Andrew Klavan - If We Survive

But with Palmer’s help, he did. The slab kept moving. In another moment, the tomb stood open before us.

“Come on,” Palmer said in a harsh whisper. “Get in the coffin.”

Meredith was the first to move. She stepped up to the tomb. Palmer held out his hand to her and she took it. He held her steady as she put one leg over the side of the coffin, then the other. She climbed in and lowered herself down until she was out of sight. Nicki came forward next. I could see the fear in her eyes even in the shadows. Palmer helped her over the side as he had Meredith. Again, I watched her as she sank down into the stone box. Jim took a deep breath and followed.

Then it was my turn. I swallowed hard as I approached the tomb. I had this idea in my mind that I would look over the side and see Meredith and Nicki and Jim in there all huddled together with a long-rotten corpse lying close beside them. I stepped up to the side of the coffin and looked down.

I breathed a sigh of relief. In fact, the tomb had no bottom. It hid an opening onto a stairway. The stairs led down into a darkness lit only by a dim, red, wavering light.

I climbed over the edge of the tomb and lowered myself onto the first step. Then, clutching a metal railing to keep myself steady on the narrow stairs, I made my way down.

My sneakers touched a rough stone floor. The darkness was even deeper down here than in the church above, but by the small flickering red glow I could make out the silhouettes of Meredith, Nicki, and Jim standing nearby, their eyes gleaming. As my eyes adjusted a little, I could see they were standing at the entrance of a shadowy maze of vaulted corridors. I could see the halls going off into darkness in all directions.

Another moment and Palmer stepped off the stairs and stood beside me.

“What is this place?” I whispered.

“Catacombs,” he said softly. “They’ve been burying people down here for five hundred years.”

Now I heard stone grating on stone over my head. I looked up just in time to see the dim light of the church disappearing up there as the little priest—without any help at all this time—pushed the great slab of the coffin lid back into its place.

Palmer whispered, “This way.”

We all followed him into the corridors.

We wound down one stone hall and then another. In moments, I had lost my sense of direction. I had lost my sense of the world outside. Out there, in the light, it was warm with summer. But here, it was dank and cold. The chill that I’d felt in the church upstairs grew deeper with every step we took. It seemed to creep under my skin and into my bones.

We took another turn. The wavering red glow grew brighter. In its flickering light, I looked at the catacomb walls. Now and then I’d see a little alcove in them. Some of the alcoves were empty. Some held what looked like coffins. In one, there was all that was left of a skeleton, grinning out at me through the red glow. Its hollow eyes spooked me as we went past. Then it was gone—and I told myself it had just been my imagination. But a few yards on, there was another skeleton lying embedded in the wall. Generally, I kind of think skeletons are cool. But it turns out I don’t actually like sharing space with them.

At last, we turned a corner and came into a more open area—a sort of room where the various corridors came together. There was a large heater set against one wall here. A large electric fire was flickering in it, warming the dank air and giving off a bright red light. Nearby, there was a watercooler with a stack of paper cups beside it. And there were sleeping bags rolled up neatly in one corner, as if the space had been prepared for us as a place of rest.

“All right,” Palmer said. “We’ll be safe here for a while.”

I glanced over at him. His eyes glowed with the reflection of the heater.

“How did they know?” I asked him. “How did they know we would be coming?”

He shrugged. “It’s a hard country with a lot of trouble. They knew someone would be coming, they just didn’t know it would be us.”

I was about to ask another question, but suddenly I didn’t have to. I understood. The church was a sort of safe haven for people in trouble with any of the various violent factions in the country. Palmer had known about this just as he’d known about the temple in the jungle. Just as he’d known about the village where we found protection and food.

I guess there’d been no time for me to think about it before because only now, dimly and for the first time, did I begin to get a sort of picture of Palmer, an idea about who he was and how things had been for him these last couple of years.

He knew about these places—these secret safe havens around Costa Verdes—because he had been using them himself. Hiding from the authorities. Running guns to the natives so they could protect themselves from slaughter. Smuggling people to safety when they were in danger of being captured or killed. Fighting both the government and the rebels who opposed them—because one side was just as evil and murderous as the other.

Chased unfairly out of the Marines, Palmer had come to this hard and terrible country to hide away from the world and nurse his bitterness. I think he must’ve wanted to disappear, to stop being part of the human race that had treated him so badly. Instead, he had ended up helping the local people, protecting them when they had no other protector. Because he couldn’t stop himself from doing that, I guess. He was still the same man who had joined the Marines to protect his country. Hard as he might have tried, he couldn’t run away from his own nature, his own soul.

“There were people outside on the street,” I said. “In the plaza outside the church. They saw us coming in here. Won’t they tell the rebels?”

Palmer shook his head no.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because they don’t believe in the rebels anymore than they believe in the government,” he said. “But they believe in this place.”

“Yes,” said Meredith. “I’ve seen that. They do.”

“Fernandez Cobar says religion is the great oppressor of the people,” Jim said—but he didn’t say it in his usual way, as if he were trying to start an argument. He murmured the words softly, almost as if he were talking to himself. “He says people won’t be truly free until all the churches are destroyed.”

“Yeah, I bet he does say that,” said Palmer with a tired smile. “There’s a power here he can’t get his hands on and he can’t stand it. The old government was the same way. They murdered any priest who spoke up against them.”

“They always do that,” said Meredith. “It’s always the voice of God they try to silence first.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Tyrants,” said Palmer.

I expected Jim to start making some sort of argument or other. I expected him to tell us again about what a brilliant guy Fernandez Cobar was and how he’d written a book and articles in the newspaper and so on. But to my surprise, Jim didn’t say anything. In fact, I thought I saw him nodding a little.

“That’s why the rebels will suspect we came here, whether people tell them so or not,” said Palmer. “They’re sure to come in and search the place any minute. I’m going back to the stairs to listen and make sure Father Miguel doesn’t get himself hurt.”

“You want me to come with you?” I asked.

He shook his head quickly and was gone into the shadows.

Left alone, Nicki, Meredith, Jim, and I turned and looked at one another in the flickering red light from the heater. The expressions I saw on their faces were grim: blank and exhausted. They all seemed to be wondering the same thing I was: How in the world had this happened to us? We had only come here to build a wall. We had been ready to go home. We had been laughing, kidding around in the cantina one minute… When was it? Three days ago? Four? I had lost count. And suddenly—so incredibly suddenly—there was nothing but death and brutality all around us—a kind of danger none of us had ever known before.