Domino Falls (32 page)

“Where is she?” Kendra said. “Where's Rianne?”

“Prepare your mind, Kendra. Join us, gently. You are different from the others. You . . . perceive more. You could be one of us.”

“How?”

“You are an artist,”
he said.
“Your mind has an artist's flexibility. Look how you've accepted me already. None of the
others, even Wales, have presented themselves as openly. With such courage.”

“What about Sissy and Rianne?”

“They do not have your gifts, Kendra,”
the creature said.
“We are rare, you and I. Fewer than one in ten of us have the ability to make the transition. And because of the . . . circumstances, less than one in a thousand survives in the wild.”
His voice trembled with the memory. She knew how hard it was for humans outside, but she'd never considered what life was like for the freaks.

“There are more of you?” Kendra said.

“Join us, Kendra,”
he said.
“Step into a future without pain, without fear.”

The creature had stopped moving forward. It was waiting, for now.

“Do I have a choice?” Kendra said, to be sure.

“If you come willingly, you have a much better chance of making the leap. And I will teach you so much.”

In the dark, Kendra had lost her bearings quickly. She saw shadows from canvases and shelves where she might hide for a time, but the creature was better acclimated to the dark. If she was trapped, at least she would know why.

“Tell me where you came from,” she said.

The creature made a sharp intake of breath, another sign of impatience.
“Our origins are not so simple to pinpoint. We came here centuries ago. We had drifted . . . I don't know how long. We only began to awaken when conscious beings ingested us. Ate the mushrooms that grew from the spores.”

The mushrooms! “Those spores traveled,” Kendra said, to be certain she understood. “And then we began to eat them.”

“Yes. Our spores did not grow freely, but some took root on the continent of Africa. Tanzania, on Mount Meru.”

“Meru? Is that near Kilimanjaro?” That was the only
mountain she knew in Africa. Her father had climbed Kilimanjaro when he was in college. Would the creature spare her if she found the right words, the right questions?

“Yes,”
it whispered.
“And if it had been Kilimanjaro, this all would have happened long ago. But outsiders didn't climb Meru. Only the Chagga tribe knew about the mushrooms, and used us for their vision quests, and to stave off hunger. Then Europeans found us, and carried us around the world. Mixed us with chemicals. The infection would have been slow, painless. We would have become symbiotes to humanity, as we had for the sentient life-forms of so many other worlds.”

“But what happened?” Kendra asked. “What went wrong?”

And it began to tell her.

Y
ou
sure this is it?” Terry said as Piranha coasted the truck to a stop in the high weeds. Piranha clicked the engine off. Crickets burred around them in the dark.

In the backseat, Hipshot growled softly, and Terry shushed him. Bringing Hippy might have been a mistake. If Hippy started barking, they might be busted before they began. He didn't see any Gold Shirts or other guards yet, but he was sure they were close. Cameras might even be monitoring the tunnel entrance. If so, the mission had failed already.

“That's his freak growl,” Piranha said.

Terry nodded, surveying the high grass and sheltering stands of trees near them. “There might be a nest not far from here. And Kendra thought she smelled freaks inside, so keep your eyes open.”

Terry nuzzled Hipshot's chin and tried to stare the dog in his alert brown eyes. Hippy looked away, submitting to his master.

“Hippy?” Terry said, wishing he could access dog language.
“We need you to be really quiet, boy.
Shhhh
. No noise. No matter what.”

Hippy whimpered, uncomfortable under Terry's long gaze. But in a strange way, Terry thought the little guy might have understood him.

“You think that dog whisperer crap's gonna work?” Piranha said.

“It better.”

As they climbed out of the car, Terry pulled on the thin, frayed rope they'd improvised as a leash to control Hippy. The dog hesitated before jumping out of the car, casting wary glances into the dark. Then he reluctantly hopped out behind them, and they began the short hike to the spot where they thought the tunnel entrance was, relying on the moon rather than their flashlights for vision. The sky was practically cloudless. Cool beans.

“Check it out,” Piranha said, pointing behind them.

