and forth. Sully groaned. Ruppert was feeling a little ill, too.
Finally, there was heavy thumping above, and then a clanging sound, and then one of the floor panels above them lifted free. An unfamiliar young man in overalls, probably in his late teens, stood above them.
“Come on,” he said in a low voice. “Everybody grab your stuff and get moving.”
They climbed up from the compartment, Ruppert helping Sully to his feet, Nando impatient to get out into the fresh air. Cows occupied half the cages in the truck. A young woman about the same age as the boy in coveralls stood in an opened cage, luring in a cow with a bucket of grain. This must have been the cow that had been positioned on top of them the entire drive.
They exited through the open doors at the back of the trailer, into a cool, rocky corridor that slanted downward into darkness. Its shape was too regular to be a cave, and it was framed with wooden support beams- maybe an old mine shaft, or just a hastily built smuggling tunnel.
Much of the truck was not visible. The last several feet of the trailer extended through a wide square opening not much bigger than the trailer itself. Ruppert got the impression that the area behind the opening was not the outdoors, but some kind of darkened building, maybe a warehouse. He didn’t ask any questions.
“This is everybody?” The girl who’d been leading the cow away jumped down from the trailer. She wore a pair of tall hiking boots. “We go the rest of the way on foot. I’m going to lead, and Wayne here is going to be the last in line. Stay between us and you’ll be safe.”
The young bearded man-Wayne, Ruppert supposed-opened a backpack leaning against a wall of the rocky corridor. He lifted out a thin plastic ring wide enough to be a necklace, twisted and shook it, and the ring flared a glowing green. He dropped it over the head of the nearest child, who still looked pale and sick from the ride.
“Everyone takes one of these,” he said. “It’s going to be your only light for parts of the trip.” They passed the glowing green rings out to everyone, and then two young guides put on spelunking helmets and flipped on the lights set into them.
“We’re going to be walking for about an hour,” the young woman said. “When we come back up, we’ll be in Canada. There is transportation waiting on the other side, but we can’t be late, so let’s get going.” She turned and walked several yards down the tunnel.
They gathered their things and followed, Sully moving a little slow and having trouble with his balance. Ruppert took his luggage, which consisted of a dirty nylon bag that cinched with a drawstring, and carried it for him.
“Are you ready to walk, Nando?” Lucia asked.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve done a lot of cave maneuvers before.”
“That makes one of us,” Ruppert said. “Keep an eye on your mom and make sure she stays safe.”
“I will, sir.”
Sully was already falling a few steps behind. Ruppert could see the young man at the end of the line staring at Sully and shaking his head, recognizing he could be a problem.
As promised, the tunnel was lightless, and increasingly cold, the only light provided by the guides' helmets and the glow rings around each person's neck.
He and Lucia kept Nando between them. They’d attempted to hold his hands throughout the walk, but the boy refused, so they settled for keeping a close eye on him. Like everyone else, he appeared as a disembodied, glowing green head floating through the dark.
Ruppert looked around at the floating green heads. “Where’s Sully?”
“I don’t see him,” Lucia said.
“What’s the problem now?” Wayne asked.
“Sully,” Ruppert said. “The guy who was with us.”
“Oh, the retard?” Wayne looked around. “Shit.”
“Sully?” Ruppert called. The word echoed away in both directions along the tunnel.
“Don’t do that,” Wayne said. He slowly pivoted around, panning the light in a circle. Sully was no longer with the group.
The group had stopped moving and gathered around the young woman guiding them. She walked back to ask what was happening.
“We lost the retarded guy,” Wayne said.
“He’s not retarded,” Ruppert said. “He’s been through a behavior clinic.”
“Even worse,” Wayne said. “We don’t have time to turn back.”
“You two go and look for him,” the young woman said. “We’ll wait here.”
Wayne grumbled, but he and Ruppert turned back and walked along the way they’d come. Wayne swung his head back and forth as they walked, in case Sully had managed to lose his glowing necklace.
After they’d backtracked for ten or fifteen minutes, Wayne said, “Look, he’s lost. We can’t risk everybody for him.”
“We can’t leave him,” Ruppert said. “He’d never find his way out. He’s-wait!” Ruppert grabbed Wayne’s arm. “Look back…more to the right…”
The beam found Sully, who had indeed managed to misplace his own light source. He stood back in a slight concave nook, where the tunnel had turned to avoid a bank of solid rock.
Sully was staring at his watch.
“Let’s grab him,” Wayne said.
“Wait,” Ruppert said. “Let me do it. You might panic him.”
Wayne snorted, but he stayed in place as Ruppert approached Sully, trying not to make any sudden moves.
“Sully?” he whispered. “Sully, it’s Daniel.”
Sully continued to stare at his watch. A red light pulsed on its face, about once every second. Sully appeared transfixed by it.
“Sully, look at me,” Ruppert said. “We have to keep going. Everyone’s waiting.”
Sully didn’t move. Ruppert reached out and covered the blinking light with his hand. Sully gasped, looked up at him.
“Daniel…Ruppert?” Sully asked.
“That’s right. Sully, we have to stay with the group-”
Something thin and sharp stabbed into Ruppert’s left side, into the soft tissue just underneath his lowest rib. At first he thought it was a wild animal, maybe a mountain lion, though it felt more like a shark. Then Sully raised a polished stone knife and stabbed him again and again, the blade hacking into the ribs along Ruppert’s left side, as if Sully were trying to break through into his heart, but kept missing and gouging Ruppert’s abdomen instead. He thought he could feel hot blood in his own stomach.
Ruppert stumbled back, trying to get away, but Sully’s left hand gripped Ruppert’s right arm and refused to let go. Sully stabbed him again and again, his face blank, drooling a little from the corner of his mouth.
Behavior modification, Ruppert thought, instantly remembering how Terror had programmed him to murder Hollis Westerly. Which, on reflection, he might have accomplished before leaving Maya Kendrick’s defunct vineyard.
Ruppert tried desperately to remember how Dr. Smith had deprogrammed him. There had been a keyword, a master word that George Baldwin had used to gain instant control over Ruppert’s mind.
“Racca!” he shouted into Sully’s face. “Jesus, Sully, Racca, does that work on you?”
The stabbings slowed, then stopped. Sully released him, and Ruppert slipped to the dirt floor, which felt muddy and warm. His own blood.
“Sully, wake up,” Ruppert said.
Sully blinked and looked down at him, then looked to the pointed stone blade in his right hand, drenched in Ruppert’s blood.
“Oh,” Sully said. “Oh, fuck, Daniel.”
Ruppert could see him clearly in the light from Wayne’s helmet. He turned his head and saw Wayne standing where Ruppert had left him, watching, hands at his side, eyes wide in astonishment.
“I’m so sorry, Daniel, oh God,” Sully muttered, and Ruppert turned back to him. “They made me. I forgot. I forgot or I would have said. They made me do it.”
Ruppert coughed, and it hurt. He shuddered.
