then she smiled happily and hurried off toward an elderly lady. After her came ten or twelve men and several women who were obviously with friends or relatives.

  “Mr. Lockett?”

  The voice came from behind him, and Brian turned sharply. It was the woman with the flight bag and the jeans, smiling now, the sunglasses in her hand.

  “Yes,” he said. “You’re Miss Hurley?”

  She stuck out her hand. “I’d prefer Chris.”

  “And I’d prefer Brian.” Brian was six feet two, which made her about five eight or nine. There was a scattering of freckles across her cheekbones, and her auburn hair was cut short and neat. She was wearing a tailored, masculine shirt with a little embroidery down the front, but there was no doubt about her being female. For the first time in fifteen years, Brian felt a little intimidated by a woman’s beauty. “Do you have some luggage?”

  “One bag,” she said as they moved through the corridor. “I hate to be bogged down with mountains of luggage.”

  “Did you have a nice flight?” Brian smiled inwardly at the triteness of his question. He still hadn’t quite recovered. She was wearing sandals and
matching his strides with no problem.

  “Very nice,” she said. “Except I was hoping to see more of the Rockies. They were all covered with clouds.”

  “Yes, it’s been raining off and on for three days.”

  She had one large bag, Brian carried it out to the parking lot and put it in the back seat of the big Ford Bronco. She climbed into the front before he had a chance to help her.

  “Now,” he said as he slid behind the wheel, “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to spend the night in Denver or go directly up to Summit.”

  “Is there any place to stay up there?”

  “Well, . . . there’s a hotel. It’s about a hundred years old and not exactly first class. I called and they said they had plenty of rooms.”

  “Sounds like fun,” she said. “Let’s go up.”

  She buckled her safety belt and Brian threaded his way through the parking lot to the exit. He was puzzled by her. He could imagine her racing around town in red convertibles, or maybe even playing tennis or golf. But she certainly didn’t fit the usual pattern of field geologists he had known. It was dirty work, especially in the mining business.

  Once they were on the freeway and headed west, she glanced at him and smiled. “I hope you don’t mind Mr. Loomis having sent a woman to look at the mine.”

  Brian wondered if she was a mind reader. “Not at all,” he said. “In fact, it’s a pleasant change. You don’t find many ladies digging around mine shafts. Mr. Loomis must have a lot of confidence in you.”

  She laughed. “Not necessarily. In the last six months he’s bought thirty-two old mines in various places—most of them sight unseen. The Hatcher mine, I’m afraid, was one of the inexpensive ones. So he’s sent one of his inexpensive employees to look at it.”

  Brian smiled. He doubted if Harold Loomis ever did anything inexpensively. He was a Texas oilman with a Midas touch and a reputation as a wild gambler. Six months ago he had started buying up all the old gold and silver mines he could find and paying whatever price was necessary to get them.

  Brian had become involved when a man named Jacobs had called him from Houston, asking if he would be available for some consultation work regarding an old mine the Loomis Company had bought in the Rocky Mountains. Brian had said yes and quoted his fees, and ten days later Chris Hurley had called. If Brian would be available on the following Thursday, she would fly up to Denver, and they would go up to Summit and look at the Hatcher mine. However, if it was possible, the Loomis Company would like to hire Brian immediately and have him spend the next few days researching any old records that might be available concerning the mine.

  Brian had agreed. So he had spent the last four days burrowing through the dusty records of the government Claims Office, the local museums and libraries and any other sources he could find. He had been up to the town of Summit only once in his life, but he had spent no more than a day or two in the area.

  Doing historical research was a little out of his line. He had been a mining engineer specializing in mine construction and maintenance for the first six years after he had gotten out of college. Then, three years ago, he had gone into a consulting partnership with a man named Alan Freedman. Freedman was an expert mineralogist, but neither of them was particularly strong on mining history.

  “This is beautiful country,” Chris said as they started climbing into the mountains. “Have you always lived in Colorado?”

  “No,” Brian said. “As a matter of fact, I grew up in Seattle, Washington.”

  She gave him a surprised look. “How’d you ever get interested in mining up there? I’d think you’d have become a fisherman or a woodsman.”

  Brian laughed. “Well, as they say, the grass is always greener. I was sort of a romantic when I was a kid—always reading stories about lost gold mines. So I went off to college at the Colorado School of Mines. Then up to South Dakota for six years before I came to Denver. But I still haven’t found any lost gold mines.”

  “Maybe the Hatcher mine will be your first.”

  “Maybe. How’d you get interested in mining?”

  She smiled and glanced at the slopes of rust-colored aspen. “I’ve really always been more interested in exploring old caves. But it’s hard to make a living at that. So I studied geology, hoping to make my hobby profitable.”

