Caine raised his hands and Sam dropped slowly down the shaft.
Sam seemed to be holding a ball of brilliant light in his hands. Only not holding it, really, Duck realized when his eyes had adjusted. The light just glowed from Sam’s palms.
“I know this place,” Caine said. “We’re just a few dozen feet from the cavern.”
“Duck, we may need you,” Sam said.
“But I was just going to—”
Sam’s legs buckled, and Duck grabbed him just before he hit the ground.
“I’ll stay,” Duck heard himself say.
What? You’ll what? he demanded silently.
Come on, Duck, he told himself. You can’t just run away.
Sure, I can! Duck’s other voice protested.
But just the same, he supported Sam’s weight as they walked deeper into the cave.
Don’t you want to be a hero? Duck mocked himself.
I guess I kind of do, he answered.
“Keep the light on,” Caine said.
Sam could keep the light burning. That he could do. Could do that. Light.
His heart was a rusty, dying engine, hammering like it would fly apart. His body was scalded iron, hot, stiff, impossible to move.
The pain . . .
It was at him now, a roaring tiger that ripped him with every step, tore at his mind, shredded his self-control. He couldn’t live with it. Too terrible.
“Come on, Sam,” Duck said in his ear.
“Aahhhh!” Sam cried out.
“So much for sneaking up on it,” Caine said.
It knows we’re here, Sam thought. No sneaking. No tricking. It knew. Sam could feel it. Like cold fingers prodding his mind, poking, looking for an opening.
This is hell, Sam thought. This is hell.
Keep the light on, Sam told himself, whatever else, keep the light on.
There was a skittering sound as Caine’s feet kicked some loose pebbles that on closer examination were identical, short, cylinders of dark metal.
“The fuel pellets,” Caine said dully. “Well. I hope Lana does radiation poisoning. Otherwise we are all dead.”
“What?” Duck asked.
“That’s uranium scattered all around. The way it was explained to me, it’s blowing billions of tiny holes in our bodies.”
“What?”
“Come on, Goose,” Caine said. “You’re doing great.”
“Duck,” Duck corrected.
“Can you feel the Darkness, Goose?” Caine asked in an awed whisper.
“Yeah,” Duck said. His voice wavered. Like a little kid about to cry. “It feels bad.”
“Very bad,” Caine agreed. “It’s been in my head for a long time, Goose. Once it’s there, it never goes away.”
“What do you mean?” Duck asked.
“It’s touching your mind right now, isn’t it? Leaving its mark. Finding a way in. Once it gets in, you can never shut it out.”
“We have to get out of here,” Duck said.
“You can go, Goose,” Caine said. “I can drag Sam along.”
Sam heard it all from far away. A conversation between distant ghosts. Shadows in his mind. But he knew Duck could not leave.
“No,” Sam rasped. “We need Duck.”
“Do we?” Caine asked.
“The one weapon it doesn’t know we have,” Sam said.
“Weapon?” Duck echoed.
“It opens up just ahead,” Caine said. “The cavern.”
“What is it? What’s it look like?” Duck asked.
Caine didn’t answer.
Sam rode through a spasm of pain. It seemed to come in waves, each worse than the one before. Surfing the pain, he thought. But in the trough between waves, he sometimes had a few seconds of clarity.
He opened his eyes. He turned up the light.
As Caine had said, they were emerging into a space that was no longer a mine shaft but a vast cavern.
But no natural geological event had created this vast, silent hole beneath the ground. No stalactites hung from the arched roof. No stalagmites grew from the floor.
Instead, the stone walls seemed to have been melted and then solidified. There was still a faint smell of burning, though no smoke and no heat except what radiated from the fuel rod behind them in the shaft.
“Figured out where we are yet, Sam?” Caine asked.
Sam groaned.
“Yeah, kind of have other things on your mind right now, huh? You know about the meteor that hit the power plant all those years back, right, Sam? Sure. You’re a townie.”
Sam rode the next wave. He didn’t want to scream. Didn’t want to scream.
“Meteor plows right through the power plant, right into the ground. Like our boy Goose, here: so heavy, moving so fast, it’s like shooting an arrow into butter. Tears a massive hole. Stops here, what’s left of it.”
They had advanced fifty feet into the cathedral space of the cavern.
Sam nodded, not capable at that particular moment of speech. He tried to lift his hands, but their weight was too great.
Caine took his wrists and lifted up his hands, a motion that caused Sam to roar in agony.
But the light shone brighter.
And there, revealed, the thing being born. It was more lump than any definite shape. A seething hive of rushing, twisting, greenish crystals.
But as they watched, the surfaces facing their way took on a perfect, mirrored surface.
“Looks like he’s ready for you, Sam,” Caine said.
Then, a different voice. Eerie and awful.