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  He shrugged again, a sharper gesture this time.

  She again held him close as they moved ahead, cradling him against her hip while she kept the revolver aimed ahead. The stink intensified with each step. Elspeth’s eyes streamed: whatever – no, whoever – had died here it had been recent judging by the intensity of the rot.

  ‘He’s there, Mom.’ Jacob halted and pointed at the corpse unbidden. Their eyes had adjusted to the blackness of the cavern and were able to pick out some shape and hue against the deeper gloom.

  ‘Don’t look.’

  ‘It’s OK. He just looks asleep,’ said Jacob.

  Despite trying to avoid it, she glanced at the dead man. He lay against the side of the cavern, his chin tucked into his chest, one arm and one knee drawn up. Jacob was right; he looked as if he had fallen asleep and rolled to a comfortable position. In the dimness she couldn’t see his wounds, but she could smell them – he stank similarly to the deer Caleb hunted and took delight in disemboweling.

  ‘We should search him,’ said Jacob.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Anything useful.’

  Elspeth shook her head. There was no possible way she’d lay hands on the corpse.

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘No. Leave him be, Jacob. Come on, if he was dragged down here there must be a way back outside again.’

  Jacob moved and dropped to his haunches alongside the corpse.

  ‘Jacob—’

  ‘I’m looking for a cell phone or a weapon, or …’ He danced his hands over the body, his fingers arched to avoid putting too much pressure on it, and then worked down the bent leg. He emitted a little exclamation, and then dug in the pocket he’d discovered. He pulled something out and held it up to show his mother. When she didn’t immediately respond, he rolled his thumb, and the cigarette lighter sparked to life. The tiny flame was intensely bright to eyes that had grown accustomed to pitch black. Elspeth hissed and shied away, but in the next instant she grabbed at Jacob and hauled him away when he exclaimed in revulsion. She peered over his shoulder. Her son had been fortunate not to kneel in the pile of entrails that had oozed from the dead man’s slit open abdomen. Another almost bloodless hole sat between the man’s shoulder blades.

  She had entertained the notion that the corpse was simply that of somebody that had gotten lost in Booger Hole and had perished, succumbing to thirst or exposure, but all along she knew what the body truly signified: murder. She had no way of knowing whose handiwork this was, but she had good reason to be suspicious of the Moorcocks. If her husband was not responsible for killing this man, then another of his demented family probably was. For years there had been rumors around the commune that Eldon and his sons had made other people disappear, and she now had a firm idea where they’d all gone.

  ‘Hold up that flame,’ she said.

  Jacob sparked the lighter to life again.

  The flame guttered, the tip bending towards the boy’s hand.

  Elspeth looked beyond the flame to where the source of a draft must originate.

  There was no suggestion of an immediate exit from the cavern, but it had struck her that after the man had been killed, her lazy brothers-in-law would have spared as little energy as possible in disposing of his body. There must be an exit somewhere close by, and the presence of a draught told her where to seek it.

  She encouraged Jacob to lead the way, holding the lighter aloft. Soon though, the metal fixings on the plastic tube grew too hot to hold. He hissed in pain, and let the flame go out. ‘Here, give it to me,’ she said.

  She wrapped some cloth torn from her undershirt around the metal, then spun the wheel against the flint. The flame guttered and then held. Again she watched the tip of the flame tilt away from the cave’s exit. It lit the deeper recesses of nooks in the cave walls.

  ‘Look, Mom,’ said Jacob in a hushed voice.

  What she saw she might never be able to erase from her memory. There were more bodies, some of them in a much worse state of decomposition than the first they’d discovered. They were practically skeletal, robed in fragments of rotting clothes. Some of these corpses had to be decades old, dating from shortly after Eldon Moorcock purchased the land. Apparently her in-laws had been murdering their rivals as equally long as they’d been dominating their subjects. One thing she was certain of, they had no qualms about killing those who opposed them, and Elspeth was firmly in that camp now.

  ‘Is that Mikey? Mom, I …’ Jacob’s question faltered.

  Elspeth pulled him to her side, unable to give a comforting hand while holding her revolver and the lighter, but still able to offer her closeness. She held the lighter aloft to light up the alcove Jacob stared at. ‘I’m sorry, Jacob,’ she said, ‘but I think you’re right.’

