The Ruins - Страница 44

"Mathias and I were trying to dig a hole earlier, using a rock and a tent stake-for a latrine, and to distill our urine. Maybe they don't want us to be able to do that."

Amy was silent. There was so much to contest in this that she felt something like panic in the face of it, a buzzing sensation rising in her head. She didn't know where to begin. "You're saying they can see? They could see you digging?"

Jeff shrugged. "They have to have some way of sensing things. How else would they be able to reach out and take Pablo's feet like that?"

Pheromones, Amywas thinking. Reflexes. She didn't want the vine to be able to see, was horrified by the prospect of this, wanted its actions to be automatic, preconscious. "And it can communicate?" she said.

Jeff stopped with the bottle, capped it; the clothes were thoroughly saturated now. "What do you mean?"

"They saw you digging up there, and then they told the ones down here to hide the shovel." She wanted to laugh, the idea seemed so absurd. But something was keeping her from laughing, that buzzing in her head.

"I guess," Jeff said.

"And they think? "

"Definitely."

"But-"

"They dragged down my sign. How could they have known to do that without-"

"They're plants, Jeff. Plants don't see. They don't communicate. They don't think. They-"

"Was there a shovel there last night?" He gestured toward the shaft's far wall.

"I think so. I-"

"Then where is it now?"

Amy was silent. She couldn't answer this.

"If something moved it," Jeff said, "don't you think it makes sense to assume it was the vine?"

Before she could respond, the chirping resumed. It was coming from her left, down the open shaft. Jeff fumbled quickly with the box of matches, plucked one out, struck it into flame, held it to the knot of clothing. The alcohol seemed to grab at the match, sucking its light into itself with a fluttering sound, a cloud of pale blue fire materializing around the torch. Jeff lifted it up, held it before them; it gave off a weak, tenuous glow, which seemed constantly on the verge of going out. Amy could tell it wouldn't last long.

"Quick," he said, waving her toward the open shaft.

The chirping continued-it was up to three rings now-and the two of them rushed forward, hurrying to find it before it fell silent again. Five rapid strides and they were into the shaft, a steady stream of cold air pushing against them, making the torch in Jeff's hand shudder weakly. Amy felt a moment's terror, leaving that small square of open sky behind, the ceiling dropping low enough for Jeff to have to crouch as he moved forward. The darkness seemed to press in on them, to constrict somehow with each step they took, as if the walls and ceiling of the shaft were shifting inward. The vine, oddly, in such a lightless place, appeared to be growing in great profusion here, covering every available surface. They were wading through it, knee-deep, and it was hanging toward them from above, too, brushing against Amy's face; if she hadn't been so desperate to find the phone, she would've immediately turned and fled.

There came a fourth chirp, still in front of them, drawing them more deeply into the shaft. Amy could sense a wall somewhere ahead-even in the darkness, even without being able to glimpse it yet-somehow she knew that the shaft came to an end in another thirty feet or so. The chirping had an echo to it, but it still seemed clear to her that the phone was by this far wall, lying on the floor, buried beneath the vines. They'd need to get on their hands and knees to search for it. She was nearly running now, her eagerness to find the phone before it stopped ringing combining with her terror of this place, both of them working together to push her onward.

Jeff was moving more cautiously, hanging back. She was leaving him and his torch behind her, the vine brushing against her body, but softly, caressingly, seeming almost to part to allow her passage.

"Wait," Jeff said, and then he stopped altogether, holding the flickering torch out before him, trying to see more clearly.

Amy ignored him; all she wanted was to get there, to find it, to leave. She could see the wall now, or something like it: a shadow materializing in front of her, a blockage.

