Free Beckon by Tom Pawlik Page B

top of the pile.
    â€œUp there.” Jack pointed. “There’s some kind of ledge up there.”
    Ben ran to the edge of the heap and scanned his light along the ledge. He turned back and said, “We’ll have to try it.”
    â€œGuys . . . ,” Rudy wheezed, clutching his side. “I’m kinda . . . starting to feel a little . . . not so good.” He staggered a few steps toward Jack and then fell to his hands and knees, vomiting.
    â€œRudy!” Jack stopped filming and ran to help, but Rudy had already collapsed into a quivering heap. Ben was there in a moment as well.
    In their lights, Jack could see the ground stained dark red. Blood frothed from Rudy’s mouth and nostrils, down his chin. His entire body quaked with violent tremors, and Jack could hear him struggling for breath.
    â€œJack,” Rudy’s voice rasped. His chest heaved like he’d just run a marathon, but his breath was lost in a thick gurgling sound. He gagged and coughed. “I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”
    â€œRudy, it’s okay. We’ll get you out of here. Just hold on.” Jack’s own heart was pounding now. He felt utterly helpless. “Stay with me. Just try to slow your breathing. Take deep breaths. Stay with me!”
    â€œI . . . can’t . . .” Rudy managed two last words before his entire torso stiffened. His head arched back in a wide-eyed, silent scream. A tremor shook his body once, and then he was still.
    â€œRudy!” Jack shook his shoulders. “Rudy!”
    Ben shone his flashlight into Rudy’s eyes, still wide open in a look of terror. His pupils were dilated; there was no sign of any reaction to the light.
    â€œRudy!” Jack’s voice trembled, and a strange sense of detachment flooded over him. A feeling that he was outside of his body somehow, sitting in a theater or at home watching a horror movie.
    â€œJack!” It seemed Ben’s voice called him from the other side of the cavern. “Jack, we have to get out of here.”
    Jack looked up to see Ben nose to nose with him. His lips moved as if in slow motion.
    â€œJack . . . he’s dead. There’s nothing else we can do.”
    Ben shook him by the shoulders, and Jack blinked back to consciousness.
    â€œHe’s gone,” Ben kept saying. “We have to get out of here.”
    â€œNo!” Jack grabbed Rudy’s shoulders and tried to drag him toward the bones. “We have to get him to a hospital. Help me!”
    Jack felt his head snap sideways as Ben’s hand connected with his cheek. The sharp sting brought him out of his fog. The whole side of his face seemed to burn.
    Ben glared at him. “He’s dead! We have to leave him and get out of here.”
    The clicking noise was growing louder and now seemed to fill the entire cavern like an approaching chorus of castanets playing somewhere in the dark. But it was more intense now than when Jack had heard it before. And he could hear other sounds over the distinct clicking noise. Growling and hissing, like the animal that had attacked them.
    Ben leaped onto the bone pile and scrambled toward the top. Bones slipped and cracked under his weight, but he kept clawing his way up.
    Jack looked back at Rudy, his body limp and contorted. And still.
    He grimaced, fighting back tears as he picked up Rudy’s backpack and slung it over his shoulder along with his own pack. Now Jack could sense a growing shadow approaching from somewhere in the darkness behind him. He jumped onto the bone pile and clawed his way up to the ledge.
    It was like climbing a snowbank; his own weight caused him to sink farther down than he was able to pull himself up. His hands clutched at thick leg bones, round skulls, and smaller ribs and hands and feet. Hard and cold to the touch, they shifted and snapped like old branches beneath his feet. The