  ‘But Mikey left to go and live in California with his uncle,’ Jacob croaked.

  Mikey, or Michael Stewart, was an older friend of Jacob who had grown outwardly rebellious as he hit his mid-teenage years. Months ago he had gone missing, and Caleb had announced that the youth had been granted permission to leave the commune. Supposedly Mikey had an uncle who had lined up employment and a place for the youth to live: it was lies concocted to explain the truth behind his disappearance. The boy had been killed, and dumped here in Booger Hole, and the true horror Elspeth shrank away from was if his own parents were complicit in the cover up.

  ‘This is soooo wrong,’ Jacob cried.

  ‘It’s awful,’ Elspeth agreed, ‘but we can’t let it stop us now. We have to get away, so that we can tell somebody what really happened to Mikey and to these other people.’

  She had to drag Jacob away. The boy sobbed, and each deep exhalation accelerated to a point where she feared rage would overtake him. He clenched and unclenched his fists, and several times he changed direction, but she drew him after her before frustration made him charge back to Mikey’s side. ‘Come on, Jacob,’ she coaxed, ‘if you want justice for your friend we have to get out of here and tell the cops.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ a voice said from the darkness ahead, ‘I can’t let you do that, Elspeth.’

  She yelped, and jerked back, bumping Jacob. The boy swore, using coarse words his mother had never heard from his lips before. Under the circumstances she forgave him, because she too used expletives unbecoming of a lady. She backed away, grabbing for Jacob, and in the process losing the flame on the lighter. Her other hand swung back and forth as she aimed the revolver at the darkness ahead. A flashlight beam flashed on, striking her fully in the face. She cried out and cringed at the invasion of light.

  ‘Drop the gun,’ the voice commanded. ‘I’ve a rifle pointed at your brat’s head and will shoot him if you try anything.’

  When first she’d heard the voice she had thought Caleb had found them; this was more horrifying though, as this man would have no qualms about shooting his nephew. Randy was insane.

  The revolver went off in her hand.

  The noise was incredible, almost deafening in the confines of the cave. The muzzle flash would have blinded her too had she not already had her eyelids squeezed tightly. The bullet struck the wall of the cave and ricocheted away. Randolph Moorcock swore in surprise, but proved in the next instant he wasn’t bluffing about being armed. His rifle barked and Elspeth screamed in terror as she felt Jacob collapse to the ground.

  She fired the revolver, deliberately this time.

  Randolph laughed at how close the bullet came and fired back.

  He was deliberate too, ensuring he missed her, but forcing her to hunker down as chips of rock rained from the ceiling.

  ‘Much more of this shooting and we’ll probably bring the mountain down on top of us,’ Randolph called, sounding excited at the prospect of a devastating cave-in.

  Elspeth had lost the lighter. She didn’t require it: she could feel Jacob under her fingers. Thankfully the boy was moving. He felt furnace hot under her touch. ‘Jacob?’ she croaked.

  ‘I’m … I’m OK, Mom.’

  H
e must have dropped to the floor in reflex. She grabbed him and began scuttling to who knew where. She waved the gun behind them, using it as a threat to hold Randolph at bay. Her brother-in-law kept her in the flashlight’s dancing beam, laughing at her pathetic antics.

  She took cover behind a boulder, concealing Jacob as best she could from the gunfire. Randolph moved towards her, the flashlight bobbing with each step. Elspeth aimed at the light, but failed to shoot.

  ‘Get her,’ he said, and it struck her that Randolph wasn’t the only person lurking in the cavern.

  A figure lunged at her from the darkness.

  Elspeth squealed, and the revolver discharged. A man cursed savagely, and she had no idea if she’d wounded him or not. It didn’t matter because other figures rushed her, and a hand grabbed her wrist forcing it towards the ceiling. The revolver discharged again, the bullet thwacking the rock mere feet above. More dust and fragments of stone stuck in her thick red hair. A fist was driven into her midriff. She coughed in pain, but forgot about her discomfort in the next second when Jacob was torn from her grasp. Her son screamed and fought, but he was a skinny boy struggling against grown men. Two more men forced her arms down by her sides, and a third plucked the revolver out of her grasp.

