Riptide Read Online Free PDF Page A

left!” he cried in dismay.
    “Just shut up and do it. We can get out in the dark, I swear we can.”
    Malin lit a match, but his hands shook and it flickered out.
Only four more,
he thought as Johnny muttered impatiently. The next match sprang to life and Johnny placed both hands on the iron handle.
     “Ready?” he hissed, bracing his feet against the earthen wall.
    Malin opened his mouth to protest, but Johnny was already tugging at the door. The seal parted abruptly, and the door opened
     with a shriek that made Malin jump. A puff of foul air blew out the match. In the close darkness, Malin heard Johnny’s sharp
     intake of breath. Then Johnny screamed
“Ouch!”,
except the voice seemed so breathless, so very high, it almost didn’t sound like Johnny. Malin heard a thump, and the floor
     of the tunnel shivered violently. As dirt and sand rained down in the darkness, filling his eyes and nose, he thought he heard
     another sound: a strange, strangled sound, so brief that it might almost have been a cough. Then a wheezing, dripping noise
     like a wet sponge being squeezed.
    “Johnny!” Malin cried, raising his hands to wipe the dust out of his face and dropping the matchbox in the process. It was
     so very dark, and things had gone wrong so suddenly, and panic began to overwhelm him. In the close, listening darkness came
     another noise, low and muffled. It took Malin a moment to realize what it was: a soft, continuous
dragging…
    Then the spell was broken and he was fumbling in the dark on his hands and knees, hands outstretched, searching for the matches,
     bawling his brother’s name. One hand touched something wet and he snatched it away just as the other hand closed on the matchbox.
     Rising to his knees, choking back sobs, he grabbed a match and scratched it frantically until it flared.
    In the sudden light he looked around wildly. Johnny was gone. The door was open, the seal broken—but beyond lay nothing except
     a blank stone wall. Dust hung thickly in the air.
    Then wetness touched his legs and he looked down. In the spot where Johnny had stood there was a large, black pool of water,
     crawling slowly around his knees. For a crazy moment, Malin thought maybe there was a breach in the tunnel somewhere and seawater
     was leaking in. Then he realized the pool was steaming slightly in the flicker of the match. Straining forward, he saw that
     it was not black but red: blood, more blood than he ever imagined a body could hold. Paralyzed, he watched as the glossy pool
     spread, running in tendrils across the hollows of the floor, draining into the cracks, creeping into his wet Keds, surrounding
     him like a crimson octopus, until the match dropped into it with a sharp hiss and darkness descended once again.

2

    Cambridge, Massachusetts
Present Day
    T he small laboratory looked out from the Mount Auburn Hospital annex across the leafy tops of the maple trees to the slow,
     sullen waters of the Charles River. A rower in a needlelike shell was cutting through the dark water with powerful strokes,
     peeling back a glittering wake. Malin Hatch watched momentarily entranced by the perfect synchronicity of body, boat, and
     water.
    “Dr. Hatch?” came the voice of his lab assistant. “The colonies are ready.” He pointed toward a beeping incubator.
    Hatch turned from the window, reverie broken, suppressing a surge of irritation at his well-meaning assistant. “Let’s take
     out the first tier and have a look at the little buggers,” he said.
    In his usual nervous way, Bruce opened the incubator and removed a large tray of agar plates, bacterial colonies growing like
     glossy pennies in their centers. These were relatively harmless bacteria—they didn’t need special precautions beyond the usual
     sterile procedures—but Hatch watched with alarm as the assistant swung the rattling tray around, bumping it on the autoclave.
    “Careful, there,” said Hatch. “Or there’ll be no joy in Whoville