The Woman with the Cipher Tattoo

CHAPTER 11: In the Lair of the Beast

Stan and Soos both leaped forward, raising their bats and yelling "Ahhhh!"

The figure from outside raised a weapon, an axe, and charged forward—

Ford shone his light—

"Wendy!" Dipper yelled. "It's us!"

Wendy Corduroy, her long red hair soaked, her eyes wide and blinking, said, "Guys? I totally tried to call you, like, a hundred times!" She shivered a little in her soaked, sopping clothes. "Melody called and told me where you were goin'. Man, I thought I'd go crazy followin' you—spooky crap out there in the dark! Why didn't you answer my calls?"

"No phone reception around here," Ford said.

Stan turned on him. "What! When were ya plannin' to share that little news bulletin with us, genius? Ya mean we can't even call for backup?"

"Yeah, and what about that space-shippy doodad, dude?" Soos asked. "If there's no reception—"

Ford raised his six-fingered hands. "Now, now, calm down! I told you, the communicator works on tachyonic principles, not like a phone—I mean, tachyons are faster-than light particles, except when they behave like waves—"

Wendy pushed past them. "Dipper! Where's Mabel, dude?"

"Back in there somewhere," Dipper said, backing away from her. "Don't hug me, okay?"

Wendy stopped in her tracks, and when she spoke, she sounded hurt: "Okay, dude. But I'm real glad to see you. Uh—why no hug?"

"Because I couldn't stand it," Dipper said miserably. Off to one side, the two adult Pines twins were arguing hotly as Fiddleford and Soos listened to them. Dipper jerked his head, and Wendy followed him a few steps away from the others. Then, so softly that only Wendy could hear him, he said, "I—I never got over you. I guess you kind of know that."

"Yeah. I guess I kinda do," Wendy said, giving him her crooked, beautiful smile. "It's cool, Dipper. 'S okay, man."

Dipper swallowed hard. "That—remember the dance, when Soos DJ'ed and Pacifica won the popularity contest? Remember, we were taking tickets? Wendy, I wanted so bad to ask you to dance. Just one time. But—but I was too scared. I'm sorry I'm such a dork."

"Don't sell yourself short, dude," she said softly. "You're, like, an amazing guy, you know? But—don't we have something kinda important to do?"

Dipper squared his shoulders. "Yeah. But—if something happens, Wendy, I just—just want you to remember that I'm so sorry we never danced together just once. That I was such a chicken."

"It's okay, dude, really."

"All right!" Ford said loudly. "Yes, I should've told you, but there was nothing we could do about it anyway. It's getting light. Let's go find this beast and rescue Mabel."

"I'm with you, Mr. Pines," Soos said.

"Me, too, by cracky!" echoed McGucket.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Stan growled. "Just one thing, bright boy: Let me take the lead this time. I don't think whatever lives here's gonna be much impressed by your IQ."

"You lead, we'll follow. You'll need this," Stanford said, handing over the flashlight. Though gray light had seeped into the cave entrance, the way beyond lay pitch-dark.

Stan looked around and then glared at Dipper. "Kid, you stay here and guard the rear. If it sounds like it's goin' bad, you get out of here and run for help, understand? Ford better give you his phone, just in case. Soon's you get a signal, call for help. Wendy, I don't guess there's any use in tellin' you to hang back here with him."

"Nope," she said, running a thumb over the cutting edge of her axe.

"Okay, okay, but you stay behind me. Can't really tell because of this rain, but the sun's up. Must be by now. Let's roll out."

As they edged cautiously into the darkness, Stan flashed the light all around. The cave looked as if it had been worn by eons of water—they had to weave between stalagmites that were taller than Stan and Ford, and overhead stalactites hung down and looked shiny and oozy in the flashlight beam. They gleamed with dull colors, ochres and faded oranges, creams and a kind of reddish purple the hue of rotten plums. "Jeeze, it's as wide as a cathedral!" Stan muttered.

That was true for the first section. However, maybe a hundred yards in, the surroundings changed. The cavern shrank down into a rounded tunnel, smooth-sided, no stalagmites or stalactites at all, and only ten feet or so in diameter—it was as if a gigantic drill had cut a smooth, winding passage through solid rock, though scatters of water-smoothed loose stones lay underfoot and threatened to trip them at every step.

"What's that?" Wendy said suddenly.

