"Then stop jawing and start moving."
Christopher fell into step behind them.
"What about Ken?" Maggie. Still moving along, he guessed – Aaron hadn't lurched to a halt or anything. But he could hear the concern in her voice.
He saw Ken, his body being slashed by the things below, the things in front of him.
"I think he's fine," he said. "I think he's just waiting for us to get far enough ahead that he won't freak out around the queens." A lie, but he didn't think twice about it. Maggie could find out the truth, but not now. Not here.
She sighed, an audible noise that sounded through even the natural muffling of the dirt and stone all around them. He felt a twinge of guilt at that moment.
What will she do when she finds out?
She'll survive. The way we all will.
He pressed forward. Upward.
Hoping. And trying to ignore the sounds he heard all around. Trying to convince himself they were just imagination, and the monsters weren't still trying to find them.
123
THE SCRATCHING SOUNDS grew as they continued forward, continued up. Sometimes they sounded so close that Christopher was sure they were about to push through, to collapse one wall of the tunnel or another and shove themselves back into the space the survivors had found. Other times the noises were distant – barely more than slight vibrations in the tunnel walls he reached out to touch every so often. He tried to convince himself they were just the natural shifting of a part of the world that probably resembled Swiss cheese more than anything.
He failed.
He could tell the others heard the sounds as well. The proof was in the silence as they picked their way forward. Oddly, Amulek was the loudest of them – he snapped his fingers periodically if he came up against any outcroppings that might gash or concuss those who followed him.
The silent walk continued for so long Christopher felt certain that when – if – they finally emerged, they would find that all had changed. That evolution would have shifted the world above to something new and alien.
Didn't that already happen?
He slammed into Theresa.
"Whoa, what –"
She gestured with her free hand. Amulek was ahead, absolutely motionless.
"What is it?" Christopher asked, trying to make his voice loud enough to be heard but quiet enough that no one outside the survivors would hear it.
Amulek pointed. Aaron moved forward to join him. The tunnel had widened out slightly, though the ceiling was still claustrophobically low. Still, it was barely enough for the cowboy to nudge his way in and look at the spot in the ceiling Amulek was pointing at. "I don't see anything," said the Aaron.
Amulek kept pointing. Christopher squeezed past Theresa and Maggie. Looked where Amulek was pointing. "What is it?" he said.
Amulek looked at him. Made a gesture he didn't understand. Christopher looked up again. Saw nothing but dirt and the waxy ooze.
"I don't –" He stopped. Craned his neck for a better look.
"What am I missin' here?" asked Aaron.
Christopher didn't answer. Not with words.
He reached out and turned off Aaron's flashlight.
124
"WHAT IS THAT?" ASKED Maggie.
"It's the outside," said Aaron. "But how far away?"
Christopher didn't know. He didn't know how Amulek had seen it, either.
Must've been far enough ahead he was in the dark. Far enough to see the light.
The tunnel was still mostly dark. The flashlight was off, and the black pressed in on all sides. But there was a thin shaft of light coming down on the clustered heads of Christopher, Amulek, and Aaron.
Sunlight.
There was a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel, and it was through that hole that the light was streaming. Christopher looked at the hole directly, and his eyes watered. Bright. A direct line to the sky outside, maybe even pointed directly at the sun.
Aaron's question hung in the air. They could see the sun or the sky above, but how far away was it? Six inches? Twenty feet?
And how did they get from the tunnel to that place aboveground, that place that was dangerous and cruel but still less terrifying than this underground passage?
Aaron looked at Amulek. "Can you tell how deep we are?" Amulek shook his head. Aaron turned to Christopher. "You?"
Christopher shook his head as well. Aaron switched on his flashlight and looked down the tunnel in the direction they had been heading. The light illuminated the sides, ceiling, and roof of the tunnel for a while, then tapered off to a dim fog and then to nothing.
"I say we keep going," said Aaron. "We dig our way out and the whole tunnel could collapse."
Maggie's lip trembled. "And we have to wait for Ken."
Christopher looked sharply at Aaron. He couldn't help it. It was an automatic reaction. And though Aaron stared ahead and didn't acknowledge the glance, Christopher knew the cowboy had seen it.
And so did Maggie. She looked back and forth from one of them to the other. "We're waiting for Ken, right? We should go on and let him catch up to us."
Christopher tried to meet her gaze – scared, but even and firm. He couldn't; his eyes dropped.
"What happened?" said Maggie. Her voice shivered. She knew – not the details, but Christopher could tell she understood.
"He –" he hesitated. Took in a deep breath. "He helped us escape. Again."
She peered at him. He was still looking down, but he could feel her gaze on him, burning him more painfully than any flame. "You saw him?" He nodded. "Did he... is he...?"
Christopher nodded again. Felt/heard Maggie shift. "You lied," she said.
"He had to, Maggie," said Aaron. His voice was low, comforting. Christopher wondered if that was some part of whatever specops training the man had received: Lesson 502 – Comforting Members of the Team Who Are About to Freak Out. "We all had to."
