by Greig Beck
“May I?” Mitch didn’t wait for approval and quickly reached for the light switch and flicked it on.
The woman cringed, holding her hands over her head as if warding off a blow and keeping her eyes shut tight. That was weird, but it was her appearance that alarmed Mitch most. She had a lumped rash all over her face and her wiry hair looked to be coming out in clumps.
“Oh Joanne.” Karen winced but didn’t move to touch her. Instead, she pulled Benji back a step, who continued to stare up at the woman with moon-like eyes.
“Mrs. Adams.” Mitch gently held the woman’s forearms and stared into her face. “Did you go swimming at the mine?”
She shook her head.
“Okay, okay.” Mitch continued to stare, but she had lowered her gaze and just seemed defeated. “Where did James and Gary go?”
“James ran away. Then Gary went too.” Her throat sounded coarse and painful. She looked up, and Mitch could swear her eyes had a yellow tinge—not the jaundice yellowing of the sclera, but the entire eye.
“Were they sick?” Karen asked.
Joanne seemed to think about it, and then she nodded as her face crumpled. “Yes, very sick. And they…changed.”
“Has James changed?” Benji frowned in confusion and crept forward. “Into what?”
Karen leaned over to grab his shoulders. “Wait in the car, please. This is important.”
“Aww.” Benji scowled up at his mother. “But James is my friend, and I know I can help if…”
Karen stared. “Now.”
“Aw-www.” Benji shook his head and turned. “I get to do nuthin’ interesting.” He kept muttering all the way outside.
Mitch looked around the house and saw the disheveled state of the place—dirty clothing, food packets, and empty health tonic soda bottles colored a brilliant emerald green. He noticed that the clothing Joanne wore was expensive but filthy with sweat and other unidentifiable stains.
“How long have Gary and James been gone?” he asked.
She tilted her head back on her neck and opened her mouth. She swallowed, the action making a hard clicking sound in her throat.
Joanne Adams’ head snapped down and she faced him. “Days ago. They’re waiting for me.” She gritted her teeth, painfully hard, making the cords stand out in her neck.
Karen reached out to her. “Jo, are you okay?”
“It calls.” She held a hand to her head. “I can’t…”
“Who? What calls?” Mitch ducked his head as he tried to see into her eyes, but she kept them screwed shut.
She started to pull back so Mitch reached for her and grabbed her upper arms, but instead of feeling soft skin, he felt something rough, like tree bark inside her sleeves.
He let her go, remembering Ben Wainright’s description of the affliction and also of what he knew had happened to Harlen Bimford.
She tilted her head back. “So deep.”
“It’s the mine,” he said, half-turning to Karen but keeping his eyes on the woman. “Joanne, we need to get you to hospital.” He reached for her again. “We’ll come back and find James and Gary, we promise.”
Her head tilted far back on her neck again and her mouth hung wide. Mitch noticed her throat and teeth looked strange—plus, he could have sworn he saw spikes or thorns in her gullet.
He grabbed hold of her and tried to drag her to the door, but she started to moan and her mouth opened even wider—impossibly wider. He knew the human jaw shouldn’t have been able to do that unless it was dislocated.
“It calls. I have to go-ooo.” She tugged her arm, but Mitch held on.
Karen also reached for her other arm, but then Joanne lunged at Karen, mouth open, and Mitch dragged her back before she could bite. In turn, Joanne rounded on him, jaws snapping.
“Goddamnit, Joanne, stop that!” Karen yelled.
But she kept trying to bite so Mitch pushed her away, and she went to the floor. But she was only down for a moment before she was up and skittering away, on all fours.
She moved fast and unnaturally. Maybe it was the bony extrusions all over her body, but she moved like some sort of hard-shelled insect.
“Jesus, she’s having a psychotic episode.” He grabbed Karen and pulled her out of the way.
In another moment, there was the crash of breaking glass. Mitch and Karen went after the women but arrived to find the kitchen window broken out and nothing but an empty yard beyond.
