Entombed by Brian Keene Page B

even over the generators. I knew that Jeff and Mike would hear it, so I hid behind one of the tanks and waited for them to arrive.
    I didn’t have to wait long. Jeff came hurrying along at a trot a few minutes later, looking bewildered. There was no sign of Mike. I wondered if perhaps they had already reached the bodies, and decided that Mike should stay with Clyde while Jeff investigated the source of the alarm.
    In his hurry, he didn’t see me hiding behind the tank. I waited until he’d gone past me. Then I slipped out from behind the tank and sneaked up behind him. I didn’t have to worry about him hearing me. Between the fire alarm and the generators, there was no chance of that. The extreme heat in the power plant had already dried most of the water the sprinkler system had sprayed me with, so I also wasn’t worried about him seeing puddles.
    Despite my caution, Jeff paused. He raised his head slightly and sniffed the air. His back was still turned to me. I assumed he’d noticed the smell coming from the stairwell. Before he could move again, I pulled the box-cutter from my pocket, extended the blade, and rushed up behind him. I looped my arm around his forehead and slashed at his throat with my other hand.
    Cutting someone’s throat isn’t at all like it appears in the movies. When you see Rambo or Michael Myers slit somebody’s throat, it’s always quick and easy and arterial blood immediately starts spraying from the victim’s wound. It wasn’t like that at all with Jeff. I don’t know if I cut too low or too high, or not deep enough, but there was no crimson geyser. He screamed, more from surprise than pain, I think, and tried to pull away. I was surprised that he was still able to make noise. He slipped my hold on him, got free and spun around. There was a thin, red line on his neck, almost like the indentation from a necklace chain that had been worn too long. I don’t think he was even aware of it at first, but then the pain must have kicked in. He reached up slowly and touched the wound with his fingertips, probing it gently, experimentally. When he pushed on it, a few red drops leaked out. Jeff pulled his hand away and looked at his fingertips. More blood began to flow, but it was nowhere near what I’d imagined.
    “You cut me.”
    I couldn’t hear him, but I understood him just the same. I leaped at him, slashing with the box-cutter. The razor sliced him just below the shoulder. When he reflexively reached toward the wound, I swiped the blade across the back of his hand. Jeff tried to turn and run, but I jumped on him, stabbing again and again with the box-cutter. He thrashed and kicked beneath me, but I managed to stay on top of him. I just kept jamming the blade into his back and shoulders and neck and head. Sometimes, the razor got pushed back up into the sheath and I’d thumb it out again, even while I struck him with my other fist. We went on like that for a long time. I don’t know how long, exactly. I know that his struggles weakened, and then ceased, and even after he’d stopped moving altogether, I kept on stabbing and slashing at him. It was exactly like what had happened with George, except that this time I had a knife. My hands, legs and face were splattered with blood, and my clothes were sticky and wet again.
    When I stood up, blood dripped from my fingertips and the edge of the knife. I put the bloody weapon back in my pocket. Then I rolled Jeff over and searched him for anything useful. He had nothing on him except for his car keys and a black leather wallet. I ignored the keys and gave the wallet a cursory examination. It contained a few one, five and ten dollar bills, totally useless in the current environment, unless you were using them to start a fire or as toilet paper. In one of the wallet’s pockets, there was also a round wooden token with the slogan IT IS WHAT IT IS emblazoned on it. That made me grin.
    “It is what it is,” I muttered. “Do whatever you have to