by Otto Schafer
Garrett reached the group. “Go! Go! Go!” he screamed as if there were hope. It wasn’t the giant he worried about. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t fit through the crevice. He just didn’t see how they had any chance of making it a mile with the water rising so fast, and he was sure when the chamber filled to the top the water was going to come even faster. In seconds the tunnel would be filled. None of them could hold their breath for a mile. They would all drown, and then they’d be flushed into the Sangamon River. Their bodies wouldn’t be found for days, if at all.
“What the shit, Garrett!” David shouted.
“The wall caved in! We got to hurry before the whole tunn…” Garrett stopped, gasping, and frowned. The water had slowed like a faucet being turned down to a trickle.
As the water slowed, so did the group.
Lenny glanced back, shining the headlamp into the darkness. “Why did the water slow down?”
“The giant must be stuck where the tunnel narrowed,” Garrett said, trying to catch his breath.
“Oh! Perfect! You think he’ll get through?” David asked.
“Settle down, David. I don’t think it could fit through,” Garrett tried to reassure him.
“But you’re not sure! Jesus, we gotta move!”
“Settle down, Yosemite Sam, you little mustached freak,” Lenny said.
“Don’t you tell me to settle down with a giant on its way to kill us! You settle down, Lenny! You settle do—”
“Enough!” Pete shouted. “It won’t fit through. It’s way too big.”
“Well, hello, Petey!” Lenny said, slapping him on the shoulder. “Good to have you back.”
“Lenny, don’t ever call me Petey again. Janis called me that.”
“Sorry, man. Seriously. I’m sorry.”
Pete nodded. “I know. Thanks, Lenny.”
Lenny spun on Garrett. “What the hell happened back there? I thought you were with me!”
“Lenny, I’m—”
“Garrett, where’s my sister?” Paul asked.
Garrett hesitated, choking on the words.
“Where is she?!” Paul demanded again, his face twisting in anguish.
“She’s gone, Paul,” Garrett said quietly.
Lenny placed a hand on Paul’s shoulder.
“What do you mean, gone! Are you saying she’s… No!” Paul shouted, shrugging off Lenny’s hand. “No! She can’t be… she can’t be…” But he couldn’t say the word. “I’m going back!”
“No! Paul, she isn’t dead, but Apep took her. I couldn’t get to her. I tried. Honest, I tried!”
“Took her? Took her how? Took her where? For what?” His face contorted, screwing up in confusion.
“I… I don’t know. They just vanished in a ball of light,” he said, knowing it would do Paul no good to know what Apep had said. “I tried to get her, Paul.”
Paul sagged back against the cavern wall, unable to speak.
“That must have been the light we saw in the corridor,” Lenny said.
Behind them came another loud roar and the sound of falling stone.
“I knew it! Oh, man! The giant is forcing its way through the crevice! We’re so screwed!” David said, taking off down the tunnel with Coach in tow.
“Let’s just get out of here and then we will figure out what to do. There is no going back and nothing to go back for,” Garrett said.
“I’m going back,” Paul said flatly.
“Paul, this is crazy. I already told you there’s nothing to go back for, and even if there was, that giant—”
“Garrett, listen to me – if that giant pushes through, that whole lake is coming with him. If that happens, we’re all dead, just like that,” Paul said, snapping the fingers of his working hand. “I will stop him, at least long enough for you guys to get out. But you have to promise me. Promise right now, in front of god and your best friend, you will find my sister and you will save her from that bastard!”
“Paul, you can’t! You’re hurt—”
“Promise me, Garrett!” he shouted.
Behind them came the sounds of stones scraping and splashing into water.
Garrett nodded. “If it is the last thing I do, I will find her. I promise I will. I swear it. Whether you make it or not. I swear it!”
Paul thrust his hand into Garrett’s and pulled him into his shoulder, then let go of his hand and pounded a fist on his back. “I believe you.”
“Let me heal you at least!” David said.
