I turn off the flashlight.  There's a fainter pop,  and a bullet zings out of the tunnel with a little scream.  After a second faint shot from the far end, I hear someone gasp in pain in the tunnel.  The crawling sounds begin again.  I take a few cautious steps forward on the uneven floor, so I'm behind the LaSalle, but there's no light.

The crawling gets closer, and shortly someone tumbles out of the tunnel, short, high breaths echoing in the chamber.  It sounds like Nikki, not that I've ever heard her gasping.  She's fetched up against the front of the car, and I know it's her when she sighs and says, "Another fucking car."

"It's a LaSalle," I say, and turn the flashlight on.  I manage to shine it directly in her face, and she squints, looking away.  She's covered in dirt, like I probably am, and her leg is bleeding.  She looks small and frightened, her eyes big and black.  I turn the flashlight away.  "Sorry.  It's a 1934 LaSalle, " I tell her again.  "Roadster.  Needs a new top, among other kinds of love."

"Where did they come from?" Nikki asks.

She's hurt; the little bulldog girl is doing her best to hide it, so I decide to let her, for at least thirty seconds.  Clearly, whatever's going on topside is Extremely Not Good, with capital letters.  "LaSalles?  Detroit, I think.  I can't remember for sure if they built them at Fisher alongside the Cadillacs or not.  It might have been--"

"No.  I didn't mean that."

"Well what did you mean then?"

Nikki shakes her head.  "Never mind.  We have to go."

I won't let her stall any more.  "You're hurt.  Did you get hit?" 

She nods, her face crinkling as if she feels guilty for getting shot. 

I squat to look at her leg.  She tries to pull it away, but I tell her to wait and push her coat and skirt away from the wound.  There are two ugly looking holes, one in the sole of her shoe and one in her calf by her knee, both of them bleeding slowly.  I'm no Dr. Auschlander, but I'd be willing to bet that means good news, relatively.  "Bullet came out, but I'll bet you know that.  You're turning gray, too.  Let me feel your pulse."

"I'm okay, Lexi."

"Of course you are, dear.  Or at least you will be until..."

Nikki pulls her skirt back down and stands up, just like I knew she would.  As soon as her foot touches the floor, she lets out a little shout of pain and collapses in on herself like a sofa-bed. 

I knew that would happen, too.  "Until you try to stand up, stubbornlet," I finish saying.  "I was going to tell you not to do that.  Mind if I use the bottom third of your skirt to tie it up, for now?"  Nikki's skirt rips easily.  It's not going to make it any easier for her to walk, but it'll keep the wound more or less clean.

"Oh, fuck, I'm going into shock," she says.

"You've bought the ticket, reserved the room, and arrived, dearie.  There's a hole blown in your leg," I say as calmly as I can.  "Button your coat, and put mine on over it."

"I can't take your coat."

"Yes you can, and you will.  Your body temperature's going to drop like a tour bus in the Pyrenees."  Hey, that's two funny similes in less than a minute, I'm feeling pretty creative apparently.  "It already is.  And you're wet with sweat.  If you don't stay warm and try to stay calm, you're gonna die."  She lets me put the coat on her.

Nikki's voice cracks.  "How am I supposed to be fucking calm? She's, she's back there.  Taiisha."

That must be Gray's real name.  It doesn't sound like a real name, but there you go.  "You mean the evil chiclet formerly known as Gray?"

"Yes.  She killed Martin."  Nikki's wet to the skin, with sweat or snow and ice.  I'm not sure which, and I pay attention to her instead of thinking about what Nikki just said; I'll leave that in the back of my head to deal with later.  Her teeth begin chattering, and she stubbornly clenches her jaw to make them stop.  "She'll kill you too," Nikki says, sounding like the very idea terrifies her.  It doesn't make me feel too sunshiny either.

She doesn't need to know that, of course.  I can be the strong one for a while.  "I've heard that before," I say mildly.  I shall pretend that nothing's amiss while the world goes insane around me.  Besides, I have aces in holes that Gray, er, Taiisha, doesn’t know about, no matter who she's killed.  "Follow me," I say, helping Nikki up.  "I have an in with the Mysterious Subterranean Tunnels Department.  She killed Martin?"  Nikki leans heavily on me--well, she doesn't really do anything heavily, she can't, but I'm supporting most of her weight, anyway.

"Yes."

"In my house?"

That comes out more horrified than I intend it to--it's not every evening you hear that your houseguests are killing each other off, after all--and Nikki makes a mollifying sound.  "I'll clean it up for you.  I have experience," she says, then staggers on the way up the slope toward the farmhouse's porch.  I manage to keep her from falling.  "I'm so sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry.  Careful, the floor's not level here."

"I can't fucking see.  I'm going to pass out, Lexi."

"You can see," I tell her.  "Open your eyes."

"I'm tired."

"That's because you're a swooner," I say.  I want to keep her talking.

"A what?"

"You swoon, when you go into shock.  Some people do.  Some people get manic.  Some get hysterical.  Some get super-anal retentive.  It's different for everybody.  It'd be cool to take notes, if I wasn't so worried about you.  I should get a grant and do a study."

"How do you know these things?"

