He spat it out instantly, falling back into the damp sand. His mouth burned and his throat contracted. He started to cough and then retched. If he'd had any food in his stomach, he would have been violently sick. No, it was no good, it was brine, it was salt water. Even if he was able to force some of it down, he knew it would finish him off.
He listened to the lethargic slap of the water and then rose unsteadily to his feet, debating whether he should go back into the lava tubes. But he couldn't bring himself to do that — not after all the hours he'd already spent in them. Besides, there wasn't the remotest chance he'd find his way back to the Great Plain, and even if, by some miracle, he did survive the journey, what would be waiting for him there? A Styx reception party? No, he had no choice but to follow the edge of the water, its sound continually playing on his mind and making his thirst even more agonizing.
Although the sand was level, it shifted under his every step, sapping what little energy he had left as he plodded laboriously across it. He could no longer think straight. He tried to focus. How big was the body of water? Was he simply tracking around its shores, going in one big circle? He tried to tell himself it didn't feel that way — he was pretty sure he was traveling in a straight line.
But with each step, he fell further and further into a state of numb despondency. With a long, drawn-out sigh, he sank down onto the sand and seized a handful of it, thinking he might never get up again. One day far in the future, someone would discover his remains, a dried-out cadaver in the lonely darkness. How ironic: He would die of thirst curled up next to a subterranean sea. Maybe his bones would be picked bare by scavengers, his ribs sticking up from the sand, like a camel's skeleton in the desert. He shivered at the thought.
* * * * *
Will didn't know how long he'd remained there, beaten and drifting in and out of a fitful sleep. Several times he told himself to get back on his feet and walk again. But he was just too tired to resume his aimless wandering.
He nestled his head in the sand and turned to face the direction that he knew he should be taking. He blinked several times, his eyelids rasping against his dry eyeballs, and happened to glance behind him.
He could have sworn he saw the faintest glimmer of light. His vision playing tricks on him again. But he continued to stare at the spot. And saw it for the second time: a tiny, indistinct flash. He scrambled up and began to stumble toward it, leaving the sandy shore behind him as he scrabbled across the rattling pebbles. He tripped and went sprawling. Got up. Swore at himself because he was disoriented. And caught another fleeting glimpse of it. The light.
This was not something his tired brain was conjuring up — it was real, and he was so close. Yes, it might be a Styx, but he was past caring. He needed light like an asphyxiated man needs air.
More carefully, he crept up the gravel bank. He could see that the irregular flashes were emanating from a lava tube, its mouth clearly outlined by them. And though the light seemed to flicker in intensity, as he came nearer he could see that there was a constant illumination within the tube itself. He reached the opening, treading softly, until he was able to peer around the corner.
He saw shapes without form, shades without color. It took the most immense effort for him to remember how to use his eyes. He had to keep telling himself that what was before him was not just some hollow manifestation of his own making. Rapidly blinking, he struggled to bring his two lines of sight together and force the click-clack vacillation of the images to come to rest. They fused and made a distance, something certain…
"PIG!" he croaked. "YOU BEAUTIFUL PIG!"
"Wha—?" Chester cried, sitting up with fright and spitting the food from his mouth. "Who—?"
Will could see again. His eyes feasted on the light, luxuriating in everything before him. Not fifteen feet away sat Chester, with a lantern in his hand and his rucksack open between his legs. He'd been helping himself to some food, stuffing it unceremoniously into his mouth, and clearly too preoccupied to hear Will's approach.
Will lurched toward his friend, beyond overjoyed. He half fell, half sat by Chester, who was gawping at him as if he'd seen a ghost. Will snatched the lantern from him and clasped it in his hands.
"Thank God," Will repeated several times in a cracked voice, staring straight into the light. It was so bright it hurt, but all he wanted was to bask in its eerie green flicker.
Chester snapped out of his stupefaction. "Will…" he started.
