“It’s getting away,” he says. “Either come with me, or give me the torch so I can go on my own.”
Alone? He’s not thinking clearly. He’s too consumed by his anger, his lust for the hunt. Right now all that matters to him is catching the prey. That is more important than staying with the group, more important than Latu…more important than me.
He holds the knife in his right hand, down low, close to his thigh. He thrusts his left hand toward me, fingers outstretched: he wants the torch.
“I’ll go in the dark if I have to,” he says.
He’s gone mad.
I know I should go back to Latu, get her to the others, but I can’t leave Bishop now. I can’t. If he goes alone and something happens to him, I would die.
“I’m coming with you.”
I jog ahead of him down the hall. He limps along, his face a snarling scowl of total focus.
If I can’t talk him out of it, at least I can try to keep him safe.
The hall is the same as before, with carvings lining the walls. We pass archways both open and closed, but the blood trail enters none of them.
Bishop doesn’t even look at me. He is obsessed, controlled by the thought of chasing down that pig. There is something basic about Bishop that excites me, that makes my soul shake. A word comes back to me from my days in school.
Primal.
That’s what Bishop is: primal.
Whatever he did to his leg is beginning to ease. He starts running left-right, left-right, although he winces and dips a little each time his right foot slaps down. He picks up speed. I almost have to sprint to keep up with him.
The blood trail…it’s thinning out.
“No,” Bishop says, the word full of loss. “If we lose the trail now, we might never find it.”
My torch is starting to flutter: it’s almost out. Soon we’ll be in the dark, and Bishop either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
“We can’t be that far behind,” he says. “It’s lost a lot of blood—it will slow down soon, then crawl away somewhere to die.”
There is no doubt in his voice: he knows exactly what he’s doing. But if he’s really like me, like Bello and the others, he’s only twelve. How can he be such an expert?
“Bishop, I can barely even remember what a pig is, and you know how to hunt one?”
He looks up from the blood trail, glances at me without breaking stride. “What’s a pig?”
“The animal we’re chasing.”
He shrugs and returns his focus to the hallway floor.
Realization hits home, and with it comes a shiver: Bishop doesn’t know how to hunt a pig, he knows how to hunt. I don’t think he cares what we’re after, as long as he catches it.
The trail stops.
Bishop looks around frantically. “Em, help me find the blood! There has to be more here somewhere.”
I drop to my knees, hold the fading torch close to the ground. It’s more glow than flame now…I’m going to be in the dark again.
Ahead and to the right, something catches my eye. An archway, stone doors sealed tight, but at the bottom I see a wide black spot.
“Bishop, look!”
I crawl forward, stick the torch into the blackness. Yes, it’s a hole.
A hole streaked with blood.
Bishop dives to the floor and starts crawling through. He grunts and growls, trying to force his body into the hole. The sounds he’s making…If I closed my eyes and just listened, I don’t know if I could tell the difference between him and the pig.
“Bishop, stop it—you won’t fit through there.”
I can’t see his head anymore. His shoulders seemed jammed. His bare, bloody feet push at the floor. He wiggles and thrashes. Then his shoulders slide through, and he’s gone.
“Em, get in here!”
I slide the torch into the hole, then follow it. I crawl through easily, grab the torch and stand.
Bishop’s white shirt is in shreds. He pulls it from his broad shoulders and tosses it aside. His sweaty, hairless chest gleams in the torchlight. I’m consumed by an urge to reach out, to touch his skin, to see if his muscles are really as firm as they look, to trace a finger along his collarbone….
I shake my head, try to clear my thoughts. What’s wrong with me? Why would I want something like that, something…shameful? The pig, Bishop’s obsession with it, that’s what I have to focus on.
The torch sputters.
Bishop and I watch, helpless, as the light flutters out completely.
All is black.
Just like the coffin, just like when I was trapped and that thing was biting me. We’re going to die here, stuck in the darkness. I hear my own breathing, so fast, but I feel like I’m not breathing at all—my chest is tight and no air is coming in. It’s not fair, I fought my way out of the dark once already, I can’t go without light I can’t I—
“Em, open your eyes.”
—can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe. I’m trapped in the dark in a coffin where no one will come save us and Mom and Dad abandoned us and left us to die left us alone, I have to—
Strong hands grip my shoulders. Warm hands, hands gritty with dirt and slick with sweat.