She shook her head. "I was a checker at Fred Meyer."
Christopher laughed. "What about…?" He gestured at her body armor.
"My brother. He's the cop. Was the cop." She went silent again. Christopher was content to let that silence reign. Not because he didn't have anything to say about her loss – a world of things occurred – but because the silence just seemed right in this moment. Unusual for him – he typically talked as much as possible. Covering quiet times with a restless prattle that in his more introspective moments he admitted was the side effect of a fear of being alone.
So much time alone. More or less abandoned by his parents, then finding Heather. Then she left, too.
And the baby.
So much time alone.
And now… not alone. Not alone for the end of the world, and that was a comfort.
"He got us out in time," she said. "Got us to the police station, got us outfitted – me and Elijah."
"He work at Fred Meyer, too?"
"No. He was a friend of mine and my brother's. He was a firearms instructor."
Christopher thought of the big black man who had hunted them – had shot Ken. "I can believe that." He looked at her. "Sorry about what happened to them."
Silence again. And again, surprisingly comfortable.
Theresa opened her mouth to speak. Then whatever she was going to say died in her throat. Christopher saw it happen, even as he saw her raise a hand. Point.
Christopher followed the direction of her gesture. Saw what she was pointing at.
Ken.
Ken was still crouching, but something about his stance had changed. He was no longer at rest, and his head tilted up to the sky. Not like the zombies, not "downloading" whatever had turned them into whatever they were, but like a man questing to hear, to see, to smell.
As Christopher watched, the bony growths sprung from Ken's hands. A thin, sharp ridge of bone erupted from his forearms and made him into a creature of razor edges, of daggers that were part of flesh.
No other movement, but a chill swept through Christopher's body.
Ken turned. Stood. "Stop!" he shouted. "Stop the –"
And everything fell away. Everything disappeared.
Everything went black.
110
"Christopher."
Still dark. Still black.
"Christopher, get up! Wake up!"
He was in Heather's arms. Asleep on her legs, both of them under a tree at Quarry View Park after visiting the Old Penitentiary. Green grass around. Sky –
Why's the sky so dark?
Then a light roved its way across the sky. A light brighter than the moon, but not enough to allay the darkness that spanned the space above.
"Christopher. Come on, kid."
The second voice wasn't Heather's.
But the first voice wasn't Heather's, either. Who was it? Who's talking now?
The light stopped flitting across the sky and settled on his face. He could see it even through closed eyes.
Closed? How am I here?
The park faded. The light brightened. He blinked.
"He's coming to." That was the second voice again. The deeper one, the one that belonged to –
"Aaron?" Christopher held a hand over his face to shield it from the light. The hand felt heavy, pulled down by bones that suddenly weighed more than lead bars.
Too heavy. His hand fell back across his eyes. He tried to lift it, but his body wasn't listening to him.
"Christopher. Chris, wake up. Get up." The first voice. Raspy, but still recognizable as the voice of a woman.
Not Heather, though. Heather's –
(dead)
– not here.
He blinked again. And this time the fog dissipated a bit. The light was still burning its way into his skull. It hurt.
"The hell's going on?" he mumbled. His voice didn't sound like his own.
"Good question." Aaron.
That was Aaron. And the other voice was Theresa.
With the memory of the names, a bit of strength came back into his body. He sat up. Aware now that he had been laying partly on Theresa's lap, partly on the cold metal of the dump truck's bed.
Laying on something else, too. Something gritty that bit into his legs and back until he sat up. His hands pushed against the metal, and the grit was under them, too.
Dirt. Thick, dark dirt. And larger particles. Rough like stone, but too angular, too sharp to be naturally occurring.
Asphalt?
What happened?
The light finally swung off his face. "I think he's okay," said Aaron.
"Thank goodness," said Maggie. Christopher couldn't see her. Couldn't see much at all.
Just dark, sheared by the lance of brightness that he finally realized was a small but powerful flashlight in Aaron's good hand.
The cowboy pointed it at another person. Amulek. Then Ken. "You two all right?" he asked. The others nodded.
They were in the truck bed with him, he realized. They all were. Even Maggie, holding Lizzy. Amulek had Hope over his shoulder.
Christopher looked around. "Where are we?" he asked. "What happened?"
"Road collapsed," said Aaron.
"Collapsed? What do you mean?"
Aaron shined the light upward. Christopher followed it.
Saw.
And feared.
111
The road had collapsed, but there was more to it than that.
Christopher hadn't really understood what Aaron said at first: "Road collapse"? How was that possible? They hadn't been traveling a freeway overpass, hadn't gone over a tunnel. It had been solid road, resting on what Christopher assumed was solid rock beneath.
But the road had collapsed. And underneath… a cavern.
That was the only word for it. Looking up, Christopher pieced together what must have happened. The road crumbled because it was just a shell. A brittle skin covering a huge void. Something had hollowed out the stone and soil for fifty feet below the ground. When the truck passed over what was left of the road, the asphalt had cracked, fallen away.
