each step accompanied by myriad clicks and rubbing sounds. Max began to make out animal skulls peering blindly from the creatures’ shoulders and backs. Lengths of spinal column snaked in and out between jumbled shoulder blades and hips and ribs…
A touch on his shoulder. Max whirled with a scream, whipping out his machete.
There stood Legion, before the passage Max had just emerged from. Had the giant been following him all along? Legion nodded contemptuously at Max’s blade.
“When are you going to give up on that thing?” he asked.
Max took a backward step. There was movement behind him; he turned in time to see the bone creatures charging, one already in the air, leaping at his throat. He slashed, sending the monstrosity’s composite jaw flying from its head before the creature slammed into him, knocking him over, landing on his chest.
Max found himself looking up at Legion.
Sounding
“Beddy-bye, Max.”
Max sobbed with shock at the knife-twisting hatefulness of it.
“Drink a water?” Legion asked, and brought his foot down on Max’s forehead, bashing his skull back against the concrete, blasting his consciousness away.
Chapter 19: Rapping with the Damned
After a long flight through the lightless pipes, Father Chuck, Camille and Dennis found their progress blocked by a vertical grate of thick steel bars. Beyond was a narrow sandy beach fronting the bay. The sun descended slowly into view beneath the rim of the pipe, looking little weaker than it had the day before. The cancerous spots hadn’t spread.
Dennis tried to open the grate, saw that it was anchored in place with huge rivets. He set his back against the side of the pipe. The passage was a good deal wider than the other conduits their escape had taken them through. Heart still pounding, scraped hands smarting, he turned to look at his wife.
“Can we rest here?” she asked feebly.
He nodded. “No choice.”
For a time they said nothing, panting.
“What about Max?” Camille asked at last. “And MacAleer? “
“I think I hurt MacAleer when I dropped off the ladder,” Father Chuck said.
“Last I saw, he was still on the floor,” Dennis said. “Max had his back to us-probably didn’t even know we were pulling out. God, if only I’d had the guts to stay with them.”
“You would’ve been killed,” Camille said.
“I don’t know,” Dennis said. “But I had to go with you.”
“I was so frightened,” she said. “When they dropped through the manhole, I couldn’t think of anything but myself. I had to get out of there.”
“I don’t blame you, honey,” Dennis said. “Max didn’t even stay with MacAleer. The way MacAleer was screaming to him…” He shuddered, voice trailing off.
“You didn’t even have anything to fight
“We should’ve stayed,” Father Chuck said.
“I notice you were the first to turn tail,” Camille said.
“I couldn’t help it,” the priest replied. He laughed hollowly. “You must think I’m a pretty wretched specimen of a priest. “
Neither answered.
“And you’re absolutely right,” he continued. “You know, I always prided myself on my self-sacrifice. What I thought was self-sacrifice, anyway. My commitment to living the Christ-like life, instead of to a lot of shopworn dogma. But it seems I wasn’t so committed after all.”
“I know what Max would say,” Dennis answered.
“That I was dedicated to the wrong thing all along?” Father Chuck asked.
“Something like that.”
The priest eyed Dennis, his face blue-gray in the light from the pipe mouth. “What are you? One of his disciples?”
“Some of the things he said made sense.”
“You just mistook aggressiveness for substance. The fact that he could trounce me in an argument doesn’t mean anything. Logic’s only a kind of brute force. Some people are just better at using it. Would you have been impressed if he’d shut me up by punching me in the face?”
“I don’t think it’s the same at all,” Dennis said.
“Whatever,” the priest went on. “Don’t judge my ideals by my failings. I’m pretty worthless. But it’s
“I never heard him say that,” Dennis said.
“Maybe not. But I know the type. And a more anti-Christian mind-set doesn’t exist. At least I know I’m a piece of garbage. You think Max realizes what a travesty his life is? That he felt the slightest qualm about leaving MacAleer to die?”
“Look, Father,” Dennis said, “for all we know, he might be dead now, too. So why don’t you stop bad-mouthing him?”
They sat awhile in silence. Far-off echoes of movement drifted toward them down the pipe, stopping from time to time, but always starting up again. The sounds never seemed to draw any closer than a certain distance before fading.
“Unless I miss my guess,” Dennis said, “they’re going in a circle back there. Keep taking the wrong turns.”
“But what if they realize it, and come up here?” Camille asked. “Can we get that grate open?”
“No.”
“What about going back up the pipe?” Father Chuck asked. “We might not run into them.”
“And then again, we might,” Dennis said. “Are you nuts, Fath-”
Footsteps crunched on the sand outside the grate; a shadow fell over Dennis, and he turned.
A silhouetted figure drew near the bars. Dennis remained motionless, staring, not knowing what to do. It was a corpse; Dennis felt its cold on his sweat-damp skin, in the crawling marrow of his bones.
“Chuck,” said a gentle voice. “You’re in there, aren’t you, Chuck?”
Dennis heard the priest suck in a sharp breath.
The corpse knelt. Dennis saw it was wearing a clerical collar. Its face hung from its skull like an ill-fitting mask, the mouth sagging open, the eyes black holes; it was hard to tell, but the terrible slack countenance seemed to be tied on. Was that a
“Chuck, I know perfectly well you’re there,” the corpse said. “Come on, rap with me.”
“Ted?” Father Chuck asked, voice trembling. “Father Ted? “
“In the flesh, “ the corpse replied.
“What do you want?”
“Just a heart-to-heart,” Father Ted answered, detached lips shuddering as his jawbone moved behind them.
“How did you know we were here?”
“Legion told me.”
“How did he know?”
“The Man upstairs.”
“Man upstairs?”
“You know. El
