Andrew Klavan - If We Survive

I stood there a moment, somehow riveted by the sight of him. Then it came to me what I was doing—kind of spying on him, you know. I felt my face get hot. I wanted to hurry back to my sleeping bag before Palmer realized I was there.

I turned away…

And I let out a high-pitched shout as a lightning flash of terror went through me—because there, right in front of me, was some small, weird, gnarled creature who had risen up out of the depths of this underground world, his eyes burning at me from the darkness.

I reeled backward in fear, my arms pinwheeling, my feet nearly slipping out from underneath me. The next moment, the corridor grew brighter as Palmer—hearing my cry— rushed out of the chapel, carrying the candle with him.

In the candlelight, I saw that the weird creature of the catacombs was only the little priest—Father Miguel.

Well, okay, I felt like an idiot for being so scared, but the priest really was a strange-looking little dude, what can I tell you? And he really did sneak up on me!

Behind the drooping mustache that gave the tiny little man’s face its mournful look, I thought I saw him give a small smile.

“I fear I have frightened your friend,” he said to Palmer.

Palmer shook his head, rolling his eyes. “No worries, Padre. The kid’s a comedian. He embarrasses me wherever we go.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said.

The priest smiled again beneath that drooping mustache— and then the smile faded—disappeared. He raised his hands from his sides as if he were going to make some sort of offering. And he did—only it wasn’t the sort of offering you normally expect from a priest: guns—an AK-47 machine gun and an old six-shot revolver of some sort.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Palmer. “This is the best I can do on short notice.”

Palmer took the weapons from him. He handed the revolver to me. I stuck it under my belt.

Father Miguel nodded. “And now,” he said, “the rains are over. The dark is coming. It is time to go.”

Everything happened quickly now. Palmer and I woke the others. Moving in silence, we all rolled up the sleeping bags in the light of the heater and stowed them in the corner of the room where we’d found them.

All the while, the priest spoke to Palmer in a low, urgent voice.

“The soldiers are everywhere, my friend. They are saying you murdered two of the guards during your escape.”

“The guards and I had a vigorous discussion of the issues of the day,” Palmer drawled.

“Yes,” said the dwarfish little priest, his mournful expression never changing. “And you have put our mutual friend Señor Mendoza in a difficult position with his superiors. President Cobar seems to feel it is his fault that you and your companions have slipped their net.”

“Bad news for Mendoza,” said Palmer. “When Cobar asks for your letter of resignation, he usually takes your head with it.”

“You joke, but it’s true. If Mendoza does not return you to prison for trial and execution, he is a dead man. Therefore, he is, you might say, highly motivated to find you. And he has every available Volcano at his disposal to do the job. They have enough problems with people sending out the news on the Internet. They don’t want American witnesses escaping to go on TV and tell the world what’s happening here.”

We finished stowing the sleeping bags and gathered around Palmer and Father Miguel in the heater’s red light.

“Okay, Padre,” said Palmer drily. “You’ve got me really scared now. Tell me some good news.”

“We should move while we talk. There is reason to hurry.”

So we moved. Father Miguel switched on a small flashlight with a red filter. The red beam pierced the shadows in front of us and we followed it.

We shuttled through the cold, damp atmosphere of the corridors in a cluster, the four of us tagging along just behind Palmer and the little priest. The red beam played off the rough stone of the walls and shot into the unseen depths of the corridors. I couldn’t tell where we were going exactly, but I knew it was not the way we had come.

Father Miguel’s voice trailed back to us as we traveled.

“Mendoza knows you are a flier, of course. He is expecting you to try to escape by air. He has dispatched as many men as he can to guard the city’s two airfields.”

“That’s tough,” said Palmer. “We’ll never make it out of here on the ground.”

“No. This is why a certain gentleman who keeps his small Cessna in a private hangar has moved the plane to a little field not far from one of the catacomb entrances.”

“Nice of him,” said Palmer. “I assume he’s a friend of yours.”

“He is a friend of God’s,” said the priest. “And so he is a friend of freedom. But there is a problem.”

“Somehow I guessed there would be.”

“The field, as I say, is within reach of one of the catacombs’ entryways. But almost as soon as this gentleman landed there, the rebels set up a checkpoint on the road nearby. It is one of many they have set up to keep you and other enemies of the revolution within the confines of the city.”

“Great.”

“You will need to cross the open space behind this checkpoint very quietly and without being seen in order to reach the plane.”

We continued to move rapidly through the darkness, following the priest’s flashlight. Now and then the light picked out the skull of a skeleton lying in its wall grave. It was pretty disturbing—like one of those carnival fun houses. We’d be rushing along and then suddenly there would be this skull, this empty stare, this grinning mouth—then it would sink again into the shadows as we hurried past.

“Let’s say we make it to the plane,” Palmer said. “What then? I gotta turn the engine on at some point. Won’t the guards hear it?”

“They will,” said the priest. “We must hope you fly away very fast.”

Palmer gave a low chuckle. “We must hope, mustn’t we?”

We went on through the corridors, turning this way and that, following the beam and the moving silhouettes of Palmer and Father Miguel. Already, I could feel the tension building inside me. I was thinking about how we’d have to sneak past the guards, get across the field, get to the airplane.

I told myself to stop thinking so much. Suspend the imagination. Don’t worry about anything. Pray about everything . I did pray—and it was working pretty well…

Until I saw the stairway.

It was just up ahead: a rickety metal structure standing against one wall of the corridor, pretty much the same as the one we had come down. As we were approaching it, it seemed to lead up to nowhere, to the ceiling. But as we got closer, I saw there was a dark opening above.

Then the tension flared in me again. This was it. Our chance to get away, to get out of this country, to get home.

Our last chance.

Palmer held the flashlight as Father Miguel climbed slowly up the stairs. The dwarfish man in black moved clumsily as if he were not used to so much exercise and every step was painful for him.

A moment passed. Our frightened eyes met in the red glow of the flashlight. Then we heard a heavy stone slab shifting above us.

I peered up the stairs into the darkness. “He’s so small,” I whispered. “How does he do that?”

“He’s bigger on the inside,” Palmer answered quietly.

The slab shifted again—and then gray light flooded down to us where we stood at the base of the staircase. I squinted up into the sudden brightness. My heart beat hard. I was glad to see daylight after so long underground, but I knew, too, that my life—all our lives—depended on the next few minutes.