“What…what just happened?” Karen blinked several times. “I know Joanne, she’s…normal.”
“Infected,” Mitch said softly.
“Infected? But I thought it was all over.” Karen’s face creased with anxiety.
“It should be.” He turned to her. “The mine is drained.”
“It’s something else,” she said softly.
“There was something.” He spun, rushing to the outer room and finding the soda bottle. “This drink, the same one that Harlen had, and we found some residue in the dog’s stomach. It’s spring water, from underground. Same as like what is bubbling up from the mine—has to be. It’s like what Ben Wainright wrote about.”
Mitch stared hard at the bottle and remembered seeing this type of soda all over town. “There could be dozens of infected and contagious people wandering around out there.”
“Out there?” Karen stared up at him for a moment. “Benji!” She sprinted for the door.
*****
Mitch raced after Karen and arrived in time to see her run around the car, peering in the windows, and screaming her son’s name. But there was no one inside, and tellingly, the front passenger door was hanging open.
She turned to him, eyes wide and hands curled into fists. “He’s gone. He’s gone!”
“Benji!” Mitch yelled the name and did a broader circle around the car. He tried to remember the details from Wainright’s notes. Many of the angel kids were rounded up and taken away, but some were said to have escaped into the countryside and never found. One theory was they entered the mine and went down deep, never to be found again.
“Could he have gone home?” Mitch asked.
“Yes, maybe, but why would he leave us?” She shook her head. “Why would he?”
“James,” Mitch replied.
“Yes.” She spun to him. “He wanted to help find James. Maybe he went looking for him.”
“Or maybe he saw him.” Mitch exhaled through pressed lips. “Look, there’s a chance, uh, that he might have gone to the mine.”
Karen slowly turned, her eyes wide. “To the mine—in the mine? Why would he?”
“I don’t know why, but it’s a hunch. It’s also where Wainright thought a lot of the missing kids went all those years ago.”
She opened the car’s front passenger door. “Then that’s where we’re damn well going. Now.”
“No, we check your home first to make…”
“No, the mine.” She bared her teeth in panic.
“And what if he’s waiting at home? What if we get trapped somehow and he’s left alone?” Mitch reached across to lay a hand on her arm. “It’ll take us 10 minutes to swing by your home.”
She looked like she was going to explode with impatience before she exhaled in a whoosh. “Okay, okay. Let’s go.”
Mitch sped so it took them no time to return to Karen’s house, and just a single minute more for her to go careening through her place, screaming her son’s name.
“Grab another light,” Mitch yelled while he stood on the front porch, yelling Benji’s name. Karen came barreling out.
“The mine, go,” was all she said.
“Okay, but call the sheriff. I want someone to know what’s going on and where we are.” Mitch climbed in as Karen dragged out her phone.
It took them just fifteen minutes to reach the Angel Mine turnoff, and after a few minutes climbing the rutted track, Mitch pulled over and they climbed out.
He reached into his map compartment and retrieved his Glock. He hoped he wouldn’t need it, but as the
old saying went: better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. He also grabbed his flashlight he had remembered to replace.
Karen saw the gun and just nodded. Mitch tucked it into his belt at the small of his back and together they headed up.
At the top of the hill, they stopped.
“It’s totally dry,” Karen observed.
“Yeah, that’s right, all drained away again. Thought it’d be the end of our problems.”
Just like what happened back in the 70s, Mitch remembered. It seemed this stuff bubbles to the surface, infects people, and then goes back to where it came from.
Mitch stood staring into the impenetrable blackness of the mine mouth where the tainted water had drained away—back to where exactly? And what was in it that caused the infection and alterations in people? He and Greg never really got to the bottom of it.
He’d been a coward to let Mayor Melnick steamroll him against his better judgment, and it made him feel sick to acknowledge it. Well, Melnick be damned, he was sending everything he had off to the CDC, WHO, or anyone else who would listen as soon as he got back.
