Passenger

I plunged it forward, and missed the kid’s throat by a finger’s width. I slammed it into the door. It sounded like a gunshot.

“I’ll fucking kill you, Qui

I let go of his hair, pulled the knife out of the door.

Qui

seventeen

“It’s a fucking slaughterhouse out there.”

Griffin was frantic.

I slid my knife back into its sheath and hefted the pack over one arm.

“Are you going to tell us what that was about, Jack?” Ben said.

Griffin grabbed Ben’s arm and pulled him around. “Listen! There must be five thousand of them out there. Hunters. It’s a fucking massacre. There’s so many, the whole sky’s red from their marks.”

I looked at Griffin. It finally began sinking in; what was going on outside. For a moment, it was like the only thing that mattered in my entire universe was trying to make Qui

Qui

For all the posing and strutting he’d done since I met him, what I saw now was a pathetic little boy, sobbing like someone stole his birthday present from him and pissed on his cake.

Ben held Qui

“We’re going down the pole, to the garage,” I said. “There’s a way out.”

Qui

I started back toward the circle where the slide pole dropped down to the garage.

“Fuck you, Qui

Griffin picked up the pack and his brother’s rebar lance. Ben followed behind, holding Qui

“Billy!” Qui

I had one hand on the slide pole.

“You boys’ll all die down there. Trust me on that. There’s things down there. You need me.”

I looked at the boys. We didn’t have time to take a vote. But I could see in their faces they were shocked at how bad I’d beaten the kid up. Maybe it was the realization of what was going on outside the firehouse that scared them.

And maybe, I thought, they felt sorry for the pathetic little bastard.

“This is the last time you’ll ever hear me say it, Qui

*   *   *

So there we were, down in the belly of Qui

Hunters and harvesters were eating.

And we gathered like hospital visitors around the open tail end of a dilapidated ambulance, staring down at a manhole cover that appeared to be coated in rust and shit.

Qui

When we spoke, it was only whispers.

Hunters hear.

They smell, too.

Qui

“I want my speargun back.”

Ben didn’t even look at the kid. “You’re not getting it, Red.”

That was good, I thought. Now Ben was fucking with the kid by making up a name for him, too. We’d see how Qui

“Then fuck you guys. You can figure the way out on your own.”

Ben eyed the kid squarely. Without a sign that he’d think twice, Ben pushed the point of the speargun snugly between Qui

Qui

Ben said, “You just pull this trigger. Right?”

Qui

He swallowed. “I have some flashlights in the ambulance. You just shake them if they start ru

Ben pulled the gun away. “Okay. We’re waiting. Red.”

Qui

The Under.

The kid had a name for that, too.

Qui

Fuck him.

Griffin had already climbed inside the back of the ambulance and was squatting, froglike, hooking two fingers through the pry hole on the heavy lid.

He grunted and strained, but the cover wouldn’t move.

“That’s not how you do it,” Qui

And I thought, The kid knows a lot more than he’s letting on.

Qui

Griffin looked at me and then Ben, trying to see if it was okay.

He handed the bar over to the redhead.

Ben kept his eyes locked on Qui

And Griffin put his face next to my ear and whispered, “Thanks for beating the shit out of that pervert, Jack.”

Qui

In a few seconds, the way down was open.

I said, “Give back my friend’s rebar, Qui

Qui

All we could see was a black hole, about two feet in diameter. The dark below it was so complete that it almost gave off a kind of glow in the lightless garage, like it was sucking in whatever faint light was there, inhaling whatever it could from the world above. At the lip of the mouth was a crusted-over handle, the first rung of something that led down into a deep and silent nowhere.

“How far down to the bottom?” I said.

Qui

“I’ll go first. Then Griffin, Qui

Qui

I looked at Ben; he nodded. “I can do it, Jack.”

“Okay.”

I held on to my flashlight and climbed—two feet feeling their way onto each downward rung—one hand at a time, slowly, watching while the gray circle above me diminished into nothing when Griffin came down the ladder after me.

I don’t know why, but I half expected it to be wet down there, but when my feet finally planted on a solid base, I could smell the dry dust kicked up into the air by my weight.

“I’m down,” I said. I turned the flashlight on and swung it around, casting distorted and rare shadows out across the Marbury underworld. I thought I saw movement in the tu

I was definitely too tense.

I squeezed shut my eyes and opened them again. Maybe I imagined it.

I was dizzy, breathing too hard, and it stunk down here.

Get a grip, Jack.

Something dropped, clattering next to me, striking into my shoulder.

I jumped, fumbled with the flashlight, watching dumbly as it fell into the dirt.

“Sorry, Jack. You okay?”

Griffin dropped his spear.

“Fuck, Griff! You could have killed me.”

One of us was going to die down here. I knew it.

Maybe all of us.

At least Ben was able to make it down and still manage to hold on to the speargun without any more accidents, and when we were all standing together at the base of the ladder, the lights Qui