Monsters

And she thought, No, no, it can’t be.

She’d waffled over this all the way up the tunnel: whether to make a break for it if she managed to reach the top, or stay. Her ankle was messed up, but she was managing. From Kincaid and all her hiking experience, she knew how to splint it, if needed. But the fact that she was soaking wet was a much bigger problem. Her sodden pants were already stiffening, and she was trembling, getting hypothermic. What she needed was to get warm, which meant a fire, a change of clothes, something hot to drink. Wet, with no supplies and nothing to keep her alive except Leopard’s knife and the Glock 19, she might as well have let go of that rope and saved Wolf the trouble of rescuing her from the tunnel. She would probably die if she ran now.

On the other hand, Wolf had come back. He wanted her. Or maybe . . . needed her? So, go with him? Bide her time? God, it would be Rule all over again, and probably just as stupid, but she’d nearly talked herself into it.

Until now, this moment, because heading toward them was a boy she recognized by sight and scent: Ben Stiemke.

Acne. He’d been part of Wolf ’s original gang, before Spider and Leopard took over. The fact that Acne was here, on the surface, actually frightened her just as much as this nightmare. But there was no mistake. Acne had made it out of the mine. Had he left before the attack, the explosions? Maybe slipped out when everyone else was in the chow line because he’d smelled Wolf earlier in the day, just as she and Spider and Leopard had? She would never know. The important thing was that Acne was with Wolf now. That meant some of the others—Spider, Slash—might have gotten out, too.

That decided her. She was not going through this again.

Her eyes clicked to the quivering snow. To her left, maybe fifty feet away, she spotted a scatter of cross-country skis and poles—and rifles. One, lying near a pair of skis staked in the snow, caught her eye: scoped, a bolt-action with a carry strap. She darted left, digging in with her aching right ankle and launching herself toward the weapon. She saw Wolf start; saw the others trying to get at her; spotted a kid with very long dreads, the tallest of the six, suddenly reaching for her; felt his fingers whisk her hair. . . .

“No!” she gasped, twisting, dancing out of the way. The sudden twist sent a spike of red pain from her ankle to her kneecap, bad enough that tears started. She clamped back on the shriek that tried bubbling past her teeth. Keep going, come on, it’s not that far. Snowy slabs slipped and rocked beneath her boots like dinner plates on ice; a sudden skid to the right and she nearly lost her footing, her right boot kicking free. Her left jammed down hard, driving into snow that grabbed at her calf, but then she was hopping free, nearly there, thirty feet, twenty-five . . . shuck a round into the chamber . . . no more than fifteen feet now . . . throw the bolt, swing up on an arc, because they’re moving, they’re behind you. This was something she’d practiced with her dad, hitting a moving target with the Glock: Lead, honey, and mount the gun. Don’t duck down.

The earth shivered. She could see the skis waggling back and forth. The rifle began to scoot and skip. But she was close now; it was almost over; she could do this. The rifle was to her left, two feet away. And if Wolf got to a weapon or pulled a pistol? Could she shoot him? After all this? It would be like sticking a gun into Chris’s face. She didn’t want to have to make that decision.

She slid the last foot—and then felt the snow tremble. There was a monstrous jolt, a stunning whack as something very big—another cave, maybe—collapsed underground. The sensation was nearly indescribable, but it was as if she were a glass on a white tablecloth that a magician had tried to snatch away, only he’d muffed the trick. The impact cut her legs out from under; she felt her knees buckle and her feet leave the snow. With a yelp, she came down hard on her butt. A white sunburst of pain lit up her spine. For a second, her consciousness dropped out in a stunned blank. She couldn’t move. Her chest wouldn’t work. Electric shocks danced over her skin, tingled down to her toes and fingers. Gagging, she finally managed a gulp of air and then another. Rolling to her stomach, she dragged in air, shook the spots from her vision.

All the boys were down. Most were crabbed on their stomachs, digging in, hanging on, riding the earth like rodeo cowboys on bucking broncos. That kid with the dreads was lower than the rest, his fall taking him closer to the edge of the rise and far away from her. A lucky break. She watched him trying to clamber his way straight up. For her? That was stupid, a mistake. He should move out of the fall line and then up before the snow collapsed.

But that was when it dawned on her: the kid with the dreads wasn’t coming for her. Wrong angle. Her eyes swept up again—and then she saw where he was going.

Wolf was maybe fifty feet away, close to where they’d popped out of the mine, and to her right. He was still flat on his back—but not moving. God, was he unconscious? He’d lost a lot of blood. Maybe it wasn’t the fall. Maybe he’d fainted. She almost shouted to him but snatched that back before it could spring off her tongue. Doesn’t matter. Let old Bob Marley there worry. And, grimly: At least this way, I don’t have to decide whether to shoot him.

