felt, a strength I could only command by forgetting where we were and
how we came to be there.
So that suddenly I was the cynic. Not her.
-I dor where he is.' She frowned and shook her head. 'I think I
remember I think he went back toward the house. I'm not sure.'
'Think. It's important.'
'Oh god.'
'Come on, Case.'
'Okay. Yes. All right. I remember ashadow. Movement. Yes. He's
back there, Clan.'
'Shit. Checking to see if there are more of us, probably. That means
we're screwed either way.'
'Great. Wonderful. Okay, let's work this through. It'sa long way
back there, and a lot of it's narrow tunnel. We'd have Ben ahead of us
for sure. And if they come back looking for us, we'd have Mary and
that thing behind us too. With no room to turn around, maybe. I can't
say I like that much.'
'But the dog, Clan.'
'We don't know what the hell's in that direction, except the sea is
there somewhere....'
'Pretty close, I think.'
'And Mary and the dog are there too, somewhere. What do you like?'
'Clan?'
'What.'
She hesitated. 'I was about to say I loved you. But what if I'm just
grateful? Very grateful.'
'I'll take it. Either way.'
'You will, won't you.'
'Yes.'
She moved quietly to the flashlight and picked it up and then returned
to me. She looked at me a moment.
'It's love,' she said. 'It always was, I think.'
'I know. For me too, Case.'
We stood there, not even touching.
What a terrible time to find out how good life can be, I thought. And
how good to find out anyway.
We let the moment plant its seed deep, knowing there might never be a
harvest. Her smile was a little rueful, but mostly it was glad. She
came slowly, gently into my arms.
'I never want to see that dog again,' she said, 'but I'll take what we
don't know over what we do.'
'Same old Casey.'
I held her close and then released her. There was almost a pain, a
physical pain, at the parting.
I took the flashlight from her and located Steven's axe handle in the
beam. Without a word she picked it up. Then we turned and touched
hands and slowly we moved on.
We had not been the first to come through there.
They lay waiting for us in the passageway. A pair of human skeletons,
rags falling away to scraps over cracked broken bones, lying in the
dark.
Whether the dog had killed them or had only gotten them after death we
couldn't tell. But it was easy to see where the bones had been scraped
and gnawed. On one of them the legs had been separated from the torso
and dragged a few feet away. The shinbone on the left leg was gnawed
clear through. It was splintered like a piece of green wood. The
skulls bore teeth marks too.
I'm told the brain is a choice morsel.
So Ben and Mary had finally yielded- up their secrets, some of them.
Fled with a pet or two. One of whom had grown very big and very old
and had tasted human flesh.
Fled through a hole in the wall. Used it, probably, to gather supplies
now and then. And when it was sealed up, cut it open again.
They had lived like animals here. It was easy to imagine a life of
scrounging, gathering, hiding. Scavenging the beaches. At night
perhaps, the ghost crabs scurrying sideways underfoot, pale as wax in
the light of the moon. A captured gull's nest. Hidden traps along the
shoreline. A stray cat. A stray dog. And always, hiding. The world
outside the proven implacable enemy. Their entire army a pair of
black, powerful jaws.
The skeletons were somewhat on the small side. One of them in scraps
of denim.
Kids, probably. No older than us, and maybe younger.
I wondered if dog or man or woman had killed them. I wondered if
they'd fought and lost and died as Steven had. I felt very, very
vulnerable.
The corridor was as hort one. Casey was right- from here you could
smell the sea. You could hear it too, the faint easy brush strokes of
dead low tide. To me it sounded like freedom.
You couldn't help but reconsider going back the way we came, Ben or no.
Not after those corpses. But in the passageway we'd be much more open
to attack. Besides, I wasn't wholly sure of the way. I could see us
missing a turn, the panic, the fear that they could be in front of us
or behind, the impossibility of covering ourselves with only one light
between us. They knew these tunnels. We didn't.
No, the way out was a head of us. Past them. Through them.
Close by.
We moved toward the hiss of the sea. Its sound was seductive,
dangerous. It could excite you, give you hope. And it could mask
other sounds.
Fight the sound, I thought.
I saw a thin stream of moonlight filter through the passage. We were
close now. It gave me an idea. A way to increase our odds a little. I
