They Thirst Part 36

He thrust those fears aside, but they kept trying to gnaw their way back in like little ravenous weasels. He would have to deal with them later, but not now.

Just looking at the fuel gauge told him they'd crossed the point of no return, probably way back when they'd come over the L.A. River. So there was nothing to do now but keep going, he thought, nothing to do now but give it the best shot Wesley Richer had ever given anything in his life. His palms were as cold and sweaty as the first night he'd stepped up on that stage at the Comedy Store, but this stage was a far more important one, and the hook that yanked you off would take you to your death ... or worse. But death wouldn't be so bad, he thought, not really, not when the alternative was to be like those things in the coffins. He'd already decided how to do it if that was the only way out-.45 barrel into the mouth and up, quick squeeze on the trigger, and boom! Jump the night train. Pull a Freddie Prinze. Hitchhike home in the hard rain. Suicide.

He only hoped he could take Solange with him.

ELEVEN.

Tommy's head was aching, and Palatazin had to stop to catch his breath. He sat beside the boy in the dark, foul clamminess of the tunnel while Ratty took the lantern and scuttled on ahead. In another few minutes they saw the light coming back, just a yellow dot at first and then a spreading beam. Ratty knelt down beside Palatazin. "We're almost under Hollywood Boulevard. You okay, little dude?"

"Yeah. I'm fine," Tommy said.

"How much farther to Outpost Drive?" Palatazin asked him.

"Not far. Then we start climbing if the tunnel's big enough. And you got to remember, I can squeeze into a whole lot of places you can't. You two ready?"

"Ready," Tommy said, and rose to his feet.

Since crossing under DeLongpre Avenue the water at the bottom of the tunnel had increased from a slow trickle to what now seemed like a thick, muddy creek. The tunnel that Ratty had said ran underneath Sunset Boulevard was large and high, and it had amazed Palatazin that the lantern picked out spray-painted graffiti on the walls. At their feet slow currents moved around islands of brown sludge.

Now they came to two tunnels splitting off in opposite directions. Ratty paused for a minute, s.h.i.+ning his light around, and chose the right one. The ceiling dropped dramatically here, and they moved on with their backs bent. Occasional currents swirled over their shoes; the odors of sewage were nothing short of gruesome. Ratty splashed through the mess like a trout fisherman.

"Not far!" he called back, waiting for them to catch up. "It's just through here. Hey! Watch it, little dude!" He shone the lights at gray rats scurrying protectively around a nest in a crack between two sections of pipe just above Tommy's head. All but two or three of the largest rats squealed and ran; they stared back defiantly, their eyes pink pinpoints. "Sometimes they jump for your face," Ratty said when they'd gone on past. "They grab hold, you can't shake 'em off for s.h.i.+t. One time I woke up after I'd crashed on yellows and found two of the little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds tryin' to dig a nest in my beard!" Ratty stopped suddenly and sniffed the air. "That's it. The big one under Hollywood." They came to the end of the narrow tunnel and stepped out into another large one. At the bottom of this tunnel, the water was deeper, perhaps a foot or so, and swirled around every manner of dank, unidentifiable debris. Rats chittered in the darkness, and Palatazin could hear them splas.h.i.+ng in the water like birds in a birdbath. Ratty sloshed forward without hesitation, aiming his light along the far wall; there were more tunnel entrances over there, each one bleeding out little streams of water. "Let's see now," Ratty said, narrowing his eyes in thought. The light moved from one tunnel to the next. "It's that one,"

he said, holding steady on the center entrance. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure." Tommy said, "Don't you know?" His voice crackled with tension. Being down here reminded him of the movie Them, about the giant ants that had made a nest underneath L.A.

"Sure I know," Ratty replied, and tapped his skull. "Got the map right up in here. Just sometimes I tend to get a little confused, that's all." He giggled suddenly, his eyes burning like blue lamps from the pills he'd popped.

