Sam grimaced and fought against the jackhammer throb in his skull. He got a hand on Charly’s rear end, tried pushing her up the slope, but it was no use. She was doing a good job of protecting her baby, but at this rate they’d make it to the top of the hill some time next week, and Sam very much doubted they’d have that much time. Even now he could sense the monsters behind them marshaling their forces, and he could sure as hell hear them screaming their hideous war cry. Christ, like a bunch of insane kids playing cowboys and Indians.
(NEVER MAKE IT, SAM, NEVER MAKE IT OUT)
He scrunched his eyes and shook his head vigorously, as if he could dislodge the voice that reverberated in his brain.
(I WILL DEVOUR THE WOMAN AND YOU AND THE CHILD)
The voice clanged in his skull like a devil’s migraine, and he gnashed his teeth, thrashed his head against it.
“Your side?” Charly was asking. “Is it bleeding again?”
“It’s not my side,” he grunted, and gazed up into her face. What he found there made him grin despite the death knell echoing in his head. Pure, sweet concern, the kind only a truly generous human being can feel for another.
Sam reached out. “Give me Jake.”
Charly clutched her baby tighter.
He said, “I can carry him and crawl better than you.”
Charly shook her head. “You’ve been shot, you can’t—”
“The bleeding’s stopped—”
“You’re in pain though, I can see it.”
Sam waved it off. “It’s not the wounds that hurt, it’s the voice.”
Charly stared at him uncomprehendingly.
Sam aimed a thumb over his shoulder. “That big bastard keeps talking to me.”
Charly was shaking her head, but dammit, they didn’t have time. “Give me Jake,” Sam repeated. “You lead us out of here. You can do that, right?”
Charly squeezed Jake tighter, her face uncertain.
“You can do it,” Sam said. “You’re the one found the way down here.”
“That was luck.”
“No it wasn’t. You can do it again.”
“Sam, I have to hold him.”
He fixed her with his hardest stare. “I won’t let them get Jake. With you leading, it’ll be faster.” He nodded toward the moveless creatures. “In a moment they’re gonna stop whatever they’re doing and come after us. You wanna be here when they do?”
That did it. Charly handed Sam her baby.
“Now get going,” Sam said, ushering her up the slide.
Charly started to go, moving swiftly, far faster than he was able to manage with the baby. The ache in his side devolved into anguish. He’d lied to her about how much it hurt before, and now the pain was a conflagration.
Charly had only progressed twenty feet or so up the slope when she stopped.
“Charly, you’ve gotta—”
But he broke off as he saw her staring fixedly at something behind them.
Sam turned and saw.
The carvings in the walls were coming to life.
And as he watched in horror, the first of them leaped out of its resting place and made straight for them.
Chapter Two
It was pure instinct that started Jesse running. Emma followed his lead. And that was good, Jesse thought, because the creatures were coming fast now. The Children he’d mistaken for statues earlier were leaping out of their carved arches, too many of them to count. The monsters who’d helped bring about their awakening were still fixed in their spots, their green and red eyes closed and their throats emitting that awful hum. But their faces were no longer serene, and their muscles no longer hung slack. They practically vibrated with energy now, their fists clenched and their quadriceps flexing eagerly.
Jesse tripped, reeled sideways a moment, then regained his balance. A backward glance revealed the severed head he’d tripped over—a white-haired old man Jesse was certain had been taken from the campground.
He heard Emma moan and assumed it was out of dread, but when she tarried on the edge of the slope instead of scaling it he was forced to follow her gaze to see what the hell was important enough to delay them.
Oh no, Jesse thought. Don’t do it, Frank.
Red Elk had apparently persuaded Colleen to save herself. She was shambling toward Jesse and Emma, though her eyes remained on Red Elk. Running that way, gazing over her shoulder, she wasn’t making good time, and what was more, she appeared much the worse for wear than Emma did. If she didn’t find another gear soon, they’d be on her within seconds. The newly animated Children were swarming through their closed-eyed brethren, and they didn’t look at all lethargic. The way they bounded over the hard cave floor suggested they’d been storing up their energy for just this moment, and they weren’t about to let a good meal escape.
