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it, but I couldn’t be sure it would buy us enough time to get out of the close. There was so much paranormal activity within the cavern we were in that I had a feeling the great bulk of it would reduce the impact of the grenade. Rigella was toying with us, and I also had Heath to worry about. I couldn’t risk an encounter with her when he was in no shape to help me.
    “What’s happening?” Heath asked me.
    “Trouble’s coming,” I told him honestly while my finger traced the path we’d come on the map. “And we need an exit, pronto.”
    “What’s coming?” he asked, and I glanced up to see him looking back down the cavern.
    As if in answer, Gilley shouted, “She’s on the move again!”
    I stood up and swung the strap of the duffel over my head before reaching under Heath’s good arm and gently lifting him to his feet. “Come on, guy,” I said urgently. “We gotta go!”
    Heath’s ragged breathing felt hot against my neck and he stumbled several times as I guided him forward. “What’d you see under my arm?” he asked.
    “A lump,” I told him, leaving out the gory details. I remembered my European History class from college well enough to recall that black boils that formed in the armpit and high-grade fever were two of the tell-tale symptoms of the bubonic plague that had run rampant all over Europe in the Middle Ages. I was pretty sure the disease had been eradicated in modern times, but what I’d seen under Heath’s arm and the heat coming off him were quite alarming.
    “Lump? What kind of lump?” he persisted.
    I didn’t answer him; instead I fought to push us both forward while keeping one eye on the map so we didn’t get lost.
    “It’s at camera four!” Gil shouted.
    “Keep me posted, Gilley!” I commanded.
    “Where are you?”
    “Heading toward the southeast exit.”
    “How far away are you from there?”
    I glanced down at the map, noting a fork in the cavern that we’d just passed. “I’d say about five hundred yards.”
    “Oh, my God!” Gopher shouted, and I had a feeling that things were about to go from really bad to extra awful. “M. J., the shadow’s got company!”
    “What kind of company?”
    “Two additional shadows have joined Rigella’s ghost, and they all have the silhouette of witches on brooms!”
    “And they’re moving!” Gil yelled urgently. “I think they’re heading to camera five!”
    Heath moaned next to me, as if he was in pain, but there was no way I was stopping. Instead I took hold of the map with my teeth and reached over to remove his grenade from the belt he was wearing. “Hold this,” I said through gritted teeth as I placed the canister in the hand draped across my shoulder. Heath gripped the canister and I tugged up on the cap; freeing the lid, I tossed it to the ground.
    “Three shadows at camera five!” Gopher shouted. “And they’re not stopping! M. J., I think they’re picking up speed!”
    I adjusted my hold on Heath’s middle and gripped his arm tightly while ordering, “Hold on to that canister, and don’t let it go until I tell you to!” Heath mumbled something unintelligible, but he held fast to the canister.
    We made it another two hundred yards when I heard Gilley say, “M. J., Gopher’s on his way to meet you at the exit and something just whizzed by camera six!”
    I was panting heavily as I struggled to bear Heath’s sagging weight and move us along as fast as possible. I’d left the seventh camera on the floor of the cavern after not being able to mount it, and that camera was a mere two hundred yards away from camera six. And that meant that Rigella and her crew were only about four hundred yards behind us, and closing in fast.
    “Gil!” I said, gasping for breath.
    “Yeah?”
    “Are you getting a reading from the meter on my belt?”
    “Yes.”
    “Tell me when it spikes,” I said.
    “It’s spiking now.”
    “Tell me when it really spikes!”
    Gilley made a small squeaky sound. “Jesus, M. J.,