Forty-three
Evie was screaming when she saw Corin’s machines
shooting darts at the men coming up the hill. Some of the men fell
writhing in agony, but others carrying toy guns opened fire in complete
silence, and Corin’s toys began rolling down the hill.
And it was Corin who grabbed her arm and pulled her
toward the door. “Hurry. We don’t have much time now.”
He rushed her down a rear,
unlighted corridor and through a metal door. Beyond, a tunnel sloped
steeply downward, lit only by an occasional bare bulb. The door
boomed closed behind them, and before it was out of sight, the floor of
the tunnel jolted so bad that Evie bit her tongue. Dust came rushing
down from the bunker, billowing about the lights and throwing them into
instant darkness.
Corin pulled her to him and held her tight. “Relax.
I rigged everything to collapse, but we’re safe here.”
He slipped his hand down her arm and interlaced his
fingers with her own, guiding her the rest of the way through the darkness
and the choking dust to a door that opened onto sunlight. She emerged
onto the side of the hill overlooking the Silver Ridge River from beneath
an overhanging ledge of slate. Even when she turned to watch Corin emerge
into the light behind her, it was difficult to see the tunnel entrance.
The door itself was made of fake plastic rock.
Thunder continued to echo in the morning air. Evie
danced about nervously, tugging at Corin’s hand. “Come on! We’ve got to
get away from here!”
Corin refused to budge. “There’s nowhere to run,
Evie, nowhere to hide.”
Voices echoed from the side of
the hill overhead. “Corin, they’ll catch us!”
He reached for her calmly. “Listen to me. . .”
“Evie!”
It was Abe’s voice, bellowing with rage. It stabbed
through her like an bolt of lightning. She spun about and bolted.
Corin called out after her. “Evie, don’t!”
Death held no fear for Corin, but what Evie imagined
waiting for her in Silver Ridge was far worse than death. She flew
through the trees, leaping fallen logs and dodging through intricate
pathways in the underbrush, through stands of saplings and barriers of
brambles and thorns. Sunlight flickered down through the trees from
overhead.
Men paced her further up the slope, keeping to the
deer trails that crisscrossed the wooded hill. Several raced down the
slope to cut her off. She took refuge in the water itself. The river was
no more than a few feet deep in most places. Here, it was deeper and more
treacherous, racing down a ravine of boulders to a pool of water the size
of a small lake where she and Abe and Lazarus and Noah had swam as
children. Even as she assessed the risk she was taking, she slipped on
moss-covered rock and fell. The stream of water caught her and hurtled
her along with the cold grip of a giant hand.
She shot down an incline and slammed into smooth
boulders, first striking one side of the rocks, then another. All the
time the powerful water crashed about her head, blinding her, filling her
throat with frothing water. Caught in the thunder, she flailed
helplessly. She needed to catch a dead branch or tree limb to save
herself. When the ground fell out from beneath her, it was far too late
for even that slim chance.
She cart-wheeled through open air and hit water
again. Had she struck one the boulders, she would have been dead in an
instant, but luck was with her in that one moment. She splashed into the
narrow channels of water instead. Water hammering down from overhead kept
her own buoyancy from carrying her back to the surface.
But she had come too far to drown now. If only she
could reach the swimming hole. She was already past Silver Ridge. The
woods grew dark and tangled here. Nobody would ever be able to find her.
She scratched along the narrow bottom of the pool,
maybe ten feet beneath the foaming surface, moving away from the pounding
and buffeting of the water. Holding her breath became agony. Finally, it
burst from her lungs of its own accord. It was all she could do to keep
from inhaling and filling her lungs with water.
A gentle current prodded her on. The current became
a more persistent force, then a violent shove that forced her between two
walls of slick rock and expelled her into open space again. She gasped
air and screamed, then hit the tranquil surface of the old swimming hole.
She floundered in the mud at the bottom of the five
feet of water, but cried out her exhilaration when she surfaced and
thrashed her way to the shore.
Her legs were like lead. She crawled on hands and
knees up the sand bar to the dark wall of trees before trusting them to
support her weight. Men were still calling from behind her. A few had
her in sight. Their voices echoed all up and down the valley, but it was
too late to catch her now. It took only a second to slip among the trees
and move out of sight.
Her lungs burned. She forced her way through the
thicker underbrush while she fought for air. The noise she made masked
the hissing sound in her ears for a time. She slowed, perplexed when it
became louder and stabbed through her head. At the first twitch of pain,
she stopped in horror, reminded of a girl she had known in third grade who
had died of a brain hemorrhage. She had forgotten the girl’s name. She
had only been eight years old. She too had complained about a ringing in
her ears. She had burst into tears in fright a moment before pitching
face down onto the concrete, her life snatched from her by a birth defect
that had killed her in an instant.
