Michael stood up, his knees threatening to betray him. And in that infinite, black instant, Michael caught a glimpse of Something just past Cady—another creature, clittering along the ceiling of the mine shaft—that he knew would haunt the corridors of his dreams forever.
It was a Hell-dream, a beast of shock-white flesh. It had golden-rimmed eyes with slits for pupils. It had a red and lolling tongue that dangled and clocked from its mouth like a long, burst vein. With a shattering clarity, Michael understood: Cady and all the Shrieks had returned to this mine so They could get this creature. They had come to retrieve the Thing that had birthed the virus and ended the Earth, the Thing that had infected Cady in the first place.
Oh God, that’s their MOTHER!
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Patrick burst into tears, and Michael lifted him into his arms and turned in the quaking mine shaft. He dashed around the corner, seeing the lighted rectangle of the entrance a billion miles up ahead. The fractured support beams were snapping now in the force of the stampede: Michael wove through a collapsing storm of earth and stone. The creatures howled in rage as the caving ceiling slowed their flight, but this was still like trying to outrun the wind. And Michael held on to Patrick as tightly as he had ever held anything, as tight as his own heart.
“Michael?” Patrick sobbed into his ear.
Answer him. You might not get to again. “Yeah?” Michael breathed.
Patrick said: “I love you.”
The end of the mine, twenty feet away, ten, six, three—
The dead at their back, their shrieks deafening, air pressure flying like poisonous waves—
And then—Michael never understood how—he ran out of the mine.
Did it matter? No. Nowhere to run: he looked back into the mine and saw the Shrieks bursting through the fallen ceiling, and even if he got into the Hummer right this moment, it was too late—the field lights dazzled Michael’s eyes—his ears were ringing—
“Holly!” Patrick gasped.
Something was coming, straight across the quarry field, almost bouncing on the ground. Something big. Balloon! Not quite inflated, the jack-o’-lantern aircraft, piloted by Holly, its basket half dragging across the snowy ground toward them. Michael’s heart burst in amazement.
“Patrick! Michael!” Holly called. “Come on!”
Wind gusted, throwing snow from the peaks of the coal mounds, snapping the inflating pumpkin face to the left, parallel with the rock wall containing the entrance to the mine. Michael sprinted to catch up. Holly released the burner for a moment to reach out for them, but Michael shouted, “No no, keep filling the balloon!” and he desperately tossed Patrick into the basket. He placed his good hand on the wicker rim and there came another gust of wind, and the jerk of the balloon nearly pulled his arm out of its socket. He screamed, but held on, the lip of the basket now as high as his chest. He leapt with all his strength, pulling himself up, over the wicker brim.
He tumbled in.
“Up up, go go go!”
“Absolutely,” Holly breathed shakily. She yanked down the overhead handle harder, enlarging the blue burner flame.
And slowly their balloon began to lift toward the sky.
They ascended, fifteen feet, twenty. Holy crap. We . . . I . . .
We made it. The thought shimmered in his mind, nearly too huge and beautiful to grasp. We made it!
Michael looked over the edge of the basket. Fifty feet up now. The new creatures were vomiting out from the mouth of the mine, small in the fluorescent field lights.
Cady Gibson emerged, stopped, gazed up with those ancient eyes.
The monster couldn’t grab them. Not now. Not when we’re flying—
But suddenly Michael’s hope threatened to flicker out.
No. What happens when we have to land?
And that was when he turned and saw Patrick holding his orange gun in his hands.
“Bad bad guys,” Patrick hissed viciously. His eyes glittered with vengeance. It was not just fury at someone who wasn’t playing The Game right: it was something beyond childhood, it was full hatred, grown-up’s hatred, and utterly without innocence.
Patrick hooked one arm over the edge of the basket so that he could look to the ground, aiming the bright plastic gun down to the lead creature, as if to shoot Cady Gibson with a make-believe projectile from “the weapon” the Game Master had given him.
Michael thought, That’s just a toy, Patrick. Just a toy.
But then a secret understanding, both horrible and wonder-struck, fit into place inside Michael’s heart, like clockwork.