Dave had decided that instead of having them climb out the tourist exit where the tours left, he’d have them just backtrack to the way they had come in. As they neared the front entrance to the cave, Dave suddenly shouted “Karen!” and ran forward.
He had been leading the group up the incline on the asphalt trail that wound through some rock fall, so Callie couldn’t see what he had seen.
The light from the small cave opening was bright, even though it had an airlock on it. So someone must have left the door open.
Callie shielded her eyes, carefully watching her step as she went forward to make sure she stayed on the asphalt.
Suddenly both Barb and Jim ran up behind Dave, who was now kneeling over a woman who looked to be Dave’s age. She also wore a park ranger uniform like Dave’s. Her gray hair had been cut short and she looked like she had been beautiful in her day.
But now she was sprawled on the ground in the middle of the asphalt trail and to Callie she looked very dead.
And smelled dead as well.
Behind Karen, scattered along the trail were a dozen more people, all sprawled in various positions and all very dead. Clearly this Karen had been leading a walking tour into the cave with a bunch of tourists when something really awful happened.
Callie quickly checked out a couple of other bodies, an older couple wearing heavy coats. There were no obvious marks on them and no blood.
Callie stepped back and just stood, staring at the bodies, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
He stomach was twisted into a knot and she wanted to just get sick. Never had she seen so much death in one place. Seeing something like this on television was something, standing here staring at the dead bodies and smelling the rot starting to take over was another matter completely.
Was this some sort of elaborate practical joke?
She looked around the rocks scattered through the cave mouth, but saw nothing that looked out of place.
Could someone have been this sick to do this sort of joke?
She moved back a few more steps closer to her two students and Dave where he now held Karen in his lap and was sobbing.
Callie had been around dead animals and a couple dead humans in her time, and this smell was very, very real and going to get worse, much worse, very soon. These people had been laying here dead for at least a day, maybe slightly longer.
How was that even possible, in the middle of a tourist attraction during a busy season?
As Callie looked along the group of dead, eleven men, women and one teenage boy, she could tell a few animals had worked at ones closest to the cave entrance, since it was braced open by the body of a man laying face down on the asphalt.
More than anything she wanted to be sick. This was not a pretty sight. But she had to stay clear in her thoughts for the moment. There would be time for reacting later.
She just couldn’t imagine what might have caused this and why no one had come for these people and bodies.
This made no sense at all.
None.
She covered her nose with her sleeve and tried to think.
Then suddenly one very ugly word popped into her head.
Gas.
“We need to get out of here now!” she shouted to her students and Dave. “Move past the bodies quickly, don’t look at them. Get up the trail to the parking lot.”
“What do you think caused this?” Barb asked, clearly stunned, but moving.
“Might be gas,” Callie said. “Jim, help me with Dave.”
They both went to pull Dave away from the body of a woman named Karen, but he brushed them aside, angry.
“No, I’m staying with her.”
“Dave,” Callie said, “there’s nothing you can do for her.”
“I don’t care,” he said, looking up at Callie, his eyes full of tears. “She’s my wife. I’m staying.”
“We’ll send help,” Jim said.
Callie nodded, but doubted that they would find help as quickly as Jim made it sound. Something here was very, very wrong.
Callie motioned for Jim to follow Barb up the trail and past the bodies.
Without a look back at the man holding his very dead wife or at the bodies she passed, Callie followed her two graduate students up and into the light.
Outside the big trees looked normal, the day was beautiful, a slight breeze blowing among the pine.
It felt normal.
And that scared Callie even more.
All three of them took off running up the paved path through the trees, following the signs that said “Parking Lot.”
It took them only a minute at full run for the three of them to reach the wide, paved parking lot.
Callie expected police and everything else to be there, but instead the lot felt deserted.
Two bodies lay sprawled near one car.
Around them the towering mountains stretched upwards, leaving most of the parking lot tucked into the side of the hill in shadow.
Callie made herself stop, take a deep breath to clear her mind, and then look around for anything that seemed wrong or out of place.
Nothing.
A beautiful afternoon in the Oregon Mountains.
Except for the two bodies sprawled in the parking lot.
“What happened?” Barb asked, her voice shaking.
It was clear Barb was barely holding it together. But Callie had no answers for her. All Callie could do was stand there on the edge of the parking lot, staring at the bodies and shaking her head.
She had no idea what had happened.
But she had no doubt now that this was a lot bigger than some poison gas in the mouth of a cave.
A lot bigger.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith published far more than a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres.
At the moment he produces novels in several major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, a superhero series starring Poker Boy, and a mystery series featuring the retired detectives of the Cold Poker Gang.
His monthly magazine, Smith’s Monthly, which consists of only his own fiction, premiered in October 2013 and offers readers more than 70,000 words per issue, including a new and original novel every month.
During his career, Dean also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, he wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies.
He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of almost a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown.
Dean also worked as a fiction editor off and on, starting at Pulphouse Publishing, then at VB Tech Journal, then Pocket Books, and now at WMG Publishing, where he and Kristine Kathryn Rusch serve as series editors for the acclaimed Fiction River anthology series.
For more information about Dean’s books and o
ngoing projects, please visit his website at www.deanwesleysmith.com.
Look for These Other Titles from Dean Wesley Smith
The Thunder Mountain Series:
Thunder Mountain
Monumental Summit
Avalanche Creek
The Edwards Mansion
Lake Roosevelt
Warm Springs
Melody Ridge
Grapevine Springs
The Idanha Hotel
The Taft Ranch
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Copyright Information
The Idanha Hotel
Copyright © 2016 by Dean Wesley Smith
First published in Smith’s Monthly #30, WMG Publishing, March 2016
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and layout copyright © 2016 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Vaclav Volrab/Dreamstime.com
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Table of Contents
Dedication
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
PART TWO
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
PART THREE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
PART FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
PART SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
PART SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
EPILOGUE
Against Time Sample
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Copyright Information