Claw

by Katie Berry

  “How’re you feeling now, my friend?” Austin asked.

  “A little dizzy, and really sore, but I think I’ll live.”

  Austin looked to Alex across the lobby who was now working crowd control near the main doors, fielding questions from a growing group of seniors that had come out of hiding to see what was happening.

  Arriving in the lobby, a pretty, young, blonde girl wearing a red and orange casino uniform came from behind a closed door and walked rapidly up to Jerry. “Excuse me, sir!” She called out, proffering an envelope. “Here you are, sir.” She said, smiling sweetly.

  “What’s this?” Jerry asked, looking at the girl’s hand holding the envelope, noting how blood-like the red polish appeared on each of her exquisitely shaped fingernails.

  “It’s your voucher, sir, don’t lose it. You’ll need it!” Her voice was light and pert as she spoke as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened around the place, though her wide eyes and the slight quaver in her voice said otherwise.

  “My voucher? Voucher for what?”

  “Why your cashier’s cheque for your winnings, sir,”

  “My What? Winnings? How? Where?”

  “From them!”

  An elderly man and woman stood nearby, smiling at him. They looked vaguely familiar.

  The girls said, “I watched it happen from the security camera in my cashier’s cage! First, you warned that couple at the slot. Then, when you were trying to save that poor lady and the door hit you, you spun into the machine!” Her voice rose in pitch as she excitedly described the event to Jerry.

  “Which machine?” Jerry inquired slowly.

  “That one!” The perky blonde said, pointing one crimson-coloured nail at the flashing Million Dollar Slots machine next to him, its large, colourful LCD screen still flashing, ‘$1,000,000 Winner!’ She finished, saying, “The couple who put the money in wanted to share it with you since they figure you gave it a lucky whack when you smashed into it.” The elderly duo stood next to the hostess and smiled, nodding in unison.

  Jerry gasped. He suddenly felt like he might need to sit down again. “Thanks, But…”

  The girl offered the voucher once more. Jerry looked at it dumbfounded. Still speechless, he gently took it and gingerly tore it open. He pulled out a smaller red cardboard folder that said, Golden Nugget Casino in large gilded letters. He opened it up and was stunned to find a cashier’s cheque for five-hundred thousand dollars.

  Trip swooped in quickly to grab Jerry’s elbow as he wobbled on weak knees for a moment. Thanking the girl, Austin took the red folder containing the cheque from Jerry's clenched fingers and stuffed it into the front pocket of the man’s bright blue parka, zipping it up. Trip thanked the girl and the elderly couple once more for Jerry, who nodded toward them, absentmindedly. Together, Trip and Austin shuffled the befuddled Jerry away toward the front of the lobby.

  Seeing Trip and his dad with Jerry, Alex was finally able to excuse himself from the crowd of concerned seniors, citing Christine’s pending rescue as his reason to leave.

  From the look of things, Austin thought, the boy had been doing quite well in allaying the senior’s fears. As he departed the group, several of the men came up and shook the boy’s hands, and a couple of the elderly ladies moved in to hug him. On butterscotch-scented breath, one petite woman whispered in his ear, “You come back and see me after you save your lady friend, young man, and I’ll bake you a fresh batch of shortbread cookies.” Alex thanked her, telling her it was one of his favourites and that his mom used to make them for him. The woman smiled back at him and patted his hand.

  Austin smiled as his son approached. Once more, he was impressed with Alex’s people skills, seeing another example natural charisma and civility that so reminded him of his wife, Patricia.

  On their way through the sticky, mangled lobby entrance to the parking lot and the sleds, Alex quickly recounted the fantastic tale of Jerry and the slot machine to Trip. The boy figured he should fill his uncle in on things he'd missed while he had been out at the maintenance shed having his own adventure.

  Trip smiled at Alex's dramatic retelling of the story, impressed with Jerry’s wherewithal and luck. He nodded toward the man, saying, “Well, little buddy, when we get back, I guess you’re buying coffee and doughnuts at Timmies!” He nodded his head toward Jerry and then the back of his sled, saying, "Hop on, my friend!"

  Jerry sat down on the back of Trip’s snowmobile with a pained sigh. Alex jumped behind Austin on the other sled. The pair of snowmobile’s engines revved to life with a high pitched drone that spiralled higher as the machines were shifted into gear. Their studded tracks dug in, kicking up chunks of ice and snow, throwing them into the fog-enshrouded night as the group made their way up the mountain toward Christine and whatever fate may have befallen her.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Christine raced back toward the entrance of the cave system, the moist cave air clotting in her lungs. She figured it was half from exertion and half from fear. Slowing to a jog, she concentrated on calming herself and regulating her breathing. Within a few seconds, she felt her constricted airways begin to relax, and she started to pick up the pace again.

  Due to the house-sized boulders now blocking the way, she knew she couldn’t escape through the front of the cavern. But the one thing that kept her running in that direction was something she remembered seeing earlier -- a possible emergency exit, as long as the latest quake hadn’t blocked that, too. She hadn’t mentioned it to the cadre of crapheads earlier since she didn’t want to give them any hope or assistance. Her plan was to get away from them somehow and then try to get out through the vent, so the last thing she wanted to tell them about was her possible escape route.