“So you can pass out? Sorry, kid, but I appreciate the offer.”
“Paul, come with us,” Lenny begged.
Paul grabbed Lenny next, pulled him in, and pounded a fist on his back too. “That folder I gave you, still got it?”
“Folder?” Lenny asked, then shook his head. “Oh, right, the knife? I do,” he said, choking back a sob. He dug into his back dobok pocket and pulled out the knife, which was clean and free of Pete’s blood.
“Lenny, don’t worry about me. I’ll kick this asshole’s pecker into the dirt and catch up with you boys in a few minutes.” He shoved Lenny’s staff toward him and took his knife and the headlamp. “Now get moving.”
Paul turned away, pointing the headlamp back down the corridor, and started limping down the tunnel. He never looked back, and Garrett wondered silently if he would ever see him again.
The giant had managed to get his massive shoulders free of the crevice by the time Paul approached, which meant the damn thing’s arms were both free. There was no sneaking up on the thing either because if the giant couldn’t see in the dark, he would have at least seen his headlamp as he approached. Paul tried to move his left arm, but it was completely dislocated.
The giant spoke loud and deep, swiping a hand out from the crevice toward Paul.
Paul dodged, flicking open his knife with a click. “Whatever you got to say, you may as well save it, big guy.” He ran forward as best he could with pain shooting through his hip, falling forward into the giant’s face.
The giant roared, reaching back toward his own face as Paul stuck him in his eye.
Paul felt a warm fluid run down onto his arm as the roar escalated into a high-pitched scream, but he didn’t relent, stabbing again and again.
Again, the giant flailed his hand back toward his face.
This time Paul couldn’t get away. The giant wrapped his fingers around him and squeezed, then shoved him underwater. But before the giant could get him away from his face Paul plunged his arm deep into the giant’s eye – as deep as he could. All the way to the back. As the giant shoved Paul under, Paul pulled the big bastard’s face underwater by a fistful of optic nerves. He twisted his fist to wrap the nerves around his own hand, holding on as if they were a lifeline. If he were to lose his grip on the slimy rope of nerves now, the giant would lift his face out of the water, grab a breath, and surely crush Paul to death. Worse than that, he would make it out of the crevice and Garrett and the others would die – and his sister would die. No! Not today!
I’m going to… pull your brain… out through your eye if that’s what it takes!
But the harder Paul pulled, the harder the giant squeezed. He was being crushed to death and he knew it, but he had one thing going for him. He was a warrior. He might not be able to hold his breath longer than his brother Ed, but he could outlast this shitstain – he had to.
Paul did the only thing he could. He held on and he held his breath. He held it for his mom to make her proud, he held it for his pops and Ed because he never left a man behind. Mostly though, he held it for his baby sister because if he saved Garrett, Garrett would keep his promise – he would save Bre.
Paul released a rage-filled roar and with it all the air he had left. With a final superhuman yank, the nerves that wound their way all the way to the back of the giant’s brain ripped loose.
The giant’s massive body bucked. Wedged in the crevice, his giant eyeball ripped from his head and his face forced under the water, the giant screamed out all of
his remaining air, sucked water deep into his giant lungs, and died.
The massive fingers around Paul loosened. He pushed up, breaking the surface of the water, and he breathed. Paul sagged back heavily against the wall and laughed. The laugh turned into a bloody cough. “I told you… Not today.”
Paul knew there would be no leaving this place, not alive anyway, and he had made his peace with it. The water was still rising but only slowly thanks to the giant filling most of the crevice. The important thing was he had given Garrett and the others the time they needed.
He leaned back, closed his eyes, and rested his head against the stone wall. Then he heard something. What the? He stiffened. It was coming from the other side of the crevice, and it sounded like… chewing.
Then he heard a rat squeak.
39
Move
Wednesday, April 6 – God Stones Day 1
Rural Chiapas State, Mexico
Sarah spun toward Gabi, tearing her eyes from her view around the corner. The look on her face was total devastation.
