“Let’s try and get through to Doc next,” Krysty said softly. “If he was just behind Jak, there might only be a few inches of rock there, too.”
“We’d better hope so,” Ryan answered, casting his eye over the tunnel behind them. “I don’t reckon we’ve got that much time.”
Some distance away, unable to hear the others, both Mildred and J.B. were painfully regaining consciousness—Mildred considerably sooner than the still-dazed armorer.
“John?” She groped around in the darkness, guided by the small moans that accompanied his labored breathing. Her fingers brushed against him in the darkness. “John, are you okay?”
“Dunno—” he gasped. “Feel heavy in the legs, like I’m pinned—”
Groping blindly, it took her a few seconds to determine that the Armorer’s feet were trapped in the rockfall. She was lucky. Although confined, her limbs were free and nothing felt broken, although every muscle and tendon ached and she had a nasty suspicion that she had sprained her right wrist: touching anything with it sent a sharp pain through her arm that made her stomach lurch.
“Listen, John, I can help you move the rocks, but I’ve only got one good hand—John?” she added in a more urgent tone when he failed to respond, “John, listen to me—try to stay awake.”
“Uh-huh,” he returned in a vacant grunt.
Mildred cursed to herself and started slowly, painfully moving the rocks from his feet, careful not to disturb the surroundings. Only when she had safely done this could she even afford to think about making progress to where the others might be.
A few feet ahead of her, Jak was making progress toward Doc, passing the rocks and stones out to Ryan and Krysty. They worked in a chain; it was quicker in the enclosed space afforded them and also quieter.
The sweat dripped off Jak’s stringy mop of hair, falling into his red eyes and making them sting so that he had to blink heavily to keep focused on what was in front of him. He was able to blank it out, having experienced far worse. Besides, the flash cast some light on what lay ahead, despite the fact that his own body bulk blocked most of the beam as Ryan shone it from behind him. However, he could see a dark patch emerging through the rocks, a dark patch with a gnarled hand at the end of it. Doc’s sleeve.
“See him,” Jak croaked to the duo at his rear, redoubling his efforts. He cleared enough space around Doc to free the old man. Doc’s breathing was labored and harsh, rattling in his chest. He raised his head as the weak light illuminated him.
“Glad as I always am to see your face, friend Jak—” he stopped to cough “—never as glad as I am now.”
Jak grinned. “Talk later, move now.”
Gently, the albino teen cleared more space around Doc and pulled him clear of the rocks. The old man had been lucky: a long slab had fallen across him, preventing the smaller pieces from weighing down and crushing his back. It had made him easier to move, a few stones rattling to the cave floor behind his feet.
“John, I can hear something!” Mildred exclaimed softly, starting to pull at the rocks, testing for those which she could move without too much risk of bringing others down upon her. She began to make a path, hearing the movements of rock caused by Jak moving Doc, and figuring that they weren’t too far away.
Meanwhile, Jak had managed to pull Doc out of the pileup and while Ryan cast an anxious glance at the area beyond, Krysty checked the old man. His breathing was shallow and fast, taking in little air.
“How is he?” Ryan queried.
“Not so good. We need to get him out of here as soon as possible. All the dust and shit from the cave-in has given him some kind of respiratory problem.”
“Soon as we find Mildred and J.B.,” Ryan stated, watching the point where Jak’s body was disappearing into the rocks as he tunneled toward the missing companions.
Mildred could hear him coming nearer as she, too, cleared rocks from her path. “John, hang in there,” she whispered over her shoulder. “We’re nearly there.”
Like Doc, she had never been so glad to see Jak’s face as when he removed the last piece of rock that separated them. He grinned, but said nothing, moving back to allow her to wriggle through the small hole he had made.
“John?” She waited until John muttered an acknowledgment before she continued. “John, we’re through—just follow me.”
J.B. heard her words as though they traveled through a long tunnel.
Jak was helping Mildred to squeeze through the gap he had made when he first felt a ripple in the rocks beneath them, a trembling that foretold of a wave to come.
“Ryan—”
“I feel it,” he replied, rushing to help Jak pull Mildred through the gap. “It’s about to go.”
“John’s hurt and he’s still back there,” Mildred said urgently, turning back to see if the Armorer was following her. There was no sign of him.
She was about to speak again when it hit, like someone had taken hold of the cave and tugged it. The ripple was the forerunner of a wave that had built deep within the cave system, as though the initial rockfall had traveled down and come back on itself, magnified tenfold.
The rock around them pulsed and moved as if it were living matter. The dirt floor rose up to meet them as they were flung down. They were carried on the wave, but felt as though they were going nowhere. The bulb broke in the flash and the companions were plunged into darkness. They didn’t know if they were moving forward or backward, up or down; all they knew was that they were being buffeted. Each one felt the pain and force of being flung against rocks. Each was alone, no longer knowing where the others were…and then there was total darkness as the force of the wave, the pummeling of the rocks, was too much to take. A black curtain dropped over all of them.
Oblivion.
Chapter Three
Strange and haunting visions filled Ryan Cawdor’s head. Trader loomed large, laughing at him, spittle running down his chin, eyes wild and fiery, calling him all kinds of a stupe for getting them into this position. Then Trader mutated into his dead brother Harvey, who was dripping blood and falling over as Ryan pummeled him with blows, screaming, “You as well?” Ryan’s twisted nephew Jabez laughed in the background before coming forward with a long sword grasped in his hands. Ryan was astounded to find that he had no weapons with which to defend himself.
Jabez yelled triumphantly, charging toward him, swinging the blade. Was that Dean in the background saying “It’ll soon be over, Dad”?
With a rebel yell, Jabez brought the blade down onto Ryan…
The one-eyed man sat bolt upright, yelling into the darkness. There were several things that made him aware it had been nothing but a nightmare: it was now dark and cold when moments ago it had been warm; he ached all over, feeling as though he had taken a trip down whitewater rapids without a boat; all the blood he could feel on his body was now dried, cracking on his skin as he moved; his head felt as though someone had been using it as a hammer.
Then it hit him. He was sitting upright, but not in a cave under tons of rock. He was breathing and still alive, and although it was dark all around him, as his eyes adjusted he could see that it was actually the dark of a moonless night, a few stars visible through a cloudy sky. It was also fireblasted cold, as he was suddenly aware of his breath misting in front of him.
Tentatively, testing for any breaks or sprains as he got to his feet and disentangled himself from the few rocks and the mounds of soil that were covering him, Ryan rose and took a long look around, trying to get his bearings. In this darkness, in a landscape that had been ground down into featureless blandness over the decades, it was a thankless task. Even though his eye had now adjusted to the gloom, he could see nothing that would mark out the