"Racing.  People crash, they almost always go into shock, even if they're not hurt too badly.  Pain and fear do that whether you admit to them or not, and all those little traits just pop right out.  I usually get manic--all of a sudden I have to make sure the car's okay, catalog what's wrong, make calls for replacement parts, find out if anyone else was hurt, make three hundred phone calls, you know.  There could be a hole in my skull and I'd be yelling for a phone so I could make sure the car got picked up by the right towing yard.  I also get extremely cranky.  After I rolled an MGB once at Road Atlanta, I actually hissed at the corner worker who was trying to get me out of the car."

Nikki smiles and says something I don't catch in her little whispery voice. 

"Hm?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, okay then."

From the tunnel behind them, there's a howl.  It sounds like Gray, and she sounds like something awful is happening to her.  Good.  "Dog!" she screams.  "No!  Dog!  No!  Get away!"  I remember that she was asking if I had a dog, and wonder what the angry ghost is showing her.  She seems to have a knack for pulling out the things one finds most horrible, after all.

"What the fuck is happening to her in there?" Nikki says.  Her eyes are huge, and a little bit bloodshot.

"Well, do you have a dog?"

"No."  Another long, anguished scream follows.  I didn't like that tunnel, either, but at least I bothered to crawl out when it began to suck.  I'd be sad if this chick decided to just stay down here and scream forever...no, on second thought, maybe that would be a good thing.

I tell Nikki about the bad patch, thinking she must have gone by without noticing on account of the bullet holes in her leg.  "It's obvious that instant karma has come to get her.  Maybe it'll slow her down.  We're going up steps now, careful.  One, two, three."

"Is there a house down here?" she asks.  She's only just noticed it, not that she hasn't got a good excuse for being distracted of course.

"I don't think we're in Kansas any more, Toto," I tell her.  "Yes, it's a farmhouse.  It's a little bit squished and a lot tilted, but there is in fact a house here.  There's got to be the most gleeful story behind how it came to be underground.  There's a short, steep tunnel to the surface right behind the kitchen."

"How do you know that?"

I help Nikki across the tilted living room floor.  "I was already up there.  We can get up and out, and I'll bet we're close to Sir William's.  I think I might make this my playhouse, what do you think?  I'll fill it with toys and come down here when I want to be left alone."

Nikki whines, "I can't climb this.  My leg won't hold me."

"Oh, shut up," I tell her.  "We're halfway out.  You don't give yourself nearly enough credit."

To her credit, she manages to climb on her own.  I go in front of her, so I can clear whatever debris is ahead of us out of the way, but I keep looking back to make sure she's still with me.  She drags her shot leg behind her, and her strength and resolve are fading fast.  "Oh fuck, it hurts."

"I know," I say, feeling her pain.  "Just a bit farther, Nikki."

She starts babbling.  "I hit Eddie.  Gray told him I was going to kill him, and I was supposed to, but I didn't want to and I wasn't going to, but she told him and I had to hit him.  I hid him in your room.  And I called your friend Molly," she says.  I blink in surprise, wondering how she managed that trick, and at the same time suddenly happy that she did.  "I told her to come here.  I didn't know if you were going to be okay or not, and I thought you needed a real friend here."

That makes me laugh, in an almost-gonna-cry way.   "This is where I'm supposed to tell you that you are a real friend, right?"  We're almost to the surface.  "Well, I think your ego's bloated enough as it is, so I'm not gonna.  But wait till Molly gets here, we'll make strawberry cake and lasagna for three.  Or should it be four? Shall I invite Mr. Doctor Edward Sharp to dinner as well?"  At the top, there's a door.  I push, hard; it resists for a bit, then snow and ice give way and it flops sullenly agape.

"Yes," Nikki says.  I help her out.  We're in what used to be a deer blind, if my grew-up-with-dad-and-his-buddies memories are correct.   She flops into deep snow and vanishes.  I look at her to make sure she hasn't passed out (she hasn't) and then wish I had an anvil, as I do my best to re-bury the door.  It won't do much good, of course; if I can push it open, so can Gray.  Or Taiisha, or whatever her name is. 

"Maybe we'll get lucky," I wish aloud,  "and she won't find the tunnel."

"I've never gotten lucky in anything that has to do with her.  Don't take chances."

"Well, if I had an anvil I wouldn't hesitate to use it.  But I don't."  I look around.  Nope, no anvil.

"We're fucking lost, aren't we?"

"No, we're not.  Silly pessimist girl.  My house is that way," I point for her benefit, even though she probably can't see me, down in the snow as she is.  "But Sir William's is that way.  From my place, it's five miles by car, and one and a half as the crow flies, thanks to the roads.  And it's closer than my house, so to it we shall go."

"How do you know that's the right way?"

"Internal compass," I say.  It's easy to be goofy around Nikki.  Fun, too, even if she is only half-conscious.  "I had a powerful magnet attached to my skull just above the hairline.  My head's always trying to point north.  If you put an electronic device near my face it'll stop.  I'm serious.  Try it, it's cool.  Do you have a watch?"  She gives me a weak smile.  "Okay, I'm lying.  I just have a good sense of direction.  I've spent a lot of time sliding sideways through forests in cars.  Not that has anything to do with it, I just like to brag about rallying.  C'mon," I say, pulling her up and doing my best to play coach.  "We gotta walk, Nikki.  If I was in better shape, I could carry you piggyback, but I've let myself go a little bit.  Next time I promise to be strong enough to carry you.  Lean on me."