Scott started to reach for the knife, but April leaned forward and snatched it from Hammond's hand.
"Let me," she said with a huge smile on her face that chilled Matt almost as much as those tons of snow and ice had. The New Mexico heat seemed far away now.
April tore Jerry's shirt open, baring his chest and belly. Matt stared down into the pit, his eyes narrowing suddenly as he saw a tiny red sore on Jerry's cheek. A few more were scattered here and there on the young man's face.
Of course Jerry was still alive, Matt realized, no matter how dead he looked. If you were going to have a sacrifice, you had to have a living victim.
Matt had planned to wait until the three of them were busy with their grisly work, then leap into the pit and flail around with the ax until he had cut them down. But if Jerry was still alive, he couldn't wait. Maybe, just maybe, he could get Jerry away from here, away from the effect of the altar, before he blew it up.
But as he tensed his muscles, ready to spring into action, Hammond called, "Now, Stephanie!"
Shit! He had forgotten Stephanie Porter.
Matt rolled to the side just as the pick wielded by Stephanie dug into the ground where he had been lying a shaved heartbeat of time earlier. He kicked up, burying his boot heel in her belly. With a heave of his leg he sent her flying over his head, into the excavation.
As Matt rolled over and scrambled to his feet, he saw Stephanie land on the edge of the altar at the far end. Her back hit its sharp edge first, and even over the generator he heard the crack of bone as her spine snapped. She fell to the ground beside the altar, her upper half writhing frenziedly while her lower half lay limp.
Before Matt could move, Scott came up the ladder with superhuman speed and tackled him. They rolled across the ground and slid over the edge into the pit. The sudden drop took Matt's breath away. He crashed down with Scott on top of him. The ax flew out of his hand. Scott's fist slammed into his jaw, stunning him.
Matt fully expected Scott to beat him to death, but Hammond's voice rang out, ordering, "Don't kill him yet! We'll sacrifice him, too."
Scott dragged Matt to his feet and held him from behind with one arm looped around Matt's throat. At the far end of the altar, Stephanie had stopped twisting around and lay there with her breath rasping in her throat. April still had the knife, and at Hammond's gestured command, she raised it again over Jerry's stomach.
With a weak flutter of the lids, Jerry's eyes opened.
"A . . . April . . . what are you . . . April, I . . . I loved you—"
"And I loved you, Jerry, or at least I tried to," April said as she smiled down at him. Then her lips drew back from her teeth in a hideous grimace. "You were just too fucking weak!"
She plunged the knife into Jerry's belly.
He screamed. April yanked down on the knife, slicing him open. The knife clattered on the black stone of the altar as she pulled it out of his body and dropped it. Her hands plunged into the gaping wound she had created in his midsection and brought out shiny, blood-smeared coils of intestines. Jerry kept screaming.
Matt's mind was racing. Jerry still had the tiny sores on his face, but for some reason the power of the altar wasn't affecting him as strongly as it had the others. Since Jerry still clung to a shred of his humanity, maybe he could put that to use.
"Fight back, Jerry!" Matt yelled. "Fight!"
He thought Jerry might be too close to death to muster any strength, but somehow Jerry's arms lifted and his hands shot out, taking April by surprise. He grabbed her wrists and threw her toward Hammond.
At the same time, Matt leaned back against Scott, lifted his feet, and planted both of them on the side of the altar. He could feel its heat even through the soles of his boots. Straightening his legs and kicking as hard as he could, he propelled Scott back against the wall of the excavation.
That impact was enough to jar Scott's grip loose. Matt twisted free, scooped up the ax he had dropped a few minutes earlier, and swung. The blade caught Scott in the forehead and split his skull, cleaving bone and brain almost all the way to his shoulders.
Matt pulled the ax loose as April, screaming obscenities, came at him. He poked the ax in her stomach and caused her to double over. Turning the blade, he came up with it and caught her under the chin.
There was enough force behind the blow that it sliced her whole face off.
April collapsed, probably trying to scream through a mouth she didn't have anymore. Matt turned toward Hammond, but the professor was already practically on top of him. Hammond caught Matt around the body, pinning his arms to his sides so he couldn't use the ax, and forced him back against the altar.
The black stone's searing heat stabbed into Matt's back and made him yell in pain. He head butted Hammond. Rotten flesh split. Hammond reeled back. Matt butted him again. Maybe it was real, maybe it just looked that way to Matt's eyes, but the flesh was peeling away from Hammond's face now, revealing the skull beneath. Matt broke the man's grip and shoved him back against the side of the pit. Hammond had time to scream, "No!" before the ax began to rise and fall, rise and fall.
Matt didn't stop until there was nothing left but quivering chunks of something that had once been human . . . but not anytime recently.
Breathing hard, Matt swung around toward the altar. He saw Jerry lying there, trying feebly to stuff his guts back inside his belly. Matt went to him, got an arm around his shoulders, and said, "We'll get you out of here."
"No . . ." Jerry's voice was a weak whisper. "I can't."
"You've got to. I have a stick of dynamite. I'm going to blow this damned pit to hell, and everything in it."
"Can't . . ."
"Dr. Dupre and some of the others are still alive and all right," Matt said. "They can take care of you, Jerry."
Jerry shook his head.
"There's no choice. I have to be here to set off the dynamite."
Jerry looked up at him. "You'll . . . blow yourself up."
"That's the way it's got to be."
One of Jerry's hands clutched at him. "No! I'm . . . as good as dead . . . anyway. Let me . . . set it off."
"I don't think you're strong enough. You'd have to hit it pretty hard with a pick or a shovel."
Somehow, Jerry managed to smile. "Gimme . . . a chance. If I can't . . . you can always . . . come back and do it."
He had a point, Matt realized. By all rights, Jerry should have been dead already. He couldn't have more than a few moments of life left. But maybe that would be enough.
"Let me help you sit up," Matt said.
Jerry groaned as Matt pulled him to the far end of the altar and helped him into a sitting position. Some of the loops of intestine still rested on Jerry's thighs.
As Matt started to get one of the picks lying in the excavation, Stephanie reached out and clutched weakly at his leg with one hand. Matt looked down at her and said, "I'm sorry." He meant it, too.
That didn't stop him from splitting her skull with the pick.
Then he handed the tool to Jerry. He reached into his shirt and pulled out the blanket-wrapped stick of dynamite as he went to the lower end of the altar, the end where the face of Mr. Dark was carved.
"You won't be laughing much longer, you son of a bitch," Matt said as he unrolled the fabric from the greasy red cylinder.
He placed the dynamite on that end of the altar, where the blast would totally obliterate the carving when it went off. "Can you reach that with the pick?" he asked Jerry.
"Yeah . . . I can do it . . . Mr. Cahill." Jerry took a deep breath. The movement caused the guts that had spilled out of him to squirm a little. "You better . . . get out of here."