“Like hell,” Jack said.
Jack propped Sarah against the low guardrail that surrounded the elevator platform. He ran across the floor, sliding on the ground to Lonetree’s side. He shouted in his ear to get moving. Lonetree grunted as he churned his legs to propel himself forward. Jack pushed him along, glancing over his shoulder at the creature.
Once they started to move to the elevator, the shaman-creature screamed. The decayed throat created a high-pitched shriek. A sound no living thing could ever produce. The creature lowered itself until its good hand hit the ground and then charged forward in a bizarre three-legged movement.
“It’s coming!” Jack shouted. “GO! GO! GO!”
Jack turned away from the fast approaching creature. He focused on the elevator. Only fifteen feet away. Now ten feet. Five.
The scream seemed to be right next to his ear. He swore he felt hot breath on his neck. But with a final push on Lonetree’s back, they tumbled onto the elevator platform together. Jack climbed to his feet and searched for the control switch, surprised the creature wasn’t already upon them.
“Up there.” Lonetree groaned. “Up.”
Jack saw it. A metal control box hanging from a chain against the back wall. He grabbed it and punched the green button. They didn’t move. He tried the red button. Nothing. He pressed them together. Still they didn’t work.
Oh shit. Huckley sabotaged the elevator.
“The release. Hit the release switch out there.” Lonetree pointed to the control console out in the passageway.
Jack understood. He looked out into the passage. The creature had stopped its advance next to Huckley’s body. They were already out of time so Jack knew he had no other option. He sprinted out from the elevator and ran to the console. He expected to feel the slashing cut of the creature’s claws at any second. The release was labeled. He flipped the switch and rushed back into the elevator. Lonetree had managed to pull himself up using the metal rails around the platform and held the control box in his hand. As soon as Jack’s body cleared the threshold, he punched the buttons and the elevator started to rise.
Jack turned as new screams erupted behind them. These were not from the shaman creature. These were human. And they were pure horror. Peering out from the elevator they watched what was happening in the passage.
Huckley was still sprawled out on his back but had regained full consciousness. At first Jack thought the creature stood in front of Huckley, but he realized he was wrong. The creature was on Huckley, each foot planted through one of Huckley’s legs, the thick talons piercing through the muscles like iron pikes.
Huckley raised the shotgun, only to have his hand lopped off with one quick swipe. The creature reared back and screamed, overwhelming the pathetic whimpers that came from its prey. As the shaman lunged forward to tear into Huckley’s stomach, the elevator rose into the rock shaft, blocking Jack’s view.
They traveled upward, away from the grisly scene and toward the salvation hundreds of feet above them. Huckley’s screams chased them up the vertical shaft. Whatever the creature was doing, one thing was certain, it was taking its time.
EIGHTY-FIVE
Jack sat on the floor on the elevator, rocking Sarah in his arms. As he rocked her, he tried to apply pressure to her wound to stop the bleeding. The blast had riddled her left shoulder and chest with shot. Blood was everywhere.
At least she was still breathing. He checked his watch. Less than a minute until the explosion. The elevator creaked up the shaft. He wasn’t sure if they would make it.
Lonetree sat on the opposite side of the platform. Even under the dim light of the one bare bulb that hung suspended in the center of the cage, Jack could tell how pale he was. He clutched his side and his breath came in painful bursts.
“Hell of a ride, huh?” Lonetree managed through clenched teeth.
Jack nodded up the shaft. “How long do you think to reach the top?
“Maybe a minute, give or take.” Lonetree said.
“Let’s hope for some give. Otherwise we’re shy about twenty seconds.”
Lonetree nodded. Jack struggled to his feet, Sarah still in his arms. She moaned quietly as she was moved around. Lonetree craned his head back to look up above them. “I think we’re going to make it.”
As if in answer to his optimism, the platform slowed. A hollow sound came up the shaft from below them, like the thud of fireworks being shot off in the distance. Lonetree looked over to Jack. “Hold on.”
No sooner were the words in the air then the platform was rocked by a violent earthquake. Jack curled his arms around Sarah, fending off the chucks of rock that crashed down from above them. The elevator gears whined as the cable holding the platform whipped back and forth like downed power line. Still, the platform crawled upward, slower now, but gaining ground.
Another violent shock hit and threw the platform against the wall. Lonetree lost his grip on the rail and rolled across the floor and slammed into the opposite side. One leg dropped off the edge and dangled in the air. The platform completed its arc and started back the other direction.
“Watch out!” Jack cried as the wall rushed toward them.
With a grunt, Lonetree hefted his leg back onto the platform just as the edge slammed into the rock wall. The maneuver left him face down staring through the metal grid beneath their feet. Lonetree’s body stiffened.
He lifted his head to shout something at Jack, but the noise from the earthquake was too loud. Lonetree stabbed his finger downward. Jack looked through the metal grate and saw the elevator shaft extend down beneath them. The light from below appeared to blink off and on. He thought maybe from a dust cloud gathering beneath them.
But soon he realized it was no dust cloud or an electrical short. The light blinked off and on as a shape passed back and forth in front of it. As his eyes adjusted, Jack saw the shaman-creature crawling up the shaft. And it was gaining on them.
“It’s coming after us,” Lonetree shouted.
“Sarah said it wouldn’t hurt us. It was just after Huckley and Mansfield.”
Lonetree looked back down at the creature climbing up toward them. “Something tells me that deal’s off. The world down there is collapsing and this is the way out.” Lonetree reached out and pulled Jack close to him. “No matter what, we can’t let that thing get out of here.”
Jack lost Lonetree’s voice in the rumbling of the earthquake around them. He looked up. The light above them was stronger now. They were almost to the surface. Ten seconds. They needed just ten more seconds.
But they didn’t have it. The rock shaft started to disintegrate. The walls caved in at the lower levels first, mangling the safety cables that ran the length of the tunnel. The platform stopped and danced wildly in mid-air, suspended over the carnage below. Lonetree shouted that the creature was still climbing up the walls. Jack watched in horror as fissures appeared in the wall next to him. In was only a matter of time before the walls caved in and buried them alive.
Then he saw it. A metal ladder attached to the rock wall. A service ladder. A way out.
He shouted to Lonetree and pointed. The crash of rocks below and the rumble from the shaking earth drowned out his voice. But Lonetree saw his gesture and waved for Jack to go first. Jack shook his head. “Can you carry Sarah?”
Lonetree nodded that he understood. Between the two of them, Jack was in better shape to slow the creature down.
Without hesitating, Lonetree hefted Sarah over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, teeth clenched against the explosion of pain in his side. He staggered across the platform, forced down to his knees every few steps by the spasms from the quakes. He gripped onto the ladder with his free hand and pulled himself up off the platform and started the climb. The rock wall continued to shake but he focused on moving one hand at a time, one foothold at a time.