Ghostwalkers (32 page)

It fell forward onto its wing-like arms, but immediately tried to rise. With a savage howl, Grey raised his foot and began stomping on its head. Once, twice, again and again until the bones shattered and his heel mashed the shards into the creature's brain. All at once it sagged down into death.

Grey staggered back from it, then turned as he heard a series of heavy thuds.

It was Looks Away pounding at the head of the last of the reanimated dinosaurs. Or at the pulpy mess that had been a head. But Looks Away kept hammering and his face was a mask of fear that hovered near the flame of madness.

“Looks,” said Grey. “Whoa, now … it's done. You killed it. Ease back now.”

The Sioux froze with the bloody shotgun raised for another strike. His wild eyes looked at Grey, at the dead creatures that lay everywhere, and then down at the mess beneath him. He lowered the shotgun and sagged back onto his heels.

“God save the Queen,” he breathed. The mad light faded from his eyes, replaced by shock.

There was a squeak and they both whipped around to see the dinosaur with the gunshot wound to the eye staggering slowly away. Black ichor ran sluggishly from its nostrils. It was clearly dying and it left a trail of splay-toed prints identical to the ones that had been on the stairs.

Looks Away got up, cracked open the shotgun, and dumped the spent shells, fitted two new ones in, and walked up behind the dinosaur. It turned to look up at him with its one remaining eye. It tried to hiss. It tried to slash at him. But it was too far gone.

“No,” said Looks Away as he placed the barrel against its head.

The blast was huge and wet and it echoed off of the darkened walls.

 

Chapter Fifty-Two

The last of the booming echoes disintegrated into the sober silence of death. Gun smoke hovered like a chorus of phantoms in the still air.

His face turned to emotionless wood, Looks Away replaced the spent shell, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and began methodically wiping the blood of monsters from his shotgun. Grey said nothing. He limped over to retrieve his Colt, checked that it was undamaged, and reloaded it.

Then he addressed his wounds. The creatures had done their best to eviscerate him. Only the toughness of his jeans and the leather of his gun belt had saved his life. Even so, there was a bad gash on his hip and it bled freely. The pain was searing and he clamped his jaw shut as he used strips torn from his shirt to compress and bind the wound. It was a sloppy job, but it would serve. Luckily the talon had torn only skin and not the muscle beneath. He could still move easily and he set his teeth against limping. That would wear him out too quickly and besides, it was only pain. Grey had maintained a long and passionate affair with pain. He knew all her secrets.

Once he was finished he wiped his bloody fingers on his thighs and waited for Looks Away to speak.

When he did, the Sioux's voice was filled with both stress and wonder. “These are—or, at least
were
—dinosaurs.”

“Yeah, you said that, but I don't know what that means. They're animals, right? From where? They from Africa or—?”

“They're extinct,” said Looks Away. “All we've ever seen are bones and paintings done to try and reconstruct what they might have looked like. Dinosaur. It means ‘terrible lizard.'”

“Fair enough as something to call them,” muttered Grey. “Ugly sonsabitches works for me, too.”

“The term was coined by Sir Richard Owen. I met him twice—when our show played in Lancaster, and then again in London. He was a surly, contentious old git who thought Charles Darwin was completely wrong about his theories of evolution.”

“Darwin? I read about him. A lot of folks said he was trying to say God didn't make the world.”

“That's not precisely what he said. Darwin believed that our world is much older than suggested by the ages of the people named in the Bible, and that long before humans came along there were ages and ages of natural development. The animals and plants that we know today are there because they were the ones best able to survive those long millennia of growth. He also believed that before there were the animals we know about, there were others before them. This was about the only point he and Owen agreed upon, though Owen tended to think that Darwin simplified the process too much.”

“Did he?”

Looks Away shrugged. “I studied rocks, not animals. I'm not qualified to judge.”

He squatted down and studied one of the dead creatures. Grey joined him.

“So, what are you getting at? Were these things the ancestors of alligators and horny toads?”

“Maybe. I've heard arguments to that effect, and I've heard arguments that they evolved into birds.”

