by Rick Hautala
“Oh, Christ,” he muttered, wanting to burst into tears but holding himself back.
Dianne gripped him by the shoulders and shook him. “Did you mean what you said?” she said, having to yell to be heard above the thundering roar of the flames. “Do you really know a way out of here?”
“Yeah … I think so,” Brian replied. He was trembling as he worked on the knots that bound his feet. When he was finally free, he scrambled to stand up, but the sudden rush of blood leaving his head made him dizzy. Again, stars exploded in his vision, and he staggered backward, almost fainting, until he hit the stone wall.
Dianne started screaming. “Hurry up or else we’re all gonna die!”
“Come on, then,” Brian said, suddenly bracing for action. “Help me.”
Crouching low to avoid breathing the thick smoke gathering at the ceiling, he went over to the battered mattress. Sitting down, he started to push it aside with his feet. The mattress and plywood base moved with irritating slowness, grinding on the dirt floor, but Brian leaned back and, grunting viciously, gave it a final, violent shove. Sweat dripped down and stung his eyes, but he shook it off as he stood up and looked down into the tunnel.
Crazy Uncle Mike’s “secret entrance!”
The flickering firelight outside the room made the dark opening look like a doorway down into hell, but he knew this was their only chance.
“It’s real narrow down here,” he said, “but I think we can get my dad through. Take his feet.”
Dianne looked at him as if he had completely lost his mind, but she, too, sprang into action. Brian slipped her hands under his father’s armpits, and together they dragged the unconscious man over to the opening.
A clutching fear gripped Brian as he put one foot down into the hole. The air inside was cool and clung to him like cold, slimy water. A wave of claustrophobia swept over him; he was almost paralyzed with fear, but Dianne shook his shoulder and goaded him on, “Come on, Brian! We don’t have any time left.” She sucked in a breath, got a lungful of smoke, and doubled over in a fit of coughing.
Taking a deep breath as though about to plunge into brackish water, Brian squinched his eyes shut and lowered himself into the hole, pulling his father’s inert body in after him. He sat down, cradling his father’s head in his lap, and started to push himself along the dark, narrow tube, dragging his father after him. He had to fight back a nearly blinding panic as he waited to hear a chorus of soft, chuckling voices begin, but he told himself over and over that it had been Michael he’d heard making those voices down here and nothing more. He pulled his father along, inch by inch, only dimly aware that Dianne was behind him, pushing and helping them along.
“Are you sure this is a way out?” Dianne shouted.
Her voice sounded threateningly close, almost beside him in the dark. Brian was so wound up tight with fear he could only grunt in response. The truth was, he wasn’t sure. He had seen Uncle Mike climb out of here, but what if it was just a hiding place and not a tunnel to the outside? He had assumed that it was an exit point, but he didn’t know that for sure.
Now all three of their lives depended on it.
Struggling with his father’s dead weight, he kept pushing back, inch by tortured inch. The heat of the fire in the building above hadn’t penetrated the hole yet, so at least there was a momentary respite from it. The smell of damp earth was thick and cloying. It made him think of a fresh-turned grave. And it would be their grave if they ended up trapped down here. Hopefully, it would be mercifully short; maybe they would all suffocate down here in the darkness before the flames roasted them alive. He had read someplace that being burned to death was one of the most horrible, most painful ways to die.
The tunnel closed in on them, growing narrower and tighter. With Dianne blocking his view back, Brian could see only the faintest orange glow of the fire, but he could easily imagine that flames and smoke had by now filled the room they had been in. He wondered why the smoke wasn’t funneling out through this hole.
Did that mean there was no exit point? Were they trapped in a dead end?
Brian grunted with surprise when he bumped his head against a solid wall.
End of the line.
