He saw Pamela’s startled face as the gas generated by putrefying internal organs flared off. Her face had a strained, tight look. A tightness that trembled. She was wet and shiny all over. Streaks of brown cadaver juice marked her cheeks.
Norman saw that when he’d dragged her over the edge of the abyss he’d torn her sweater. A rent reached down from her collar to her breastbone. It exposed the gleaming upper half of her breast. A smooth globe of perfection.
Norman’s flesh tingled. This time the snake venom wasn’t to blame.
When the release of inflammable gas had burned itself out she said, ‘Come on. He can’t be far from the bottom.’
Pamela didn’t bother with the cellphone now. It was way too dim compared with the cigarette-lighter flame. Even so, she slipped it into the pocket of her shorts.
‘Just for reserve,’ she told Norman.
Now they hurried as fast as they could along the old mine working. In the flicker of the lighter’s flame they could see timber supports, along with twin rails that were smothered with dust.
‘Gotta hope there’s another way out,’ Norman told her.
‘Either there is, or we die trying.’
‘Succinctly put.’
A white light reflected from the stone walls.
‘Oh, God,’ Pamela hissed. ‘He’s here.’
Norman glanced back. They’d covered close on a hundred yards since leaving the bottom of the pit with its rich deposit of rotting body parts. Although Norman couldn’t see it now. All he saw was a dazzling mass of light.
Duke was aiming the flashlight straight at them.
Not only the flashlight.
A ricocheting bullet went screaming past them.
‘Nowhere to run to, old buddy.’ Duke’s voice boomed along the tunnel. ‘If you stop running I’m gonna promise to make it painless. You won’t feel a thing.’
Norman’s legs weakened. The snakebite was slowing him down again.
No . . . that’s not it. There’s another reason.
‘We’re running uphill,’ he panted.
‘Could be a way out up ahead.’
‘Pray God there is.’
‘And Duke might be doing us a favor?’ Pamela glanced at the lighter in Norman’s hand. ‘Kill it.’
‘Right! Duke’s flashlight!’
Norman snuffed the flame. Duke lit their way as well as his. Without having to worry about the lighter’s burning wick going out they could move faster.
Ahead, they could see an opening cut in the rock. The tunnel had branched into two.
‘Rockfall to the right,’ Pamela said, breathless. ‘Go left.’
This tunnel ran even more steeply uphill. After a few paces it opened into a gallery where miners had once worked the seams. Then they must have loaded the ore into wheeled trucks that ran under the force of gravity to the bottom of the shaft that Norman and Pamela had fallen into. There machinery would have hauled the ore to the surface.
The gallery that they’d entered had deep gray walls that glittered with speckles of ore.
‘Jeez. This is big enough to put a house in.’ Pamela looked up, awed, at the high ceiling.
‘Yeah, but I wish they’d ventilated the place. I can hardly breathe.’
‘It’ll be a buildup of gas.’ Pamela too was struggling for breath.
Norman noticed the way her lips were growing pale. When she sucked in breath her breasts rose as her rib cage expanded. He saw the curve of them through the rip in the sweater.
‘We can’t wait here any longer,’ Norman gasped. ‘Duke’s not far behind. See the light?’
He was right. There was still no need to use the cigarette lighter. Duke’s flashlight sent a wash of white light into the miners’ gallery.
‘Gotta keep moving.’ Pamela heaved in a lungful of toxic air. ‘Right.’
They walked on. Running was impossible. The stone floor was humped in the middle. A seam of harder rock had forced the miners to dig upward before the obstacle dipped down again. It forced Norman and Pamela to walk up a steep incline before descending the other side. At the top of the mound Norman’s throat stung, his eyes watered.
When they’d passed the highest point he spluttered the words, ‘That’s where the gas was densest.’
Pamela nodded. Her eyes streamed with tears.
Now they could hear footfalls.
Duke must be close.
All they could do was continue. The spacious gallery narrowed back to a tunnel. They followed the tracks into the gloom.
When they reached an old ore cart on the tracks Pamela stopped her companion.