"Let's go," Palatazin said irritably. "Come on!" Ratty shrugged and started forward. Tommy took three steps and felt his right foot slide over something softly hideous. He screamed and jerked his leg away, stumbling into Palatazin. "What is it?" Palatazin said sharply. Ratty turned and shone his light down. A man's corpse was being laboriously pushed along by the westward currents. The rats were astride it, leaping and nibbling. Palatazin took Tommy's shoulder and pulled him away. They crossed the tunnel, walking faster, and entered the tunnel opening Ratty had indicated. The tunnel crooked to the right and grew steadily narrower. Palatazin walked bent over, his lungs rasping, and realized that Ratty's lantern was losing power. The beam of light had now dulled to a soft yellow. He could hear rats chittering behind them, closing up in their wake; he wondered how much more the boy could stand. But Tommy had made a man's choice, and now there was no turning back for him. More tunnels, some only holes a foot or less in diameter, branched off from the one they moved through. Water trickled and dripped, the echoes as disconcertingly loud as footsteps. They came to a metal-runged ladder. Ratty aimed the light up at a manhole cover perhaps twelve feet overhead. "I better go up to find out for sure where we are," he said, and gave Palatazin the lantern.

Palatazin nodded, and Ratty scuttled up quickly, shoving the cover aside. A weak amber light came down from the opening, and then Ratty had disappeared into the storm.

After a few minutes Palatazin said, "Tommy, I don't think we're going to make it before they start waking up. It's already very dark up there. Too dark. When the sun's rays get weak enough, I'm afraid they'll start . . . prowling again."

"We can't go back," Tommy said.

"I know."

"Will they all ... wake up at the same time?"

Palatazin shook his head. "I'm not sure. Possibly not. There are so many things I don't know about them. The oldest ones may wake up first, or possibly the ones who are hungriest. My G.o.d, I hate to leave Jo unprotected-" He stopped suddenly because he thought he'd heard a sliding movement behind them. He shone the light in that direction. The light was too weak to reach very far, and the tunnel seemed layered with impenetrable shadows.

"What is it?" Tommy asked nervously, looking over his shoulder.

"I ... don't know. I thought I heard something, but . . ." Ratty appeared overhead and came down quickly. "Okay," he said, breathing heavily, his beard and hair full of sand. "We're under Franklin Avenue, but we've got to go east a little ways to pick up the tunnel under Outpost. I'm not sure how big it's gonna be."

"Just get us there," Palatazin said, and gave him back the lantern. They moved on, the uneasy tick of time hammering at the back of Palatazin's skull. The tunnel crooked to the left, then to the right again, and grew narrower still. Seepage from the canyons sloshed noisily underfoot. Several times Palatazin said, "Wait," and they stood motionless while he listened. When Ratty aimed the light back, the tunnel was clear for as far as they could see.

They came to a metal screen blocking their way. Palatazin took the mallet from the pack and spent a few minutes hammering it to one side. Farther on the tunnel began to angle upward perceptibly; it veered again to the right, then straightened out and seemed endless. The ceiling dropped once again, and now even Tommy walked bent over. Palatazin, his spine already aching, stepped carefully to keep from slipping in the mora.s.s at the tunnel's bottom as water and debris flowed over his shoes.

And now he heard that noise again and turned, straining to see through the utter darkness. He was quite sure this time that he'd heard the m.u.f.fled noise of cold laughter quickly fading away. He made Tommy walk between himself and Ratty. The hairs at the back of his neck were standing on end now because he feared that there were vampires down here who were already awake, sealed off from any hint of the sun. Possibly they were terribly hungry, and their hunger had kept them from sleeping; possibly they roamed the sewers in packs looking for victims. He remembered the matches and the aerosol can in the pack and, as he walked, he slipped his hand in and touched the can. Ratty's lantern was getting steadily weaker.

The tunnel angled upward sharply. They started climbing.

TWELVE.

The house was filling up with darkness. It had come insidiously, relentlessly, and early. It was the hazed light that frightened Jo so much because she was so uncertain of when the vampires would awaken and from where they'd attack-the little house across the street? the one next to that? Over an hour earlier she and Gayle had heard the man next door crying out garbled prayers, then there'd been a long silence broken by a single shot. After that they didn't hear him anymore.

Now Jo sat in a chair away from the window, her face a grim mask. Her fingers moved around the small crucifix that hung from her neck, the gift from Andy. Gayle had pulled the curtains closed, but every few minutes she would interrupt her nervous wandering around the room to peer out at the thickening gloom. Sand sc.r.a.ped the gla.s.s like fingernails across a blackboard. Gayle kept Palatazin's .38 close at hand. "Going to be dark soon," she kept saying as if forcing herself to accept that inevitability. Every time she pulled back the curtains to look out, she steeled herself to expect a pallid, grinning face looking in.