But she couldn’t set her feet. The earth was heaving, trying to shake her off its skin. Panting, she pulled her left knee to her stomach, got her hands planted, pushed up. The skis had toppled to the snow, and the rifle—where was it? Her gaze snagged on a gray-green glint of moonlight, just beyond a ski pole, reflected from the rifle’s scope. Yes. On hands and knees, she spidered for the weapon, fighting the quaking earth, working her way around the skis. Stretching for the rifle, she felt her fingertips brush the cold black steel of the barrel . . .

From somewhere behind her came a loud, lowing moan.

Her first thought: Wolf ? No, this wasn’t a natural sound at all. It was too deep, as if something that lived only in the center of the earth were coming awake. The sound was big.

That was the ground. That was rock, breaking open. She was afraid to look back. The rifle was right in front of her. Another inch, she’d have it and make a run for it, just keep going: traverse the hill, get out of the fall line and out of danger, but get away.

But Wolf ’s unconscious. The whole rise is collapsing.

And so what? It was her here-and-now brain, a voice firmly planted in a world where there were blacks and whites, rights and wrongs. Are you insane? Forget him. He’s a monster, for God’s sake. Grab the rifle and get out, get out now!

“Oh, shut up,” she said. As far as she was concerned, the world to which that voice belonged had vanished after the Zap. Nothing was black-and-white anymore. So she risked a look back—and felt a scream gather in her throat.

Whatever it had been, the opening through which they’d popped only minutes before wasn’t simply a hole anymore. The gap was widening by the second as the guts of the rise—and the entire mine—fell away. What lay behind her was a sore, a black and insidious blight. It was the mouth of a monster eating the earth, chewing its way to Wolf.

“Wake up! Wolf !” Twisting back toward the rifle, her hand shot out—and grabbed a ski instead. Turning, she lunged back toward the crater. “Wolf, wake up, wake up!”

She swam for him, eeling over the snow, panic giving her strength as she fought the trembling earth. Beyond Wolf, maybe thirty feet away, the hill was dissolving, the snow buckling and folding. The air was misty with pulverized rock and ice that pecked her cheeks.

Meanwhile, that voice, the one that lived in the black-and-white world, was babbling: What are you doing, are you crazy, are you nuts? Let his guys worry about him. Get off the rise, grab the gun, get off, get off, get off !

“Wolf !” This time, she thought she saw his head move. She was ten feet away now, no more. Far enough. Still on her stomach, she jammed the toes of her boots into the snow and thrust the ski toward him, stretching as far as she could. If she could get Wolf up, get him to grab the ski, the principle ought to be the same as pulling someone off thin ice. All she had to do was back up, pull him away from the hole, give him a fighting chance.

And then I’m done; we’re even. “Wolf, come on!” she shouted over the clatter of rock and the boom of the earth. “Get up, wake up!”

What she got was a rumble—not in front of her but behind, where she’d been. What? She shot a quick glance over her shoulder just in time to see the snow beneath the rifle shudder. In the next instant, the weapon skated away, riding the swell before sailing over the lip of the rise to disappear. If she’d been there, she’d have gone with it. She still might anyway.

She felt the ski jerk and looked back. Wolf was awake, on his belly, and clinging to the ski. So strange, but she didn’t know how she truly felt about the fact that she was trying to save his life—only that this was what she had to do. It was illogical, but it was also right. “Come on, Wolf, damn it! Move your ass!”

He began crabbing away from the hole, scuttling toward her, using the ski as a guide and an anchor as she slithered back five feet, then ten. Just a few more feet, enough to give you a chance. The entire rise was quaking now; she felt the snow slipping and sliding in front of her, the earth bucking against her stomach. Then I let go, and I’m done, I’m—

In the next instant, the skin of the earth rose in an enormous inhale. She felt it happen and thought, Oh shit. Against all reason, she looked down the length of the ski, toward Wolf, this boy with Chris’s face who had brought her to one hell, saved her from another. Their gazes locked, and she saw her terror mirrored in his eyes, reflected in his blood-caked face. “Wolf—” she began.

The earth suddenly collapsed. The giant exhaled, and she hurtled down. The force, so hard and fast, was a fist that punched a gasping scream from her chest. The snow just broke apart, shattering into shards like thick, white glass. A second later, she felt herself beginning to slide sideways as the icy slab on which she sprawled followed the lie of the land.

She began to move and pick up speed, the layer of snow to which she clung shearing away. She lost the ski and then she was whirling, the slab spinning like a top. A scream ripped from her mouth as the slab hurtled for the edge of the rise. The snowfield was now only a dim blur; behind, above, the hill was breaking up. She had no idea where the others were, what had happened to Wolf; she just had time to think, No! ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">