Tunnels 02, Deeper

the position showed on his face.
    "OK," Drake said.
    Cal pushed the cord at the rear of the tube. Nothing happened.
    "Pull it harder -- the cocking arm needs to be snapped back," Drake told him.
    Cal tried again, but in the process moved the tube way off target. The slug hit the chamber wall some distance away and they heard a zinging as it ricocheted down the tunnel beyond.
    "Don't worry, it's your first try. You've never shot a gun before, have you?"
    "No," Cal admitted glumly.
    "We'll have more opportunities to practice when we get to the deeper levels. Nothing like a spot of big game hunting with the wildlife down there," Drake said enigmatically. Will's ears perked up, wondering what sort of animals these might be, but then Drake told him it was his turn.
    The gun went off the first time Will yanked the cord, and they saw the spray of dust just in front of the target this time.
    "Not bad," Drake congratulated. "You've shot before."
    "I've got an air pistol," Will said, remembering his illicit sessions with his old
Gat gun on Highfield Common.
    "With some practice, you'll get better at judging the distance. Now you, Chester."
    Chester stepped forward a little hesitantly and took the stove gun from Drake. He hunched his shoulders over, looking very awkward as he tried to aim the device.
    "Rest it on the heel of your hand. No, move your hand underneath more. And, for heaven's sake, just relax, boy." Drake took his shoulders and instead of pulling them around as he'd done with Cal, tried to push down on them. "Relax," he said again, "and take your time."
    Chester still looked incredibly awkward, his shoulders creeping up again. It seemed forever before he finally tripped the trigger.
    None of them could believe their eyes.
    There was no shower of chips this time or whirr of a ricochet. With a crack, the bullet hit the target stone dead on, and it whipped down the tunnel beyond in a blur.
    "Atta boy!" Drake said, patting the flabbergasted boy on the back. "Bull's-eye"
    "Give that kid a coconut!" Will laughed.
    Chester was speechless, blinking at the space where the rock had been. Will and Cal congratulated him profusely, but he clearly didn't know what to say, totally confounded by his success.
    They knew the training session was over when, with some urgency, Drake immediately bundled up the charges and the stove guns in the roll of material and shoved them back into his rucksack. However, he left one, a medium-sized cylinder, in the sand. Will was looking at it, wondering if he should bring it to Drake's attention, when a stone flew before them and hit the ground, clattering along until it came to rest in the shale by Drake's feet.
    It was the very stone that Chester had hit with such accuracy.
    A raspy and lisping voice seeped unpleasantly from the shadows, as if a bad smell had been released.
    "Always one fer a bit of showmanship, wasn't yer, Drakey?"
    Will immediately looked up at Drake, who was alertly watching the darkness, the stove gun at the ready in his hands. His wasn't a perceptibly threatening or defensive stance, but Will saw the deadly intent in Drake's face just before he flipped the lens down over his right eye.
    "What are you doing here? You remember the Rule, don't you, Cox? Renegades keep their distance or suffer the consequences," Drake rumbled.
    "Yer didn't keep the Rule when yer gimleted poor old Lloyd, did yer? And took 'is girl."
    An amorphous figure emerged from farther down the tunnel, a misshapen and hunched bundle illuminated by the boys' lanterns.
    "Ahh, I heard yer 'ad some new lovelies. Some ripe meat."
    The shape coughed and continued to move forward, as if it were floating just above the ground. Will saw it was a man, wearing what looked to be a brown and extremely filthy shawl over his head and shoulders, like he was a peasant woman. He was painfully bent over, giving the impression he was seriously deformed. Stopping before Drake and the boys, he raised his head. It was a grisly sight. He had a huge growth on one side of his forehead, like a small melon, and the dirt was rubbed away on it, so they could see grayish skin shot through with a network of raised blue veins. There was another of these growths, slightly smaller in size, on his mouth, so that his lips, black and cracked, were drawn into a permanent O. A constant drool of slick, milky saliva ran from his lower lip and down his chin, where it hung like a liquid goatee.
    But his eyes were the worst things to behold: