He tried to swallow, but his throat was so dry and swollen that he couldn't. He bent even farther forward until his forehead rested against the sharp grit. Were his eyes open or closed? There was no difference; small spots of colored light, swirling reticulations, massed together into smears, dancing before him, confusing him. But he knew it wasn't real.
He stayed in that position, panting, his head against the ground, and for some reason a vision of his Topsoil mother reared up before him. It was so crystal clear that, for an instant, he felt as if he'd been transported somewhere else. Mrs. Burrows was reclining in front of a television in a sun-filled room. The vision wavered and was replaced by the image of his father in a very different place, somewhere deep in the earth, wandering carelessly along and whistling through his teeth in that high-pitched way he always did.
Next he saw Rebecca, as he'd seen her a thousand times before. She was in the kitchen, preparing dinner for the whole family — a task she'd do every night — a sort of constant in his life that seemed to be present in even his earliest memories.
As if a film had jumped its sprockets, he saw her smiling evilly while she paraded herself in the black-and-white uniform of the Styx.
Witch! Treacherous, lying witch! She had betrayed him, betrayed his family. This was all her fault.
Witch. Witch. Witch. Witch. Witch
In his eyes she was the very worst type of traitor, something twisted and dark and evil, a cuckoo sent from the underworld to wreak havoc on the nest, a quisling.
Get up! The pure hatred he felt for Rebecca galvanized him. He drew in a painful breath and pushed himself up so he was on his knees again. He shouted at himself, urging himself to get to his feet. Get up, Will! Don't let her win! Then, standing on his shaky limbs, his arms threshed out in the emptiness around him, in the endless, soul-sucking night land.
"Get going! Get going! GET OUT!" he shouted in a cracked voice. "GET OUT!"
He began to stumble along, calling out to Drake and his father, to anyone, to help him. But he heard nothing except his own echoing voice. Then there was a fall of small stones behind him, and he thought it perhaps too dangerous to continue to shout anymore and fell silent. But he kept going, counting a rough rhythm in his head as he went:
One two, one two one, one two…
Before long he was seeing horrible things looming out at him from the invisible walls. He told himself they weren't real, but that didn't stop them form coming.
He was losing it. He truly believed he'd go mad if the thirst and hunger didn't get him first.
One two, one two…
He rued the day that he had made the decision to take the Miners' Train and come down here to the Deeps. What had he been thinking? To be lost like this, when he could have gone Topsoil! After all, what was the worst that could have happened to him up there? Spending the rest of his life on the run from the Styx didn't seem so bad now. At least he wouldn't have gotten himself into this situation.
He fell again, and it was a bad one. He'd tumbled across some jagged rocks and banged his head. He slowly rolled onto his back and stretched out his limbs so he was spread-eagled. Then he lifted his hands in front of his face. Where he should have seen the white of his palms, there was no differentiation from the blankness, the canvas that had become his universe. He did not exist anymore.
He rolled over and felt in front of him, terrified there might be some sort of drop just ahead. But the tunnel floor continued uninterrupted, and he knew that he would have to get back up.
Without anything else to rely on, he'd become highly attuned to the familiar echoes his boots made as he trudged through the gravel and dust. He'd learned to read the minute reports of his footfalls as they reflected from the walls — it was almost like he had his own radar. On several occasions, he'd been forewarned of gaping chasms or changes in the floor level, purely by the nature of these echoes.
He got to his feet and took some steps.
There was a dramatic change in the sounds. The feedback was fainter, as if the lava tube had suddenly ballooned in size. He advanced at a snail's pace, filled with trepidation that he was about to stagger blindly into a vertical shaft.
Within a short distance, there were no more echoes at all — none he could discern, anyway. His boots were encountering something other than the usual debris. Pebbles! Knocking and grinding against one another and giving that unmistakable slightly hollow sound. They shifted under his feet and, in hid exhausted state, made it even more difficult to walk.
Then he sniffed, suddenly aware of humidity on his face. He sniffed again. What was it?
Ozone!
He smelled ozone, so evocative of the seaside and trips to the beach with his dad.
What had he stumbled on?
32
Mrs. Burrows stood by the door to her room, watching the events farther down the corridor.
She'd been roused from her afternoon nap by raised voices and the rapid tap of footfalls over the surface of the linoleum out in the hallway. This struck her as odd. For the past week there had been next to no activity in the place. An uneasy silence had fallen over Humphrey House, the patients largely confining themselves to their beds as, one after another, they succumbed to the mysterious virus that had all of England in its grip.
When she'd first heard the commotion, Mrs. Burrows had assumed it was simply a patient kicking up a fuss. But minutes later, a loud crash came from the area of the service elevator, followed by a woman's voice speaking in urgent tones. It was the voice of someone who was distressed or angry and wanted to shout but was just managing to keep herself in check. Only just.
Her curiosity getting the better of her, Mrs. Burrows had finally decided to take a look. Her eyes were considerably better, but still painful enough to force her to squint.
"What's all this?" she mumbled through a yawn as she stepped from her bedroom into the corridor. She stopped as something by the door to Old Mrs. L's room came into focus, and her red eyes opened wide with surprise. Mrs. Burrows had seen enough TV hospital dramas to identify what was there:
A paradise cart — the horrible euphemism for a hospital gurney with stainless-steel sides and top. It was a means of transporting dead bodies without alerting anyone as to what was inside or, indeed, if there was anyone inside.
Essentially a shiny metal coffin on wheels.
As she watched, the matron and two porters emerged from the doorway to fetch the cart. The porters wheeled it into Old Mrs. L's room as the matron remained outside. Spotting Mrs. Burrows, she walked slowly down the corridor toward her.
"No. That's not what I think—?" Mrs. Burrows began.
With a slow shake of her head, the matron told her all she needed to know.
"But Old Mrs. L was so… young," Mrs. Burrows gasped, forgetting herself in her distress and using her nickname for the patient. "What happened?"
The matron shook her head again.
"What happened?" Mrs. Burrows repeated.
The matron's voice was hushed, as if she didn't want any of the other patients to hear. "The virus," she said.
"Not this thing?" Mrs. Burrows asked, indicating her eyes, which, just like the matron's, were still red and puffy.
"I'm afraid so. Got into her optic nerve, and then spread through her brain. The doctor said it's doing that in a number of cases." She took a long breath. "Especially those with defective immune systems."