Dark Muse (29 page)

He still floated towards it.

You have to finish the journey. Finish the
songs. Do what needs to be done.

Who?

Finish it the right way. Save him. Finish
it.

Confusion rang through his being, whatever
that was now, as he continued to float.

Edgar?

Another voice. Female. Was it his mom taking
him away? A sudden pain leapt into his chest and tore into his
heart.

Edgar
!

Fire burned in his lungs as he breathed;
first water then cold, pure air.

“You’re back.”

He forced his eyes open and knew he was
alive. He wasn’t sure if he should be happy or depressed that life
still held him, though. Pain reminded him of life. His mother had
showed him that no matter how much she tried to hide it, life was
pain.

Until he looked into
her
eyes and
realized it didn’t hurt completely. “Poe?” He choked out more
liquid. It tasted and smelled like a mixture of toilet water and
the beach. “No. You’re not dead, too. Please tell me that.”

Someone laughed.

“You moron,” Poe cried in her typical dry
humor. “Neither of us is dead, but we came pretty close. Can you
sit up?”

He hacked up more water and looked around. He
saw Otis, Corey, Lyra, Poe and a body leaning against the wall he
assumed was Luke.

“Is he hurt?”

Lyra turned away. “No,” she said, “but he
needs help. He won’t make it without medicine.” He noticed the
teen’s face wasn’t in great shape.

“Then, let’s go,” Muddy said. He stumbled and
fell. His gaze took in the cavernous room with massive
amphitheater, a beach area where the river must have drained out
and beyond that, a lake with black water. Walls shot up in all
directions, higher than he could see. An eye of light winked at him
from somewhere near a ceiling he that couldn’t make out just
yet.

All around him lay busted up shacks.
Buildings, maybe. He thought he noticed more across the lake,
planks and boards lying in odd positions, seemingly standing in the
middle of darkness. “What’s the deal here?”

Corey held up his shoulders, steadying him.
“Look at you, fresh from the other side and ready to fight one more
time.”

“Isn’t that what we’re here for?” Still he
felt woozy. Maybe he would until his brain and lungs had enough
oxygen.

“Don’t you want to know what happened to
you?” Otis stood on his other side.

No, he didn’t. None of it seemed real and it
scared him that he’d almost died, especially since he didn’t see
his mom there.

But Poe turned him to the back wall where
Luke sat. An opening like a drain hung about a story high. Water
flowed from it in a steady stream.

“Remember Action Water Park?” Otis asked,
laughing. “That place where the water slides are almost as deadly
as the Jersey roads? Buddy, we were exploring this place and
suddenly you came shooting out of there like a turn on turbo flush.
It’s a good thing the water was nearby. You skidded like a flat
rock on a lake.”

Corey still held him. “Yeah, otherwise, just
like that park, you might have lost half your skin sliding over
that beach.”

He gazed downward. Sharp rocks and rough, hot
sand covered the area leading to the lake. Wow.

“Lucky for me, too,” the sax player said. “I
was nearly something’s lunch when little drummer boy and Luke
pulled me out of the frying pan.”

Otis chuckled. “Buddy, don’t ever use that
line again. You have no idea.”

Muddy turned back to the wall. “Is he okay?”
He pointed at the male twin.

Otis’ expression changed. “He nearly gave his
life for me. We need to get him out of here, but he won’t budge
until we finish this.”

“Then let’s do it,” Muddy replied. “It’s not
like we can leave. Not yet, anyway.”

He gazed up at the eye of the cavern. “Has
anyone figured this one out, yet?”

They shook their heads then looked around the
shore. This was nothing but a dark cavern, the biggest one yet. The
lake stretched out from the shore into—nothing. When Muddy
squinted, he could see an opening hundreds of feet high and
definitely out of reach. A vast wall with handholds existed for
those with mountaineering skills. They had none. Besides, the climb
would be brutal with an injured Luke.

“How?” He gauged the depth of the lake and
the height of the opening.

Poe shrugged. “Maybe there’s another way.”
“You’ve seen these rooms. These slaves were pretty smart.”

