Kiss Me, Curse Me - By Kate Shay Page 0,12

the steady drip, which had now picked up pace.

He ventured further in to the point where the ceiling dipped and he had to duck. The air was stagnant, and the faint smell of an old rot lingered. Ahanu paused. He could feel the presence of something dark and spoke aloud only really to calm himself. “I know you’re here. You wanted to hurt me, but you just missed. I don’t believe in you. You hear me? They’re wrong. There is no curse.”

Just as he said the words, a low, guttural moan echoed all around him in the cave. It was so loud, he stumbled backward, covering his ears.

“Is that all you’ve got? Just a moan?” Ahanu challenged, his voice echoing around even louder through the dark. “You see. I’m here. I’m alive. You’re just dead. You see me? You have no power over us. You can’t have her anyway. She’s mine.”

“Miiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnne,” the voice debated.

Something pushed Ahanu to the ground. He fought at nothing, the air, but he felt something gripping his neck, trying to choke the warm breath out of him.

***

Patty, Hank, and Doug joined Sheriff Doby as he went from house to house recruiting help for a search party. Before the evening hit, they had a dozen men packed in a couple white-walled, black Buicks and a Cadillac with shiny saucer wheel wells, old boats secured to the roofs—all speeding toward the dam.

“She’ll wash up there, if she’s going to,” said Doby. “You sure you didn’t see anything more than this dress on the bank?”

“I’m sure,” said Hank from the backseat, wondering about the police bars that separated him from the front.

“We’ll look again there to be sure,” said Doby.

“We were upset when we found the dress,” said Doug messing with the radio in the front seat.

“I know,” said Doby. “It happens.”

The dirt roads were narrow and wound through forest and through grasslands, till they climbed in elevation to the top of Sacred Ridge. It was a place where the Indians held many a ceremony, where the winds fought, the sun watched, and the eagles circled looking for fish.

They all pulled in close enough to the edge, to make a few men a little nervous. Grand Carnee Dam buzzed below them. Thousands of workers moving like ants to and fro. The river diverted on the far side of the dam site.

“I want one crew on one side of the river and one crew up the other, I already sent a team farther upstream, and they’ll be coming down this way.” said the sheriff.

“They may not let us cross the river,” said Patty.

“They will.” The sheriff pointed to the gold badge on his chest, which adorned his brown uniform. “I’ll arrest every man who obstructs justice.”

“No . . . that’s not what I mean.” Patty waved a hand. “It’s dangerous to cross. There’s a lot going on. They’re pouring the concrete, and I don’t see how they’re going to let the men through all that chaos. It’s dangerous. Men die every day down there—trained men.”

The sheriff sighed and took a few steps closer to the edge of the cliff and scratched his head. He watched in the distance, the cranes moving, men shouting, flashes of light from welders; metal beams gliding through the air higher up as the skeleton of the dam was formed. He turned back to face them. “We at least need to get down there somehow.” He pointed to the bank below, watching a few scraps of dirt give way and float off into the wind.

“There’s a new trail that goes down.” Hank pointed. “We go down there sometimes.”

“Why? You know better than that. You could get killed,” said Patty.

“Exactly. A rush. We go. We sit. We watch. Look at it . . . the dam. It’s remarkable.”

The men all turned to face the monstrous creation, many years in and the thing was beginning to echo a massive curvature.

Patty shook his head, “I don’t care what it is. My girl is down there somewhere. I know it.”

“Of dust and bones.”

The old familiar words rang out to him as Ahanu tried to come to, wrapped up in all kinds of pain, but couldn’t come out of the brain fog that entombed. He sunk back into the awful place where minds stray, souls wander, and the living avoid.

The mist was the only thing he could actually see—even his own hand was invisible to him—and he looked down into the nothingness. Fighting to overcome his sleepiness, he thought he heard