“Are there more?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. Not here, anyway.”
Just ahead of them, Jack spotted that familiar round hole blocked by iron bars. They had made it to the nexus point. The vault was only a few chambers away now. He readied himself. If they’d had that much trouble with only two of the creatures, what would happen when they went up against hundreds? In a sense they were already dead. He knew that as surely as he knew the name stitched to his uniform. They would need to earn their lives back now. And although knowing that wouldn’t make what they were about to do any easier, it did afford him some strange solace.
“We’re almost there.” He pointed to the hole. “I’ll go in first this time. Make sure the area is clear. You hand me the bag after. It’s a tight fit.”
“Looks it.”
“And be very careful going through too. The supports are all but rotted away.” He gripped her by both shoulders and drew her close. “We can do this,” he said, his eyes holding hers. “We go in. We plant the bombs. We get out. Okay? We get out in one piece.”
“Maybe even stop at the bar for a couple of beers on the way back? If we have time.”
For once, her gallows humor was welcome. He might have even laughed, if only he could remember how. Instead, he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, a soft light peck like the one she had once given him. “For luck.”
Then he turned and climbed into the hole. He wormed his way through on his back, eyes on the delicate posts keeping the ceiling above them instead of on them. He tried not to think about what would happen if it collapsed now as he shimmied in farther. Dust and chips flittered down as he scraped against the sides of the opening.
Then a loud crack shattered the silence. It was the unmistakable sound of timber splitting. Jack looked up just in time to spot a chunk of masonry sliding from the sagging beam. He threw himself back. The stone landed with a bone-rattling thud just inches from him as he scrambled to his feet. “In here, now!”
He watched Beth struggling to get the bag through the hole as debris rained down, battering his shoulders and back. Through the narrow aperture, Jack saw that the chamber Beth stood in was collapsing too. Square stones and hunks of mortared bricks fell all around her. She heaved the bag forward. “Beth! Wait!”
But it was too late. The bag hit one of the rotting support columns and it began to tilt. A stone slab the size of a picnic table landed behind Beth with a deafening boom. Water splashed around her. She grabbed for Jack’s hand desperately. He had to get her inside now.
He wrenched up hard, but a length of timber caught his forearm. Agony sang electrically through every nerve. Beth’s hand slipped from his grasp finger by finger, and she fell back into the other chamber. Jack thrust his wounded arm through the hole, through the rain of wreckage crashing on him, on them both. “Beth! Now!”
She reached. Then she stopped and pulled her hand back. A curious gleam in her eye seemed to say, This would be suicide for both of us. Better if it’s just me. Then she took another step back, sinking into the gloom. She stood silent, a thin smile spread across her face as the air filled with the roar of stones grinding, the crack of timbers breaking. She looked at him and said, “Finish the mission, Jack.”
Then it all came crashing down.
Masonry dust choked Jack’s lungs, and shame choked his heart. He felt a tear edge its way into the corner of his eye. He wiped it away with his wounded hand, leaving a streak of blood in its place. There was no time to mourn. Finish the mission, she’d said. It was his only option, the only way to make this right. Beth had died a hero; the best he could hope for himself was to do the same. He reached for his belt, pulled out a flare, and struck it against the wall.
The red-orange glow lit up everything. Woman-creatures were everywhere, on the ground, in the corners, hanging from the ceiling, lurking in every place the flare’s fizzling rays could reach, and those it couldn’t. And this time, they were awake.
Sixty-three
Hank looked down at his desk. It was cluttered and clogged with indifferent heaps of paper, Styrofoam coffee cups, fast-food wrappers, and assorted crap. But Hank had never been one for keeping up appearances, least of all here in Axis’s heart, far from any judging eyes. He sighed. What did it matter? In two days, he’d be on his way to a well-earned vacation in Belize.
