Part 14 (1/2)
”Calm down,” she said. Mac took another step forward, and she once again pushed him back. ”Calm the f.u.c.k down!”
”What's going on?” Floyd asked. I turned and saw him standing in the doorway. He was rubbing his eyes and yawning. ”What time is it?”
Sabine gave Mac one last push, and the strength left his legs. He collapsed to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. His shoulders slumped forward into a defeated slouch. ”Look after him, Floyd,” Sabine said. ”Keep him away from Dean. Sit on him if you have to.”
Sabine crouched down at my side. She stared into my eyes for a bit, a concerned look on her face. ”You still there, Dean? Everything okay?”
I tried to speak, but my voice got caught in my throat. I swallowed, pus.h.i.+ng saliva over my freshly damaged larynx, and tried again. ”Yeah,” I croaked. ”But I won't be singing ... in no choir ... anytime soon.”
I glanced over her shoulder and noticed Charlie standing in the open doorway. His eyes were wide, and he wasn't moving. He looked like a statue, a marble effigy carved into the threshold.
”What the h.e.l.l was that, Mac?” Sabine growled, turning on her heels. ”What the f.u.c.k did you think you were doing?”
Mac was sitting like a forlorn lump on the edge of the bed, his eyes pointed down at his stocking feet. Floyd was sitting next to him. There was a piece of paper in Floyd's hand: the crumpled sheet Mac had been waving around. Floyd started to read aloud: ”There's something I need to do, someplace I need to be. I know you don't understand. I'm sorry, Amanda.”
After he heard Amanda's words, Mac's head shot up, the anger suddenly back in his eyes. ”It's all his fault,” he said, nodding toward me. ”They've been sneaking around. He's been feeding her delusions. f.u.c.king wolves, my a.s.s! He's been telling her all of the things she wants to hear!”
”Amanda's gone?” Sabine asked, in surprise. ”When? When did she leave?”
”She was gone when I woke up. At first, I thought she was just getting food or making coffee, but then I saw the note. Her boots and jacket are gone, but the rest of her stuff is still here.”
”Maybe it's nothing,” Sabine said. ”Maybe she just went out for a walk.”
A cold, bitter smile appeared on Mac's lips. His eyes remained fixed on my face. ”Tell us where she went, Dean. Tell us where you made her go.”
His voice was scary calm. If his earlier a.s.sault had been an act of thoughtless pa.s.sion, this new voice ... this new voice promised cold-blooded, premeditated murder.
”I might know,” I croaked, looking away from Mac's angry eyes. ”There's a place she wanted to go.”
We found her clothing in the park, near the mouth of the tunnel. Each garment was folded and stacked in a neat pile: jacket, sweats.h.i.+rt, jeans, long underwear, panties, and socks. Her boots stood on either side of the stack like perfectly matched bookends.
As soon as it came into view, Mac darted ahead and knelt down by the pile of clothing. He quickly sorted through the entire stack, carefully lifting and turning each neatly squared garment, as if he were expecting to find Amanda hidden inside some random fold. When he reached the bottom of the pile, he glanced up and stared fixedly at the mouth of the tunnel. There was a line of perfect footprints leading into the darkness.
”No way,” Floyd said, taking a startled step back as soon as he saw the dark hole in the side of the hill. ”There's no way I'm going into that f.u.c.king hole!”
”You don't have to,” I said, my voice low, a damaged rumble. ”You can stay out here if you like.”
Sabine reached out and put a comforting hand on Floyd's shoulder, at the same time flas.h.i.+ng me a confused look, surprised at the vehemence of his reaction. Charlie stayed back near the copse of trees, a good dozen feet away.
It was just the five of us.
I'd searched the entire house before we left, but it looked like Taylor had performed another one of her early-morning vanis.h.i.+ng acts; she must have left sometime before dawn, as I lay asleep in her bed. And what was that about? I wondered. Why was she constantly disappearing without word or explanation? Frankly, it was starting to p.i.s.s me off. Maybe it was my fault; maybe I'd scared her away. But after our night with Danny-and I blushed briefly at that thought-it felt like she was toying with me, using me to slake her own inscrutable desires, then disappearing as soon as I needed her leaders.h.i.+p and support.
She would have been able to keep Mac in check, I told myself. She would have gotten to the bottom of this.