"Amy," Jeff said, louder now, his voice echoing back at her from the approaching wall. She hesitated, slowing, half-turning, and it came to her suddenly that the vine was moving, that this was the sense of constriction she was feeling; it wasn't simply the darkness deepening, the shaft narrowing. No, it was the flowers. Hanging from the ceiling, the walls, rising toward her from the floor, the flowers on the vine were moving, opening and closing like so many tiny mouths. Realizing this, she nearly stopped altogether. But then the phone chirped a fifth time, drawing her on; she knew there wouldn't be many more rings. And it was close now, too-right against the wall, she guessed. All she had to do was drop onto her-

"Amy!" Jeff yelled, startling her. He was moving again, hurrying toward her, the torch held up before him. "Don't-"

"It's right here," she said. She took another step. It was silly, but she wanted to be the one to find it. "It's-"

"Stop!" he shouted. And then, before she could respond, he was right beside her, grabbing her arm, jerking her back a step, pulling her close to him. She sensed his face beside her own, felt its warmth, heard him whisper, "There's no phone."

"What?" she asked, confused. A sixth chirp sounded right then, seeming to emerge from the vines directly in front of them. Amy tried to pull free. "It's-"

Jeff yanked her back, his grip tight, hurting her. He bent, whispered again, right into her ear. "It's the vine," he said. "The flowers. They're making the noise."

She shook her head, not believing, not wanting to believe. "No. It's right-"

Jeff leaned forward with the torch, shoving it down toward the floor of the shaft, into the mass of vines a few feet in front of them. The vines flinched away from the fire, parting as the torch approached, creating an opening in their midst. They moved so quickly, they seemed to hiss. Jeff crouched, pushing the flames downward into what ought to have been the floor but was open darkness instead, the draft increasing suddenly, stirring Amy's hair, disorienting her. Jeff was waving the torch back and forth now, widening the hole he'd created, and it took Amy several seconds to realize what she was seeing, what this darkness was, why there was no floor here. It was the mouth of another shaft, dropping straight down; the vines had been growing across it, hiding it from sight. A trap, she realized. They'd been luring her and Jeff forward, hoping they'd step into open air here, fall into the darkness.

There was a sharp whistling sound, like a whip might make, and one of the vines lashed out, wrapped itself around the aluminum handle of Jeff's torch, yanked it from his grip. Amy watched it fall, its light fluttering, almost failing, but still burning even as it hit bottom, thirty feet beneath them. She had a glimpse of white-bones, she thought-and what might've been a skull staring up at her. The shovel was there, too, and more of the vine, a writhing, snakelike mass of it, recoiling from the little knot of fire burning in its midst. Then the flames flickered, dimmed, went out.

It was dark after this, terribly dark, darker than Amy would've thought possible. For a moment, all she could hear was Jeff's breathing beside her, and the faint thump of her own heartbeat in her ears, but then that whistling sound came again, louder this time, denser, and she knew even before they began to grab at her that it was the vines she was hearing. They seemed to come from every direction at once, from the walls and the floor and the ceiling, smacking against her body, wrapping themselves around her arms and legs-even her neck-pulling her toward the open shaft.

Amy screamed, scrambling backward, tearing at them with her hands, yanking free one limb, only to feel another immediately become ensnared. The vine wasn't strong enough to overpower her in this manner-it tore too easily, its sap bleeding across her skin, burning her-but it kept coming, more and more of it. She spun and kicked and continued to scream, panicking now, losing her sense of direction, until finally, in the darkness, she could no longer tell which way led to safety, which to the shaft's open mouth.

"Jeff?" she called, and then she felt his hand grasping her, pulling her, and she surrendered, following him, the vines thrashing at both of them, grabbing and tearing and burning.

Jeff shouted something, but she couldn't understand it. He was dragging her backward, the two of them stumbling, falling over each other, onto their hands and knees amid the vines, which caught at them, trying to hold them down, and then they were up again, and there was a faint hint of light in front of them, and they were sprinting for it, Jeff pulling Amy by her arm, the vines falling away behind them, going still again, motionless, silent.

Amy saw the sling hanging from its rope. And then, up above, that little window of sky. When she craned backward, peering toward it, she could see Eric and Mathias, the shadowed outline of their two heads, staring down at her.

"Jeff?" Mathias called.

Jeff didn't bother answering. He was looking back toward the open shaft behind them. It was just darkness there now, with that steady push of cold air, but he seemed reluctant to take his eyes from it. "Get in the sling," he said to her.

Amy could hear how short of breath he was. She was, too, and she stood beside him for a long moment, not moving, struggling to regain herself.