‘Norman,’ she said, ‘I’ve got an idea.’
Chapter Fifty-three
Norman stared at the miners’ ore truck as it sat on the rails. A wedge-shaped block of wood had been forced under a rusty iron wheel to stop the truck running away. Probably done by the last miner to walk out of here eighty years ago.
Norman gasped for air. His leg hurt where the rattler venom still saturated the muscle tissue. Even his hand tingled where Priest, the crazed cannibal, had chewed on it.
At last he found the breath to speak. ‘Pamela, I hope you’re gonna tell me we can get in that thing and ride outta here.’
‘Nope . . . the tunnel runs uphill. If we climb in the truck and get it rolling it’ll take us right to Duke.’
Norman glanced back down toward the gallery. The flashlight was growing brighter. ‘Well . . . Duke . . . Duke’s getting closer all the time.’ He licked his dry lips. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘Give me your shirt.’
‘Huh?’
‘Your shirt. Quickly!’
From the bottom of the tunnel Duke sang out: ‘Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of a college bum.’ The guy laughed. A mad-sounding laugh.
Kind of laugh you make as you slice someone into pieces.
‘Norman? Shirt!’
‘Okay, okay.’ Norman ripped off his shirt without bothering to undo its buttons. Quickly she tied the shirt to the front of the ore-hopper truck, around the iron device that would have hooked into the next truck in line.
‘Lighter.’ Pamela held out her hand.
Norman handed it to her.
She rolled the metal wheel to ignite the wick. Then she held the blue flame to Norman’s shirt. With a crackle it started to burn.
‘Great,’ he gasped. ‘You’ve tied my shirt to a truck. You’ve set it alight. Now what?’
‘Kick the wedge out from under the wheel.’
‘Anything to please a lady.’ Norman was light-headed now. These actions made no sense to him. But he did as Pamela asked anyway. With a few kicks he knocked clear the timber wedge that acted as a brake.
‘Norman, stand back!’
He stood back against the tunnel wall, out of the way.
Nothing happened.
‘The axles will be rusted,’ he told Pamela. ‘It’s stuck . . . stuck like shit to a baby.’
‘Norman!’ Duke called. ‘What you doing playing with rusty trucks, bud? Gonna cut yourself.’
Norman couldn’t see Duke properly but he guessed the man had just entered the section of tunnel that contained Pamela, himself and the truck. The resolutely stationary truck.
Pamela hissed, ‘Get behind it. Push!’
‘You really think it’s gonna run him down?’
‘Just get this truck rolling, Norman.’
He limped behind the truck to help Pamela who had her shoulder against the hopper. He helped her to push.
Through clenched teeth Norman panted, ‘Wouldn’t we be better running away . . . rather than doing this?’
‘We can’t outrun the guy. He’s armed. We’re not. This is our last hope.’
‘Gee, some hope.’
‘Get it moving before the shirt burns out.’
‘Like that makes perfect sense.’
‘Listen to me. When you set fire to the gas pooping out of that body earlier – it was methane gas. A by-product of putrefaction.?
??
‘So?’
‘Methane. It’s odorless, colorless. It’s lighter than air . . . uh, come on, it’s starting to move.’
The truck’s wheels squealed as they turned for the first time in decades.
‘Norman?’ Duke’s voice. ‘You playing with matches up there? I can see somethin’ burning.’
‘Methane’s inflammable,’ Pamela gasped.
‘Why didn’t we blow up when you set fire to the shirt?’
‘’Cos of the hump in the gallery floor down there. Remember when we couldn’t breathe? Methane’s gathered in a pocket where the floor of the mine rises up in that hump.’
‘From all those rotting bodies?’
‘Yup, those dead people are a regular gas factory.’
‘It’s going!’ Norman cried out as the wheels unstuck themselves and began to roll. Axles shrieked. He straightened to see the truck moving faster and faster downhill toward the light source that was Duke’s flashlight. The thunder of iron wheels against the track was almost deafening.