When the painful ringing neither intensified or
diminished, Evie tried to press on. The stabbing pain in her head became
worse, forcing her to stagger back in bewilderment, then in panicky
disbelief.
It was a barrier of some kind, a fence of sound too
high-pitched to hear. But it was loud enough to hurt.
Corin had warned her. “There’s nowhere to run to,
nowhere to hide.”
“Evie!”
Abe’s voice echoed from somewhere not too far behind
her. “Why didn’t you go when you had the chance? I gave you a chance to
go!”
She backtracked through the trees. There were more
men in the woods on both sides of the river now. They spied her and gave
chase, herding her back toward the spot where she had left Corin.
Corin was gone when she returned. Without breaking
stride, she ducked beneath the rock and crawled into the tunnel. She
tried to pull the door closed behind her. Debris blocked it. She
scampered further back into the darkness even as Abe’s voice roared from
behind her. “Evie, damn you, you had your chance!”
He was a black silhouette outlined in sunlight. He
reached in and grabbed her ankle. She felt like some terrified little
animal being hauled from its lair, dangling at the end of his grasp,
thrashing and screaming in helpless rage.
He slapped her across the face with stunning impact.
Then he hugged her fiercely and bellowed his anguish. “I’ve got to take
you to him! Evie, he’s not human!” He held her at arm’s length and
whispered. “He’s going to give you to Lazarus. Try to reason with him,
Evie. Try!”
Evie was dead weight in his arms. He carried her up
the side of the valley to a truck waiting along the highway. He climbed
in back with her, forcing her to her knees and pinning her hands behind
her back during the short ride to the highway.
Abe had changed. There were cuts and bruises all
over him, and she could see fear in his dark eyes. She could hear it in
the way he breathed. He put a hand on her shoulder, helping her to hold
her balance against the swaying of the truck, but when they reached the
old motel court on the edge of town, he shoved her forward mercilessly.
The adversary, Corin had called it. The adversary
was a man. When Evie saw the size of him, her knees buckled. She all but
wet her pants in abject terror. Abe lifted her from the ground and
carried her to him.
King gave her a maniacal grin. She stared at his
jagged metal teeth in horrified disbelief. He gripped her chin in his
massive hand. “Such a delectable little creature. Such soft and tender
emotions they engender.”
King shoved her away in scorn.
“She’s mine,” Lazarus croaked from somewhere behind
her. “You promised.”
At the sound of his voice, Evie tried to break away
and run so hard that her legs went into convulsions. She twisted
frantically in Abe’s grasp, but she was a rabbit trapped in the jaws of a
cougar.
King turned to Lazarus and smiled. “She’s yours for
the night. Use the cabin on the west corner. Enjoy yourself, my
obsessive friend, but on one condition.”
Lazarus eyed the man eagerly.
“She must be dead by morning.”
Lazarus’ lower jaw went lax.
King grinned wickedly. “Don’t fret! I’ll give you
another to play with tomorrow night, one just as fetching! What do you
say, my twisted friend? Or do you wish to bicker with me?”
Lazarus took Evie by both arms, wrenching her from
Abe’s grasp. She saw the look in his eyes, grim defeat and equally grim
triumph. She went limp in Lazarus’ arms. Having exhausted her every
effort to escape, she was ready now to die.
Abe watched the two retreat with a look of helpless
desperation.
King startled Abe by whipping a nine millimeter
semi-automatic pistol from his belt. He held it out into the sunlight,
tossed it end for end and offered it by the butt. “Lazarus is useless to
us. He will get you killed in the end, if you allow him to live. He need
not suffer, but I suggest that you deal with him in the most decisive
manner possible.”
Abe reached eagerly for the pistol.
King jerked it out of reach. “Not before morning.
Not until your brother has shown his true mettle. Do you understand?”
Abe understood all too well. Not before Evie was
dead. Delaney had made it all too clear that King was testing his
resolve. Only when Abe muttered that he understood did King relinquish
the pistol.
Abe wondered how King knew for certain he wouldn’t
turn and put a bullet through his head. If King was relying upon his
cowardice to safeguard himself, he was indeed a god who could see into the
minds of men. If King understood the dark side of man that well, then his
contempt was justified. Abe regretted that neither he nor Lazarus had
ever done anything to prove King’s understanding wrong. Abe watched
Lazarus drag Evie away, and he did nothing.
