“Jonathan must have detonated Ray’s GPS receiver,” Balenger said.
“Don’t call me ‘Jonathan,”“ the voice ordered.
“Why not? You’re not playing by the rules anymore. Why the hell should we call you the Game Master?”
“Who said the game is over?”
Balenger and Amanda studied each other in the flashlight’s glare.
“I don’t know how long the batteries will last. Did you bring others?” Amanda asked.
“No.”
After a long desperate silence, Amanda said, “Maybe we can make torches from the clothes in the Sepulcher.” She tried to sound optimistic, but her voice dropped. “Bad idea. The flames might ignite combustible gas.”
Balenger grasped at a possibility. “If there was gas, wouldn’t it have overpowered us by now? Wouldn’t the explosion have set it off?”
“Maybe. But now that I think of it, the flames from the torches would use the oxygen in here. We’d suffocate faster than if we waited in the dark.”
Her voice became still.
A growl replaced it. As Balenger and Amanda whirled, the flashlight revealed the two dogs that had stalked Balenger from the creek. They seemed larger. The light made their eyes red. Saliva dripped from their teeth. My God, they followed us inside, Balenger thought.
Snarling, the dogs came forward. Balenger raised the gun, but immediately, they reacted to it. Before he could shoot, they turned and raced into the darkness.
“They’re trapped in here with us. They don’t have anything else to eat. When this flashlight goes out…” Amanda couldn’t finish her sentence.
“Yeah, it’s getting harder to keep a positive attitude.” Balenger kept aiming toward the darkness.
“The lantern,” Amanda said.
“What about it?”
“If it’s a bomb, we could use it to try to blow these rocks out of the way.” The flashlight in Amanda’s hand wavered.
“Maybe. Or else the blast might collapse the tunnel.”
“What about the ventilation shaft the Game Master mentioned?”
“Yeah.” Balenger felt the start of hope. The dust in the flashlight beam seemed to drift, as if responding to a subtle draft.
They inched forward. Amanda shifted the flashlight from one side of the tunnel to the other. Balenger listened for sounds from the dogs. His mouth was dry. He and Amanda made a wide turn at the corner and faced the continuation of the tunnel. It was empty.
“The dogs must have gone into the Sepulcher,” Amanda said.
Aiming, Balenger neared the entrance to the first chamber. Amanda pointed the flashlight. Reverend Pentecost greeted them with his hand on the book on his chest.
Balenger approached the entrance to the Sepulcher. Amanda followed, leaving Pentecost in darkness. At once, a blur leapt from the cavern. Coming under the rifle, the dog struck Balenger’s chest. As the rifle jerked up, Balenger’s finger squeezed the trigger. The sounds of the shot and the ricochet were amplified by the closed space. Chunks of stone flew. The dog’s weight shoved Balenger backward. They struck Pentecost, knocking over the board that supported him. Balenger landed on the mummy, feeling the crack of dry bones.
The dog clawed at Balenger’s jumpsuit while its teeth snapped toward his throat. Balenger let go of the rifle and strained to push the dog away, but it clawed harder. He tried to squeeze its throat, but the dog snapped at his hands, saliva flying. Desperate, Balenger yanked out the knife clipped to his pocket. He pressed his thumb against a knob on the blade that allowed him to open it one-handed. He rammed it into the dog’s side but hit a rib. The dog kept snapping at Balenger’s throat. Striking again, Balenger plunged the knife under the ribs and sliced. Blood cascaded. The blade must have cut something vital. The dog shuddered against him, dying.
Balenger hurled it away and surged to his feet, aiming toward the Sepulcher’s entrance. His racing heart made him nauseous. He shouted, “Watch out for the other dog!” Amanda spun, redirecting the flashlight.
The only sound was Balenger’s frenzied breathing. He glanced down at Pentecost’s corpse, the mummy crushed into fragments. A fetid odor invaded his nostrils.
“Did the dog bite you?” Amanda asked.
“I’d be surprised if it didn’t.” The front of Balenger’s jumpsuit was torn open. The clawed skin throbbed. Blood covered the cuts, some of it from the dog.
“Even if it didn’t bite you, it dripped saliva. You’ll need rabies shots,” Amanda told him.
“Which implies we’ll get out of here. I like your optimism.” Balenger noticed that the dust the fight had raised drifted away. “Does it seem like air is coming from the Sepulcher?”
“Now that you mention it.”
“The ventilation shaft.”
They entered the Sepulcher.
The dog in here is bigger than the other, Balenger thought. If it attacks, it’ll be harder to fight off.
He must have said it out loud, because Amanda responded, “Well, if it’s bigger, it’ll be easier to see. That gives us an advantage.”
“Yeah, a tremendous advantage. The odds are in our favor. I don’t know why I didn’t realize that.” Balenger was amazed by her determination.
She waved the light back and forth, casting shadows from the grotesque tableaus, searching for the dog. When Balenger grabbed dust from the floor and hurled it, the light showed that a subtle draft nudged it past him. They went forward, trying to locate the origin of the draft. All the while, Balenger listened for a snarl or a scrape of claws. He and Amanda passed a mummified man who leaned back in a chair, his hand on his groin.
They came to a wall and searched along it, finding a barrier of rubble.
“Looks like a cave-in,” Balenger said.
Amanda illuminated a hole at the top of the rubble. “That’s where the air’s coming from.”
Uneasy, Balenger turned his back on the cavern and the dog. He set down the rifle and tried to climb the rubble to see what was beyond the hole, but the angle was too steep, and rocks slipped under him. The abrupt movement aggravated the pain of the claw marks on his chest.
“Do you think we can clear this by hand?” he asked.
“Before the batteries on the flashlight die?” Amanda shook her head. “My hands are awfully raw. I’ll work as hard as I can, but it won’t be quick.”
“If we build a platform of rocks, we can stand on it and widen the hole at the top.” Wary of the dog, Balenger picked up a rock to start making the platform. Immediately, he paused. “Do you smell something?”
“Like what?” Amanda stared toward the gap at the top of the rubble. “Now I do. It smells like…”
“Garlic.” Balenger stepped back.
“Arsenic.” Amanda’s voice shook.
As the smell of the gas intensified, Balenger coughed, sick to his stomach. They hurried across the cavern, scanning the tableaus, on guard against the dog. They reached the chamber where Reverend Pentecost no longer greeted his visitors.
Amanda stopped, forced to take a breath.
Balenger tested the air. “I don’t smell the garlic here.”
“That’ll change soon.” Amanda pointed the flashlight toward an area beyond Pentecost’s shattered remains. It showed the lantern, where she’d set it earlier. “If that thing’s a bomb, maybe we can use it to blow away the rubble and get to the chamber. Then we can put out whatever’s heating the arsenic.”
“The same problem as before. The explosion might bring down the roof,” Balenger said.
“I’d sooner die that way. At least, we’ll go out trying.”
Balenger stared at her with admiration. Mustering strength, he used his knife to cut a strip from Pentecost’s coat.
“A fuse?” Amanda asked.
Balenger nodded. He unscrewed the cap to the lantern’s fuel reservoir and shoved the strip of cloth into the opening. “We’ll need to cover this with rocks,” he said. “How long can you hold your breath?”