F. Paul Wilson: The Tomb

As the elevator began to rise, Jack tried to put Vicky down on the planking but she wouldn't let go. Her hands were locked onto the fabric of his shirt in a death grip. He was weak and exhausted, but he would carry her the rest of the way if that was what she needed. With his free hand he reached into the crate and armed and set the rest of the bombs for three forty-five—less than twenty minutes away.

Rakoshi began to pour into the forward hold through both the port and starboard entries. When they saw the platform rising, they charged it.

"They're coming for me, Jack!" Vicky screamed. "Don't let them get me!"

"Everything's okay, Vicks," he said as soothingly as he could.

He sent out a fiery stream that caught a dozen of the creatures in the front rank, and kept the rest of them at bay with well-placed bursts of flame.

When the elevator platform was finally out of range of a rakosh leap, Jack allowed himself to relax. He dropped to his knees and waited for the platform to reach the top.

Suddenly a rakosh broke free from the crowd and hurtled forward. Startled, Jack rose up and pointed the discharge tube in its direction.

"That's the one that brought me here!" Vicky cried.

Jack recognized the rakosh: It was Scar-lip, making a last-ditch effort to get at Vicky. Jack's finger tightened on the trigger, then he saw that it was going to fall short. Its talons narrowly missed the platform but must have caught onto the undercarriage, for the elevator lurched and screeched on its tracks, then continued to rise. Jack didn't know if the rakosh was clinging to the undercarriage or whether it had fallen off into the elevator well below. He wasn't about to peer over the edge to find out—he might lose his face if the rakosh was hanging there.

He carried Vicky to the rear corner of the platform and waited there with the discharge tube trained on the edge of the platform. If the rakosh showed its face he'd burn its head off.

But it didn't appear. And when the elevator stopped at the top of its track, Jack pulled Vicky's hands free to allow her to go up the ladder ahead of him. As they separated, something fell out of the folds of her damp nightgown—Kusum's necklace.

"Here, Vicks," he said, reaching to clasp it around her neck. "Wear this. It'll—"

"No!" she cried in a shrill voice, pushing his hands away. "I don't like it."

"Please, Vicks. Look—I'm wearing one."

"No!"

She started up the ladder. Jack stuffed the necklace into his pocket and watched her go, continually glancing toward the edge of the platform. The poor kid was frightened of everything now—almost as frightened of the necklace as she was of the rakoshi. He wondered if she'd ever get over this.

Jack waited until Vicky had climbed through the little entry hatch, then he followed, keeping his eyes on the edge of the platform until he reached the top of the ladder. Quickly, almost frantically, he squeezed through into the salty night air.

Vicky grabbed his hand. "Where do we go now, Jack? I can't swim!"

"You don't have to, Vicks," he whispered. Why am I whispering ? "I brought us a boat!"

He led her by the hand along the starboard gunwale to the gangway. When she saw the rubber raft below, she needed no further guidance—she let go of his hand and hurried down the steps. Jack glanced back over the deck and froze. He had caught a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye—a shadow had moved near the kingpost standing between the two holds. Or had it? His nerves were frayed to the breaking point. He was ready to see a rakosh in every shadow.

He followed Vicky down the steps. When he reached bottom, he turned and sprayed the gangway with flame from the halfway point to the top, then arced the stream over the gunwale onto the deck. He kept the flame flowing, swinging it back and forth until the discharge tube coughed and jerked in his hands. The flamed sputtered and died. The napalm tank was empty. Only carbon dioxide hissed through the tube. He finished loosening the harness, a job he had begun in the aft hold, and shrugged off the tanks and their appendages, dropping them on the last step of the burning gangway. Better to let it go up with the ship than be found floating in the bay. Then he untied the nylon hawser and pushed off.

Made it!

A wonderful feeling—he and Vicky were alive and off the freighter. And only moments ago he had been ready to give up hope. But they weren't safe yet. They had to be far from the ship, preferably on shore, when those bombs went off.

The oars were still in their locks. Jack grabbed them and began to row, watching the freighter recede into the dark. Manhattan was behind him, drawing nearer with every stroke. Gia and Abe would not be visible for a while yet. Vicky crouched in the stern of the raft, her head swiveling between the freighter and land. It was going to be so good to reunite her with Gia.

Jack rowed harder. The effort caused him pain, but surprisingly little. He should have been in agony from the deep wound behind his left shoulder, from the innumerable lacerations all over his body, and from the avulsions where the skin had simply been torn away by the teeth of the savage little rakoshi. He felt weak from fatigue and blood loss, but he should have lost more—he should have been in near shock from the blood he had lost. The necklace truly seemed to have healing powers.

But could it really keep you young? And let you grow old if it was removed? That could be why Kolabati had refused to lend it to him when they were trapped in the pilot's cabin earlier tonight. Was it possible that Kolabati was slowly turning into an old hag back in his apartment right now? He remembered how Ron Daniels, the mugger, had sworn he hadn't rolled an old lady the night before. Perhaps that explained much of Kolabati's passion for him: It wasn't her grandmother's necklace he had returned—it was Kolabati's! It seemed too incredible to believe… but he'd said that before.

They were halfway to shore. He took a hand off an oar to reach up and touch the necklace. It might not be a bad thing to keep around. You never knew when you might—There was a splash over by the freighter.

"What was that?" Jack asked Vicky. "Did you see anything?"

He could see her shake her head in the darkness. "Maybe it was a fish."

"Maybe." Jack didn't know of any fish in Upper New York Bay big enough to make a splash like that. Maybe the flamethrower had fallen off the gangway. That would explain the splash nicely. But try as he might, Jack could not entirely buy that.

A cold clump of dread sprang up between his shoulders and began to spread. He rowed even harder.

33

Gia couldn't keep her hands still. They seemed to move of their own accord, clasping together and unclasping, clenching and unclenching, running over her face, hugging her, climbing in and out of her pockets. She was certain she would go stark raving mad if something didn't happen soon. Jack had been gone forever. How long did they expect her to stand around and do nothing while Vicky was missing?

She had worn a path in the sand along the bulkhead from pacing up and down; now she just stood and stared out at the freighter. It had been a shadow all along, but a few moments ago it had begun to burn—or at least part of it had. A line of flame had zig-zagged along the hull from the deck level almost down to the water. Abe had said it looked like Jack's flamethrower at work but he didn't know what he was up to. Through the binoculars it looked like a burning gangway and the best he could guess was that Jack was in effect burning a bridge behind him.

And so she waited, more anxious than ever, waiting to see if Jack was bringing back her Vicky. Suddenly she saw it—a spot of yellow on the surface, the rhythmic glint of oars moving in and out of the water.