“Help me!” All his grief and rage burst from his chest in a loud, long, anguished wail: “God, please, help me! Not again, don’t ask me to do this again!”

His answer came. In the next moment, the air shattered with cracks and the snaky hiss and suck of bullets. Cursing, Weller wrestled him to his feet, and then he was stumbling through snow and away from her, and Luke was still shrieking, and he was screaming her name over the hollow, stuttering tatatatatatatats of the Uzis as the distance between them spun out.

It was happening again. His choice was made. The wire was cut, and he was as damned and lost now as he had been on that day, when one child would die because he could not save them both.

Then, somehow, over and above all that, he thought he heard the high pipe of the whistle again. It couldn’t be, of course. It must be the sound of his mind going, a shriek that grew fainter and fainter until that one note disintegrated under an insane moon— and so, finally, did his heart.

But the ground kept on, heaving and shuddering, the snow shifting and cracking beneath their skis as they fled. Eventually, he knew even that would end: when the tired earth, like him, gave up.

He just did it sooner.

88

God, she hoped he listened. She thought he must have. She couldn’t hear him anymore, not over the clatter of rocks, the jackhammer rumble, and the suck and hiss of the black water fizzing below. There was that huge slam that had nearly knocked her right off the ladder, and then he’d stopped calling. His scent had torn apart and faded. So she thought he was gone. But there’d been gunfire, too. Had he been shot? Was he dead?

No, God, please, don’t let that happen. Keep him safe; make him go. She didn’t want him to go. It was the last thing on earth she wished, because now she was truly alone, with only the monster for company: lurking in her head, waiting for her to make a mistake.

Oh no you don’t. She willed herself on: one more step and then another and another. Not yet.

It was on her, again. Maybe living always had been. She wasn’t Daniel. Hell, she wasn’t sure she was Alex anymore. All that mattered was Tom was alive and up there, somewhere, and that was worth hanging on to. They couldn’t touch, but he had reached her, whether he knew it or not—because hope was enough. Hope was all she had.

She would run to him.

So, run, Tom, run, her mind chanted. Run, Tom, pull me up, pull me up, run, run, run. She kept the mantra up as she climbed the ladder that, somehow, hadn’t decided to die just yet either. She was going on a wing and a prayer, by feel and faith, that the next rung would be there and the one after that and on and on to a world she probably wouldn’t see again but would try for anyway because he was in it. Tom was alive and that was something to believe in that was as real in all this darkness as the wood under her hands and the stammer of the earth and the wild thrum of her heart.

She grabbed at the jumping, quivering ladder; felt the bite of wood in her flesh. Her hands were bloody; a rock, sharp as broken glass, had sliced her forehead on the way down, and now she was arming blood from her eyes every few seconds. Her left shoulder had gone from fire to a deadening cold numbness, and her clumsy fingers tingled with pins and needles. There was a weird hissing now that she knew was the sound of scree raining over the rocks. That sulfur smell was worse, too, and her head was beginning to go a little swimmy.

Don’t lose it, don’t give up. If her eyes closed, they would never open again. She willed her legs to keep moving. Keep going, go, go, run, Tom, run, ru—

Another slam, and she swayed. Her left boot slipped, and then she shrieked and threw herself forward, hooked on with both arms as the ladder lurched and bounced. From somewhere above, there was a sharp bang and then a crack. Something huge whirred past, and her mind just had time to squeak one word: Big.

There was an enormous ker-SPLASH. Water jumped, grabbed at her ankles, then slithered away with a hiss.

Felt that. Really close. Gonna get me. Well, what if the water did? Maybe she could float. If it kept rising, maybe it would push right to the surface—because she was tired. The burst of elation that had fueled her was ebbing. Her head was swirly, and her lips had no feeling. The gas? Could be. Maybe that was why the water fizzed. Was it methane? No, no, that was . . .

“Coal mines.” She said it just so she could hear herself and know her brain was still working. Her mouth mangled the words. “Coal mines have methane. Other mines have . . .” Hell, she didn’t know. Should’ve paid more attention in earth science. Weary to the bone, she hugged the ladder. A splinter of wood nipped her cheek, tore into her already bloodied forehead. “Come on, Alex,” she mumbled. “Stay awake. Don’t pass out.”

Run, Alex. Tom, in her mind. Not the monster, not her voice, but Tom. Maybe Chris, too. Run. Run to me. Run to us.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it,” she panted. Reaching for the next rung with her right, hanging on with her creaky left, she looked up. “I’m right—”

Stars.

