The Desert's Going To Get You If You Don't Watch Out
Part 2

Burt pulled the truck to a stop in the same spot Kylie usually parked for her run. They both got out and he rummaged in the back of his truck while Kylie stood next to her open door and stretched.

He turned to her with an olive drab combat harness. "Everything will attach to--" He looked down to where she was with her forhead against her knees. He put one hand on his hip and regarded her impatiently. "I've adjusted this as small as it will go," he said when she stood again. "It should fit."

She took it and set it on the truck seat while he went back to digging in the back of the truck.

"You'd better take this canteen," he said, handing it to her.

Set set it atop the harness and went back to stretching.

"And don't forget your radio."

When he handed it to her, Kylie put it next to the canteen and looked up at him.

He turned back with something else in his hand to meet Kylie's glaring face.

"I am not going for a twenty-mile hike and a camping trip, Burt. I don't need all this... stuff."

"Just some reasonable precautions," he said.

She nodded. "If I was going for a twenty-mile hike and a camping trip." She turned away and bent toward her knees.

"Just take the--"

"No," she said emphatically to her knees.

He crossed his arms and glared as she straightened and started bending this way and that. "You are totally unprepared for--"

She stopped stretching and smiled up at him. "I'm prepared for anything, Burt. I have you!" She turned and started to run.

"You should at least take the radio!" he shouted after her.

She turned and ran backward a few steps. "Catch me!" When he only stood with crossed arms, she waved and went back to her run.

He watched, mezmerized at the sight of the rise and fall of her... He looked away guiltily, and stowed things away in the back of the truck. Then he shook his head. He was supposed to be watching her, after all. Automatically, he checked for observers, then trained his eyes on her rapidly-receeding form, the slightest smile on his face.

She reached the big boulder on the far side of her course. He figured the time, challenging his internal clock, trying to predict when she would reappear. "Right about... now." He frowned when she didn't appear as predicted and recalculated. She still didn't appear. He grew concerned. Maybe she fell. Maybe she was attacked.

He started walking, then broke into a run. He had a bad feeling about this.

As soon as he rounded the boulder himself, he saw a huge hole, probably eight feet or more across. Kylie's tracks lead right to it. He quickly scanned the area first, hoping to see Kylie with her impish grin, telling him she was enjoying his fear. But no, she wasn't there. That left only...

He approached the hole cautiously, dropping first to his knees then to his belly as he neared, feeling the unstable nature of the dirt at the edges of the hole.

Kylie was lying at the bottom, more than 30 feet down.

"Kylie!" he shouted.

"Ugh..." she replied, blinking dirt out of her eyes. She sat up and shook her head.

"Are you all right?"

She looked up at him. "Well... no. I just dropped down a rabbit hole like Alice in frickin' Wonderland. Of course I'm not all right."

She must not be injured, he decided. "Did you break anything?"

"Um..." She looked around, then scrambled to her feet amid the rubble. "Just the ground, I think. What the hell is going on?"

He shook his head. "Didn't you see the hole?"

"See it? Burt the damn thing wasn't there until I fell into it." She put her hands on her hips. "I ran this way all week, no problem. Now there's this big cave thing."

"Can you climb out?"

She looked around the edges of the hole then turned to glare at him. "Are you stupid?"

He rolled his eyes. "I'll get some rope."

He brought a couple lines of rope from the Power Wagon and tied them together, then tossed one end down to Kylie.

She looked at the end of the rope dangling a few feet above her head then back up to Burt. "And now what am I supposed to do?"

He looked down into the hole. It was dark and he couldn't make out details. He could only see Kylie by the whiteness of her clothes and her blond hair. He pulled out his maglight from a pocket and panned it around the hole. "Can you get on that ledge over there?"

There was a shelf of rock about four feet above her level, on the other side of the hole. It almost reached her chin. "Maybe..." she said, crossing to it. While she struggled to get atop the shelf, Burt went to the other side of the hole, and gingerly tested the ground. He flattened himself and threw the rope down to her again, weighting his end by laying on it. This time the rope reached her. Still she glared back up at him.

"What am I supposed to do with this, Burt? I failed rope climbing in school."

"Figures," he muttered. "Just tie it around yourself and I'll help pull you up," he called down.

She picked up the rope, considered it a moment, then reluctantly looked up at Burt. "I'm not good with ropes. I could maybe... tie it in a bow..."

"Let me guess. You don't know how to tie even a square knot."

"Sorry."

"Hang on," he said on a sigh. He hauled the rope up again, while muttering under his breath.

"I'm from LA, Burt, we don't even use rope there. Knots are like... alien concepts."

He nodded absently, trying not to listen to her excuses. Even Nancy could tie a knot. He quickly tied the end of the rope into a bowline and tossed it down to her. With the loop in it, the rope didn't quite reach her again. He let out a little more line, sacrificing the anchor on his end, and wrapped it a few times around his arm. "Get your shoulders through that," he instructed.

