I had a boating license, although I wasn’t really worried about legalities at this point. We all got in. The breeze off of the lake was far from warm, and my friends huddled against one another on the back seat of the boat. I cast off the mooring, reached under the steering console, grabbed the key, and backed out of the slip. I turned out of the marina, under the train bridge, and then pushed the throttle down as far as it could go. The nose shot up towards the sky, and before we knew it, we were shredding through the glass smooth water, leaving a small wake behind us.
The lake water was dark, and the light was fading from the sky, soon it would be pitch black. The boat had plenty of lights, but the fact that I had no idea where I was going didn’t help my situation. All I had to navigate was sporadic directions from Jason. The mountain loomed over us in the darkening sky.
After about 20 minutes of speeding down the lake, I steered closer to the shore and started to slow down. Jason said he had a general idea of where the shaft was, but he wasn’t completely sure. We were banking on seeing the entrances from the lake.
The compound fence went all the way to the edge of the lake. A large hill was pocked with the shaft openings, and large pieces of machinery were scattered about.
“How are we going to get over the fence?” I looked at Jason. His Dad worked there, so surely he would have some idea how to get in.
“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure the mine shaft we’re looking for is right there.” He pointed to the right. I followed his finger and saw an entrance that was blocked off, with a padlock on the metal door.
I turned off the engine and dropped the anchor. I doubted we would drift much since there was no wind, but I didn’t want to risk damaging the boat.
“We’re going to have to swim,” I stated the obvious. Nobody objected. Kent shed his shirt, and Jason took his lead. I stripped down to my underwear and slid over the side of the boat, holding my clothes over my head. The day was starting to cool down, but the water still held the warmth of sun.
“You really expect us to swim that far?” Jessica crossed her arms over her chest defiantly.
“Jessica, we don’t have time for this. Just get in.” I had no patience with her dramatics.
She rolled her eyes, but stripped down as well, followed by Mackenzie. Jessica pissed me off. If she didn’t want to come she could just sit and wait in the boat.
I swam on my back, kicking with my feet and holding my clothes out of the water with one hand. It would be good to have something dry to change into when we got to shore. I was hoping there would be a hole in the barb wire fence somewhere for us to crawl through.
Pretty soon the clay like dirt in the shallows squished between my toes. I waded the last few feet and set my clothes down near the edge so I could dry off. Once I was dressed, I started to walk the fence looking for a way in.
There had to be a way. My prayers to a God I didn’t really believe in were answered when I found a spot where the ground dropped off abruptly. If we slithered under the fence here we’d be inside.
I hurried back to where everyone was huddled getting dressed and trying to figure out what to do next.
“I found a way in. It’s not very big, so Kent might have trouble. We might have to do some digging.”
I led the way back to the depression under the barb wire. We decided Kent should go third, that way there’d be two people on either side to push and pull if he got stuck.
I went first, crawling through the dirt, and coming out on the other side. Mackenzie followed me while Jason and Jessica stayed back to push Kent if need be.
It didn’t take as long as I thought for us all to get through. If our luck held, I’d be home by curfew.
Once we brushed the dirt off, we regrouped and headed for the shaft entrance. It was about halfway up the hill at the base of the mountain. You could tell where it stopped being a hill and turned into a mountain by the massive mound of rock that jutted out of the earth in a vertical rock face.
“This way.” Jason went to our right and further up the hill. In the distance a sort of temporary shack building squatted in the fading light. For the next 5 minutes, we made our way towards the building. The name on the sign did nothing to calm the racing of my heart. ‘Devil’s Den. Unstable mine, proceed with caution.’
Chapter 18
“What was the mine called?” I looked at Jason.
“Devil’s something,” he responded.
The name was kind of ironic. I felt like maybe we were entering a devil’s den.
I bypassed the ramshackle shed and approached the locked gate. Of course, it had to be locked. Nothing about this had been easy.
“The key is probably in the she—” Jason broke off as the sound of splintering wood echoed off the nearby cliff. Kent stood by the shattered shed door, a wild look in his eyes.
“We need to hurry.” He shoved past the ruined entrance and started rifling through the drawers of the small desk which was the only thing in there.
I wanted to give him a high five. I didn’t care if we had to blow open a new mine shaft, we were going to find Mady.
“Got it, I hope.” He emerged moments later. The keys jingled on the ring as he proceeded to try them all in the lock on the metal door of the shaft.
The twelfth key did the trick. The lock snicked and the gate swung open. I hurried through the gate into the gaping hole in the rock.
“Wait!” Jason grabbed my shoulder. “We should be wearing some sort of protection, I mean, if the stalker went far enough to get masks, we should at least wrap our shirts around our mouths and nose or something.”
I’d forgotten about the masks. Of course, we needed masks.
A shirt was no substitute for a proper mask but it was all we had. I took mine off and wrapped it around my face below my eyes. Mackenzie and Jessica were hesitating about taking their tops off so I ripped mine in half and handed a piece to Mackenzie. Kent did the same for Jessica.
