Fear

When the machete struck something, she slowed down until she found an open way. It was like a blind person using a cane, but so much more badass.

From time to time she would feel for a rock and throw it ahead, listening for something that might be, as Justin had called it, “a really long drop.”

She was very much against really long drops.

She tossed a pebble finally and did not hear it clatter on stone. “Ah. I believe we have the long drop.” She edged forward until, sure enough, she could sense a gap in the floor.

She crept to the edge of it on hands and knees. She positioned herself in a way to see straight downward. “Eyes open, don’t flinch,” she told herself.

She aimed the shotgun down into the hole and pulled the trigger.

Shotguns were never exactly quiet. But in the confines of the mine shaft it was like a bomb going off.

The muzzle flash stabbed thirty feet down, painting an indelible image of stone walls, a ledge perhaps twenty feet straight down.

The echo of the blast went on for some time. It sounded a bit like when a jet broke the sound barrier. Most likely Drake would hear, unless this shaft went down even farther than she imagined.

Brianna smiled. “That’s right, Drakey boy: I’m still coming.”

Two explosions. Two stabs of light.

No way to know how far away they were. The sound said a long way. The light seemed nearer. Impossible to tell.

It could be anyone. Brianna. Astrid. Or just any number of armed kids who might be lost in the darkness.

“Definitely a gun,” Sam said to no one. How weird that gunfire was almost reassuring.

He did not believe it had come from the same direction as the mine shaft. It was to the right. More like in a line to where he thought Perdido Beach might be. Which was not his objective. He wasn’t on a mission to find and rescue Astrid, if that was her. He was on a mission to—

“Too bad,” he snapped, again talking defiantly to no one.

If it was Astrid, and if she was in a fight, then having whoever she was fighting—maybe even Drake—see a line of Sammy suns approaching would give everything away. If it was Astrid—and he’d already convinced himself it was—he needed to move fast. He wouldn’t just have to walk tentatively into the dark, lighting his path back to home with a row of lights. He would have to run straight into darkness.

Sam fixed in his mind’s eye the direction the flashes had come from. He began to trot, lifting each step high to avoid tripping. He made it surprisingly far before something hard caught his foot and he slammed facedown into the dirt.

“That’s one,” he said. Stood up, and started running again.

It was insanity, of course. Running blind. Running with his eyes closed. Running with absolutely no idea where his foot would land, running when maybe there was a wall or a branch or a wild animal just right there. Right there an inch from his nose.

That was his choice: to inch his way cautiously, try to avoid falling, but never get anywhere. Or to run, and maybe get somewhere, but maybe just run right off a cliff.

Yeah, that’s life, he thought, and as the wry smile formed he plowed into a bush that tripped him, tangled him, and threatened not to let him escape.

Finally he rolled free, stood up, and started running again, picking thorns out of his palms and arms as he went.

All his life Sam had feared the darkness. As a kid he’d lain in his bed at night, tensed against the assault of the unseen but well-imagined threat. But now in this ultimate darkness, it seemed to him that fear of the dark was fear of himself. Not a fear of what might be “out there,” but a fear of how he would react to what was out there. He had spent hundreds, maybe thousands of hours in his life imagining how he would cope with whatever terrible thing his imagination had conjured up. It used to shame him, that incessant hero fantasy, that endless mental war-gaming for threats that never materialized. An endless series of scenarios in which Sam did not panic. Sam did not run away. Sam did not cry.

Because that, more than any monster, was what Sam had feared: that he was weak and cowardly. He had a terrible fear of being afraid.

And the only solution was to refuse to be afraid.

Easier said than done when the darkness was absolute, and nothing was foreseen, and there really were genuine, actual, terrible monsters lying in wait.

No night-light now. No Sammy sun. Just darkness so total it negated the very idea of sight.

Having thought about his fear did not lessen it. But continuing to run straight ahead did.

“So just don’t cry,” Sam said.

“I miss Howard,” Orc said. Dekka wasn’t exactly talkative. In fact, she’d barely said a word. Normally Orc didn’t talk all that much, either, but it wasn’t like there was anything to see. Or anything else to do.

Orc was walking in front with Dekka just behind him, following the sounds of his steps. The nice thing about being the way he was, Orc reflected, was that it was pretty hard for anything to trip him.

Most things he just plowed right through. And if it was a bush or a bumpy place or whatever he could warn Dekka.

In some ways it was a pleasant stroll. Nothing to see, hah, hah. But it wasn’t too hot or too cold. The only real problem was that they didn’t know where they were going.

“Sorry about Howard,” Dekka said, too late. “I know you were friends.”

“No one liked Howard.”

Dekka didn’t choose to disagree.

“Everyone just saw him as this guy who sold drugs and booze and all. But he was different sometimes.” Orc crushed a tin can under one foot and with his next step flattened the earth over what felt like a gopher hole.