Read Tunnels 02, Deeper for Free Online

conviction that nothing was going to get in her way. She must spare her other two children from the same fate, whatever the cost.
    That same evening, as the body of the dead baby, the child that had no name, lay cooling in its cot, she had thrown a few things into a shoulder bag and grabbed her two sons. While her husband was out making arrangements for the funeral, she left the house with both her boys, heading toward one of the escape routes her brother had once described to her.
    As if the Styx knew her every move, it had very quickly gone wrong and become a game of cat and mouse. While she'd struggled through the warren of ventilation tunnels, they were never far behind. She recalled how she'd stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Leaning against the wall, she cowered in the darkness with a child held under each arm. In her heart of hearts, she knew she had no choice but to leave one of them behind. She wasn't going to make it not with both of them. She recalled her tortured decision at the time.
    But shortly afterward, a Colonist, one of her own people, had stumbled across her. In the frantic tussle that ensued, she had fought the man off, stunning him with a wild blow. Her arm had been badly hurt in the struggle, and there was no question about it anymore.
    She knew what she had to do.
    She left Cal behind. He was barely a year old. She'd gently laid the twitching bundle between two rocks on the grit floor of the tunnel. Etched indelibly into her memory was the image of the child's cocoonlike swaddling, smeared with her own blood. And the noise he was making, the gurgling. She knew it wouldn't be long before he was discovered and returned to her husband, and that he would care for him. A scant consolation. She had resumed her flight with the other son and, more by luck than skill, had somehow eluded the Styx and broken out onto the surface.
    In the small hours of the morning, they had walked down Highfield's
    Main Street
    , her son on the pavement beside her, a toddler still unsteady on his legs. He was her eldest child and he was called Seth. He was nearly three years old. He had turned this way and that as he gaped at the strange surroundings with wide, frightened eyes.
    She had no money, nowhere to go, and before long the realization hit her that it was going to be a struggle to look after even the one child.
    Hearing people in the distance, she led Seth away from the main thoroughfare and down several streets until she spied a church. Seeking refuge in its overgrown graveyard, mother and son sat on a mossy grave, smelling the night air for the very first time in their lives and looking with awe at the sodium-soaked sky above. Sarah just wanted to shut her eyes for a few minutes, but she feared if she rested for too long, she might not ever get up again. With her head spinning, she summoned all her remaining strength and got to her feet with the aim of finding some food, some water, somewhere they could hide.
    She had tried to explain to her son what she intended to do, how soon she'd be back, but he just wanted to come with her. Poor little confused Seth. The expression on his face, the pure, heartrending incomprehension, was all she could bear as she hastily walked away from him. He clung to the railings around the most commanding tomb in the graveyard, which, strangely enough, had two small stone figures at its apex wielding a pickax and a shovel. Seth called out to her as she went, but she couldn't turn to look back, her every instinct raking at her, telling her not to go.
    She left the churchyard, heading she knew not where, all the while fighting the dizziness that, with each step, made her feel as though she was walking on rolling pins.
    Sarah didn't remember much after that.
    She'd regained consciousness as something prodded her awake. When she opened her eyes, the light was unbearable. It was so blindingly bright, she could barely make out the face of the concerned woman who stood over her, asking her