Jo found herself drifting into memories-she could recall the first time she'd met Andy's mother, on their third date the night after a St. Stephen's Day festival. The woman had been friendly enough, but so quiet and withdrawn; her eyes had seemed washed-out and blank, and they'd seemed to stare right through Jo at something coming up from behind. Now she understood why. And then a fist slammed at the door.

Gayle jumped. She grasped the .38 and pulled it out of the shoulder-holster. She stared at Jo, her eyes widened into fearful circles.

The knock came again, two fast raps on the door.

"Don't answer it!" Jo whispered. "Don't make a sound!"

"It might be Palatazin!" Gayle said, and turned toward the door, one hand going out for the k.n.o.b and the other gripped white-knuckled around the gun.

"NO!" Jo said. "DON'T!"

Silence but for the hissing of the wind. Gayle slowly unlocked the door, turned the k.n.o.b, and opened it enough to look out. At first she couldn't see a thing, so she ft opened the door a little wider.

And then something from a Jules Verne nightmare stepped in front of her, a green-garbed monstrosity with huge bug eyes and a hoglike snout. Gayle cried out and brought the gun up to fire, but the thing reached in and grasped her j wrist. "Whoa, Miss!" the thing said with a p.r.o.nounced Texas drawl. "I'm Corporal Preston, U.S. Marines. I'd take it kindly if you'd remove your finger from that trigger."

Relief flooded through her, weakening her knees. She realized the man was wearing an oxygen mask and goggles, and as she stepped into the house, she could see the tank on his back. The man closed the door, behind him and pulled his mask up. He was just a kid, really, with a lantern jaw and acne scars on his cheeks. He nodded toward Jo, who'd risen to her feet in amazement. "How many people you got in here, miss?" he asked Gayle. ."Two. Just us."

" "Okay. There's a unit vehicle about three blocks from here. We're going to be getting you out. I couldn't find anybody in the house next door. Anybody live over there?" He motioned toward the madman's house.

"No," Gayle said. "Not anymore."

"Okay. You two ladies just hang on awhile longer, you'll hear the truck coming.

You want to watch where you point that pop gun, miss." He slid his mask back down and started for the door, taking a small can of orange Day-Glo paint from the inside of his jacket.

"We can't leave!" Jo said suddenly. "We're . . . waiting . . ." The Marine studied her through his goggles. "Ma'am," he said patiently, "everybody who can git is already gone, making tracks to high ground. I've got orders to evacuate all the folks I can find, and let me tell you, I can't find very many of 'em. What are you waiting for?"

Gayle said, "There are two more of us. A man and a boy."

"Oh. They went out in this storm, did they?"

Gayle nodded. Jo's eyes were reddening.

"I wouldn't worry," Preston said. "They probably got picked up by another unit by now. The trucks are all over the area. And n.o.body could get very far out there without ... uh ..." He trailed off. "The truck'll be here in a few minutes."

He opened the door, letting in a hot swirl of wind and sand. On the outside of the door he sprayed a large numeral two, glaring orange against the bare, pocked wood. "You ladies just sit tight for a while," he called over his shoulder before he shut the door. Struggling against the wind, he went on to the next house. The fire tracks where Royce had taken the Crab on up ahead were already gone. Preston could look back and see the faint yellow glow of the tractor's high-intensity headlights approaching. At least, he thought, most of these folks have already gotten out one way or another. n.o.body answered their doors, so they must've gotten to safety. But he wondered how, since there seemed to be a lot of abandoned cars, all of them covered over with blowing dunes. He was following orders, though, and searching door-to-door, and he didn't have time to think about anything else. n.o.body answered next door so he went on. His spray can hadn't seen much use today.

THIRTEEN.

It was almost five o'clock when Wes found the turnoff onto Blackwood Road. The sky had turned the texture of hard leather, as dull brown as the oxblood shoes the pimps used to wear as they watched their low-rent merchandise parade on Wh.o.r.e's Walk. It seemed low enough to sc.r.a.pe across the Crab's roof. On either side of the road, trees bent and s.h.i.+vered, limbs ripping away and flying off down the hillside. The Crab's tires fought for a sure purchase on the incline; it seemed to slip three feet for every two it gained. The wheel shuddered in Wes's grip.

