Something of the Night (15 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

Scratch
padded away from the canteen table, its
occupants offering the mutt a morsel or two, and moved towards the little girl.
He ran his pink tongue across her wet cheek. He tasted salt so continued to
lick away until her trickle of tears had dried. She giggled as his tongue moved
to her nose and began to tickle.

“Hey, stop that,” she said,
but continued to giggle anyway. The mutt gave her one last sloppy kiss then
backed away, his tail wagging vigorously. Rebecca’s face had gone from misery
to delight.

Yap
!
Yap
!

She giggled again, enjoying
the dog’s overeager affections. Her thin arm reached out and she returned the
favour with a tickle underneath his furry chin. “Stupid mutt,” she said, with
nothing but warmth.

Scratch slipped into heaven
as the girl worked on the itchy spot just under his chin. After a couple of
minutes of bliss, the girl pulled her arm back and unconsciously let it rest
over her jacket pocket. Scratch pawed at her hand, pulling it away from the
coarse material.

“My fingers are aching,”
Rebecca said.

Unperturbed by her complaint,
the mutt continued to paw until she pulled her hand away from the pocket. The
second she did, he darted in, thrusting his nose inside.

“Hey!” Rebecca cried, as his
muzzle sniffed around inside her pocket. She clamped her hand over the
material, trapping him in situ. A long wheeze of air sounded and, now unable to
breathe, the mutt retreated.

“Hey!” Rebecca cried, “naughty
boy.”

Woof!

Rebecca frowned. What did the
stupid mutt want? “There’s nothing there for you,” she told him. She watched as
his tail wagged eagerly. “NO!” she said harshly. Instantly, his tail dropped
between his legs. He released a long, sorrowful whine and gave her his best
puppy-dog eyes. She was having none of it. Okay, time to get tough. He padded a
few feet away, jumped forwards a couple of times as if chasing an invisible
rat, then turned back and gave her a wag and a bark.

She sat silent.

He started to pad away.

Realising he was about to
leave her all alone, Rebecca jumped to her feet. She moved away from the table.
“Okay, but not here,” she said. Scratch’s tongue poked out in a smiling pant.
“Stupid mutt,” Rebecca repeated, grinning. She twisted around and looked for a
suitable hiding place. She spotted a quiet passageway so made her way towards
it.

Scratch followed.

***

Apart from a fleet of battered vehicles, the cavern
was all but deserted.
Alice
turned around; the table there pulled her attention.
She took a step closer. A small shiny object amongst the clutter beckoned her nearer.
Reaching out with grimy fingers, she took the object and held it to her chest.
She paused for a second before striding purposefully to one of the trucks. The
driver’s door opened with a squeal of rusty hinges.
Alice
climbed
in behind the steering wheel. She drew the object away from her chest and looked
at it thoughtfully. It was just a simple key – the key that would spark the
ignition, thus injecting life into the old engine. The palms of her hands began
to sweat.

This was reckless, and she
knew it.

And selfish.

Utterly selfish.

Still, she brought her
shaking hand under control and inserted the key into the ignition. Starting the
motor, she then reversed the truck to the centre of the cavern. She climbed out
and headed for the nearest wall. Two buttons were fixed into the rock – one
red, one green – and a small keypad was sunk into the wall directly underneath.
In a flurry of fingers she punched in the secret combination. The second she
hit the last digit, the green button blinked on with power. Her hand hovered
over it.

As she stood there, a mixture
of emotions swept over her. She felt guilt for what she was about to do, fear
of reprisal if she was to be caught, but most of all, a desperate longing in
her heart. She took a breath and readied herself.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

She almost jumped out of her
skin. She looked over to the entrance and saw Squirrel standing there, surprise
and confusion written across his face.

“
Alice
, why’s
the truck over there?” he asked, walking up to her. Her hand dropped away and
shame turned her cheeks red.

“What are you doing?”
Squirrel asked.

“I’m leaving,” she told him.

“What!”

“I’ve got to help Elliot,”
she said.

“Are you crazy?” he asked.

She looked back at him with
steely determination.

“You can’t do this,” he
chided.

“Squirrel,” she responded,
“I’ve got to.”

“But Major Patterson said
we’ve got to think of others.”

“I am thinking of others.
Elliot.”

“
Alice
, he can
take care of himself. What good can
you
do?”

“I can get him to the
vampire’s camp safely.”

“How?”

Alice
pointed to the truck, “In that.”

Squirrel looked over at the
stationary vehicle. He realised it was the one he’d recently modified, and
said, “No way. It’s a total wreck.” He didn’t believe it entirely, but he was
desperate for her to stay.

Alice
released a short laugh. “Nice try.” In truth she was
not convinced that it wasn’t a wreck, but replied, “I’ll take my chances.”

“I can’t let you go,”
Squirrel said.

“You’ve seen the change in
the weather. He’ll freeze to death.”

For the last six hours the
ground had been under assault by a barrage of heavy snow. Not white powdery
flakes like normal snow, but a torrent of grey sludge, a mixture of ice and
dust. The landscape outside had become dull, leached of any colour or
character.

“Elliot knows what he’s
doing. He’ll be fine,” Squirrel said.

“How can you be sure?”

The mechanic opened his
mouth, but in fairness he couldn’t be. “I can’t,” he admitted. “But he’s got a
better chance than anyone else.”

“I don’t care. I’m still
going.”

“
Alice
, this is
stupid. You know what the Major said. And he’s counting on us.”

