For the first time, Tak was afraid.
It looked left and saw that both pickups were standing on flats. It was like the Carvers’ RV all over again, only this time it was on the receiving end, and it didn’t like the feeling one bit. That left the heavy equipment, and although it knew where the keys were-sets for everything in one of the field office file cabinets-they would do it no good; there was nothing down there it could drive. Cary Ripton had known how to run the heavy stuff, but Tak had lost Ripton’s physical skills the moment it left him for Josephson. As Ellen Carver, it had some of Ripton’s, Josephson’s, and Entragian’s memories (although even these were now fading like overexposed photographs) but none of their abilities.
Oh, the bitch! Os pa! Can fin!
Clenching and unclenching Ellen’s fists nervously, aware of her sodden panties and the soaked shirt inside them, aware that Ellen’s thighs were painted with blood, Tak closed Ellen’s eyes and looked for Mary.
“Mi him, en tow! En tow! En Tow!”
At first there was nothing, just blackness and the slow flux of cramps deep down in Ellen’s stomach. And terror. Terror that the os pa bitch was gone already. Then it saw what it was looking for, not with Ellen’s eyes but with ears inside of Ellen’s ears: a sudden alien echo of sound that made the shape of a woman.
It was a circling bat that had seen Mary as she struggled up the road toward the northern rim of the pit, and Mary was a long way from fresh, gasping for breath and turning around every dozen steps or so. Checking for pursuit. The bat “saw” the smells coming off her quite clearly, and what Tak picked up was encouraging. It was the smell of fear, mostly. The sort which might tilt into panic with one hard push.
Still, Mary was only four hundred yards or so from the top, and after that the going would be downhill. And while Mary was tired and breathing hard, the bat did not sense the bitter metallic aroma of exhaustion in the sweat which surrounded her. Not yet, at least.
There was also the fact that Mary was not bleeding like a stuck pig. This next-to-useless Ellen Carver body was. The bleeding wasn’t out of control-not yet-but would be before much longer. Perhaps taking time to collect itself, to rest in the comforting glow of the mi, had been a mistake, but who would have believed this could happen.
What about sending the can toi to stop her”. Those that were not on the perimeter as part of the mi him.
It could, but what fucking good would it do. lt could surround Mary with snakes and spiders, with hissing wildcats and laughing coyotes, and the bitch would very likely walk right through them, parting them the way Moses had supposedly parted the Red Sea. She must know that “Ellen” couldn’t damage her body, not with the can toi, not with any other weapon. If she didn’t know it, she’d still be in the field office, probably crouched in the corner, all but catatonic with fear, unable to make a sound after screaming herself hoarse.
How had she known. Had it been the prayboy. Or had it been a message from the prayboy’s God, David Carver’s can tak. No matter. The fact that Ellen’s body was starting to come apart and Mary had a half-mile head start, those things didn’t matter, either.
“I’m coming just the same, sweetheart,” it whispered, and began making its way along one of the benches, moving away from the mineshaft and toward the road.
Yes. Coming just the same. It might have to beat this body to finders in order to catch up with the os pa, but it would catch up.
Ellen turned her head, spat blood, grinned. She no longer looked much like the woman who had been consid-ering a run for the school board, the woman who had enjoyed lunch with her friends at China Happiness, the woman whose deepest, darkest sexual fantasies involved making love to the hunk in the Diet Coke commercials.
“It doesn’t matter how fast you hurry, os pa. You’re not getting away.
The dark shape dive-bombed her again, and Mary swatted it away. “Fuck off!” she panted at it.
The bat veered, cheeping, but didn’t go far. It circled her like some sort of spotter-plane, and Mary had an unpleasant idea that that was just what it was. She looked up and saw the rim of the pit ahead and above her. Closer now—maybe only two hundred yards-but it still looked mockingly far off. It felt as if she were tearing each breath out of the air, and it hurt going down. Her heart was ham mering, and there was a deep stitch in her left side. She had actually thought she was in pretty good shape for a woman who was thirtysomething, as if using the Nordic-Track and the StairMaster three times a week at Gold’s Gym could get you ready for something like this.
Suddenly the fine gravel surface of the road slid out from under her sneakers, and her trembling legs weren’t able to correct her balance in time. She was able to avoid going flat on her face by dropping to one knee, but her jeans tore, she felt the sting of the gravel biting through her skin, and then warm blood was flowing down her lower leg.
The bat was on her at once, cheeping and battering its wings in her hair.
“Get out, you cocksucker!” she cried, and boxed a closed fist at it. It was a lucky punch.
She felt the fine-grained surface of one wing give way under the blow and then the bat was fluttering on the road ahead of her mouth opening and closing, staring at her-or seeming to-with its useless little eyes. Mary struggled to her feet and stamped on it, voicing a sharp, almost birdlike cry of satisfaction as it crunched beneath her sneaker.
She started to turn again, then glimpsed something down below. A shadow moving among shadows.
“Mary.” It was Ellen Carver’s voice that came floating up, but at the same time it wasn’t.
It was gargly, full. If you hadn’t been through the hell of the last six or eight hours, you might have thought it was Ellen with a bad cold. “Wait, Mare! I want to go with you! I want to see David! We’ll go see him together!”
“Go to hell,” Mary whispered. She turned and began to walk again, tearing breath out of the air and rubbing at the pain in her side. She would have run if she could.
“Mary-Mary-quite-contrary!” Not quite laughing, but almost. “You can’t get away, dear—don’t you know that.”
The rim looked so far away that Mary forced herself to quit looking at it and lowered her head to her sneakers. The next time the voice behind her called her name, it sounded closer. Mary made herself walk a little faster. She fell twice more before she got to the rim, the second time hard enough to knock the wind out of her, and it took her precious, precious seconds of first kneeling and then standing with her head down and her hands on her thighs to get it back. She wished Ellen would call again, but she didn’t. And now Mary didn’t want to look back. She was too afraid of what she might see.
Five yards from the top, however, she finally did. Ellen was less than twenty yards below her, panting soundlessly through a mouth dropped so wide open that it looked like an airscoop. Blood misted out with each exhalation; her blouse was drenched with it. She saw Mary looking at her, grimaced, reached out with clawed hands, tried to sprint forward and grab her. She couldn’t.
Mary, however, found that she couU sprint. It was mostly the look in Ellen Carver’s eyes. Nothing human in them. Nothing at all.
She reached the top of the pit, the air now screaming thinly in and out of her throat. The road ran flat across thirty yards of rim, then tilted down. She could see a tiny yellow spark in the blackness of the desert floor, winking on and off: the blinker in the center of town.
Mary set her eyes on this and ran a little faster.
“What are you doing, David.” Ralph asked tightly. After a short period of concentration which was probably silent prayer, David had begun walking toward the back door of the Ryder truck. Ralph had moved instinctively, putting his body between his son and the handle that ran the door up. Steve saw this and sympathized with the feeling behind it, but didn’t guess it would do much good. If David decided he was going to leave, David would leave.