Plague (Gone 4)

Jamal nodded at the cave. “He just said be here. He’s got in his head that he can talk to that thing in there. Or at least hear what it says.”

Brittney could believe that. How could she not believe in things that seemed supernatural? Her brother sometimes spoke to her as an angel. And God was with her always. Wasn’t He?

And she herself, this gruesome remnant of the girl she once was, she herself was something outside of nature.

Was Sam the Lord’s servant? The very tool God had chosen to liberate Brittney? She’d begged Sam often for liberation. But God’s ways were not knowable to her. His time was not her time. His will be done.

“What does Drake want of me?” Brittney asked.

“Just, you know, don’t always be trying to run away so I have to tie your legs and slow us down and all.”

“Is he going after Sam? Is that his plan, to go after Sam?”

She thought she caught just the slightest falseness in Jamal’s eyes as he said, “That’s exactly his plan. Straight for Sam, as soon as he checks in with . . . you know.”

“You can sleep, Jamal,” Brittney said. “Sleep until Drake comes back. I won’t run away.”

“How am I going to trust you?”

“Because I swear it. On the blood of the Lamb, I swear it.”

Jamal woke to the pain of Drake kicking him.

“What?”

Drake was actually smiling. It wasn’t a good look for him.

“You were asleep,” he said. “And I’m still here.”

Jamal jumped up and quickly untied Drake. “Yeah, I did just what you said, Drake. Just like you said. I told her that you would go after Sam first thing. Then Sam would burn you both up and . . .”

He gulped, suddenly realizing that this might be taking it too far.

But Drake was in a charitable, expansive mood. He patted Jamal lightly on the cheek with the tip of his whip. “You did good. And I will get Sam Temple. Sooner or later.”

Drake gazed at the mine shaft. What he felt toward the Darkness within was something very much like love. Fear, yes, but the Darkness deserved his fear. His fear and his devotion.

If he had to pull the rocks out of there one by one, and if it took weeks, he would reach the Darkness and free him.

“My old body’s down there,” Drake said, realizing it for the first time. “My old body is down there with him.”

Drake felt a sudden pang of longing. He wanted to press his body against the rocks in the mine’s mouth. It would bring him closer. Maybe the Darkness would reach out to him, touch his mind, tell him what to do next.

But he couldn’t do that in front of Jamal.

“Start hauling rock,” Drake said. “You have to pile it, like, back over there.” He pointed a relatively flat space. “I don’t know how far the rock fall goes. It may take us a while. Put Brittney Pig to work when she comes back.”

For two hours or more they lifted and carried. It would have helped if they had a wheelbarrow. It would have helped if Jamal’s arm weren’t broken. They had to lift each chunk of stone, each shattered timber. Some were big enough that they had to each take an end. Some were so big they couldn’t even budge them and had to just go around them.

At the end of two hours they’d moved no more than a foot and a half deeper into the shaft.

Brittney had reappeared once during that time and she had bought into the idea of helping with the digging. But Drake couldn’t kid himself: they weren’t getting anywhere. It could take months. Years. Forever.

The coyotes came and went, watching, no doubt thinking about eating Jamal. So when Drake heard the sound of movement coming from around the bend in the road, he assumed it was coyotes.

Only it

wasn’t the usual stealthy pad-pad-pad of coyotes. This was a sound with clicks and sudden rushes.