Her head dropped and her
shoulders slumped forwards. “But you don’t understand.”

“Understand what?” he asked.

She looked up, directly into
his eyes. “I love him, Squirrel. I love him.”

The desperate look on her
face twisted his heart with a spasm of pain. He’d be damned if he was going to
let anything hurt her. He wrapped his fingers around hers, and then he pushed
both their hands forward to activate the button.

The cavern groaned above
their heads as a huge section of rock dropped away from the ceiling with a thunderous
grating noise. They felt the air around them sucked upwards into the crack.

“What are you doing?”
Alice
asked,
as the mechanic strode towards the truck.

“I’m coming with you,” he
replied.

“What?”

He turned and surprised
himself when he found his arms reaching out to gently take her face. “I love
you too, both you and Elliot. You’re my two best friends and I don’t want to
see anything happen to either of you. So I’m going with you. To be sure nothing
does.”

Alice
reached up and gently squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”

“We’re both probably gonna be
shot for insubordination. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” she replied.

His hands dropped from her
face and he looked from one parked vehicle to the next. They were all serviced,
repaired and refuelled, and ready to go. There was nothing left for him to do
but stay here with the rest of the survivors and wait for Ezekiel’s attack. At
least if he helped Alice and Elliot, he’d be doing something more than just
hanging around, and if they made good time then they would be back before the
Major even noticed they were missing. Or so he told himself, in an attempt to
justify his recklessness.

“Are you sure?”
Alice
asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, and he
was.

“Okay, let’s go.”
Alice
passed
him and stepped onto the ramp.

“Wait a minute,” Squirrel
said, “let me drive. I know just how far to push it without damaging the
suspension.”

The two massive pistons that
held the carved platform hissed with a compression of air, slowing the descent
of the rock. The huge slab of rock slowly dropped to the floor. With a hollow
boom it came to rest at the side of the truck.

They climbed in and Squirrel
spun a half circle before backing up onto the loading platform. He felt a
slight bump as the wheels drove over the ramp and the suspension groaned
slightly under the strain.
Alice
looked across the cabin and gave Squirrel an anxious
look. The mechanic flashed his most confident smile. “Hey, don’t worry. She’ll
hold.” His hands tightened around the steering wheel and his lips moved without
sound:
Baby, please hold together.

They sat there in silence,
listening to the engine purr, then the timing mechanism kicked in and the
platform lifted them away from the cavern floor as it began its ascent towards
the black hole above. The platform reached its zenith and the dark fissure
swallowed both
Alice
and Squirrel whole.

***

Rebecca brought them to a halt. “What do you think?”
she asked the mutt at her feet. Scratch sniffed the air around them.
Woof!
They were standing in the narrow chamber of an access tunnel, leading away from
one of the main passageways.

The dog padded away from
Rebecca and entered an opening that lay to one side. She followed him and found
herself in a cramped storeroom. Most of the inventory consisted of empty
cardboard boxes, their contents long since removed, tins of various sizes and
colours, and a couple of neglected weapons had been left leaning against the
wall, now collecting dust.

Scratch sniffed around, and
then sneezed violently as the dust tickled the insides of his nostrils.

“Quiet… ” Rebecca whispered
with exaggerated caution. She reached out to find a light switch. The naked
lamp above burnt a narrow hole through the darkness. She waded deeper into the
room with the mutt following close behind. They nestled among the boxes and
cartons, and Rebecca knelt, bringing herself down to the dog’s level.

She reached inside her pocket
and withdrew an object, which sparkled in a bright rainbow, “It’s beautiful,”
she said, with childlike awe. The water inside sloshed about and the colours
played across the walls of rock like bright dancing apparitions. The crystal
clarity of the colours stunned Rebecca. She had never seen a real rainbow and
only from books did she know they even existed.

Scratch stepped closer to
prod at the object with the tip of his nose. It fell over and the kaleidoscope
of colours vanished. He growled at it, his little sharp teeth visible. A vile
stench radiated from the thing’s surface.

“Hey, what are you doing?”
she asked.

The little mutt pushed the
thing again and it rolled away from him, disappearing under a pile of rubbish.
Rebecca’s heart skipped a beat. She jumped to her feet before diving into the
pile of cardboard boxes and junk. “Where’s it gone?” she moaned. She began to
scatter the rubbish.

Abruptly, the dog’s ears
pricked up. He released a short, sharp bark in an attempt to get Rebecca’s
attention. “Not now, boy,” she said. He padded to the entrance and his nose
twitched, for a foul scent emanated from the tunnel. It was the same stench
that he could smell on Rebecca’s treasure. He scampered back and barked a
second alarm.

“I’ve got to find it,”
Rebecca said.

Scratch returned to the
tunnel entrance. The smell had gotten stronger, a pungent stench that irritated
his nose. And, as he listened, he heard the faint sound of footsteps. Someone
had followed them. He raced back to the girl and jumped up at her, forcing her
to stop her search.

“What is it?” she asked with
irritation. The thing’s pretty colours had made her feel happy. And now it was
lost. She knew she should have kept it to herself. “Not now!” she told him, and
turned her back on him.

Scratch jumped up and pulled
on the girl’s cuff. Her arm whipped away from her body. The momentum almost
pulled her off her feet. The mutt tugged at her jacket and managed to drag her
further into the clutter. She snatched her arm back and the material of her
jacket tore away from her wrist. A long tail of cloth held them together.