She had no memory of anything like that, but she supposed that it might’ve happened. Plenty must’ve gone on; she only remembered bits and pieces...
Bastard could’ve brought in five buddies for a gang-bang for all I know.
Crawling as fast as she could through the tunnel, Sandy wondered if she would end up pregnant again.
That’d be just what I need.
Don’t do it to me, God, please, Are you there, God? It’s me, Sandy. Don’t do it to me again. Please, please. I swear, if you do, I’ll let it live. You can’t ask me to kill my own baby more than once per lifetime, okay? It wouldn’t be fair. Are you listening?
The earth beneath Sandy’s hands and knees began slanting upward.
We’re coming out!
And me without a stitch of clothes on, she thought.
So what else is new?
Too bad good old Blaze isn’t here to capture it on canvas. He’d love it. Call it ‘Last Charge of the Cave Girl,’ sell it for thousands. Only I don’t look so terrific at the moment. He’d have to clean me up and put me in a nice see-through gown...
She realized the flashlight’s beam was no longer reaching past her. Maybe because the slope was too steep.
She churned her way upward.
The top of her head punched into something heavy but yielding.
A body?
Had somebody fallen across the opening?
Sandy reached up with one hand and touched wet fabric. She shoved hard. The barrier rolled away.
She climbed out of the hole and into complete darkness.
Though her ears still rang from the gunshot, she heard wild outcries, shouts and shrieks.
Somebody bumped into her and yelped, almost knocking her off her feet. From the quick feel of fabric against her bare skin, she knew it wasn’t Clyde. She shoved the person away. Crouching slightly, she moved through the chaos with her left arm out to feel the way ahead and block assaults. Her right hand kept the pistol close to her side.
All around her, people were weeping, groaning, shouting.
“What was it?”
“You okay?”
“Where’d it go?”
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
From high in front of Sandy came harsh thuds of someone pounding on wood—the cellar door?
“Who ARE you?”
“SOMEBODY GET US our OF HERE!”
A brilliant red light suddenly came on, spinning and flinging out crimson as if a fire truck had somehow made its way into the cellar. Sandy glimpsed blood-red bodies rushing about, some sprawled on the floor, others huddled in corners, a few on the stairway.
And a beast inside the Kutch tunnel, running away.
The barred door stood wide open.
Just inside the entrance, mounted on the shoring of the tunnel wall, was the whirling red light.
Sandy raced for the tunnel, dodging and leaping over bodies that. blocked her way.
“Look at her!”
“Fuckin’A!”
“She’s got a gun!”
“Help us!”
“Let’s go with her!”
Sandy shouted, “EVERYBODY STAY BACK!” and ran into the tunnel.
Clyde had already vanished around a bend.
Sandy glanced at the spinning red light and saw a motion sensor.
Clyde must’ve set it off when he ran by.
How’d he get the door unlocked?
Had the key for it, stupid.
As a kid, Sandy had never liked this tunnel. It gave her the creeps, so she’d avoided it whenever possible.
Now, she wished she’d spent more time down here.
Though her memories were vague, she recalled that the tunnel had plenty of twists and bends, nooks, places where it split in two for a short distance, and even a couple of detours that led to dead-ends.
He could jump me so easily.
Slowing down, she jogged around a curve. Up ahead was another spinning red light.
No sign of Clyde.
She slowed to a quick walk.
What’s he up to? she wondered. Planning to make his getaway through Agnes’s house?
Feeling a strange mixture of longing and dread, Sandy realized that she would very likely be encountering Agnes within the next few minutes.
The woman had once been her best friend, her only friend, almost like a mother—more like a sister, maybe. Sandy hadn’t seen her since the summer of 1980, the day before Marlon Slade showed up at the trailer and ruined everything.
Though she had eventually come back to town in search of Eric, she’d eagerly looked forward to a reunion with Agnes.
Her first day back, she’d gone to the door of the Kutch house, knocked, called out, “Agnes, it’s me. Sandy. How are you? I’m back in town. I want to see you.” But there’d been no response from inside the house.
The next day, she’d tried again.
Still, no response.
After two weeks of secret visits, knocking and identifying herself, she’d finally gotten an answer from the other side of the door.
“Go away,” the voice had said.
“Agnes? It’s me, Sandy. You remember me, don’t you?”
“I remember.” Agnes sounded sour about it.
“I want us to be friends again.”
“Get lost.”
“Agnes? What’s wrong?”
“Got no use for you. Run off with the child. He was OURS. You hadn’t got no RIGHT!”
“I bad to leave. We where... ”
“Don’t wanta hear no excuses. Get lost. Go kill yourself.”
After that, Sandy had made no more attempts to contact Agnes.
Maybe Clyde and I can finish this in the tunnel, she thought. Before he gets all the way across to Agnes’s place.
She must really hate me.
I don’t want to see her.
But maybe if we meet face to face...
“Wait up!” someone called from behind Sandy.
She looked back. Two geeky-looking teenaged boys were hurrying along behind her. Following them was a husky young woman in a flannel shirt and jeans. The woman’s face was bleeding.
“Go back,” Sandy said.
“We wanta help you,” said the taller kid.
His chubby friend stared at her and nodded.
“He killed my husband!” blurted the woman.
Two more people rushed into view behind her. A slim, dapper man in a bloody camel sweater and a dazed-looking woman who was clinging to his hand. “Is this a way out?” asked the man.
“No, it’s not,” Sandy said. “Go back to the cellar. All of you. You’re interfering with police business.”
“You a cop?” asked the tall kid.
“I don’t see no badge,” said the chubby one, leering at her breasts.
“Want my sweatahirt?” asked the tall one. He started pulling it up.
“Go!” Sandy shouted. Then she whirled away from them and ran deeper into the tunnel.
To make up for the delay, she picked up her pace. Arms pumping, legs flying out, she ran as fast as she could—too fast for the bends in the tunnel.
If he’s waiting for me around one of these...
She dodged a dirt wall, lurched around a curve, bumped a wall with her shoulder.
And came out of the curve to find a section ahead that was as straight as a school hallway. This was the place, Sandy realized, where the tunnel passed underneath Front Street.