Tunnels 03, Freefall

longer. The door to the kitchen, which Mrs. Tantrumi had left ajar, moved the smallest fraction. Will was holding his breath as a mangy black cat stuck its head out and gave them an indifferent look before it ducked inside again.
    "Yes, you've got to watch out for her pussy cats -- they're vicious brutes. One gave me a really nasty scratch," Dr. Burrows declared dryly as he surveyed both his son and Drake poised with their weapons.
    "Can't be too careful. This place is riddled with Styx," Drake said as he straightened up again. He regarded Dr. Burrows rather coldly before addressing Will. "I presume this is your father -- the intrepid explorer?"
    Will nodded.
    "And you've come back to Highfield to see your mother," Drake said.
    "My wife -- yes, of course we have," Dr. Burrows jumped in before Will could answer.
    Drake put his handgun away. "Well, if you thought you'd find her in your old house, you're wasting your time. She's sold it."
    "She did what?" Dr. Burrows said, aghast.
    Will's mind was beginning to function after the shock of seeing Drake again, and something didn't quite add up. "But, how did you know we'd come here? How did you know that I was even still alive?" he asked.
    "When you rang that number, your message was logged on a secure server in Wales."
    "Number? Message?" Will said, then the penny dropped: it had to have been one of the calls he'd made from the old telephone in the fallout shelter. "So the line wasn't dead! And that was your number all the time!" Will said, shaking his head. "I had no idea what it was for."
    "You can only have got it from Elliott, so I assume she's still alive, too. Is she okay?"
    Will nodded. "I hope so. We got separated after she set off a huge explosion."
    "Typical," Drake chuckled. "And what about Chester?"
    "He should be with Elliott, but Cal... something terrible--"
    "I know about Cal," Drake interrupted softly. "I was there. I saw the whole thing."
    "You were there?" Will sputtered. "At the Pore?"
    "Yes. With Sarah... for her last moments..."
    "No," Will said. She's dead, too?"
    Drake glanced away from Will, as if he knew how painful what he was about to say would be for the boy. "Will, she threw herself off the edge, taking the twins with her. I reckon she did it because she'd messed things up so badly with you, and it was all that was left for her."
    "Oh, God," Will gasped. He'd hung on to the hope that somehow she might have survived, but now that had been dashed by what Drake had told him. Will tried to speak, to ask more about what had happened, but his throat had tightened to such an extent that Drake couldn't hear him.
    Dr. Burrows was completely ignorant of Will's feelings, and how both Cal's death and now this account about Sarah's final act of self-sacrifice struck him to the very core. Still put out at being manhandled by Drake, and even more so by the discovery that he was now homeless, Dr. Burrows spoke with uncharacteristic boldness.
    "Hey, gunslinger -- whatever your name is -- you said we shouldn't hang around here?"
    Drake didn't shift his gaze from Will as he answered, but a slight movement of his eyes betrayed his irritation. "It's Drake, and yes, I did say that, didn't I? I'm going to take you somewhere to lie low for a while, and maybe you'll get a chance to see your wife at the same time."
    "You know where she is?" Dr. Burrows asked immediately.
    "Come along, Will," Drake said softly, placing a hand on the overwrought boy's shoulder and steering him towards the garden wall. "We've got a lot of catching up to do, but not here. Let's go."
    "Excellent," Dr. Burrows declared to their backs as they moved away. Even if he didn't admit it to himself, he was more than a little resentful that he seemed to have been supplanted in his son's affections by this rather imposing stranger, who evidently had such a strong bond with his son.

25

    Drake went ahead to check the road was clear, then waved Will and Dr. Burrows out after him. As he escorted them away from Mrs. Tantrumi's house, Will thought how good it felt to be back with him. He'd had no idea how he and his father were going to cope, particularly as Dr. Burrows had seemed so unwilling to accept that the Styx were a very real threat. He just hoped that the incident with Mrs. Tantrumi would open his father's eyes to this.
    Drake used a hand signal to tell Will to stay back as he moved to the end of the road. Slowing, he glanced around the corner, then disappeared from sight. He was being every bit