by H. P. Bayne
“I need to get back to my brother for a minute, but I’ll come back here, okay? Can you stay with me to show me the way back?”
He hoped he could take the image of Carter shifting away as a sign of agreement. Sully sucked in a deep breath and followed the ghost, gathering up the rope as best he could along the way. It wouldn’t help the situation if he got tangled in it.
Upon returning to the cavern, he surfaced in the midst of a flashlight’s glow, and was met with the expected level of alarm from the man wielding the tool.
“Jesus Christ, Sully! What the hell? I was about to start reeling you in. Even you can’t hold your breath that long.”
“There’s an air pocket down there. Carter brought me to it.”
“Is there a way out?”
“Not that way, but there could be something farther down. I need to go back in. Listen, we need to work out a code, okay? I’ll give you one tug on the line if I’m all good and two if I need help. That work for you?”
“If I feel two at this point, I’m probably going to crap myself.”
“Even so….”
“Yeah, one for good, two for bad. I still don’t know about this, man.”
“At least Carter’s keeping my lung capacity in mind. That’s a good thing.”
“Think I should come in there with you?”
“I don’t know yet if this is going to be a way out or if he’s just trying to show me something. I’d feel better if you stayed here until I know for sure.”
“I guess I can get on board with that. Just stay in touch, okay?”
Sully smiled, wishing he could see Dez to determine whether the expression of encouragement had any effect. It had gotten even darker in here, and Dez’s large form was only slightly visible now, barely an outline behind the light.
“I’ll stay in touch. All good, man.”
“If it was all good, we wouldn’t be down here in the first place,” Dez said.
The logic was sound, and Sully honoured it with a chuckle. He then took another deep breath and ducked back beneath the water.
Carter was waiting for him, and Sully was quicker this time to enter the passage and to find the air pocket. There, he took a few moments to catch his breath and to talk to the ghost.
“Is there a way out farther down?”
Although he’d shown himself capable before of a slight nod, Sully could make nothing out. It was possible Carter had nodded, of course, but the rippling of the water obscured detail and created movement where there was none. Sully asked again, then dunked his head while keeping his eyes open to watch Carter in the otherwise black water. This time, he was certain; the ghost wasn’t responding.
At least not in the way Sully had hoped. One hand—the one at the end of the more usable-looking arm—moved, all but the index finger folding back toward his palm as he pointed at something below and behind Sully.
Breaking surface, Sully took one more deep breath before moving back downward, following the direction of the finger in the dark. He waved his hands around until the back of one collided with the rock wall forming the end of the short offshoot passage.
The finger was still pointing so Sully resumed the blind search, fingertips brushing at rock as he looked for whatever it was Carter wanted him to find.
Two breaths later, with nothing to show for this hunt so far, Sully was reminded that sometimes ghosts didn’t appear to see what was, but what had been. It was possible Carter was indicating something only he could see. If this was the passageway that had collapsed with him inside—and Sully was becoming increasingly convinced it was—it might be Carter could still see the things he’d left behind. In his mind, the backpack might still be here, perhaps containing something he wanted Sully to find. It might be Carter had no idea searchers had removed those things four years ago.
With still nothing to show for his own search, Sully returned to the air pocket.
“Carter, I don’t know if you’re trying to point me to your backpack, but it’s gone. I think they probably took it back then when they were looking for you.”
But the ghostly finger continued to point, Carter remaining exactly where he was, silent and resolute, a rippling statue in the darkness.
Sully sighed, then reeled in the length of line he’d dropped in his search and gave one solid yank on the rope. He felt a reassuring tug back, enough to calm him as he resumed his search below, in the area indicated by the still-pointing finger.
He’d been patting the wall, the floor, the spaces between rock, all to no avail. Now, he began a more minute search, fingertips skimming the surfaces, feeling between rock, into that space created at the base where he suspected stone had been chipped away to allow searchers to pull the bag free.
It was there, in that chipped-away space, he discovered it, stuck in toward the back. His fingers settled over it, playing that game he remembered from elementary school: fumbling fingers clutching an object in a box, the sole clue in an identification guessing game. What Am I?
This object felt like metal with a small hole in it. It was stuck beneath rock, no way to remove it without some sort of tool, but Sully recognized it anyway.
It was a key.
He pushed back up into the air pocket. “It’s a key, right? I feel it, but it’s stuck. I need something to get it out. I think there might be something in the bag I brought.”
Once again gathering up the line, Sully returned to Dez, this time pushing himself out of the water to dig through his backpack.
Dez knelt next to him. “What are you looking for?”
“I think I put a claw hammer in here.” Sully felt around a moment, until his fingers closed over the handle. He welcomed the sight of it with a triumphant laugh.
“What are you planning on doing with that?”
“Carter pointed me to a key in the wall. I’m pretty sure I found the passage that collapsed on top of him, the one where they removed his backpack. I think the bag might have ripped or something, and this key got left behind. He wants me to get it.”
In the ambient light from the flashlight, Sully saw Dez cross his arms. “So you’re going to start hammering into the rock. Sully, no. You start screwing around like that, you could cause another collapse.”