  ‘It’s pointless fighting,’ Randolph cooed from a few feet away from her. ‘I’ve got you, and it always was going to be inevitable. There are only a few ways out of the bunker, and this is the one of them I guessed you’d try for.’

  ‘Randy, please, you have to let me go.’

  ‘Nope. That’s the last thing I ought to do.’ He darted the flashlight beam towards the freshest of the corpses. He waggled the beam so that the corpse shimmered. ‘Can’t have what happened to good ol’ Orson Burdon coming to light, can I?’

  ‘You did that?’

  ‘That would be telling. Now hush. You’ve given running away a good go, twice now, and both times you’ve failed. Third time won’t be the charm, Elspeth.’ Randolph moved in closer, and she could clearly see him in the backwash from his flashlight. He had slung his rifle on its strap over his shoulder. In his hand he held a walkie-talkie radio. He pointed it at her. ‘What do you think’s going to happen to you now, Elspeth?’

  She shook her head. She knew exactly what was coming for her, but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of gloating.

  ‘Y’know, before I came looking for you, I had to go and fetch Bob Richardson to see to my mother’s injuries. That was you who hurt her, right? Bad move, Elspeth. I promised not to kill you, but what do you suppose my pa’s gonna do once I drag your skinny ass back to him? For sure, Caleb isn’t gonna stand in his way.’

  ‘I don’t care what he does to me, just let Jacob go.’

  ‘Jacob’s coming with us. It’s important he bears witness to what happens next.’ Randolph grinned maliciously and again shone the flashlight beam over Orson Burdon’s corpse.

  She couldn’t avoid looking again at the bodies scattered around that horrible place and shuddered in the knowledge that the Booger Hole could possibly end up as her crypt too.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Po snapped the point of his elbow into one man’s face and used the recoil to power his fist into another’s. The first man croaked in agony and buried his mashed nose in his cupped palms. The second man was knocked clean out and collapsed to the tunnel floor. Po ignored the latter and grabbed the former. He swung the injured man around in a tight arc and slammed him against the wall. Blood droplets showered Po’s face as the man expelled a sharp yelp of pain. Po swung another elbow, a sweeping cross this time, and the hard tip clashed with the man’s jaw with concussive force. The man’s knees gave out and he slid to his butt, sleeping as soundly as his friend did.

  Tess was only vaguely aware of her partner’s swift work with the duo, she was too engaged in a fight of her own to pay attention. She must silence only one antagonist, but he was proving more resilient than those Po had taken care of with a few short, sharp jabs of his elbows. She had punched her opponent several times unanswered, but already she could tell that he was rallying and her chance of winning the fight growing precarious. The man’s teeth were clenched in a florid face, his features backlit by a head torch her first punch had knocked awry. Her attack had come as a surprise, throwing him into momentary confusion, but now he had centered his gaze on her and it was filled with derision. Tess hit him again, using her palm to jab at his chin. He knocked her hand aside and grasped her throat in both hands. He drove her backwards into the alcove she’d launched from.

  He throttled her.

  During Po’s incarceration, he’d had plenty of opportunity to employ the close-quarter combat skills he’d learned and gone on to perfect behind bars. Known jokingly as Jailhouse Rock, it was a martial art unique to convicts. He had mastery of the swift and vicious moves designed for battle so up close and personal it could be employed in a telephone booth, a tiny cage or even a shower stall. Tess’s unarmed combat skills were designed for restraint rather than destruction, but from Po she’d learned a thing or two beyond the law enforcement manual that once dictated her responses to violence. She kicked the man between the legs, and when he folded towards her, she clamped her teeth on his ear and gnawed down. Her savagery released his chokehold, causing him to push against her in a frantic attempt at escape. As he wrenched backwards she feared that she’d be left with a mouthful of bloody gristle: the thought was repulsive. Tess let go, but she followed his direction, and hooked a heel behind his knee. She shoved with both hands. Her opponent lost balance, but the tunnel was too narrow for him to fall cleanly. He caromed off the wall, and Tess grabbed his jacket and tugged him sideways. His feet tangled with those of his friends already lying on the ground. He stumbled, fell and went down on a knee in front of Po. Po glimpsed briefly at Tess, registered her difficulty beating her opponent, and hammered him with a blow that felled him.

