Tunnels 02, Deeper

as she rose to her feet, letting her food slide from her lap. She held very still, her rifle fixed on something.
    "Time to go!" she called over to them, her eye still glued to the scope.
    "Did you see something?" Will asked.
    "Yes, I caught a flash... I thought we'd have more time before they reached the beaches... It's probably an advance patrol."
    Chester swallowed his mouthful in a noisy gulp.
     

38

    "You crazy, crazy animal!" Sarah cried as she skied through the succulent plants, Bartleby pulling as he'd never pulled before. No doubt about it, he was hot on the scent trail of the boys -- that was the good news. The bad news was that he was becoming more and more wild and unmanageable, and once or twice Sarah had thought that he was actually going to turn on and attack her .
    "Slow down!" she shouted.
    With a sharp snap, the leash went slack, and she lost her balance and fell flat on her back. The lantern slipped from her hand, spinning away and rebounding off the plants in its path, clicking up to its highest setting as it did so. Blinding rays of light strafed the tall trees behind her, intermittent flashes that would be visible for miles around. If she'd wanted to announce her presence, she couldn't have done a better job.
    She was winded and couldn't move for a few long seconds. Then she crawled rapidly to where the lantern had come to rest and threw herself over it to hide its light. She lay on it, panting and cursing blindly. Talk about rank amateurism!
    Still covering the lantern with her body, she switched it down again before turning her attention to the remains of the leather leash wound around her hand. The end where it had snapped was ragged and torn, and, as she inspected it more closely, she saw teeth marks -- Bartleby had been having a quick chew at it when she hadn't been looking. The crafty so-and-so! If she hadn't been so infuriated with herself, she might even have admired his guile.
    The last glimpse she'd had of him was of his hindquarters, his back legs spinning in a blur and his large paws throwing up foliage as he tore off into the darkness.
    "That infernal cat!" she said to herself, calling him every name under the sun. He'd cover quite some distance at the speed he was going, and she'd only be kidding herself if she thought there was some way to get him back. She'd lost her only means of finding Will and Cal. "Infernal cat," she said again, more despondently this time. Her only option now was to stick to the foreshore in the hope that it might still lead her to her quarry.
    She picked herself up and broke into a trot, praying that Will hadn't peeled off in a totally different direction from the one Bartleby had been tracking. If he'd chosen a new route through the dense wall of foliage to her left, she didn't have a blind chance of finding him.
    Half an hour later the sound of waves was supplanted by that of rushing water. She remembered what she'd seen on the map: some sort of crossing to an island. She cut down toward the sea, and the sound intensified.
    She was almost at the causeway when, from out of nowhere, a shape materialized directly in her path. She nearly jumped out of her skin. It was a man. By now she was on the open beach, with no cover for some distance around her -- she had no idea where he'd sprung from. In a fumbling panic, she swung the rifle from her shoulder, nearly dropping it altogether in the process.
    She heard a harsh nasal laugh and stood absolutely still, the rifle held defensively across her body. He was too close for her to raise it up, anyway.
    "Lost something?" he said in a contemptuous voice. He took a step toward her, and she lifted the lantern a little. In its dim glow she could make out the rugged face with its shadowed eye sockets.
    A Limiter.
    "Careless, very careless," he said, and thrust a rope roughly into her hand. It had a loop on it.
    She shook with fear, not knowing what to expect next. It had been different on the train when Rebecca was with her. Out here, she didn't relish the idea of being alone with these monsters -- particularly if she'd done something to displease them. In these dark wilds, they were a law unto themselves. The thought raced through her mind that handing her the rope might be a prelude to them hanging her. Was this some kind of game they were playing? Maybe they were going to execute her because they considered her incompetent, a liability. And she couldn't really blame them -- she'd gotten everything wrong so far.
    But