The truck must have tumbled forward, crashed into the far edge of the cavern, tumbled back, hit the rear of it. Fallen. A zig-zag descent that had saved all their lives.
"What did this?" Theresa was looking up. She was focused on something, and when Christopher followed her gaze he saw a collection of pipes, spewing water in a thin rain that fell beside the truck. The flashlight swung across them from time to time as Aaron looked at their surroundings, and when the light struck them they turned to thin jewels in the darkness.
"A sinkhole or something?" asked Maggie.
Amulek shook his head. He was looking up, too, but not at the water. He pointed.
Everyone looked.
Maggie put a hand to her mouth. Tried to cover the gasp that wanted to come, and failed.
Christopher remembered being under the streets of Boise. Thinking they were safe, waiting for Ken to heal – one of the many times he had pulled through when he shouldn't have, which Christopher now understood was a product of the half-bite he had endured.
In that darkness, they had waited. And the creatures had found them. Children, babies, Changed and coming through cracks too small to admit a kitten. Pressing themselves through until their skin flayed away, until there was nothing but shining muscle and mucus and bone.
They hadn't made their own tunnels. They had used what there was. Christopher had thought that was all they could do.
But he had seen the diggers come. Had seen them burrow through lead and concrete. Had suspected.
Now he knew.
The side of the crevasse was pocked. Dotted with irregular holes that could have been natural if there had been only one. But there wasn't just one.
There were dozens.
They were tunnels.
"They made this place," said Maggie in a whisper. "This is a trap."
"Yeah," said Aaron.
There was movement
at the periphery of the light. Theresa yelped, and Aaron swung his beam at it.
Ken. He was crouched at the wall of the void. Fingers and arms still shifted to sharp bone, eyes glittering.
"Ken!" Maggie shouted. "Ken, are you all right?"
He looked at her. Hesitant – the thing within fighting the man he had been – and finally nodded.
"Come on over here," said Aaron. "Help us figure out a way to get out."
Ken shook his head. He pointed at Lizzy and Hope. "I can't get closer. Too much. Too hard."
Maggie looked crestfallen. Covered burgeoning tears by looking around. "How do we get out?"
"I can climb out," said Christopher. One thing he'd always been good at: climbing. Escaping places where he was supposed to stay.
Aaron shook his head. "No." He shined the light straight up. "It's collapsed straight across. We're sealed in tight."
Christopher looked up. Squinted. Saw that Aaron was right: the collapse had allowed the truck to fall, then sealed behind it. The area above was a solid plane of darkness. "How is that even possible?"
Aaron shrugged. "How is any of this possible?" He looked at Ken. "Can you get us out?"
Ken exploded upward. Flitting so fast that Aaron couldn't even follow him with the light, the world's biggest dragonfly in the world's darkest night.
In no time at all he landed in the exact spot he had left, dust puffing up at his feet as his wings folded into the back that had turned broad and angular. "It's solid," he said. "Too thick for me to move."
"We have to get out," said Maggie. She looked at Liz. "We have to get them to Micron."
"Let's focus on getting out first," said Theresa. She looked at Christopher. "Your dad should do something about street repair."
"I'll let him know when I see him again. If he doesn't eat me first."
"Very funny," said Aaron. "But it don't exactly get us out of here." He turned the light downward, so that it pointed at the truck bed and illuminated them all equally. "Any bright ideas?"
No one said anything. Amulek pointed, and Christopher didn't look. Not because he didn't want to see what the teen was gesturing at, but because he already knew what was there. And didn't want to admit what it meant.
Aaron turned the light in that direction. "Yeah," he said. He sounded resigned. "I think that's it, too."
Christopher finally looked. Saw the darkness in the darkness.
A tunnel.
They would have to follow it.
Hope it led out.
And pray it didn't lead to its makers.
112
Ken took the lead. Amulek followed, holding his knife and walking in a low stance that made him seem like a huge cat.
Christopher wondered where Sally was. The leopard had freed itself from the bonds that had tied it to the children. But where was he now?
He hoped the cat was all right. A ridiculous thought at the moment, but he kept circling back to it. To the hope that a wild creature was surviving in a wilder world.
Aaron followed Amulek, a few steps behind. Moving in a similar crouch but seeming less cat, more machine. Something crafted to attack, to kill.
Behind Aaron: Maggie. Holding Hope now. Christopher had taken Lizzy, and walked as close to her as he could – he didn't know for sure if the signal jammer he had made would work down here, or even if it had survived the crash. But better not to take chances.
Theresa walked behind Christopher. Taking the rear and looking behind, staring into the darkness that closed in as they proceeded.
The darkness was a living thing. It stretched and shrank, waxed and waned as the flashlight Aaron held danced with his stride.
Dirt crunched below their feet, and from time to time silt would rain down on them. Christopher wondered how the tunnels could hold their shapes. He looked up, and something glimmered in the light. Not quite a shine, but well brighter than the light-dampening dirt.
He touched it. Fingers came away sticky. It was the mucus, that yellow ooze. The zombies used it to build walls, and they had used it here to strengthen the tunnels they dug.
