Bragg there would be no end to the teasing. If they survived.
As King and Queen stopped struggling, accepting their fate and waiting to see what came next, the three were lifted off the ground and carried through the jungle. Their captors’ movements were silent and swift. In the silence, Sara’s senses took in the faint noise of feet on earth. There was something odd about the way they moved . . . about the way they breathed. She slowly reached out with her hands and felt the one carrying her. She felt skin, soft and damp. Then hair. Thick. Dirty. Like a German shepherd. The hair covered most of her captor’s back.
Sara’s eyes went wide beneath the hood that had taken her sight. Oh God, she thought, they’re monsters!
THIRTY-THREE
THE SHOTS FIRED by Somi rang in Bishop’s ears as he charged up the tunnel with Rook at his heels. Neither man was a fast runner. Both relied on superior firepower, accurate aim, and brute strength in combat. Speedy retreats didn’t sit well with either of them. But they’d been caught with their pants down in a subterranean necropolis by a horde of superhuman she-things. Running like hell made perfect sense.
As the green glow of the bioluminescent fungi–laden chamber faded, darkness returned with a vengeance and slowed their progress as they began moving by penlight. The one thing that gave them hope and allowed them to keep charging at near top speed was that the tunnel, which was wide enough and tall enough for them to run upright, side by side, also stretched onward and upward at a blessedly straight and steady grade. The question nagging both of them: Could they outrun the savage she-tribe?
A wet hooting rolled up the tunnel, issued from below.
“I swear I can smell their shit-eating breath all the way up here,” Rook said as he ran with one hand against the smooth tunnel wall and the other stretched out straight in front of him. “Back off, you nasty bitches!”
His shout echoed down the tunnel and before it had fully faded was interrupted by a voice somehow deeper than his own, yet feminine. It roared, “Big man, rude!” followed by, “Big man, mine!”
“Holy . . .” Rook took his hand off the wall and willed his feet to tread faster. He could barely make out Bishop in front of him, but could tell he’d picked up the pace, too. They’d both be doubled over in a minute, or knocked out cold from running into a dead end, if they didn’t find a way out soon. But letting those things catch them in the tunnel . . . that just couldn’t happen.
Thirty seconds later, Rook felt as though he would collapse. His legs were heavy. His head pounded from exertion. Though he still moved like a runner, a speed-walking soccer mom could have passed him without effort. Bishop fared better. He was winded, but his regenerative body kept the strain to a minimum. Both men paused, sucking in breath. While the creatures behind them had stopped hooting, their furious footfalls and heaving breath filled the tunnel behind them.
“How many rounds?” Rook asked.
Bishop ejected the Desert Eagle’s magazine and frowned. “One.” He handed the gun to Rook. “I can stay.”
“What is this, a Martyr Gras parade?”
“I’ll survive.”
“And be turned into a mindless killing machine. I don’t think so.”
Bishop nodded. They would fight together.
“Good, now shut up and get ready for a fight.” Rook turned to face the mass of beast-women charging like 1950s schoolgirls after the Beatles.
“Rook,” Bishop said. “Your flashlight.”
Rook looked at the light in his hand. It was out. Dead.
“I can still see you,” Bishop said.
Both men turned. Weak light poured into the tunnel from not far away. It was dim—filtered—but promised daylight and escape. They ran despite the pain in their lungs, hoping that clear sight might improve their odds of survival.
Of course, it seemed more likely they’d simply get the pleasure of seeing each other die.
The grade flattened out and both men sped up. The source of the light, a large exit overgrown with vines and brush, loomed before them. Afraid the overgrowth might take time to hack or climb through, both men surged at the wall, leaping into it like cannonballs.
Vines snapped. Brush exploded. The two men shot from the exit as though birthed from the mountain. Week and disoriented, they rolled down the mountainside, cushioned by leaf litter. Thirty feet below the exit, they slid to a stop.
Bishop stood quickly and pulled Rook to