“Yeah, dude,” said Teresa edgily. “I don’ wanna get stuck down here, hey?”
“Relax,” said Bowler. “I know where I’m goin’.”
Suddenly worried, in an infuriatingly impotent way, Justin nodded and tried not to think about it. They’d made their choice and, short of turning around right now and leaving, they were committed. There was no sense in second-guessing.
Unfortunately, his more animal instincts were not so reasonable and a looming sense of where he was began to take over. The darkness, the way every sound echoed so eerily, the horrid musky smell… But most of all he was aware of the tons and tons of earth and stone over his head, a vast physical weight that could suddenly fall and bury them so deeply that no one would even know they’d ever been there at all. And to think that there were apparently people living down here? It made his skin crawl. With an effort, trying to set a brave example, he shook it off and got them moving again.
They went along the tunnel for maybe another mile and, though it was slight, Justin noticed that it sloped steadily downward. Was that significant? All it meant to him was that there was even more earth, more weight, hanging over their heads.
At one point there was a hissed exchange from the rear of their little group and Justin stopped and turned to see that Teresa, with the Kid glaring protectively from around her knees, was in some kind of dispute with Bowler.
“Go ahead, dude,” she was saying, motioning for Bowler to proceed her. “I gots the back, hey?”
“Yeah, OK,” said Bowler, shrugging sullenly. “Whatever.” And he fell into line ahead of Teresa and the Kid.
Justin gave Teresa a questioning look, but she only made a “who knows?” kind of face and shrugged. More concerned with their surroundings than Bowler’s (only natural) reticence, Justin turned back to the tunnel and kept going.
After another quarter mile or so, they came to a spot where a large grate of some kind, like an ancient portcullis, set into the ceiling, emerged from the darkness. Luckily, it was raised, allowing them to walk right under it, but Justin saw that, once lowered, it would block the passage as effectively as a cave-in. He looked around, shining his light all about, but there didn’t seem to be any mechanism for raising and lowering the thing.
“What is this?” Justin asked, looking to Bowler.
“How should I know?” said Bowler testily. “Some kinda gate, looks like.”
“Could be a storm grate,’ said Erin, playing her light on the thick, rusty bars. “In case of a flood, you know? They could’ve closed it off, to minimize damage.”
“Hmm, yes,” said Justin. That sounded reasonable enough. “Well, whatever it is, it’s not blocking our way or anything, so let’s go on.”
And so they did, for about another two hundred yards, when suddenly a couple of things happened, and neither of them was good. First, Justin heard a clanking, grinding noise, coming from both ahead and behind them. Then a weird, high-pitched laughing, so utterly bizarre that it made Justin’s hair stand up, echoed down the tunnel.
Stopping dead in his tracks, his blood going cold, Justin looked back to the others and saw that they were all similarly frozen in place. All that is, but Bowler, who wore a sort of rueful, hangdog expression and stood off to one side as if nothing much had just happened. Justin blinked at the man.
“Wha… what is this?” he stammered. “Bowler? What…”
Teresa whirled on the man, her shotgun leveled at his chest from about two feet away, brilliant eyes flashing, and cleared it up.
“Trap!” she snarled. “I knew it! He took us into a fuckin’ trap!”
“Bowler?” said Justin desperately, hearing something moving, off in the darkness ahead. “Is this true? Oh no, what have you done?”
“Sorry, Doc,” said Bowler guiltily, eyes downcast, “but y’all know how it is. We all gotta do what we gotta do to survive, don’t we? An’ these guys, the mutants, well, they made me the sorta offer I just couldn’t pass up, you know? Ain’t nothin’ personal.”
“Nothing personal?” sputtered Justin, reeling. “Are you kidding me?”
Teresa glared daggers at the man. “I should blast you in half, ass-monkey,” she told him, her thin fingers white on the blue-black gun. “Gimme jus’ one reason not to.”
Bowler cringed. From the tunnel ahead, there was now definitely someone or something approaching. It sounded like a crowd of people, all shuffling their feet, and a faint, bobbing light soon appeared. Justin turned desperately back to Bowler and the others.
“Don’t kill him,” Justin told Teresa. “That won’t solve anything.”
“But he got it comin’!” she said hotly, eyes riveted on Bowler. “Ain’t nothin’ but a fuckin’ rat! Fuckin’ vermin, hey?!”
“Teresa, no,” said Justin firmly. “Do you hear me? Shooting Bowler won’t help us.”
Glancing down the tunnel, Teresa seemed to think it over for a second before nodding and turning to face the approaching sounds.
“Fine,” she said, peering down the tunnel. “I won’ blast his vermin ass. But I ain’t gonna get killed by no muties, neither.” Whirling back to Bowler, she motioned with the shotgun. “Yo, rat!” she said, her voice like steel. “Get up here, hey? Out in front, greep. Move!”
Slowly, Bowler did as told and walked a few paces ahead, down the tunnel. After a quick glance at their immediate surroundings—just an average piece of tunnel with nowhere to hide—Teresa snatched the pistol from her boot and pressed it on Justin.
“Here, Case,” she said. “Take this an’ don’ fire til you see they eyeballs, hey? That a little gun, so let ‘em get good an’ close!”
His hands leaden and stiff, he took the pistol and looked at it stupidly. This was all happening too fast for him to react. Should they try to run away? He certainly didn’t relish the idea of any sort of gunfight. And what was that horrible smell? Weakly, he flipped the gun’s safety to off, told Erin and the Kid to stay back, and, joining Teresa in a kneeling position on either side of the tunnel, waited for whatever was coming.
Chapter Forty-Seven
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The Hunter and the Soldier had lots of time to talk, but, taciturn by nature, they mostly sat in their inky cell in complete silence. From next door, they heard nothing more. Either the Old Man and his nurse had been moved or they were dead. Ultimately though, out of sheer boredom and small measure of curiosity, the Hunter finally spoke up.
“So what’s the deal in New America?” he asked peremptorily. “What’s with this here war you were talkin’ about?”
The other man said nothing for a while and the Hunter could sense him staring back in the dark. Finally the Soldier snorted and gave a bitter laugh.
“New America,” he said acidly. “That’s a fuckin’ laugh! Shit, if that’s the new version of the U.S., I say piss on it! Buncha fuckin’ assholes. You know the hell of it? I actually swore an oath to that Governor pendejo! Maricon pajero fuck! But I guess that don’t mean shit no more. I mean, both of us are prob’ly as good as dead, anyway.”
“Yeah, looks like it,” said the Hunter laconically. “But what about the war? Who’s the enemy?”
“These fucks!” said CJ. “These deformo freaks. They been swarmin’ up outta the ground like cock-a-roaches for the last six months. Come in big gangs, fifty, hundred at a time. Not so well-armed, mind. All they got’s like, axes and knives and clubs, some old rifles an’ pistols. But when there’s a hundred screamin’ muties at a time, well, even all our fancy assault rifles don’ mean shit. Plus, they’re fuckin’ smart, man! Use diversions, sneak attacks, all kinda shit. Don’ know how they can be so clever, to look at ‘em, but there you go. An’, like you can see, they’re like, fuckin’ underground. They use these mine shafts, the sewers, pop up wherever they want.”