He shot his foot at the point of her chin. 'NO!' Chris yelled.
'I thought she was one of them,' Hank muttered.
Chris held her daughter tightly, and couldn't stop crying.
'Mom,' Darcy said, 'you're hurting me.'
She was crying, too. So was the baby Chris had handed to Hank after he'd come so close to killing Darcy. That kick… it would've broken her neck.
If Chris hadn't yelled.
If Hank hadn't been so quick, so good, that he was able to turn even in the middle of that deadly kick and blast his foot through the air beside Darcy's ear.
'Mom.'
'I'm sorry.' She let go of Darcy.
Darcy turned around and went right into the arms of a big man who wore nothing but his underwear. He stroked her hair, her back.
'What'd he do to you?' Darcy asked the man who held her.
'Don't know. My head hit something. Thought I had him, and then… Are you okay?'
'That's a good one,' she said, and sobbed.
'You saved my life,' he told her.
'Guess so. My hand'll never be the same.'
'I love you, Darcy.'
Who is this guy?
Chris wondered.
Hank patted her shoulder. She turned to him, and he gave the baby to her.
'Paula,' he said.
That was all he had to say, and Chris's gladness and relief shrivelled.
Darcy turned away from the other man. 'Paula?' she asked.
'My kid,' Hank said.
Darcy's mouth twisted, but no words came out.
'What?'
'She Was… they were together,' Darcy said, and nodded toward the body of the teenaged boy.
'Is that Kyle Mordock?' Hank asked.
She nodded again.
Chris saw pain come to Hank's eyes.
He picked up the lantern and started to run.
Chris rushed after him. We're leaving them in the dark, she thought. She had the backpack loaded with flashlights, but the baby was in her arms. She couldn't leave the pack for them. But she heard them following.
Please let Paula be all right,
Chris thought as she ran.
Darcy's okay, thank God, hurt but okay and it wouldn't be fair if Hank lost Paula.
From the darkness ahead came sounds of wailing.
It's bad up there,
she thought.
But Hank is so good. He'll nail anyone in our way. He'll get us to Paula.
Please God, let Paula be alive.
Hank's a good man. He's killed, but he had to. He doesn't deserve to lose her.
She quickened her pace. The infant in her arms, no longer crying, tugged at Chris's ear.
She caught up to Hank.
Side by side, with Darcy and Greg not far behind, they raced through the cavern. Ahead was blinding tragedy or joy for Hank. No matter which, Chris would be with him.
Either way,
she told herself,
we'll be together.
That should count.
The anguished cries grew louder, but Chris realized that no screams, no shouts of alarm came from the darkness beyond the glow of Hank's lantern.
Was it over? Had the beasts from the bad end of the cave been beaten, killed? Or had they only retreated? Were they coming this way?
Dashing around a bend, she saw light ahead. The shimmering light of half a dozen small fires. She saw people standing near the fires, adding shirts and sweaters to the flames. Others milled about as if lost. Some huddled together in small groups. More than a few were sprawled on the ground. Of those who were down, some lay abandoned. Others were being tended to by people crouched beside them. Still others were being held, wept over, mourned.
Faces jerked toward the brilliant glare of Hank's lantern. Chris heard startled gasps, quick shrieks, shouts of warning. Hank came to a sudden halt. She stopped beside him and took hold of his arm.
'PAULA!' he yelled.
Silence fell over the group.
A few men began to approach, slowly, hunched over as if ready to do battle.
'PAULA?' he called again.
And a small, wary voice answered, 'Dad?'
From behind a shirtless man standing with a woman near the far end of the chamber stepped a girl. A girl with thick long hair that glowed auburn in the firelight. A girl in a plaid shirt that was much too large for her, its cuffs flopping below her hands as she walked, its tails draping her bare thighs.
'Dad!' Her voice boomed out, now glad and eager, and suddenly she was running, dodging the survivors in her way, and Hank was passing the lantern to Darcy and rushing forward to meet her.