The mine was dark and damp. It smelled like old clothes left in a washing machine for too long. Water sloshing under my feet and shone eerily in the narrow beam of the flash light I found just inside the shaft door. We were only a short way in, but I was already feeling disoriented.
“How do we know when to stop?” I spoke over my shoulder because we were walking two people next to each other in the mineshaft. It was small, but just wide enough for people to fit next to each other.
“I don’t know, we just have to wait until we see some sign of where they are.”
“How are we supposed see anything? I can’t even see my hand in front of my face,” Jessica’s voice was sulky.
I choked back what I really wanted to say to her and kept going. I tripped on something and fell face first onto a sharp metal grate. Blood stung where it ran into my eyes.
Kent came to help me and lifted me upright. The shaft had widened into a small room, and we could all fit if we squeezed.
“This is it. This is the mine elevator,” Jason said moving past us. “Someone must have turned the generator on. I can see a light in the cage down there.” He leaned out over the hole in the floor. There was a dim glow just below us. Jason pushed a button on the wall and the small caged elevator came even with us.
“How many of us can fit in this thing at once?” I looked to Jason for information.
“Two, maybe three. All of us, if we squeeze and don’t move around while it’s moving.”
“There’s no way we can all fit on that,” Jessica declared.
I was sick of her complaining.
“We’re going to have to. You can either come with us, or stay up here and wait.”
Jessica heaved a huge sigh and came closer to the elevator platform.
Everyone jammed into the cage, and Jason hit the down button. My stomach lurched, for a second it felt like we were free falling. Then something seemed to engage and we descended slowly into the depths of the earth. Maybe Jessica was right. It didn’t seem like such a good idea for us all to be
crammed in like this. If something happened there’d be nobody to go for help. I doubted Jason actually knew how much weight one of these things could carry, let alone an old one that hadn’t been maintained.
After what felt like a lifetime of descending into blackness surrounded by our little bubble of dim light, the elevator started to slow. I could see the smallest bit of the wall through the two-foot-wide space between the roof of the elevator and the gate, and it was an inch, at most, from the side. Sometimes a rock would scrape against the side making the cage vibrate.
It came to a stop with a bump and Jason unlocked the door and we piled out.
“The elevator is set to go back up automatically in three hours. If it does, we have to wait for it to come all the way back down, and I don’t know how much time Mady has if she’s badly injured,” he explained.
We had a three-hour window to get in, and get out. It sounded easy enough in theory, but I had no idea what lay ahead of us.
I realized why they called this place the Devils Den. As the elevator descended the temperature rose. Now that we were at the bottom it was like a bathtub that was too hot. The humidity made my clothes stick to my body and the air was hard to breath. Sweat soaked everything and ran down my spine. The shirt wrapped around my mouth didn’t help with the lightheaded feeling either. I started down the tunnel; there was only one way to go.
We walked for what seemed like forever. I turned the flash light on again so we could sort of see where we were going. I ran my fingers along the wall to help keep me grounded and alert me if there were any side tunnels off this one.
The wall curved under my fingertips and I could tell a corner or turn was coming up. I stopped and everyone halted with me. I moved carefully towards the bend, the flash light on the ground and my hand still on the wall. It curved and light glimmered up ahead. We must be getting close. I backed slowly around the bend and rejoined the others.
“I think we’ve found it. There’s light around the bend,” I whispered. My voice hissed off the walls and echoes whispered through the humid darkness. It was so hot the air seemed like it had weight to it. My dripping hair stung the cut on my head which was still bleeding a bit.
“Okay, then let’s go.” Kent tried to push past me.
“Wait. We have to think about what we’re going to do. If they don’t already know we’re here, we can surprise them,” I told him.
“I guess,” he muttered.
In a tight group we inched down the tunnel toward the light.
It was closer than I thought. We had only walked about 500 meters before we were right outside the door. Jason probably knew what it used to be used for, maybe it was some sort of break room for the miners or something. Didn’t really matter. We were going in.
I nodded at my friends. This was it. I hesitated, suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t do this. All I had to do was open the door and go in. It was slightly ajar so it wasn’t locked.
Kent gripped my arm in solidarity, and that’s all that I needed. I reached for the door and pushed it open.
The light I’d seen was coming from a battery-operated lamp in the corner of the room. The room was hotter than the rest of the mine. Much hotter. A wave of heat engulfed me bringing fresh sweat out on my body. I wished we’d thought to bring water with us.
I took another step inside the small room. A small hallway gaped to the left, beside it a cot was shoved against the wall.
My breath caught in my throat. There was a human shaped lump under a ratty blanket. I don’t remember crossing the room, only ripping the covering away. Mady Smith was curled on her side, bruised and bloody.
I wasn’t sure if she was breathing. The sheets were covered in blood, and a makeshift bandage was wrapped around her. She was so still. Mackenzie came and stood beside me, a hand on my arm. Jason and Ken huddled behind her.
“Mady?” I couldn’t keep the tremor from my voice. I clamped down on the panic clawing in my gut. I had to stay in control, I had to save her now I’d found her.
I bent down and touched her shoulder. I glanced over my shoulder. The expression on Kent and Jason’s faces told me they thought the worst. Mackenzie has tears on her cheeks. Jessica was just standing in the doorway.