"Water," Will croaked. "Give me water." His voice was so thin and feeble, it came out as a throaty gush of air. Will pointed frantically. Chester realized what he wanted and hastily passed him his canteen.
Will couldn't remove the stopper fast enough, fumbling at it pathetically with his fingers. Then it was off with a pop, and he rammed the neck into his mouth, gulping the water down greedily and trying to draw breath at the same time. It was going everywhere, slopping down his chin and chest.
"Will, we thought we'd lost you!" Chester said.
"Typical," Will gasped between mouthfuls. "I'm dying of thirst" — he swallowed, the water beginning to rehydrate his vocal cords — "while you're stuffing your face." He felt transformed, elated; the long hours spent in the dark were over, and he was safe again. He was saved. "Freakin' typical!"
"You look really terrible," Chester said quietly.
Will's face, normally pallid from his albinism, now appeared even paler, blanched from the salt crystals that had dried in a crust around his mouth and on his brow and cheeks.
"Thanks," Will eventually mumbled, after another large gulp.
"Are you OK?"
"Awesome."
"But how did you get here?" Chester asked. "Where've you been all this time?"
"You don't want to know," Will replied, still rasping. He looked down the lava tube behind Chester. "Drake and the others… where are they? Where's Cal?"
"They're out looking for you." Chester shook his head disbelievingly. "Will, dude, it's so good to see you. We thought you'd been caught, or shot, or something."
"Not this time," Will said and, after a few breaths, he renewed his attack on the canteen, sucking at it until he'd drained the last drop. He belched contentedly, tossing the canteen to the ground, and then, finally, took in the concern etched on his friend's face. Chester's hand, grasping some food, was still poised in front of him. Dear old Chester. Will couldn't help but laugh, gently at first, then building to such a hysterical level that his friend edged back slightly.
"Will…?"
"Don't let me keep you from your snack," Will got out before he lapsed into another fit of sick-sounding laughter.
"It's not funny," Chester said, lowering the food. Will didn't show any sign of stopping his strangled guffawing, and Chester's indignation grew. "I thought I'd never see you again," he declared earnestly. "For serious."
There, on his grubby face, his lips covered with crumbs, a big grin began to form. "Whatever. You're stark, raving bonkers, you are." He shook his head. "Bet you're starving. Want some of this?" he offered, gesturing at the open pouch on top of the backpack.
"Gracias, mate. I certainly would," Will said gratefully.
"No problem. It's your food, anyway — this is your rucksack. Drake grabbed your kit when we ran for it."
"Well, glad you weren't going to waste it!" Will said, punching him gently on the arm. Will felt close to his friend again, and it felt good. "You know… the batteries died in my flashlight. I didn't even have an orb. I thought I was a goner," he told him.
"No way. How'd you make it down here, then?" Chester asked.
"I hitched a ride," Will replied. "How do you think I got here? I walked."
"No. Way!" Chester exclaimed, shaking his shaggy head.
Will looked at the inane grin on his friend's face. He'd seen the same big, stupid smile that day when they were reunited on the Miners' Train, and although it had only been two months ago, it felt like several lifetimes. So much had happened, so much had changed.
&nb
sp; "You know," he said to Chester, "I think I'd even rather go back to school than do that again!"
"That bad, huh?" his friend asked with mock gravity.
Will nodded, rolling his swollen tongue around his lips, appreciating the novelty of spit once more.
Chester's voice burbled on in the background, but Will was too exhausted to listen any longer. He gently slipped into a languor, his head lolling back against the rock behind him. His legs twitched slightly, as if finding it hard to break from the rhythm of the protracted slog they'd been put through. But their movement became less and less until they were completely still, and Will found a well-earned oblivion, unaware of the horrible chain of events taking place that very moment on the Great Plain.
34
Cal had been concentrating all his efforts on walking, and when he looked up, what was before him came as quite a shock.
He and Drake had been tracking around the very edge of the Great Plain, but the usual jagged rock wall wasn't there.
