by Robin Mahle
“Sure.” He continued inside. “Glad I caught you. You want to take a trip?”
“Where to?”
“New York Field Office asked us to come take a look at something they think will be right up our alley.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Should be. We’re leaving now. Don’t worry. We’ll be back by dinner.”
Calling in sick for the morning shift at the grocery store was all Dawn wanted to do. But she couldn’t afford to lose this job, even if it was only part-time. She hadn’t slept much and what little sleep she did get was riddled with images of the bodies in the mineshaft. Steven was wrong to stop her from going to the police, but she had kept her mouth shut like she promised.
Her first customer of the day and Dawn had to put on a smile. “Morning.”
“Morning. How are you, Dawn? Good to see you.”
“You too, Mrs. J.” She began scanning the food and could scarcely look the woman in the eye. “That’ll be $34.76, ma’am.” Dawn continued to eye the store’s entrance, expecting the police to come in after her.
“Dawn?” The woman held the money in her hand, waiting for Dawn to take it.
“Oh, sorry about that, Mrs. J. Thank you.”
“You all right, honey?”
“Just a little tired is all. Here’s your change. Have a good day.”
“You too and get some rest.” She grabbed the bags and walked to the exit.
That was when Dawn overheard the conversation in the checkout lane next to her. She peered over her shoulder just for a moment to catch a glimpse of the woman who was speaking. It was Mrs. Waverly.
“Chief Tate sent his boys out to look for her yesterday, but still nothing. I’m getting real scared, you know, but I’m trying to keep up hope.”
“Course you are. I’m sure Joanne’s just fine. She’ll turn up,” the woman in line replied.
“I know she will. Thank you.”
“Anytime. You try to stay positive now, you hear?”
Mrs. Waverly revealed a half-hearted smile before heading toward the exit, right past Dawn’s lane. She watched as the woman’s listless smile faded until she passed through the doors.
“What’s going on?” Dawn turned to the co-worker who rang up Mrs. Waverly.
“Joanne Waverly’s been missing a couple days. Her momma’s worried as you’d expect. I sure do hope that girl turns up soon.”
“Yeah.” Dawn returned to see another customer approach, but the words echoed in her mind. She wondered if it was Joanne Waverly inside that shaft. It was too dark and she was too frightened to be able to recognize anyone. Not to mention that the bodies were already almost unrecognizable thanks to the creatures that lived inside or those that smelled the rotting flesh from a distance. Her stomach turned as she tried to keep her wits about her.
“You already rang that up, Dawn.” The customer she was checking out furrowed her brow.
“I did?” She looked back at the screen. “You’re right. I’m so sorry.” Dawn keyed in a credit and continued on. If she kept making mistakes, the boss would notice. Maybe it was best just to claim she was ill and go home. They wouldn’t fire her for just that—surely. Of course, anything was possible. But they would certainly fire her if she kept making mistakes, which right now, seemed all too likely.
Once she finished with her current customer, she knew what to do. Dawn untied her apron and headed back toward the manager’s office. “Excuse me, Ron, I’m just not feeling well. I should’ve stayed home, but I thought I’d be able to stick it out. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”
“Well, you don’t look good, Dawn. Peaked almost. You go on home and don’t worry about things here. We’ll keep you covered.”
“Thank you. I surely appreciate it, Ron.” She backed out of the doorway and started toward the employee exit. Once outside, her nerves got the best of her. She retched into the planter near the door.
Dawn pulled back up and looked around to make sure no one saw what she’d done. A tear started down her cheek and she made her way to her car. With trembling hands, she tried to unlock it. When it finally opened, Dawn sat down, gripped the steering wheel, and sobbed.
There was only one place she could go. And she would have to convince him to go to the cops. It hadn’t even been a day and she was a wreck. Living with this wasn’t an option. Not when she saw that woman suffering. Dawn pulled out of the parking lot and headed north to see Steven. If he knew that Joanne Waverly was missing, like she did, maybe that would change his mind. It had to.
