Still Life With Crows

knew, but the hell with it: it was past one in the morning, and they’d been standing in the cold and rain for over three hours already.

He heard Williams groan, then swear. He glanced over. Williams was huddled farther down the cut, holding the propane lantern. Shurte had dressed his partner’s bite, using the first-aid kit from the cruiser. It was an ugly wound, but not nearly as bad as Williams was making it out to be. The real problem was their situation. The police-band radios were silent, the power was out everywhere; even the few commercial radio stations that reached this far into the boondocks were off the air. As a result, they had no information, no orders, no news, nothing. Three hours Hazen and the others had been in the cave, and the only one to come out had been one of the dogs with half his jaw ripped off.

Shurte had a very bad feeling.

The cave exhaled a smell of dampness and stone. Shurte shivered. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way the dog had come tearing out of the darkness, trailing blood. What could have ripped a dog apart like that? He glanced at his watch again.

“Jesus, what the hell are theydoing down there?” Williams asked for the tenth time.

Shurte shook his head.

“I should be in the hospital,” Williams said. “I might be getting rabies.”

“Police dogs don’t have rabies.”

“How do you know? I’m getting an infection, for sure.”

“I put plenty of antibiotic ointment on it.”

“Then why does it burn so much? If this gets infected I’ll remember who dressed it,Doctor Shurte.”

Shurte tried to ignore him. Even the banshee-like moaning of the wind across the mouth of the cave was preferable to his whining.

“I tell you, I’ve got to get medical help. That dog took a chunk out of me.”

Shurte snorted. “Williams, it’s a dog bite. Now you can put in for a Purple Heart Ribbon for being wounded in the line of duty.”

“Not until next week I can’t. And it hurtsnow, damn it.”

Shurte looked away. What a jerk. Maybe he should request a rotation. When the going got rough Williams had crapped out. A dog bite. What a joke.

A bolt of lightning tore the sky in half, briefly painting the mansion a ghostly white. The huge drops of rain were propelled like bullets in the howling wind. A river of water was running down the ramp into the cave.

“Fuck this.” Williams got to his feet. “I’m going up to the house to relieve Rheinbeck. I’ll take a turn watching the old lady and send him on down here.”

“That wasn’t our assignment.”

“Screw the assignment. They were supposed to be in and out of the cave in half an hour. I’m injured, I’m tired, and I’m soaked to the skin. You can stay out here if you want, but I’m going up to the house.”

Shurte watched his retreating back, then spat on the ground. What an asshole.

Seventy-Seven

 

The roar of the monster was suddenly drowned out by a second roar, sharp and deafening in the confines of the cavern. Corrie felt the horrible weight of the brute suddenly slam against her, pressing her cruelly into the rock face. He was roaring violently in her ear as if in pain, the bellowing filling her nostrils with the smell of rotten eggs. The great paw around her neck loosened, then released, allowing her to turn her head and gasp for air. She had a brief glimpse of a face inches from hers: broad, unnaturally smooth, pasty white, little eyes, bulbous forehead.

There was another blast, and this time she heard the slap of buckshot against the rock face nearby. Corrie gulped in air, clinging hard at the slippery purchase. Someone was firing a shotgun at him from below.

The monster slid away from the rock, then regained his hold, scrabbling frantically and roaring like a bear in the direction of the blast.

Vaguely, she heard Pendergast’s voice from below. “Corrie! Now!”

Corrie struggled to clear her head. She released one hand, gave a desperate reach upward, and found the handhold that had been eluding her. Crying and gasping, she pulled herself up by her arms, moved her foot—and felt a viselike grip close around her ankle.

She screamed, trying to shake her leg free, but the brute tugged fiercely at her, trying to peel her away bodily from the rock face. She struggled to maintain her hold but the pull was too strong. Her fingers, already swollen and bleeding from her struggles in the pit, grew too painful to endure. Corrie cried out in fear and frustration, feeling her grip give way, her nails scraping across the stone.

There was another shotgun blast and the terrible grip abruptly relaxed. Corrie felt a sharp sting in her calf and realized that one or more of the shotgun pellets had hit her.

“Hold your fire!” Pendergast shouted down.

But the monster had fallen abruptly silent. The roar of the shotgun, the shrieks of pain and rage, echoed and fell away. Corrie waited, frozen in terror against the rock face. Almost against her will, she found herself looking downward.

He was there, the broad moon face now a mask of blood. He stared up at her a moment, his face horribly twisted, grimacing, his eyes blinking rapidly. Then his hands spasmodically released their holds. His eyes remained on hers as he swayed back, as if in slow motion, from the rock face. Then he gradually fell backward, his