By stretching up on her toes, she could just get through the loop. She looked up at him expectantly. "Now what?"

"Now you're going to have to climb while I pull you."

"Climb? Are you insane? I can't climb!"

"Learn," he said ruthlessly. "Find something to hold on to and put your feet on and I'll keep the rope tight so you can't fall."

"I don't think this is going to work, Burt," she called up.

He was getting exasperated. "Then don't think about it, just do it."

"Sure, easy for you to say, you're not down--" She spun around and almost fell off the ledge. His grasp of the rope kept her from falling, but it also nearly pulled him down. "What was that?"

"What was what?" he called down.

"I heard a noise." Her eyes probed the darkness. "There it is again. There's something down here!"

He panned the maglight around the darkness but saw nothing. "Just your imagination," he said. "Now climb up that rope!"

She turned, trying to find handholds in the wall. Finally, she put her foot in a gap and grabbed a couple of protruding rocks. "You won't drop me?" she asked uncertainly.

"As tempting as it's becoming..." he said. "No, I won't drop you." He made sure the rope was taut. "Now just start climbing."

She climbed. Slowly, and she complained every inch, but she made about ten feet before she looked down. "Ohhh... Burt, I'm scared. This isn't going to work!"

"Look up here!" he barked. Her head snapped around. "Just keep going. There's nothing you need to see back there."

She got another handhold, but then turned around. Her eyes probed the darkenss. "I'm telling you, there's something down here, Burt."

"Then you need to get up here, don't you?" Burt said relentlessly.

She glared at him. But she found another foothold and gained another couple feet.

He pulled the rope taut and turned to anchor a length of it under him.

She screamed.

His head snapped back to the hole. She'd gained another three feet. "What is it?"

"Something touched me! Get me out of here!"

He saw nothing moving. "I don't see anything." Wait. Was that a shadow...? "Climb faster," he advised, his eyes stiving to see. He pulled a little harder on the rope.

She climbed, ignoring the scrapes she was surely getting on her hands and knees.

When she screamed again, Burt saw it.

It was big. Not as big as El Blanco, but shrieker-sized, at least.

Kylie dropped a few feet, pulled loose and dragged. "Burt! Something's got me!"

He held tightly to the rope, but it started sliding through his hands. He wrapped it around one arm and reached behind him for his Desert Eagle. "Flatten yourself against the wall!" he shouted, taking careful aim.

He couldn't get a good look at whatever it was, but aimed at the darker bit of darkness just below her. When she was as out of the line of fire as she could get, clinging desperately to the one handhold she could, he fired.

Something screamed and the darkness dropped away from Kylie.

"Climb!" he shouted.

She looked up at him, then down below her. "I can't."

"Yes you can! Get up here now!" he shouted, his voice harsh and unyielding. He'd seen that patch of darkness moving.

Automatically, afraid at the tone in Burt's voice, Kylie set to climbing again, this time faster than she had before. She only turned back once, at a rustling from below. But this time, instead of slowing her down, she scrambled up faster.

She was no more than five feet from him when the darkness came up at her again. This time she ignored it in favor of reaching Burt.

He trained the Desert Eagle behind her, getting to his knees so he could pull more on the rope. He was pulling more on her than she was climbing now, but it didn't seem to matter. Just then a ray of light fell across the darkness. Burt got a glimpse of something furred and multi-legged, like jellyfish with hair. He fired just as Kylie came out of the hole.

She lunged at him and he caught her. They fell in a heap on the ground. Kylie was still trying to scramble farther from the hole, and almost dragging him with her.

Finally she stopped, her arms wrapped tight around him and staring over his shoulder at the hole behind them, her eyes wide. "Did you get it?"

He nodded. "I got it." He remembered to keep his voice calm and level, even though his heart was racing along, beat-for-beat with hers.

That's when he realized she was pressed up against his chest, her face touching his, she was practically in his lap - like lovers if they hadn't both been covered with dirt and focussed on something besides each other. He tried to pull away.

She wouldn't let go.

"I thought you said El Blanco couldn't come up here," she said, her voice ragged.

"He can't. That wasn't El Blanco."

"It had one of its snake-things around my leg. It was pulling me in, just like that night--"

"It wasn't El Blanco," Burt repeated emphatically. He heard the note of hysteria creeping into her voice. "I thought you said you couldn't climb," he said, trying to calm her down.

"Heh..." She took a deep breath, finally breaking the lock she had around his shoulders. "I guess I can. What do you know?"

He started to pull away from her, but she stopped him. "Burt..."

"What?"

"Can I have your gun?"

He looked at the Desert Eagle, still in his hand, and thought of Kylie with a gun... "No."