With every step he took Denny expected a slippery tentacle to wrap around him and drag him back (to Paul) to the lake. The ground was literally shaking under their feet as rocks rained down. Denny gripped the back of Ortiz’s shirt like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver and followed him blindly through the tunnels. They moved as quickly as they could through the thickening dust, slowing only to climb over or around piles of rock left by the cave-ins. Only when the rumbling subsided did they stop to regroup.
They must have been some distance from the worst of the cave-in, since the dust wasn’t as thick. The four huddled together in the small tunnel and Denny realized just how much of a failure their plan had been. Julie was unconscious in Chris’s arms and Denny could see the unnatural angle her feet hung at. Chris looked like he was in shock, his face a portrait of fear and exhaustion. Ortiz was the worst of the lot. His face was swollen on one side to the point his eye was almost completely shut. He wavered as he stood and finally leaned heavily against the tunnel wall for support. His breathing was labored and even in the dim light from their remaining flashlights, Denny could see his entire body was trembling. How could they hope to get out of here?
The tunnel ahead looked clear, but was it a way out or was it leading them deeper into the labyrinth? “Rest here a minute and let me take a look around, maybe I can find something that looks familiar.”
“Don’t stray too far.” Ortiz warned, his voice sounding shaky and tired.
Denny nodded and moved ahead, his flickering light reminding him of the scene back in the cavern. He came to a fork and hesitated, suddenly knowing he would become lost in the tunnels. His instinct to turn and go back to the group was overwhelming but to what end? He thought of the battered group and knew they couldn’t survive taking wrong turns and backtracking. He had to get them out of here in one shot. Taking a deep breath, he quickly gathered a few small rocks and formed a crude arrow pointing back to the others. He went left for no other reason than he had to pick one of the two branches to start with. With every step his fear grew, the feeling that he would get too far away and not be able to find his way back. Stop it, he told himself, you’re walking in a straight fucking line. Yes but what about the next fork, and the one after that? The bad voice; where was Oz or one of the smart voices when he needed them?
He wouldn’t need any voice to tell him what to do next: the tunnel ended. Denny couldn’t tell whether it was from the recent cave-in or had been blocked for a while. His chest tightened when the bad voice spoke again. What if the other fork ends the same way? Choking back a sob of fear, he turned back the way he came, praying the other tunnel wasn’t blocked.
(110)
Dale Crawford wandered blindly through the tunnels, feeling his way along the walls with his hands. His light had given out a while ago and he could not see his own hand in front of his face. He knew this because he had tried. “Dumb expression,” he giggled and slid his left hand forward. His right hand held the gun that Denny had dropped after shooting that thing. Dale had reloaded it, and deep down he knew he might only need one bullet: for himself if he couldn’t find a way out.
“I’ll get out. I will kill that fucking freak when I do. And I will kill Denny O’Brien. I just have to decide what order. Maybe I’ll do eeny-meeny.” This brought hysterical laughter that turned into a hacking cough from all of the dust in his throat.
His mind was unable to accept everything he’d seen. That thing that took Buddy, dragged him in the water while O’Brien shot it point-blank with no effect. When the cave-in started he’d grabbed the gun and crawled away from the direction Denny and that freak had gone. He’d made it into the tunnels where he’d found Costa… well his body anyway. Costa’s head was crushed under a huge boulder and a pool of blood and brain-juice was still spreading when Crawford found him. He knew he’d been going the right way after finding Costa. The second cave-in sounded far enough away to give him hope he was still going in the right direction. But after his light gave out he knew he could be going in circles. That was when his mind finally snapped. “Kill my piece of shit father, too. Kill them all…”
A weak breeze carried the unmistakable scent of rain. “Shit, I think I left the Mustang’s windows open.” He slid his hand on the wall and stopped suddenly. In the darkness a cruel smile formed on his face. “I guess I’ll get to use more than one bullet after all.” This time he kept laughing as he slid his hand along the wall, following the smell of rain.
(111)
Denny reached the fork he’d marked with an arrow made of rocks. Before trying the right tunnel, he’d formed an “x” out of more rocks at the entrance to the left tunnel. He called out to the others that he was okay and trying another direction and was shocked at how weak both Chris and Robert sounded in response. It was the lack of response from Julie that kept him moving. That, and the voice. You’re running out of time, kid, and out of tunnels, the voice mocked. He shook it off and started off in the only direction he had left. Choices are easy when you only have one, he thought, and trudged ahead.
There was one heart-stopping moment where he thought this tunnel ended in a cave-in too when all he could see was the flat cave wall up ahead. When he moved closer, however, he saw it was only a trick of the light and a very sharp turn in the direction of the tunnel. And on the floor of the tunnel was a spray-painted arrow. Denny gasped, afraid to believe it for a second, then cried out to the others. “I found it! Come on, we’re going the right way!” For another long second he had the sensation that he was in the tunnel alone and the others had just been some crazy hallucination.
When Denny was little, maybe seven or eight, he’d ended up with a bad ear infection and a dangerously high fever. Before the fever broke, in the loneliest part of the night, he’d seen a small group of soldiers come into his room. They each carried a metal folding chair which they set up in unison around his bed and sat. Then they each pulled out a pipe and, again in perfect synchronization, lit them and started smoking. The room quickly filled with the sweet smell of tobacco and became so thick that he could barely see the soldiers. The temperature had risen and Denny was sweating profusely, trying to get out from under the prison of his blankets. He must have screamed because his parents and Jimmy were suddenly there, the soldiers and their smoke gone. He fell back asleep, exhausted. When he finally woke up, fever gone, he asked his parents who the soldiers were and what kind of medicine was in their pipes. It had been real to him, so real.
He thought of all this, could almost smell the sickening sweet tobacco, in just the second it took for Chris and Robert to call out a response. Denny waited, keeping the light aimed back the way he had come as a beacon for them to follow. He was suddenly terrified. Knowing they were going the right way had somehow put the thought in his head that it was all just a tease. That they would almost get out and find the way blocked, and have to head back in to the tunnels to search for another way out. After an eternity, the others caught up. They looked worse and somehow this calmed Denny, put him back in a role that left him with no time to panic. Silently, he turned from them and led the way.
From there it was almost easy. Denny found the markers while Robert and Chris took turns carrying Julie. She would slip in and out of consciousness, occasionally muttering a few unintelligible words then slip away again. The memory of her smile kept Denny moving. He focused on each step, fighting back thoughts of Billy and Mossy trapped or already dead, thoughts of Paul taken, and worst of all, thoughts that the thing was still alive. Behind him, Chris and Robert grunted as they passed Julie from one to the other. Then they were out. The crisp night air washed over them like a cool drink. The temperature had dropped and it actually felt like it might rain. Denny helped them maneuver Julie through the opening and prop her gently against the rocks. Chris and Robert collapsed next to her. As if on cue, Denny felt the first spitting drops of rain.