Nightfall (17 page)

“We shouldn't use this if we don't have to, not while it's cooling,” Chris said.

He didn't say what was on her mind, that they'd only close it if something managed to get past the front doors. She tried not to wonder if it would hold against a wave of leaping monsters. Jenna imagined the door bending and breaking as snarling bodies barreled inside. She restrained a shudder.

“It's okay.” Chris hesitated and then laid a comforting palm on her shoulder.

She guessed that such gestures didn't come naturally to him. But gift horse and all that. He wasn't Mason, and her body knew the difference. But at least he tried.

“Cozy,” Mason said from behind.

Nothing had hinted of his approach—not a whisper of fabric, not a slide of soles against the floor. He was quieter than a ghost when he chose to be. Fury darkened his face. He wanted a fight.

But first the lights went out.

Mason's pulse jacked to a flat-out run. “Weapons, now! And flashlights.”

“Wait a minute,” Welsh said. “It could be a power-supply problem.”

The sound of his disembodied voice reminded Mason of the two days they'd listened to him on the radio. He'd liked the man a lot better then. Now the urge to smack his skull into a steel I-beam curled his fingers into fists. “Could be, Harvard. You want to go check it out on your own? I'll let you volunteer.”

“Will you two knock it off?” Jenna stood nearby, the lingering scent of her arousal taunting him. “We need to get Ange and Penny.”

After a few clumsy sounds and the crash of a chair being knocked over, a light winked on. Welsh held a giant Maglite under his chin, the glare making two white circles of his eyeglasses. “Did you ever do this at Halloween, being a ghoul?”

Jenna grabbed another flashlight. “You're as much of an idiot as Mason. Find Ange and Penny!”

“Yeah, be back in five,” Mason said. “Any emergencies, we stay together as a group.”

“So they can kill us in one convenient location?” Welsh asked.

Mason opened the weapons locker and retrieved his AR-15. He stalked over to the scientist. “No, so I don't shoot you.” He slammed a clip in the rifle, then shrugged. “You know, by mistake.”

Welsh grinned. “How's your back, by the way?”

“Healed. You ready to take another shot at me?”

“Only if you keep acting like a goddamn gorilla.”

Jenna growled deep in her throat. “Hey, gorillas—both of you. Can we focus, please?”

“Fine with me,” Welsh said, all blameless detachment. “I'll go get the others.”

Tru grabbed another flashlight from the storage locker and made to follow Mason and Jenna into the hydroelectric tunnels. Mason shook his head. “Sorry, kid. Go with him.”

“Why?”

“Did you notice anything wrong when he scurried out?”

Tru hitched his rifle strap on his shoulder. “Nah, what about it?”

Mason pointed to the nearby table where Chris's weapon lay.

“Man, he forgot his shotgun? What a 'tard.” He picked up the extra weapon, then shuffled toward the exit. Over his shoulder he called, “Okay, I'll watch out for the women and the idiot. Don't do anything cool without me.”

“Just be back here in five.” Mason turned to Jenna, feeling as hostile as her expression. He pushed past her and into the maintenance anteroom. “You ready? Or maybe you're not. Hard to tell.”

She followed him, her own weapon primed. “Shut it. And lay off Chris.”

His jaw tightened by reflex. “Get a light over here?”

“Say please.”

Without waiting for a response, she expertly leveled the light where he needed it. Mason's mute anger slid back into his stomach. All their shit could wait. After wrestling with the lock, he popped the seal. The door swung open with a rusty squeal, revealing six metal steps.

Their breathing echoed as they descended into the tunnel. At the base of the stairs, Mason stooped beneath the rounded, low-hanging ceiling. The hydroelectric pumps manufactured energy for the complex, but none of that heat filtered down below. He registered the chill as if his skin belonged to another man—distant information about goose bumps and a shiver. Every impulse not devoted to protecting the complex was busy trying to ignore the way Jenna scrambled his senses.

