The Mad and the MacAbre (27 page)

Gabriel looked at Jess, then back at
Cavenaugh.

“
Whoever killed Kelsey
snuck up on him from behind. From the direction you want to go,”
Cavenaugh said. “We probably walked right past him in the
dark.”

Gabriel felt a sudden chill at the thought.
Neither option appealed to him in the slightest. He wanted to just
sit down and wait for someone to come rescue them, but he knew that
if none of the search parties had found this tunnel before, they
weren’t about to any time soon.

Cavenaugh turned away and struck off deeper
into the mountain. After a moment’s hesitation, Jess followed.

Gabriel glanced back at the mound of rocks
and the passage over them that led to the spring one final time
before he joined the others. He spun around and walked in reverse,
pointing the barrel of the rifle at the moving shadows cast by the
lantern.

He slid his trembling finger onto the
trigger.

***

Gabriel watched Kelsey’s body fade behind
them until the darkness advanced from beyond the lantern’s reach
and claimed it. He could barely breathe. The terror had conspired
with the heat and humidity to compress his chest. Were it not for
the prospect of someone with a wickedly sharp knife lying in wait
in the darkness, he would have gladly succumbed to the panic and
run screaming out of the cave. As it was, he was slowly losing the
battle with his nerves. Every shift in the shadows nearly summoned
a fusillade of bullets. With his hands shaking as badly as they
were, he wondered if his aim would be remotely accurate if he had
to put it to the test.

He had been so wrapped up in his thoughts
that he didn’t notice Jess had stopped until he backed into
her.

“
Sorry—”

“
Shh!” Cavenaugh
whispered.

Gabriel listened, but couldn’t hear anything
over his ragged breathing and the thrum of his pulse. After seeing
nothing ahead, he risked a glance back over his shoulder. About
twenty feet past Cavenaugh, illuminated by just the faintest glow,
were twin mounds of rock to either side of the tunnel where another
section of the earthen roof had collapsed. The passage narrowed to
a bottleneck. They would have to pass through single file, becoming
sitting ducks as they emerged on the other side one at a time.

“
They’ll be ready to ambush
us at the end of that passage,” Cavenaugh whispered.

“
There’s no other way
through,” Jess whispered. “We should turn back now. I don’t want to
die in here.”

“
You think any of our
sisters did?”

“
Don’t you dare use my
sister against me. You have no idea—”

A shadow darted across the tunnel at the
peripheral extent of the flame’s light and Gabriel jerked the
trigger. The bullet flew high and wide, struck the wall with a
spark and a ping, and careened off into the darkness.

“
What did you see?”
Cavenaugh asked.

“
Something. Someone. I
didn’t get a good look.”

“
We need to keep
moving.”

“
We’re being herded,” Jess
whispered.

“
Do you have a better
idea?” Cavenaugh asked. “If you want to wait here for them to come
for you, I’m not about to stop you.”

“
What are our options?”
Gabriel asked.

Cavenaugh was silent for a moment. The
corners of his lips curled upward into an uneasy smile.

“
We’re going straight
through that bottleneck.”

“
But we all know it’s the
perfect spot for an ambush,” Gabriel said. “You already said
someone will be waiting for us at the end of the
passage.”

Gabriel looked down the tunnel and then back
at him. Cavenaugh’s face was a miasma of churning shadow and light.
The smile had turned into a maniacal grin. Without a doubt,
Cavenaugh had snapped.

“
I hope so,” Cavenaugh
said.

***

“
How accurately can you
shoot with that flare gun?” Cavenaugh asked.

“
I don’t know,” Gabriel
said. He couldn’t see where Cavenaugh was going with that line of
thought, but the ever-present smile was unsettling.

They should never have gone through that
spring, not without the police. And Kelsey had paid for their folly
with his life.

None of them would ever see the light of day
again. They were all going to die in there.

“
We only have one shot at
this, so you’d better not miss,” Cavenaugh said. He leaned closer
and explained his plan in a whisper while constantly peering
through the darkness for the first sign of movement like a prairie
dog emerging from its burrow. “So do you think you can do
it?”

