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that the cellar roof collapsed and the entire place entombed them.
Working in the near dark, under enormous pressure, with one hundred-year-old
black blasting powder, didn't lead to the scientific probability of measured
success.
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On balance, Ryan hoped that it went off.
One by one the tiny halos of light from the matches were extinguished, leaving
the cellar in pitch dark-
ness. Everyone was crouched over on hands and knees, palms pressed to their
ears, mouths sagging open against the anticipated shock wave. All waiting.
Chapter Eight
"It hasn't worked, Dad."
The small voice came from the raven blackness, trying to hide its fear.
"Can't tell yet, Dean." Ryan had only just caught his son speaking, through
the muffling hands over his ears. "Not like a chron-timed gren."
The others were aware of the conversation and were moving around hi the dirt.
1 "This brings back such happy memories of playing at Sardines with my English
cousins at one
Christmas party. One had to squeeze into the smallest, darkest space one could
find and wait for the other to try to find you."
Doc sounded totally unworried by their intensely dangerous predicament,
chatting as easily as if he were relaxing at a faculty tea party.
"How long do you reckon, J.B.?" Mildred asked from near the double doors to
the open air.
"Reckon in the next minute or..."
"Or what, John?"
"Or not at all."
"It's coming," Krysty said, quiet and confident.
"When?"
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"Soon, lover. Very soon." She paused long enough for three beats of the heart.
"Now."
MANY YEARS EARLIER Ryan had been knocked unconscious by an implode gren going
off close to him while he was swimming hi a deep reservoir. The feeling was
similar when then: homemade bomb was ignited in the store above.
There was a massive, muffled impact that a person felt rather than heard. It
was like having the brain squeezed by a giant's fist, who was also compressing
all of the internal organs of the body.
It was sensation, rather than actual pain.
The floor heaved, and Ryan felt chunks of wood and dirt raining over him as he
crouched on the packed earth.
J.B. was quickest, holding a dozen spluttering matches in his hand. The air
was filled with powdery dust, and they could all catch the bitter stench of
the explosive.
Krysty touched a finger to her nose, bringing it away streaked with crimson.
Dean had a worm of blood creeping from his nose, and Doc complained that he'd
bitten his tongue.
Ryan scrambled to his feet, feeling his head ringing. "Can't hear those mutie
birds anymore," he said, aware that his voice sounded extremely distant.
"I can't hear anything," Michael countered, brushing dirt off his clothes.
"No point waiting." Ryan walked to the heavy doors and braced himself under
them. "Dean, take the rifle and Uzi. Michael and J.B., lend a hand here."
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Doc, Mildred and Krysty struck more matches, giving the men enough light to
see what they were doing. For a frozen moment, Ryan thought that they might
not be able to shift the ancient doors and was on the verge of asking Krysty
to use the power of the Earth Mother, even though he knew what a terrible toll
it took out of her when calling on the frightful strength.
"Going," Michael panted.
A hinge groaned in protest, then both doors swung up and back, letting in a
flood of cold, bitter fog. Outside the building, the day hadn't yet quite run
its course, though it was moving toward evening.
"Ladder?" Ryan felt around him, but there was nothing. "No. Michael, climb out
first. Here, I'll give you a leg up. Then help pull everyone out."
The place was deathly still, the fog clamped tight around, cutting visibility
to less than five paces.
Behind them there was the dimly seen light of a fire burning, dry wood
crackling and the distinct sound of sorely wounded creatures.
As they moved away from the tourist ghost town of Lonesome Gulch, the noises
faded behind them.
THE JOURNEY BACK to the gateway through the blighted land wasn't entirely
without incident. None of the mutie birds that had besieged the store at the
entrance to the ghost town came after them, but the fog grew steadily thicker
and more menacing, making it less than easy to find the trail with none of the
compasses working at all.
They picked up the old road along the side of the slow-running, sinister river
without any problems, taking care to keep as far away as possible from the
strange semiliquid flow, avoiding attack from any of its lethal denizens.
Dean complained of being thirsty and waited a little way off the trail,
looking for pools of water trapped amid the frost-riven boulders.
The others waited, Ryan calling out to him not to go far from sight.
"All right, Dad. Got some..." Then came the sound of spitting and spluttering
from the gray walls of fog.
"Dean?"
"Okay, Dad. Sipped at a rain spill. Tasted just like bullock's piss."
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"How do you know, Dean?" Michael asked. "You ever drunk the piss of a
bullock?"
Dean reappeared, wiping his mouth, gobbing in the dirt. "Real funny, Michael.
Real fucking funny."
"Best not to try to eat or drink anything while we're here," J.B. warned.
"Soon be back at the gateway. Make a jump. Then get something."
THE TRACK BEGAN to wind upward, and they eventually reached the rotting stump
of the huge tree that they remembered from the walk down from the gateway. The
huge albino maggots that had infested it had all mysteriously vanished.
While they stood at the bend in the track, something scuttled out of the mist,
almost under
Mildred's feet, making her jump back with a gasp of fright.
It was like a string of mottled greenish pebbles strung together with threads
of gristle, about four feet long, with no apparent eyes or mouth. Without
pausing, it snaked across the path and vanished once more into the coils of
mist.
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"Proper little valley of the shadow of death, isn't it?" Mildred said to no
one in particular.
The rank vegetation became more sparse, eventually thinning out completely,
leaving them on the narrow, rutted trail that climbed higher between the
granite walls.
The small wound on Ryan's neck was stinging and he touched it, finding that it
was leaking a colorless liquid. He brought his finger to his nose and smelted [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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