The death pit

The black trees appeared to spin around me, like a fast merry-go-round. The ground tilted up, then down. Suddenly dizzy, I shut my eyes and tried to think.

They shot Brendan. They’re forgetting their kidnapping plans. They killed Mac. Now they just want to kill us, the only witnesses.

A picture of my dad and my uncle in their hunting outfits tore into my mind. I saw them cleaning their rifles, preparing to go out on the hunting day they enjoyed together once a year. Hunting for deer.

Tracking down prey.

Now I was the prey. These two masked men with their hunting rifles tensed, their shoes crackling over the leaves, so near I could hear every leaf crack. At least, in my terrified condition, so tense and alert, I thought I could hear every leaf crack.

So close. Close enough to reach out and touch?

For some reason, my friend Amy broke into my panicked thoughts. Amy, why didn’t I listen to you? You begged me not to go to this party. You warned me not to get mixed up with Brendan and the Fear family.

Why didn’t I listen to her?

Because of my crush on Brendan?

I didn’t listen to Amy. And I didn’t listen to Mac.

And now … now … here I was … more frightened than I’d ever been. Frightened for my life.

I opened my eyes. The trees had stopped whirling around me and the ground had settled beneath my knees. Slowly, silently, I stood up.

I heard the men cursing in low voices. I didn’t hear Brendan. Their footsteps were rapid and loud. They were heading in the opposite direction, away from me.

Yes.

I waited. Staring in their direction, I stood shivering, and waited. Waited till I could no longer hear them. Then stood still a few minutes more. To make sure.

And when I was certain they were not playing a trick. When I knew they weren’t lying in wait, setting a trap, I took off in the other direction. I forced my legs to move, kicking leaves and twigs and small branches out of my way, using my arms to brush open a path between shrubs and clumps of tall weeds.

I didn’t know where I’d come out. I just wanted to run as far as I could from the two gunmen. I didn’t have a plan. I couldn’t think straight at all. I was running through a nightmare, a nightmare of black shadows. And all I could see in my mind was Mac crumpled on the floor in that room … Brendan’s body, sprawled stiff and still on the ground. Brendan’s body and my dad and uncle in their L.L.Bean hunting jackets and tall hunting boots, waving their rifles, and the deer running … trotting full speed through the trees … the deer running so frightened … so frightened like me.

Then—more terror. The ground gave way. It just vanished. And I fell into a hole, my hands flying above my head, my feet kicking wildly.

Black walls rose up on all sides, and I dropped hard and fast. I landed on my feet, but my legs collapsed and I crumpled onto the bottom. I expected dirt or mud. But something hard cracked and slid beneath me.

I struggled to catch my breath. I gazed up at the sky and saw a rectangle of gray light high above me. A pit. I had fallen into a deep pit, the dirt walls rising high above my head.

My knees throbbed with pain from the fall. A wave of panic shot down my body. Did I break my legs? Could I stand?

Slowly, I pulled myself up. No. No. My knees pulsed with pain.

I can’t walk. I’ll never get out of here.

I took a deep breath and forced myself upright. Bent my knees until the pain started to fade. Stood hard on one leg, then the other. Everything hurt and I had a few scratches, but I seemed to be okay.

My shoe kicked something hard on the pit floor. Had I landed on rocks?

I bent to see more clearly. I picked up the strangely shaped rock I had just kicked.

I raised it close to my face to see it in the darkness. No. Oh, no. I wasn’t holding a rock. I held a skull … a human skull.

I tossed it to the pit floor. It rattled against something hard and rolled to the wall. I bent down. Pale moonlight suddenly cast a sick green light over the pit, and the bones came into focus. Long bones. Short ones. A rib cage. No. Two rib cages. Another skull grinning up at me with its deep black eye holes and all its teeth.

Bones. A thick jumble of skulls and bones.

I was standing in some kind of human burial pit.

I tried to hold it in—but how could I?

I opened my mouth in a long, hoarse shriek of horror.

36.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20