Hank stopped. His daughter didn't. She slammed into him. Chris heard the soft impact, and tears blurred her vision as she saw Hank spin, crushing the girl against him.
***
Darcy refused an ambulance. She stood in the wet debris at the top of the elevator shaft, a blanket clutched around her body, and watched the cable roll off the squeaking reel of the winch. It should almost be to the bottom by now. But it moved with terrible slowness.
She had intended to be last out. It was only right, since she was the leader. First to be hoisted from the cave were the injured. Then the others, one at a time, had strapped themselves into the harness and been raised to the surface until only Darcy and Greg remained below. The Coleman lantern had run out of fuel. They stood together, only the beams of their flashlights warding off the darkness.
Greg had insisted that she go before him.
Just as well. Duty or not, she hadn't liked the idea of being alone down there with only a flashlight. Alone except for the corpses.
A voice rose faintly from depths of the shaft. 'Got it.'
'He's got it,' repeated the fireman kneeling at the other side of the opening.
Darcy heard the winch clank, reversing.
The cable began moving upwards slowly.
She imagined Greg, snug in the harness, starting to rise. Stepping closer to the edge, she peered down into the shaft. The faint light of dusk faded a few yards below the rim, and she saw no more than the cable creeping upwards.
'Yeeyahhh! NO! God!'
Darcy's breath slammed out.
The cable jerked, quivered, swayed.
'GREG!' she yelled. Flinging her blanket off, she leaped. She caught the rising cable, clenched it between her legs, started to slide down. The cable felt like fire against her stabbed hand, her torn thigh.
Snapping
'Shit!'
the fireman grabbed her. He tore her from the cable, swung her clear of the shaft and wrestled her backwards as she struggled to free herself. 'Calm down,' he grunted. 'Christ, you nuts?'
'Greg!'
Twisting free of the man, she scurried over charred rubble to the edge before he caught her around the thighs, hugged her rump to his chest, stopped her.
She waited, gasping, staring down the hole.
Out of the darkness below came Greg, his head down, his body hunched over in the harness.
Darcy heard him moan.
He rose out of the shaft, naked except for his underwear, groaning and clutching his right calf. Blood was spilling from beneath his hands.
The fireman released Darcy. She lurched up, grabbed Greg and pulled him away from the mouth of the shaft.
As she clung to him, others freed him from the harness. She held him while he was carried to the grass and put down.
Paramedics pried his hands away from his blood-slick leg. Darcy glimpsed a torn patch of skin hanging off the back of his calf.
His small toe was gone.
'Aw geez,' Darcy murmured. 'What…?'
He shook his head. His face was pale, sweaty, twisted with pain. 'Bit me. Came outa…'
'They were dead,' Darcy blurted.
'Others. Two of 'em. Maybe three. Not the dead ones. Others. Don't know where they came from.'
'They'll be taken care of,' said someone behind Darcy. Looking over her shoulder, she saw a big lawman crouching, staring down at Greg. He met her eyes, then rose to his full height and turned away. 'Clement! Groves! Baker! Standish! Get the pumpguns, we're going in the hole. Move it! We got some mopping up to do!'
Darcy leaned over Greg. With her uninjured hand, she stroked the cool slickness of his forehead. 'You're going to be all right,' she whispered.
'You, too.' He tried to smile. His chin trembled.
'I'm gonna be fine,' Darcy said.
'Me, too.'
She eased down, feeling the mild evening breeze on her bare legs, feeling it seep through her thin panties, knowing she was being watched by firemen and paramedics, by survivors and spectators and even her mother…
… but not by Kyle…
She didn't care what they saw.
On her knees, she sank down over Greg. She felt his breath on her lips. 'You're mine, now,' she whispered. 'I'm missing a goddamn toe.'
'It was my favourite, too.'
'You love me anyway?'
'You bet,' she said, and covered his mouth with her lips.