"This is the way up?" Silvera asked him. "You're sure?" 1 m sure.

Silvera could see only walls of blowing sand all around them. Still, he had a feeling that the castle was somewhere close, looming overhead like a huge stone vulture hanging to the cliff. Fear had coiled in his belly, a cold serpent undulating as it crawled up to enclose his heart in a freezing grasp. His nerve was slipping as badly as the Crab's tires. But there was no turning back now, there had never been. He saw his way clearly and knew he was following it as it had been laid down, stone for stone, all the way from the Dos Terros tenement he'd gone into with Rico Esteban. It was meant for him to be here, as surely as Wes was meant to commandeer this vehicle. This moment had been ordained for him during the tick of the clock in which Dr. Doran had told him he was dying. It was all part of the mysterious jigsaw puzzle that, when viewed close up, seemed to be nothing but meaningless colors and angles of movement. But when viewed from far away, perhaps over the shoulder, it became as tightly constructed and meaningful as the stained-gla.s.s window in his own church. He didn't know what the future would bring; he dared not guess. But neither would he let fear strangle him.

A howling gust of wind hit the Crab, almost tearing the wheel out of Wes's hands. The engine whirred as sand s.h.i.+fted beneath the wheels, and the Crab hung motionless for a few seconds. The tires gripped and pulled, then lost traction again. Wes looked at Silvera.

"The road's too steep! Tires can't get a ... Christ!" The Crab skidded sideways toward a dropoff on the left side of the road. Wes pumped the brakes frantically, but the vehicle was being pushed by the wind faster and faster, as if shoved by a satanic hand. "We're going over!" he shouted, twisting the wheel.

The rear slipped over, tires spinning in empty air. Wes glanced to the left, saw das.h.i.+ng currents and a shrub-stubbled ravine forty feet below. For an agonizing II few seconds he felt the Crab tipping. He sank his foot to the floorboard; the front tires dug down through the s.h.i.+fting sand. The Crab suddenly lurched as the right front tire scrabbled across concrete. It turned away from the dropoff and met another wailing torrent of wind head-on. Then it was thrown to the side like a roller coaster that had jumped the tracks. It crashed into a tree at the edge of the road and hung there, perhaps six feet away from the dropoff. The wind whirled past, roaring in fury. The Crab's engine gave a little moan and died. Wes stared straight ahead, afraid to move for fear of rocking the vehicle over. His eyes were gla.s.sy, his lips as white as newly-cut marble.

"We're okay," Silvera said shakily. "The wind's got us pinned against that tree.

We're not going anywhere."

"G.o.d," Wes breathed. "I thought ... we were . . . it's a h.e.l.l of a long way down . . ." When he forced himself to let go of the wheel, the blood came back into his fingers with a tingling rush.

"We're going to have to make it on foot the rest of the way. How far up is it?"

"I don't know. It's right at the top, but ... I don't know."

"You all right?"

"Yeah. Will be. Just give me a minute."

Silvera reached back for his gear. "I don't know how much air we've got left in these, but it'll have to be enough."

"Listen, if that f.u.c.king wind could throw a car over the cliff, it could pick us up and toss us right onto that spindle on top of the Capitol Records building!"

"Yes, I know. So we'll have to be careful, won't we? The wind may be worse higher up. Now you listen to me. We're going to have to move d.a.m.ned fast out there, and we'll have to be lucky. I don't know how we're going to get inside that place yet, and I really don't know what we can do when and if we do get in.

I feel like I ... have to go. You don't. You can stay here if you like."

"Stay here?" Wes frowned, gazed out at the storm for a few seconds, and then back to Silvera. "No. I'm scared so bad I'm about to p.i.s.s nickels, but I've come too far to stay here. Solange is up there somewhere. I want to find her."

"You may not be able to. And what you find may not be the person you knew."

"I understand that," Wes said quietly.

"Then you also understand that once we get in there, we may not be coming out?"

Wes nodded.

"I want you to do what I say when I say it," Silvera said. "No balking." He reached down to the floorboard for the guns, handed Wes the .45, and slipped the .22 into his own waistband. He touched the small bottle of holy water in his side coat pocket. "I don't know much about these things," Silvera said.