The mucus was a reminder of how the tunnels had come to be. Of what the survivors had to find eventually.
The only question was when.
113
They came to a tunnel that crossed through the one they were traveling, making a four-way intersection. Aaron halted.
"Ken!" he called.
Christopher sensed a shift in motion above as Ken – always traveling at the periphery of the light – stopped walking. Christopher wondered if his friend could see in the dark. If he would do just as well without the flashlight.
He thought it probable.
Aaron flashed the light into both sides of the new tunnel. The side on Christopher's right looked like it went straight about thirty feet, then turned left and continued in roughly the same direction they'd been walking.
The side on the left went on and on until the light drifted to nothing and all was dark again.
"Which way we go?" asked Aaron. "Keep on keepin' on, or take one of these?"
"I vote straight," said Maggie. Amulek nodded.
"Straight's good for me," said Christopher. "At least we're still walking in the right direction that way."
"Do any of them lead up?" asked Theresa.
Aaron shined his light down each side tunnel. "No. Looks like they're level."
"What if they never do go up?" Maggie whispered the words, and held tighter to Hope. Almost clinging to the silent girl.
Christopher felt the despair in the words. Felt it, and didn't want it to spread. "There's a way out," he said.
"How do you know? Maybe these things sealed it behind them."
Christopher shook his head. "No," he said. "The air's too fresh. If we were sealed in completely, it would be stale, like the inside of a box. There's some current coming from somewhere."
He caught sight of Aaron's face and could tell the cowboy wasn't sure about any of that. And truth to tell, neither was Christopher. But Maggie was suffering enough, and he wanted her to have faith they would get out of here.
Theresa seemed to notice the other woman's burgeoning fear as well. She touched Maggie's upper arm and said to Aaron, "If they don't go up, we might as well stick to this tunnel. It's got to lead us out eventually."
Aaron nodded. "Ken?" he asked.
Ken was a dark shadow ahead. But the glint of his eyes could be seen as bright stars in the night. They moved slightly as he tilted his head to one side: a shrug.
"Okay, so pretty much everyone thinks straight." Aaron pursed his lips. "It seems like this is probably the best way forward."
"Then what's the problem?" asked Theresa. "Why do you look nervous?"
Maggie knew. She was fighting fear, and fear always provides the worst case scenarios. "This tunnel has gone straight for a long time. That one curves."
"So?" said Theresa.
"So if this is the straightest one, it seems probable that anything down here would be more likely to use it. Like a highway with backroad offshoots." Maggie looked around. "This is the fastest way forward, maybe even the best way out. But it's also the likeliest one to run us straight into the tunnelers."
They stood silently. Then Aaron turned without a word. Began walking.
They went forward.
There was little else to do.
114
Christopher didn't know how long they had been walking. It felt like forever. Theresa finally stepped forward and took Hope from his arms.
"I've got her."
He nodded his thanks. Licked his lips with a tongue that felt like sandpaper in a mouth packed with dirt. "You wouldn't happen to have anything tasty packed in there," he said, gesturing at Theresa's body armor. Her face darkened for a moment. He raised his hands and said, "I was thinking about water. Or maybe a six-pack of beer." He shook his head sadly. "Where is your mind, Theresa? I'm more than just a beautiful hunk of meat, you know. I have needs. For cuddling and flowers and
a large bottles of ice-cold beer."
Theresa shifted Lizzy to a more comfortable position. Then punched Christopher in the shoulder.
"Dead arm," he said, grinning as he rotated his shoulder in a large circle. "Nice. Very third grade of you. Very mature."
"You should talk," said Theresa.
"Kids," said Maggie. "Stop acting your age."
"Christopher," said Aaron from ahead. "You really want to be acting like a five-year-old and talking loud enough to call down whatever's in here?"
That sobered Christopher. Still, before falling back to take a position behind Theresa, he whispered to Maggie, "I have to go to the bathroom. Can we stop the car so I can make pee-pee?"
Maggie kept walking. But he thought he heard her chuckle.
He winked at Theresa. She didn't wink back, but traces of a smile pushed at the corners of her lips. She had a dimple, he realized.
He liked it.
The rear was an uncomfortable place to be. He was acutely aware of the darkness that bit at his heels, that threatened to swallow him if he fell behind.
He started closing in a bit on the group. Then stopped himself.
This is my job now. This is what the person in the rear does. Stays back to protect the ones in the middle, to warn them if something comes from behind.
He fell back a bit more. Forced himself to the knife edge that separated the light from the dark.
He listened as he walked. The scrape of the survivors' footsteps rasped like boulders shifting in the dark. He felt like calling forward to tell them to walk quieter, but didn't want to break the rest of the silence that held sway in the tunnels.
Can't believe I joked about anything down here.
Humor fell away. Emotion fell away. He focused everything on the sounds, the sights, the smells. Dust swirled in the backsplash of Aaron's light, filling his mouth and making him ever more aware of his thirst. But it was a welcome taste. It was natural and, in a strange way, clean. There was none of the fetid smell of the zombies' breath, their unwashed and in some case rotten bodies.
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