David Baldacci - The Finisher

I looked over at the door as it took another blow. More fangs split the wood.

Less than a sliver later, one of the heads broke through. A pair of eyes stared at me, barely six yards away. The hole was too small for the rest of the bulk to get through, but either the hole would grow or the door would come down.

I groped around in the dark. That was when I noticed the tiny door behind the big metal thing that had fallen. The door was barely three feet tall and the knob was curious. I looked more closely. It was a face, yet not just any face. It was the face of a Wug screaming, cast in brass.

There came another smash against the door. I just had time to look back as the massive portal collapsed inward and the beasts sprang through the opening. Now I could see them both fully. I wished I couldn’t.

Jabbits were massive serpents with one key difference. There were at least two hundred and fifty heads growing out of the one body along its full length. And all of them had fangs full of enough poison that one bite would drop a fully grown creta. All of them made the screech. And all of them were, right this sliver, charging at me.

They were a thousand nightmares rolled into a massive, thunderous wall of murderous devilry. And their breath smelled like dung on fire. I was not speculating now. The foul odor made me gag when I needed all the air I had to flee.

I grabbed the screaming-face knob, turned it and threw myself through the opening, kicking the door shut behind me. But I didn’t feel the relief of a safe harbor. This door, tiny and thin, had no chance to stop the relentless juggernauts that are jabbits after prey. It was said that nothing could stop them once they were on the blood scent. I stood and backed away. I drew the small knife I had brought with me and waited, my heart thumping, my lungs heaving.

I told myself I would not cry. I promised myself I would strike at least one blow before they killed me. It was said they lingered over their prey. I had also heard rumors that it was possible the poison didn’t kill but merely paralyzed, allowing you to stay alive until they were halfway through devouring you. No one knew for sure. No one who had been attacked by a jabbit had survived to tell about it.

I prayed to everything I could think of that this was not the case. Let the poison be what killed me. I did not want to watch myself disappear piece by piece into their gullets.

“Good-bye, John,” I said between tortured breaths. “Please don’t forget me.”

Every Wugmort had a time to die. This was surely mine.

I stood there, chest heaving, my pitiful knife held high in some ridiculous semblance of defense and my gaze on the little door, waiting for it to collapse inward with my death to follow.

Yet the little door didn’t come crashing down. There was silence on the other side. I still didn’t move. All I could think was the jabbits were being tricky, perhaps waiting for me to let my guard down before attacking. Reason quickly dispelled this idea. I couldn’t possibly defend myself against them. They just had to knock down the door and eat me.

Sliver after sliver went by and nothing happened. My breath started to level off and my chest stopped heaving. I very slowly lowered the knife, though I kept staring at the little door. I strained to hear anything. All those awful fanged heads bumping up against that slender piece of wood. Screeches that made your brain feel as if it were on fire. But there was nothing. It was as if sound from out there could not reach in here.

I put my knife away. I had dropped my lantern back there. On the other side of the door. I was not going out to try and retrieve it. And yet, for some reason, it was not completely dark in here. I could make out things, so I slowly turned in all directions. Because the door was small, I had expected the room to be as well. But it wasn’t. It was a vast cavern with walls of rock, seemingly bigger than Stacks. I could not even see the ceiling, so high was it. And then my gaze fixed on the wall opposite me.

There was a drawing on it. I drew a quick breath when I saw what it was — three hooks attached as one. The same design as on my grandfather’s hand and on his ring found in Quentin Herms’s cottage.

I forgot about the three hooks as I stared around at the other walls. They were suddenly awash in different lights and sounds. I jumped back as I saw what looked to be a flying slep with a rider astride it, soaring across the rock. The rider threw a spear and there was an explosion so loud and real that I covered my ears and dropped to the floor. A million images seemed to flow across the stone as I watched in disbelief, my eyes unable to keep up with them. It was like watching a great battle unfold in front of me. Screams and moans and cries mingled with bursts of light and the sounds and visions of blows landing and bodies falling. And then the images faded and something else took their place. And that something else was even more terrifying.

It was blood. Blood that looked as if it had just been spilled. As I watched, it started pouring down the cavern’s walls.

If I’d had enough breath in my lungs, I would have screamed. But all that came out was a low, pitiable moan.

Then another sound came to push my panicked thoughts in a new direction: a roar that was nearly deafening.

I turned to my right. Where there had been a solid wall was now the opening of a long tunnel. Something massive was heading toward me, but I couldn’t see what it was yet. I could only hear the sound. I stood rooted to the spot, attempting to decide if I should try my luck with the jabbits outside the door or stay here. A moment later, I had no decision left to make.

A wall of blood exploded out of the tunnel and engulfed me.

I managed to flip over so I was facing another tunnel where the blood was thrusting me. Up ahead, the tunnel ended. I was hurtling toward a sheer wall and my thought was that I would be smashed against it and die instantly. The roar became so loud I could barely think. And I suddenly saw why. The blood was cascading downward at the end of the tunnel. It just dropped off. How far down it went I wasn’t sure, but if the roar I was hearing was any indication, the blood was falling a long, long way. And I was about to plummet over this edge.

I tried to swim against the flow. That turned out to be completely and utterly useless. The current was far too strong. I was maybe fifty yards from the edge, mists of red spray rising up from the abyss, when I saw it — something suspended across the end of the tunnel. I didn’t know what it was. But I did know what it could be. My way out of this nightmare. My only way out, in fact.

If I missed, I was going to die. But if I didn’t try, I was certainly going to die. There was an outcrop of rock to the left, just below the suspended object and just before the drop-off.

I timed my jump as best I could. I would not get a second chance. I leapt, pushing with my feet off the outcrop of rock, my arms and fingers stretching as far as they could. Only I swiftly realized it was not going to be enough. I hadn’t pushed hard enough or jumped high enough. I kicked with my feet as if I were swimming and angled my left shoulder lower and my right higher. I stretched until I believed my arm had popped out of its socket. The abyss seemed to scream at me. I heard the blood crashing on what I supposed were masses of rocks at the bottom.

My hand closed around what turned out to be a chain. The links were small and shiny, and at first I was afraid they would not be strong enough to hold me. Yet they did. For far less than a sliver.

I fell, screaming, down into that awful chasm. When I thought my situation could not get any more terrible, I felt something truly horrible.

The chain was wrapping itself around me, link by link, until I was completely immobile. Now I had no chance of attempting to swim, even if I survived the drop. I closed my eyes and waited for it all to end.