"The water may not have any effect. Neither may the guns, but aim for their eyes.

That should make them think twice."

"Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes, huh?" Wes said nervously.

"I don't think I'd wait that long. Once we get inside, I'm going to be searching for one in particular, and I pray to G.o.d that the water has some effect on him.

Or the bullets. And . . ." He took out the switchblade. "If he's sleeping I'm going to cut out his heart with this. Now you'd better get ready." Wes geared up. Silvera slipped his oxygen mask on, and then it was time to go. Silvera had to push to get the door open. He squeezed out, and Wes followed him out the pa.s.senger's side because the driver's door was jammed against that tree.

They began to climb the road, their feet slipping and sinking. Occasional strong blasts of wind staggered them, pus.h.i.+ng them dangerously close to the rock-rimmed dropoffs on the left side of the road before they could regain their balance. It was almost fully dark now, and Silvera knew that if the vampires weren't already prowling, they soon would be. The road stretched up into whirling black, as if it led over the edge of the world and when they fell, they would keep falling through the dark forever.

They had been walking for perhaps fifteen minutes when Silvera saw something move ahead-a quick, furtive movement, something that seemed smaller than a man but still indistinguishable in the gloom. It seemed to vanish, sucked up by the storm. He had the feeling they were being watched by something coming up fast from behind. He slid the gun out and whirled around. Nothing there but darkness, ghostly patterns of sand hissing and dancing and breaking apart, whirling out over the great dark plain where a glittering city had once been. He kept moving, keeping right beside Wes. Now there was another quick movement off in the thick shrubs to the left at the road's edge. Then another on the right. He couldn't tell yet what they were, but they disappeared as quickly as he saw them.

And then from out of the storm curtain that fluttered in their faces lunged a huge reddish brown mongrel, its eyes burning like yellow lamps. Silvera saw the bared teeth. He lifted his arm and fired but never heard the two shots. The dog leapt past his shoulder, almost knocking him to the ground, and was swallowed up in the darkness. Silvera didn't know whether he'd hit it or not. Another dog, smaller than the first one but coal-black so they didn't see it until it was right there at their feet, jumped for Wes's face, jaws snapping shut as Wes shouted and dodged. The dog tensed for another leap, but Silvera stepped forward and kicked it in the ribs. It howled and whirled, snapping at the priest's leg. Wes fired a shot; the bullet splintered the dog's skull and flung it away like a rag. Something struck at the back of Silvera's knees, staggering him. He felt teeth ripping into his right calf, gnawing for the bone.

He twisted and wrenched his leg away and, as the collie came at him again, he shot it between the eyes. The collie fell, kicked a few times, and then was still. "I'll watch the rear!" Silvera shouted. His leg was bleeding, but he barely felt the pain. Now there seemed to be a hundred shapes all around them, leaping and feinting, coming in to draw their shots before darting away. Silvera held his fire, but twice Wes shot at shadows. "Save it!" Silvera told him. "Make it count!"

Something that looked like a gray bull mastiff came charging out of the storm, rearing up on powerful, muscle-corded hind legs. It towered as high as Wes, showing teeth that could rip his throat out. Wes was about to fire when the dog vanished off to his right. He looked up and could see shapes gathered on the boulders that m hung over the road. They crouched low, like wolves about to leap. Dogs came snapping at Silvera's legs, backed away, and charged again. A black mongrel with dull, deadly eyes sprang high from the pack, fangs closing on the sleeve of his gun If hand. He almost lost the .22, but then he kicked the dog with his uninjured leg, heard cloth rip, and his arm was free. He fired a shot into the snapping pack and instantly they split apart, leaping to both sides and scurrying away.

"Keep moving!"

H he shouted to Wes. "Don't let them stop you!"

