CHAPTER 103 BUCK

103

Buck

BUCK WENT TO GRAB Ellie, but the girl and that Robby kid stopped him, batted his hand away with the force of a 250-pound linebacker protecting his quarterback. Buck had no idea where that strength came from, but he was glad for it, because the boy might have saved his life.

It took less than ten seconds for the icy frost to crawl over Ellie, Evelyn, and Mason, completely cover their bodies. It was like they were flash-frozen, like something out of a movie, but this was no movie; it sure as shit happened right there in front of him. All three were screaming, then they were not. The room got so quiet Buck nearly choked on it.

"They're not dead," Robby said with an adult-like understanding. "Their pupils are moving. I think they're still breathing, and their hearts are pumping, but really slow."

He was right up on his sister, way too close, trying to get a better look at her neck. Like he could see her pulse if he looked hard enough. Maybe he could. The kid spooked him a little, but nowhere near as bad as what happened next.

Ellie and the two kids vanished.

There was no flash of light. No accompanying noise. The three of them were there, frozen to that godawful-looking fallen tree, and then they weren't.

No, that wasn't exactly right. They didn't just vanish; they fell. If the adrenaline hadn't been coursing through Buck's veins, he might have missed it, but adrenaline had a way of slowing things down just enough so you see more than you might want to, and Buck saw the three of them drop straight down into the hole in the ground.

And with that, Buck remembered Emily.

Remembered how the ground had swallowed her as she stood beside that tree all those years earlier. He didn't need to go outside and look for landmarks to know it was the same tree; he was certain of that the moment they came up on the house.

When Emily disappeared, there had been no hole in the ground; there was nothing.

As if to answer this, another burst of frigid air bellowed out from the dark hole and filled the room.

"They're down there," Robby said not as a question, but as a statement. As if he already knew. And Buck knew the boy was right.

Mason had dropped his baseball bat, and Buck retrieved it. He touched the rim of the hole with the tip of the bat, half expecting it to flash-freeze, but it did not.

"Touch the tree," Robby told him. "But be ready to pull away …"

Buck understood what would happen just like the boy did, but he tried it anyway, because on some level he wanted to be sure. The moment the bat touched the tree, icy frost raced down the length of it. Buck managed to let go as it found his fingertips. He shoved his index finger in his mouth and kept it there for a second. When he took it out, the tip was black.

"Frostbite," Robby told him.

Fucking frostbite , Buck thought.

"We need to go down there."

This came from Riley, who was still standing off to the side, following all of this with the beam of the flashlight.

Buck was already shaking his head. " I need to go down there. Both of you are gonna stay put right here."

"She's right," Robby said. "We all need to go. Don't ask me how I know that. I just do, and you gotta believe me." He looked over at Riley, at her arms. "Her in particular … it wants her more than anything."

It?

Buck didn't want to think of whatever this was as some kind of it . On some level, he was still trying to sell himself on the idea that none of this was even happening; he desperately wanted it all to just be some drunken stupor gone horribly wrong.

"Those maps you showed us," Robby went on. "This is the center. It's all coming from right here. More accurately, from right down there, below us. It's radiating out. Like when you throw a rock in the middle of a lake. It's starting down there and spreading. I think … I think it's been contained, until today, until this tree fell. The tree made a hole, this hole, and now it's getting out. This black stuff isn't mold. It's something else. Something ugly. Bad."

All of that sounded like a very solid reason not to let the kids go anywhere near that hole, force them to stay put, but Buck knew that was a loser's game; the second he went down there, they'd be right behind him. It was what the boy said next that convinced him.

"It took your Emily the same way it just took my sister, Mason, and the sheriff. You know it did. And if that's true, she's still down there somewhere, and I'd be willing to bet she's still alive. Just like them."

Riley moved to the edge of the hole and played the beam of the flashlight over the edge. It made as little sense as everything else did. While the fallen tree may have started it, somehow punched a hole not only through the floor but the granite below, it had only been a wedge. The branch was twice as thick as Buck's thigh, but the hole was bigger, had grown to nearly three feet across. He couldn't be sure, but he was fairly certain it had grown just in the few minutes they had been here, was still growing. The ragged edge of sharp rock going down the insides made it look like a mouth filled with rows of teeth. The flashlight tried to illuminate the length of it but failed miserably; he could only see down about seven or eight feet before the beam petered out.

Riley scratched at her arm again, and when she lifted her sleeve, Ellie and Evelyn's names had been added to the others.

Buck swallowed and repositioned his shotgun across his back in its sling, then took the flashlight from her.

If they were going to do this, they needed to do it now, because things were growing worse. He could feel it.

He clipped the flashlight to his belt so it was hanging down, then lowered himself into the hole. "There's plenty to hang on to; just be mindful of the tree branch. Don't touch it. Take your time. If you change your mind, you get scared, there's no shame in coming right back up."

As he said this, he studied both their faces and realized the fear rising in his gut was enough for all of them. He started down before some semblance of good sense got him to change his mind.