They all seemed to be thinking the same
thing.

“If they built all of this to help the
Tritons, but also to build in a failsafe so that someone, like us,
could sneak in and stop them, then they wouldn’t be so dumb as to
not take care of themselves. Would they?”

Poe spoke, her voice unsteady. “No, they
wouldn’t.”

“What do you mean?” Corey asked, looking
around.

“Hey!” Otis yelled. “Across the lake, I think
I see something. It’s a bunch of rocks. They lead upwards. I
wonder…”

They all looked, except for Poe. True enough,
starting halfway across the lake, blending in with the black water
was a massive pile of boulders. They
could
climb. That
couldn’t be hard, could it?

A hissing sound emanated behind them, above
them, beyond them.

“Sounds like steam,” Muddy said.

“Anyone notice that you shot out of a river,
but there’s not much water in here?” Corey gazed at the lake. “Oh,
no.”

Lyra looked up, staring just below the eye.
“Well, that explains the smoke we see sometimes over the
mountain.”

From several large openings below the eye
opening high above, something now flowed. When it hit the lake,
water turned to steam on contact.

“I’m tired of magma,” Otis groaned. Luke
echoed his pain behind the group.

“What?” Muddy was confused. “Magma? Like
lava? Why?”

“I’ll tell you some other time,” he replied
wearily, “when we’re not going to be buried by melting rock.”

Muddy looked at the cascade of black rocks.
“Still, that looks like the way out. The lava isn’t flowing over
all of it. But, what’s with the leftover shacks?” He pointed
further along the shore, far from where he burst from the
river.

Luke now stood. “I’ve heard,” he breathed,
obviously in great pain, “that the slaves taken by the Tritons were
the brightest we had in the city. Some were strong, but all of them
were smart. But, where did they go once they built this place? They
had to live somewhere.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly the Hamptons,” Otis
said.

“Why are the buildings all busted up?” Muddy
asked, looking around at the condition of the structures that might
have once housed the slaves and wondering why Poe had been so
quiet. He noticed her staring into the distance along the far
shore. “Did they rebel?”

“Maybe because the Tritons didn’t need them
anymore,” she said.

Luke continued. “One or two of the workers
supposedly escaped, according to my grandfather. He said something
about a spell. The slaves said that the Tritons never needed
replacement workers.”

“What about when they died? With all
those—things—in there, some had to die. And it had to take forever
to construct. Some
had
to die.”

“They did,” Poe spoke again, her voice going
flat.

“How do you know?

“Because they’re still here—and obviously not
thrilled we’re here.” Her hand shook as she pointed in a direction
across the lake.

Muddy saw what she did. “Maybe just the
opposite. Maybe they
are
thrilled we’re here. Maybe we’re
lunch.”

She turned to the band. “Now would be a good
time to run.”

If there ever was such a thing as zombies,
Muddy now believed. Whether or not that was what they were, didn’t
seem to matter. About a hundred or so of the living dead emerged
from the darkness of the far shores, all looking like they hadn’t
eaten in decades.

Forget the shambling, rambling creatures of
the movies, Muddy thought. “Run,” he said, “into the lake. Get to
the rocks.”

“But they’re going to be flooded with lava
and hot rocks in minutes,” Lyra said.

“Great,” Corey said. “Cooked or eaten
sushi-style. What a way to go.”

“Either way sucks,” Otis said. “Isn’t there
another way?”

“Nope,” Muddy said, thinking of what he’d
learned when he was in the River. He had to finish this journey.
Looking at Poe, he knew he had to make sure he returned with her.
“We’re going to do some building of our own. Everyone grab some
wood and run like zombies are after us.”

Corey chuckled, just for a second, before
bolting for the other side with an armful of planks from the broken
houses.

“Seriously? Zombies?” Otis kept looking back
as he watched them gain ground. They were only a hundred yards off,
if that, and running like the New York Jets—when they were good.
“They’re just so passé.”

Muddy grabbed a few pieces of sturdy wood.
“Tell
them
that. I think they believe they’re still the ‘in’
thing.”