“
Are you sure this will
work?” Jess asked.

“
No,” Cavenaugh said. He
took Gabriel by the shoulders and drew him closer until their faces
were only inches apart and enunciated each word carefully. “Can you
do this?”

Gabriel hesitated. Could he? He wasn’t sure.
Thus far he’d only been firing the flares in a general direction
without taking aim.

“
This is our only chance,”
Cavenaugh said. “If this doesn’t work, then we’re all dead. So I
need to know. Right now. Can you do this?”

“
I think so.”

“
You think?”

“
Yes. Yes, I can do
this.”

Cavenaugh clapped him on the shoulder. “Give
Jess the rifle.”

Gabriel held out the weapon for Jess, who
set the canister of kerosene and the lantern on the ground, and
took it from him. She turned and faced the length of tunnel they
had already traversed. The barrel visibly shook in her grasp.

Cavenaugh transferred his rifle to his left
hand and hoisted the red container in his right.

“
Everyone know what they’re
supposed to do?” Cavenaugh asked. Gabriel and Jess whispered that
they did. “Then on my mark… Now.”

Jess fired indiscriminately down the tunnel,
sweeping the semi-automatic from side to side. Bullets ricocheted
from the ground, walls, and ceiling with a showcase of golden
sparks.

Under the deafening ruckus of suppressive
fire, Cavenaugh hurled the canister through the mouth of the
bottleneck into the eager shadows, readied the rifle, and began to
shoot.

Gabriel heard the faint metal chorus of
bullets striking the container, steadied the flare gun, and pulled
the trigger.

The shriek of the streaking fireball was
barely audible over the echoing gunfire as the thin corridor
between the fallen rocks turned orange.

There was a flash of light, and then flames
everywhere. A black cloud of smoke billowed into the passage.

Cavenaugh charged forward into the smoke,
the discharge from his rifle like a strobe in fog.

Gabriel tugged Jess by the hood of her
jacket, and she started to walk in reverse, following him into the
corridor. Once inside, she stopped firing as she had been
instructed, saving what few bullets remained until she could see
their assailant coming.

There was a scream from ahead through the
smoke.

Gabriel coughed. His lungs hurt and his eyes
felt as though they were on fire. The tears made it so even the
little he could see ahead was refracted through the saline.
Cavenaugh was a vague blur, his form silhouetted by fire. A puddle
of burning kerosene advanced along the ground from the shredded
tank, which now looked more like a sea urchin.

The shrill screaming grew louder with each
step.

Gabriel stepped out of the passage into a
confusion of smoke and fire. Liquid flames poured down the cavern
walls and dripped from the ceiling. The smoke swirled with nowhere
to go.

The tortured cries pierced his right ear and
Gabriel turned to see Cavenaugh charging toward a creature of fire.
A mane of flames rose from the figure’s head and all of its clothes
burned amber. Fingers of fire crawled over its blackened face. Its
wide eyes and teeth were a sharp contrast of white, the cries a
contortion of pain and rage.

Cavenaugh strode directly toward it, shoved
it back against the stone wall, and pressed the barrel of the rifle
to its forehead.

The figure seemed not to even notice as it
slapped its hands across its face and chest in an effort to smother
the flames.

“
Look at me!” Cavenaugh
shouted. “You killed my little sister. Why? For the love of God,
tell me why, or so help me, I’ll let you stand there and burn to
death. Tell me and I can make the pain stop.”

A pair of milky eyes rolled upward to meet
his.

Cavenaugh gasped and took an involuntary
step away. He shook his head in disbelief.

Gabriel saw the flash of the knife in the
flaming hand a heartbeat before the figure thrust it into
Cavenaugh’s abdomen.

***

Cavenaugh fell to his knees. He held his
attacker’s wrist in a firm grasp, and dragged the figure down in
front of him, their faces a breath apart. Gabriel heard Cavenaugh
whisper a single word.

“
Jenny.”

Gabriel dashed to where Cavenaugh had
dropped the rifle and leveled the barrel at the scorched face. All
of its hair had burned back to its skull and the cracked skin wept
blood and pustulates. The clothes still crackled, but the flames
had diminished. The figure’s black features tightened and there was
a sucking sound as it jerked back the knife and stabbed Cavenaugh
again.