“The key is small and it’s not far in. And it’s in a spot they’ve already drilled into. They wouldn’t have done that if they didn’t think it would hold. It’ll be fine, okay?”
“I hate it when you say that.” But the fact Dez let Sully slip back into the water was a good sign he was at least willing to allow for the possibility of Sully’s read being right.
With what had now become practiced efficiency, Sully returned to the air pocket and, from there, to the floor of the collapsed tunnel below. It took just a few strikes to realize the water was going to make this difficult as it slowed the course and tempered the power of the hammer as Sully swung. Taking another breath, he returned to the task, this time trying with the claw to chip and pry away at the stone surrounding the key.
It was no good. He wasn’t weak by any means, but he was still working on regaining weight and strength lost during the past two years. Clothes that once fit him still hung from his frame, and he was only beginning to find the energy for full workouts now that Dez was ensuring he had regular meals.
Between him and his brother, Dez had always been the physically strong one. Whether he’d be as prepared to deal with the rest of this situation was another question.
By the time Sully swam back to Dez, he was fighting fatigue, water pushing against muscle rather than the other way around. It called for a break, and he took one as he lay back on the stone floor, shivering as the cool air touched bare, wet skin.
Dez dropped down to sit next to him, a shadow now more than a visible presence.
“How ya doin’?”
“Tired,” Sully said. “Can’t budge the stupid thing. Water’s slowing me down too much.”
“A cordless drill would probably help right about now,”
Dez said. “Hell, we might even be able to use it to get ourselves out of here.”
“Too bad Dad didn’t stress drills as essential camping gear,” Sully quipped. “I never thought of packing one.”
Dez chuckled and nudged Sully’s shoulder. “You cold?”
“Freezing.”
“Want your clothes?”
“No point me getting them wet yet.”
“I hate to tell you, but they’re not exactly dry. I’m about three minutes away from teeth-chattering myself.”
“Then you may or may not like what I’m going to ask you.”
Sully could practically feel his brother’s side-eye on him as Dez’s question came out in a single, drawn-out word. “Wha-a-at?”
“I can’t budge the rock around the key. I’m not strong enough, or I’m too tired from swimming back and forth. Whatever it is, I can’t get it.”
“And you want me to try.”
“I know it’s asking a lot.”
“Do we even know what this key’s about? Maybe it doesn’t even mean anything. Maybe it’s the key to his parents’ mailbox or something stupid like that.”
“If that’s all it was, I doubt he’d be so insistent on my getting it.”
Dez’s response was as expected, a familiar grumble that brought a smile to his brother’s face. “Goddammit, Sull.”
It was followed by the feeling of Dez lying down next to him, the brush of a damp cotton hooded sweatshirt against Sully’s arm.
“Okay, I’ll try it,” Dez said. “But you need a few minutes first. If you’re going to be hauling my panicking ass through an underwater tunnel, you’re going to need your strength.”
They rested there in silence a few minutes, Sully closing his eyes to the gathering blackness as he listened to Dez breathe. There were still moments when he caught himself questioning reality, when his fears bubbled up inside him. When he questioned whether he’d wake up and discover he’d been existing inside a really vivid dream. The first few weeks of his self-imposed “death,” he’d been plagued by dreams so real, he’d believe he was back at home, hanging out with Dez, Eva and Kayleigh, talking with Mara or Marc, or lying in bed next to Takara. He’d come to in a crumbling, abandoned house in The Forks that smelled of rot and age, and the knowledge that any minute could bring intruders who would slit his throat as a form of entertainment. Dreams had been both an escape and a curse, a reminder of everything he’d had and everything he’d had to give up. They comforted his unconscious brain and shattered his waking heart, and he’d spent at least a few minutes of every day imagining a scenario just like this one, where he was side-by-side with someone who meant more to him than his own life.
He’d been seven years old when he’d first found peace and comfort in Dez; seventeen years had done nothing to change that. Sully had been back a little over two weeks, and he was still getting used to the idea of the dream becoming reality.
Sully’s breath evened out and his heart rate slowed, a light sleep stealing over him as he lay there. He could have been out minutes or hours when he next opened his eyes to the darkness and the light thump of Dez’s hand against his hip.
“Hey, Sull? You okay to get moving? I’m about as worked up to this as I’m going to get.”
Sully stretched, jaw joints popping under the power of a yawn. “Yeah, okay. Do you have your flashlight?”
“I’ve got both of them. You think they’re going to work in there?”
Sully hated to shatter the small hope in Dez’s voice. “I don’t think so. Not well enough anyway.”
“So how do we see where we’re going?”
“The way you won’t like. I follow Carter, and you follow me.”
There was that expected shudder from the shoulder against Sully’s, one not caused by the cold. But, as he often did, Dez pushed through, searching for solutions in a world of problems.
“Do you think we should take our stuff with us? I mean, if I get up as far as this air pocket you mentioned, I think I’d feel better going forward toward an exit rather than have to come back here again. No offence to this cold, damp, hard hole in the ground, but I’d be happy as hell to never see it again.”
