15,967 feet below the surface
8:26 a.m.
“Light … up ahead,” Bertha said, each word a heavy breath out, each pause a gasping breath in. “It’s … gotta be … Dense Mass Cavern. Keep going.”
She carried most of Patrick’s weight, a burden that made each step punishing, from her heels to her knees to her back, through legs that begged her to stop, to a stomach that threatened to spew if she didn’t.
Eyes scrunched tight, he shook his head.
“I can’t,” he said. “Just leave me.”
“The fuck I will. Come on.”
Bertha took another step. Almost dragging him now.
From behind her, she heard the hiss of leaves on pavement and the sound of heavy footsteps — both coming closer.
If she could just get him to the Dense Mass Cavern. Then what? She only had a knife, and she was sucking air so bad she didn’t know if she could even wield that. Maybe find a place to hide. Something. Anything. She would not give up.
Veronica raced by at a full sprint. Rage blossomed, made Bertha want to drop O’Doyle, pull her knife and cut the bitch. Bertha had looked back a few times, seen Veronica dawdling, fucking around with carvings or paintings. Maybe she’d dropped out of scrambler range. Maybe she was the reason Patrick was about to die.
His leg gave out: he slid to his left, started to fall, taking her down with him — Sanji was there, catching them both, kept them upright.
“I’ve got you,” he said, grunting under their weight.
Bertha regained her balance. “I have his right, get on his left.”
Before Sanji could adjust, Kirkland slid under Patrick’s left arm.
“Sanji, go,” Kirkland said. “Catch up to your daughter.”
The Indian man hesitated, glanced at Patrick, then after his daughter. He nodded at Kirkland, ran down the hall.
The brief pause made her body think it was done, and when she started moving, that body rebelled. Her stomach heaved, sending bile down her chin, onto her webbing and KoolSuit. Her legs cramped.
She ignored both things.
One more step. One more step. One more step.
Up ahead, the hall ended in light.
“Almost there,” she grunted. She didn’t know if she was telling Patrick or her legs.
His weight lurched against her. She glanced left, saw Kirkland limping, favoring the knee — but he didn’t let go.
“O’Doyle, you fat fuck,” she said, forcing the words out through pain-clenched teeth and snarling lips. “Walk, goddammit, help us!”
Patrick said nothing. His head lolled, bounced with each step.
Passed out.
She and Kirkland were carrying all of his 250 pounds.
A rocktopi screech echoed through the hall, a drill bit driving through steel.
They were so close she smelled their billowing stench.
Memories of her childhood sprang up, unbidden, unneeded. A camping trip with her father. Him teaching her how to shoot. Hunting deer. Him explaining life feeds life, that in the end all creatures wind up as food. Her letting herself believe him, so that she could pull the trigger, kill an animal that had never threatened her.
Now she was the target.
This is what it feels like to be prey.
Kirkland yelped — that was the only word for it — and limped so badly he almost fell. Still, he refused to let go.
“Ten more steps,” he said. “We’re almost there!”
The rocktopi were right behind them, so close she waited for a blade to slash into her calves, her thighs.
Nine steps.
Eight.
The end of the hall, bright, blinding, bouncing.
Seven steps.
Six.
A crash to her right, the ring of metal, a knife skittering down the hall in front of her, rolling and bouncing like a quarter thrown across a table.
Five steps.
Four.
Kirkland, screaming, falling, skidding.
Three steps.
Bertha’s left arm around Patrick, her ear on his chest, her right arm thrown between his legs, the back of her head on his ribs, still reaching, grabbing Kirkland’s wrist, standing, all of Patrick’s weight on her shoulders.
Screeching. Hissing. Colored lights playing off the wall carvings.
They should be on her by now, they should be slicing, chopping.
Two steps.
Dragging Kirkland. Carrying Patrick.
Her body giving up.
One step.
Blinding light.
Falling.
Bertha Lybrand tucked into a ball. She waited for the cutting to begin.