Chapter Six

“How far is it to the end?” Greeley asked.

“Three miles,” Red Elk answered.

“But it’s just one tunnel, right?” Colleen said. “I mean, it’s not like we’re going to get lost in some subterranean labyrinth.”

“Dad made it one tunnel,” Red Elk agreed. “We’ll have to climb quite a bit and worm our way through some tight places, but the tunnel should take us all the way there. There used to be several places where the passage forked or joined with others, but much of what he did in his spare time—other than get drunk in town—was to make sure those spots were sealed off.”

Clevenger shot Red Elk a look. “Sealed off?”

Red Elk nodded. “Right up here, if I’m not mistaken, is the first fork in the road. Least it used to be. Dad stacked it so full of big rocks, it’d take those creatures a good while to open it up. That is, if they even know of its existence.”

“You knew of it though,” Greeley remarked. “I’m still amazed you never warned anybody.”

“Knowing the stories is a far cry from believing them,” Red Elk said distractedly. He’d trained his flashlight on the wall to their right, was painting the damp brown surface with slow swaths of honey-colored light. “I can just see myself talking to those jerkoffs from the state conservation board. ‘Sure, I’ll take your money, fellas, but before you build your state park, I think you should know that all those legends about the Wendigo, the Night Flyers—”

“Night Flyers?” Emma asked.

But Red Elk had stopped. “Well, hell’s bells,” he said in a soft voice.

All the yellow beams converged on a point about ten feet ahead of them, where the wall on their right disappeared.

And a huge hole began.

 

 

Greeley stared at Red Elk. “You said he blocked it off. Your dad blocked it off.”

“He did,” Red Elk said in the same soft voice.

Greeley nodded at the opening. “Then what the hell is that?”

“They must’ve unblocked it.”

A gravid pause as they took it all in. “Oh Jesus,” Greeley said. “That means they could be anywhere, they could be—”

“Shut up,” Colleen said.

“—ahead of us, behind us…if they know about this tunnel they could be laying in wait for us anywhere. Maybe they’re leading us into a trap, letting us get this far—”

“Shut your stupid mouth, Marc!” Clevenger hissed. His head was tilted slightly, the man listening to something that Jesse now heard. Something that might have been the clicking of toenails on stone, the steam-shovel breathing of a predator barreling toward its prey. Sound down here was tricky, but to Jessie it seemed to be coming from all directions.

“Oh shit,” Greeley whimpered, “oh shit.”

Clevenger said to Red Elk, “Back to the house?”

Red Elk cocked an eyebrow. “What house?”

“We don’t know that they followed us.”

“They did.”

Clevenger motioned down the long stone corridor ahead. “But if we go that way…you said it was three miles…we’ll be so strung out…”

“And the opening,” Colleen said. “For once, Greeley’s right. They could be anywhere, just waiting for us.”

“Going back to where we started is certain death,” Red Elk said in a firm voice. “Ahead and here—” Nodding at the hole, “—could be either one.”

“Pretty crappy choices,” Colleen said.

“Frank’s right,” Debbie said.

Colleen said, “‘Stand by Your Man’, huh?”

Debbie ignored that. “That explosion took out a mess of them, sure. But how many did you say were chasing you?”

“Well over a hundred,” Jesse said.

“You think all of them died in the blast?”

Clevenger said, “Of course it didn’t kill all of them. But there would be wreckage to dig through, rocks to move…”

“Take them all of ten minutes,” Red Elk said.

Clevenger expelled weary breath. Red Elk’s flashlight slanted through the dust motes they’d kicked up, frontlighting the professor from below. It made skeletal hollows of his eyes, his mouth a ghastly cache of wrinkles. Before, he’d seemed so virile, a warrior poet. Now he looked like a haggard old man.

“Okay,” Clevenger said. “We go on, but we should put one of the armed people in the rear just in case.”

“Makes sense,” Red Elk agreed.