  When Christine first arrived at the cavern, before this nightmare of shit had come down on her head, she’d seen a naturally occurring vent in the cavern wall, near the torn tent. At a casual glance, it looked just like a regular crevice in the rock wall for the first five or six metres. But if you looked more closely, up into the stalactites near the cavern ceiling, you could see the fissure turned into a vent that stretched up into blackness for dozens of more metres. This vent allowed the owner of the tent to have a fire pit inside the cavern away from the entrance and not smoke themselves out like a rack of baby back ribs in the process; or alert anyone else down in the valley to their presence with the light of their fire, if and when the fog cleared.

  Being a rock climber for a hobby, when Christine had first noticed this natural volcanic chimney, she'd thought she just might have to come back to the cavern someday and see how far up it went. Well, she noted with a grim smile; apparently, today was that day.

  Christine knew without any conceit that she was the only person in this cavern physically capable of climbing the vent. As for anybody else inside it right now, well, she figured their odds of getting out of this were about as good as a snowball’s chance in… She paused her thought for a moment, realising she was going to finish the thought with ‘a snowball’s chance in Hell’, but since they were already there, she figured it rendered the expression moot. So now, it was only a matter of getting to the vent to see if it actually was a viable route of escape from this steamy little slice of purgatory.

  The tunnel widened out, and she found herself in the main cavern once more. She was moving as fast as she dared, still taking extra care to look where she ran. The thought of slipping and falling into one of the pools, or into one of the many assorted-sized vertical lava tubes that randomly dotted the cavern’s mysterious, mist-covered floor was not an appealing thought.

  Up ahead, off to her right, Christine saw the tent, and allowed herself a moment of hope. Before starting to climb, she decided it might be worthwhile to check the tent for anything that might aid her in her quest. When she arrived at it, she was sad to discover that if there were anything of value in the rear half of the tent, it no longer existed in three dimensions, and that included her rifle and backpack, unfortuna
tely. Thanks to the recent quake, the back half of the tent was now lying under a boulder the size of the new chest freezer back at her shop, rendering everything beneath it not only inaccessible but obviously useless to boot.

  Tearing open the tent’s flaps, she entered, shielding her light as much as she could as she frantically searched for anything that could help her. To her surprise and delight, she found a large coil of dynamic climbing rope under a rumpled sleeping bag that looked to be at least sixty metres long. “Bonus!” she whispered excitedly to herself, and then realised she’d really hit the jackpot. Inside a daypack was an Epipen and a pair of adjustable climbing crampons (C2s, no less!).

  She strapped the twelve-point metal-fanged footwear onto the soles of her boots and wondered why a gold miner would have this climbing gear unless they were excavating in some hard to reach areas? And an Epipen? Were they around somebody who ate a lot of peanut butter? Perhaps they’d found a prehistoric beehive nearby, and someone in the cavern was deathly allergic?

  More sensibly, she thought, the gear was there because they were going to explore the very same vent she was going into, or perhaps maybe explore a vein of gold down the side of one of the pits? Who knew? Whatever the case, she silently thanked her unknown benefactor for their thoughtfulness and their generosity for leaving these things behind, and to the fates that be, for leaving them untouched by the latest quake.

  Before exiting the tent, she turned the phone’s dim flash off and peeked out of the flaps to see what she might see. There was no sound outside the tent, and darkness reigned supreme. After listening silently for a moment, she eased herself out. There was no sign of VanDusen and his flashlit shotgun either, which was encouraging. “So far, so good,” she whispered.

  Christine turned the phone’s flash back on, it's low-power battery saving mode not illuminating anything very far up the wall, but it was enough. It looked like she could quickly get started climbing the first three or so metres with minimal effort as she suspected, but the rest would be much harder, of that she was sure.

  Tightening the wrist straps on her gloves, she started the climb and found she was correct, and it was very easy going for almost four metres. She paused after a few minutes of exertion, feeling her left leg threatening to cramp up once more and she tried to work it out while remaining wedged into the fissure and trying not to plummet to her doom.

  Her back was jammed against one side of the fissure's walls with her feet thrust to the other side, supporting herself across the metre-wide crevasse. At least it was a metre-wide at this point -- she hoped it didn’t become too narrow as she moved up, or too wide where she could no longer stretch all the way across. If she encountered either of those scenarios, she didn’t think she’d have the strength to lower herself back down to the ground safely, and that would be the end of that, hello gravity, goodbye Christine. The rope, coiled over her shoulder was unused at the moment as there was nothing to tie it to inside the smooth walls of the vent. When she started this climb, she knew it was going to be a one-way trip, and she smiled grimly. Now she knew what the Grinch felt like on his way up the chimney after stealing the very last crumb of food from Cindy-Lou Who’s house.

  Peering up into the dark recesses of the upper section of the fissure, she wasn’t sure, but she thought she could see the faintest hint of dark blue, surrounded by the cavern’s blackness. Oh my God, she thought, is that the sky outside?

