The only sound was panting and scrabbling, with an occasional curse or groan of discomfort.
It was agreed that Jak would stop every four minutes and that everyone would remain silent and still while Krysty listened for any warning of the muties.
At the third stop, at a point where the tunnel widened to about eight feet, and three other tunnels opened off it, they discussed strategy. Jak was for going on, picking every tunnel that seemed to go upward, on the assumption that eventually they’d emerge into the open air. Lori had become terrified, face glistening with sweat, voice high and thin as she chattered to Doc, begging him to take her back.
“I fear that we are in the land of no return, my dearest dove,” he said gently, patting her on the arm in the way that one would try to gentle a frightened foal. “It is ever onward and upward for us all.”
“Don’t like dark, Theo, lover,” she said.
“Get her to keep her voice down, Doc,” Ryan warned. “If there’s muties down here, they’ll just have to sit quiet and tight and pick us off. Must keep as quiet as we can.”
“Watch out for boobies, Whitey,” J.B. urged the albino. “Sharp sticks, trailing wires, a deadfall in the tunnel. Anything like that.”
“How come you know so much ’bout tunnels?” the boy asked.
“Read a book once. Found it in a ruined house, somewheres round North Platte, up in ‘braska. Remember it, Ryan?”
It rang a distant bell for Ryan. “Sure. Tunnels in the Viet wars. You loaned it to me.”
“And you lost it, you son of a bitch.”
“Yeah, I remember that, too.”
J.B. turned back to whisper to Jak. “There were tunnels in the Viet fighting. Place called Cu Chi. Lotsa little men being chased by bigger men. Naked guy with a bamboo spear killing a soldier with a dozen blasters strung all over him.”
“Guess blasters no use in tunnels, huh?”
J.B. sniffed, wiping the sweat from his forehead. Despite the intensely cold clamminess in the tunnels, all of them were perspiring.
“Read of one. Smith an’ Wesson .44 Magnum. Six-shot, cylinder load. Weighed in around two pounds. Exposed hammer on it. Fired fifteen-pellet round, starred like a shotgun. But they cut out most of the noise and the flash.”
“Sounds good t’me,” Jak said, smiling. “Could do with one of them here, case we run into muties.”
“Keep that spear handy, son,” Ryan warned.
“He’s right,” Krysty added. “Got me a feeling that we’ll have some company real soon.”
They moved on.
At one point the tunnel dipped steeply and then came up almost vertically so that Finnegan got stuck and had to be pulled by Lori and pushed from behind by a panting Doc Tanner.
When he was free, he hissed back to Ryan that they ought to abandon their bulky cold-weather coats. “Be best, after a fucking tight spot like that. Can’t do that again, Ryan.”
Despite Finnegan’s almost limitless courage, Ryan heard the thin note of frayed panic that haunted the fat man’s voice. Being in this twining, bending maze of darkness was like living one’s worst nightmares. The walls seemed to close in, and the clumps of dirt that fell constantly from the roof kept the chilling fear of a cave-in fresh in one’s mind.
“Keep the coats as long as we can. When we get out, we’ll need them, Finn.”
“Sure, Ryan. When we get out. Or maybe it’s if we fucking get out.”
“We’ll get out, Finn. Air’s tasting sweeter, and the light’s not so bad.”
A hundred feet farther along, they came to a dead halt. The tunnel had sloped down again, getting wetter and wetter, until they were crawling on hands and knees through clinging mud. Krysty whispered to Ryan that she thought she could hear the sound of running water.
“If it rains up top, then it’s coming this way,” he whispered back.
“I just love the way you reassure a girl, Mr. Cawdor,” she said. “If these tunnels start to fill up with water, it’ll be a million laughs.”
Jak’s voice floated back to them. “It goes under water. I figure it’s mebbe a trap. I’m going through. If it’s safe, or I can’t get through, I’ll come back.”