Burial Ground

IV

10:18 p.m.

There was a muffled whump behind Sam. The ground shook and knocked her to her knees. Smoke and dust blasted through the gaps in the rock barricades to either side of her, filling the room with a chalky haze. She screamed, but couldn't even hear her own voice over what sounded like a freight train bearing down on her. The stones in the ceiling cracked and debris rained down. Rocks tumbled away from the barricades and fissures raced through the support columns, one of which buckled sideways and collapsed.

The entire building was coming down.

Merritt grabbed her hand and pulled her back to her feet. The rifle in his free hand clanked against the incendiary grenades he had clipped to his hip and the spare magazine he had jammed into his pocket.

"Get out of there!" Colton shouted from the doorway. "Now!"

She glanced back at Galen and Leo. They both struggled to stand on the shaking floor.

"Come on!" she shouted, jerking Leo to his feet. He latched onto Galen's arm and dragged him away from the rear wall.

From the edges of her peripheral vision, she saw that enough of the rubble had fallen from the barricades to create dark gaps toward the top, through which clouds of dust funneled. Dark shapes twisted and thrashed in an effort to force their way through.

Something struck her shoulder from above and drove her to the ground, wrenching her hand from Merritt's. She cried out and grabbed at the searing pain. More and more of the stone ceiling cracked away and fell around her.

A shadow passed through the swirling dust, grabbed her around the torso, and hauled her to her feet.

"Hurry!" Merritt shouted directly into her ear. He half-carried, half-dragged her through the collapsing chamber and into the night air, where the dust diffused into a golden fog. She couldn't even see the forest twenty feet away.

Merritt dropped her to her hands and knees in the mud. She coughed and retched into a fern before finding the strength to stand. Her legs trembled. Or was it the earth itself?

She turned toward the building. Shadows raced in her direction through the haze. She saw the vague outline of the trees above the roofline as they fell, canting sideways and toppling on the plummeting stones. A massive expulsion of dust billowed from the jumbled ruins.

"What's happening?" she screamed.

"There's no time," Colton snapped. "We're too exposed here. We have to find a more defensible position."

"Is everyone accounted for?" Merritt asked.

"I count six," Sorenson said. "Time to move."

"Who's that over there?" Leo asked. He pointed toward where a human shape was sprawled facedown in the mire a few yards away.

"I don't know," Colton said. The skree of a hawk pierced the night from the jungle to their left. It was quickly answered by another on the opposite side of the destroyed ruins. "But we're not sticking around long enough to find out. He can rot for all I care."

"They want us to run," Galen whispered. "Like field mice."

"I'll take the lead. Sorenson, you cover our asses. The rest of you, keep close together and stay right behind me."

"Where are we going?" Merritt asked.

"I can only think of one place where we'll have any chance of defending ourselves."

"Jesus," Merritt whispered.

"Move out," Colton said, and struck off to the west at a jog.

Sam hurried to catch up with him. Another shrill avian cry echoed through the darkness.

She turned toward the sound.

Even through the rain and dust, she could clearly see the undergrowth rustle in the wake of something that crashed through the brush in the same direction they were headed.