Dry-rot had eviscerated much of the front porch of Steven’s home, and when Dawn arrived, she treaded lightly on the few secure sections that remained. He lived alone after losing his mother to cancer. His father left when he was only eight. And when she knocked on his door with no answer, her concern for him grew. “Steven, open up. It’s me, Dawn.” She noticed his car wasn’t in the driveway, which was unusual given that it was still somewhat early in the day. He didn’t have a job and rising before noon wasn’t common. “You in there?”
She waited for a moment longer before surrendering to the idea he wasn’t home. “Damn it. Where the hell are you?” Her nerves kicked in and she began to feel queasy once again. “Don’t make me come look for you.” She wanted to go straight to the police but feared his backlash. Her arrival was an attempt to convince him to do what was right, but now Dawn was on her own.
Her car was parked at the end of the drive and she figured it was best to have a look around for him first. Give him the chance to at least come up with a story that reconciled with her own.
Within minutes, she was back on the road in search of him. Few people lived in Crown Pointe and there weren’t a whole lot of places to go. Only one bar, which hadn’t opened yet. Three restaurants, a couple small grocery stores, and a new e-cigarette store called Vape. The nearest Walmart was twenty miles away. Besides the schools and a small hospital, that was just about it. He wouldn’t have been at either of those places. Then it occurred to her. Maybe he’d gone back. Maybe he did feel bad and went back. Now that they were sober, she wondered if he’d reconsidered.
Dawn turned around and headed back to Devil’s Den, back to the mine shaft. “You’d better be there, Steven.” She pressed her foot on the gas pedal and sped down the single lane, her car stirring up debris on the side of the roadway. Dried twigs, plastic bags, a few dead leaves all swirled in her wake. Her nerves settled once again, feeling assured that he would be there and that he had reconsidered, but maybe decided to take one last look to be sure they hadn’t dreamt it all up. This was all going to be over soon.
A pullout on the road was just ahead and she spotted something tucked far back inside. Almost hidden, except for what now appeared to be the sun’s reflection off a taillight. She slowed down and peered ahead, squinting her eyes to shield them from the glare. As she drew nearer, her face masked in uncertainty. It was a car tucked into the pullout and she knew exactly whose car it was.
Dawn slammed on the brakes, turning the wheel until she was on the shoulder. She launched herself out and ran to the car. It appeared as though someone had tried to conceal it and maybe the winds blew away some of its cover. But the back end was unmistakable. She continued her approach, fearing Steven was inside. “Oh God. Steven?”
She reached the driver’s side door and peered in. It was empty. He wasn’t there, and nothing seemed to suggest anything nefarious had occurred. Dawn shook her head and surveyed the wooded area. “Steven? You out there?” A few steps nearer the trees and she called out for him again. “Steven?” There was no answer. “Damn you.” She walked back to her car and started the engine. A final glance at his abandoned vehicle, and Dawn pulled onto the road, still headed for the trailers and the mineshaft.
Up to this point, she was afraid of Steven’s reaction to her insisting they talk to the police. Now she feared she would be talking to them anyway—searching for answers about him.
With her eyes fixed on the road ahead, Dawn
continued. Only another mile and she would be there. A part of her worried the mineshaft might have another occupant. But she had to table those thoughts or risk losing her nerve and turning around altogether.
In the distance, Devil’s Den appeared. Beyond that lay the abandoned mineshaft. Dawn drove as close as she could to the opening. The grassy clearing was low and had plenty of barren spots that made driving on it fairly easy this time of year. In the summer, the grasses grew much longer and the heavy rain spurred growth in the dirt areas.
She shoved the gearshift into park and stepped out of the car, hesitating a moment and taking a calming breath. Her stomach was in knots. She was frightened of what else she might find inside the shaft and she was losing her courage.
Careful steps brought her closer. A glance over her shoulder confirmed she was alone. Any occupants in the trailers either ignored her arrival or were too high to come out. It was likely the latter. No one really lived in them, just used them as temporary shelter, such as they were.
