The Hunter Page 0,40

tell you this, but when I was a kid I was scared of escalators. I was afraid they might catch the end of my muffler or something-"

"You don't wear mufflers," Audrey said and shoved him on.

"Mike, if you're scared of escalators, then this one is probably your fault," Jenny said, stepping on behind him. "Remember, he gets it all from us."

As they neared the top, Jenny found they were riding directly toward a mirror. In fact, she discovered when she looked down the hall-after helping Mike jump off the escalator at the strategic moment -there were mirrors everywhere.

The hallway downstairs had been dark-this one was exactly the opposite. Light bounced and rainbowed off the mirrors lining the zigzagging walls until Jenny saw colored streaks even with her eyes closed. In fact, the mirrored walls zigged and zagged so sharply that it was impossible to get a clear view for more than a few feet. You had to veer alternately right and left to follow the hallway's path, and anything in the bend before you or behind you was invisible.

"All right, who put these here?" Dee demanded.

"Are my legs really that short? Or are these trick mirrors?" Audrey asked, pivoting.

Michael made one effort to straighten his wrinkled gray sweats and then gave up.

Jenny's own reflection made her uncomfortable. She seemed to hear Julian's voice in her mind: "Eyes as green as cypress and hair like liquid amber. ..."

That wasn't what she saw. Just now Jenny saw a girl with flushed cheeks, whose hair was clinging to her forehead in little damp curls, whose tissue-linen blouse was beginning to go limp, and whose flowing cotton skirt was dusty and grass-stained.

"Right or left-take your pick," she said, glancing up and down the hallway.

"Left," Dee said firmly, and they went that way, zigging and zagging with the acute turns.

The mirrors were disconcerting. Everywhere Jenny looked her image was thrown back at her, and thrown from mirror to mirror so that she saw herself coming and going, reflected to infinity on all sides. Stay in this place long enough and you might forget which one is really you, she thought.

As in the other hallway, there were no deviations from the pattern, nothing to distinguish any part of it from any other. It was especially nerve-racking not being able to see more than one turn behind you, and not knowing what might be waiting around the next turn ahead. Images of the Creeper and the Lurker went through Jenny's mind.

"Dee, slow down," Jenny said as Dee's long, light step took her out of sight for the third time. Dee was navigating the corridor like a skier on a slalom, plunging in and out of the sharp turns, while the rest of them walked with hands outstretched to help them tell reflection from reality.

"No, you guys hurry up-" Dee's voice was responding from the next bend, and then there was a flash.

It seemed to reflect from everywhere at once, but Jenny thought it came from ahead. She and Audrey and Michael stood frozen for a moment, then hurried forward.

Dee was standing, hands on her hips, in front of a door. It was mirrored like the walls, but Jenny figured it had to be a door because there was a red button like an elevator button beside it. When she looked hard she could distinguish the door's outline from the mirror around it.

Above the red button was a blue light bulb, round as a clown's nose.

"It just appeared," Dee said and snapped her fingers. "Like that. In that flash."

From the turn ahead they heard whimpering.

"Summer!" Jenny, Dee, and Audrey exclaimed simultaneously.

It was Summer, huddled in the next bend, her spun-sugar curls resting on her folded arms, her legs drawn beneath her china blue shirtdress. She looked up with a little hysterical cry at their approach.

"Is it really you?"

"Yes," Jenny said, kneeling. She was a little frightened by the expression in Summer's eyes.

"Really, really you?"

"Yes. Oh, Summer." Worriedly, Jenny put her arms around the smaller girl and felt her trembling.

"I've been alone here so long, and I kept seeing myself, and then sometimes I thought I saw other people, but when I ran toward them they weren't there___"

"Who have you seen?" Jenny asked.

"Sometimes Zachary-and sometimes him. He scares me, Jenny." Summer buried her small face in Jenny's vest.

He scares me, too, Jenny thought. She said, "There's nothing to be frightened of now. We're really here. See?"

Summer managed a watery smile.

"Poor sun Bunny, Michael said. I guess it must be