“Do you see them?” Gabi asked.
Sarah knelt down. Tears poured down her face. “Gabi. We have to run. We have to run now!”
“But Mamá and Papá?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“We have to run, Gabi!”
Suddenly all sound faded away. She might have screamed. The singular gut-wrenching scream of someone who has just lost everything. Nothing else mattered to her now. She no longer wanted to fight for her life. She couldn’t hear her own screams. She couldn’t hear anything. Gabi was numb.
Gabi had no idea she was even moving. But she was moving, being pulled by something… no… someone. Sarah was pulling her. Sound began to return to her ears.
“Run, Gabi! We have to run!” Sarah cried.
Somehow Gabi’s legs were moving under her. The ground below her feet was dry. She looked up, her headlamp pointing forward. She blinked. Beneath her the ground shook.
“Look!” Sarah said.
But Gabi didn’t look. She just blinked and ran.
“There. See it!? It’s a giant slab of stone. C’mon, Gabi! Twenty-five meters! You can do it! Run!”
The stone slab must have been nearly two meters thick and a dozen long.
Sarah threw herself behind the slab, dragging Gabi down with her.
Heavy footsteps shook the floor as the dragon ran toward them. The roar came so loud Gabi felt it through her chest, and she knew she was about to die, just like her father and her mother. With her back pressed to the slab, she covered her ears. Oh, dear María Purísima, she knew what came next. Behind her the monster’s roar became impossibly loud. In front of her the chamber wall suddenly glowed with emerald firelight. Then came the fire. The dragon fire struck the slab as they pressed their bodies against it, scrunching themselves into tight balls. Green flame whooshed over the top of the stone, changing to a blue-orange as it passed. Gabi screamed a silent scream drowned out by the dragon’s roar. Heat, horrible and rank, pressed down on them.
Sarah screamed too, but she was actually screaming words and motioning. “We can’t stay here! We have to move!” Sarah pulled on her arm.
The ground beneath began shaking again. The dragon was moving closer. Near the far wall, several small fires were now burning.
She watched numbly as Sarah scanned the wall for something.
“There! That shadow. Come on, Gabi!” Sarah pointed. “Let’s move!”
Sarah grabbed her hand and pulled, but she was frozen with fear.
“Gabi. Please, we move now, or we die! I won’t go without you, so if we stay, we die together!”
Gabi blinked again. No. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want Sarah to die. She managed to get to her feet.
“That’s it, Gabi! Now run!”
She did, and together they ran for the wall.
“Oh god! Oh god! Please let this be more than a shadow!” Sarah said as they approached the wall.
Behind them the dragon leapt onto the now burning stone slab and roared. There was nothing between the dragon and them. The wall lit up from behind them with a radiant greenish glow. Gabi felt the back of her shirt get hot, too hot, as she and Sarah ran full speed into the shadow. She put her hands up in front of her, unsure if she was running into a void or straight into the wall.
Gabi’s back began to burn.
40
I Won’t Let You Down
Wednesday, April 6 – God Stones Day 1
Petersburg, Illinois
As cold lake water overwhelmed everything inside the darkened tomb, one creature still stirred. An oversized rat with a long scar across her left shoulder swam for her life. She swam out of the stone cell, across the chamber, slipping into the corridor. She needed air. She had to find the air.
She paddled through the darkness like she was born of water, like a natural, her oversized paws kicking rhythmically. Had she been a normal-sized rat she could have held her breath for three minutes tops, but with her size came the ability to hold her breath even longer. She swam down the corridor and into the cave.
Once in the cave she couldn’t find a way out, but she could feel it. The water was pulling past her. She followed it down into a crevice where the water moved fast. Yes, she thought, this must be the way. But then there was no way! A large fleshy creature blocked the way!