Standing just outside the entrance, the rustic scent of damp earth reached her senses. Though inside, she would encounter the rancid odor of decay. “Just go in.” Her legs seemed to refuse the order, but she had to do this. She had to know if Steven was inside. Why she believed this was the case remained a mystery, but she was most certain it was. What other reason could there be for his abandoned car? The missing Joanne Waverly. Disappearances in this town weren’t that suspect because the people would eventually turn up dead from overdoses. But Dawn already knew what was inside the shaft. And the time had come to confirm her suspicions.
She forced her legs to move and walked inside. The tunnel became darker, the smell— more pungent. With her phone in her hands, she turned on its flashlight and aimed it at the wall where she stood only yesterday, staring at the bodies of people she didn’t know, but now suspected at least one was Joanne.
Farther inside, a fresh mound of dirt was visibly shoved against the wall, as though someone had tried to replace it after digging it out. She slowly raised the light from her phone along that portion of wall and stopped when a hand appeared. “Oh no. Lord, please no.” The light quaked in her palm, but she pressed on, moving it higher. The body was wedged in the wall. Fit inside like a cookie cutout, only it was shaped like a human body.
The face. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she saw his face. Bloodied, bruised. His eye so swollen it was hard to tell where it stopped and his cheek started. She dropped the phone and tried to scream, but nothing would come out. Instead, Dawn began to hyperventilate. There was no mistaking that this was Steven—and he was dead. He wasn’t much more than skin and bone anyway, now he appeared even more gaunt, as though he’d lost every bit of blood in his body.
The light from her phone shone in her eyes as it lay face up in the dirt, casting a shadow on Steven’s body, which was only feet from the other two. “No. No, no, no. Dear Lord, what happened? Why are you here? You can’t leave me. You gotta come back.” Sobbing, she reached for him but couldn’t bring herself to place her hand atop his chest. “I have to get out of here.” She cast her eyes away and toward the entrance. “I have to go. I have to tell the police.”
With strength that had deserted her only minutes earlier, she sprinted away from him, away from the horrific scene and making it back outside into the light of the clearing. As she made it to her car, and from the corner of her eye, a man appeared. He stood outside one of the trailers. The way he stood, almost swaying, suggested he was high or drunk or maybe both. Dawn had to leave. But what if he recognized her? What if he went to the police and knew she had been there yesterday too?
Dawn couldn’t think about that now. Steven was dead. Someone killed him. The same someone who killed at least two others inside there. But she couldn’t be sure if one of them was Joanne Waverly. The other bodies were just too disfigured and had begun to decompose.
She slipped into the driver’s seat and keyed the ignition. Peering over her shoulder, she noticed the man walk back inside. A visible sigh of relief overcame her. Her car spun around and she fled the area as fast as her car would take her. The only place she could go now was the police station. No matter what might become of her and their decision to keep hidden what they’d seen. She would do this for Steven. And for Joanne Waverly.
5
Keys rattling in the door lock startled John Floyd from his morning newspaper as he sat at the kitchen table. The door opened and he peered around the paper until Lynn came into view. “That didn’t take long.”
Lynn Floyd held a plastic grocery bag in her hands and set it down on the kitchen counter. “Only needed a few bits.” She retrieved a pack of razors and held them up. “Got you them razors you said you needed. Damn things keep getting more expensive every time I buy them.”
“Thank you. I’ll do my best to make them last.” John returned to his paper.
“I overheard something of interest while I was checking out.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“I heard Kim Waverly talking to a couple ladies about how Joanne’s been missing a few days.”
“And what did them old hens say about that?”
“Said she was most likely on a bender, only they put it in more polite terms.”
“Well, that’s a damn shame. But I’m not surprised. Seems most of the young people around here been doing the same kind of thing. What they need are jobs. Hell, what we all need are jobs.”
“I agree with you, but still, Kim seemed real upset and I do ache for her. She’s got the police involved and the Chief sent his boys out looking for Joanne yesterday, but by all accounts, nothing’s turned up.”