About three hundred yards east, a faint glow flashed once, then again, to show them where Darius and Dean were staking out the tunnel.

“The Twins see us,” Terry said.
We're going to do this,
Terry thought, as if realizing it for the first time.
Or die trying,
a voice whispered that didn't sound like his.

“I'm glad we've got backup.” Piranha hoisted the aluminum baseball bat he'd brought across his shoulder.

Hippy growled again, and Terry gave his rope a displeased yank. With a resigned whimper, Hippy trudged on with them toward the heap of brush Jason had told them concealed the tunnel. They had briefly considered bringing Jason to help them navigate and leave him in the truck, but it would have been too dangerous. Hippy's rope was always taut as they walked; the dog didn't want to follow them. He knew something.

For an instant, fumbling in the darkness, Terry thought their plan was futile. The tunnel might not still be there, and they might be nowhere near it. But Piranha made a sudden clucking sound, bending over to examine something to the right, and he rolled a mound of tumbleweed away.

The tunnel entrance was unguarded, and there was no camera in sight. Wales must be certain that no one would try to get in or that no one remembered it. The archway-shaped iron door was as rusty as the chain that locked it. Wales might not have thought about the rear tunnel entrance since Freak Day.

“Bolt cutters, Dr. Cawthone,” Terry said.

“Step aside, son.”

For the first time, they brought out the flashlight. First, they signaled briefly behind them to show the Twins they had arrived, and saw a reassuring flash in response. Then Piranha trained the light on the chain to search for the weakest link, which was the padlock itself. One powerful
snap,
and the chain clinked away.

Hippy whimpered again, stepping backward.

“
Shhhh,
” Terry said. “Easy, boy.”

Terry and Piranha exchanged a glance for courage, and then they pulled the door's latch. It took both of them to tug the door open wide enough to fit their bulk in.

“Who's there?” Terry called authoritatively, as if in challenge, just loudly enough for anyone posted near the door to hear. No response.

“We're in,” Piranha said. “Let's go get the girls.”

The door opened to steep, rough-hewn steps that threatened to crumble under their weight as they descended down six feet. Once they were inside, they both turned on their flashlights, illuminating walls of stone and packed dirt. Carefully, they
pulled the door nearly closed behind them in case an alert passerby might notice. Patrols might check the tunnel.

Terry's heart drummed harder each time he felt Hipshot try to pull the other way, but he stopped shushing the dog's growls. As long as Hippy wasn't barking, the soft warnings were a reminder to be watchful.

“Old mine shaft,” Piranha said, pointing to a rusted length of abandoned discarded track barely visible as a ridge in the packed dirt. The tunnels were narrow, but wide enough for trolley tracks, even if there was no mine car in sight. The walls had been widened, and Terry suspected that the widening had been within the last few years. Wales?

“Damn,” Piranha said.

They reached a gate much newer than the door outside, sure to be locked. But when they tested it, they realized it was a freakproof lock, much like the ones at the quarantine house and the Motel 6. No bolt cutters were necessary to open it. Another gate waited fifty yards ahead, as easy to open. Then a third. The farther they walked, the wider the tunnel and the louder Hippy's growls. And something else . . .

“You smell that?” Terry said.

He'd hoped it was his imagination, but now he had confirmation that Kendra had been right: Wales's ranch was awash with the stink of freaks. Then he heard a distant
bang-bang-bang
with an imprecise rhythm that reminded him all too much of Vern in the freezer. The muffled sound was coming from two or three places ahead of them. Ghostly faces raced toward him in the shadows, vanishing when he blinked.

Suddenly, Terry didn't feel well enough armed for their task. He had a gun, but had they brought enough ammo? He only had two extra clips. A few freaks wouldn't generate an odor that strong; the tunnel must be teeming with them. That explained
the freakproof locks. Should they bring the Twins in? Did they have time? They'd planned to let the Twins give them cover outside, but although the tunnel entrance was only about a hundred fifty yards behind them, it might as well be in Mexico. Terry's unsteady legs tensed, ready to bolt.

