The Madman - Страница 116

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"Go ahead," Little Black said. "As soon as help comes, we'll follow after you."

Francis did not think that either man had actually taken note of the weapon in Peter's hand. He took a deep breath, tried to clear his heart and his thoughts of everything other than finding the Angel, and with a hesitant stride, started down the stairs.

It seemed to him that the tendrils of heat and darkness tried to envelop him with each step. It was impossible to move as quietly as he wished, uncertainty seemed to encourage noise, so that every time he placed his foot down on the ground he thought it made some deep, booming sound, when in truth the opposite was the case, his footsteps were muffled. Peter was directly behind him, pushing him slightly, as if speed was an issue. Perhaps it is, Francis thought. Perhaps we have to catch up with the Angel before he is absorbed by the night and disappears.

The basement was cavernous, wide, lit only by the single bulb. Cardboard boxes and empty canisters that had once held something or another, but had long been forgotten, created an obstacle course of debris. A thin layer of grimy soot seemed to cover everything, and they moved as quickly as possible through discarded iron bed frames and musty, stained mattresses, pushing ahead on a path that seemed no different from moving through a dense jungle of abandoned items. A huge black boiler rested uselessly in one corner, and a single shaft of light shed a little clarity on the immense heating duct that penetrated a wall, creating a tunnel that rapidly became a single black hole in the world.

"Down there," Francis pointed. "That's where he went."

Peter hesitated. "How can he see his way?" he asked. He indicated the unending, gaping blackness of the tunnel. "And where do you suppose it will take us?"

Francis thought the answer to that question far more complicated than the Fireman intended. But he responded, "It will come out either in another building, like Williams or Harvard, or else lead back to the power plant. And he doesn't need light. He only needs to keep moving, because he knows where he's going."

Peter nodded. More than a few things had occurred to him. First, there was no way of telling if the Angel knew they were in pursuit, which he thought might be an advantage, but also might not be. And second, whatever path the Angel might have been taking on his prior trips to the Amherst Building, tonight would be different, because he was no longer going to be safe at the Western State Hospital. So this night the Angel meant to disappear.

But precisely how, Peter was unsure.

These things had occurred to Francis, as well. But he understood one additional thing: There would be no underestimating the Angel's rage.

The two men pushed forward, into the darkness.

It was tough to maneuver down the path of the heating duct. The tunnel hadn't been designed for anything except the equipment of steam, certainly not for men to use as an underground conduit between buildings. But even if not designed for that purpose, it still had that result. Francis could feel just enough space to half crouch, half stumble forward in a world better suited to the rats and other rodents that thought it a fine home. It was an antique space, built in a different era, left crumbling and ancient over all the years, its usefulness questionable to everyone except the killer who they trailed.

They traveled by touch and by feel, stopping every few feet to listen for sounds, their hands stretched out in front of them like a pair of blind men. It was oppressively hot, and sweat soon rimmed their foreheads. They both could feel themselves covered with grime, but they maneuvered on, penetrating farther into the tunnel, squeezing past any obstruction, clinging carefully to the side of the heating duct, an ancient tube that seemed to be disintegrating under their touch.

Francis's breath was coming in short, tense bursts. Dust and age seemed in every tug of wind that his lungs demanded. He could taste years of emptiness with each step forward, and he wondered whether he was lost or whether he was finding himself, with every stride down the tunnel.

Peter remained directly behind the younger man, pausing every so often to strain his ears and eyes, inwardly cursing the darkness that crippled the speed of their pursuit. He was overcome by the sensation that they were traveling half as fast, half as steadily, as they should, and he whispered urgently to Francis to move quicker. In the darkness of the tunnel, it was as if any connection they had to the upper world had been severed, and the two of them were alone in the chase, their quarry somewhere ahead, hidden, invisible, and very dangerous. He tried to force his mind to be logical, to be accurate, to assess and consider, to anticipate and predict, but it was impossible. Those were qualities that belonged in the light and the air up above, and Peter found he could not summon them any longer. He knew the Angel would have some plan, some scheme, but whether it was escape, or evasion or merely concealment, he was unable to grasp. All he knew was to keep moving and to keep Francis moving, because he had the awful fear that no jungle trail he'd ever walked, or any burning building he'd ever stepped into, was quite as dangerous as the path he was on. Peter made certain that the safety on the pistol was clicked off, and he tightened his grip on the butt.

He stumbled once and swore, then swore again as he regained his balance.

Francis tripped on some ill-defined piece of debris and gasped as he thrust out his arms to steady himself. He thought each step was as uncertain as a child's. But when he looked up, he suddenly saw the slightest yellow light, seemingly miles ahead. He knew that darkness and distance were tricky, and after a second, he understood that ahead of them was something different, and he tried to hurry himself toward the light, eager to emerge from the darkness of the tunnel, regardless of what might lie ahead.

"What do you think?" he heard Peter whisper.

"Power plant?" he answered softly. "Another housing unit?"

Neither man had any idea where it was that they were arriving. They didn't even know whether they had traveled in a straight line from the Amherst Building to wherever they were headed. They were disoriented, frightened, and filled with the unruly tension of the moment. Peter clung to the weapon, because, at least for him, that spoke of some reality, something firm in an unsettled world. Francis had nothing so concrete to rely upon.

Francis pushed ahead toward the pale light. With each stride it grew, not in strength, but in dimension, a little like some weak dawn rising over distant hills, battling against fog and clouds and the residue of some immense storm.

He thought, at the least, that they were being drawn to it with the same determination that the moth has when it spots the flickering candle. He wasn't sure that they would be any more effective.

"Keep going," Peter urged. He said this as much to hear his own voice and reassure himself that the claustrophobic, enveloping existence of the heating tunnel was coming to a conclusion. Francis, for his part, welcomed hearing Peter speak, even if the words came out of the darkness behind him, disembodied, as if spoken by some ghost that trailed just behind him.

The two men struggled forward, realizing that the wan yellow light that beckoned them finally was distributing some clarity to the path they traveled. Francis hesitated, holding up a dirt-streaked hand in front of his face, as if curiously unfamiliar with the sensation of being able to see. He stumbled again, as some misshapen piece of debris clung to his leg. Then he paused, because something terribly obvious hovered just beyond his reasoning, and he wanted to grasp hold of it. Peter gave him a small shove, and they approached the space in the wall where the duct emerged, and as they tumbled out into the weak light, welcoming the ability to see, Francis realized what it was that he was trying to understand.

They had traversed the length of the tunnel, but not once had he felt the sticky unpleasant touch of a spider's web, stretched across the dark space. Surely, Francis thought to himself, this was improbable. There had to be spiders in that tunnel.

Then he understood what it meant. Someone else had traveled that way, clearing them out.

He raised his head, and stepped forward. He stood at the edge of another dark, shadowy cavern like storage room. As back at Amherst, a single weak bulb, stuck in a crevasse near a stairway on the far side provided a pathetic aura of light. Around him were the same piles of discarded material, abandoned equipment, and for an instant, Francis wondered whether they had gone anywhere, or whether they had merely turned in some bizarre circle, for the world was the same. He turned and examined the shadows around him, and had the odd sensation that it appeared that all the debris had been moved, creating a pathway ahead. Peter emerged from the tunnel behind him, brandishing the pistol, crouched over in a shooter's stance, readying himself.

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