Inhabited

by Ike Hamill

  “You’re not climbing are you?” Florida yelled. “You’re supposed to wait until I’m off the rope. I don’t trust this thing with our combined weight.”

  “Okay,” Roger said. He had forgotten about waiting. Their combined weight was indeed on the rope. At least it seemed to be holding.

  He spoke too soon.

  With a creak from above, he dropped an inch. Something up there was giving way. Roger’s heartbeat broke into a gallop. He breathed fast, glancing down. With his gentle swing, his situation went from reasonable to precarious.

  A new wave came down the rope and he started swinging from side to side. He tried to counter the movement by shifting his weight, but he only made it worse.

  “Okay,” Florida called. “Come on up.”

  The rope creaked again and Roger stiffened himself, waiting. It didn’t drop again, but he could sense that it wanted to. The rope had a personality, and it was not a pleasant one.

  With a shallow, cautious breath, Roger pulled on the rope looped over his shoulder. The fibers dug into his muscles as he used his own body as a pulley. His foot rose grudgingly and he was ready to straighten out again. His hands were already cramping. His thigh was hot from exertion.

  Above him, the rope swung again. This time it was pulled all the way to the side of the shaft. Roger’s stomach fell as he swung back and forth. The noose above him promised a place to rest his climbing leg. If he could reach it, he could take a break. He hauled down the shoulder rope and made his next attempt to ascend.

  Every part of his body was exhausted, and he was only halfway there.

  The old rope creaked and he dropped a few inches before jerking to a halt.

  Roger climbed frantically. His fingers reached the noose—not that it did any good. He needed to get his feet up to it.

  As Roger’s shoulders crested the noose, his makeshift pulley started to break down. He had to brace the loose end with one foot while he raised the slipknot with the other. Lifting himself an inch was a struggle. The fibers of the hangman’s rope bit into his raw hands.

  The rope creaked again, but this time it actually jerked upwards.

  Roger lost his grip on Florida’s rope and he clutched the hangman’s rope with both hands. Without tension, the rope connected to his foot went slack and his fingers began to slip. Roger pedaled his feet in the air trying to get a foot up to the noose. It was too high.

  The hangman’s rope pulled upwards again and his hands banged against he shaft wall. The skin on his knuckles was scraped away, but Roger got a foot up to press against the shaft. Using that, he pushed his body back against the opposite wall.

  “Stop!” he screamed. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it for a second.”

  “Okay,” Florida called. She sounded perfectly calm.

  Sweat poured down Roger’s face as he tried to find the noose with his foot. Florida’s rope was still hanging from his foot. The loose end slapped against the floor below him.

  His toe found the noose. Roger tested the foothold and then moved his other foot to join the first. When he stretched out his legs and stood up in the noose, the relief was instantaneous. Roger tilted back his head and released a huge sigh. He shook out his arms one by one and looked at the rope burns on his palms. He was going to make it.

  “Okay,” he called. “If you can, pull me up some more.”

  “No problem.”

  Florida worked whatever magic she hand conjured and the hangman’s noose resumed its creaky ascent. Roger was the merry cargo.

  His foot snagged.

  Roger felt the hangman’s rope stretch. He looked down to see what the problem was.

  “Hold on,” he called.

  He couldn’t get a good angle to shine his light. Something was pulling on his foot. Florida stopped pulling, but the tension increased on his foot. He saw the problem—the rope he had used to climb up to the noose was caught on something, and it was still looped around his foot.

  Roger’s eyes darted left and right as he searched his memory—what could the rope have caught on? There was little down there except a round chamber and a shaft leading down to the mine. The only thing might be the spikes that were driving into the side of the shaft. They had climbed them to get to the hangman’s cave. But those would be directly below. The rope appeared to be pulled to the side.

  Regardless, all he had to do was free his foot of the loop and he could continue upwards. The price would be the spare rope, but there was no helping it.

  Roger took his trapped foot from the noose and tried to shake the loop from it. Florida’s rope was caught on his shoe. He tried to raise his foot to relieve the tension.