Sabine lifted my video camera to her eye and started filming, focusing on Mac as he hovered over the pile of abandoned clothing. She'd grabbed the camera as we were heading out the front door; I wasn't sure why. Did she consider this part of some elaborate art project? Or had she become infected with my compulsion, my need to doc.u.ment and probe the fraying edges of reality?
”She must be freezing,” Sabine said, noting the obvious. ”She's naked. In the snow.”
Mac let out a strangled sob. It was the sound of sudden dawning horror, as if the thought hadn't yet occurred to him. He let Amanda's jeans tumble from his fingers, then abruptly bolted toward the mouth of the tunnel.
”f.u.c.k,” I muttered, and started after him. I gestured for Sabine to follow. ”C'mon. Before he gets away.”
Mac didn't even hesitate when he reached the dark hole, plunging headlong across its threshold. We followed twenty feet back.
This time, I came prepared. I paused at the mouth of the tunnel and pulled my flashlight from my pocket. The beam illuminated a wide swath of muddy earth. Here at the entrance, the floor had been worked into a narrow trough, and I could see the imprint of fist-size paws all along its perimeter. The enclosed s.p.a.ce reeked of wet, musty fur, a savage primal musk.
Before the thought of those giant sharp-toothed wolves could root me to the spot, I ducked and started forward. Sabine followed at my heels. I could hear her boots squelching in the mud behind me.
”Mac!” I called. My voice was shaky. I wanted to reach Mac as fast as possible, but that desire couldn't override my fears. There were horrible things living in these tunnels-I knew that-and I could imagine countless eyes popping open at the sound of my voice. Amanda's oddly jointed wolves. Floyd's apparition. Other things-much, much worse.
”Mac!” I called again. My voice didn't echo in the dark.
After a couple of seconds, the walls disappeared on both sides, and I pulled to an abrupt stop. Sabine collided with my back and let out a loud curse as the camcorder made hard contact with her face: ”Motherf.u.c.ker!”
”Shhhhhh,” I whispered, then swung the flashlight left and right.
The tunnel opened up into three different pa.s.sageways here, and all three looked exactly the same; they were the same size, had the same rough walls, and displayed the same level of use on their muddy floors. Which one leads to Devon's house? I wondered idly. I glanced around, but couldn't see a single wire embedded in the walls.
”What the f.u.c.k is this?” Sabine asked, a note of awe in her voice. ”Out there, I thought it was just a cave, but ... f.u.c.k!”
”Shhhhhh,” I prompted again, c.o.c.king my ear toward each of the tunnels in turn. I thought I heard a sc.r.a.ping sound-a distant sandpaper scratch-down the middle pa.s.sageway. I shone my light forward and moved ahead.
Mac was running, I thought. He was frantic. There's no way we'll catch him.
I was just about to slow down, to rea.s.sess the situation, when Mac's bright clothing resolved in the darkness ahead.
Here the tunnel ended in a wall of dirt, a frozen cascade blocking the entire pa.s.sageway. Mac was on his knees, digging like a dog; his hands were scrabbling at the cave-in, pulling fistfuls of dirt into the tunnel behind him. He had his ear pressed into the mud, and his eyes were closed.
”Do you hear her?” he asked, his voice a tiny whisper. ”Do you hear her singing?”
Sabine and I both fell silent. I held my breath and listened for Amanda's voice.
There was nothing. The only sound I heard was the sound of Mac's hands moving in the dirt.
After a tense handful of seconds, Mac jumped to his feet and headed back into the darkness, pus.h.i.+ng us out of the way. ”There were branches,” he said, his voice filled with terrified urgency, ”farther up the tunnel. I've got to get around. She needs me!” Then he sprinted back the way we had come.
Sabine and I exchanged a worried look, then followed him into the darkness. He quickly escaped the reach of my flashlight beam. By the time we made it back to the junction, there was no way to figure out which direction he'd gone. On a whim, I chose the right-hand pa.s.sageway, pulling Sabine along behind me.
This tunnel ended about fifteen feet in. The first time my flashlight beam swept across the cave-in, I thought I saw Mac standing there, his hands pressed up against the dirt. But it was just a momentary illusion. I blinked, and there was nothing there, nothing but dirt and empty s.p.a.ce. Sabine and I turned and retraced our steps back to the other tunnel. The left-hand tunnel went about thirty feet in before it, too, ended in a cave-in. Mac wasn't there, either.