Ghostlands

FORTY-TWO

The zone of Christina’s aura that enveloped them was so bright, with its shifting pastels, its mesmerizing, kaleidoscopic play of patterns, that for a good long time they couldn’t see what, if anything, lay beyond it.

Cal still held her, or rather they held each other. With infinite tenderness he said to her, “We need to see outside, Tin-Christina.” Cal had told them all of her requested change of name, and he was working hard to get used to it.

Christina nodded, and inclined her head. The aura’s radiance shifted from opacity to a hazy transparency. Now they could see that beyond it stretched an open, bare area, which faded off to dim insubstantiality.

It seemed that Sanrio had withdrawn, at least for now, and taken with him any attempt to create the illusion of a coherent environment.

“Hey, it’s an improvement,” Colleen said. “At least, nothing’s trying to kill us.” Her expression suddenly darkened, and Cal knew that she, like all of them, was thinking of Goldie.

“We have to find a way out of here,” Cal observed. “Before he has time to remarshal his forces.”

“I agree, Calvin,” said Doc. “But I don’t recall seeing any exit signs recently.”

“How about you, Pathfinder?” Colleen asked Inigo. “You got any helpful hints about now?”

“His name’s Inigo,” Christina said, sharpness in her voice.

“Right, right,” Colleen replied, abashed. “Sorry.”

“There’s this tunnel…” Inigo suggested tentatively. “But it’s not a great bet.”

“Show us,” said Cal.

Inigo led them down a sharp incline that led deeper and deeper, until they could all feel the suffocating weight of the earth, the countless tons of stone above them.

“I know this may sound funny, all things considered,” Howie rasped, “but I’ve always been majorly claustrophobic….”

“I’ve heard better,” said Colleen. She knew from the cramped, bent-over way the passage was forcing her to walk that her back would be killing her come nighttime.

If they survived till then…

Mama Diamond was running her fingers along the rock face as she went, tracing the glistening seams that caught Tina’s glow and reflected it back; the gleaming bits of red and blue and gold whose nature Colleen could only guess at, although she felt sure Mama Diamond was intimately acquainted with them all.

Mama Diamond caught Colleen watching her. “You’re looking at the kitchen where all those gemstones were baked, deep in the heart of the earth…. Kitchen goes on and on, everywhere in the world.”

Listening in, Enid nodded. “Guess everythin’ connects up one way or another…and it ain’t always bad.”

“Not even usually, in my experience,” Mama Diamond added.

“I’d welcome hearing more of that experience,” Shango spoke up. “Sometime when we get a breather.”

Mama Diamond smiled. “You can consider that a promise, Mr. Shango.”

The passage grew more and more narrow, until even Inigo was forced to duck his head.

“We’re gonna have to crawl from here,” he said, apologetically. “And be real quiet…”

They crawled through the darkness, Inigo in the lead, Cal, Colleen and Doc following, with Christina floating behind, Shango, Howie, Enid and Mama Diamond bringing up the rear. Christina’s nimbus cast a glow ahead of them into the void.

It’s like being born, Colleen thought, inching through the tight passage, her bare hands scraping on the rough, cold stone. But then, that had been largely true of this whole experience, from when she had first met Cal by the bank of recalcitrant elevators she was repairing in the lobby of the Stark Building, back before the Change, when even then he had risen to her defense against some asshole mouthing off to her.

And what had she-ever the lady of grace and etiquette-said to this knight in shining armor, who was merely trying to aid her?

Hey, hotshot, I need a personal savior, I’ll ask for one, okay?

Perfect.

But then, he’d gone and done it anyway.

So she’d gotten to see the U.S., made real friends for the first time in her friggin’ unfunny joke of a life, been more or less courted by two remarkably decent men and ultimately chosen one of them.

And not three-quarters of an hour ago, she’d gotten to see that man’s late lamented wife and daughter-or a reasonable facsimile thereof-and wonder of wonders, the miracle she hadn’t even dared to ask in her secret heart had happened….

He’d chosen her.

In all this melee, she and Viktor hadn’t even had a chance to talk about it yet.

She felt clammy wet, and her chest ached whenever she thought of Goldman, goddamn his brave, impetuous hide.

Why’d he have to go and pull a crazy stunt like that?

She’d never even told him that underneath the vast sea of irritability he continually seemed to rouse in her, she really liked him.

Too late now, Tough Lady…

She remembered a line from a book she’d read, or maybe she’d heard it as a question on Jeopardy-

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….

Now wasn’t that the truth?

Ahead of them, Inigo raised a warning hand. They all stopped. Cal motioned for Christina to hang back along the passageway. She retreated, her glow about them diminishing as she withdrew.

Colleen could see Cal and Inigo had reached a wider section of the passage that seemed to terminate in an overlook. She shimmied forward, the others-save Christina-joining them.

Colleen peered at the open area below and, from the feel of the air breezing up at them, she could sense that it was immense. At first, she couldn’t make anything out, but in a few moments her eyes adjusted to the gloom. She and the others lay on their bellies staring at a huge tunnel, steel tracks set out along the length of it.

Sitting on the tracks, black as a starless, abandoned sky-but somehow also throwing off a dim glow that allowed her to see along the tunnel-was a long train with featureless cars and an ominous, vast locomotive, huffing steam like a dragon waiting.

And on either side of it, scurrying about and crawling over each other, shouting and shoving and hissing in all their foul glory, were thousands and thousands of grunters, like a Shriners convention of gargoyles.

It’s not a great bet, Inigo had said.

You got that right, Blue Boy.