He tipped one ear to the far end of the basement. “Hear that? The generator isn't working.”

“That's pretty bad news. No heat and no fresh water.”

“Wait. Does that sound like running water to you?”

“Can't tell.” She held the flashlight in one hand, while the other rubbed up and down her arm. “Should we call Chris?”

He fought to suppress a snarl. “We don't need him.”

“Sorry, didn't realize you had a merit badge in engineering.”

“Nope,” he said. “But we need to assess the threat before sending him down. If it's a malfunction, fine. Harvard can play at being a plumber. I might even help.”

She snorted. “I'd like to see that.”

“But if it's something else ... no way.”

“What do you mean ‘something else'? You said they take the winter off.”

Sure, he'd thought that. But there were no experts on the change. No certainties. Maybe that was why he hadn't been able to relax, even with the snowfall. Still too many unknowns.

Jenna's sudden look of panic choked his impulse to share. He didn't need her losing her nerve too. He'd been far too jumpy lately, and pent-up sexual tension didn't help.

“There.” He nodded toward where the light from Jenna's flashlight sliced across the disabled generator.

But her panicked expression didn't ease. She stared at him, eyes darkened by the shadows.

Somewhere smack between his ears began to tickle. The pokeprod feel of her mind peering into his was unmistakable. He smiled, feeling dangerous. “What're you looking for in there?”

“Don't lock me out. What is it, John?”

He enjoyed that familiarity too much, but she did a lot of things he liked. He'd almost lost himself in the soft rhythm of her hands sliding over his skin, over his scars. Her thoughts had tangled with his, not asking permission so much as sliding under the door, through the cracks. She'd woven a tempting net of images and offered them to him—comfort and warmth, safety and reprieve.

Then she'd scorched him from the blood on out, leaving him full of icy rage. To see her with Welsh afterward made his anger worse.

“I won't ‘lay off Chris' as long as he keeps at you.”

“Since when do you get to have any say over what I—”

“Over what you do? I have
every
say.”

“Why the hell is that?”

Mason grabbed her upper arm. Why had she turned him into a begging animal, only to drop him? Bottled tension waited for a spark before he blew wide open. Fear of going too far kept his temper in check. Barely.

“Just remember where you'd be if I hadn't put you in the trunk.”

“Yeah, thanks.” She yanked free of his grip, but she'd probably have bruises. “But you're not my dad or my jailer. So shut up.”

His airway constricted around deep, frigid disappointment. He'd been halfway articulate once. In the cabin, he'd spoken to her without this clogged-up feeling in his chest. But she'd played him for a fool, and it hurt more than he was ready to admit.
When had she become more than Mitch's daughter?
He wanted her too much, and it spilled into everything he did.

“Fine,” he said. “You and Ange have fun with ‘Chris.'”

“I don't want him.”

“And I don't care.” He tried for a casual shrug. “I won't be your entertainment anymore.”

She pinched her eyes shut and shook her head slowly. “You really are thick.”

“Save it. Once we get the power back on, you can explain what really happened up there. Make sure to use small words.”

Mason left her where she stood holding the flashlight at a crooked angle. Her posture spoke of defeat or fatigue.
Must be the latter.
The fool woman didn't give up on anything.

He'd meant to distract Jenna, but the conversation had turned against him. He always got it wrong with her, lost in translation. And damn if he didn't have a clue how to make it right. So he walked on.

The water pattering against concrete sounded louder here. Mason found the generator and said, “Bring the light? Please.”

Jenna trudged across the tunnel and leveled the Maglite at the generator's gray hull. The dripping made the tunnel feel like a cave.

He remembered Katie, a foster mom he'd had when he was in grade school. She and her boyfriend had bought a fixer-upper in a good neighborhood. But Mason learned to stay clear of their raging arguments. Drunk, sober, it didn't matter. He'd resented how they'd continued to work on that damn house even in the middle of a fight, all foul body language and frosty silences.

At that moment, Jenna reminded him of Katie. Before then, he wouldn't have thought it possible to hold a flashlight sarcastically.