But something else was happening. Her mind was clearer than it had ever been. She was thinking and she knew things too. She knew something made her grow big. A strange creature, named Janis. Yes, and she knew other words too, like ‘human.’ She knew the one who made her big had died. She died at the same time a human boy… David? Yes, David. Janis died while David was putting the sunshine inside her.
That’s when the thinking started, that’s when her mind became different, when she was trying to eat his face. She didn’t want to eat his face now though. David fixed her. He took the pain back… and something else? He put something inside her. The sunshine. Yes, that, but something else too. When others yelled the name Janis and the room lit with fire, David thought of Janis, the girl died, and the healing went in. Now she was aware and thinking, and she knew things, but most of all she knew she didn’t want to die.
Her instincts told her she had to get past the fleshy thing to get out, but first she needed air. She swam up and found there was a small pocket of space between the ceiling and the water. Just enough space to stick her snout. Filling her lungs, she dove back down and went to work. She would gnaw and chew through the big fleshy thing, but she had hurry.
Feverishly, yet easily, she chewed through the flesh, tendons, and cartilage of the dead thing. She let her instinct guide her. Her powerful jaws compressed sharp incisors, effortlessly separating limbs at the joints. After several minutes of holding her breath she swam up to the small pocket of space at the ceiling of the cave, sucked in a breath, then dove back down to resume chewing on the only thing standing between her and freedom.
“Guys, I found the edge of the pit,” Lenny said, probing with his staff. “The drop-off is right here. We will have to swim across.”
Garrett moved to ease himself in when something large bumped into his back. As he reached out to push it away, he realized it was the giant’s arm. “What the…” Paul must have torn the giant’s arm off trying to keep it in the crevice? Then a second limb hit him, along with a sudden rise in the water. He was pretty sure it was part of the giant’s leg. He shone the light on where the leg had been severed. It looked like it had been chewed on. No, not chewed on… chewed through? Suddenly, comprehension clicked in his mind. The giant rats? They weren’t all dead after all, and they must be trying to get out! “Guys! Oh god! Guys, we need to hurry!”
“What now?” David shouted. Then he yelped, “What is that?! Is that a piece of the giant’s leg?”
Foregoing caution, Garrett dove in and swam the gap across the pit. Once across, he shouted, “Guys, go! Hurry!”
They rounded the bend back to Lincoln’s b
rick wall. But it was different from how they had left it. Before, the hole they had climbed through had been high up, but now a huge section of the wall had collapsed. Water rolled over the lower half of the remaining wall, down into the drainage tunnel below.
The drainage tunnel. Garrett didn’t need to see into it to know they were in trouble. The violent roar of gushing water told him his worst fears were realized. It must still be pouring outside.
They approached the drainage tunnel cautiously. The water rushing past them was moving like whitewater.
“Guys, we have to go for it,” Garrett said.
“What do you mean, go for it?” Lenny asked. “Because I know you can’t mean jump into… that!” He pointed toward the rapids below.
“We have to jump in. Let the water take us.”
“Have you lost your shit!?” David asked. “You want the water to take us where, Garrett? To the bottom of a brush pile? Over the dam, which you know is a damn death sentence in itself? And what about Coach? You think we can swim and still hold onto him – in the river? If we go in that river, we’re all as good as dead!” David yelled frantically over the roar of water blasting through the drainage tunnel.
Lenny stepped up next to David. “There has to be another way. David’s right – it’s pitch black out there. We won’t even be able to see once we’re in the water.”
Garrett looked at his friends. Lenny hugged himself, shaking uncontrollably from the cold water. David’s mustache bounced as his jaw shivered, his fist full of Coach’s collar, the only thing preventing Coach from being pulled over the small wall. And Pete was present physically, but clearly his thoughts were still back in the temple – with Janis. The idea of asking his friends to willingly throw themselves into the freezing cold Sangamon River, a mere quarter mile from the busted dam, was insanity. Add darkness, a storm, and an unconscious man, and the already bad plan escalated to one of pure stupidity.