The clattering intensified, and now there was no mistaking the growl and chuff of the creatures.

“Come on,” Red Elk said and surged forward. Clevenger came next, followed by Debbie, Emma, Ruth and Greeley. Colleen dropped back next to Jesse. When they made it to the hole he shone his light inside. It was hard to tell because he refused to stop moving as he passed, but to him it appeared as though the tunnel in there quickly narrowed.

“Jesse,” Colleen said from directly behind him.

He glanced at her but she had raised the revolver, gripping it with both hands, reminding him of a cop on a firing range. Only Colleen wasn’t wearing earmuffs, and she sure as heck wouldn’t be shooting at paper.

The guttural woof and staccato clatter doubled in volume, trebled. The creatures were coming from behind after all.

And he and Colleen were the only two back here to face them.

 

 

Jesse unshouldered the knapsack and reached inside for the cleaver. He opened his mouth to alert the others, but then he closed it, agonized with indecision. Should they give up the only thing they had going for them—a modicum of surprise—or should they attempt to martial all their forces to meet the creatures en masse?

How many? he wondered, straining to sort out the echoes floating toward them. Three? Ten?

Doesn’t matter, a cynical voice declared. One is enough. Or don’t you remember the playground?

His whole body shaking, Jesse kneeled beside Colleen and raised the cleaver.

“Won’t do much good with that,” she muttered.

“Wanna trade?” he asked.

Colleen shook her head. “You’d probably shoot me.”

“Guys?” a voice called. Clevenger.

Jesse turned to shout a reply, but Colleen stilled him with a warning look.

Something clicked just ahead of them. Colleen swung her gun up and aimed.

Jesse thought he’d prepared himself sufficiently for an attack, but the sight of the creature loping toward them like some freakish white panther made every fiber of his being thrum with terror.

The creature halved the distance between them.

Jesse’s muscles locked. He became aware of a high-pitched humming sound, and it wasn’t until the creature tensed to leap that Jesse realized it was coming from his own throat.

Time slowed. The creature’s mad, emerald eyes fixed on Colleen. She squeezed the trigger. Its head jerked as the pallid, wraithlike body left the ground. Colleen continued firing, tracking it as it rocketed higher, arcing toward them. In the strobing magnesium silverlight, Jesse saw bloody ponds open in its throat, its chest. Two more slugs punched through the papery flesh of its belly. Then it was plummeting toward them, a cascade of fat, ebony droplets spilling out of its body.

Jesse and Colleen leaped apart. The creature tumbled between them, somersaulted, then without a pause it dove for Colleen. Shrieking, she jumped backward and squeezed the trigger. Its head flicked back, but it kept coming, snarling and seizing her by the leg. It bared its scimitar teeth and dragged Colleen closer.

Colleen gave off firing and lunged away. She managed to get separation between her body and the creature’s snapping teeth, but its pursuit was relentless. It hauled her back.

Jesse raised the cleaver.

The creature’s white arm, like a bundle of thin cables, scraped along the gritty cave floor, compelling Colleen backward by her right ankle.

Jesse swallowed, measured the distance.

He swung the cleaver as hard as he could.

The blade sliced neatly through the beast’s arm, just below the elbow.

The howl that exploded out of its mouth was nearly as startling as its attack had been. It bellowed at the ceiling, its whole body quaking in agony. The sinister features distended, the huge, jade eyes bulging. Jesse noted with revulsion the exposed cheekbone, the membranous flaps of an earlobe that had been torn in half by one of Colleen’s slugs. It lowered its gaze to the jetting stump of its arm.

Then it turned to Jesse.

Its breathing slowed, the quaking lips curling up in anticipatory delight. Jesse was paralyzed. To his right, he heard the frenetic clatter of nails on stone and the industrial chuff of breathing—unmistakable harbingers of another attack. Grinning, the beast stepped toward him.

Gunshots erupted behind Jesse.

The creatures had ambushed the others.