Bonechiller (25 page)

These ghost reflections crowd in. Dozens and dozens. Voices begging, desperate—

Take me. Save me. Show me
.

So many. The mob keeps growing. They shove and push each other, trying to get my attention.

They want me to take them out of here. Howie said they don’t know they’re dead. He’s got a living, breathing body to return to. There’s nothing for these lost souls to go back to but a pile of bones.

I stumble around, expecting to feel hands grabbing at my ankles, pulling me under. I duck my head at the figures swooping across the ceiling like diving bats.

“Danny?”

I stop cold.

“Danny, over here.”

I track the voice to a corner. Howie’s crouched low, in his hospital pajamas. Knees hugged up against his chest, he’s making himself small to avoid the crush.

I run over to him, ignoring the rest.

“Howie! I came to get you. Let’s go.”

I bend next to him.

“Can’t,” he says from the other side of the mirror. “I’m stuck in here.”

“It’s just a dream.”

He shakes his head. “It’s more. It’s where the beast keeps … them.”

The others press in closer now, but he keeps his eyes on mine.

“Forget them,” I say. “Just focus on me. Think! Use your brain. What—what do I do? Can I use something to break you out of this?”

The wall looks like a mirror. It should shatter if I hit it hard enough.

“Won’t break,” he says. “But maybe …”

“Maybe what?”

Howie presses his palm against the inside of the wall. “Try to grab my hand.”

He kneels there, waiting for me as the crowd gathers to watch.

Okay. Here goes. I tap the wall with my fingertips. The contact makes ripples in the surface, as if it’s almost liquid. I pull back, startled.

“I felt that,” Howie gasps. “Push. Push on through.”

I take a shaky breath, then lean forward, shoving my hand wrist-deep into the silver. So cold it burns. I jump back, but Howie’s got hold of my wrist now and I have to pull his weight too. My fingers stiffen into icicles. The others kids crush in, clawing at my wrist, trying to grab on. Screaming faces shove forward, their features twisted with fear and desperation. Their weight threatens to drag me in deeper.

Straining against it, I crash backward on the floor. Something lands on top of me.

I roll out from under it.

Howie lies on the floor beside me, shaking like he’s having a seizure.

The whole place shudders. Earthquake, or dreamquake. Like something just woke up.

I scramble over to Howie. “Just breathe. Breathe.”

It takes an effort to get him to sit up.

“We gotta get out of here,” I say. “Gotta wake up.”

He pushes himself to his knees. “How?”

I feel a shudder in the floor beneath me. Something’s pounding up the stairs.

“Get up!” I grunt, heaving Howie onto his feet.

His legs are shaky, but we gotta go. Now!

“Where …?” he says.

I have no idea. I mean, no matter how far we run, we’re still in the nightmare, right?

But then I flash on the last time we got stuck together, on that moonlit ice field.

I aim him toward the hall. “Go!”

I half shove, half drag him. I don’t look back. The ghosts trapped in the walls scatter like fish smelling a shark in the water. The beast is closing in on us.

We race down the hallway toward my room. The floor seems to stretch out in front of us. It’s like we’re running in place. But I put on a burst of speed to close the distance.

A thunderous roar hits me from behind with a shock wave. We skid the last few feet into my room.

I kick the door shut. Like that’s going to stop anything.

“Out the window,” I gasp.

Howie stares back at me.

“Don’t think. It worked before. Jump!”

It’s only a two-story drop to the ground. That’s got to be enough to break us out of this. I grab his wrist and pull him over to the window.

I’m ready to heave him out if I have to. But Howie climbs onto the frame. He leans out and takes one last look at me before letting go.

The door explodes inward.

I scramble onto the frame, whacking my head on the sill. Without thinking, I throw myself out into the blue twilight.

As I lunge forward, something grabs my ankle. Claws rake my skin, trying to get a grip. My momentum breaks me free and I’m falling fast.

I wake convulsing on my bed, gasping for air. I’m fear-blinded for a moment, not sure where I am. In the dream or out. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit there, shaking until my head starts to clear.

I check my ankle, expecting claw marks and blood.

Not a scratch.

The voices are gone. Those lost souls begging me to show them the way out. They don’t know there’s nothing for them to come back to. Just scattered bones.

I think Howie got out okay. He should be waking up in his hospital bed right about now.

One tiny victory.

I just bought us a little time. Maybe another day. If I can make it through the night. It’ll have to be enough. We need to make some plans. Gotta think.

What’s next is going to be hell.

“Can you hear me?” Pike says, leaning in close to the speakerphone.

“You don’t have to yell.” Howie’s voice comes through. “Just talk normal.”

“Okay, so everybody’s here,” Pike tells him, sitting down in the swivel chair at Howie’s desk.

We’re all in his room while he’s lying in a hospital bed in Barrie. He snapped out of the coma the same time I was waking up in my room. And after a long, sleepless night we’re both still breathing.

“So, what’s the plan?” Ash wants to know. “And don’t say let’s nuke the thing. Stick to reality.”

“This is the plan.” Pike holds up two sheets of paper. “Me and Howie worked it out at the hospital.”

They show some basic drawings scribbled in pen.

“What’s it supposed to be?” I ask.

He hands one page over. “A map of the area around the tunnel entrance.”

Ash leans in to take a look. I can see Howie’s handwriting marking the points on the map. It shows the stretch of shoreline from the abandoned ice factory to the bluffs. There’s the clearing hidden between the rock walls. The tunnel entrance is marked as a little door at the base of one wall. A small circle indicates the boulder we hid behind. At the top is the lake, with the gap between the bluffs opening onto it.