For a brief moment, she was so stunned she could only gape. She blinked, but the view didn’t change.

There are stars. Oh my God. Got to be close, got to be. She surged up, stumbling as the earth bounced. Her head was hollow; her left arm was not at its best and even her right was clumsy. She put her back into it, heaving up in a roundhouse grab like a chimpanzee—

And missed.

Her right hand shot into absolutely nothing. Suddenly offbalance, her right boot slipped out from under, and then she was slamming into the right-hand rail. The blow caught her face. A bomb of pain detonated and her vision went white; her skin ripped, and she let out a gasping sob. Frantic, fighting to keep her balance, she tried pushing off from the rock, which she thought must be right in front of her—

But there was nothing. Just black, empty air. No rock and no wood either. Her whole body weight had shifted to a point beyond the ladder’s right rail, and she was twisting, her weaker left arm providing the fulcrum about which her body pivoted. The entire right half of her body was hanging over open air, and the wood was slippery and very old, and she was still turning, her body slotting in between the rock that reared away from her back and the ladder right in her face. She felt the overstressed wood buckle. There was another crack and then a long, high squeal she heard even over that ceaseless rumble and churn of water and stone.

Oh God, please, I’m so close, please, help.

She had less than a hundred feet to go, but they might as well have been miles. Above, the stars were dimming, winking out in a sudden swarm of cold shadows darker than night. The earth began to collapse and fold, the surface shearing; the rock was coming down, and then so were the shadows, and she felt the ladder shudder and begin to break apart; it was breaking, it was breaking, it was— The ladder disintegrated to splinters, and then there was suddenly nothing in her hands at all but air. Beneath her, the tunnel’s throat opened. The water was all sound; it was everything that was left. Her mouth was open, and she knew she was shrieking, but she couldn’t hear anything, and for a crazy second, it was as if the water’s roar had become her voice.

Screaming, Alex hurtled straight down, and her last thought, right before she hit, was: Feet first.

She smashed into the water.

Part 6 - The Devil's Door

89

Sometimes, he moaned. That was her only clue he was still alive.

She sat with him all that night. Maybe she should’ve gone for help, but she was too afraid to move. She called his name a few times. At least, she thought she did. For a few terrible seconds, she couldn’t remember his name—or hers—and that scared her more.

And then, much later, he stopped making any sound at all.

She waited. And waited. The darkness went grainy and gray as that gangrenous moon slid west and the night began to fade. In the spray of weird light, the wood shone a dullish white. She saw that it wasn’t part of a door because of that arch drawn in black paint and the half-symbol of three spiked points just above, like a setting sun cut by a distant horizon. There was a name for this, too. What was it? She couldn’t quite remember. But why not?

She waited, sleepless, raw-eyed. Cold. She hunched up her shoulders, hugging herself to stay warm. Her fear was salt and metal in her mouth. And she was hungry. The snake of her stomach twisted and writhed. So hungry. The need had been building for a while. She had decided not to think about it. Now, as dawn showed in a white streak, she couldn’t ignore it.

Morning soon. Full day. She couldn’t stay here.

But . . . he had a scent. He is—she drew him in and her mouth watered—food.

Don’t.

Yes.

Don’t.

Stop.

She crept, slowly, carefully, on all fours. The wind burned her cheeks. The air was suddenly choked with the smell of iron and meat. He was far down in the snow, and she used her hands to dig at the edges of the trench. The hollow was surprisingly warm, and his smell was so rich her stomach cramped.

Stop. You’re still you. Don’t.

His face was turned away, his watch cap rucked up a little cockeyed, like a makeshift shroud. That made it easier. At his waist, where the wood cut across, she made out an irregular, dark patch. She formed her hands into a scoop and lifted out a scarlet chunk of ice and sucked his blood, still warm, into her mouth.

Don’t.

Warm. Yes.

“Stop,” she said, and then she flung the gory handful away. Her gorge rushed up her throat, and she heaved and vomited, but she hadn’t eaten in two full days, and there was nothing left.

Almost nothing left of her either.

“N-no,” she said. She tottered to her feet and stumbled back, away from the blood and temptation, away from his meat, that scent, his smell. “No. Stop. Run. He said to ru—”

From somewhere down the trail, toward . . . toward . . . where had they been going? She didn’t know. But the sounds, she recognized.

Dogs. From the racket, more than one, and big. She heard the new note of excitement in their cries, too, as they scented her the way hounds chased down a whiff of good prey.

She had to get out of here. Where there were dogs, there might be people, and she couldn’t be caught; she couldn’t be seen, she had to—