Grey ran his fingers along the feathers. “Seems pretty likely. But if they're the ancestors of birds and such, why the hell are they here? How did Deray get his hands on them?”

“That is a very, very good question, old chap,” said Looks Away. “I have a theory, or part of one at least.”

“Oh, I can't wait to hear it.”

“Well, look around,” said Looks Away. “Ever since the Great Quake all sorts of strange things have been happening. Reports of flying lizards and sea serpents. These things are strange, I'll grant you, but surely they're not the strangest things that have been said to come out of the Maze. Not if even a tenth of the reports are true.”

Grey grunted. “Before I came out here I was of the mind that all of those stories started at the bottom of a whiskey glass. Now … well, I mean, does something really actually need to bite you on the ass before you take it as Gospel fact?”

“For my part, my friend, I shall henceforth endeavor to keep a very open mind.”

Looks Away grabbed the shoulder of the creature and rolled it onto its back. The chunk of ghost rock embedded in its chest was small, about the size of a grape. The white lines seemed to shift and flow like restless worms, though Grey told himself that it was just the flickering lantern light or his own imagination. “I think that maybe these creatures were trapped down here. See how pale their flesh is? That suggests a life lived away from the sun. When Deray came down here he must have encountered all sorts of strange creatures. Encountered them, slaughtered them, used his sorcery to bring them back to life, and then found a way to enslave them with ghost rock.”

“I didn't think ghost rock could do that.”

Looks Away shrugged. “It can't, as far as I know. As I said, this is as much alchemy as it is ghost rock science. Maybe more so.” He shook his head. “And God only knows what else Deray has waiting for us. If he can command the dead … the possibilities are staggering.”

Grey rubbed his jaw and looked back the way they came. “There's always a war going on somewhere. Countries fighting, land wars, rail wars. Lots of dead people to be had. If you're thinking what I'm thinking, then we are in deep, deep shit.”

“My friend,” said Looks Away as he reloaded, “I believe that without a doubt we are in very deep shit indeed.”

“Deray,” muttered Grey. “More and more I'm getting the feeling that I need to park a bullet in his brainpan.”

“You, my dear chap,” said Looks Away, “will have to stand in line.”

Grey knelt beside one of the monsters and plucked a feather out, sniffed it, winced, and tossed it away. Then he peered at the chunk of ghost rock. “I thought there was some kind of rules to this ghost rock business. Same with the Harrowed. The way Brother Joe put it, this was ghost rock or some demons or whatever taking over corpses. That's what we saw in Nevada, and it's what you told me happened when that factory blew up in Europe. If that's the way it's supposed to work, then how do you explain extinct dinosaurs with ghost rocks in their chests? I mean … give me a place to stand so I can think about that the right way.”

“I'm afraid I can't offer you such a refuge, Grey,” said Looks Away. “I am in totally unknown territory here. You know as much as I do.”

“Which means we don't know enough.”

Grey began to reach out and touch the stone, but Looks Away shook his head. “Not with your bare hand.”

“Why? Does it do something?”

“I have no idea,” admitted Looks Away, “but we can surmise that the chunks of ghost rock he's implanted in the chests of his victims—human and animal—allow him some measure of control. They're clearly his slaves.”

Grey drew his knife and used the point to touch the stone. It made a dull metallic tink sound. Nothing else happened. “So he took something that was already dangerous as hell and used black magic to make it worse?”

“Yes. We've only begun to understand the nature and properties of ghost rock. Dr. Saint is exploring new scientific directions, and now we have proof that Deray's necromancy has taken him in even more obscure and frightening directions. It's so much to consider, but for now we'd best leave it be. We have a job of work ahead of us.”

“Work?” asked Grey. “As in getting the hell out of here?”

Looks Away shook his head. “I don't think I can do that, Grey. Not at this point. Not after all that we've seen. I think we have to gird our loins and enter the belly of the beast.”

“Meaning what?”

Looks Away stood and picked up one of the lanterns. “Didn't you see this?”