Only one thing stood in their way.
Frank Red Elk.
Jesse recalled the story of Red Elk’s great-grandfather’s murder, the steel he’d heard in Red Elk’s voice at the time…
Jesse swallowed. Tugged on Emma’s hand. She moved with him. They started the climb, and Jesse let go of her so they could move faster. Colleen still hadn’t reached them, but Jesse was too frightened to wait any longer.
Meanwhile, Red Elk stood stock still, the Ruger at his side.
The creatures were twenty feet away from him.
Jesse could not look away as the first one loped right at Red Elk, its eyes such a brilliant green that they seemed to glow. It moved on all fours with a terrible grace, its face stretched in a malefic grin.
Jesse was sure it would fall on Red Elk before the man could defend himself, but Red Elk was faster than Jesse would’ve imagined, even after all they’d been through. One instant the Ruger was hanging at his side. The next it was blasting a hole in the Child’s forehead. It skidded clumsily and came to rest at the big man’s feet. Two more creatures were coming fast, and though Jesse knew Red Elk couldn’t hold the Children off for long, he knew if they didn’t use this time, none of them would get out of the arena alive. Apparently Emma had the same notion because she began scuttling upward a moment before Jesse did. He pulled even with her, and together they scrambled up the verge. It was steeper than Jesse remembered, and several times he nearly pitched backward. Once he even windmilled his arms, at a ninety-degree angle with the floor for an endless, stomach-clenching moment. But Emma shot out a hand, snagged the front of his T-shirt and was able to jerk him back. Then they were crawling side by side again.
Three quick reports boomed below.
Jesse turned. Red Elk had aimed true again, both of the creatures convulsing at his feet. But there were a dozen more of them, recently revived and craving meat, bounding toward him. One of the pair Red Elk had just gunned down was already rising again, the wound having only delayed it momentarily. Jesse thought Red Elk would flee for sure this time, but again he held his ground, waiting until the last moment to blast away at the Children.
Buying us time, Jesse thought and cast a glance up the slope. They were halfway to the top, he realized, and what was more, Charly and Sam were almost there. Sam was moving slowly, but Jesse could see his burden was safe, the little baby feet tremoring against Sam’s body as they moved higher, higher.
A cry from below scattered Jesse’s good thoughts. It had come from Colleen, who hadn’t made it far, too busy watching Red Elk to concentrate on climbing. Jesse glanced that way and watched it all happen in slow motion: the dozen or so creatures reaching Red Elk almost simultaneously; Red Elk lulling them into complacency by waiting until the last moment to start shooting; the barrel of the Ruger prescribing its lightning arc and spitting its ear-shattering thunder at the faces of two creatures, three; a fourth leaping at Red Elk and then spinning bonelessly to the cave floor. Jesse watched nervelessly as two of the creatures Red Elk had shot began to stir. They pushed to their knees, their slender fingers scrabbling toward the man who’d shot them.
Red Elk shot a fifth in the throat, a gout of black fluid sloshing
over its white chest, but this creature kept coming, snarling as it choked on its own blood. Red Elk fired again at point blank range, and his aim was true, but the creature’s momentum knocked him back, sprawled him on the ground in an awkward heap. Another beast leapt over its fallen brother, squealing with bloodlust, but Red Elk shot it between the legs, and the squeal became a plangent screech of pain. Red Elk shoved to an elbow, fired at another, which slapped at its shoulder and came down on Red Elk. Jesse watched numbly as Red Elk batted at the creature with the Ruger, but two more monsters lunged for him then, and the gun dropped uselessly to the cave floor, Red Elk’s severed hand still gripping it. Red Elk flailed at the creatures with his remaining hand, but the other Children arrived then and immediately fell on the big man, their Caliban faces darting at his convulsing body, chunks of flesh crammed in their maws. It was over then, but a half dozen more arrived at the feast and set to work on Frank Red Elk, whose lifeless body was already a viscous ruin of blood and entrails.
Colleen screamed at the creatures, who took no notice of her. But they would any moment, Jesse knew, and then she’d be eaten too.
He shot a look at Emma, who’d made it higher.