‘Get back against the tunnel sides!’ Pamela shouted above the racket of the runaway ore truck. ‘Cover your ears with your hands. Keep your mouth open; otherwise the shock wave will pop your eardrums.’
Shock wave? Sounded as if the truck with Norman’s burning shirt tied to the front was about to go nuclear.
The rumble of the truck receded. Then came Duke’s scornful laughter.
‘You really thought you could run Duke down with that heap of junk! Man, you’ve gotta try harder than that!’
The rattle of wheels faded.
The sense of anticlimax nearly caused Norman to weep.
All that effort! For what? Jesus, we would have been better—
Norman didn’t so much hear the explosion.
All he really remembered was a blue light of such intensity that he could still see it when his eyes were tight shut. Then he was flying through the air. Then he was lying with something soft on top of him.
There was darkness. He seemed to be breathing dust.
Jeez. At least he was breathing.
The darkness seemed to last a long time. Norman was too dazed to do much except lie there.
After a spell he heard a noise in the stillness. An electronic bleep.
A green face floated in front of his.
‘Are you all right, Norman?’
‘Pamela?’
‘Yeah, sorry, I seem to be lying on top of you.’
‘Believe me, that ain’t a problem.’
Pamela moved the cellphone so that she could reveal a little of their surroundings.
They couldn’t see much. Dust misted the air. With the light of the cellphone it created an eerie, greenish fog.
‘Duke,’ Norman said. ‘If we’re in one piece, then—’
‘Relax,’ Pamela told him. ‘When your burning shirt detonated the methane you could say truthfully that Duke sorta went to pieces.’
The light on the phone went out again.
She pressed another key.
Bleep.
The light came on. Norman saw bits of Duke. Big bits. Small bits. Charred bits. Bloody bits. His head lay in the center of the tunnel, looking back at them. He still wore his disdainful sneer, the lip curling up. Only there was no body.
‘Appears as if Duke’s gone to the bad-boy convention in the sky.’
‘Yup.’ Pamela smiled. ‘Duke. RIP. Rest in pieces.’
They stood up. Dusted each other down. Norman had had the good sense earlier to replace the lighter in his pocket. He lit it again.
‘Okay,’ he announced. ‘Let’s find the exit.’
Chapter Fifty-four
When Norman stepped out of the mine’s ventilation shaft it was night. Even so, he saw the light.
Not that he was suddenly overcome by the sweet love and boundless mercy of Almighty God.
Nor any revelation concerning Jesus, Buddha or Shiva.
No.
Norman saw Pits in the moonlight below him, and then he saw ‘the light’ of his own personal revelation. He thought: Duke’s gone. I’m still here. I’m going to take over.
That town is mine.
Pamela said, ‘Take care where’s you’re stepping, Norman. This path runs right along the edge of the cliff.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he told her. ‘After what happened tonight I’ve gotta be indestructible.’
‘I wouldn’t push your luck. That’s a sheer drop.’
Norman felt good. Duke was dead. Boots wouldn’t be a problem. This moon was so bright that he could clearly see the narrow path that hugged the edge of the cliff. He glanced down to his left. The rock face plunged down maybe a hundred feet to a scree of rubble at the bottom. Probably old mine waste thrown out of the shafts that pockmarked the hillside here. In the distance a coyote howled in the hills. Some animal part of Norman howled back.
A desire that was nothing less than wolfish began to burn in his belly. He stopped. Glanced back at Pamela who was following him along the narrow path.
She looks good by moonlight. Skin glows silver. Hair like gold.
He saw her bare shoulder where her sweater had been torn open earlier when he’d pulled her into the mine shaft so that they could escape Boots and Duke. That bare shoulder burned in the moonlight. Norman burned inside.
He wanted her.
Hell, he’d earned her. He’d every right to take Pamela for his own. After all, Duke had promised Norman that he could have her first, hadn’t he?
‘Norman?’ Pamela’s voice wavered, as if she’d seen something in his expression that worried her. ‘Norman, we need to go to the house and free my friends. Then we’ve got to find Boots. She’s still armed, remember?’
‘Me and you,’ he breathed.