  ‘Thanks,’ she wheezed, ‘but I had everything under control.’

  ‘It isn’t a competition, Tess. You did your bit, I did mine.’ He looked over the three unconscious men – one of them was stirring, his hands reflexively reaching for his broken nose – but Po wasn’t heartless and wouldn’t hurt the man any further than necessary. To her relief, he had been the one to change his mind and urge Tess to put away her weapon and try taking out this small hunting party less lethally. He bent down to the latest man he’d knocked out, pulled off the head torch, switched off the light and launched it down the tunnel. Po searched them all swiftly. None of the others had flashlights.

  Tess collected Pinky’s lantern and switched it back on.

  ‘Lead the way,’ Po said.

  It was unlikely any of the trio would be in a fit state to trouble them in the next few minutes, but he set himself to protect her back. His old-fashioned manners could be deemed chauvinistic and be mildly abrasive at times, but Tess had no complaint when he was simply following his nature. His was the same protective impulse that had brought them across the country to help Elspeth and Jacob.

  ‘You recognized those guys, didn’t you?’ asked Po.

  ‘Yeah, they’re the three who went to check for us at the fence. They must’ve returned quickly and followed us down into the tunnels.’

  ‘I just checked them over; none of them was carrying a radio or phone. I think we’re still good to go.’

  In other words, their hunters had been unable to report their findings at the fence and had made the decision to return to the commune via the tunnels. They had not expected to stumble across their quarry down in the dark, hence how easily they’d been dispatched. For now Tess and Po’s presence down there was safe, but it would change as soon as the trio awoke and made their way to a populated area of the tunnels. Tess thought of Pinky: hopefully their friend was still safe and had avoided discovery too.

  Ahead, the silvering of the light continued. From a hundred yards away Tess could make out the shape of an intersecting tunnel. This one was artificially lighted, suggesting they were approaching
the rooms and tunnels regularly used by the Moorcocks. Without comment Po slipped past and approached the intersection. He still limped, but otherwise he looked fit and well: the brief fight in the tunnel had raised his heart rate, and the flood of endorphins had helped anaesthetize his pain. He put his back to the wall and took a quick peek around the corner. He waved at Tess to join him.

  She turned off the lantern as she neared and set it aside now it was no longer needed. She leaned close to Po’s side.

  ‘This tunnel goes all the way to the bunker I told you about. See those symbols on the walls, I’ve been counting them down.’ The nearest symbol daubed on the wall contained a number nine juxtaposed with an arrow. ‘I recall seeing a figure nine painted on the wall near that armory I told you about. If I’m not mistaken the same number was painted next to that vault door too.’

  ‘The vault was close to where you said you locked those young guys in the van?’ Tess clarified.

  ‘They’re each very close to the other. Once we’re back in the loadin’ dock we’ll find a way outside.’ Po reassessed his words. ‘Though I won’t be leavin’ till I’m certain Jacob isn’t down here.’

  ‘We’d best get looking for him,’ Tess suggested. ‘Those guys back there aren’t going to stay asleep for much longer. If they wake and raise the alarm …’

  Po nodded at her wisdom. He slipped out into the lit tunnel and began a quick trot towards the loading dock. Tess followed, holding the pistol down by her thigh.

  The tunnel met a room. It was a featureless place and seemed to serve only to connect this with another part of the tunnel. Tess noted the figure ‘9’ symbol was again painted on the wall. The same number featured on the adjoining tunnel wall, and again a directional arrow accompanied it. Po darted down the tunnel, now moving as if with abandon. Tess decided that speed probably trumped stealth now; she jogged to catch up. They approached a bend in the tunnel. Po halted, stepped backwards and Tess ran up against him. He quickly turned and held a finger to her lips. He stared into her eyes to convey the importance of silence. Moving through the next part of the tunnel was what sounded like a group of people. Tess nodded to show she was fully aware, and then raised the pistol to show she was also ready to back him up wherever the next few minutes took them. They moved together towards the corner, and this time Tess ducked under his armpit so that she too could scout their next move. There was nobody in the tunnel, but people were very close by: the sound of their passage was filtering down a short connecting tunnel. Judging by the scuffing of feet and murmur of voices there was a decent crowd amassed just out of sight. Po followed as Tess crept forward.