A moment later he felt wetness on his own upper lip. He thought it was his nose bleeding again because of his injuries – heaven knew his nose had been through more than the rest of him lately – but then the growl came again.
Give UP. Give IN.
The thoughts hammered at his brain, perfectly in sync with the pulse of blood from his nose. He realized this wasn't an injury – at least, not an external one. This was the effect of his mind being attacked.
The zombies' brains had been jellified, turned into a liquid receptor that could be controlled and changed by –
(the king)
– a common impulse. So far that hadn't happened to the survivors, but how long could they withstand repeated intrusions into their minds? What would the effects of such psychic invasions be?
Theresa looked at him with glassy eyes.
Give UP.
Her nose jetted again. Christopher remembered reading somewhere that nosebleeds were a sign of brain trauma.
Maybe it's not that. Maybe –
The growl came again. The psychic pulse. Christopher felt more wetness, this time at the corners of his eyes. He wiped away the tears…
… and his hands came away bloody. He was crying blood.
"We gotta get out of here," he rasped.
"Tryin'," was all Aaron said. Christopher looked at the cowboy and saw the other man's chin and cheeks were bloody as well. He wasn't crying blood, though – it looked like the capillaries under the skin had burst, like he was bleeding out of the pores themselves.
Christopher remembered Derek. The bite, followed by howls of pain and blood springing from the boy's unblemished skin as the Change took him.
Is that going to happen to us?
He didn't think so. He thought that anyone who had survived the initial Change – that first pulse that had transformed fifty percent of the world in an instant – would need to be bitten to turn into zombies themselves.
But it can kill us. If it doesn't Change us, it can just beat our brains to pieces.
He realized that the jammers probably weren't working anymore. The sounds in his mind were clear, unhindered by any outside force.
That meant the zombies that were coming for them would either be fighting between themselves – the queens' servants trying to murder each other – or would be under the king's thrall. Trying to kill the survivors and take the little girls for a prize.
Not a good outcome, either way.
Aaron and Amulek were standing upright now, the hole in the ceiling reaching a full foot above their heads. They were going quickly.
But would it be enough?
And what happened if the tunnel caved in?
"Hurry," whispered Christopher. The word was for no one but him. Or perhaps it was a prayer.
"Hurry."
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Aaron and Amulek kept digging. Not just up but around as the hole widened each time they stabbed upward with their knives. They were standing upright, then reaching above their heads. Then Aaron was on Amulek's shoulders, digging above them both.
What if they can't reach any higher?
(You give up. You give in.)
Christopher tried to purge the despair from his thoughts. Failed. Tried again.
The growl grew louder. He felt a darkness thicker than the black of the tunnel gathering in his mind. Pulling at him, sucking him into a hole of loss, despair, madness.
He felt blood pouring from his nose, but it was a distant feeling. A sensation out of a half-remembered dream, a thing from beyond conscious thought.
He heard the growl. Knew they had seconds.
Looked at Amulek. Aaron.
Aaron shoved up with his knife. Dirt falling in a constant storm around him and Amulek.
Aaron punched through.
The light that had been laser-thin widened to a full-bodied beam. A shaft bright enough to blind Christopher for a moment. Then it grew brighter, and brighter still until he had to put a hand in front of his eyes. When everything finally dimmed as his eyes re-acclimated to sunlight, he pulled his hands away.
Aaron was already scrambling upward, grabbing handfuls of loose dirt that pulled down in his hands. No purchase, no upward movement.
Christopher joined hands with Amulek. He felt as though something were pushing him, moving him, helping him to know what to do. He looked into Amulek's eyes and saw a similar light there, a knowledge of what had to be done because it was all that remained to be done.
He and Amulek made a four-handed stirrup. Aaron stepped into it with his right foot, moving so quickly and surely that Christopher knew the cowboy was feeling the same thing he and Amulek felt: this was the way. This was the only way.
What's happening to me? What's happening to us?
The instant Aaron's heel was firmly atop their clasped hands, Christopher and Amulek heaved upward. Aaron shot into the light. He went up so hard and fast that his boot actually flew off their hands… and never came down again. Christopher looked up. Saw his friend's lower half. The upper half was bent over the lip of the ground above. Aaron's cowboy boots pedaled up and down against the wall of their makeshift shaft. Finally dug in. Found purchase. Pushed.
Aaron disappeared from the shaft.
GIVE UP GIVE IN –
– GIVE UP GIVE IN
The sound/sensation bludgeoned Christopher from two directions. Pounded at him from one end of the tunnel, then from the other.
GIVE UP GIVE IN –
– GIVE UP GIVE IN
He looked at Maggie. At Theresa. Gestured them forward.
Maggie came first. Holding Hope with one hand. Looking back and forth, up the tunnel then into the darkness behind.
GIVE UP GIVE IN –
– GIVE UP GIVE IN
She bled freely from her nose, her eyes watered crimson. She was sobbing, nearly bent double.
Christopher wanted to hold her, if only for a moment. To give her strength and take strength for himself in turn. He ignored the desire. Just shook his hands – still clasped in Amulek's – in a movement meant to catch her eye, to hurry her forward and upward with Hope.
