"Lock your door!" he yelled.
"Got it!" Ronnie said. She flinched away from the window as Sierra climbed onto that side of the cab and started slapping at the glass while yelling frenziedly.
Chuck was trying to pull himself high enough on the side of the cab to get a good swing at the window with the shovel. Matt twisted the key and tromped the gas, hoping he wouldn't flood the engine. It caught with a rumbling growl as Hammond, Varley, Scott, and April threw themselves in front of the truck.
Matt slammed the truck into gear and sent it lurching forward. Ronnie screamed as the people caught in the vehicle's path scrambled to get out of the way. Hammond, Scott, and April made it, but Varley just wasn't fast enough.
The old man threw up his arms and shrieked as the truck ran him down. Matt felt the bump as the heavy wheels passed over Varley's body. Nothing could survive that.
"My God, my God!" Ronnie cried. "You killed him!"
"You saw what they did to Astrid," Matt said. "I wish I'd gotten a couple of the others, too."
"You're crazy! You're as crazy as they are!"
He kept his left hand on the wheel as the truck bumped around several partially collapsed walls. With his right hand, he grabbed her shoulder and shook it.
"Look at me!" he told her. "Look at me, damn it! You saw their eyes. You saw their faces. Look at mine!"
He turned his head to look over at her. Ronnie stared at him with wide, panic-stricken eyes for a moment, then drew in a deep, shuddery breath.
"All right, maybe you're not quite as crazy," she said. "But did you have to kill Dr. Varley?"
"Yes," Matt said. "I'm sorry. I know they're your friends, Ronnie. But there's no way we can help them. All we can do is try to save ourselves and the others who haven't gone mad."
"We can get the others and drive away! As long as we're in the truck and moving, Dr. Hammond and the others can't stop us."
Matt nodded as he clutched the wheel and tried to keep the truck under control. "That's what I'm hoping. We need to get off this mesa."
But at the back of his mind lurked another thought. That altar was uncovered now, and its evil had already begun to spread. How far would it go? And if Hammond and the others who were affected by it were left to venture out into the world, what damage would they do?
Matt didn't know the answers to those questions, but he was pretty sure they wouldn't be good. He wanted to save Ronnie and the unaffected students, but ultimately the most important thing he could do here was stop the others and somehow destroy that altar, which might, just might, reverse the effect and keep him from having to kill them.
Yeah, he thought. That was all he had to do.
CHAPTER NINE
Matt switched on the truck's headlights and leaned on the horn, sending a long, strident blare over the top of the mesa.
That would help the crazed ones track them, but it couldn't be helped. He wanted to draw the unaffected students to the truck. It would be better for all of them to be together.
He had to come up with a plan, and he thought it would be a good idea, too, to get Ronnie's brain working, to distract her from all the confusion and horror she had to be feeling. Besides, she was a highly intelligent woman. He could use her help.
"Listen to me," he said as he sent the truck bucking and bouncing through the ruins. "It's too long a story to tell you how I know this, but believe me, it's true. The reason this is happening is because Dr. Varley and his group uncovered a sacrifical altar in their excavation."
"A sacrificial— What are you talking about? The Anasazi didn't practice human sacrifice."
"April said the same thing . . . just before she started trying to kill me. They changed right before my eyes, Ronnie. I swear it."
He didn't tell her that Hammond had been evil all along. That detail would just complicate things unnecessarily. Let her think Hammond had been affected along with the others. In the end, it didn't matter.
"You're saying this is some sort of supernatural thing? That they've been . . . possessed, for want of a better word?"
"Corrupted might actually be a better word. They've been changed."
"And they can't be changed back?"
"If there's a way to do that, I don't know it," Matt said. "And I've tried."
She looked over at him sharply. "This isn't the first time you've seen something like this?"
"No. I know it sounds nuts, but it's true."
"You aren't here by accident, are you?"
Even under these circumstances, he couldn't hold back a laugh. "No. I'm not."
"You sound like one of those people who wear aluminum foil on their heads to keep the government or the aliens from controlling their thoughts."
"I know. But ask yourself this: how long have you known Dr. Varley?"
"Seven years," Ronnie replied, her voice catching a little.
"In all that time, he never tried to kill you or hurt anybody else, did he? He never danced around with a dead girl's head in his hand."
Ronnie gave a little moan and choked out, "Of course not."
"Then it's obvious something changed."
Silence from Ronnie for a moment, then, "You're right, Matt, something changed. But I can't believe that story about the altar. It's . . . it's a virus or some sort of toxin. It has to be."
If she wanted to believe that, fine, he told himself. It didn't change what they had to do.
Before Matt could say anything else, a shape darted toward them from the right. Matt took his foot off the gas as he recognized Ginger Li. She screamed, "Help! Help me!"
Matt hit the brake. The truck skidded and screeched to a halt. Ronnie started to open her door, then stopped and looked at Matt. He nodded to her. Ginger's face was still clear of sores.
Ronnie swung the door open and said, "Get in here." Ginger crowded in beside her as Ronnie slid closer to Matt. They might be able to get one of the other young women into the cab.
"Close the door," he told them. "We need to keep moving." Ginger slammed the door. "And lock it," Matt added unnecessarily. Ginger was already pushing the button down.
Once that was done, she collapsed in a shuddering heap against Ronnie, who put her arms around her. "I . . . I saw what they did to Astrid," Ginger said. "What's wrong with them?
"Something bad has happened to some of the others," Ronnie told her, which seemed like the understatement of the year to Matt. "We don't know exactly what it is, but we have to stay away from them until we find everybody who's all right; then we're getting out of here."
"I want to go home!" Ginger wailed.
"Soon," Matt told her. "Soon, I hope."
Ronnie comforted Ginger while Matt continued searching for the other grad students who had scattered through the ruins. After a few minutes, Ronnie looked over at him and said, "I've been thinking. If you're right about that altar—and I'm not saying you are—would destroying it put a stop to this madness?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
Matt didn't hold out much hope that destroying the altar would save those who were already affected, but at least that might stop the evil it contained from spreading. Whether that evil was caused by Mr. Dark—or had created Mr. Dark—he didn't know. That image of the snake eating its tail, what was it called? Ouroboros. The name leapt into his head, recalled from some otherwise forgotten book.