It was moving to late afternoon now and the shadows were lengthening—and along with them the temperature was dropping. It was still dry, but there was something else different about the site that Mitch couldn’t quite put a finger on.
“All those petrified trees are gone,” Karen said, frowning. “Someone took them?”
That was it, Mitch thought.
“Maybe,” he said, feeling a twist of anxiety begin in his gut.
Mitch wasn’t sure when the water had drained, but already the outside ground was dry again, and in the dusty earth were numerous tracks.
“People went into the mine, lots of them,” he observed.
Once again, he peered into the charnel darkness of the mine mouth. He didn’t want to go in but knew there was no way he wouldn’t if there was a chance that Benji was down there somewhere.
Karen cupped her mouth. “Benji!” she yelled and walked a few paces closer to the mine entrance. She sucked in a deep breath. “Benji-iii!” This time, it was so loud she went a little hoarse and his name bounced back at her several times before fading into nothingness.
But there was still no reply.
She held her hand out to Mitch. “Give me the flashlight.”
“Where’s yours?” he asked.
She took the flashlight. “I haven’t got one. Only candles.” She fished in her pocket. “All I could find was this.” She pulled out an old silver cigarette lighter. “Was my ex-husband’s.”
Mitch groaned. “Okay, give it to me.” He took it and tested it, producing a small orange flame.
“He’s in there, I can feel it.” Her voice trembled.
He nodded to her. “Don’t worry. If he is, we’ll find him.”
Mitch said a silent prayer. And then together they went in.
CHAPTER 34
“Slow down,” Mitch demanded.
She ignored him and continued to jog along the tunnel.
In little more than 30 paces, the light from the mouth of the mine suddenly seemed a long way back, and up ahead was nothing but impenetrable darkness. Their only flashlight beam was quickly reduced to a pipe of light that only illuminated a few dozen feet, and Karen had to keep sweeping it from side to side to light their way forward.
The mine was quite large at around seven feet of height, but Mitch still had the urge to crouch.
“Wait up,” he said softly, not knowing why he felt the need to whisper. “Point the light at the ground here.”
She did as asked, and they saw the footprints—lots of them—coming and going.
“Plenty of traffic,” he observed.
“Shush.” She paused, concentrating, and then slowly shook her head as she faced him. “I can’t…there’s nothing, not a sound. Maybe they all left.” She turned back to the darkness of the seemingly endless tunnel and sucked in a deep breath. “Benji-iii!” she yelled.
It made Mitch cringe, and he pulled his gun from behind his back, holding it loosely in his hand.
The echoes bounced back at them for another few seconds until the air dropped to silence again. The pair waited for a few more moments but there was no response.
“Perhaps he’s so deep he can’t hear us,” she said hopefully.
“Yeah, maybe. The footprints go in further,” he replied. “We’re here now so we should check it out. But best if we’re outside for when Sheriff Kehoe arrives.”
She nodded and turned back. Mitch noticed the light wobbled in her hands. Oddly, there seemed to be a breeze blowing in their faces, and with it the pervasive smell like from stagnant water—dead fish, methane, and a general slimy rottenness of fetid swamps, toadstools, and dead things that conjured images of a dank shoreline under an eternally black sky.
Mitch thought that maybe they’d find where the water level had retreated to and their way would be blocked. But looking down again, he saw that where they were the ground was already quite dry.
Karen headed off again, and Mitch stayed right on her shoulder. He had that tingling feeling in the back of his neck he used to get on night missions in the forces. But the last time he had it this bad, people died.
Not today, not on his watch, he thought, and never again. He pushed the memory down.
“Look.” She pointed. “The walls.” Karen held the light higher but it was far from steady. Where she illuminated, he could see that the walls were covered in what looked like tree roots. But they were glistening wetly and he had the impression they were like arteries and veins.
“Roots this far down?” she asked.
“It’d need to be a redwood or maybe giant fig tree.” Mitch frowned. “Weird.” He walked a few paces closer. “Hold the light closer.”
