Bad Glass

She would have been able to keep Mac in check, I told myself. She would have gotten to the bottom of this.

Sabine lifted my video camera to her eye and started filming, focusing on Mac as he hovered over the pile of abandoned clothing. She’d grabbed the camera as we were heading out the front door; I wasn’t sure why. Did she consider this part of some elaborate art project? Or had she become infected with my compulsion, my need to document and probe the fraying edges of reality?

“She must be freezing,” Sabine said, noting the obvious. “She’s naked. In the snow.”

Mac let out a strangled sob. It was the sound of sudden dawning horror, as if the thought hadn’t yet occurred to him. He let Amanda’s jeans tumble from his fingers, then abruptly bolted toward the mouth of the tunnel.

“Fuck,” I muttered, and started after him. I gestured for Sabine to follow. “C’mon. Before he gets away.”

Mac didn’t even hesitate when he reached the dark hole, plunging headlong across its threshold. We followed twenty feet back.

This time, I came prepared. I paused at the mouth of the tunnel and pulled my flashlight from my pocket. The beam illuminated a wide swath of muddy earth. Here at the entrance, the floor had been worked into a narrow trough, and I could see the imprint of fist-size paws all along its perimeter. The enclosed space reeked of wet, musty fur, a savage primal musk.

Before the thought of those giant sharp-toothed wolves could root me to the spot, I ducked and started forward. Sabine followed at my heels. I could hear her boots squelching in the mud behind me.

“Mac!” I called. My voice was shaky. I wanted to reach Mac as fast as possible, but that desire couldn’t override my fears. There were horrible things living in these tunnels—I knew that—and I could imagine countless eyes popping open at the sound of my voice. Amanda’s oddly jointed wolves. Floyd’s apparition. Other things—much, much worse.

“Mac!” I called again. My voice didn’t echo in the dark.

After a couple of seconds, the walls disappeared on both sides, and I pulled to an abrupt stop. Sabine collided with my back and let out a loud curse as the camcorder made hard contact with her face: “Motherfucker!”

“Shhhhhh,” I whispered, then swung the flashlight left and right.

The tunnel opened up into three different passageways here, and all three looked exactly the same; they were the same size, had the same rough walls, and displayed the same level of use on their muddy floors. Which one leads to Devon’s house? I wondered idly. I glanced around, but couldn’t see a single wire embedded in the walls.

“What the fuck is this?” Sabine asked, a note of awe in her voice. “Out there, I thought it was just a cave, but … fuck!”

“Shhhhhh,” I prompted again, cocking my ear toward each of the tunnels in turn. I thought I heard a scraping sound—a distant sandpaper scratch—down the middle passageway. I shone my light forward and moved ahead.

Mac was running, I thought. He was frantic. There’s no way we’ll catch him.

I was just about to slow down, to reassess the situation, when Mac’s bright clothing resolved in the darkness ahead.

Here the tunnel ended in a wall of dirt, a frozen cascade blocking the entire passageway. Mac was on his knees, digging like a dog; his hands were scrabbling at the cave-in, pulling fistfuls of dirt into the tunnel behind him. He had his ear pressed into the mud, and his eyes were closed.

“Do you hear her?” he asked, his voice a tiny whisper. “Do you hear her singing?”

Sabine and I both fell silent. I held my breath and listened for Amanda’s voice.

There was nothing. The only sound I heard was the sound of Mac’s hands moving in the dirt.

After a tense handful of seconds, Mac jumped to his feet and headed back into the darkness, pushing us out of the way. “There were branches,” he said, his voice filled with terrified urgency, “farther up the tunnel. I’ve got to get around. She needs me!” Then he sprinted back the way we had come.

Sabine and I exchanged a worried look, then followed him into the darkness. He quickly escaped the reach of my flashlight beam. By the time we made it back to the junction, there was no way to figure out which direction he’d gone. On a whim, I chose the right-hand passageway, pulling Sabine along behind me.

This tunnel ended about fifteen feet in. The first time my flashlight beam swept across the cave-in, I thought I saw Mac standing there, his hands pressed up against the dirt. But it was just a momentary illusion. I blinked, and there was nothing there, nothing but dirt and empty space. Sabine and I turned and retraced our steps back to the other tunnel. The left-hand tunnel went about thirty feet in before it, too, ended in a cave-in. Mac wasn’t there, either.