Maggie raised her foot. Put it in the stirrup. It was awkward and ungainly, her center of gravity shifted to an artificial location by the child she held to her chest. But the second Christopher and Amulek felt her body weight against their hands and wrists, they launched her.
She didn't go up as smoothly or as quickly as Aaron had. She came crashing down again, dirt flinging itself downward with a sound –
(GIVE UP GIVE IN –
– GIVE UP GIVE IN)
– that reminded Christopher of the gravel pit. Of Buck.
The thought didn't sadden him. It made him mad.
These things aren't going to take another of us. Not. One. MORE.
The last word still ringing in his mind, he shoved upward with all his strength again. Maggie flew. Did not return. More dirt rained down, and he heard her cry out with pain or fear or just the simple effort of a climb that should never have happened. But she was up. Over. Out.
He gestured at Theresa. The redhead moved forward. Faster than Maggie had done, though her face was red with flowing blood, black with blood that was already starting to congeal and cake into a death mask across her face.
Up. Dirt raining down. Gone.
Christopher let go of Amulek's hands. Made a stirrup with his own.
Amulek was already there. Hands cupped. Waiting.
"Go," said Christopher. "Get –"
GIVE UP –
– GIVE IN
He nearly fell over, the force of the psychic blast rolling over him, punching him in some mental center he hadn't even known existed. Amulek took a step back, too. Leaned into the wall of the tunnel. Then the teen shoved himself upright, hands still together. He gestured for Christopher to get in.
"You go!" Christopher shouted. Panic drove his voice higher.
Amulek jerked his hands, a tremor that spoke eloquently: I went first last time. Your tur
n.
Christopher didn't argue. He saw the set of Amulek's face and knew that the teen wasn't going to give in. That he'd prefer to waste time arguing over the question until the zombies came and took them both, rather than go first himself.
Christopher sighed. Put his foot in the teen's hands.
Amulek hurled Christopher up.
The throw didn't go as well as the others. Christopher bounced off the walls of the shaft, the reverse motion of what the Marauder must have done when it fell into this misplaced neighborhood of Hell. His face banged into a wall. He fell back. Hit his head behind him.
He flung his hands up. Not thinking, again just acting on some strange instinct that had risen to the fore of his mind.
He felt hands grab his right hand and wrist. Another pair of hands encircling his left wrist. A moment of stasis, hanging there in the middle of a terrible nothing. Then he jerked up as the hands drew him skyward.
He made it. Pulled himself over the crumbling edge of the shaft, onto dirt and grass. Barely rested an instant before he flipped himself downward.
GIVE UP –
– GIVE IN
GIVE UP –
– GIVE IN
He reached out a hand. Saw Amulek leap up from below.
The teen missed him by a good foot.
"He's too far!" screamed Christopher. "Grab my belt!"
Without waiting for acknowledgement, knowing as before that this was the only way, he scooted over the edge of the shaft. Pushed out into nothing, then pushed out still more.
He tipped.
Fell.
The fall was arrested at the last moment, Christopher jerking to a halt as he felt something yank at his belt, something pull at his feet and legs.
Amulek leaped. Grabbed. Caught hold of Christopher's right hand.
GIVE UP –
– GIVE IN
Then the teen jerked back. Almost fell away from Christopher's grasp.
Amulek opened his mouth and made the first sound Christopher had heard from him. A thin, whistling exhale. A mute scream.
The zombies were in the tunnel.
And they had Amulek.
127
Amulek kept making that horrible noise, that keening that sounded like the last whimper of a dying dog. The zombies' growl was so loud – both in mind and ear – that Christopher shouldn't have heard anything else. Just them. Just the creatures.
But he heard the mute panic, the silent wail of terror. He could see Amulek's eyes, glitter in anguish as he struggled to keep hold of Christopher's hand while something pulled, pulled, pulled him from below.
Christopher's wrist and arm were slick with sweat. Amulek started sliding down, lower and lower.
Whining. Whimpering silently.
GIVE UP –
– GIVE IN
Something about the call wriggled its way into Christopher's mind, even as the blood spouted anew from his nostrils, even as Amulek slid down a millimeter at a time.
GIVE UP –
– GIVE IN
What is it? What do I need to know?
What are they telling me?
For once, the creatures' call didn't make him want to just lay down and die. That aspect of the call was overwhelmed by panic. Not for himself, but for Amulek. For his new friend, for the newest member of the family.
GIVE UP –
– GIVE IN
And then, as Amulek slid to Christopher's fingertips – a hold that couldn't last – he knew.
"Jammer." He meant to scream the word, but all that came out was a croak. He said it again. "Jammer!"
"What?" Maggie grunted the word.
Amulek curled his fingers in Christopher's: the last second. Maybe two.
"Get the jammer!"
He felt the hands on his legs let go. Christopher slid another inch into the tunnel as they did. Worried that Amulek was going to fall for sure, was going to lose his grip.
Has he been bitten?
No. He'd have Changed.
But it was only a matter of time – and very little at that.