“Wait a minute,” he called out, his voice raw and tight. He twisted around, feeling blindly with both hands as he tried to figure out what the obstruction was. It took him a moment to realize that the tunnel had a sharp bend upward. Shifting his father’s head off to one side, he swung his knees up under him and, stretching slowly, tried to stand. When he had straightened up about halfway, his head bumped against the solid blockage again. By feeling around, he discovered that it was a door … or several boards nailed together covering an opening.
Is it the way out … or a dead end?
Fear clutched his throat.
“There’s something … blocking the way,” he called out. His voice sounded dense in the darkness. He tensed as he waited for Dianne to answer him. When she didn’t, a chilly rush of panic swept through him. He wondered if she had already suffocated. Then an even more frightening thought crossed his mind. What if she wasn’t even there at all? Her presence in the room had been so sudden, so utterly strange that he wondered if maybe he had imagined her being there.
What if all of this was a hallucination he was having before he died—or as he died?
“Dianne—?” he called out in a trembling voice. “Are you all right?” A cold tightening filled his stomach, but then, after too long a pause, she answered him.
“Yeah. Why’d you stop?”
“I think I might have … just a second.”
He felt above his head, groping in the darkness until he found one edge of the wood. He wedged his fingers up under it and felt around until he was convinced that some kind of wooden obstruction, like a well lid, covered the opening above him. Tensing his legs, he pressed his shoulder against the blockage and tried to stand up straight, but the weight was too much for him. The effort almost drained what little strength he had left.
“There’s a … a door or something above us,” he said in a voice shaky with panic. “I … I’m not sure whether or not I can move it.”
“Do you think I could get up there to help you?”
“The passageway’s too narrow, I think,” he replied. “I suppose you could try.”
He heard a heavy scraping sound as Dianne pulled Edward a few feet back and then wedged herself through the narrow throat of the tunnel. She slid into the space beside him, bringing with her a choking smell of smoke and sweat that was almost suffocating.
“It’s heavy as hell,” Brian said. He fumbled around in the dark until he found one of her hands and then guided it up to the tunnel ceiling. “Feel it?”
Dianne grunted and then shifted around to get herself into position. Their hunched-over bodies were pressed tightly together, leaving very little room to move or even breathe. Brian found the sense of claustrophobia almost overwhelming, but the choking, terrifying sensation was dulled when Diane said softly, “So, Bri, do you think we’re going to make it?”
It was the first time she had ever addressed him using a nickname. He snickered and said, “I don’t know, but we’ll have to give it one hell of a shot, huh?”
“Ready?”
“Uh-huh. On three,” Brian said.
They both tensed up and started counting in unison. “One … two … three!”
Brian didn’t think he had anything left, but he grunted like a wild animal and pushed up with every ounce of strength in his body. A horribly loud whooshing sounded in his ears. He imagined that the slow, grating sound of earth, stone, and wood grinding together was, in fact, the sound of his neck and back bones crumbling to dust, but then—unbelievably—the obstruction above them began to lift.
“Heave-ho!” he shouted, straining with his effort. His legs and back trembled. He could feel Dianne’s heated breath puffing into his face as she struggled with him, and—for some reason—that filled him with a calming reassurance.<
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At least I won’t die alone, he thought, but he didn’t let up.
“We—almost—have—it!”Dianne chanted as they kept applying steady pressure. Dirt and rocks rained down on them from above. Although he couldn’t look up and see it, Brian knew that the opening was gradually widening to reveal the night sky. It was alive with the raging glow of the fire. Through the narrow gap, slivers of flickering light shined down on them. Then, with a sudden, deafening roar, a hollow concussion filled the tunnel. Brian thought he was inside a cannon as smoke and intense heat from inside the room behind them suddenly streamed past them, finding escape into the outer air.
“Hurry up! Get your father!” Dianne shouted before her voice choked off in a loud coughing jag. Brian felt rather than saw her slide back down into the tunnel to get out of his way.
Blinded by the smoke and terrified of breathing it in, Brian held his breath as he fumbled down inside the dark tornado until he latched onto something—his father’s arm. Gripping it with both hands, he pulled until he got a better grip. Then he struggled to lift his father.
