slides out from underneath your feet. We can’t climb out of here.”
“So it’s left us here to die?”
“That’s the real hell of it,” Dovecrest said. “Pardon the pun. We won’t die.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it for a minute. When was the last time you ate? Or drank?”
“I don’t remember. It must have been hours.”
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“No. Not the least. But I should be. I should be, shouldn’t I?”
Dovecrest nodded. “We should be hungry. We should be thirsty. We should be tired. Look at my face. I should be dead.”
Sure enough, the Indian’s skull was cracked and broken. The injury should at least have landed him in intensive care, if not the morgue. But here he was standing there talking like it was nothing more than a scratch.
“You see, we can’t die. We’re already in the world of the dead. That means we’re either already dead, or else we can’t die, not as long as we’re here, anyway.”
“So that’s why the demon didn’t kill us.”
“Exactly. We are as immortal as it is-at least while we’re here.”
“So now all we have to do is get out of this sand trap and find the demon again. Only we still don’t know how to stop him. And why did it keep Vickie and Todd? What’s it got in mind for them?”
“I don’t know. But we’d better figure a way out of here if we expect to find out.”
Erik sat in the middle of the pit and pondered the problem.
“Give me a boost,” he said.
Dovecrest knelt down and he stood on the Indian’s shoulders at the edge of the pit. He was still nowhere near high enough to escape. He reached out to grab what edge there was, but it just collapsed. There was nothing to hold onto. It just crumbled away at his touch.
“This isn’t going to work,” he said. Then he climbed down from the Indian’s shoulders.
“Maybe we could make a rope out of our clothes,” Dovecrest suggested.
“Maybe. But I don’t think we have enough to make a rope that long. And we’d have nothing to hook it on to at the top.”
“You’re right. I’m grasping at straws.”
“Yeah, me too,” Erik said. “I don’t suppose we could dig ourselves out.”
Dovecrest forced a laugh. “I think we’re already as far down as we want to go.”
“I’d hate to think what’s down deeper than hell.”
“Wait a minute,” Dovecrest said. “Suppose we don’t dig down, but dig up.”
“Dig up. What do you mean?”
“When you stood on my shoulders and dug at the side, what happened?”
“I got sand all over you.”
“Exactly. And that sand fell to the bottom of the pit. If we dig at the sides, it’ll fill in the bottom. Eventually, we can fill in the hole enough to be able to climb out.”
Erik thought for a minute. “It might work. But it’ll take forever, won’t it?”
“I don’t know. But do you have anything else to do to pass the time?”
Erik shook his head. “Unfortunately, I don’t. Let’s get started.”
2
Todd found himself lying on an open stretch of sand next to his mother, who was breathing furiously and fighting back the pains of her labor. He opened his eyes and looked around. The demon sat nearby, as if waiting. Todd couldn’t imagine what it was waiting for, unless it was for the baby to be born. Maybe he had something in mind for the baby.
“Where’s Dad?” he asked.
“I have taken care of the intruders,” the demon said. “They won’t be bothering us any more.”
He looked at his mother, then back at the demon. “What are you going to do with us?”
“Oh, I have plans for you. I have plans for you all. Don’t you worry. You and I will be going back to where you came from. We will have a great time together.”
“And my Mom?”
“That depends on how well you cooperate,” the demon said. “Right now it could go either way.”
Todd thought for a moment. It looked like the thing had killed his dad. But he didn’t have the energy to think about that now. That would come in time, but right now he had to think of his Mom. His mom and the new baby.
“Ok,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Ah, that is so much better. We can work together, you and I. First, I want you to stay with your mother and don’t try anything foolish. Don’t try to run away or fight me. There’s nowhere to run and, as you can see, you can’t defeat me.”
Todd could see the logic in that. “Ok,” he said.
“Your mother is going to have her baby very soon. I need you to help her.”
“I’ll try,” he said. “But I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s ok, Honey,” his mother said. “I’m ok. Everything’s going to be all right.”
But his mother didn’t look all right. She was pale and gray-looking. His hands were clammy and she was having great trouble breathing.
“Mom, remember how they told you to breathe?”
“Yeah, Todd. I do.”
“Well you’re not breathing that way, Mom. It’s not sounding the same. You’re gasping for air. You’re not breathing it.”
“Ok, Todd. You’ve got to help me. You know how Dad would count along with me when I practiced?”
“Yeah.”
“Well you’ve got to do that now too.”
“Ok.”
“And one other thing. When the baby comes, I’m going to need you to help take her out.”
“Mom, I can’t deliver a baby. Why can’t he do it?”
“Todd, do you really want a demon delivering your little sister? You don’t want that, do you?”
“But I don’t know what to do.”
“Have faith. You will know what to do. Just do your best.”
Her breathing started again, erratically this time too.
“Slow down, Mom,” he said. “Just listen to me and follow along.”
He breathed the way he’d seen his mother doing when she was practicing, and his dad had been helping. He had listened to these breathing lessons for the last three months until he literally knew them by heart. His Mom and Dad had practiced them in the next room, and he’d thought it was fun to listen in at first. After awhile, though, it had become boring. Todd had learned it better that either of his parents and had used it on himself late at night when he was having trouble sleeping. It was ironic that he was so good at this and his parents were the ones who took the lessons.
His mother looked at him and forced a smile through her pain and he saw that she was watching him. Already her breathing was getting stronger.
3