A slight movement drew my attention back to Mady. She was so cold, but I was sure I’d felt a tiny movement. I checked for a heartbeat, and my breath hitched when I couldn’t feel anything. I was about to step back when she took the tiniest breath. I wouldn’t have noticed if my hand hadn’t still been on her.
I pulled out my phone and checked the time. It was 11:30. No service. I had no bars.
“What are you doing?” Jason asked.
“I was checking the time. She’s alive. We need to call someone.”
“She’s alive? We need to get out of here and call 911. We need an ambulance and the police.” Jason stared at Mady. “I can’t believe she’s alive.”
“I’m not calling the cops. I need to call my therapist. She said she was willing to help us if we needed it when the time came,” I told him.
Kent immediately knelt by Mady’s side and tried talking to her, urging her to wake up, as I decided what the next step was.
Muttering, Jason wandered over to a large cupboard by the far wall. He opened it, and the room got brighter. I left Mady with Mackenzie leaning over her trying to see how badly she was hurt. The cupboard was full of complicated looking electronics. The only thing I recognized was hardwired internet cord, and I wondered if all of this stuff could access internet in the mine. It made sense. Mady had posted the blog somehow, and she couldn’t have done it without internet, the only question was why they went through all the trouble of setting it up, when they could have just gone up to the surface.
Jason reached into the bottom shelf of the cupboard and pulled out some sort of radio. He handed it to me. I had no idea what it was or how it worked.
“It’s a phone miners use to call up to the surface for supplies or something. I’ve never seen my dad actually use it, but let’s just hope it works.” Jason glanced at Kent who shrugged.
That was good enough for me. I crossed my fingers, and found Nancy’s contact information. I punched the number into the weird phone and hit the big green button. At first, nothing happened, and I was about to give up. Then, it started to ring.
I looked at Jason in confusion. Something was ringing deeper in the mine. Ringing in time with the tone in my ear.
The last thing I remember was a flash of pain and my face hitting the stone floor.
Chapter 19
I woke up in the same room, but not near the cupboard. It was kind of like waking up from a nightmare and realizing the nightmare was real.
My head ached like crazy. I must have fainted. By why would I do that? I leaned against the wall by the cot where I was propped. Ripples of pain shot through my body. I tried to touch my head and was shocked to discover my hands were tied.
Jason was sprawled next to me. He appeared to be wrapped in a long rope with his head lolling on his shoulder, mouth gaping open. He was either dead, or unconscious. I was hoping for the latter of the two options.
I tried to move closer and see if I could wake him up or something. Nothing was making sense and my pounding head and the flashing lights at the corner of my vision weren’t helping.
“Brian?”
“Mady? Is that you? Are you okay?”
I realize it was a stupid thing to say, given the circumstances, but hey my brains were scrambled. I couldn’t see her, where was she? Somewhere close because I could hear her.
“Don’t worry about me, it’s too late. Get loose and get out of here.”
I couldn’t get any words out of my mouth.
“Brian? I will always love you.”
“I’m not going to let you die. Who did this?”
As if on cue, footsteps echoed, which hurt my head more.
“She would be referring to us.” The footsteps came closer. Nancy Kim walked into the light.
&nbs
p; It was surreal. I grappled with the reality, trying to understand how she fit into the picture.
“You’re scared, I can tell,” Doctor Kim squatted in front of me. There was an edge to her voice I’d never heard before; a kind of weird triumph or something. Was she even a real doctor?
“Who’s ‘us’?” I demanded, hiding behind false bravado.
“Why don’t you come out, my partner in crime?” Her voice was almost sing song now. Totally weird.
“Hi Brian.” Jessica said, stopped beside where Nancy still knelt in front of me.
What the hell? Jessica?
“Why would you do this, Jessica?” I demanded.
“Because you never loved me, dumb ass,” she screamed in my face.
Nancy stood up and hugged her. Okay, this was so beyond seriously weird.
“Can someone please explain to me what’s going on here?” I needed to keep them talking so my friends could wake up and maybe help me. I doubted what these two nut jobs had in mind for us was going to be pleasant.
“We’ll wait for everyone to wake up. I’ve never liked having to explain things twice.” Nancy still had an arm around a sobbing Jessica. How had Jessica morphed into a psychopath in the short time I was out?
I was silent for a moment, figuring things out. It must have been Jessica who hit me. It was all a scheme to get us in one place, but why? We had no idea who the stalker was. Nancy, and Jessica if she wanted, could have run away somewhere without any of us ever catching on, if they had just taken Mady and got out of town.
It didn’t take as long as I suspected for Jason to wake up. I closed my eyes trying to ease the headache. I felt him move next to me, but instead of waking up quietly, he came to screaming and yelling that Jessica was a traitor.
She must have knocked me out before anyone else. It would have been a dead giveaway what she up to when she knocked me out in front of everyone. But how did she overpower everyone else? Especially, Kent.
I calmed Jason as best I could and he settled down, glaring at Jessica and Nancy.
“Who’s she?” He nodded carefully toward Nancy. His head must be on fire, too.
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