Shadowland (69 page)

 
   'More,' Rose said. 'Pretty soon we get out.'

 
   
Thank God,
Tom said silently: the constant darkness had begun to prey on him.

 
   A face sewn together like Thorn's, a jigsaw of flesh and scars, floated up through the air and winked.

 
   'Something wrong?' Del asked.

 
   'Tired.'

 
   'I felt you jump.'

 
   'You're imagining things.'

 
   'Maybe
you
are,' Del said slyly.

 
   'Remember when you said you heard something?' Rose asked.

 
   'Sure.'

 
   'Well, now I think I do. Stop talking and listen.'

 
   That surge of fear again: unavoidable. The flashlight clicked off, and for a moment its afterimage burned in Tom's eyes.

 
   'I don't . . . ' Del began. He stopped: he, and Tom beside him, had heard it too — a complicated, rushing, pounding noise.

 
   'Oh, God,' Del breathed. 'They're
after
us.'

 
   'Hurry, hurry, hurry,' Rose pleaded. The light went on, blindingly bright, and searched past them. The long tunnel snaked down and away, empty behind them as far as they could see. 'Please.'

 
   Carrying the light, Rose started to run. Tom heard the pack behind them — it could have been two men, or four, or five, and they sounded a good way off — and then he too ran after Del and Rose. He heard Del sobbing in panic, making a trapped witless noise in his chest and throat. The flashlight bobbed crazily ahead.

 
   'They knew where to look,' he shouted.

 
   'Just run!' Rose shouted back.

 
   He ran. His shoulders knocked painfully against a wooden support. He almost fell, pain shooting all the way down his arm; scraped his hand against a rock protruding from the wall and righted himself.

 
   As soon as he got back into his stride he ran straight into Del. Del was still making a sound of utter panic.

 
   'Get up and run,' Tom said. 'Here — here's my hand.' Del caught at him and pulled himself up. Rose was twenty feet away, jerking the flashlight impatiently, shining it in their eyes.

 
   Del sprinted away like a rabbit.

 
   
'Gotcha!'
a man yelled from far back in the tunnel.

 
   Dogs and badgers; the bloody greasy pit. Had Collins known even then that they would end like this? Tom pushed himself forward.

 
   
'Gotcha!'

 
   'The stairs!' Del screamed. 'I found the stairs!'

 
   A huge bubble of relief broke in Tom's chest. They could still escape; there was still a chance. He pounded on, panting harshly. Over all the other noises he could hear Del scrambling up the steps to the outside.

 
   'Tom.' Rose touched his arm and stopped him.

 
   'We can make it,' he panted. 'They're far enough back — we can do it.'

 
   'I love you,' she said. 'Remember that.' Her arms caught his chest and her mouth covered his. Sudden light flooded into the tunnel.

 
   
'Rose,'
he pleaded, and stepped toward the light, half-carrying her. Her face was wild. He twisted her around to see the steps, the open door.

 
   Something wrong. Some detail . . . His heart boomed.

 
   A huge roulette wheel, so dusty that red and black were

 
   both gray, tilted against the side of the steps. Del's legs

 
   abruptly soared up and out of the opening as he was

 
   grabbed from above.

 
   In the next instant, Del screamed.

 
   'What. . . ?' He still could not believe what was happening. Del screamed again. 'Rose. . . ?' She was out of his arms and walking toward the broad concrete stairs. 'You'd better come,' she said. 'It has to be like this.'

 
   He was numb; he watched her mount the first of the steps and turn to face him. Straight in her green dress and high heels, walking away from him; her job done.

 
   
Don't hate me.

 
   'You brought us back,' he said. His lips and fingers had lost all feeling. 'What are you?'

 
   'It has to be like this, Tom,' Rose said. 'I can't say anymore now.'

 
   Del's screams had broken down into ragged animallike groans. Tom turned his head to look back down the tunnel. Root and Thorn, not running, came dimly into sight. They paused at the very edge of the penumbra of brightness from the open trapdoor, waited for him to act. He looked back at Rose, who also waited, her face expressionless. Thorn and Root were a wall of crossed arms and spread legs. Rose mounted another step, and he went toward her.

 
   Coleman Collins gaily sang, 'Come out, come out, wherever you are,' and before Tom got to the steps, a sudden fearful clarity visited him and he thought to tug his shirt out of his trousers, hiding the gun.

