So many worries. So much to be afraid of. He was out of breath, he was nervous, he was coming down, too, from about ten whiskey drinks and a snort of white powder. His hands hurt from grabbing the rope, and all the uphills and downhills were starting to feel like needles in his feet and legs.

You shouldn’t be in here!

For all Saul knew, Neal and Harvey could already be cuffed and in the back of a Goblin Police cruiser.

Saul shivered at the thought of an officer’s pale soft hand falling upon his own shoulder.

You’re coming with us, now. And we’ll show you what happens to men who hunt things they’re not supposed to.

Saul couldn’t tell anymore if his shirt, beneath the poncho, was wet from the rain or from his own fear spilling out of him in sweat. He was like an animal himself now, hunted by unknowns, his mind reduced to a few directives.

Find

Nash

Find

Harvey.

Get out.

Saul heard something moving fast ahead.

“Oh God, what is it?”

It was coming his way. He was sure of this. The noise was getting louder, closer, louder, closer. Swift as a big cat.

Whatever it is, it’s coming to kill me.

It sounded so close now that Saul thought it must be upon him, that there wasn’t any more room for it to get any louder.

But it did. Louder and closer still.

“Please head in another direction,” Saul mumbled, rooted to the ground. His hands shook on the rope.

He cried out as a shape came into view ten feet ahead and blew by him as quickly as it came.

Saul stood stiff, feeling the wind of its passing still upon him.

“It didn’t see me,” he said. Then he yelled it. “It missed me!”

He wanted to kneel in this impossible maze and weep.

Instead he forged ahead, faster than before. He pushed himself until the rope he’d been clinging to, the rope that was his only source of security, his one link to the world he shouldn’t have left, went slack.

Saul stopped, fingering the rope to make certain there was no longer any pull from the other end.

He felt no resistance at all.

He pulled the slack rope until he came to its end.

He studied it under the penlight.

“Chewed,” he said, matter-of-factly, before realizing what that conclusion meant.

He could hear his own breath like it was an icy wind now…the sound of that muted rain was somewhere miles above him.

He stepped forward without the guide of the rope now.

Images of a witch just ahead accosted him. Visions of the Goblin Police on their knees, chewing the rope.

Saul felt a lump like a soggy log at his feet.

The word laundry crossed his mind.

Saul squatted. He turned on the penlight.

But after seeing what he saw, he closed his eyes.