‘Me and you what?’ She tried to smile as if he was joking. In the bright moonlight he saw clearly enough that the smile died on her face.
‘Me and you,’ Norman whispered again. ‘King and Queen of Pits.’
‘King and Queen of Pits? What on Earth are you talking about, Norman?’
‘Pamela, don’t you see? We’ve got brains. We’re brighter than the other bozos who live here. We could take over here.’
He stared at her as she stood with the rocky hills bathed in moonlight behind her. A shooting star streaked through the heavens like an omen.
Pamela was stunned for moment. Couldn’t speak. Then, ‘Norman, you’re not being rational. Why should we want to take over Pits? They’re nice people here, they saved my—’
‘Pamela, listen. We can do it. There are guns in my trailer. We can force Lauren, Nicki and the rest to do what we want. We can live here like royalty.’
‘Norman, the shock of that explosion must have confused you. You’re sounding crazy. You’re talking like . . .’ She paused.
‘Like Duke?’ He felt a smile spread across his face. ‘Yeah, you could say I inherited the Dukedom.’
‘Norman, you don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘Pamela, come with me. We can rule together.’
‘Norman – no!’
She turned to walk away from him.
At that moment Norman couldn’t say if he went crazy, or revealed his real character that had been hidden for years, or whether the spirit of bad boy Duke really did ghost through his flesh to take control of his brain. But he snarled.
Lunged at Pamela.
Grabbed hold of her.
‘Once you’ve been with me,’ he grunted in her face, ‘you won’t want anyone else. Other men will seem like a heap of wet rags compared to me!’
‘Norman. You are crazy! You’re a nobody who got hooked up with two weirdos. They’ve sent you insane.’
‘Nobody? I’m not a nobody. Listen, Pamela.’ He held his hands up in front of her face, the fingers splayed. ‘I’ve killed men with these bare hands. Today I killed Terry.’
‘Terry . . . you killed him?’ Pamela shook her head in horror. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I cra
cked his skull like a nut. I can show you where I left the body.’
‘Please, Norman, come down to the trailer. You’ve got to lie down and rest.’
‘I’m gonna lie down, all right. With you!’ He grabbed hold of her sweater again. Started tugging.
Pamela tried to pull away. She put one foot over the edge of the cliff. Her leg swung a hundred feet above jagged stones.
Norman gripped her arms and dragged her back onto the path.
‘See?’ he told her. ‘I’ve just gone and saved your life all over again. You owe me a blood debt now.’
She struggled. ‘Norman, please.’
He twisted her round so that he could hug her from behind. In a parody of a dance move he embraced her, his chest pressing against her back, his head jutting forward so that he could press his cheek against hers.
‘Pamela. You see Pits down there, all shining and beautiful in the moonlight? That’s ours now. Our Dukedom.’
‘You’re holding me too tight . . . I can hardly breathe.’
‘In a minute I’m going to undress you. Then I’m going to make love to you – right here on the path overlooking the town that we’re going to own.’
‘No!’
Pamela struggled. Kicked back with her heel.
Norman laughed. He grabbed her sweater where it was torn. He pulled. The gash in the fabric opened wider, ripping, exposing the upper part of her breast.
This’s gonna be good . . . real good. His heart thudded. His groin tingled. He could even hear Duke’s voice inside his head urging him on. ‘Way to go, Normy, old buddy. Nail her for me. Screw her so hard she can’t walk for a week.’
‘Norman, please don’t do this . . . please!’
Then a calm voice. ‘Pamela’s right, Norman.’
‘Uh . . .’
Norman looked up at the boulders on the hillside. A figure was standing there. Norman blinked. Moonlight played tricks with his vision. For the human figure appeared to have wings that jutted from its side.
‘Sharpe.’ This was Pamela crying out in relief. ‘Sharpe, thank God.’
‘Sharpe. That really you?’ Norman asked. Suddenly his sense of macho power vanished. His legs felt rubbery.
Easily now, Pamela wriggled free of him.
She moved to one side until she stood maybe ten feet from Norman.