Bad Men

Moloch was ten feet into the tunnel now, and rather than narrowing, it seemed to have increased in size. He paused and listened. If the cop decided to come down after him, he would be in real trouble, but he didn’t believe that she would. It was a considerable drop down. Moloch was surprised that he hadn’t injured himself in the fall. No, she would wait, maybe look for a rope. She would not risk being trapped beneath the earth with him. He moved on.

He had progressed five or six feet more when he thought that he heard movement behind him. He stopped, and found only silence.

Jittery. I’m getting jittery.

Then he heard it again, clearer now. For a second, he thought it was falling earth, and panic hit him as he imagined the tunnel collapsing around him, trapping him. He listened harder and realized that what he was hearing was scraping, the slow movement of earth beneath nails and hands, the same sounds that he himself had probably been making since he had begun moving through the tunnel. He tried to turn his head, but the tunnel was still too narrow to allow him to see clearly behind him.

The cop. It had to be the cop. She had come down after all. Maybe she had brought rope with her, or had found some among the detritus of the forest.

Shit.

He started to pull himself forward again, faster now. He was certain that he could hear water. Hell, he could even smell it. Cool air was coming through the tunnel. He felt it on his face, took a deep breath-

And then it was gone. Moloch stopped again. The airflow had ceased. He had heard no sounds of collapse. Something had deliberately blocked the tunnel.

The sounds from behind were drawing closer, and now another smell had taken the place of the river and the forest, a stench like old meat left to boil in a pot for too long, of offal and waste. He found himself retching from it. Light filtered through the tunnel. It was silver, almost gray. He was grateful for it, even if he could not identify its source. He didn’t want to be trapped down here in the darkness with-

With what?

He tried to turn his head again and found that he now had enough space to peer behind him. The tunnel wall curved slightly but he could still hear the sound. It was closer now, he thought. If it was the cop, she would give him some warning.

If it was the cop.

“Who’s there?” he called out.

The sound stopped, but he sensed that his pursuer was at the very edge of the tunnel wall, barely out of sight.

“I got a gun,” he said. “You better back out now. I hear you following me, I’ll use it.”

The light seemed to grow stronger around him. There were gray-white worms emerging from the earth of the tunnel wall, coiling around it, probing…

Then Moloch saw the nails on the ends of the pale fingers, and the wounds on the back of the hand, wounds that would never heal. There was movement everywhere now, above and below. Earth dropped onto his head from above as something scrabbled across one of the higher tunnels. It was like a honeycomb, teeming with dark life.

Moloch heard himself sobbing with fear, even as he turned and found himself gilded in silvery light.

And in the final seconds of life granted to him, he saw the woman’s face, her skin gray parchment, her hair a handful of strands clinging to the skull, the roots of her teeth exposed by the retreating gums and the parted lips. He could make out the cuts in her face, the damage inflicted by fist and knife. The lamp in her hands radiated dimly, for in the darkest places even the dead need light.

He smelled her breath, fetid and rank, and he heard her voice-“Know me, husband”-as the light died and he was enveloped in darkness.

“He’s down there,” said Macy. “There’s nowhere he can go.”

But Marianne was pulling her back.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “There’s something else down there too.”

Macy looked at her. She remembered the tower, and the floating child, and the look on Scarfe’s face as he stared out into the forest and saw what was pursuing him.

Macy began to run. A rumbling sound came from the ground below her, and she felt the earth begin to give way beneath her. She increased her speed, Marianne beside her, the two women racing as the ground around the Site collapsed, taking the stones and the cross and the remnants of the settlement with it, smothering Moloch’s final cries in the thunder of its destruction.

Chapter Eighteen

Barron sat in the SUV over by the Portland Marine Company, an empty coffee container from the 7-Eleven on Congress in the cup holder by his right hand, the radio playing some Cheap Trick for the night owls. Once or twice prowl cars had passed his way, but he’d hunched down low in his seat and the cops hadn’t even slowed, the SUV just another vehicle parked in the lot. The snow was still falling, although the wind had died down some. The SUV was warm, the heat on full blast, but he had kept his gloves and coat on just the same.