David Morrell - Creepers

"We can do this, Vinnie. You're almost out. On three, I'm going to release my right hand from the knapsack and grab your left arm. Are you ready?"

"I…"

"You'll soon be up here with me. Ready? It's going to happen on three. One. Two."

"Three," Vinnie shouted, and gripped Balenger's wrist with all his might.

Balenger's right hand shot from the knapsack and drove under Vinnie's left arm. The effort pivoted Vinnie so they faced each other.

"Bob!" Balenger yelled. "Can you pull us up?"

The professor tried, breathing heavily. "I… No. Not two of you. I don't have the strength."

"Vinnie, try climbing up my arms."

"Can't."

Balenger thought frantically. "Okay, we'll do something else." Keep it positive, he thought. His voice was hoarse. "I'm going to roll sideways to the right. That'll pull up our arms on the left. Get your elbow over the rim of the hole. I'll keep rolling sideways while you squirm up."

"I'll try," Vinnie said.

"No," Balenger said. "You're going to do it. You're getting out of there!"

Racked by the effort of holding Vinnie's weight, Balenger rolled slowly from his stomach onto his right side, his left shoulder threatening to pop from its socket.

"Yes," Vinnie said. "My elbow's over the edge."

"Higher." Balenger gasped. "Get your knee over."

"Can't."

Suddenly, headlamps and flashlights charged at them.

"Holy…" The voice was Rick's. He grabbed Vinnie's arm.

Thank God, Balenger thought, his heart pounding with relief.

"We heard noises from the walkie-talkie, but we couldn't figure what was happening!" Cora yelled. "We ran up here as fast as we could!" She tugged at Balenger, pulling with the professor's help.

Five seconds later, Vinnie lay on the floor, shaking. "We did it. No, that's wrong. You did it," he told Balenger.

"We all did," Balenger said.

"Thank you." Vinnie had trouble speaking. "Thank you, everybody." He turned his head, studying the hole, and squirmed farther from it. His chest heaved with emotion.

Balenger continued to lie on the floor, catching his breath. He pulled a water bottle from his knapsack, took a long drink, and handed it to Vinnie.

"My throat's so dry, I don't know if I can swallow." But once Vinnie started drinking, he couldn't stop. Water trickling from his mouth, he finished the entire bottle. "Never tasted anything so delicious."

"What happened?" Rick shifted carefully toward the hole. He gripped Cora's outstretched hand so he'd have support if the hole opened wider. He aimed his flashlight into the crater. "There's a faint light down there."

"My flashlight," Vinnie said. "I dropped it."

"Every floor collapsed," Rick said. "The furniture's in a heap all the way at the bottom. Smells awfully damp."

Rick stooped and pulled a chunk of wood from the edge of the hole. He eased away, returning to the group. "The wood's soft and pulpy." He raised it to his nose. "Smells like an old basement."

"From rot," the professor said. "The roof must have a leak. When it rains or snows, water seeps down through this column of rooms. After more than thirty years, one step from Vinnie was all it took to make the supports give way."

"Maybe it's a good thing we can't get into the locked room," Cora said. "It's next to this room. Maybe the floor in there is rotten, too."

"Still didn't find a key?" Balenger rose to a crouch, then stood. His arms, shoulders, and legs ached.

"No key," Cora said.

"You're a handy guy to have around," Rick told Balenger. "You know about locks."

Balenger started to say "Not really," but Rick continued.

"You have quick reactions. The height didn't bother you."

"Because I couldn't see the bottom. Anyway, when I was a teenager, I did a lot of rock-climbing."

"Me, too. Where'd you go?"

"Wyoming."

"The Tetons?"

Why is he asking so many questions? Balenger thought. Does he suspect I haven't been telling the truth? "They're out of my league. The Grand in particular scares me. No, I took a course from a wilderness survival school. It's in Lander near the Wind River range."

"Sorry, everybody." Vinnie struggled to his feet.

"Sorry about what?" Balenger was glad to change the subject. "You couldn't have known the floor was rotten."

"What I meant is…"

Their lights showed a wide, dark stain on his jeans, all the way from his crotch to his left ankle where he'd urinated on himself.

Embarrassed, Vinnie tried not to look at Cora.

"In your place, I'd have done the same," the professor said.

Vinnie peered down at the floor.

"Speaking of that problem…" Balenger took the empty bottle from his knapsack. "In all the excitement, it almost happened to me. If you can bear to be away from me for a while, I'll find some privacy down that corridor."

"Not too far," Conklin said. "We've learned a lesson about separating. Stay close enough so we can see your lights."

"After you're finished, maybe we'd all better do the same thing," Rick said.

Balenger picked up his hard hat, adjusted the light on it, and put it on. He walked to the corridor, scanned his flashlight along it, and proceeded cautiously, testing the floor. Past a tarnished elevator door and a dusty table with a cobwebbed vase on it, he stopped in the darkness and holstered his flashlight on his belt. In the illumination of his headlamp, he unscrewed the bottle and urinated into it. He knew that the corridor's echo carried the liquid sound he made, but he didn't care if the others heard him.

As he screwed the cap on the bottle, he heard faint conversation from around the corner. Then he heard a slight thump in the opposite direction and aimed his headlamp toward the gloom at the end of the hallway. Doors stretched along each side. The angle of his light created shadows that made the doors seem slightly open. He set down the bottle with his left hand and used his right to lower his Windbreaker's zipper. He reached under the fabric and circled his fingers around a Heckler & Koch.40-caliber pistol in a shoulder holster.

No, keep control, Balenger warned himself. You're letting this damned place get to you. Stay focused. You've been through worse than this. He had a sudden sweat-producing memory of a foul-smelling sack tied around his head. No! Don't think about that! Suppose one of the others sees you holding the gun. If they learn you're armed, they'll surely wonder what else they don't know about you.

He waited, studying the shadows. Inhaling through his nose, exhaling through his mouth, holding each breath for three counts, he calmed himself. The sound at the end of the hall was not repeated. It could have been caused by anything-the building settling or the wind outside knocking something against a wall. Around the corner, the faint conversation continued. Nothing to get alarmed about, he thought.

"Everything okay?" Rick asked from the entrance to the corridor.

"Just finishing." Managing not to seem startled, Balenger closed his fly.

"You took a while. We were worried you might be in trouble."

"Enjoying a quiet moment." Balenger zipped up his Windbreaker, then picked up the bottle, its plastic warm from his urine.

"Where do I leave this?" he asked as he came around the corner, seeing the crisscross of headlamps.

"Not in here," the professor said. "Leave no trace, remember?"

"In your knapsack," Rick said. He went around the corner, heading toward where Balenger had been.

"First time for everything." Balenger made sure the lid was tight and shoved it into his pack.

From down the hall, he heard Rick urinating into his bottle. "Well, we're getting to know each other."

"We're talking about whether we should continue," Cora said.