She did so.
“They don’t look like they’re growing down from the surface. But instead up from below.” He quickly checked his watch. “Come on, let’s keep going a little further.”
They continued on a few hundred more feet, and the walls were now totally ribbed by the roots. The silence was suddenly broken by the crunch of feet on gravel.
Mitch lifted his gun and dragged Karen to the side of the mineshaft.
“Hallooo?”
He felt relief wash over him. “Sheriff?” Mitch let Karen go and tucked his gun away.
The footsteps got louder, and the tunnel became illuminated by two powerful flashlight beams.
“Doctor Taylor, Vice Mayor.” Kehoe touched his hat and thumbed over his shoulder. “Deputy Anderson.” The young man with him nodded.
Mitch and Karen quickly updated him on their search and what happened at Joanne and Gary Adams’ place. The sheriff’s brows knitted ever deeper as he listened.
“Like Buford, and Harlen?” Kehoe’s brows went up.
“I hope not, but maybe. Joanne Adams was very sick,” Mitch replied.
Kehoe nodded. “And you think that they swam in this bad water and got some sort of mental sickness?” he asked.
Mitch wanted to keep it simple. “Or something they ingested, so maybe it’s contagious now, and we need to be careful,” he explained.
“What? Shouldn’t we be wearing protective clothing?” Deputy Anderson asked.
Mitch was sure the young deputy’s blush of pimples on his cheeks just reddened even more.
Mitch shrugged. “I don’t know yet. But for now, why don’t we just be careful and play it safe by trying not to touch anything down here.”
“After what you just told me, that’d be fine if whatever is down here doesn’t touch us either.” Kehoe hitched his belt and shone his light further down the mineshaft. “Well, let’s look for Benji. Deputy Anderson, get up here close by me.”
They headed further in and the deeper they went, the more they found that some of the walls had fallen in, exposing entire new tunnels. But these weren’t dug by miners and looked more like natural caves. There were also a few huge blocks of stone that had colla
psed from the ceiling to the shaft floor.
Mitch stopped and stared at something stuck to the wall.
“What the hell is that?” Kehoe joined him.
“Yuck.” Karen spat.
The sheriff lifted his light closer to the foot-long glistening blob stuck to the tunnel wall. It looked like a greasy-black bundle of roots, spreading out in all directions and covered in growths like candy floss and bristled hairs.
But at its center, Mitch could make out a long, thorny mass with a pointed snout at one end.
“I think… I think it’s a rat. Or once was.” Mitch swallowed down some bile and wondered whether it was Willard, the escapee from his office.
“How…?” Deputy Anderson’s voice was reed-thin. “How did it…?”
Kehoe went to prod it with the flashlight.
“Don’t,” Mitch said.
“Why?” The sheriff half-turned.
“You heard me when I said don’t touch anything down here because it could be infectious, right?” Mitch stepped closer.
Kehoe turned back. “Yeah, yeah, maybe you’re right.”
They edged around the growth on the wall and continued on for another few minutes. The air was becoming more fetid by the step and the sheriff held up a hand.
“I don’t think we can go much further,” Kehoe said. “Getting a might dangerous.”
“The kids did, and so did some of the adults.” Karen pointed down at the ground. “We’re not leaving yet.”
Kehoe looked one way then the other. “Okay, we’ll give it another few hundred feet, but it’s a cave-in risk. You can see that too, can’t you?” Kehoe didn’t wait for an answer.
Karen held up her flashlight, trying to get in front, but after another few minutes they all slowed, becoming more careful as water dripped down on their heads.
“Goddamn stinks in here.” Deputy Anderson’s nose wrinkled.
“Must be stale air,” Kehoe replied.
The air was becoming so thick Mitch could almost taste it now. As they crossed by an alcove, Karen screamed and fell against him. Her light went haywire for a moment and Mitch grabbed her arm to steady it while also drawing his weapon.