He kicked back in his creaking desk chair and popped the tab on another can of Miller Lite. He gazed at the banded stacks of money. Three-quarters of it was destined for the safe, the rest for his own pocket. Axis’s owner was an oblivious trust-fund tool who spent more time carving powder on the slopes of St. Moritz than he ever did worrying about the private clubhouse his daddy had bought him for a thirtieth birthday present. These days, the guy was around so infrequently that everyone assumed Hank was the owner rather than just the general manager.
Hank would have loved for that to be true, and maybe someday it would be. Maybe someday he’d own his own place. Over the years, he’d siphoned enough from the club coffers to make a real go of it, once his book-cooking finally ran this place into the ground, that is. And at the rate Hank was yanking from the till, he’d have figured that would have happened by now, but as it turned out, Daddy just kept throwing money at his precious son’s little hobby. Hank knew one thing for sure, though: when he did open his own club, the last thing he’d ever do was hire a guy like himself to run it.
He shook his head. The Becker girl had almost caught him red-handed. If she’d only paid a little closer attention to what he’d been up to, instead of hitting him with that pathetic bomb-scare attempt, she might have had something on him. The owner and his daddy might have been too rich to notice that the club was leaking money like a spaghetti colander, but they wouldn’t have cottoned terribly well to finding out they were getting ripped off. Ripping off people was their job. It was the job of the wealthy, damnit. That’s what investment bankers did. That’s what hedge-fund managers did. They were the ones who got to rip people off. How dare a lowly service worker like Hank Fitzpatrick even dream of trying it. Again he shook his head. He’d have to be more careful locking that door from now on.
A steady boom-thwap-boom . . . wuub wuub wuub percolated up through the floorboards. God, how he hated that music. Hated the DJs, hated the dancers, the dope peddlers, the cops, the lushes, the staff, the coke heads. Hated everyone who came through Axis’s big old doors, really. But he was good at what he did, and how many people out there actually liked their jobs? Liked their lives, even? He dropped another stack of bills into the counter, breathing in the scent of sweaty ink and paper as it ticked away.
He realized that he’d be crossing the forty-year line while he was in Belize. Forty. He kept saying the word over and over in his head. Forty. Where had it all gone? All the time? All the promise? He might have made it out of New Harbor if his ex, Courtney, had just had that fucking abortion. But no, she wouldn’t. And she wouldn’t agree to move to New York or Boston or anywhere else. She just couldn’t stand the thought of being more than a ten-minute drive from her needling, always-judging, impossible-to-please family. It wasn’t long before they were through, and Hank spent the next decade scrambling to make child support. He’d worked his way from busboy, to barback, to bouncer, to bartender, and now general manager. And this was where he was likely to stay until his story reached its last chapter.
Fucking Courtney. Sure, he’d gotten a beautiful daughter out of the deal. One who hated his guts, who never wanted to see his “stupid face.” Courtney, last he’d heard, was still shacked up with that clown, the one with the landscaping business and that idiotic beard. Fucking Courtney.
What if he had married her? What would life have looked like then? He slipped a worn snapshot from his wallet. In it, a younger, less paunchy Hank held a five-year-old girl in his arms. Courtney leaned against him, and all were beaming out wide smiles. He could almost hear the laughter, tast
e the crisp salt air. Hank tapped the tattered edges of the photo. Almost a decade ago now, right before he’d been promoted to general manager. They’d driven out to Ye Olde Seaport. It was the closest thing they’d ever had to a family vacation. To being a family, for that matter. He remembered buying his daughter a plush pirate that day, and so much taffy she’d been sick the whole ride home. He wondered whatever happened to that pirate. To the man in the photo, for that matter. He wondered what had happened to it all.
He looked at the stacks of money sitting in plain view on his cluttered desk, right next to his open satchel bag. Looked at the open and empty cans of beer. That’s what happened to it, he thought. This place happened to it. He spied his cell phone there next to the cash. Maybe he should give Courtney a call. Screw the trip. They could go someplace together, if she wanted. Not as if Hank was paying for it, anyway, for any of it. And if she said no . . . well, fuck her, then, plenty of pussy in Belize. He snatched the phone off the desk and pulled up her number.