In the beam of Stan's light something floated toward them, dark and undulating. Stan raised his bat—

"Butterflies!" McGucket said. "A cloud of 'em!"

"Don't let them land on you," Ford cautioned. "Remember, they can stab you with their proboscises!"

"I don't care if they got stilettoes!" snapped Stan.

"Butterflies wear heels?" Wendy asked.

Faintly, though not from far away, came a voice: "Who's . . . there?"

"That's Mabel!" Stan yelled. "We're comin', Pumpkin!"

"No . . . no . . ."

Before they could even move, a small figure charged past them all, running all-out. Stan yelled, "Dipper! Get back!"

But it was no use. Dipper had pulled ahead. He rounded a bend and yelled, "Mabel!"

The others followed as closely as they could. For a few seconds it was impossible to comprehend just what they saw: The beast waited in its lair. It seemed huge, thirty feet or more in length, a heavy-bodied, coiled, serpentine thing but with multiple sprawling legs and a long, lashing tail. Except for the head and claws, its whole body bore gleaming orange scales. The head swayed, just a dark-brown rounded nub, showing no features, no eyes or mouth or nose, but a squirming mass of tentacles, a dozen of them or more, black and writhing. One of these had stretched taut, and at the far end of it lay Mabel Pines, a thin strand of the tentacle wrapped around her neck.

"Dipper," she murmured, sounding not upset, not happy. The tentacle pulsed.

Dipper reached her and pulled at the tentacle, then he—bit through it. Dark fluid gushed, the monstrous body thrashed, Mabel screamed, and the tail of the beast whipped round like a gigantic scorpion's sting—

The sharp, chitinous blade at the tip of the tail plunged into Dipper's back and burst out his chest. He had been speared like a fish. The tail thrashed, sweeping him into the air and then hurling him face-first into the stone wall with a sickening crunch.

Stan, screaming in fury, slammed his bat against the thing's head. Wendy chopped through a striking tentacle—but another seized her wrist. Hot anger boiled in her—the tentacle throbbed—and the beast jerked as though scalded, dropped its hold and scrabbled away, backing frantically. Its scales fell off and took to the air—no, not scales, but butterflies. They rushed past the attackers, not striking at them but in a panic-stricken rush heading for the cave entrance.

Naked in the light, the creature was an enormous, jointed, insect-like thing, its body thicker than a man's thigh, its carapace the shiny dark brown of a roach's wings, its five pairs of jointed legs ending in claws, its menacing whiplike tail spur dripping some greenish venom. But—it backed away, scraping against the tunnel wall, then backed itself into a small dark hollow, and there it seemed to crouch in fear.

Mabel clawed the remnants of the tentacle from her throat and was crawling to where Dipper had fallen face-down and still.

"Seal it up!" Ford yelled. "Quick! Get loose rock, anything you can find, and pile it in the entrance to that hole! We have to trap it!"

Soos and Fiddleford hurried to carry out his orders, grabbing the biggest chunks of smooth rock they could find. The creature writhed in its lair, but it couldn't seem to get any further away from them, and it couldn't get its stinger into play to strike at them. It shrank from Ford's flashlight, and he held it pinned in place with a lance of light until the other two had closed up the two-foot opening.

"No," Stan was saying from where he knelt on the cave floor. "Oh, no, no, no!"

"Dipper!" wailed Wendy, holding his limp form. "Come on, man, you can't die!"

Mabel had crawled far enough to grasp Dipper's outflung hand. She lay face-down, sobbing bitterly.

"Let me through," Ford told them. He knelt and placed two fingers against Dipper's neck.

He stood, shaking his head. "No pulse," he said softly.

"Aw, no!" Soos groaned. "Don't say that, Mr. Pines! Not Dipper! I wish it had been me!"

Stan grabbed Ford by his coat lapel. "Come on, smart guy! Think! There's gotta be somethin' you can do!"

"There's nothing," came a woman's voice. It sounded unspeakably weary.

Stan shone his light. Half-lying against the far wall was a woman, gaunt and pale, dressed in faded rags. Fiddleford said in wonder, "Mayellen?"

"Nothing you can do," the woman repeated, her voice flat and lifeless. "Nothing anybody can do."

The reality settled on them like the darkness of the cave.

This was no phantasm of Creepy Hollow, no nightmare out of the Mindscape, no illusion. It was too real.

It was final.

Dipper Pines was dead.