Piranha stood at the last gate and shined his flashlight into the yawning void. “Think I see them. Looks like . . . cages. Cells.”

“Like Jason said,” Terry remembered, relieved. That made sense, but his knee joints still trembled. “Freaks locked up, trying to get out?”

“Let's hope they're locked up,” Piranha said, and opened the gate. The hinge screeched, and the banging ahead got louder in response.
Much
louder. The banging swelled into a macabre chorus.

For the first time, Hippy barked.

“Shhhh,”
Terry said, accidentally yanking his leash so hard that Hippy yelped in pain. Terry didn't soothe him. The tunnel was cool, but a slick of perspiration pasted his clothes to his skin. As much as he'd experienced since Vern's attack, Terry couldn't remember being more afraid. Their flashlights seemed useless against the dark, like shining penlights into a muddy ocean.

“Zip it, mutt,” Piranha said.

After a half-dozen steps, the vague shadows behind the bars ahead took a more solid aspect, framing shapes that were still confusing to the eye. Grasping, mindless hands reached through the bars, as if to capture the air, but the reaching arms were low to the ground. The hands were bigger than children's, but the freaks seemed shorter than even a child should be. What the . . . ?

“Too lazy to stand up?” Piranha said.

Then, Terry got it: their legs might be broken! The freaks
couldn't stand or run, but he and Piranha might not be able to avoid their touch. Rows of arms undulated near the ground like tentacles on both sides, growing in pairs. Freaks crowded the cells by the dozens. There might have been a hundred or more in the tunnel. Terry's skin crawled.

“We're gonna have to walk straight down the middle,” Terry said. “They're dumb, but they're strong. We get pulled in too close . . .”

“No kidding,” Piranha said. “Thought I'd let you test that path first, bro.”

“You owe me, remember?” Terry said. “Ladies first.”

Somehow, joking helped.

Hippy made the first move, pulling ahead on his leash with a low, throaty growl that made him sound like a rottweiler, except bigger. Terry wrapped the rope tightly around his palm to make sure Hippy didn't dart loose or lunge at a freak. He'd never heard of an infected dog, but why chance it? Even a few steps forward made the stench strangle them like a wet tarp.

Freaks moaned and grasped out, but Terry and Piranha had a six-inch buffer on each side—far enough to avoid being touched, but close enough to see the rancid flesh on the freaks' fingers and the red moss carpeting their nails. Eyes glowed red in the light.

The gallery of horrors in the tunnel felt endless, and Terry fought to keep his eyes on the path ahead instead of the questing fingers. Several already pressed themselves against the bars, and others crawled on the ground, laboring to get closer, pulling themselves with their arms while their misshapen legs dragged behind them. Some of the freaks' legs had simply been sheared off. Others tried to crawl toward them but couldn't, held in place by strong roots growing from their torsos, anchoring them
to the ground. More than half were women. Many had white hair and wrinkled skin like the luckless vagabonds in the camp outside.

“Where is it?” a man's voice barked from behind them in the dark, and Terry turned around, expecting to see a Gold Shirt behind him. “I wanted my bagel with a big hole!
Thursday!
”

Only a freak's gibberish. It was so easy to forget that some of them could talk.

He tasted vomit bubbling in his throat, but swallowed it back. He didn't have time to be sick, and he needed all of his concentration to keep on his feet. His legs threatened to take him down to freak level.

After the too-long walk, a closed door came in sight a few yards ahead.

But one freak stood ahead of them, near the door, its guardian. He was the only freak who wasn't in a cage, and the sight of him sent Hippy into a barking frenzy. A symphony of moans answered Hippy, nearly popping Terry's eardrums.

“Freak!”
Terry and Piranha said in unison, ready to run the other way.

Time slowed down long enough for Terry to see the light glinting from the freak's chained ankles, and his finger froze just as he was about to fire his gun. “Wait . . . he can't get to us!” Terry said.

Piranha got the message, but Hippy yanked so hard on his leash that Terry nearly lost his grip. The dog's barking echoed in the tunnel.