“We’re gonna set a trap,” Pike says. “And slaughter it.”

“How?” Ash asks. “That thing’s got some heavy-duty body armor. Take a lot to bring it down. I’ve got my deer rifle, and maybe I can get hold of my dad’s shotgun. But is that gonna even dent it?”

“Way ahead of you.” Pike’s got a crazy gleam in his eyes. He hands over the second page of scribbles. “This is the plan.”

It’s a map of the tunnel, from the entrance at the base of the bluff down to the cave.

Two black “X”s are drawn just past the last sharp turn before the tunnel opens onto the cave.

“What do the ‘X’s mean?” I ask.

“That’s where I’m gonna leave a couple Christmas presents.”

“What kind of presents?” I say.

“Show them.” Howie’s voice comes out of the speaker.

“Right, bro,” Pike calls back.

He grabs something small off of Howie’s desk and tosses it to me. It looks kind of like a little metal firecracker, but with wires sticking out of the top instead of a fuse.

“What’s this?” I jiggle it on my palm.

“A blasting cap.”

I stop jiggling.

“We needed some serious ordnance,” Pike says.

“What’s
ordnance
mean?”

“Stuff that goes
boom
.”

I try to keep my hand from shaking, try not to breathe on the thing.

Pike takes it back. “Don’t worry. It’s harmless. Not hooked up to anything. Yet.”

“Where’d you get that?” Ash asks.

“Same place I got this.” Pike goes over to Howie’s closet and pulls out a duffel bag. He’s more gentle this time, making me even more nervous. Setting it on the floor in front of us, he unzips it.

Holy crap!

Resting on a cushion of towels at the bottom of the bag, sealed in bright orange wrappers that are covered in warnings and skull-and-crossbones symbols, are about two dozen sticks of dynamite.

“Where did you …?” I whisper, trying not to make a sound. My heart’s beating so hard it feels like it’s going to crack a rib.

“You know how they’ve been clearing land for those new greenhouses up north of the Cove? The quickest way to clear stumps is to blow them. Lot of stumps around here.”

Through the end of summer and into fall we’d hear the distant booms of the clearing going on, echoing like thunder. Felt like living on the edge of a war zone.

“They quit clearing for the winter but left the goodies behind in storage. The security’s a joke—one old guy in a trailer watching TV.”

Howie’s voice speaks up. “It’s the only way, guys.”

“Anybody got a better idea?” Pike zips the bag up.

This is nuts. But me and Howie are out of time, and this is all we’ve got.

“Okay. I’m in.”

Ash nods. “Me too. So what’s the deal?”

Pike taps the tunnel map I’m holding. “The ‘X’s show where I’m going to plant my IEDs.”

“Your what?” I ask.

“IEDs,” Howie says. “Improvised Explosive Devices.”

“I’m gonna rig up a couple land mines. I’ve been thinking it through.” Pike warms up to the subject. “There’s different ways to go—a trip-wire mine, a remote detonator or a pressure mine. Trip wires are tricky, and they take time to set up. With remotes you can set them off with cell phones, but our target lives underground, and I doubt a signal could get through all that rock. So that leaves pressure mines—you just need to plant and activate them.”

I look from the map to the duffel bag holding enough explosives to maybe level the house. Then I meet Pike’s eyes. This is his dream. He knows they’re never going to let him in the army. He’s just too psycho. This is it for him. His shot. His war.

“Tricky,” Ash says. “This isn’t blowing up pumpkins on Halloween.”

He shakes his head. “It’s just a bigger pumpkin. On
Halloween I used timers made from cheap digital watches to set the charges. Worked beautiful. But a pressure mine is the way to go here. Nobody screws with my bro. I don’t care if you are a killing machine from hell. You’re going down. Right, bro?” he says, leaning over the speakerphone.

“Right,” Howie replies, sounding very far away.

“Why set the mines there?” Ash asks.

“Remember how just before you get to the cave, there’s a sharp turn in the tunnel? Then you see that blue light? When the beast comes home, it’ll take that bend, and before it knows what hit it, it’s blown to bits. Won’t even see it coming.”

She nods. “Okay. But time’s running out on Danny and Howie. If we’re gonna do this, it’s gotta be tonight. How are you supposed to get in there to set this all up?”

Pike scratches his Mohawk. “That’s where you guys come in. Everybody’s got a part to play. I’m
demolitions
, of course. Ash is the lookout, guarding my back. And Danny …”

I brace myself.

“Danny’s the bait.”

The sun disappears behind the cliffs on the far shore. I watch the sunset, even though the light hurts my eyes, because it might be my last.

We’re waiting for dark. Won’t be long. The winter night comes on fast. No clouds tonight, and no moon. Not a problem for me. I can pretty much read in the dark now.

What
is
a problem are my driving skills. Or lack of them. I failed my test twice at the DMV back in Toronto.

Which is why I’m real nervous about my part in the plan.

Pike’s junker is parked by the old ice factory. Sitting beside it is my ride for tonight, a Yamaha snowmobile I borrowed from the marina. It can do sixty miles an hour. Better be enough.

Driving it over here, with Ash holding on in back of me, there was way too much spinning and fishtailing. I almost flipped it climbing one of the low hills leading up to the bluffs. And I even did a full 360 doughnut, not on purpose.