Suddenly, the music stopped. It was replaced by the klaxon of the fire alarm, and the office was bathed in a flashing red light. “Fuck!” Hank ran to the window. Outside, he could see that people were already streaming out into the night. At this late hour, less than half of them would come back into the club after the fire department deigned to make an appearance. And that would mean the register rings would be down—which was going to make it a lot harder to hide his cut. He slammed his fist on the desk. This was the Becker girl’s doing; it had to be. She must have tripped the alarm. He should have called in the cops. And the next time she showed her face, he would.
The alarm rang in his ears, mocking him. He’d have to deal with it all later. He shoved the rest of the money, along with the cooked ledger, into his satchel just to make sure no prying eyes saw it and turned for the door.
Someone was already standing there.
He couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible. But no, there she was. “Courtney?” She stood not one pace from him. Perhaps it was a good thing that he hadn’t locked that door after all. She looked years younger, just like she did the night they’d met. Her hair was in the same raven-black swept-back bob, not a touch of the gray he knew she was too proud to color.
“Courtney, I was just about to—”
Before he could finish his sentence, she’d crossed the distance between them. He felt her breasts press against him through the thin fabric of her dress, felt a part of him rising to meet her—firmer, harder than it had been in years. He wanted her. Wanted her now, there on the filthy office floor. As her lips touched his neck, he felt a short, sharp pinch . . . and he was flying.
Flying off to a place no sandy beach resort could ever compare to. To a place where the past fourteen years no longer mattered, where his daughter still loved him, where he’d married Courtney that day. To a place where he wasn’t a thief, wasn’t a loser. Soaring high, to where it didn’t matter that the red fire-alarm lights were flashing. Where it didn’t matter that the owner would catch him with both hands elbow-deep in the till. Or that his blood was flowing in a thick stream down the side of his neck, drenching his shirt. Where it didn’t matter that he couldn’t move his arms, his legs, a single muscle of his body. Where it didn’t matter that a heavy darkness was wrapping him like ropes of spider silk. Where it didn’t matter that the light was slipping from his eyes forever.
Sixty-four
Pitch.
Black.
Jet.
Ink.
No words came close to describing the darkness that enveloped her. Beth found herself wondering if this was what hell might look like. She touched her own eyes to make sure they were even open, recoiling as the pad of one finger hit her cornea. It was unreal. The dark seemed to be defined by absence. As if without the light all that was held by the dark simply did not exist. The absolute blackness felt like a force, almost gravitational in its unwavering mindlessness. Beth knew then that until this moment, she had never really faced the darkness, never really faced the night. Not like this. Not in her world of neon and club lights, of street lamps and twenty-four-hour everything. In the world she had known, it had never been night, not really, but forever a safe and comforting twilight.
She planted her palms against the wall’s gritty, slime-coated surface and pushed herself up. She tested her legs, shifting her weight from one to the other. The water bit cold, lapping against her shins. Her soaking-wet jumpsuit was plastered to her skin, weighing on her like a coat of lead. She stretched out her arms, flexed her hands. Everything seemed to be working. Battered and sore but working.
Beth reached up for her headlamp and clicked it on. Nothing. She clicked again. Still nothing. She reached for the plastic lens and felt its cracked edge. She tugged the neoprene band from her head and shook the lamp. She could hear the busted bulb rattling around inside its housing. “Great.”
She fumbled for her belt and found a flare. She tugged it out and clicked it to life against the wall. A harsh red glare flooded the chamber, searing her eyes into a blindness as complete as the darkness had been just an instant before. But it filled the air with a welcome warmth along with the light.
As her vision adjusted, Beth saw that the hole Jack had vanished through was gone, buried under a mountain of masonry and rubble. Same, too, the path they’d come through. Ahead of her was the only possible exit. And it was blocked by a portcullis of iron. She wrapped one arm around herself, trying to rub away some of the numbing chill. “Out of the frying pan and into the refrigerator,” she said to her new tomb.