In its place, a vertical and apparently smooth surface ran from the ground to the roof, completely filling the space between the two. It was as if the seam that was the Great Plain had simply been sealed up. The barrier was too perfect to be a natural feature and stretched into the gloom as far as the light from his muted lantern penetrated.
He edged closer to touch its surface. It was solid and gray, but not as perfect as he'd originally thought — in fact it was badly pitted, and in places large chunks were missing, from which reddish-brown stains spread downward, marking the wall.
It was concrete. A huge concrete wall — the last thing he'd have expected to find in this elemental place. And he realized just how huge as they continued beside it for another twenty minutes, until Drake signaled him to stop. He pointed at a rectangular opening in the wall, five feet off the ground. Leaning toward Cal, he whispered, "Access duct."
Cal brought up his lantern to inspect it.
Drake grabbed his arm and pushed it down. "Keep it low, you fool! Are you trying to give away our position?"
"Sorry," Cal said, watching as Drake slipped his hand into the shadowy cavity. Then he heard a dull creak as Drake pulled, and a hatch of rusting iron pivoted open.
"You first," Drake ordered.
Cal peered into the grim darkness and swallowed. "You expect me to go in there?" he asked.
"Yes," Drake growled. "This is the bunker. Been empty for years. You'll be all right."
Cal shook his head. "Be all right? I don't want to do this, I do not want to do this!" he muttered, but scrambled unenthusiastically into the duct with a helping hand from Drake and began to crawl.
The light from his lantern licked weakly before him, revealing foot after foot of the regular passage as his hands scrabbled in an inch of dry grit along the bottom of the duct. The sound of his own breathing was intimate and close, and he loathed the feeling of constriction. Caught like a rat in a drainpipe, he thought. Every so often he stopped to reach out with his walking stick and knock against the sides to check the way ahead. It gave him an opportunity to rest his leg, which was beginning to ache badly. It felt as though it was going to seize up completely, leaving him stuck in the passage.
Nevertheless, he continued. The duct seemed to go on forever. "How thick are these walls?" he asked out loud. Then, as he stopped to probe in front with his stick again, the tip didn't encounter anything. He inched a little farther forward and checked again. Nothing: He'd come to the end.
He cautiously clambered down from the duct. His feet safely on the ground, he turned up his lantern and swept it in front of him. He nearly cried out as a shape reared up beside him, and he raised his walking stick defensively.
"Quiet," Elliott warned, and he immediately felt like a fool. He'd completely forgotten that she would have been clearing the way ahead, as she always did.
Drake dropped soundlessly from the duct and appeared behind him. He nudged Cal on, and without a further word, they pushed deeper in.
They'd been in a small, gloomy room, empty except for puddles of stagnant water, but now advanced watchfully into a larger space, their footfalls giving short echoes as they scuffed over a linoleum-like floor. It might have once been white, but was now streaked with filth and stained from piles of rotting acrid-smelling debris.
As Cal and Drake held back for Elliott to scout ahead, Cal's light revealed they were in a pretty large room. Against one of the walls stood a desk, and the walls themselves were mottled with patches of brown and gray damp, with small fungi sprouting in sporadic outgrowths, like little circular ledges. And next to where Cal was waiting, there were some shelves filled with decaying files. The paper had been reduced by the water to a flowing amorphous mulch. It spilled from the shelves to form small mounds of papier-mâché on the floor.
Responding to Elliott's signal, Drake whispered to Cal to move on. They slipped through a doorway and into a narrow corridor. At first Cal assumed the indistinct sheen from the walls was due to moisture, but then he realized he was passing between massive glass tanks. He thought he glimpsed a reflection of his own face in the black-algae-encrusted glass, but as he looked closer, his spine tingled. No! It wasn't his reflection at all. It was a leached-white human head resting against the glass, its eyes hollow and its features eroded as if eaten away. He shuddered, moving on quickly, not allowing himself a second look.
