April reached the top of the ladder. Her wholesome beauty was gone now. Sores had erupted all over her face. Green corruption dripped from them, and strips of rotting flesh peeled off her nose and chin. She screeched curses as she ran at Matt with her hands extended in front of her, the fingers hooked like claws.
He grabbed her arms and flung her against Chuck. The two of them got tangled up together. Matt needed that respite because Scott was coming at him again. He caught the shovel before the blade could bash his brains out. His foot snapped out in a kick that caught Scott in the left knee and made the young man's leg buckle. Matt shoved him to the ground.
The yelling had gotten the attention of the others on top of the mesa. From the corner of his eye, Matt spotted several of them running toward him to find out what was wrong.
He waved his arms at them and yelled, "Get back, get back!" He didn't know how far-reaching the effect given off by the altar might be. Even though it hadn't changed him as it had the others, he could feel it, radiating from the carved face of Mr. Dark like ripples in a pond.
This was what had happened to the people who lived in this pueblo almost a thousand years earlier, he thought. Madness had spread from the altar and washed over the mesa, leading to a frenzy of slaughter and depravity.
Blood Mesa was a good name for the place, all right. It had been drenched in blood in those long-ago days . . . and soon might be again.
"Get in the truck and the pickups!" Matt shouted at the others. He didn't know if the vehicles would provide any safety, but they would be more secure than the tents. Maybe if he could get the rest of the group to flee, he could stay behind and deal with the ones who'd been changed by Mr. Dark.
That meant he'd probably have to kill all of them.
Or be killed by them. While some mystical force seemed to protect him from the touch of Mr. Dark, he could be harmed by those who had been prodded into evil by the creature.
Brad Kern and Noel McAlister were the closest of the grad students from the other groups. They had run ahead of Maggie and Rich. Suddenly both young men stumbled and clapped their hands to their heads as if they had been struck by migraines at the same instant.
Brad fell to his knees and clawed at his face. Chunks of flesh came away, shredded by his fingernails. Noel managed to stay on his feet, but sores were appearing on his face, too. Matt watched in horror, wondering if waves of evil had reached out from the altar and touched them, too. Was there any way to stop this, to reverse what was happening, to save these people?
Hell, was there any way for him to save himself?
Noel's unsteady gait strengthened. He lowered his hands, laughed, and charged at Matt. Behind him, Brad surged to his feet and joined in the attack.
Like a football lineman, Matt went low and threw himself at their knees. They crashed into him and tumbled out of control over him. Matt slapped his hands against the ground and pushed himself into a roll that carried him past the two fallen grad students.
Maggie and Rich had stopped and were staring at Brad and Noel, clearly confused about why they had attacked Matt. Matt hurried to his feet, grabbed their arms, and urged them toward the truck.
"Go! Go!"
Behind him, terrified screams filled the night. Matt and the students swung around and saw that Astrid had stumbled into the path of Hammond, Varley, Scott, Chuck, April, and Sierra as they gave chase. Varley had hold of her and clawed at her face as she screeched.
"Kill her!" Varley cried. "Kill the fucking cunt!"
Scott and Chuck shoved him aside and started flailing at Astrid with their shovels. Her screams were cut off short as the two young men battered her to the ground.
The horrific scene had distracted Brad and Noel. They ran to join in as everyone who had been affected by the altar swarmed around Astrid and began tearing her to pieces.
After seeing that, Maggie and Rich didn't need any more urging to make a run for it. They dashed toward the truck.
Matt ran behind them, glancing over his shoulder as he did so. He realized it wouldn't do any good to seek shelter in the pickups. Scott and Chuck could just shatter the windshields and windows with those shovels.
The truck might be a different story. It was taller, the windshield and windows not as easy to reach, and he had the keys to it in his pocket. If he could get in the truck and get it started, he might be able to use it as a weapon.
Ronnie and the students who had been with her ran up to Maggie and Rich. Matt was close behind them.
"Hide in the ruins!" he told them. "Grab some shovels or something to use as weapons! Go!"
Ronnie clutched his sleeve as the others scattered. "Matt, what . . . what's happened?"
"They killed Astrid!" Maggie said with a hysterical sob. "They tore her to pieces, Dr. Dupre! They're crazy!"
"You need to get out of here, Ronnie!" Matt said. "And don't go anywhere near Dr. Varley's excavation!"
The pursuit should have caught up to them by now. Matt looked over his shoulder and felt cold horror go through him. Hammond and the others hadn't resumed the chase. They were gathered around Varley, who was carrying Astrid's head, which had been hacked raggedly from her neck with the blade of a shovel.
"My God," Ronnie said in a voice hushed with awe and fear. "They're . . . they're insane."
She couldn't see the evil taking physical form on their faces the way Matt could, but she could see the results of it still dripping blood as the head swung back and forth in Varley's hand as he held it above his head and the others circled around him in some sort of macabre dance.
Matt took hold of her arm and began to back toward the truck. "Remember the bones in the kiva," he told her. "The people who lived here went mad and turned on each other. That's what's going on."
"I don't believe it!"
"You can see it for yourself, damn it! Look what they did to Astrid!"
"Something must have caused this. We have to help them—"
"We can't," Matt said. "All we can do is try to keep them from killing us."
Ronnie shook her head stubbornly as she backed away beside him. "That's not possible. It's some sort of disease. We need to get them to a hospital—"
Matt wouldn't have expected any other reaction from a rational, highly educated person. To people like Ronnie, there was always a scientific explanation for every problem, and there was always a way to fix it, too.
Matt knew better. "Rational" had nothing to do with it. He was looking at pure chaos in human form, and so he wasn't surprised when the circle suddenly broke apart and Chuck screamed and charged at him, waving his blood-smeared shovel.
"I'm gonna bash y'all's fuckin' heads in!" he yelled, spittle flying from his mouth.
The others followed his lead, dashing toward Matt and Ronnie as they screeched obscenities.
"Run!"
Matt sprinted toward the truck, keeping his hand clamped on Ronnie's arm so he dragged her along with him. Terror soon had her running just as fast as he was. What she was seeing might baffle and offend the scientist part of her, but the human part was smart enough to be scared shitless.
Jerry, Rich, Ginger, Maggie, and Stephanie had disappeared into the ruins of the ancient pueblo. Matt didn't see any of them, and he was glad of that. Night was coming on, and they might be able to hide.
On the other hand, the darkness would make it more difficult to see the things that were stalking them.
And that was the way Matt thought of them—as things. The people they had been were gone. He wondered if Andrew Hammond had been human at all, the whole time they had been up here.
Their feet pounding on the hard-packed ground, Matt and Ronnie reached the truck. Matt yanked the driver's side door open and boosted Ronnie into the cab with one hand while digging in his jeans pocket for the keys with the other. As Ronnie slid across the seat, Matt vaulted into the cab after her. He pulled the door shut just in time for it to stop the shovel blade that Chuck swung at him. Metal clanged against metal. Matt used his left elbow to push down the lock button while he jammed the key into the ignition with his right hand.