Maggie shifted again. Christopher heard the sharp smack of flesh on flesh, wondered what he had heard, and raised his head in time to get Maggie's second slap across the face. Aaron was standing there, silent and motionless, the first one Maggie had hit. And when it was Christopher's turn the pain went through his cheek, his jaw, and of course his mangled nose.
He groaned. Shook his head. Maggie raised her hand again, rage and grief twisting her features into something terrifying and altogether apart from the way she usually looked.
For a moment, just an instant, he saw something hard and horrifying in her visage. The image of something alien that had been put inside her.
Maybe the queens aren't there. But something else is. Something that didn't take. But it's not her in there. Not completely.
Maggie's hand slammed toward him again. Christopher flinched away, not wanting a repeat of the slap –
(so hard how did she hit me so hard?)
– that had sent white spikes of pain through him.
Aaron caught Maggie's hand. Held her back. "We did what we did because it was what had to be done. And it was what Ken wanted us to do." Rage flared even brighter in Maggie's face and she tried to pull out of his grasp. Aaron held her tighter, so tight that his knuckles whitened and the skin of her wrist turned the shade of parchment. "You hear me, Maggie? It was what he wanted." He leaned in close. "He was only worried about you and the girls. Nothing else." He held her another moment, then whispered, "Just like Christopher and me."
He let go of her.
Maggie stood motionless, hand still upraised. Christopher had to consciously will himself not to shrink away from her.
How would that look to Theresa?
The thought was ridiculous. What did it matter if he impressed her with his oh-so-manly courage in the face of getting slapped to death? Even so, it was all that kept repeating in his mind: Don't flinch. She'll think you're a chicken. She's just barely starting to think you're cool, don't flinch.
Dammit, I'm back in high school.
Maggie's hand fell to her side. He
r face was still red with wrath, but she didn't hit him again.
"Sorry," he said.
She turned away from him. He was surprised how much that bothered him. For most of his life he spent every effort to prove he didn't belong, he didn't need anyone.
Now he only wanted Maggie to look at him. To smile and say she forgave him, maybe give him a hug.
I've turned into a momma's boy – and it's not even my momma.
"Sorry," he repeated.
"I know," she said. Her voice was muffled, and he couldn't see her face so he couldn't tell if her voice grated out of her throat the way it did because of tears or simple rage. "I know."
She turned back to him. It was tears.
"We have to get the girls out of here," she said. "Now."
And as though in answer to her statement, the noises that had dogged them every step of the way grew louder. Christopher heard the hint of a growl. Then another.
One from ahead.
One from behind.
"Up we go," he whispered.
125
AMULEK PULLED OUT HIS knife. Aaron produced a knife, which shouldn't have surprised Christopher given that had shown himself to be a cross between the ultimate Boy Scout and the Terminator, but he still managed a small whistle. Given all they'd been through, holding onto anything more than their skin seemed a small miracle.
Aaron stabbed upward with his knife. Amulek mirrored him, angling his own blade so that it punctured the wax overhead nearby to Aaron's knife. Nothing happened. Nothing happened when they stabbed a second time. On the third, there was a brittle crack and a sheet of yellow about a foot across fell away from the ceiling. It hit Amulek on the head and bounced to the floor. Dirt rolled in after it. Not a stream, but definitely more than a trickle.
Christopher looked at Theresa. She was still holding Lizzy, still bent over, but even with the odd combination of postures he could tell that she was holding her breath.
So was he, for that matter. Tales of miners being trapped underground for days and slowly going insane before dying of malnutrition flooded his mind.
Don't be stupid. We'll either be crushed outright or murdered by tunneling zombies.
The thought didn't comfort.
Aaron and Amulek kept grunting as they stabbed at the ceiling, widening the original hole then beginning to work on the earth above the wax. Dirt and rock fell on their heads, coated their sweat-slicked skin. In only a few moments the two of them looked like monsters themselves.
At least they're on our side.
The scraping rasp of the diggers was louder now. They were close, though Christopher couldn't tell if the things were going to explode in on them from the sides, from above, or pulverize them from below the way they had done with Ken.
He wondered if they would lose coherence the closer they got to the jammer.
He wondered if the jammer still worked at all.
So many questions, no answers.
The growl came louder. The call to surrender sounding in his mind, crashing in waves against the inside of his skull.
Theresa moaned suddenly. There was a wet spatter, and Christopher turned to see blood pouring over her upper lip, down her chin.
A moment later he felt wetness on his own upper lip. He thought it was his nose bleeding again because of his injuries – heaven knew his nose had been through more than the rest of him lately – but then the growl came again.
Give UP. Give IN.
The thoughts hammered at his brain, perfectly in sync with the pulse of blood from his nose. He realized this wasn't an injury – at least, not an external one. This was the effect of his mind being attacked.
The zombies' brains had been jellified, turned into a liquid receptor that could be controlled and changed by –
(the king)
– a common impulse. So far that hadn't happened to the survivors, but how long could they withstand repeated intrusions into their minds? What would the effects of such psychic invasions be?
Theresa looked at him with glassy eyes.
Give UP.
