Then Janney cried out and pointed toward the stone structure.
In slow, jerking movements, Scott Moran crawled toward the group, trailing a swath of blood behind him.
Scott Moran’s shirt was soaked through with blood from the gunshots to his torso. The right side of his face was caved in across on the jaw line when Jack beat him with the gun. Strips of skin hang off his skull from the deep lacerations. The left side of the face was untouched and the eyeball on that side roved around manically taking in the scene in front of it. The other eye was destroyed, ripped from its socket and mashed into the cheekbone. A groan came from deep in the man’s throat as he leaned to the side and spewed a gush of blood and bits of black flesh.
“Jesus, what a mess,” Janney said.
Scott Moran lurched in the direction of the voice but he seemed paralyzed from the waist down. His wounds were healing, so slowly that it was only noticeable on the edges of the cuts. Low, wet grunts came from deep in the man’s throat. He raised one arm toward Janney as if begging for help.
Dr. Mansfield walked over, took Janney’s gun, placed the barrel against Scott Moran’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. Jack held the back of Sarah’s head so she wouldn’t see the spray of blood and brain matter that dripped down the rock wall behind Scott Moran as he collapsed to the floor.
“He was healing. Why did you…” Janney’s voice faded as Dr. Mansfield spun around and pointed the gun at the sheriff’s head.
“He questioned my authority when the decision had to be made about his daughter.” He cocked the gun. “Do you have a question too, Janney?”
“No, Boss. Of course not.”
Jack watched in fascination as Dr. Mansfield stood with the gun pressed against Janney’s head, bending the man to his will. He sneaked a look at his watch. Still seventeen minutes to go. It seemed like an eternity.
Dr. Mansfield lowered the gun. “All right, enough delays. Tie up these two. We need Mr. Lonetree to tell us where his information about us is hidden. Having Jack will make it easier to convince Dr. Tremont to assist me.”
“I thought we were going to just tell her that her daughter was still alive,” Huckley said. “Isn’t that what you told her upstairs?”
“Lauren’s here?” Jack cried out.
Dr. Mansfield ignored him. “That will only work for so long. Eventually she’ll want proof. That’s when Jack here will be useful. Did you have Janney’s man do what I told you?”
“Of course. I assume you plan to kill him for the rape when we get topside. Make the Tremont woman think you’re the good guy.”
At the mention of the rape, Jack’s mind went numb and the men’s conversation grew distant, as if they were disappearing into a tunnel. His world coalesced to the space occupied by himself and his daughter. There was no way out, he knew that now. He was out of time. They would all die in the cave and this madness would end. That, at least, was a consolation. But, with the men getting ready, it looked now as if Sarah might have to endure the cruel pain of the ritual before the explosives activated. Not only that, but he considered for the first time that the explosives might not detonate. Maybe there was a short in the charges. Maybe the cave could withstand whatever amount of C-4 Lonetree used. There was only one way for him to make sure him daughter didn’t suffer. It was a terrible responsibility, but it struck him that it was the only thing he could do for the little girl he held in his arms. He just didn’t know if he could bring himself to kill his own child.
All around him were stone cages filled with skeletons of parents that had to make the same horrific decision. The same angry, vengeful souls, Melissa had shown him. Now Jack felt that every skull was turned in his direction and every black, empty socket stared at him, urging him to do his duty. He heard their voices.
Break her neck.
Bash her head on a rock.
You’ll do it if you love her.
I did it.
I had to do it to all my children.
If you love her, you’ll kill her.
And there was a murmuring undercurrent that ran through his head. It sounded like a swollen river, the kind that gurgles so that both vowels and consonants fill the air, almost words, like a foreign language that seems oddly familiar but indecipherable. It was the sound of many voices, all saying the same sentence, but overlapping so that words became unintelligible. But slowly, the more Jack focused, the more the voices synchronized until he could understand what the thousands of voices were saying.
You failed us so you can suffer like us.
Sarah arched her back and pushed off her father’s body with the palms of her hands. Jack let go enough so that she could look him in the face.
Jesus, did she read my mind? Does she know I plan to kill her?
Sarah nodded her head as if he had spoken the question out loud. He started to say something but she held a finger to his lips. “Shhhh, Daddy. You don’t have to do that. Melissa is here to help us. She brought the others. The ones who died here.” She leaned in so that her mouth was up against his ear. “Get ready to run, Daddy.”
Before Jack could react, his daughter was ripped out of his arms by Nate Huckley. Jack cried out and lunged to grab onto her but Janney’s boot kicked him in the side, knocking the air out of him. He fell to the ground gasping for breath. When he looked up he saw that Huckley had stopped in his tracks, Sarah hanging limp in his arms.
“Something’s wrong,” Huckley said. “I can feel it. I feel it in my bones.”
“It’s nothing,” Dr. Mansfield said.
“It’s a vibration.”
“It’s nothing, I said.”
“How do you know?”
“You always say there’s background vibration from the Source. All other extra-sensory ability is drowned out by it, that’s what you always say.”
“So?”
“So the vibration must be coming from the Source. It must sense what is about to happen.”
“I don’t know. All of a sudden I have a bad feeling about this,” Huckley said. “The vibration is getting stronger. It’s different somehow. Not from the Source.”
“Come on, Huckley. You’re the one who brought us to this point,” Dr. Mansfield said. “This reaction must mean you were right. Think of what the Source promised us with this sacrifice. Free from all limits. Immortality could be minutes away for us. Immortality for the entire world. We have to find out.”
Huckley squinted from pain. “Only part of the energy is coming from the Source.”
He slid Sarah’s limp body to the ground. Her flesh was a white as her clothes. Her lips were blue from cold. She panted in quick, short breaths.
“It’s coming from her.” Huckley closed his eyes, wincing. “The Source is drawing power from her. God, it’s getting more intense. This isn’t right. I can feel it in my head.”
“What the hell is that?” Janney cried out turning to the stone cage nearest him. There was a scratching sound, like rats crawling over a pile of dry chicken bones.
“It’s nothing. Just take the girl and…” Dr. Mansfield’s voice trailed off as a howl came from high in the cave. The light didn’t penetrate to the roof so a layer of darkness hung over them, leaving the source of the howl to their imaginations. “Just wind,” Dr. Mansfield said. “Remember there’s a storm outside.”
Before any of the men could articulate what they all knew, that two centuries in the cave had yet produced the sound they just heard, the scraping sounds in the cages increased. It wasn’t just one of the cages, it was all of them.
Janney was near one of the halogen floor lamps. He reached up and swiveled the light so that it faced out into the rows of cages around them.