“Go!—Go!—Go!” Dianne shouted behind him between wracking coughs. “You can do it! Go!—Go!—Go!”
His father’s body felt suddenly feather-light as desperate energy coursed through him. Dianne was lifting and pushing from behind. It seemed to take forever as they prodded Edward’s body out through the opening and into the night. Brian cringed back, frightened by the horrible glare of the conflagration above him; but after he got his father out through the opening and rolled him onto the ground, he climbed out of the hole himself, then turned to help Dianne.
“Jesus Christ,” she said with a gasp. “I can’t believe we made it!”
She smiled grimly as she lurched to her feet and brushed herself off. Her face looked horrible—smeared with dirt, sweat, and soot, but Brian was filled with a sudden urge to hug her.
“Is he—is Uncle Mike still in there?” Brian asked. He shielded his face as he looked at the burning mill, astounded by the intensity of the heat.
“Don’t worry about him,” Dianne said, her expression hardening. “Let’s just get your father the hell away from here.”
Together they carried Edward’s inert body off into the woods where the cool night air embraced them like velvety water. Once they were within the relative safety of the forest, they gently lowered him to the ground.
Dianne sat down on the ground beside her husband and, sobbing horribly, began to stroke his face as she watched the flames from the building tear up into the sky. Billowing smoke hid the stars, but spinning sparks spiraled like new stars up into the smoke.
“Good Lord,” she whispered with an awed hush in her voice. She shivered wildly as she watched the fire with a drained, mindless expression. “It looks just like it did in my dream.”
Brian was standing behind her and almost asked her what she meant, but when he tried to speak, he found that he didn’t have control of his voice, so he stood and watched silently, hugging himself, unable to stop shivering in spite of the billowing waves of heat coming from the burning mill. Deep groaning sounds filled the night as large sections of the wall collapsed inward and were consumed by the hungry, crackling jaws of the blaze.
When he heard his father moan and then take a deep, rattling breath, Brian collapsed onto the ground beside him. With a throat-tearing sob, he hugged both his father and his stepmother, drawing them desperately close to him. Then and only then did he allow the tangle of emotions raging inside him to sweep him away. Burying his face into the crook of Dianne’s shoulder, he hugged her close and started crying. He found that once he started, he couldn’t stop.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Aftermath
It was late in the afternoon, the day after the fire out at the old mill.
The sky was gun-metal gray and threatening rain as Dianne, Edward, and Brian followed the path out through the woods to the mill. As they got close to the place, they noticed, above the shifting trees, a thin haze of gray smoke, twisting like a worn-out sheet against the dull sky. The southerly wind carried to them the stinging smell of burned wood as well as the promise of rain.
“We don’t have to do this right now,” Dianne said.
Her voice was nasally and tight because she was trying hard not to let Edward know just how worried she was about him. After making their escape from the burning mill through the tunnel, they had waited in the woods until Edward had regained consciousness. Once he felt well enough to walk, they had gone back home and called in the fire, then headed to the hospital to get checked over. Dianne and Brian had only superficial cuts and bruises, and were suffering from exhaustion and minor smoke inhalation. Dianne’s hair was badly singed, but the nurse assured her that if she cut it short, it would grow back just fine.
Dr. DeFazio had been most concerned about Edward, whose injuries were the worst. He had wanted to keep him in the hospital under observation for at least a day, but Edward had insisted that the lump on the back of his head didn’t feel half as bad as it looked. The raw ring of skin around his neck, where the rope had strangled him, looked horrible but would heal with time. When Dr. DeFazio checked the X-rays of Edward’s skull and didn’t find anything broken, he gave Edward a prescription for pain killers and sent him home to sleep after extracting a promise that he’d make a follow-up appointment with his doctor on Monday morning—or sooner, if he began to experience any headaches or blurred or double vision. Dianne had far too many vivid memories of serious head injuries and reassured the doctor that she would keep a close eye on him.