It was an option, and not a bad one as far as Sully was concerned. Using one of the flashlights as a guide, he dragged himself up and over to the backpack and his pile of clothes, grimacing as he tugged them back on. That done, he dug through the backpack and located a couple of large ziplock bags—another camping necessity according to Flynn Braddock. Into one, he dropped his and Dez’s phones, and into the other, the shorter of the two flashlights. The second was too long to fit and, anyway, Sully figured he’d have a hell of a time prying it out of Dez’s hands.
“Hey, Sull? This air pocket. How far are we talking? You’ve always been better at holding your breath. Can I make it in one?”
“You’ll be fine.”
“You sure?”
Sully wasn’t. What he was sure of was he wasn’t going to let anything happen to his brother. Need be, he’d give him a breath or two to keep him going, then haul him through the water until they got to the pocket.
“You’ll be fine, D. Trust me.”
Dez’s answer was as expected. “You I trust. Long, claustrophobic, underwater swims, not so much.”
Sully forced a laugh and patted his brother’s chest as he walked past. Hoisting the backpack over his shoulders, he re-entered the water while Dez waded in behind him. Before Sully reached what he remembered to be the drop-off, he glanced down at the rope around his middle. “Hey, maybe we should think about tying you to me.”
Dez closed the remaining distance between them. “No. If I can’t make it to the pocket, I’ll hold you back.”
It was a fair point, but far from a comforting one. “You’ll make it.”
“I know you’ll get me there. I meant I might not make it before one or both of us needs a breath.”
“Okay, I won’t tie you off. But keep hold of the rope anyway. Or me. It’s pitch black down there.”
Dez nodded. Sully could read the worry rippling off his brother’s surface like the movement of water in the pool. Dez had spent his life supporting Sully through his fears, but there were moments when that favour needed returned. Dez hated the water; he’d lost his little brother Aiden to it, and he’d almost lost himself to it more than once. There was no question it would take every ounce of courage he possessed to push through.
“I don’t know about this, Sully.”
Sully offered the most reassuring smile he possessed, held onto it until he was certain Dez had seen it. “You’ll be fine, D. I promise.” Sully would have to be strong enough for both of them. Given their history, it seemed a fair trade.
Sully stepped off the ledge and waited for Dez to follow suit, then gave him a moment to adjust as he treaded the surface, the beam from the flashlight waving through the water. There was no way to see Dez’s face, but the way his breath shook suggested plenty.
They’d have to take this slow.
“Take a few deep breaths, and hold the last one,” Sully said. “Duck under and hold it as long as you can. We’ll do that a few times until you get used to it.”
“I just want this over with.”
“Trust me on this, all right? Just do it.”
Dez was probably rolling his eyes, but he obeyed anyway, copper head disappearing beneath the surface just a few seconds before he came sputtering back up. He obeyed Sully throughout the remainder of the short, impromptu swimming refresher, his breathing calming as he settled.
Sully led the way nearer the edge of the pool closest the flooded tunnel, watching for the presence of Carter below. He was still there, a ghostly beacon beneath the surface.
Sully turned to Dez. “Think you’re okay to do this?”
“I’m ready to get this over with, if that’s what you’re asking.”
It wasn’t. Not exactly. But it was as close as Sully expected to get to a positive response from his brother.
&
nbsp; Taking a deep breath, Sully listened as Dez did the same.
Then he dove back under, leading the way to the tunnel.
18
Dez clutched the rope tied to his brother’s middle, eyes shut as he kicked through the water behind Sully.
The tunnel’s entrance wasn’t as far down as he’d expected, and it was only because he had his other hand free that he avoided banging his head against its ceiling. Keeping that hand moving through the water, Dez continued to propel his way behind Sully.
He had no way of knowing how far they’d come, nor how many seconds he’d been under when his lungs began to scream at him for breath. The press of the water, the hyperawareness of a roof of solid rock between him and his next breath, the knowledge a dead boy was at the front of this little convoy—all of it combined to push him nearer a ledge he didn’t know he could pull back from.
A memory came unexpectedly, slammed him back in time almost twenty years to that night, the first he’d spent with the knowledge he was now an only child. They’d pulled Aiden’s body from the riverbank earlier that day, and Dez had gone to sleep to sounds of his mother sobbing and his father’s emotion-choked attempts at comfort. Dez’s own tears had soaked his pillow, as he turned into it to muffle the sounds of his parents’ grief and to keep his own private.
He’d had his first of many nightmares upon sinking into an uneasy sleep. In it, he’d been searching for Aiden by the river. Walking along the bank, his eyes fixed upon the water beside him, he’d been terrified to see the face of his little brother beneath the creek’s rippling surface.
Aiden’s eyes were open and wide, mouth stretched into a soundless scream. Dez met it with a shriek of his own, but it caught in his throat as a small, white hand snapped out of the water. He felt the solid grip of fingers. Then he was falling, hitting the cold water hard and feeling it close over his head.
He struggled to reach the surface, had no air in his lungs to hold onto. He wasn’t under more than a few seconds when he realized it was no longer Aiden who had hold of him; it was the river itself, the cold weight of it holding him against the rocky bottom.