Among the Living by Tim Lebbon

Author:Tim Lebbon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags:  
Publisher: Titan Books

ELEVEN

Wren paused inside the chasm as his gunshot echoed away. He checked the magazine; nine rounds left. Call it eight, he thought. The last bullet was his, up through the roof of his mouth and into his brain. No way he was going to be like those inhuman creatures. No way.

The Glock 17 was his personal weapon, one that even Emma hadn’t known he was carrying on his ankle. It was for protection, not escalation. That was why he had kept it to himself, even after the old man went mad. Pulling a new weapon when Bethan had taken his, and Goyo was wielding Emma’s gun, would have been crazy. Wren prided himself on not being stupid. He forged his own path, and even though most of the time he didn’t take the lead—that had been Emma’s job, and he was more than happy for her to carry that weight—he remained his own person. He never stepped in any direction he did not like, nor intend.

Like now. Down here in this pit, preparing to move even deeper in pursuit of that shifting, squirming monster he’d seen from the crevasse’s edge, this was still his decision. No one else’s.

But they’re running.

He coughed, shook his head. The stuff he’d breathed in scratched at his throat as he inhaled, scored at his skull when he thought about the others leaving this place. Alile was probably carrying the infection, maybe all of them.

They’re running. See what they might be, what everything might become, the beautiful darkness of that distant shore. A dark sea on one side. A whole world breathing like us on the other, smothered with soft pale trees a hundred and fifty feet high, topped with the pregnant wonders of every possible future. Pale yellow trees, and pink, and bright red too, marching from distant hills down towards these shores, leaving only the beach free of their touch. And that dark sea, also awash with possibilities. Ready to spread. Ready to spore when the moment is right. See what they might become. But only if they run and reach, and nothing is certain, they might not get to where they’re heading, so you should—

“Deeper,” Wren said, and his voice stilled the shadows, hushed those insistent unknown whispers in his head. He willed away the scratching at the edges of his mind. Ignored the itching in his throat.

He was his own man.

But he could tell that the pressure was building, and his time was running out.

He plucked a flashlight from his belt and flicked it on, shining the light around even though it was still daylight up above. He was maybe fifteen feet below ground level now, working his way down the steep, broken and uneven surface of the sinkhole’s sides. Rocks shifted beneath him, the ground still fluid and in motion, and the focused beam of his powerful flashlight went some way to lighting his way. Warm mist hung thick and heavy, but it was drifting on currents from deeper down. These

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