"Got it!" Maggie yelled.
"Pull out the battery!" shouted Christopher.
"But –"
"DO IT!"
GIVE UP –
– GIVE IN
And suddenly the tension was gone from his fingers.
Amulek had fallen.
128
Christopher looked down. Not wanting to see Amulek torn to pieces, Changed. But incapable of looking away.
He expected to see Amulek tumble down. Expected him to disappear in the teeming mass that he could barely make out in the tunnel below.
But Amulek wasn't falling.
At first Christopher thought – madly, wildly – that the teen had learned how to fly.
Been taking lessons from Ken, have we?
Then he saw Amulek's sweat- and blood-stained face. Saw the strain in his eyes. Understood. The teen's left leg was still being held, thrashing around as the things below him tried to yank him downward. But he'd managed to get the other leg up into the vertical shaft. He had pressed it against one side of the shaft, his back against the other side. He'd pushed hard enough that his body jammed in the shaft. Both arms were splayed wide, too. Pressing hard against the walls, keeping him securely trapped where he was.
But as Christopher watched, the teen began to lose purchase. The things –
(GIVE UP –
– GIVE IN)
– were pulling him down.
"Farther!" screamed Christopher. "Down farther!" And as the anchors that still held him – Aaron and Theresa – began lowering him further still, he screamed, "And take out the damn battery!"
He didn't hear it happen. How would he hear the sound of a battery being disconnected, over the growl-screams of the zombies, over Amulek's keening wail?
But he knew when it happened. Knew when Maggie yanked the battery free.
Because he felt a tickle in his mind. A subtle change as one more – then two – things shoved their way into his brain.
Kill
Kill.
KILL.
KILL.
The queens. Freed from the silence that had bound them.
And the things below, the zombies, stopped pulling on Amulek. The teen stopped sliding as they shifted their attention from human prey to enemies in their midst.
It was what Christopher had hoped would happen. When he heard the two voices in his head – so much the same, but ever-so-slightly distinct – he hoped that the zombies coming from ahead in the tunnel would be different from the ones following from behind. He hoped that, though the queens had been silenced, the zombies would have chosen sides. That some would be coming for Hope, some searching out Lizzy.
And when the gag was removed, the queens sang out. And the creatures attacked one another.
It wouldn't last – it couldn't. One group or the other would be victorious, probably in a matter of mere minutes, if not seconds.
But for now, they weren't trying to kill Amulek.
Christopher moved down a bit more, and he managed to get a hand on the teen's arm. It was covered in sweat, just as his was, but he still held on. Amulek let go with the other hand, and there was a sickening lurch as he slid downward in the instant between letting go and managing to grab Christopher's forearm.
Then they were both holding each other's hands. Clasped tightly.
"Up!" shouted Christopher. "Pull us up!"
The things below shrieked. The sound of flesh tearing was clearly audible, the noise of the things' growls – now changed to battle shrieks of rage – clung to Christopher like ropes, dragging at him, pulling him down.
He gritted his teeth. Maggie's hands returned to his legs. The pressure on his belt – probably Aaron – pulled him up. Theresa yanked his ankles back in fits and starts.
He was out.
A moment later, Amulek was, too.
Christopher looked into the tunnel below.
He saw eyes staring at him.
Dead, lost to the call of a victorious queen. But still malevolent, the thing's very existence a tear in Christopher's sanity.
It began moving up. Pushed from below. Christopher remembered the things, crawling up the sides of buildings, massing together to overcome any obstacle.
The thing growled.
"We've gotta get moving," he panted.
Aaron helped Amulek to stand. Theresa grabbed Christopher's hands and jerked him to his feet as well.
Then she reached down. Picked up Hope. The girl was still silent, unmoving.
Christopher glanced at Maggie. At the baby she picked up from the grass that surrounded them all.
Lizzy was not moving, either. But unlike Hope, her eyes were open. Looking at him clearly.
She was smiling.
Christopher knew now what queen's soldiers had been victorious below.
Lizzy's grin widened – a malevolent mockery of a smile that was all the more terrifying on the face of a toddler. "Run," she said. But it wasn't an instruction for escape. He knew the word was a taunt. A smile as the hunter finally brought down its prey.
"Run," she said again.
And laughed.
129
Christopher started moving automatically. Took three quick steps before he felt a hand jerking him back.
"Your turn to lower me," said Aaron. Then, without waiting for an answer, he lay on his back and started wriggling toward the hole. His head was over the void before Christopher managed to move.
Something inside him screamed. Shrieked why why what are you doing?
Another part of his brain recognized that Aaron had lain down on his back. And that meant he intended to bend not at the waist, but the knees. That he intended to go down as deep into the hole as possible.
The last part of his brain finally moved Christopher to action. He leaped toward Aaron, crashing to earth just as the cowboy started to bend backward into the tunnel. Christopher grabbed for Aaron's belt, found the thick leather with his fingers, clenched.
Aaron fell backward.
Christopher almost plummeted after him. A short fall, but it would have been a deadly one had Theresa not thrown her arms around his waist, pulling back with her whole body weight.
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