There was a brown blur in the corner of Wes's eye. A slat-ribbed mongrel was tracking him, looking for an opening. He shot at it and heard it yip. The dogs began coming down from the rocks, circling the two men. Silvera saw a huge bluish gray dog that could have been a Siberian husky or some kind of wolf. It wore a nail-studded collar, and when its eyes caught the priest's, they burned with demonic hunger. The wolf-dog was stalking him, letting the smaller dogs rush in first and waiting to see what would happen. When a couple of them came at Silvera's left and he whirled to meet them, the wolf-dog leapt from the right soundlessly, its jaws opening wide to crush the human's gun arm. Silvera saw the gray streak and pulled his arm back, but the ma.s.sive dog hit if him so hard he was thrown to the ground on his side, the breath whistling painfully from between his teeth. The dog straddled him, fangs going up under the mask to rip his throat. He could feel the hot wetness of its muzzle and saw the glittering eyes pressed right up to his own with triumphant defiance. In the next instant the dog's face caved in, teeth and bone disintegrating; blood splattered across Silvera's mask and goggles. He heard Wes's second shot, the .45's barrel less than three feet away, and then there wasn't much left of the wolf-dog's head but ooze and broken bone. Silvera pushed the heavy corpse aside and staggered to his feet, wiping the blood off his goggles so he could see then next attackers. The shapes darted and danced around them, but they wouldn't come in close. Silvera thought the wolf-dog might've been the pack's leader, and now they seemed disorganized and much less confident. The circle of snapping animals slowly widened, and then they were swallowed up by the storm.

Wes and Silvera could hear the animals howling up in the rocks, like subjects mourning their dead king. "They may be back!" Silvera said. "We've got to hurry!" He had only two bullets left and, as they walked, Silvera took the .45 and slapped in a new clip, then handed it back to Wes.

The road began to level off. They sensed the castle before they saw it, a huge turreted thing of dark stone just beyond the storm's whirling curtain. The wind was terrible, ripping past Wes and Silvera with a vengeance, almost casting them off the cliffs edge and down into a series of rocky ravines below. They moved carefully, making sure one step was firm before they tried the next. Mountains of sand grew and fell around them, hissing and sliding and then finally falling off the cliff, leaving diaphanous trails across the muddy sky. At first Silvera thought he was looking at an extension of the mountain, a jumble of stones that loomed up in fearsome peaks, but as he moved closer, he saw the high wall, and the c.h.i.n.ks between the gray blocks like rough scales on the hide of a leviathan.

He saw towers, parapets, sloping roofs whitened with sand, saw teeth of gla.s.s glittering in high window frames, dunce-cap spires spiking the sky. The castle looked like a grinning stone skull capped with satanic horns. The place was huge, as dark and forbidding as a nightmare. Silvera stopped in his tracks, overwhelmed. Go on, he told himself. This has to be faced. It has to be done. As they neared the wall, the wind stopped, blocked off by the ma.s.s of stone. Mounds of sand had heaped up against the enormous wooden gate and covered the driveway as well to a depth of perhaps six inches. Wes and Silvera looked up, dwarfed by the structure; the parapets and towers seemed to be leaning slightly, the windows set at odd angles and none of them quite the same size. Some of the stones protruded and some of them were recessed, cracked, and crumbling.

"What are we going to do?" Wes asked. "How do we get over that wall?" Silvera moved along the driveway toward the gate, stopped, and looked up at the tangle of barbed wire six feet above. "I think I can climb over that if you'll help me," he said.

Wes paused, looking at the balconies and windows for a sign of activity; the place looked dead, deceptively so. Maybe they're still sleeping! he thought. If we hurry, we can get in, find Solange, and get out before they're up! He watched Silvera walk to the gate. In the distance he could hear a chorus of howls, as if the dogs were gathering for another attack. Silvera looked over his shoulder into the darkness, the flesh at the back of his neck crawling. And with his next step he heard the quiet click! of a disengaging spring. He realized what it was a split second before the trap's gleaming serrated jaws burst up from the sand around his left foot and snapped shut on his ankle. There was no pain at first, just the brittle sound of cracking bone, and he then knew what he should've guessed before he started, along the driveway. The sand had been spread thickly and deliberately here to hide the iron traps that lay in wait for intruders. Now the pain hit, a white-hot wave that made him cry out in the mask. He was staggering backward, but slowly-so slowly-like in a nightmare where all motion seems crazy and useless. He tried to brace his fall with a hand and saw with horror another trap's jaws snapping shut, missing his wrist by several inches. He hit the ground on his side; a third trap cracked together just beside his face. Then it seemed he could see the castle from the corner of his eye, and he was watching the towers tumble toward him. The towers fell, smothering him in agonizing darkness.