They rounded a corner at the end of the aisle, past a final tank, only to find the way blocked by massive slabs of broken concrete. The ceiling had caved in. But just as Cal was thinking they would have to turn back, Drake guided him into the darkness beside it, where the collapsed roof slanted down to a rough stairwell. It was bounded by a twisted, misshapen railing. They squeezed under the slab and, together, crept down the crumbling steps to where Elliott was waiting.
The stench of decay that met them was far from pleasant. Cal assumed they'd reached the bottom when Elliott took a few more steps and waded into dark water. He hesitated, but Drake jabbed him sharply in the back until he reluctantly lowered himself in. The turgid warm water came up to Cal's chest. Dust and oily rainbows circulated as their movements disturbed the surface. Above them were radial growths of fungi, so thick and numerous that they had to be growing one on top of the other, rather like a coral reef.
Tiny filaments hung from the fungi, glittering in Cal's light like a million spiderwebs. But the stench was overwhelming. He tried to hold his breath, but was eventually forced to draw the miasma into his lungs. It caught in the back of his throat, and he began to hack away.
As he struggled to stifle the coughing, he looked down. To his horror, he could see movements just below the water's surface. He felt something tangle itself around his calf. Then it tightened.
"Oh God!" he choked, and in a frenzy tried to dash through the water.
"Stop!" Drake rumbled, but Cal didn't care.
"No!" he shouted loudly. "I'm getting out."
Surging forward, he saw Elliott ascending a set of steps in front of him. He caught up with her, clutching at a rickety iron banister that buckled under his weight. He managed to drag himself out of the fetid water. He was stumbling and tripping up the steps, banging his walking stick against the wall, desperate to get to clean air, when a hand grabbed him by the shoulder. It stopped him in his tracks, pressing agonizingly into his collarbone and spinning him around.
"Don't ever pull a stunt like that again," Drake said in a low growl, his face just inches from Cal's and his uncovered eye burning with a fury. He shoved the terrified boy up against the wall, still gripping him by the shoulder.
"But there was—" Cal began to explain, hyperventilating from both the foul air and his fear.
"I don't care. Down here, a single stupid action can be the difference between us making it through this or not… It's that simple," Drake said. "Do I make myself clear?"
Cal nodded, trying his utmost to stop his coughing as Drake prodded him on again. They came up into another corridor, with a much higher ceiling than
the claustrophobic passage they'd just left. The sides angled outward and then in again toward the top, like an ancient tomb. The ground was damp, and every now and then Cal's boots crunched and cracked as if he was treading on glass.
Soon they were passing openings that led off on either side from this oddly shaped gallery. They went a small distance into one before taking a turning off it into a substantial space that seemed to be divided into smaller areas. A maze of thick concrete partitioning reached halfway up to the ceiling, forming a whole series of pens. Strewn across the ground at the entrances to these pens were mounds of rubble and heaps of what appeared to be rusting metal.
"What is this place?" Cal asked, daring to break the silence.
"The Breeding Grounds."
"Breeding… for what? For animals?" Cal said.
"No, not for animals. For Coprolites. The Styx bred them to use as slaves," Drake answered slowly. "They built this complex centuries ago."
He ushered Cal on before he could ask any more questions, into a smaller antechamber. It had the feel of a hospital ward. The floor and walls were covered in white tiles, now discolored with years of dirt and damp, and a huge number of beds were heaped haphazardly near the entrance, as if someone had been in the process of removing them but was interrupted halfway through. Strangely, the beds were, without exception, rather small — there was absolutely no way they would have accommodated someone even of Cal's size, let alone an adult.
"Cots?" he spoke aloud. Over each diminutive bed was a circular metal cage of flaking, rusted iron, still locked into position. "Not for babies?" Cal said, horrified. It was like a maternity ward from a nightmare.
"For Coprolite babies," Drake answered as they caught up with Elliott. She pushed through a pair of swinging doors, one of which began to creak loudly from its single hinge. She immediately caught the door, stilling it.