“See what?” asked Grey as he rose.

“I saw it just as those beasties rushed us.”

The Sioux walked a couple of paces toward the back of the room and the spill of light revealed a sight Grey had not noticed before. The rear wall of the chamber was in ruins. The naked stone had been shattered, pushed outward by some titanic force, and lay in heaps of rubble. Beyond the debris was a gaping maw of a hole that yawned like the mouth of some fabled dragon.

“I think that is where our monsters came from,” said Looks Away. “And if my guess is correct that tunnel will lead us to the answers we seek.”

Grey Torrance closed his eyes for a moment, and in the brief silence he could once more hear the muffled footsteps of the ghosts who haunted him. They were behind him and darkness opened before him.

“Damn it,” he breathed. Then he opened his eyes and nodded. “Let's go.”

 

Chapter Fifty-Three

Grey didn't know exactly what “girding one's loins” meant, but he squared his shoulders and set his jaw as they moved toward the gaping hole. Looks Away padded along beside him, his face grim and determined.

As they approached the hole it became apparent that the destruction had not been accomplished by anything like dynamite. The whole wall had been pushed into the chamber. They stopped at the entrance and held out their lanterns.

“Jesus Christ,” said Grey.

Beyond the hole was a tunnel. Roughly round and crudely made, it curled around down into the bowels of the earth. The sides of it glistened and when Looks Away reached to touch it he quickly withdrew his hand. His fingers were wet and sticky and they smelled like rotting fish.

“What the hell is that?” asked Grey.

“I have no idea,” said the Sioux as he rubbed his fingers together under his nose. “It's disturbingly like the secretions a worm makes. But God—the smell.”

The odor wafting up from the tunnel was clearly the source of the stench they'd smelled earlier. Here, though, it hadn't been diluted by distance. The stink was almost palpable.

Looks Away drew a breath and raised his leg to step over the fractured rim.

“You'll die in there,” said a voice behind them.

They both whirled, bringing their guns to bear.

A figure stood at the far end of the chamber, surrounded by the corpses of the reanimated dinosaurs. It was a woman who wore the shredded remnants of a sheer dressing gown. Her hair was up in a loose bun, her eyes were filled with dark mystery. A dreadful wound had been opened in her side through which they could see purple coils of her intestines. She seemed to be bathed in the glow of a pale blue-white light, but she cast no shadow.

Beside him, Grey heard Looks Away utter a low cry of bottomless pain and endless fear.

It was Veronica Chesterfield.

And she was dead.

 

Chapter Fifty-Four

The dead woman spoke in a voice that was as cold and alien as a cemetery wind.

“Thomas,” she said. “My sweet man.”

Looks Away would have fallen to his knees if Grey hadn't dropped his lantern and caught him. The lantern fell over and burning oil spilled out. The flames cast wild shadows onto the walls, though none were stranger than the dead thing that stood before them.

“What…,” began Looks Away in a strained choke, “what
are
you?”

She held her arms wide. The gesture pulled the bloody gossamer tight across her ample breasts, and the wisps of cloth seemed to float around her as if stirred by a wind that neither man could feel. Grey realized that the blue-white light did not fall upon her but was instead
part
of her, as if she were alight within. It was beautiful in its way, but in this moment and in this place there was nothing in Grey's heart but terror.

“Don't you know?” she asked. “Don't you recognize me? Don't you know your own loving Veronica?”

“God rot you,” snarled Looks Away, “you are
not
her. Damn you to Hell!”

“To Hell?” mused Veronica, letting her arms drop. “No, my love. That's not where I belong. Nor do I belong among the living. I walk now between those worlds.”

“I don't … I don't…”

She smiled sadly. “Such a brave man. You've faced such horrors already. Will you shrink in fear from a helpless spirit?”

“Spirit? You're a … a ghost?” breathed the Sioux.

“Though I've only been dead for a short time I feel as I've lived forever here in the world of spirits. Ghost? That is so impure a word, and so shallow. Call me that if it helps, but know that it does not truly tell you what I've become.”