Shadows (Ashes Trilogy 2)

Don’t let it get to you. His heart was pounding too hard. He willed himself to ice, felt the change as the adrenaline tailed off and his pulse slowed. He’s an ass**le, but he knows the mine and Rule. You need him just as badly as he needs you.

“All right, let’s get his shirt off, and that jacket, but I’d avoid the pants.” Huffing, Weller levered himself from the snow. “Chucky took himself a little dump.”

Weller was enjoying this way too much. “I’ll do it,” Tom said. He rolled the body, then quickly unzipped the boy’s jacket and stripped him from the waist up, taking not only the clothes but the boy’s flashlight, knife, rifle, and spare box cartridge full of ammo. He tossed the shirt and parka to Luke. “He’s about your size.”

“Oh. Yay.” Luke handled the clothes as if they were rattlesnakes. “We sure I got to do this?”

“No, but it can’t hurt.” Weller kicked snow over the ruin of gluey brains. “If you two smell like Chuckies, it’s all to the better. Remember, once we get inside, I’m bologna.”

“You can do this, Luke. Leave the thermal top for me. Now, be quick.” Hooking his hands around the dead boy’s ankles, Tom dragged the body into the trench, then scuffed snow until the boy was invisible. The rifle, a scoped Browning BLR ’81, was a good weapon but useless for their purposes. Their Uzis were silenced. After thumbing out the bullets, he broke the weapon down and threw all the hardware in different directions. By the time he returned, Luke was just zipping up the dead boy’s jacket.

“This feels kind of creepy.” Luke gave the cuffs a tug. “Like, you know, I’m wearing him.”

“That’s the idea,” Weller grated.

“You can burn it after, Luke,” Tom murmured. His eyes were focused on the rolling, brushy terrain between their hiding place on this rise and the shaft. In the moonlight, the snow glowed with the soft phosphorescence of a firefly and reminded him of the view from night-vision goggles. Ahead, the swell of a snowcovered mound bulged. “You sure that’s the shaft?”

“Yeah,” Weller said. “Stick close. Last thing we need is to take a tumble.”

They shambled over the snow, awkward because of the packs and ropes and Uzis, and Tom felt the terrain change under his boots. The mound wasn’t solid but ice-encrusted rubble. They crabbed over the snow, and then Weller reached for a small, juryrigged headlamp. A tiny snick.

In the sudden spear of light, the shaft yawned in a black, circular sore: a wide tube of concrete about twenty feet across. The headframe and hoist were gone. Only an iron ladder bolted to the concrete remained. Weller scratched through snow for a rock, then opened his hand over the shaft. Tom counted, silently. Five seconds. Fifteen. At thirty, he said, “I didn’t hear anything. You?”

Weller shook his head, then swarmed to the ladder. Everything looked solid, but up close, Tom could smell rust and see where the rungs had oxidized and crumbled. Thin fractures spidered around some of the bolts where water had seeped then frozen, breaking open the concrete.

“Only one way to test it,” Weller said. He threw a quick clove hitch onto a carabiner, then clipped in. Luke grabbed Tom’s waist and Tom braced himself, the rope looped across his back and firmly gripped in both hands, as the old man carefully lowered himself onto the first rung, shifted his weight. Took the second rung. The third. “Think we’re good to go.”

Luke ran a hand over the iron. “Feels pretty rotten to me.”

“Boy, I was dropping down cliffs in Quang Ngai while Charlie rained fire,” Weller said. “This is nothing.”

Yeah, yeah, and you picked your teeth with a bayonet. “We don’t have much choice, Luke,” Tom said.

“But there’s nothing to tie the rope to,” Luke said. “If the ladder goes—”

“It’s a long way down,” Weller said. “You backing out?”

“Just do what I do,” Tom cut in. He’d be damned if he’d let Weller embarrass the kid. “Except if I slip . . . don’t do that.”

Luke exhaled a shaky laugh. “I’m good. Uh, how far are we going again?” The kid’s voice broke on the very last word.

“Far enough to knock the legs out from under those little shits,” Weller said.

“What if we can’t?” Luke asked.

“Then it’s going to get pretty exciting,” Tom said.

73

Way back, her parents took her to the Iron Mountain mine outside Vulcan. After donning red hard hats and yellow slickers, they’d ridden a small tram into the mine through a rock straw so narrow she could put out either hand and touch stone. Caged bulbs hung from a low-slung ceiling, but pockets of thick shadow and inky tunnels pushed in. She hadn’t thought she was claustrophobic— but then, in the main stope, the tour guide turned out the lights, just for show. The darkness closed down like a fist, and was so absolute it was all Alex could do to keep from screaming. Her eyes opened wider and wider and wider. If this had been a Road Runner cartoon, they’d have popped right out of the sockets on little springs: ka-boing, ka-boing. But there was nothing to see, because there was no light. At. All.

She wasn’t a wuss, but that had been bad.

This was way, way worse.

They’d split her and Daniel off from the others, driving them further and further into the mine; down through endless turns, through a warren of drifts and tunnels festooned with spraypainted numbers and letters, and then down gated stairs. She lost track of the turns, and the greater reek of the Changed faded away.

Now, though, she was in complete and utter darkness. Well, except for Mickey, who said she’d been crouching on a nubbin of rock in this isolated side-chamber for over seven hours. No sound either, except the splash of water over rock, Daniel’s rapid breaths, and the thrum of her heart. Oh, and the bats. Even if she hadn’t caught their scent—dry and dusty and a little sour—she would have heard their papery rustle. Sometimes, they squeaked. No problem. Just . . . she really didn’t need to run into them. With my luck, I’ll get rabies. She wondered if rabies was passed on in meat and then decided she was being morbid.

Job one was to get out. But how? The Changed obviously knew their way around. So, it occurred to her, did the bats. Both must only go as deep as the air was good. Except this air wasn’t so great. Not bad, but every so often she caught a whiff that reminded her of sulfur from a match head. But she hadn’t keeled over and the bats were here, so the air must be okay. She rifled a glance behind. Nothing to see, of course. But I wonder if . . . She licked her finger and then held it up. Hunh. Maybe just a hint of air from back where the bats hung out. Could be them flapping their wings. Or just breathing.