But now, with every step that brought her closer and closer to the mill, Dianne felt a cold emptiness growing and tightening inside her. She felt as if she had swallowed a snarl of barbed wire. Although she would never have mentioned it to Edward, she knew exactly why she was so nervous.
“We don’t have to do this, you know,” she said again, wishing she had the courage to finish the thought—because I’m scared as hell about what might still be out here!
Edward stopped and looked at her. Biting his lower lip, he shook his head and said in a broken voice, “I know we don’t, but I want to.” He took a deep breath. ”I have to!”
“But the police—they said they’d be coming by the house in less than an hour,” Dianne said, glancing at her wristwatch. “I’m sure they’ve still got a ton of questions—for all of us.” She glanced back at Brian, who had drawn to a halt behind them and was watching silently. “Shouldn’t we be—”
“But don’t you understand, Dianne?” Edward said. “I have to come out here to … to see where Michael—”
He tried to finish the thought but couldn’t. Tears formed in his eyes, making them glisten like wet marbles. Blinking his eyes rapidly, he looked up at the sky and said in a warbling whisper, “Oh, Mikie … Mikie …”
The cold ache in Dianne’s heart was getting steadily worse, but she swallowed deeply and braced herself, knowing that she had to put aside all the irrational fears she had about coming out here so she could be supportive of Edward. She kept reminding herself how good he had been to her after her fall off the cliff last spring, and she was desperately trying to convince herself that, no matter what else might happen to them from here on, whatever had been going on out here at the mill was over now … It had to be over! No matter what wild dreams or crazy ideas she had about this place, it was over because Michael had ended it last night … when he had died.
She desperately wanted to believe that; she had to believe it!
When they broke out of the woods and saw what was left of the mill, they were surprised by how much activity there still was. Three fire engines and two police cars had plowed up the overgrown dirt road and were parked with their red and blue lights flashing. There were at least half-a-dozen men in black and DayGlo-yellow raincoats picking through the charred and still-smoking remains of the mill. Andy Jones, the town fire marshal, noticed them as they started across the weed field and walked over to intercept them.
“Hello, Edward,” he said, then nodded to Dianne and Brian. “I’m awfully sorry ’bout what happened … to your brother, I mean.” He lowered his gaze as though embarrassed. “You know, I haven’t got any idea what was going on out here, but I have to say you folks are pretty damned lucky to have made it out of there alive.”
All three of them silently nodded their agreement as Andy shrugged and then glanced over his shoulder at the smoldering ruins. “We—uh, we already got your brother out of there,” he said, lowering his voice until they could barely hear him. “They took him over to Bissette’s Funeral Home, in town. Hope you don’t mind. There wasn’t much—” His voice caught, and he shivered and looked away nervously. “I mean, I don’t think the police will be asking you to identify him.”
“No, I suppose not,” Edward said, shivering. “It’s just as well. I don’t think I could handle seeing him … not like that.”
Andy tipped his head to one side and, stroking the side of his face, said, “You must realize that we couldn’t have saved any part of the building. By the time we got out here, it was pretty much a goner. That place was a tinder box, anyway. I’m surprised it hadn’t burned down long before this.”
“I wish it had,” Dianne said to no one in particular.
“We’re just damned lucky the sparks didn’t catch the woods on fire or anything,” Andy said.
Dianne barely heard him. Her eyes were stinging from holding back her tears as she stared up at the streamers of smoke, drifting and blending into the gathering rain clouds overhead. A voice in the back of her mind kept telling her that, no matter what she thought, the smoke didn’t really look like twisted, tortured human figures, dissolving into the sky. She shivered and closed her eyes for a moment, hoping to compose herself; but try as she might to forget it, she couldn’t get out of her mind those voices she had heard, screaming and laughing inside the mill while it had burned. They couldn’t have all been made by Michael … especially not after he was dead!