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We set our bags aside and tried to find a sturdy corner to hold them while we moved the pallets and crates around. “I hear them,” he said. “Holy shit, I hear them. You weren’t kidding, were you?”

“No, I was

n’t kidding. ”

“They’re right underneath us!”

“I know that, yes. Thank you. What wonderful timing we have. Here—get that end. Help me with this one, it’s heavy. ”

He wrenched one arm under a pallet with some chains and equipment weighing it down. “Are you sure? I mean, we’re sort of opening this up for them, aren’t we? Maybe we should pile more shit on, then burn the place down on top of them. ”

“I don’t think that would work,” I countered.

“Why not?”

“Because once everything’s burned down, they’ll just shove the ashes out of the way and come out anyhow. We’ve got to bury the fuckers. It’s the only thing that’s ever kept them down and out of trouble. ”

“You’ve got a point there. So how are we going to do this? I mean, what are we going to do, treat these things like Molotov cocktails and do a chuck and run? And don’t these canisters say five hundred feet of clearance?”

“Technically yes, but I figure that the five hundred feet thing doesn’t really apply if you set them off underground. ”

“You figure that, do you?” He heaved a set of two-by-fours aside and we were almost there, almost done. We almost had the thing open. “Hey, give me that flashlight of yours. You’ve still got it?”

“In my purse, yeah. ” I unzipped it and shoved my hand inside. Everything I touched was waterlogged and disgusting; the makeup would be a lost cause, but I didn’t really care. The flashlight was a hardy little bastard, and it was working just fine. I tossed it to him, and he caught it, then flipped it on.

He aimed it down the hole exposed by the missing planks.

“What do you see?”

“Nothing,” he answered. “Not a damn thing. Either they’re not there, or they’re still hiding. But shit, you can hear them, can’t you? That’s amazing—but it might be a trick of the acoustics. If it’s a tunnel, then they might still be a ways off. ”

“Wave it around. Go on. Lean down in there, or give it to me and let me do it. ”

“I’m looking,” he swore, swiveling the beam and apparently not meeting any resistance with it. “There’s nothing there yet, nothing right there, anyway. ”

I didn’t know if that was good or bad. On the one hand, we’d arrived ahead of them; but on the other hand, we might need to get closer to them to really stop them with improvised explosives like ours.

“I’m going down there,” I told him, even as he was already stepping around the pit to stop me.

“No you’re not. ”

“Watch me. ”

“Don’t be an idiot. ”

“I have my reasons. ”

“I bet you do. If one of them is trying to get me to make a spectacle of myself on your behalf, you’re almost there, darling. But you are not going down in there. We’ll set these off up here, or light them and drop them, I don’t care. But there’s no good reason whatsoever to risk going down there. ”

“I want to try to talk to them. I want to see what they want. ”

“You already tried that, and it left you a blubbering, weepy mess. I’d prefer not to see that again, if it’s all right with you. It worried me. ”

“But that was different,” I argued.

“Different how?” he demanded.

“Those were different dead people. I’ve got a theory and I want to see if it holds up. The more we know, the better chance we have of stopping them for good—not just covering them with dirt and hoping for the best. ”