He glared at them through the dirty windshield, willing them not to move fast enough so he could carve someone. Sensing the danger, they came quickly. The three sprinted through the yard and hopped the fence, following the path to the base. They moved quickly into the shadowy woods. Much quicker than their quarry.
(97)
Paul and Julie scrambled through yet another tunnel, unsure of where it led or how they would get back. Greymore was not afraid of a bunch of liquored-up punks, but the knowledge that they had a least one gun between them was enough to keep him moving, if only to keep Julie safe from harm. They had just found the bloody sock that marked the cave opening when they first heard their pursuers. Crawford had bellowed in triumph from the top of the hill and fired a careless shot in their direction. It was more than enough to get Paul and Julie moving in a higher gear.
No matter what happened tonight, Greymore would deal with Crawford soon enough. They ran as fast as the conditions allowed. The unsteady beam of the flashlight and uneven cave floor and walls were a treacherous combination if they weren’t careful. They stopped at the next fork to catch their breath and gauge what kind of lead they had on Crawford. Above the sound of their own gasping breaths, Paul could hear the sound of running and yelling. “They’re still behind us, we have to keep moving,” he whispered.
Julie was clearly more winded but what Paul saw in her eyes was a fear and determination that would keep her going. She nodded and gestured for Paul to pick which branch of the tunnel to take. Paul hesitated: bearing right would take them deeper based on the slope, left might lead to another way out as it sloped upward slightly. Fearing the potential exit might be blocked, he took Julie’s hand and started down the right fork. They were forced to slow their pace as this part of the tunnel twisted and turned more frequently, and the ceiling was becoming lower as they progressed. Paul hoped Crawford would bear left, thinking he and Julie would be looking for an exit. Then he heard a cry of pain behind him. The acoustics were tough to decipher, but Greymore thought they sounded closer than before. One of the gang must have fallen; hopefully it would give them time to make up more ground.
They continued on through the tunnel, moving as fast as the conditions allowed. They came to no more forks or side tunnels and Paul began to fear they might end up at a dead end. Then they would have to stand and fight. Paul began picking up the pace, dragging Julie with him. He sacrificed safety for speed, desperately trying to give them a lead over their pursuers. Julie was tiring quickly, gasping for air and stumbling but refusing to quit. Paul put his arm around her waist and half carried, half dragged her along. They rounded yet another sharp curve in the rock just as Julie stumbled. Paul felt her legs give out and lost his grip on her. She sprawled headlong into the wall of the tunnel, barely getting her arms up to protect herself. She hit the wall hard, and with a moan, slid to the ground.
Paul ran to her side quickly and shined the light on her face. She was bleeding from a cut in her forehead and a nasty goose-egg was already forming. When her eyes opened Paul saw nothing but pain and exhaustion. He turned the light forward and nearly cried out in surprise. The cave opened into a cavern, too large for the light to penetrate to the far side. It must be the one Denny told him about. Shining the light along the floor, he saw the strange white powder and chunks of bone.
“Mr. Greymore…”
“Julie, can you walk?” She didn’t reply, only uttered a weak moan. Paul began helping her up when another sound came out of the darkness. The gang was back on the move, their voices approaching quickly from behind. “Hurry, let me help you,” he whispered. He got an arm around her waist and dragged her into the cavern. The sound his steps made was making him ill knowing what was crunching beneath his feet. He felt along the cave wall with one hand and the weak flashlight beam, dragging the semi-conscious Julie with the other. He got her into a recess in the cave wall just as twin beams of light stabbed through the darkness from the tunnel. Greymore snapped his own light off and crouched against the wall. There was no chance of sneaking up on Crawford with the noisy flooring. I should have waited by the entrance and taken them as they came in, he thought. No time for that, he would just have to wait and see if he would get another opportunity, or maybe the gang would keep going without searching the cavern.
“They definitely came this way… holy shit!” The first beam swept the cave, bouncing off walls and then disappearing into the inky darkness. “Dale, this fucking place is huge!”
The second beam entered the cavern. “Hey numbnuts, shut your sperm-trap before the freak gets you.”
Paul waited for the third voice, trying to control his rising anger. The events of the day, hell, the events of his whole life were building like a flammable gas. That word was the spark, threatening to send Paul into an explosion of temper and violence. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. The third voice never came and Paul wondered if the cry of pain he heard earlier was enough to leave one of the gang behind and even the odds a bit. And in the dark of the cavern, the only sound the run-off from the lake, the final memory came to Paul.
He hacked blindly at the weeds or vines or stray piece of rope that had wrapped around his calf. When the blade made contact he began sawing frantically, and despite the numbing sensation he felt the vine slide free of his leg. Even in his panicked state he knew something was wrong. Because the vine hadn’t just slipped loose, it had slithered. As his mind tried unsuccessfully to grasp this, he began to feel something else. Despite the raging storm and the roiling lake waters, despite the injured girl and her probably-dead mother, Paul was beginning to feel calm. Serene. And this frightened him more than anything else. He quickly flopped onto the bottom of the rowboat and thought, oddly enough, this might be a nice place to rest and wait the storm out. The thought made no sense but it suddenly seemed like a great idea. The storm had taken on an almost surreal appearance and to Paul was beautiful.
“No!” His rational mind, what was left of it, was aware of the illogical feelings he was having. Before this diminishing saneness could think twice, Paul raised his Buck knife and drove it straight through his shoe into the top of his foot. Even in its numbed state, the pain registered. Like an eight-point-five on the Richter scale of pain. With that pain, clarity returned. And with the clarity came the fear. He yanked the knife from his foot, feeling nauseous and wondering vaguely how it got there. He must have done it freeing himself from the vine. He looked down for the first time at the calf that had been tangled. And what he saw changed everything: the same rows of welts that the girl had were there, burning red rings with a pus-filled white centers. Before he could begin listing the possibilities of what could make marks like that, he had his answer.
The beast surfaced without as much as a ripple about five feet from the rowboat. Even in the height of the storm, Paul could see this was no creation of nature ever recorded by man. Its head was large with froglike features. Bulbous eyes with translucent lids that blinked slowly regarded him with an intelligence that nearly loosened Paul’s bladder. Its long, wide mouth opened, revealing multiple rows of deadly-looking teeth. Then it slithered toward him. The water swirled around the beast and suddenly there was movement flashing at him from all sides. They were tentacles, but unlike anything Paul had ever seen. Instead of the suction-cups on an octopus, these had rows of what looked like stingers.
One of the tentacles lashed at his leg but fell short. Paul realized with a bizarre feeling of pride that it fell short only because he had hacked the end of it off when it first grabbed his ankle. Another one shot at him and he tried to block it but it was too strong. The massive tentacle pinned Paul’s arm to his body at an angle that snapped his wrist bone cleanly in half. Sickening pain shot up his arm as the tentacle moved to wrap itself tighter around his back. From the corner of his eye he saw another one of the beast’s weapons sliding toward his leg. Knowing he couldn’t fight this thing off alone, not without some heavy artillery, he lunged forward, Buck knife extended.