Making not the slightest noise (Enid holding tight to the bells worked into his dreadlocks, to make sure even they would not betray their presence), the eight of them hurriedly edged back the way they came.

“Now what?” Shango asked once they’d gotten clear of the passage.

“Maybe it’s time we got clear on exactly where we are,” Cal offered. “I mean, past all the illusions and false starts. Something more specific than that we’re in South Dakota.” He turned to look questioningly at Inigo.

“We’re…kinda inside a mountain,” Inigo responded hesitantly.

“Great,” said Colleen.

“Beyond that tunnel,” Cal asked, “what are the ways out?”

“Um, well, a lot of them are knocked out,” the boy answered, “since the, y’know, thing or Storm or whatever. The only way I ever got out was that tunnel. But I’ve heard there’s another place, only I couldn’t tell you where exactly…. It’s called the Hall of Records.”

“What’s it look like?” said Cal.

Inigo shrugged. “It’s sorta long and squarish…and it’s got these things in the walls with words on them, like you make plates out of.”

Colleen was dumbstruck. “I’ve seen it.”

“Honey,” Mama Diamond said, smiling, “you surely do get around.”

We have been buried alive, Doc Lysenko thought as they hurried along the stone passageway, and now at last we are clawing our way to the surface.

In the far distance, he could see a bright rectangle of light and knew it for what it was-the doorway out to the open air.

In the glow cast from Christina’s nimbus, he glanced over at Colleen and gave her the faintest smile. She returned it, uneasily.

Almost there…

Abruptly, the walls and ceiling and floor beneath their feet trembled and rocked, and he could hear a rumbling, an enraged roar that grew quickly and filled every corner of his mind.

NO!

It was Sanrio, he had detected them. Doc could see his own look of fear and alarm mirrored on the faces of the others.

Cal picked up his pace, broke into a full-out run, motioning for the others to follow him. But as they sped toward the light at the end of the tunnel, Doc could see an illumination rising up from behind them, reflected on the backs and shoulders of the others.

He looked back and saw a roiling, riotous mass of shifting color filling the chamber and rushing at them, felt its obscene heat speeding toward them.

Fire, fire made up of flares.

“Tina! Enid!” Cal shouted, not slowing.

Christina concentrated, and her aura intensified, spread out to enclose them. Enid grabbed up his guitar from around his back and began playing for all he was worth, incredible, gorgeous riffs of power.

The hungering wall of flame rebounded as if striking a barrier, then came on again, slower but not stopped. It was clear to Doc that, fast as they might run, they could not possibly reach the doorway before the fire engulfed them.

The reactor would have them….

Silently, he said a prayer as he felt the ferocious heat pursuing him, his ears full of the echoing percussion of their footfalls, the triumphant roar of the flame, the wild beauty of Enid’s guitar.

And then, something else…

Faint, at first, barely perceived, but then louder, more assured, weaving around Enid’s magnificent, fierce chords.

An accompaniment.

Low and throaty, and every bit as intricate and skilled. The two formed elaborate harmonies and counterpoint, danced and built upon each other, driving the flame back.

He could feel its hellish warmth retreating. He dared to glance behind him, saw the churning wall of rainbow fire folding back.

And impossibly, emerging out of it and walking toward them, a man…

Playing a saxophone.

They had reached the portal now and plunged through, into daylight and fresh air. Doc saw that they stood on a broad landing set high in the rock face, a twisted stairway descending from it.

They were all out on the landing now, the sax man included, a cool wind blowing their hair. From within the corridor, the flame still swirled and pursued them.

The sax man stopped his playing. “Close that door, sweet girl,” he said to Christina.

She glanced up at a boulder above the doorway, and with her mind brought it down. It landed with a resounding impact, squarely sealing the door.

The old bluesman smiled then, turned white, cataract eyes toward Enid Blindman. “Am I glad to see you, son.” His voice shook, and held such a depth of emotion that Doc realized there was something profound and unspoken, a mystery there.

As if remembering himself, Papa Sky addressed the others, adding, “Mighty glad to see the rest of you, too.”

Which was a figure of speech, of course, because of all of them, he alone could not see where they were.

On reflection, Doc couldn’t say whether that was a blessing or a curse.

But regardless, the old man could certainly hear it.

Above them, at the summit, a geyser of incalculable power shot up from the heart of the mountain through an opening that had undoubtedly been blasted out of the rock itself months ago, at the exact moment of the dark miracle called the Change, the Storm, the Megillah….

That miracle was clearly continuing. The dazzling geyser of energy pierced up into the sky, into twisting, undulating black clouds that rippled out to the horizon in all directions. A reverse whirlpool, a centrifuge throwing off power to the four corners of the world.

And it was clear, too, that the first eruption of this force must have been horrendous, for the rock face all about them had melted and reformed, into appalling, grotesque new shapes.

Even so, they could all still recognize the summit nearest them for what it had once been, and at last they knew exactly where they were.

“My God,” murmured Larry Shango, and it occurred to Doc that he had never heard the man so shaken.

Once, the massive portraits had been distinct and recognizable, shaped lovingly with jackhammers and dynamite, each grandly resplendent in their various accoutrements of powdered wig, beard, pince-nez….

But since then, the four gigantic stone heads had melted, oozed together, lost all definition as individuals, and resolidified into one loathsome visage that was a tumble of gaping mouths and horror-filled eyes.

“Mount Mushmore, Goldie would have said,” Colleen remarked, and there was loss and pain in her voice.

Helping the old blind man along, they made their way down the stairs and onto the rubble field, descending to the sacred Black Hills beyond.