 
   As soon as he reached the steps, he looked up and recognized the ending of the tunnel: it was the forbidden room. Then he knew how the 'Brothers Grimm' had come and gone.

 
   'So the birds have come home once again,' Collins said.

 
7

 
Tom came up into the crowded room. Rose was standing next to Coleman Collins, and the magician was gazing at him with a gleeful, deranged impishness, gently massaging his upper lip with an index finger. The other four Wandering Boys stood off to one side, dogs on the leash. 'Dear me, what a face,' Collins said. 'Can't have that sort of thing, not for our stirring finish — not for the farewell performance. Tears, perhaps, but never scowls.'

 
   Just behind Collins, Mr. Peet was gripping Del by the bicep, squeezing hard enough to hurt. Del's face was gray and rubbery with shock. Mr. Peet, dressed in the old-fashioned clothes from the train, grinned maliciously and shook Del — jerked him like a doll.

 
   'Why does it have to be like this, Rose?' Tom asked. She looked back at him as from a great distance. Collins smiled, stopped caressing his lip, and took the girl's hand.

 
   
'Why does it have to be like this?'

 
   Del began to weep from terror.

 
   'I'll answer, if you don't mind,' Collins said. He was still smiling, 'It has to be like this because you are unfit to be my successor. As you have just proven. I am afraid that the world will just have to wait for another gifted child to appear — there's no hope left for you, Tom. You have just been sent back to the ranks. Spectator — participant. Good, here are the others.'

 
   First Root, then Thorn, emerged from the trapdoor. Thorn was breathing hard: the run had tired him. Their shoulders nearly filled the opening.

 
   'I could have been your salvation,' Collins mused. 'And how I tried. But even the best potter cannot work with inferior clay.' He shrugged, but his eyes were still dancing. 'Now, let us check our scheduled.' He raised both his hand and Rose's and looked at his watch. 'We have several hours before the final act.' He bent down and brushed Rose's hand with his lips. When he gently let go of Rose's hand he turned to the lounging men. 'Thorn, Pease, and Snail. You'll bring this boy along to the big theater. Rose, darling, I want you to wait in my bedroom. You others, take my nephew outside and play with him for a couple of hours. If he whimpers, punish him. He is of no use anymore.'

 
   She was his girlfriend, Tom thought. His mistress. Betrayal upon betrayal sank into him like lead. Two of the trolls roughly grabbed his arms. He looked into Rose's eyes.

 
   
Don't hate me.

 
   'Get along, Rose,' the magician said. But she hung by his side for a moment, answering Tom's gaze.
Don't hate me for what I had to do.
'I said go.' Rose turned and walked away. Collins' mad eyes snagged and held him.

 
   'Do you understand?' the magician said. 'I had to see if you'd really try to leave. You don't deserve your talent — but that is academic now, for you won't have it much longer. When it came down to it, you chose your wings.'

 
   'You killed all those people,' Tom said. 'You killed Nick. And Philly's wife. All those people from the summer cabin.'

 
   'And Nick's wife, for that matter,' Collins said.

 
   'You killed Del's parents too,' Tom said. 'For your share of their money.' He saw Del reel back, be brought sharply upright by Mr. Peet.

 
   'I thought I'd get Del's share too, you know.' Collins smiled. 'At one time I thought he might be my successor. It would have been better if he had been. I could control my nephew. But there you were, shining away like the biggest diamond in the golden west.'

 
   As Del began to wail, Tom again caught the resemblance to Laker Broome. Collins was smiling, pretending calm, but his nerves were on fire — he was burning with anger and crazy glee. 'Stay behind, Mr. Peet. You others, take that squalling boy outside. I don't care what you do with him.'

 
   Root, Seed, and Rock moved toward Del. Seed was grinning like a bear. He clamped his paw on Del's elbow and tore him away from Mr. Peet. 'You needn't worry about bringing him back,' Collins said. Seed began hauling Del toward the door, Root and Pease crowding after. 'Mr. Peet, I want you to open the wall between the two theaters. We'll want all the space we can get.'

 
   Mr. Peet nodded and followed the others through the door.

 
   Now only the three trolls — Thorn, Pease, and Snail — the magician and the boy were left in the room. The trolls too wore the four-button suits and Norfolk jackets from the train, and looked balloonlike, stuffed into the hot tight clothes. Thorn's sewn-together face was dripping. The three moved in closer to Tom.

 
   'What are they going to do to Del?'