“
Let go of the knife!”
Gabriel shouted. The rifle trembled so badly the barrel tapped
against the thing’s temple. “Do it now or I shoot!”

The eyes rose and looked at Gabriel.

Shamrock green eyes.

Suddenly he understood.

“
Why are you doing this?”
Cavenaugh asked. His voice faltered and a rivulet of blood drained
from the corner of his mouth. His brow crinkled and his eyes
narrowed as though trying to read the answer in her face. “I’ve
been looking for you for so long….and now I…. What have I
done?”

Cavenaugh’s shoulders shuddered and tears
streamed from his eyes. Despite the blade embedded in his gut, he
wrapped his arms around his sister’s shoulders and drew her into
his embrace.

Jenny’s screams turned to sobs as she buried
her face in the crook of his neck.

“
Please forgive me,” she
whispered. Her voice was garbled by the pain and her closing
windpipe.

Gabriel didn’t know what to do. A moment
prior he had been prepared to blow a hole through the side of her
head, and now…. If Jenny was still alive, was it possible
that…?

“
No one can ever know,”
Jenny whispered. “None of us can ever leave here.”

She withdrew the knife and stabbed her
brother again.

“
Anything can be forgiven,”
Cavenaugh whispered. “You…you were the one who told me…God forgives
everyone.”

“
That’s the problem.” She
started to cry harder. “There can be no forgiveness. There can be
no more—”

Gabriel stepped forward and pressed the
barrel against her head behind her ear.

“—
hope.”

He stared down at Cavenaugh, whose jacket
had already begun to burn. Tears streaked through the soot on his
cheeks and blood trickled from his mouth and down his chin. The
expression on his face reflected a level of pain the likes of which
Gabriel had never seen before. Cavenaugh turned his attention back
to his sister and stroked her cheek softly.

“
I love you,” he whispered,
then turned and gave Gabriel a single nod.

Gabriel squeezed the trigger.

***

The report echoed through the cavern, and
beneath it Cavenaugh’s gut-wrenching cry. Gabriel could only stare
at the body lying on the ground beside Cavenaugh. The entire upper
half of Jenny’s head was gone, replaced by a sloppy mess of
tattered skin, bone fragments, and gray matter, from which blood
poured into an ever-expanding pool. Flames spread from her shoulder
over the side of her face, where they took root and began to
consume her.

As Cavenaugh watched, his features twitched
and twisted while he ran the gamut of emotions. His hands worked at
the hilt of the knife until they were finally able to pull it free.
He wavered in place before finally toppling onto his side. He
reached for his sister’s hand, and closed it within his.

Gabriel grabbed Cavenaugh’s other hand and
tried to drag him away from the fire, but the stronger man jerked
it away.

“
Get up!” Gabriel yelled.
He looked to Jess for help, but she just stood there, paralyzed by
shock.

A shadow separated from the smoke and flames
behind her.

“
Jenny!” it shouted. The
figure shoved Jess out of the way and threw itself to the ground
beside the smoldering corpse. It tried to lift her head, but only
succeeded in dumping the remaining contents onto the ground. With a
pitiful moan, it whirled to face Gabriel. The firelight exposed a
face masked by a scraggly beard and wild hair. The man’s eyes
narrowed to slits and he bared his teeth.

Gabriel stumbled backwards and aligned the
barrel of the rifle with the man, whom he recognized with a
start.

Levi Northcutt. Kelsey’s son.

He had slit his own father’s throat.

“
Stay right where you are!”
Gabriel yelled. His mind was reeling. Levi and Jenny had been alive
all this time. Was it possible that his sister was somewhere nearby
in the darkness? But there had been so many bones…and her cross was
hanging from the wall over the pallet where the carcasses were
butchered. What could possibly have transpired that would have led
Levi and Jenny to kill all of their friends, and then the family
members who had come to search for them? What could have happened
that would have forced Levi to kill his own father and Jenny to
repeatedly stab her brother?