'Yo, Quinn! Speak up if you're there.'
His voice taunted him, transforming into something unfamiliar.
Forrest crept slowly forward, his body coiled and ready for anything.
The tunnel sloped downward at a steady decline, and he picked his steps carefully, not wanting to slip on the slime-covered bricks.
'Hello?' he called again, and thought he heard something rustle behind him.
Forrest turned and his feet shot out from under him. He landed on his back, his jaws slamming shut. His knife skittered away, and he slithered down the tunnel, desperately grasping for a handhold.
Then the tunnel disappeared, and suddenly, he was falling again. He splashed into a large pool of water, and sank beneath the surface. His feet touched bottom and he kicked for the top. He emerged, choking and gasping for breath.
Something brushed against his leg. Forrest jumped, and slapped at his thigh. He glanced down to see a small, white flash darting away beneath the surface-some kind of albino fish.
Treading water, he swam across the pool to a circular concrete platform.
He pulled himself up and collapsed, gasping for breath. He wished for his knife, and glanced back down at the pool. Albino fish teemed in the water by the dozens. Forrest wondered if they were some type of deformed goldfish, flushed down here long ago.
He tried to figure out what to do next. Climbing back up the shaft was impossible, yet he didn't see any other tunnels to escape through. He considered the possibility that the exit might be underwater, and surveyed the pool. The ripples had ceased, and the dark surface was still again. Something white jutted up from the center; a pipe or possibly a piece of wood, bleached from years of floating in this chemical soup.
He bent down and peered over the edge, studying the fish closer. One of them swam up to the concrete island, and Forrest froze.
Its left eye was missing.
'Dead. They're fucking dead.'
The piece of wood began to move, slowly coming toward him. Something glinted in the darkness. Teeth. Rows of long, pointed teeth.
'Oh my God ...'
His conversation with Pigpen, when he'd scoffed at the bum's tales of what lay beneath the city, came back to him.
And there are alligators down there, Forrest. Big albino fuckers with red eyes and white skin. I had a buddy named Wilbanks. He lost a leg to one.
A baleful red eye glared at him, and then the alligator clambered up onto the platform. Pustulent, open sores covered its scaly hide, and its snout was a raw, red wound. Vertebrae poked out of the creature's side, and a chunk of flesh was missing from its massive tail.
Forrest backed away. The alligator lumbered after him. It opened its mouth and hissed. The stench of its foul breath was overpowering.
Exhausted and weaponless, his back to the wall, Forrest could only scream.
The zombie nosed his legs with its decaying snout. Forrest kicked it hard. The jaws snapped shut on his leg, and the darkness erupted with hot points of light. The alligator tugged hard, dragging him toward the water.
Forrest slammed his head against the concrete, desperately trying to crack his own skull open before the creature could kill him.
The creature severed his leg at the knee with a loud crunch. Forrest struck his head against the platform again and again, and felt warm wetness on the back of his scalp. But it was too late to kill himself.
The alligator rushed forward and opened its mouth.
'Headfirst, you motherfucker. Headfirst! I ain't coming back!'
He leaped into the gaping jaws, and they crunched down on his shoulders.
His last thought was, Choke on it ...
Minutes later, Forrest's severed head opened its eyes inside the alligator's stomach.
TWENTY
They ran, not caring now if the creatures heard their flight. Caution and their sense of self-preservation had given way to sheer terror.
Their feet pounded down the tunnel, the echoes pursuing them. God leaped through a hole in the wall and they jumped through after him.
Pigpen slid to a stop and opened a circular hatch in the floor, revealing a narrow shaft. They started down it, Jim assisting Danny with the climb. Don brought up the rear and closed the hatch behind them. The shaft continued downward for thirty feet, and the rungs were cold and slippery. Jim's flamethrower tanks kept getting stuck as they descended, and he had to struggle the whole way down.
They reached the bottom and Pigpen glanced around them, seemingly unsure of which direction to go. The tunnel ran north and south, and he stared into the darkness in both directions.
'Which way?' Don gasped, breathing hard.
'I'm not sure,' Pigpen admitted. 'This way, I think.' He pointed with the flashlight beam.
'You think?'
'Been a while.' He looked down at the cat. 'What do you think, God?'
Without hesitation, the cat headed north. They stumbled along behind it.