  Christine grabbed another breath, meaning to carry on with her climb and get up inside the chimney proper to see what her fate may be, newly inspired as she was. But just moments after she began moving again, a flashlight’s beam bobbed up and down near the back of the cavern, coming her way fast.

  She froze. Not wanting to make any noise that would give away her location, she paused where she was, four metres up the fissure, her legs tense. She waited and watched as the person with the light moved toward the mass of boulders at the front entrance next to the tent. They were no doubt hoping to see if there was a way out through there. She couldn’t see who it was but knew she wouldn’t have to wait too long to find out and she already had her suspicions.

  The light continued to bob up and down very rapidly as if the person were running from something, throwing caution to the wind as they fled through the pools and pits. The light stopped at the rockfall near the front and she heard a voice. Somebody was muttering to themselves. “Shit! There’s gotta be a way out of here.” Barely audible, it was VanDusen’s voice. She watched the Chief playing his light over the jumble of immense rocks that blocked the entrance. “C’mon, C'mon…”

  The light flitted back and forth over the boulders as he searched. He still mumbled under his breath as he went, looking for an escape route. The flashlight’s beam started to move about the cavern in an increasingly erratic manner. She could feel VanDusen’s terror beginning to bubble through to the surface, affecting his actions. She’d felt herself wanting to do the same earlier and had fought against it, not wanting to lose her own head to panic, as the VanDusen was doing now.

  Of more immediate concern to her than the Chief’s panic was her own rapidly cramping leg muscles, still sore from the snowshoeing she’d done several hours earlier. Not wanting to give her position away, Christine flexed her shoulders and legs slightly to try and provide them with some relief as she felt the rock of the fissure digging into her back. It ground into her spine from the pressure, directly into the sore spot where VanDusen had drilled her in the back with the muzzle of his shotgun. She dared not move, as she didn’t want the Chief knowing her current location. It wasn’t as if she thought he’d be able to climb up to where she was, far from it, but she didn’t know if he had any shells left in that shotgun of his. Nor did she know if his service revolver was still with him, and she didn’t want to find out if he was willing to waste any ammo on target practice, herself being the target.

  Christine watched him move along the rockfall. Stopping halfway, he spotted something on the cavern floor, making a grunt of surprise as he did. He picked up whatever he’d found and put it in his pocket. Breathing heavily, VanDusen jogged back over toward the rockfall in front of the tent, still unaware of Christine’s presence, four metres up and wedged into the cavern wall. She watched from her perch as he shone his light amongst the large boulders, looking for some sort of gap through which to escape, but could find nothing.

  A whine of frustration like that of a petulant child escaped VanDusen’s mouth, and he kicked a small rock at the boulders with one boot-covered foot. “Shit! Shit! Shi…”

  The Chief’s final shit was interrupted by a faint, but unmistakable sound of rock being knocked over as something at the back of the cavern moved his way. VanDusen whipped around toward the direction of the noise.

  Christine had front row seats to the show that was about to begin if her legs could take it. She remained wedged with her back against one side of the vent wall and her feet on the other side. She alternated stretching out one leg and then the other trying to alleviate some of the cramping. Her vantage point afforded her a unique view, high above the mist generated by the boiling aquifers, she was able to see most of what was unfolding.

  VanDusen shone his light toward the back of the cavern. He shouted, his voice a mixture of anger and fear, “Why can’t you goddamned ugly sons of bitches just leave me alone?”

  Whatever was coming his way, there was more than one of them. Judging by the tone of his voice, he’d already had a run-in with whatever they were once before. Apparently, that time had been more than enough for him.

  Christine felt her legs start to tremble and she pressed harder into the vent wall with her feet. It helped a bit, and she felt the quiver steady somewhat. Holding her breath, she waited to see what was coming. She half-expected to see the sabre-toothed cat that had jumped Chance stroll into view, or a pack of them, perhaps.

  When she saw what was revealed in the light, she was stunned. It appeared that the terror currently stalking Lawless had two mouths to feed
at home. “Oh my God,” she murmured to herself. The pair of cubs looked well fed, but if they were anything like their mother, they were still very hungry.

  Christine’s left leg started to cramp again, and she felt herself begin to slip. She kicked in hard with both feet. Pressing her back into the unyielding rock with all her strength, she stopped her downward skid just in the nick of time. Her movement against the rock also yielded the unfortunate effect of several smaller stones being kicked loose from the side vent. They clattered down the crevasse, hitting the ground with a noise that did not go unnoticed by either the Chief or the new nightmares that had just appeared. Both creatures lifted their heads and looked in her direction, sniffing the air, perhaps smelling her scent. VanDusen jerked his light toward the sound of the falling rocks, but then yanked it back toward the bears again almost immediately, not seeing Christine up above.

  To VanDusen’s relief and Christine’s dismay, the twin bears were more intrigued by the falling rocks below her than by VanDusen’s light, and they plodded toward where she had wedged herself into the wall. The Chief kept the bears in his spotlight as they approached her position like they were star performers in an underground circus big-top ready to perform a fantastic feat of some sort or other.