Plague (Gone 4)

“Back to the hospital,” she said.

Brittney rose to consciousness on a narrow dirt path. Seven-foot-high dirt and stone walls hemmed her in, towered over her. And perched atop those walls, coyotes leered down, their mouths open, tongues lolling out.

Jamal was behind her, checking the wire that held her arms pinned together at wrist and elbow.

Her ankles, too, were tied, but with a loose rope so that she could take short steps, but not run.

“Where are we?” Brittney asked.

Jamal shrugged with his one good shoulder. “Somewhere Drake wants us to go.” He yawned, glanced up nervously at the coyotes, and yawned again.

“You should get some rest,” Brittney said. “You’re in pain and tired.”

“Here?” He laughed bitterly. “This feel like the place for a nap?”

No, Brittney acknowledged silently. There was something dark about this place, even though the sun was up in the sky. Something about the air. Something about the look in the eyes of the coyotes. A darkness that reached inside to her un-beating heart.

“I want to go back,” Brittney said.

“Yeah? Me, too,” Jamal said. “But if I do, old Drake will whip the skin off me.”

He shoved her forward. She stumbled when the rope snapped at her ankles and almost fell. But she caught herself and shuffled on, not knowing what else she could or should do.

What must I do, Lord, to earn my true death and my place in your heaven?

“This is a bad place, Jamal,” Brittney said. “I can feel it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Drake is a bad boy, and he goes to bad places. But better off with him than against him, I figure.”

They emerged from the cut-through in view of a half-ruined hole in the side of a sheer rock face. There was just enough pale pink light to see that the mine shaft was blocked by tons of fallen rock. The massive timbers that framed the hole were splintered and looked as if they might snap.

Whatever evil Brittney felt, it came from there, from that hole, that pile of rocks.

“Where are we?”

“The mine shaft,” Jamal said. “Haven’t you heard all about that? In there? That’s the thing that gave Drake his whip.”

“In where?” Brittney said. “It’s all collapsed. It’s sealed up.”

“That’s probably good, huh? ’Cause if that thing feels this bad from out here, I don’t want to know what it feels like up close.” He bit his lip and in a low voice said, “Like a big claw holding your heart. Like icicles in your brain.”

“Jamal, if you ran away . . .”

He shook his head. “Drake would come after me. Look, you can’t be killed, right? And he can’t be killed, right? Which means, I betray him, sooner or later he gets me.”

“Maybe fire,” Brittney said softly. “Maybe God’s holy fire can destroy us both.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t happen to have any of that.”

“Only Sam can end this.”

Jamal put up his hands in a who, me? gesture and said, “I am cool with that. If big Sam wants to take Drake out, I’m not going to say anything to stop him. But listen: all you’re trying to do is slow Drake down, girl. Him and Sam, they’re going to get into it eventually, right? So maybe you should be trying to speed him up, you see what I’m saying?”

Brittney stared at Jamal. Was it a trick?

Is this the devil tempting me?

“What did the demon Drake ask you to do?”