Poe stopped at the base of the rocks,
touching one and pulling back her hand in pain. “It’s already hot!
Please tell me what you’re planning.”

For the first time in months, he smiled a
confident smile. “Trust me. This goes all the way to—”

The horde hit the water in a cacophony of
violent splashes. The first few rocks weren’t too hot, yet. The
magma had streamed off to the left and right, thankfully. Much of
it wouldn’t hit their direct path until they reached close to the
summit, if they lived that long.

All of them, even Luke, scrambled over the
two, three and four-foot high boulders. Luke’s injuries didn’t
appear life-threatening to Muddy, but then again, neither did his
mother’s. It’s what happened on the inside that mattered and after
hearing what Otis said about the searing suit, he mused that some
of the teen’s organs could be steamed like a clam, ready to burst
open and kill him if they weren’t already in that state.

Once they’d climbed about twenty feet, they
stopped to catch their breath and examine who’d chased them. Muddy
felt sweat coursing off his flesh and heat dizzying his vision. Poe
seemed to be affected as well.

Muddy, Poe, and Otis were avid fans of horror
films, but hated zombies. Other than what Romero did with his
Living Dead
series and
The Walking Dead
show, they
felt most shows had missed the boat. Zombies were a metaphor for
society, Poe often said, about how people who followed others
blindly, such as politicians, traditions, sports teams and music.
“Group think,” she’d called it, and if she said it, the band knew
she had researched it thoroughly.

Did this bunch below them blindly follow the
Tritons? Did they believe in what they were told? Or did they just
wish to save themselves or their families?

They numbered at least a hundred. At least,
the ones that he could see.

Slender bodies with an alabaster sheen on
light gray flesh clamored together, looking downright famished.
Were they alive or just animated by some power of their keepers?
They didn’t shamble like the undead in the movies. They moved with
purpose and strength. Their eyes stared up at Muddy with a hunger
that appeared anything but lifeless. He imagined them slaving over
all of the rooms, all of the booby traps the band had survived. Was
it a labor of love, fear or did they secretly hope for someone to
enter their maze and defeat their makers? He wondered if it even
mattered to them now. Maybe they thought no more. Maybe their souls
had left them and all they wished for was for someone to feed them.
Somehow, he had a feeling he would never know.

One began to climb.

“Oh, no,” Corey said. “Move. Now.”

Otis was the first to scramble upwards to the
next big rock. “Is this what they mean by the dead will rise?”

“Will you shut up!” Corey had little patience
left for his buddy, but everyone knew it was stress talking.

Two more pale figures jumped on the rocks and
began their ascent.

Someone screamed.

Muddy looked up and saw Lyra blowing on her
hands. “It’s too hot!” Her hands were red and obviously pained.

“Now we use the planks.”

“Muddy?” Poe grabbed his arm. “It’s just a
song. You don’t think you can honestly build this, do you?”

“What else can we do?” His voice came out
stronger than he’d intended and immediately he regretted it. “What
do I do? All I have left is the music.”

“And us.”

Us, meaning you and me—or the band?

He turned to her and froze.

She wore an expression he couldn’t
understand. Then suddenly she leaned in and planted a sweet kiss on
the corner of his mouth. Just where he could be utterly confused.
Was that a kiss? Or just a peck?

She smiled as she pulled away. She knew
exactly what she meant and wanted him to know that she knew. “Maybe
when we get back home, we could grab a movie.”

His heart leaped with joy, but he didn’t know
how much he should read into it.

“Just—not a horror one, okay?”

One of the zombies below howled in a
strained, dry-lunged voice.

Muddy really hated zombies. If he never read
another book or saw another movie with them in it, he might die a
happy guy. Well, not just yet.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Grab the boards,” he yelled at Corey and
Lyra. He helped place the first one on the rock in front of
them.

Otis looked at him with a curious grin. “We
all going to stand on that one?”

“Shut your face and put down yours—right
there.”

They did, forming the second one. Corey
nodded, got the gist of it and grabbed another of his. He laid it
right on top of the rock above the others, jammed in the space
between. All were careful not to touch the burning stones
directly.