Beth jammed her flare into a fissure in the rock, freeing her hands. Sparks spit from the flame jet, sizzling as they fell to the water that pooled around her ankles. She fished in her tactical belt’s pouch for a spare bulb and fitted it into the lamp. It clicked on, adding a small measure of light that was all but swallowed by the burning flare. That was good. The flare wouldn’t last forever, and it was nice to know she wouldn’t have to breathe her last in that endless dark.
She looked back at the pile of rocks. Somewhere behind the mound of rough-hewn granite was Jack. There had to be a way through. She pushed against a three-foot hunk of stone. It didn’t shift a single inch. She tried a different angle. Then another. And another. All useless. She might as well have been trying to shove away a building. Not good. It would have to be the barred passage or nothing.
She went over to it and peeked inside. It sloped upward. No telling where it might lead. She tested the bars. The one in the center shifted the barest fraction of an inch in its masonry socket, but that was all. “Could be worse,” she said to the empty chamber, not sure how that could possibly be true. Up to her ankles in frigid, brackish water, buried alive with no hope of escape, while those things slithered around somewhere in the dark. “At least it’s not raining.”
As Beth racked her brain for some way out of this, she began to notice a growing pressure in her ears. She heard something faint and far off but growing steadily. She knew that sound. It was a rushing stream.
And it was coming from just beyond those bars.
Before she could even process the thought, a three-foot jet of water punched her square in the chest, driving her farther into the sealed chamber. She gripped the bar tightly, first with one hand, then the other. She choked gelid water from her lungs as she struggled to hold fast to that bar. The press of gallon after gallon swept her feet out from under her. She twisted around until she could plant both boot soles against the bars flanking the one in the middle. All the while the jet gushed against her like an angry tsunami. She heaved at the loose bar with every ounce of strength she had left. Nothing moved.
The water rose to Beth’s chest at a rate that barely seemed possible. Almost the entire chamber was flooded now. The sole sensation in her deadened hands was the raw burning of her palms against the raspy iron bar as she wrenched at it again and again, but the only thing coming loose were her shoul
ders from their sockets. The water level hit her chin and crept higher, submerging her mouth. Her nose. It rose past her eyes.
Her lungs pleaded for oxygen. Beth had to get one more breath while she still could. She pushed upward, scraping her cheek against the roof of the chamber as she broke the surface, gasping. About six inches of clearance remained, and it was shortening by the second.
Sixty-five
Beth had always feared drowning. That is, until she knew what the meaning of fear really was. Until those things had taught her that lesson and driven it home. Drowning might actually be a blessing, she thought. And with that in mind, she drew a deep breath and dived back down, kicking against the current for one last shot at the bars before this chamber became her grave.
She reached the base of the portcullis, digging at the join with her fingers. She felt some of the mortar begin to give and flake away—along with a couple of her fingernails, torn from the roots with a pain beyond description. Multicolored lights jostled their way into her peripheral vision, as Beth’s body burned through what oxygen was left in her bloodstream. She could feel herself slipping into a welcoming and warm oblivion. Any moment now, her reflexes would kick in, making her suck in what would be her final breath, nothing but foul water. Her chest thumped like a blown tire. She gave the bar one last pull.
And it came loose.
She could have kissed it. She wriggled in through the other bars. The gap was narrow, barely big enough for even her slender frame. The rusty iron scraped her ribs and chest as she surged upward.
The beam from her headlamp bounced back at her, reflected by the wavy underside of the water’s surface. It was only a few feet away. She could almost taste the air. She was going to make it. She was going to make it out of this and she was going to find Jack and they were going finish the fucking mission. They were going to blow those horrors back to hell, and they were going to get another pizza. They were going walk in the sunlight, and take Blood with them, goddamnit! Someday Beth Becker was going to breath her last, but not here and not now.
As the Worm Turns Page 25