Ryan turned to the woman.
The house moved, carrying Elvira toward him, her mouth open in shock. Pictures fell off walls and the door cracked down its center. The rumbling grew louder, as if a war wag were roaring into the middle of the room.
Ryan’s last glimpse was of the ceiling falling, splintering apart, and seeing the dark sky beyond the tumbling walls. There was a blow to the side of his head and
Darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Krysty stopped walking through the evening darkness, almost doubling over, both hands snatching at her forehead, pressing at her eyes as though they were bursting from their sockets. “Oh, Gaia!” she gasped.
Doc was alongside and he reached for her, putting an arm around her shoulders, supporting her, saving her from dropping to her knees in the watery mud that covered the trail. “My dearest lady!” he exclaimed. “Have you turned your ankle?”
“No.” Her voice was thin with shock. “Not that. Just got a dreadful jolt to my mind.”
J.B., Mildred and Jak had gathered around her, barely visible in the streaming drizzle.
“Is it Ryan?” the Armorer asked.
“Yes.”
“What?”
Krysty straightened, still leaning heavily on Doc for support. “I don’t know. Something bad. Something real bad. Hit me like a lightning bolt in the brain.”
“Any idea what it is?” Mildred asked. “Or where he is?”
Krysty swallowed hard. “Not too far away. It was so triple strong.” She laughed nervously. “About the most powerful ‘seeing’ I ever had.”
“Dead?” Jak probed.
“I don’tcan’t He was falling, and the world was spinning about him. Like he was lost in space.” She shook her head. “I don’t know, friends. Just that it’s serious, and I don’t believe it’s chilled him outright.”
“We’re at the bottom of the valley,” J.B. said. “Should be finding somewhere for the night. Do you want to push on up the grade?”
Krysty hesitated. “Could easy pass by whatever’s the trouble in the dark,” she finally decided. “Let’s try and find somewhere out of this rain, then get moving at first light. And hope we find him.”
WATER DRIPPED remorselessly into Ryan’s open mouth, making him choke and bringing him back to a sort of consciousness.
For several long seconds he was totally disoriented, not knowing where he was or what had happened. He struggled to bring back the memory of the last few seconds before the world fell in on him.
Elvira Madison. The woman living alone in the ruins of what had once been the pretty little ville of Alma. Middle-aged and spunky, sorely disabled by arthritis. Neat little house with a harmonium and lots of ornaments.
Ryan blinked, aware of a ringing pain behind his left ear, becoming aware that something was pinning him down below the waist, holding him immobile.
“House fell” he mumbled.
Now it came back to him the noise like a large animal leaning clumsily against the frame house; the woman hurling toward him; walls cracking; the ceiling coming down, opening up the roof to the dark sky; jangling and wheezing from the tormented harmonium and the splintering of china and glass all about him.
“Earth slip,” he concluded.
Ryan tried to work out how he was, the extent of his injuries.
His right hand was free, but his left arm was trapped beneath him. By feeling, Ryan could work out that the floor had opened and he’d dropped into it, leaving him caught around the ankles and thighs by a tangle of jagged beams and joists.
Some torn carpet was bulked up and wrapped around his waist, preventing him from getting at either the SIG-Sauer or the panga.
It was almost full dark, but there was a faint glimmer of ragged moonlight breaking through tatters of high cloud, enough for him to see a pale blur of white only a few inches from his face. Above the sound of the ceaseless pattering rain, Ryan realized that he could hear ragged breathing.
Not his own.
“Elvira?” he croaked, coughing out a mouthful of dirty water. He tried again. “Elvira? You hear me?”
There was no response.
He made an effort to move his legs and kick himself free. Something moved down below, pinching his left ankle, making him yelp at the pain. A rumbling seemed to come from everywhere at once, and Ryan had the sensation that everything had settled a little more firmly around him. He suddenly realized that his legs, to the knees, were also immersed in watery mud, thick and clinging like ice-cold gravy.