soil like toadstools. My shoulders sank. I would have to keep digging, and there was no telling how far.
And then I saw a flash of gold. I moved the beam to the head of the coffin and noticed movement. I shrank back against the dirt. Rats—lots of them. I steadied my hand and looked again. My stomach lurched. They were everywhere, fifty, maybe a hundred of them, churning through the dirt like maggots, their wriggling feet capering upward, their red eyes flashing from inside the very walls of the hole. The ray of light alarmed them and they hurtled toward a burrowed tunnel that ran directly over Eccles’s head—I could see the yellow dome of his skull beneath their frantic feet.
Whiskers tickled my neck; I gasped and swatted with my flashlight. The swirling beam caught the rats as they streamed away, their motion inadvertently carrying the golden spike straight into their tunnel.
“No!” I shouted. A rat, shockingly heavy, landed on my shoulder, and I felt its dry pelt slide past my ear before it tumbled and raced across my feet. I dropped to my knees. The tunnel was nearly two feet across and sloped downward. The spike balanced upon the precipice. I shuffled forward, my knees pinning to the dirt several fat and screaming bodies, and reached with my free hand. A cold current of rats slid down my arm.
Dozens of tiny feet scampered and the spike spun farther into the tunnel. An image of my father flashed through my mind—by now he had probably finished sealing a deal to sell the artifact and was en route to Bloughton, radiating with a pride he had not felt in years. I had lost Peter’s spike; I had no choice but to bring home Paul’s.
I lunged and struck the pulpy dirt so that I lay atop Paul Eccles, our elbows interlocked, his pelvis pressed against mine, his skull lodged snugly beneath my chin. I muscled my head through the cavity. The rats were up my shirt, nuzzling my armpits. Another raced up my pants leg, shuddering against my thigh. I locked my jaw and heard the thump of tails against my bared teeth.
It was a tight fit but I forced the flashlight to the level of my chest. The sight inside the tunnel was dizzying: swarms of rodents ran in loops, defying gravity. The spike was just ahead, and I squeezed my free hand into open space. The darkness flexed; three dozen rats hissed at the intruder and leapt, tussling and tangling into my hair, sinking their tiny yellow teeth into my fingers. I shrieked but could not recoil—I was stuffed too firmly. The entire weight of the cemetery pressed down.
My fingertips touched gold. I heaved forward and my shoulders crashed against the winnowing tunnel. Dirt began to crumble. I made a fist and clubbed rats out of the way, left and right. A thick pink tail got caught between my fingers and the rat screeched and spasmed. My mother would not have hesitated, either: I squeezed the animal until I felt the convulsion of death. I tossed the body and snatched the spike. Nearly laughing, I brought it close to my body. Then I tipped the flashlight beam and saw stars twinkling from the underground night—eyes, hundreds of them, approaching, furious, and in their numbers unafraid.
Moving backward through a tight enclosure is a slow process. For a surreal moment I weighed the alternative: continuing onward to explore this subterranean city, learning the strategies of the rat, and dying down here with my kind. Yet I removed myself from the tunnel inch by inch, shutting my eyes against a torrent of rats so dense I could feel each racing heartbeat against my eyelids and throat and lips. They did not give up on the spike, even when it was clear that I was going to win. It was as if the rats had become spirit animals, invincible where the Indians of the Old West had been sadly mortal, unwilling to let this symbol of their destruction be taken anywhere other than hell.
I filled in the hole and watched the dirt drop heavily upon their tiny, obstinate faces. It was nearly dawn when I found myself once more behind the wheel of Boggs’s car, and when I checked the rearview mirror I recognized the look that greeted me: it was the glazed and sunken stare of the Diggers I had met only weeks before, men haunted by the inability to tell anyone of