  “Then you’re a spelunker?”

  “Well, yes. But that word seems to give the wrong impression. People who don’t know what it means always raise an eyebrow when I mention it. Sometimes it leads to embarrassing situations.”

  Brian laughed. “I’m afraid I didn’t come up with a whole lot of information about the Hatcher mine. Some of these mining areas around here have truckloads of data written about them, but for some reason the Hatcher mine seems to have been ignored. Either that, or the material has been lost over the years.”

  “How old is it?” she asked.

  “As near as I can find out, Oliver Hatcher made the first strike in 1864. Apparently he was a deserter from the federal army stationed in Salt Lake City. One of Colonel Patrick Conner’s military prospectors.”

  “Military prospectors?” she asked.

  Brian smiled. “I take it you’ve never heard about Colonel Connor and his prospecting army?”

  “No,” she said. “What in the world was that?”

  “Well, it’s sort of an amusing story,” Brian said. “When Brigham Young settled in Utah, the last thing he wanted was for anyone to go prospecting for gold or silver and possibly start a gold rush. He was set on developing an agricultural paradise in Utah, and he figured the worst thing that could happen would be a mad rush of miners coming into the state the way they had done in California. People who were trying to get rich quick were not the most stable citizens, he figured. And he was probably right.

  “The way things worked out, however, Colonel Patrick E. Connor was sent to Salt Lake City in 1862 and made Commander of the U.S. federal troops stationed there. Connor, it seemed, hated Brigham Young and the Mormons more than he hated Indians and the Confederate Army. So when he heard Brigham Young was trying to discourage mining and prospecting, he gave his men extended leaves and encouraged them to go out and look for gold and silver. As it turned out, some of the biggest strikes in the Wasatch Mountains were made by those soldiers.”

  She laughed. “And Oliver Hatcher was one of those soldiers?”

  “That’s right. Except he had been recruited from the California gold fields, and I guess he liked prospecting better than soldiering. So he made his extended leave permanent and kept on going east into the Rocky Mountains. A year or so after he deserted, he hit a rich lode of silver. That was the start of the Hatcher mine.”

  They were climbing rapidly now, the freeway making broad curves through the mountains. Ahead of them, a mass of black clouds seemed to be stuck on the higher peaks.

  “What happened to Hatcher?” she asked.

  “He sold the mine in 1869 and died a year later. He was a millionaire, but I guess he didn’t enjoy it much. He was only thirty-nine years old when he died.”

  “That’s a sad story.”

  Brian nodded. “It seems that the Hatcher mine has had more than its share of sad stories over the years. Principally it was a lead mine after 1870, and as you know, lead mining isn’t the healthiest of occupations. According to the records, however, an exceptional number of men died in that particular mine. Anyhow, the operation was expanded considerably after Hatcher sold out. A lot of new shafts were dug, and two or three million dollars worth of silver and lead were taken out between ’69 and ’73. Then things were quiet again until 1888, when the Great Western Silver Company bought the property. Apparently they opened a couple dozen new shafts and did pretty well until the big crash of ’93, when the government quit buying silver. So the mine was closed again until World War I. After that it was sold to a New York company and reopened briefly during World War II. As far as I know, that’s about the end of the story.”

  “What did you mean, an except
ional number of men died in the mine?”

  A sprinkling of soft rain was hitting the windshield. Brian turned on the wipers. “The University had some old miners’ union publications in their files, quoting the life expectancy rates of lead miners. The union was principally interested in getting the government to pass some new safety regulations for lead mines. They mentioned the Hatcher mine as being one of the most dangerous in the country. The life expectancy of workers in the Hatcher mine seemed to be about five years less than average.”

  “Did they know why?”

  “Apparently they figured it was because the lead deposits were so rich in some parts of the mine. Of course, those statistics were compiled between 1870 and 1915. In those days they didn’t worry much about protecting the health of miners.”

  “So the mine hasn’t been worked since World War II?”

  “Not according to the records I could find. As I said, though, the records are sparse. In the Claims Office the only mention of the mine since then was the notation of a change of ownership in 1954. It seems that two young men from Massachusetts bought it. But whether they ever opened it, or even came to Colorado and looked at it, there’s no way of knowing.”

  “Were their names Thomas and Hitchings?”

  Brian glanced at her and smiled. “Yes, they were. So you’ve been doing some research too.”

  “Not really,” she said. “Apparently both of the men died some time ago and the title to the mine has been tied up in litigation ever since. Mr. Loomis bought it from the estate.”

  “Does he think there’s still some silver in it?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows? I think Mr. Loomis operates on the shotgun principle. If he buys twenty mines, the chances are pretty good that two or three of them will have some silver in them.”