He turned to see the creature’s bulk blocking the entrance to the tunnel. Its mouth filled the hole with a tangle of twisted fangs, hissing and snapping in a blind fury. The confined passage was filled with another piercing screech.
Jack crawled on, fumbling through the bag for another flare. He found one and ignited it. The light revealed a rather tight space, barely two feet high and curving out of sight ahead and behind. He looked into Elina’s eyes and then Dwight’s.
Fear was painted on both of their faces like the marks on Elina’s skin. He could hear the beast still growling behind them, but they seemed out of reach and safe for the moment.
“What now?” Elina said.
Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess we keep going. See where this leads.”
They continued on, following the narrow passage as it curved away from the sacrificial cavern. They crawled for several yards until it opened into a smaller chamber. Jack stood, thankful to at least be out of the cramped tunnel. As they ventured across the room, he could see that all over the floor were scattered curved, bony shells and fragments of appendages.
Then Elina pointed at something up ahead. “What is
Jack held the flare out and spotted what looked like a large rock of some kind, an unnaturally rounded boulder nearly two feet in diameter. He stood, frozen. He had seen this before. He raised the light and could see more of the objects scattered around the chamber.
Elina leaned toward Jack and whispered, “What are those things?”
But Jack stood still. Too frightened to respond.
“Jack?” Dwight whispered. “What is it?”
“I think…” Jack’s throat was dry. “I think we’re in some kind of… nest.”
Chapter 43
George Wilcox sat in Thomas Vale’s spacious office, behind Thomas Vale’s burnished oak desk, in Thomas Vale’s exquisite leather chair, with a shotgun across his lap.
Malcolm Browne—Thomas Vale’s business manager—lay dead in the other room in front of Thomas Vale’s massive stone fireplace. Loraine Browne, along with the Huxleys and the Dunhams, had already left for the evening and had probably gone to bed some time ago. George would deal with them later. In fact, he probably wouldn’t need to do a thing.
But for the moment, all was quiet in Thomas Vale’s mansion. So George sat there in the darkened office, waiting for Vale to return.
He felt little emotion, numbed by Miriam’s death. Some part of him suspected he might soon join her, and that thought no longer filled him with apprehension. His wife had faced her end with courage. A courage born out of a faith that he now knew was more than empty religion. He would mourn for her when this was over. But for now he just needed to be patient.
He swiveled around and stared out the window into the night. The moon was nearly full and had already risen high into the night sky and lit up the whole countryside.
Shortly after midnight, the silence was broken by the sound of footsteps. George could hear them coming up the stairs. He listened closely. They were hurried and uneven. Someone was frightened and perhaps injured. And George could also hear the sound of labored breathing.
The footsteps reached the top and were now coming down the hall. George spun around to face the door. Moonlight streamed from behind him and lit the room with a dim but usable glow.
A silhouette appeared in the office doorway and stopped. George heard the breathing pause a moment and then resume.
Vale felt for the light switch and flipped it on. His shirt was drenched in blood, his face ashen with dark circles under his eyes. His hands were trembling, and he was sweating. Profusely. Yet he didn’t look at all surprised to see George there.
George nodded toward Vale’s bloodied shirt. “It looks like you ran into some trouble. It’s a good thing you’re immortal.”
Vale scowled and lurched into the side room where he stored the perilium. George listened carefully for the sound of his reaction when he saw the refrigerators. The mangled, empty refrigerators.
A full twenty seconds later, Thomas Vale emerged from the room, his eyes looking glazed and unfocused. He clutched one trembling hand in the other. “What do you want?”
George’s eyebrows went up. “Excuse me?”
“How much do you want? Ten million? Twenty?”
“Money? You think I want
“What, then?”
George raised the shotgun and aimed it directly into Vale’s face. “I want my wife back.”
Vale’s breathing grew more labored. “It wasn’t… my fault. It was her… choice.”
“Well, in that case, I’ll settle for watching you die.”
Vale glared at him. “What did you do… with it?”
George shrugged. “It’s gone. Every last drop. I flushed it all down your own toilet.”
George watched Vale’s incredulity turn to hate. “You… have no idea what I was… offering you.” He was sucking in air hard now. “The chance to be… young again.”
George leaned back in the chair. Vale was no longer fearsome—now frail and thin, wrapping his arms around himself in an attempt to keep from trembling.
“When did you become so arrogant,” George said, “to think you had the right to live off the deaths of innocent people like this? As if there would never come a reckoning.”
“Off your… high horse, George,” Vale said. “You know what you’re capable of. We’re… not so different… you and I.”
“Tell me something, Mr. Vale,” George said. “What are
Vale opened his mouth, trying to respond, but his voice was already gone. He could no longer stop the tremors. Nor hide the symptoms of his impending fate. Both hands quivered violently. His arms began to tremble and then his legs.
He turned in a feeble attempt to leave. George imagined it was to find a place to hide. To keep George from witnessing the convulsions and so to rob him of that last bit of satisfaction. But his motor skills were negated now by the onslaught of his death.
George watched it spring upon him like some kind of predator as Vale crumpled to the floor—a trembling, contorted mass in its grip. His spine arched as his muscles contracted with violent spasms. His legs and arms stiffened at odd angles. Tremors racked his body and his head flung backward too, as far as his neck could bend. His jaw clenched tight as white foam frothed between his teeth. And George could see one of Vale’s yellow eyes through the black snarls of hair, wide open in terror. His body flopped and jittered on the wooden floor, almost like a fish in the bottom of a boat or like some grotesque windup doll.
George drew long, slow breaths, fighting the urge to look away. It was a more gruesome spectacle than he had expected, and at length he could no longer stand to watch. His eyes moved to the clock on the wall.
Thirty seconds…
Forty-five seconds…
A full sixty seconds before the tremors finally abated and Thomas Vale lay still in a twisted heap.
But for the gagging rattle deep in his throat, it had been a silent, protracted death.
Chapter 44
