Part 33 (1/2)

Amanda didn't even glance at the slab of shredded meat and jutting bone. She just turned, and the entire pack turned with her. They ran into one of the connecting corridors, soundless and graceful.

And they were gone.

I think it might have just been my imagination, but at the last moment, just before she disappeared from sight, it looked like Amanda dropped to all fours and started bounding forward on hands and feet. In that blur of activity, however, I couldn't be sure.

I stood at the threshold and watched as the last of Amanda's pack disappeared into the darkness. Then it was quiet.

I could feel Charlie, Floyd, and Taylor in the s.p.a.ce behind me. Standing there in shock. But I didn't turn around and look. I didn't want to see their horrified faces.

They'd be turned toward me, I knew, looking to me for direction. But I didn't have the answers they were looking for. I didn't have a clue. What I did have was a splitting headache. I had a lump in my throat and a small animal turning somersaults in my stomach. But no answers. No ideas.

Mac was dead. That was about all I knew. He was dead, and he couldn't have been any deader. Nothing but a disjointed slab of meat piled in the center of the floor.

But Taylor was safe. Thank G.o.d, Taylor was safe.

I looked down at the baseball bat in my hands. Disgusted, I tossed it aside.

After nearly a minute, Charlie stepped up behind me. ”See that corridor?” he whispered into my ear. His hand shot forward, pointing to one of the connecting tunnels. It was filled with flickering orange light. ”That's fire down there,” he said. ”We must be near the mushroom. The army's burning it from the ground.” He paused for a moment, letting his outstretched hand drop back down to his side. ”It can't be healthy down here ... being so near.”

I inhaled deeply. I could taste the thick char of smoke in my lungs. I hadn't noticed it before. I'd been distracted-what with Amanda and the wolves, with Mac and his violent death. I coughed deeply and expelled a large clump of phlegm.

”Let's get out of here,” I said, turning away from the room. ”We got what we came for. We got Taylor. Let's get back to the surface.”

Taylor was standing at my shoulder when I turned, and I nearly ran into her. The dirt on her face was streaked with tear tracks, and she refused to look me in the eye.

Broken, I thought. Taylor had always been broken to some extent, but it seemed worse now. Her abduction, that loss of control-she looked so fragile, so absolutely devastated. I moved to put my hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it aside and turned away, starting into the dark tunnel. She had her arms crossed in front of her chest, clutching herself tightly, a defensive pose, like a hedgehog curled into a tiny ball.

And as she pulled away, the darkness came to life around her, reaching out and grabbing at her arms and legs.

It was like an animal, this darkness, I was sure. With thoughts and intentions, trying to engulf her, trying to suck her into its depths. Coming at her from every side. Tendrils from every shadow. Writhing blindly. Touching her and wrapping tightly around her limbs, drawing dark lines across her back. Insubstantial yet also thick, wide. Not spider joints, thankfully, but long midnight-black tentacles. Pure black. Spilled ink, etched across a paper-made Taylor.

My heartbeat quickened, and I stumbled forward a half dozen steps, trying to catch her before she could disappear, before the darkness could consume her.

I'd found her. I'd ventured into the very depths of the city and actually found her!

To lose her again, to the darkness, to the tunnel, to the city- But my vision cleared, and she was still there, in the tunnel before me. Perfectly normal. A stark outline against the dark wall. No tendrils, no errant shadows. Nothing but her back, flickering in and out of darkness as Charlie and Floyd moved behind me, their flashlights swinging up and down.

I took a stutter step back, disoriented. What had I seen? Was it a trick of the light? Vicodin? Spores? Physical and emotional stress?

Floyd, at my side, reached out and grabbed my bicep, holding me steady. I turned and faced him. His eyes were full of questions, full of concern, but I just shook my head.

”Let's go,” I said. ”Let's get the f.u.c.k out of here.”

At the first hub, I pa.s.sed Taylor and led the way into one of the right-hand tunnels, wanting to make sure we didn't head back the way we'd come. I didn't want Taylor to see Sabine's bag or, G.o.d forbid, Danny. I just wanted to find some way up and out. Back home. Back to our little makes.h.i.+ft headquarters.

Then, maybe, out of the city. And far away. Far away from this f.u.c.king place, with its waking nightmares and its constant f.u.c.king wounds.

As far as I was concerned, this was it. I'd had enough. Even without Taylor-with her hidden face, always shrugging me off, always turning away-I needed to leave. No matter how painful that might be.

This wasn't a life.

This was a fugue-state dream that I needed to wake up from. I needed to move on and grow the f.u.c.k up. I needed to get real. Finally, for once in my life, f.u.c.king real. Not art and photography, not romantic chaos and confusion without a center. Not the end of the world, painted in brooding, melancholy shades of gray and red. Real.

I needed a job. I needed an apartment. I needed someplace stable and calm, something in my life that wasn't tinged with madness or melancholy or f.u.c.king adolescent dreams. I needed to grow the f.u.c.k up! And that most definitely meant leaving Spokane and Taylor behind, finding someplace and someone stable. Things I could lean on without fear of falling on my face.

I didn't need piles of shredded meat bleeding in the dark. I didn't need deformed flesh and a girlfriend who couldn't even stand my touch.

As I pressed on into the tunnel, I fumbled the bottle of Vicodin from my pocket and dry swallowed another pill. That was another thing I needed to leave behind.

But not yet. Not here.

Time pa.s.sed, and I lost all sense of direction. Turning randomly. Tunnel after tunnel after tunnel. Hub after hub after hub. They all looked the same to me, and it felt like we weren't making any progress at all.

Then Floyd paused and gestured me to a stop.

”Do you hear that?” he asked, turning the flashlight back the way we'd come. Charlie and Taylor had taken the lead three hubs back, and there was only darkness behind us now.

I shook my head. I didn't hear a thing.

”It was laughter,” Floyd whispered, a nervous smile on his face. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. The smile quivered, but it didn't quite disappear. ”It's my brother. It's Byron. He's down here, Dean. He's always been down here.”

Charlie and Taylor paused up ahead as soon as they noticed that we'd stopped following. They were out of earshot, about twenty feet away, a semicircle of light in the darkness, their half-moon faces turned our way.

Floyd took a step forward and then stopped. I was worried that he was going to take off into the tunnel, looking for his brother. And if that happened, I knew, he'd disappear. Forever. I knew it, just as I knew that Sabine was gone. And Weasel. And Danny. And Amanda. And Mac-most definitely Mac. I grabbed Floyd's forearm and held him back. He looked down at my grip. There was no annoyance there, on his face, but no relief either. h.e.l.l, there was no comprehension whatsoever. He might as well have been staring at the bottom of an empty bucket.

”He was looking for me that night,” he whispered, ”when he died, when I ...” He raised his eyes and once again squinted into the dark. ”I don't think he ever stopped looking. No matter where I run, no matter what I take, he's always there, tortured and alone, looking for his big brother.”

He turned back toward me. ”That makes sense, right?” he pleaded. His brow crinkled down into a narrow chevron, and his eyes collapsed into slits.

”I don't know, Floyd,” I said, pulling him back a step. I urged him down the tunnel, back toward Charlie and Taylor. ”I don't know what's possible in this place. But I know what's healthy, and this,” I said, gesturing around the tunnel, ”isn't healthy. We have to get out of here. We have to find our way back up to the surface.”

He gave me a brief nod, then turned and once again started forward.

I stood there for a moment as he walked away, peering into the darkness behind us. There was nothing there. Nothing but dirt and rock.

The tunnel ended at another bas.e.m.e.nt.