Her nose jetted again. Christopher remembered reading somewhere that nosebleeds were a sign of brain trauma.
Maybe it's not that. Maybe –
The growl came again. The psychic pulse. Christopher felt more wetness, this time at the corners of his eyes. He wiped away the tears...
... and his hands came away bloody. He was crying blood.
"We gotta get out of here," he rasped.
"Tryin'," was all Aaron said. Christopher looked at the cowboy and saw the other man's chin and cheeks were bloody as well. He wasn't crying blood, though – it looked like the capillaries under the skin had burst, like he was bleeding out of the pores themselves.
Christopher remembered Derek. The bite, followed by howls of pain and blood springing from the boy's unblemished skin as the Change took him.
Is that going to happen to us?
He didn't think so. He thought that anyone who had survived the initial Change – that first pulse that had transformed fifty percent of the world in an instant – would need to be bitten to turn into zombies themselves.
But it can kill us. If it doesn't Change us, it can just beat our brains to pieces.
He realized that the jammers probably weren't working anymore. The sounds in his mind were clear, unhindered by any outside force.
That meant the zombies that were coming for them would either be fighting between themselves – the queens' servants trying to murder each other – or would be under the king's thrall. Trying to kill the survivors and take the little girls for a prize.
Not a good outcome, either way.
Aaron and Amulek were standing upright now, the hole in the ceiling reaching a full foot above their heads. They were going quickly.
But would it be enough?
And what happened if the tunnel caved in?
"Hurry," whispered Christopher. The word was for no one but him. Or perhaps it was a prayer.
"Hurry."
126
AARON AND AMULEK KEPT digging. Not just up but around as the hole widened each time they stabbed upward with their knives. They were standing upright, then reaching above their heads. Then Aaron was on Amulek's shoulders, digging above them both.
What if they can't reach any higher?
(You give up. You give in.)
Christopher tried to purge the despair from his thoughts. Failed. Tried again.
The growl grew louder. He felt a darkness thicker than the black of the tunnel gathering in his mind. Pulling at him, sucking him into a hole of loss, despair, madness.
He felt blood pouring from his nose, but it was a distant feeling. A sensation out of a half-remembered dream, a thing from beyond conscious thought.
He heard the growl. Knew they had seconds.
Looked at Amulek. Aaron.
Aaron shoved up with his knife. Dirt falling in a constant storm around him and Amulek.
Aaron punched through.
The light that had been laser-thin widened to a full-bodied beam. A shaft bright enough to blind Christopher for a moment. Then it grew brighter, and brighter still until he had to put a hand in front of his eyes. When everything finally dimmed as his eyes re-acclimated to sunlight, he pulled his hands away.
Aaron was already scrambling upward, grabbing handfuls of loose dirt that pulled down in his hands. No purchase, no upward movement.
Christopher joined hands with Amulek. He felt as though something were pushing him, moving him, helping him to know what to do. He looked into Amulek's eyes and saw a similar light there, a knowledge of what had to be done because it was all that remained to be done.
He and Amulek made a four-handed stirrup. Aaron stepped into it with his right foot, moving so quickly and surely that Christopher knew the cowboy was feeling the same thing he and Amulek felt: this was the way. This was the only way.
What's happening to me? What's happening to us?
The instant Aaron's heel was firm
ly atop their clasped hands, Christopher and Amulek heaved upward. Aaron shot into the light. He went up so hard and fast that his boot actually flew off their hands... and never came down again. Christopher looked up. Saw his friend's lower half. The upper half was bent over the lip of the ground above. Aaron's cowboy boots pedaled up and down against the wall of their makeshift shaft. Finally dug in. Found purchase. Pushed.
Aaron disappeared from the shaft.
GIVE UP GIVE IN –
– GIVE UP GIVE IN
The sound/sensation bludgeoned Christopher from two directions. Pounded at him from one end of the tunnel, then from the other.
GIVE UP GIVE IN –
– GIVE UP GIVE IN
He looked at Maggie. At Theresa. Gestured them forward.
Maggie came first. Holding Hope with one hand. Looking back and forth, up the tunnel then into the darkness behind.
GIVE UP GIVE IN –
– GIVE UP GIVE IN
She bled freely from her nose, her eyes watered crimson. She was sobbing, nearly bent double.
Christopher wanted to hold her, if only for a moment. To give her strength and take strength for himself in turn. He ignored the desire. Just shook his hands – still clasped in Amulek's – in a movement meant to catch her eye, to hurry her forward and upward with Hope.
Maggie raised her foot. Put it in the stirrup. It was awkward and ungainly, her center of gravity shifted to an artificial location by the child she held to her chest. But the second Christopher and Amulek felt her body weight against their hands and wrists, they launched her.
She didn't go up as smoothly or as quickly as Aaron had. She came crashing down again, dirt flinging itself downward with a sound –
(GIVE UP GIVE IN –
– GIVE UP GIVE IN)
– that reminded Christopher of the gravel pit. Of Buck.
The thought didn't sadden him. It made him mad.
The Complete Colony Saga [Books 1-7] Page 95