Part 10 (2/2)

I gripped the knife tighter, staring at the blade. I could do this. I had to.

Every meal I'd ever eaten seemed to surge up in my stomach and meet my lungs. I held the rope tighter, tugged on it again, and kept bouncing down.

I heard the thing's nails scrabbling against the bottom, the last bits of rainwater in the dried-up well splish- splas.h.i.+ng beneath its paws or feet or whatever the h.e.l.l it had. The breathing was excited, like a panting dog waiting for a bone.

I stopped moving, bracing my feet against the sides of the well, and closed my eyes. I was still ten feet above it, maybe twelve, but I couldn't move. Every one of my muscles was frozen with fear.

What the h.e.l.l was I doing?

”Cooper? You okay?”

Megan's voice sounded far away. Too far.

I opened my eyes. Took in a breath. Tried another. ”Yeah, fine.” Liar. ”Just hold on a sec.”

Below me, the thing kept breathing.

just shut up; stop breathing. Stop moving. Stop it, stop it.

But the thing didn't read those thoughts. Oh, no. It just breathed louder. Moved more. Scritch-scratch. It was pacing. Antic.i.p.ating me.

Sweat coated my palms, dripped down my face. The knife slipped in my grip. I scrambled, nearly losing my hold on the rope, the knife pitching forward, my hand, my stupid hand, almost letting it go- And then, thank G.o.d, I had the knife again.

Beneath me, I swore I heard the thing laugh. Its claws ran across the bottom of the well and I braced against the wall, my back flat.

Where was it?

Was it coming for me?

Could it climb up here?

Please, oh please, tell me it couldn't climb.

I tried to reach around into the backpack for the flash light, but I had only two hands, and I'd been too much of an idiot to think about hanging the flashlight around my wrist so that I wouldn't need a hand to hold it. My bright idea had been to get down to the bottom first and then get the light out.

Yeah, well, Stupid clearly was my middle name, because I needed the light now and I couldn't get it.

I twisted, moved, grunted, then stopped.

And listened.

No more noise from below. No breathing. No scratching. Nothing. Was it gone? Or was it just a Waiting? Patiently and quietly?

I pushed off from the wall and tugged on the rope again, starting to make my way farther down. The rope jerked and I bounced twice hard, the bottom of the thick rope cutting into my a.s.s, the rough fibers chafing through my jeans. ”Megan, hey, careful!”

She didn't answer.

”Megan!”

The rope kept jerking. Bracing my feet against the slimy walls, I tried to slow the movements, but the rope bounced again and yanked me down two feet at once. I looked up and saw a bright wide circle of end-of-day orange sun above. ”Megan, hey! Megan!”

But all was silent and still above me.

And then, like a slow-motion movie, the end of the rope curled over the ledge and spiraled down into the well. Megan was no longer there.

Leaving me officially screwed.

I opened my mouth to scream, but it was too late. I fell like a stone to the bottom. Right into the thing's waiting, eager grip.

I n s.p.a.ce, no one hears you scream.

I watched an old movie once that opened with that line. I was eight when I saw it and it scared the c.r.a.p out of me, had me thinking aliens were going to slime through my walls and eat me alive. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, screaming my fool head off and waking up Faulkner. He threw a pillow at my head and told me if I didn't shut up he'd fart on my face.

That scream had been nothing compared to what came out of my throat now.

The thing had me, and no one was going to hear me scream.

No one was going to hear me be torn to shreds, my brains left in a little pile on the bottom of my stone coffin.

Just like Paolo.

Those piercing sounds kept coming, sounds I'd never made before and hoped I'd never make again, so loud they bounced off the walls. The scream tore at my throat, but I couldn't cut it off, couldn't stop the flood of panic that just kept telling me to get away, get out of its grip.

It was behind me, finger-claw things sinking deep into my sweats.h.i.+rt. Deep enough to hurt, not deep enough to cut.

It had me. It had me. And it was going to eat me.

I was a wild animal, arms and legs doing an epileptic dance, which only made the thing laugh and sent my panic off the charts. My feet stumbled over something, then tangled, and I tripped, ankles jumbled together.

The vines.

Then, no. I'd gotten tangled up in my own d.a.m.ned rope.

I screamed louder and lashed out, my arms windmilling, but still the thing had its grip on my shoulders, its breath hot and heavy on my neck.

Smelling like death.

Pitching forward, I tried to get away, running-running where? I was in a well; where was I going to go?-scrambling, grasping at air, at nothing, at anything. And behind me, that laugh, that horrible, awful laugh, as the thing kept on clutching me like a spider on steroids.

”Where you going, Cooper?” Its rasping voice seemed to float, singsongy, like Trevor's little performance only at a super-high pitch, the kind of tone only dogs could hear. No longer in my head now but echoing in the small s.p.a.ce, bouncing back and forth, as if it had said it a dozen times.

”Where are you going, Cooper?”

It had a voice. And now it was using it. Speaking out loud, not just inside my head. Oh, holy c.r.a.p.

That must mean the thing was getting stronger. I better get my a.s.s out of there. Now.

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