Thinking of his grandpa, who died abandoned and alone, Jesse clambered down the verge toward Colleen. She turned when he seized her arm, and when their eyes met there was no recognition in her wet eyes.
“It’s over,” she said tonelessly. “They got Frank.”
“Get moving,” Jesse said and yanked her forward hard enough to dislocate her shoulder. He didn’t care; he wasn’t going to let another of their party end up torn apart. Some of his resolve seemed to communicate itself to her because she began moving faster then. Not as briskly as she had hours earlier, but fast enough to put some space between them and the creatures. And that was a very good thing, Jesse thought.
Because the trance had broken below.
And the entire mass of beasts had begun to surge toward the hill.
As he had experienced earlier on the playground, Jesse moved with the torpid sluggishness of nightmare. He forced his legs to push harder, his hands to drag his body up the hill faster, but he kept having to reach down and haul Colleen upward. She was weeping freely now, her face dazed and spiritless.
He peered past her down the hill.
The creatures had begun to climb.
Jesse reached down, clutched a shoulder of Colleen’s shirt and willed his legs to drive them both higher. If Charly or Sam remembered the way out of this hell, they might just have a chance. He recalled how the cave branched in several places near the arena, so maybe they’d finally catch a break, maybe the beasts would follow the wrong trail.
He’d begun to let himself hope for escape when his fevered gaze happened on the Children.
Jesse’s blood froze.
They were clambering forward like gravity had no effect on them, their long talons piercing the hillside like steel pitons and propelling them upward. The creatures had halved the distance and would reach Jesse and Colleen in seconds. He watched the Night Flyers rise and hover, though they did not yet attack. The Night Flyers in the walls hadn’t been reanimated. Maybe, Jesse thought, the Old One favored the Children since they were made in his image.
Below them, the Children surged closer.
Whimpering, Jesse looked up and glimpsed Emma’s leg disappearing over the edge. He almost hoped she would keep going, would escape with Charly and Sam. But the next instant her face was peering down at him over the edge of the plateau.
Colleen pitched forward onto the hillside and slid down a couple feet.
Jesse yanked hard on her shirt. “Come on, dammit, we’re almost there.”
She started climbing again, but her face was a quivering picture of vanquishment. Jesse kept them going but when he glanced down he realized they weren’t going to make it. The beasts were only twenty yards away, and they were coming fast.
Desperately, he looked up and saw he was only five yards from where Emma awaited. She extended an arm, leaning over the edge. Jesse dug in with the toes of his sneakers, pistoned his legs harder. Colleen was still an encumbrance, but at least she was moving now, moaning and moving at the same time. Jesse got them right under Emma, groped toward her hand, but Colleen fell. She wailed, dragging him backward. He opened his mouth to scream at her, but then he understood why she was still sliding away from him, why he too was skidding down the hill.
The beasts had reached them, had swarmed over Colleen and were clawing at Jesse’s grasping hand. One dark talon harrowed his wrist. With a whimper he let loose of Colleen and watched the beasts teem over her, enveloping her in a maelstrom of digging claws and snapping teeth. One creature leaped for him. Jesse brought a sneaker up and kicked it in the face. It landed on the shifting pile of creatures, but another immediately took its place. Terror propelled Jesse up the hill, and then Emma’s fingers were hooking him under the armpits, aiding his progress. She dragged him up, up, his shoes bicycling against the scabrous rock floor. A creature lunged for him, and by sheer luck Jesse’s heel caught its underjaw and sent it backflipping down the slope, knocking three other beasts off balance, the ripple effect sending a goodly mass of the monsters tumbling downward.
Jesse scrambled onto the plateau. He thought he’d made it when a white blur burst over the edge and pounced on his legs. Emma’s fist blasted over Jesse’s shoulder and hammered the creature in the nose. The Child’s head snapped back, and when it swung forward with the reverberation, Emma socked it again, the nose crunching this time under her bony knuckles. Jesse drew his knees up and smashed his shoes into the creature’s chest. The blow knocked it backward just as another hideous face appeared, and when the creatures collided they both jarred and disappeared shrieking over the edge of the drop-off.
