Hatch was at her side and slightly behind her, staying close. They were
breathing hard, not because they had exerted themselves but because
their chests were tight with fear, constricting their lungs.
Turning left, Lindsey moved straight toward a dark opening in the
concrete-block wall on the far side of that twenty-foot-wide chamber.
She was drawn to it because it appeared to have been boarded over at one
time, not solidly but with enough planks to prevent anyone entering the
forbidden space beyond without effort. Some of the nails still prickled
the block walls on both sides of the opening, but all of the planks had
been torn away and shoved to one side on the floor.
Although Hatch whispered her name, warning her to hold back, she stepped
straight to the brink of that room, shone her light into it, and
discovered it was not a room at all but an elevator shaft. The doors,
cab, cables, and mechanism had been salvaged, leaving a hole in the
building as sure as an extracted tooth left a hole in the jaw.
She pointed her light up. The shaft rose three stories, having once
conveyed mechanics and other repairmen to the top of the funhouse. She
swung the beam slowly down the concrete wall from above, noticing the
ice chest, several empty cans of root beer, and a plastic garbage bag
nearly full of trash, all arranged around a stained and battered
mattress.
On the mattress, huddled in a corner of the shaft, was Jeremy Nyebern.
Regina was in his lap, held against his chest, so she could shield him
against gunfire. He was holding a pistol, and he squeezed off two shots
even as Lindsey spotted him down there.
The first slug missed both her and Hatch, but the second round tore
through her shoulder. She was knocked against the door frame. On the
rebound, she bent forward involuntarily, lost her balance, and fell into
the shaft, following her flashlight, which she had already dropped.
Going down, she didn’t believe it was happening. Even when she hit
bottom, landing on her left side, the whole thing seemed , maybe because
she was still too numb from the impact of the bullet to feel the damage
it had done, and maybe because she fell mostly on the mattress, at the
far end of it from Nyebern, knocking out what wind the slug had left in
her but breaking no bones.
Her flashlight had also landed on the mattress, unharmed. It lit one
gray wall.
As if in a dream, and though unable to get her breath quite yet, Lindsey
brought her right hand slowly around to point her gun at him.
But she had no gun. The Browning had spun from her grip in the fall.
During Lindsey’s drop, Nyebern must have tracked her with his own
weapon, for she was looking into it. The barrel was impossibly long,
measuring exactly one eternity from firing chamber to muzzle.
Beyond the gun she saw Regina’s face, which was as slack as her gray
eyes were empty, and beyond that beloved countenance was the hateful
one, pale as milk. His eyes, unshielded by glasses, were fierce and
strange.
She could see them even though the glow of the flashlight forced him to
squint. Meeting his gaze she felt that she was face-to-face with
something alien that was only passing as human, and not well.
Oh, wow, surreal, she thought, and knew that she was on the verge of
passing out.
She hoped to faint before he squeezed the trigger. Though it didn’t
matter, really. She was so close to the gun that she wouldn’t live to
hear the shot that blew her face off.
iron rungs of the service ladder.
Hatch stepped in beside her as the light found its way to the bottom of
the shaft, just two floors below, where it revealed some litter, a
Styrofoam Hatch’s horror, as he watched Lindsey fall into the shaft, was
exceeded by his surprise at what he did next.
When he saw Jeremy track her with the pistol until she hit the mattress
the muzzle three feet from her face, Hatch tossed his own Browning away;