Tunnels 02, Deeper

shouting and spun around.
    "NO! WAIT!" his brother was shrieking. "I WANT TO GO HOME!"
    He'd jumped out from behind the menhir and was waving his arms, in plain view of the Limiters and bathed in the full beams of the spotlights.
    Right in the firing line.
    Cracks of multiple rifle shots came from all around the upper reaches of the slope. So many in such a short space of time, it sounded like a speeded-up drumroll.
    The barrage struck Cal all over his body with a messy, deadly precision. He didn't stand a chance. As if swatted by a huge invisible hand, the bullets' impact swept him off his feet, leaving a momentary red trace airborne in his place.
    Will could only watch as his brother flopped in a broken heap by the very edge of the Pore, like a puppet whose strings had all been cut. It was as if it had happened in grisly slow motion. The bounce of his brother's arm as it hit the damp ground, the fact that he was only wearing one sock -- Will absorbed even the smallest details.
    Then Cal's body simply tipped over the edge. The rope around Will's waist snapped tight, the sudden tension yanking on him and forcing him several steps forward.
    Bartleby, who had been waiting obediently where Cal had left him, scrabbled up in a whir of long limbs and burst after his master, vanishing from sight over the lip of the Pore. The drag on Will from the rope increased, and he knew that the cat must be hanging on to Cal's body.
    Shots sizzled through the light beams, which switched back and forth so rapidly that they gave a stroboscopic effect. The bullets fell around him, like a metal rain, whining and ricocheting off the menhirs and flicking up sprays of dirt at his feet.
    But Will didn't make any attempt to hide. With his hands pressed against his temples, he screamed with every last drop of air in his lungs, until all that was left was a rasping croak. He swallowed down more air and screamed a second time: The word Enough! Was just discernible through it. As his howl came to an end, a deathly hush filled the place.
    The Limiters had ceased firing.
    Chester and Elliott were no longer yelling to get his attention.
    Will swayed where he stood. He was numb, oblivious to the rope as it bit sharply into his waist.
    He didn't feel a thing.
    Cal was dead.
    This time there was no question in Will's mind. And he might have saved his brother's life if he'd surrendered to the twins.
    But he hadn't.
    Once before, he'd thought Cal was gone for good, and Drake had performed a miracle and resuscitated him. But now there were no reprieves, no happy endings. No this time.
    The intolerable weight of responsibility he bore crushed him. He, and he alone, had been responsible for destroying many lives. He saw their faces. Uncle Tam. Grandma Macaulay. People who had given everything for him; people he loved.
    And he couldn't help but believe his father, Dr. Burrows, was lost to him, too. He would never see him again, not now. Will's dream was finished.
    The lull was brought to an abrupt end as the Limiters opened fire again, the barrage even fiercer than before, and Chester and Elliott resumed their panicked shouting as they tried to get through to him.
    But, as if the sound had been turned down, Will wasn't hearing anything. His glazed eyes drifted over Chester's stricken and desperate face, mere footsteps away, as his friend yelled with all his might. It had no effect -- even his friendship with Chester had been taken from him.
    Everything he'd relied upon -- the certainties underpinning his uncertain life -- had been knocked out from under him, one after another.
    His brain burned with the horrific image of his brother's death. That last moment blotted out everything else.
    "Enough," he said, quite steadily this time.
    Cal had lost his life because of him .
    There was no avoiding it, no room for excuses, no quarter.
    Will knew it should be him hanging there, punched full of holes, not his brother.
    It was as if something was being stretched and stretched in his mind, creaking and bellying from side to side, until it was so close to the breaking point that it would fracture into tiny, sharp fragments that might never be pieced together again.
    He struggled to stay upright as Cal's deadweight pulled at him. The Limiters continued to fire, but Will was somewhere else, and none of it mattered anymore.
    He took a single stride toward the Pore, allowing the weight to draw him on.
    From the top of the stone steps, Chester came toward him, holding out his