“Here, follow this line back to the wall,” he said, pointing to a water hose. “Please.”

“You can stop now.”

“Just using my manners. Thought you wanted things civilized.”

She scowled and followed the hose with the light. Where the line met the wall, water slid past a seal and sprinkled onto the floor. “So the water isn't making it through the generator turbine?”

“Seems that way.” He leaned nearer and poked the sealing ring. “See here? The ring is cracked.”

“So we should—
ah!
”

The flashlight dropped with a hard metal thunk. She sagged, her knees giving out. Mason barely had time to shoulder his weapon before grabbing her beneath the armpits. He sank to the freezing concrete, slowly easing her with him.

“Jenna?”

Their only light source splayed across the floor, pointing back toward the stairs. A shiver shook her from the heels on up. Her body drooped against his, her head lolling at a sick angle. He snagged the light and shone it on her. Though her eyes remained open, she stared up and away—completely vacant.

“
Jenna?
”

The tingle in his brain intensified.

Back in the woods, when approaching the pit, he'd been assailed by a sense of existing outside of himself, a few steps ahead. He hadn't understood it, merely accepted the advantage of an extra sense, like seeing through a tree rather than around it. Now he forced logic aside and used that sense again.

A pack of demon dogs waited outside in the snow. Circling. Watching.

One of the monsters hunched over and shook. Bones realigned beneath fur. Its spine straightened. Its snout receded. Its limbs lengthened and bulked with different muscles. A thick pelt of fur thinned to reveal white skin covered with dark body hair, until a naked beastly man stood where a dog had been. Claws tipped his unusually long fingers, and teeth protruded from an extreme underbite. He directed his four-legged troops to take different paths around the complex, not with words but with growls and gestures, the air throbbing around his every movement.

Mason's mind banged back to the present. A headache arched over his brow and across his skull. The pain was so intense that tears sprang up.

He called to her in a hectic mental shout.

“John,” she croaked, still shivering. “They're coming.”

Tru followed Harvard into the dormitory, listening to him whack his shins on every possible obstacle. He wasn't about to hand the dude the shotgun when navigating the dark seemed such a trial. One of them would eat lead before the lights came back on.

In the distance, Ange whispered to Pen, trying to reassure the girl. Ange was nice ... and pretty, if you liked older chicks. He didn't, but it wasn't like he would need a date anytime soon.

Up ahead, Harvard shone the light back and forth. “It's okay,” he called. “I'm sure it's just a technical malfunction, but we should go up where there's some light.”

“Mason said to head back downstairs,” Tru muttered under his breath.

“You want to drag them down in the dark?”

Without light, Tru became more aware of noises and smells. Signals came at him from all sides. He brushed by Harvard and found Ange and her daughter huddled together on the bed. Pen's hair caught the light as if she stood beneath the moon.

The woman sat up. “I'm glad to see you two. Where are the others?”

“Checking out the maintenance area in the subbasement,” Harvard said. “I'll go see what's up once we get you two out of here.”

A strange sensation prickled over Tru's skin. He turned in a slow circle but found nothing to explain the general freakiness. Taking a deep breath, he tightened his grip on his rifle. “I'll take point.”

He led the other three back to the stairs without a stumble. Darkened hallways were silent as the grave without the hydraulic hum. Weird that the others followed him without question. Maybe some of that do-as-I-say vibe had rubbed off on him from hanging around with Mason.

He bounded up the stairs. It was dark up there too, but not pitch black like the bunker. Shadows swirled; he didn't like how exposed he felt. To get to the observation tower, they needed to cut left and head down to the end of the hall. Not far, but too far for comfort.

Why the hell was Harvard rambling about hoses and nozzles? Tru motioned the two adults to silence. Pen had the sense not to yap, or maybe the poor kid had no brains left at all. He felt for her, but everyone had to make the best of a nasty-ass situation. He'd been doing that for a long fucking time.