Lynn approached her husband at the table. “I got two coming by later. Been here before. I’ll get you what they want.”
“They want the same as before?”
“I reckon they do.”
“Okay then. Get it ready.”
Dawn pushed inside the Crown Pointe police station with wild eyes and sweat dripping down her hairline.
Deputy Eric Slocum jumped from his desk. “Miss, are you okay?” He knew the young woman, but not well enough to presume to call her by her first name. “What’s wrong?”
“Steven’s dead.”
“What? You talking about Steven Schiller?”
“Yes, sir. He’s dead. And so are two others. I saw them myself.”
“Okay. Okay, just calm down.” He turned to his partner, who was already on his feet. “Come sit down. You want some water?”
“No. I don’t want nothin’. There are three dead people and you gotta come see them.”
Deputy Shane Lazaro moved toward her. “Where are they? Do you know the other two?”
“No. But they’re all in the mineshaft at Devil’s Den. Like buried, or something. Kinda sticking out of the wall.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Are you sure about that?” Slocum peered again at his partner but turned back to her. “I have to ask, have you taken anything today?”
“No! I ain’t high or drunk. I’m telling you, there are three dead people in the mineshaft. And Steven’s one of them. You have to come quick. I saw his car.”
“Wait,” Lazaro interrupted. “You saw his car? Where?”
“Not far from the trailers. It was inside a pullout, tucked inside it like someone was trying to hide it. I saw it and stopped to look.”
“Was this before or after you found the bodies in the shaft?”
She stopped cold, knowing she was going to have to choose her words carefully. They were going to ask why she was out there. Everybody in town knew there was only one reason to be out that way. “Um, it was um, before. I was just out looking for him because we was supposed to see each other, and well, I figured, knowing what he could be like sometimes, that he might’ve been out that direction. See, I left work on account I was ill.”
“You went home from work, but you and Steven had plans to see each other?” Slocum asked.
“Yes, sir. Just for a while. H
e’d left something at my place. And, well, first I went to his house and he wasn’t home. Wasn’t answering his phone. So that’s when I decided to go out to the trailers.”
“What made you go into the shaft?”
“I can’t rightly say. Just a feeling I got. You know, I saw his car. I got scared. So when I made it out there, I figured, I best take a look. Just to be safe.”
“And that’s when you saw the bodies?”
“Yes, sir.” She peered anxiously at the men. “You gotta come out there. Please.”
“Okay. I tell you what, you can ride out there with us. Show us Stevens’s car and take us to the mineshaft.”
Dawn nodded.
“Just let me get word to the chief and we’ll head out.” Lazaro headed toward the chief’s office. “Excuse me, sir?”
He looked up from his computer. “Yes? What is it?”
“Dawn Murphy’s out here and she says she seen three bodies in the abandoned mineshaft at Devil’s Den. One of them is her boyfriend, Steven Schiller.”
“Dear Lord. Are you sure about this?”
“She seems very sure, Chief. Figured you might wanna join us on this one.”
Chief Tate stood and grabbed his jacket off his chair. “Hell, yes. Lord knows what we’re going to find out there. For Christ’s sakes, what is happening in this town?”
“I can’t say, Chief. But I sure as shit hope we don’t find Joanne Waverly in there. Slocum and me was just out there yesterday. Got no whiff of anything unusual.”
“There’s the car, up ahead.” Lazaro was behind the wheel with the chief in the passenger seat.
“I see it. Pull on up next to it.” He turned back to Dawn, who was in the back seat with Slocum. “That Steven’s car?”
“Yes, sir.”
As the patrol car rolled to a stop, the deputies and the chief stepped out.
“You mind staying here, Ms. Murphy?” Slocum asked.
“No, sir.” She watched as the men approached the vehicle, hands on their holsters, ready to shoot if something should go south. But Dawn knew no one was there. Just Steven’s abandoned beat up Chevy Malibu he got from his momma before she died.