Slowly a mist began to settle in about him. He stopped then and again looked about. There was nothing to see. He listened. There was nothing to hear. Nevertheless, he had the unpleasant sensation of being followed. Momentary doubt tugged at his resolve; perhaps this whole business was one big, fat mistake. But he shoved the doubt aside quickly and started again along the trail. He had made the commitment weeks ago. He was determined to see it through.
The forest deepened and the mist grew thicker. Trees loomed tightly all about him, dark, skeletal sentries with their dying leaves and evergreen boughs, their trailers of vine and scrub and swatches of saw grass. He was having to push his way past the pine and spruce to keep on the trail, and the mist lent a hazy cast to a morning that had begun with sunshine. Pine needles and fallen leaves crunched underfoot; from beyond where he could see, small animals darted through the carpet.
At least he wasn’t entirely alone, he thought. He was growing extremely thirsty, but he hadn’t thought to pack a water container. He could go back and try the stream water, but he was reluctant to lose time doing so. He turned his thoughts momentarily to Miles to take his mind off his thirst. He tried to picture Miles out here in the woods with him, trudging through the forest and the mist, huffing and grunting. He smiled. Miles hated all forms of exercise that did not involve beer cans and tableware. He thought Ben was crazy for continuing his boxing workouts so many years after he had ceased to box competitively. He thought athletes were basically little boys who had never grown up.
Ben shook his head. Miles thought a lot of things that didn’t make much sense.
He slowed as the pathway ahead petered out into tall grass. A deep cluster of pine barred his passage forward. He pushed his way through and stopped.
“Uh-oh,” he whispered.
A wall of towering, rugged oak rose before him, shrouded in layers of shadow. A tunnel had been cut through its center, hollowed out as if by giant’s hands. The tunnel was dark and empty, a black hole with no end, a burrow that ran on into trailers of mist, stirred by invisible hands. Sounds drifted from out of the black, distant and unidentifiable.
Ben stood at the tunnel’s entrance and stared into the mist and the dark. The tunnel was two dozen feet across and twice as high. He had never seen anything like it. He knew at once that nothing in his world had made it. He knew as well exactly where it led. Nevertheless, he hesitated. There was something about the tunnel that made him uneasy — something beyond the fact that it was an unnatural creation. There was a look and feel to it that bothered him.
He peered about warily. There was nothing to be seen. He might have been the only living thing in the forest, except that he could heal; the sounds from somewhere ahead, like voices, only…
He experienced a sudden, violent urge to turn about and go straight back the way he had come. It was so powerful that he actually took a step backward before he could catch himself. The air from the tunnel seemed to reach out to him in a velvet touch that trailed moisture against his skin. He tightened his arm about the duffel and straightened, bracing himself against what he was feeling. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Did he go on or did he turn back? Which choice for intrepid adventurer. Doc Holiday?
“Well,” he said softly.
He started forward. The tunnel seemed to open before him, the darkness drawing back at precisely the rate at which he advanced. The mist caressed him, a lover’s hands tender and eager in their touch. He walked steadily, purposefully, letting his eyes sweep briefly right and left, seeing nothing. The sounds continued to stray from out of the invisible distance, still unrecognizable. The forest earth had a soft, spongey feel to it, giving with the weight of his body as he trod upon it. Dark trunks and limbs wrapped about, walls and ceiling that locked away all but the faintest light, a web of damp bark and drying leaves.