Passenger

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Getting louder.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Coming toward us.

I got up, sca

It was gone.

I flashed the light across the opening out to the main tu

I grabbed my knife and walked toward the noise.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

“Qui

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Ssshhhhh …

Another flash of movement, at the edge of the light’s beam. Something gray.

When I shined the light on it, the form became unclear. I was looking directly through it, could see the wall of the pipe on the other side of it.

Seth Mansfield stood there, watching me from the edge of the drainpipe.

Seth.

Griffin wailed and coughed behind me.

His brother was dead.

It was the worst sound I think I’d ever heard in my life. Out of all the places I’d ever been, all the not-worlds, here was the darkest.

“Seth!” I said. “What can I do? What can you tell me to do? You came back, Seth!”

Seth looked tired and small. I could see his ribs straining the skin above his belly. He wiped his eyes and looked at me. “I never left you.”

“Please. I need you to do something, Seth.”

“I know. But he’s afraid of me. That one named Ben is. He might fight it anyway, Jack.”

“Will you try?”

Seth turned his hands up. “You need to put things back before too much more time goes by, Jack.”

“I’m trying.”

“You might not ever get out.”

“I don’t care about me. I need to get those boys home. Please help me do that.”

Seth turned gray, flattening out into a snaking pale mist that flowed over the floor past my feet and scattered like ash on a wind in the direction of the boys.

Ben jerked.

His chin went down onto his chest and his eyes finally closed, then he threw his hands out in front of him and began coughing.

Griffin screamed. “Jack!”

Ben shook and gagged. He rolled onto his side, wracked in spasms. It hurt. I knew how much it hurt. Griffin tried to hold him still, but Ben was too big, too strong. He kicked and thrashed with his arms, catching Griffin in the mouth, splitting the smaller boy’s lip open.

I stood back and watched, afraid of getting too close to them again.

That’s when I heard Qui

The idiot didn’t even have a light with him.

I ran.

I jumped down from the side tu

He held the speargun pointed directly at my chest.

“You don’t play nice, Billy,” Qui

“Just go away and leave us alone, Qui

I slid my hand back along my thigh, shining the light at Qui

“You stole from me, Billy.”

Qui

“I’ll give everything back,” I said.

Qui

“I am King of Marbury,” he said. “You know that, Billy?”

“I know that.”

“I want you to show me where you boys really come from.”

I looked back into the tu

“You’re standing in the center of it,” I said.

I dropped the flashlight, startling Qui

I dove to my right, and Qui

The arrow sailed over me and clattered invisibly against the steel wall of the cha

Qui

This was how Qui

Fun game, Qui

I picked up the flashlight and went back for Griffin and Ben.

*   *   *

Griffin heard me coming. He never looked away from Ben as I approached.

“He started breathing.” Griffin wiped a hand across the bottom of his nose, then glanced up at me. “You look like hell, Jack.”

I didn’t say anything. I picked up my pack and slung my arms through the straps. Then I stepped over to Ben’s side so I could take a look at him. He blinked. I could see that he recognized me.

I kneeled down beside him and put my hand over his heart. It amazed me how the last time I’d touched him, I knew I was touching the skin of a dead kid, and now Ben was warm and I could feel the life in him.

“You and I both need to stop dropping out on our own.” I patted his chest.

Ben swallowed. I watched his Adam’s apple bounce up and down. “What happened?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Let me see your back.”

I lifted Ben’s shoulder. He winced and rolled onto his side. The marks where the whip spider had bitten into him were gone, completely healed. And Griffin had managed to bathe away most of the black salt from Ben’s skin.

Ben closed his eyes. The kid was wiped out. He wouldn’t be going anywhere soon.

I told Griffin, “Keep your eyes open and wait for me.”

“What are you doing?” Griffin said.

“Hang on to your spear.”

I stood and turned away from the boys.

“What are you doing, Jack?” Griffin’s voice was angry, sharp.

I shined my light out into the main tu

“I’m going to look for a way out.”

“You can’t fucking go by yourself.”

I answered him by jumping down into the larger cha

Griffin didn’t need or want me around right now, anyway. Maybe never.

I could do this.

I had to.

Fuck you, Jack.

*   *   *

I’d gone a few hundred yards before Griffin finally quit cussing and screaming for me to come back. I moved fast, in part because it scared me to imagine the kinds of monsters that might catch me if I didn’t, and also because I was so exhausted that I believed I might drop off to sleep while still on my feet.

And I knew Qui

I tripped over a rotting car battery, landed hard on my chest, spitting and choking on a mouthful of dirt. I fought the urge to stay down, to sleep.

I walked.

An hour later, I found Qui

At first, I thought the kid was sleeping, or dead. My light fell across the paleness of Qui

He was hurt.

“Qui

He saw the light, but he did not lift his head or look back at me.

“Go away, Billy. Go away. I give up. You won.”

I took a slow step forward, my knife held point outward. It was Qui

“What happened?”

I stood back, ready to drop the light if I had to, muscles tensed, so I could spring on him if he did anything. I wanted him to do something.

“I busted my foot up.”

When I shined my light on Qui

The kid was crusted in filth and blood.

I could only imagine how messed up I must have looked, too.

Qui

It was no trick. The kid was giving up. It was not a good place to lie down and quit.

“Can you get up?” I said.

“Leave me alone, Billy.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

I shined the light farther ahead.

Nothing.

Qui