Without pausing, Jesse climbed to his feet beside Emma, and together they sprinted into the darkness. They swerved left with the curve and had gone twenty yards or so before they heard the Night Flyers swooping toward them.
Chapter Three
Together they shambled into the murk.
“There’s Sam and Charly!” Emma shouted.
Jesse wrenched his attention toward where she pointed and saw two figures disappear around a corner. When he turned to face Emma and the mining helmet lit her up, he felt his stomach knot again.
“What’s…” he began to say, but stopped when he heard it too—the sound their frenzied footfalls had concealed. A growing roar. Coming from behind them.
Coming from the arena.
Emma gazed at him in terror.
Unconsciously, he turned toward the drop-off, scarcely visible now, just a dim, flickering cone of light licking the far edge of the corridor. Then the flickering became frenetic, the massing shadows making the firelight dance.
They were coming. All of them. The awakened Children, the others who’d helped resuscitate them, the Night Flyers, even the Old One.
Every one of the beasts was bent on destroying them.
He turned away, moaning as he and Emma fled the onslaught. The corridor was fifteen feet high, but Jesse knew how it narrowed, how it closed to only a three-by-three shaft before opening up to where they’d gathered themselves earlier, after Red Elk shot Sam Bledsoe.
Jesse and Emma pelted down the corridor.
Emma was pulling ahead of him, but that was fine because the passage was narrowing. It was still plenty tall to stand upright, but it was no more than four feet wide now, so that he and Emma moved single file. He gave her a yard or so to make sure he didn’t trip her—if he did they were dead—but he couldn’t allow any more space than that.
The shadows were closing in.
Ahead, he could see a ghost of yellowish light. Sam and Charly? Man, he hoped so. Jesse knew he and Emma would have to duck soon. The ceiling got really low before the cavern ahead, and if Emma smashed head first into it, she’d be knocked senseless.
And yes, he saw by the glow of the mining helmet, the ceiling was only six feet high now; i
n moments they would have to run in a crouch. At least that would stop the Night Flyers.
He threw another glance back, and his breath clotted in his throat.
A Night Flyer was swooping toward them, its great black wings tilted sideways, its razor-sharp teeth hinged wide.
“Down!” Emma screamed. Before Jesse could complete his turn to see what the hell she was talking about, he was tripping over her, somersaulting, the Night Flyer smashing into him, the bones of its enormous wings snapping like wind-torn masts. He heard a wet click as its teeth sought his throat. A shape vaulted both Jesse and the Night Flyer, and it wasn’t until it caught him by the collar of the shirt that Jesse realized it was Emma, Emma who’d seen the monster descending on them, Emma who’d saved them both by making sure they’d dropped at the right moment. She was hunched over, Jesse following her lead like a soldier fleeing enemy fire. The Night Flyer filled the corridor behind them in a broken tangle, its enraged maw snarling at them right up until the mass of creatures pushed over it, a nightmare glacier of white and black limbs and venomous faces, equal parts hunger and agony now because they were being wedged tighter and tighter by the crowd surging behind it.
The ceiling scraped Jesse’s helmet, and for a moment the mining light blinked. He hunched down, cringing, and the light glowed full strength. He had no idea how much longer it would last, but if it did go out, they were done. This subterranean region was a labyrinthine madhouse of tunnels and traps. In the dark they were worse than dead; they would be sport for the monsters.
Emma was hustling forward as quickly as she could, bent over as she was, and for once the sight of her bared back, the exposed cleft of her upper buttocks, did nothing for Jesse’s imagination.
He figured maybe he was maturing.
When they emerged into the small cavern, Jesse spotted Sam right away, handing Charly’s baby up to her. They were just able to make the handoff, then Sam was ushering Emma forward, telling her to get her ass in gear. Jesse jogged after her, his body numb from the waves of terror that kept sweeping through it. Even now he could hear the bones breaking back there, the bursting of skin and organs, like a Bosch painting endowed with a soundtrack. He couldn’t imagine how horrible the bottleneck of monstrous bodies had become in the three-by-three tunnel. The cavern seemed to creak like an old ship’s hull in a vortex.
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