“My job is to protect you. You ready?”

He gave a quick, unconvincing nod.

Theresa felt her stomach clench. She stepped out onto the ledge and pressed her chest against the wall, her palms trailing across the rock. Taking small, shuffling steps, she clutched handholds where she could find them. After five feet, she looked back at Ben.

“See how I did that?”

“Yeah.”

“Your turn.”

Hard as it had been leaving the safety of that wide path into the mountain, it was infinitely more excruciating to watch her son step out onto the ledge. The very first thing he did was look down.

“No, don’t do that, honey. Look at me.”

Ben looked up. “It’s a lot scarier in the daylight.”

“Just focus on taking safe steps, and keep your hands on the wall like I am. Sometimes there will be places to grab.”

Ben started toward her, step by step.

“You’re doing great, honey.”

He reached her.

They went on.

After twenty feet, the exposure opened up wide beneath them, a four-hundred-foot drop straight down to the forest floor. So vertical, if you fell you wouldn’t bounce off anything until you hit the ground.

“How we doing, buddy?” Theresa asked.

“Okay.”

“Are you looking down?”

“No.”

Theresa glanced back. He was.

“Goddammit, Ben.”

“I can’t help it,” he said. “It makes my stomach feel weird and tingly.”

She wanted to reach out, take his hand, hold him tight.

“We need to keep moving,” she said.

Theresa couldn’t be certain, but the path seemed to be narrowing. Her left foot, which she kept perpendicular to the ledge and pointed into the mountain, was hanging off the edge by an inch or two.

As they arrived at a bend in the mountain, a flurry of gunfire exploded back toward the cavern. Theresa and Ben both looked. Several dozen people were retreating up the path into the tunnel with a speed and intensity that suggested they were fleeing for their lives. The scream of an abby, and another, and another broke out as those pale, translucent monsters climbed off the side of the cliff wall. When they got their talons on level ground, the abbies rushed on all fours up the path toward the tunnel.

“What if they see us?” Ben asked.

“Don’t move,” Theresa whispered. “Not even a muscle.”

When the last of the abbies—she counted forty-four—had disappeared into the tunnel, Theresa said, “Let’s go.”

As they moved around the bend, a deep, thumping sound spilled out of the tunnel.

“What is that?” Ben asked.

“The abbies. They’re beating on the door to the cavern.”

Theresa hugged the cliff and stepped around the corner onto a six-inch ledge, her heart in her throat.

Suddenly, a great chorus of screams rose up inside the tunnel.

VI

VI

HASSLER

HASSLER

GAS WORKS PARK
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
1,816 YEARS AGO