  His whole body was jerked down. His knee popped and it felt like his hip was being pulled from its socket.

  Roger screamed.

  “What is it?” Florida yelled.

  “I’m caught!” he screamed. His foot was jerked from side to side as the rope whipped back and forth.

  The hangman’s noose began to rise again. The old rope creaked and dust filtered down from above. Roger couldn’t keep his other knee locked under the pressure. The noose was raising his foot up, but his body wasn’t going with it. He was going to be torn in two by the opposing forces.

  After a moment of slack on the line, Florida’s rope jerked down again. Roger felt his skin and muscles flare with heat. He was being stretched to the point of breaking. He had to let go of the hangman’s rope. The fall might kill him, but at least it wouldn’t rip him in half.

  Roger readied himself for the fall. He pushed the hangman’s rope away from himself.

  His snared shoe popped off.

  With the pressure relieved, the hangman’s rope jerked upwards. The energy drained from Roger’s body and he barely held on as he began to ascend again. His dangling leg was numb.

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  Florida pulled him over the edge and Roger flopped on his back. His hip and knee throbbed. The air was cool on his bare foot.

  He raised his head enough to look down at his foot. It wasn’t completely bare. He was still wearing a sock. It was red with spreading blood.

  “Away from the edge,” he groaned. Florida helped pull him away from the shaft. He saw the crank mechanism she had used to lift him. It was made of wood and riveted together with straps of iron.

  “What happened?” she asked. She moved down to his foot and shone her light on it. Mercifully, she didn’t touch his tender flesh.

  “Someone grabbed the rope. Someone down in that cave. They tried to pull my leg off.”

  Florida’s eyes grew wide she leaned her head carefully over the shaft.

  “I see the rope. I don’t see anyone down there.”

  “Trust me,” Roger said.

  “Maybe it just got caught on something? A rock maybe?”

  “No. It played me like a tuna.”

  “Where’s your shoe?”

  He gestured towards the hole.

  Roger blinked and tried to make sense of the ceiling. It was the source of the glow. The light was fuzzy, like a blacklight.

  Florida noticed the direction of his attention and she looked up at the ceiling.

  “The ceiling is some kind of crystal. I think the glow might be sunlight coming through.”

  “From where?” he asked.

  “From the sky?”

  “Isn’t there a mountain of dirt above us?”

  “I guess not,” she said.

  “Can we break through the crystal and see if it’s sunlight?” Roger asked. He took in a sharp breath when he sat up. His entire leg began to throb. Roger pulled his pants leg to move his foot closer He peeled his sock back enough to see the scrape. It wasn’t bad. The blood flow was already slowing down. Flexing his leg took some of the pressure off his hip somehow. It didn’t feel quite as bad.

  “I don’t think so,” Florida said. The crystal ceiling was at the limit of her reach, but she pressed the sharp tool into it. She banged on the hard crystal to no effect. Roger didn’t like
looking at it. The fuzziness made his eyes ache.

  Roger looked around instead. This place looked more like he expected a mine should look. The tunnels branched off in several directions at random intervals. He saw one small room at the end of a tunnel, like they had found something of value there and dug to excavate it. It was different than the grid below.

  “Now what? This certainly isn’t the way we came in,” he said.

  “Right,” she said. “I think the shafts below were for extraction. This is the real meat of the mine. We’ll have to go up to get out.”

  “Up where?”

  Florida shrugged.

  “I think you’re going to have to go alone if you want to make decent time,” Roger said. He rolled to his knees and pressed himself upwards. He limped on his sock and felt his joints settling back into place. It wasn’t as bad as he expected.

  “That’s fine,” Florida said. “I’ll be back with help.”

  “Oh. Well thanks for all the concern,” he said. “Yeah. I’ll be fine alone here.”

  “Do you want to stay together or do you want me to get help?” She asked, turning back to face him.

  “You just walk,” he said. “If I’m slowing you down then feel free to ditch me.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  She chose a tunnel that appeared to have some length. Roger hobbled after her.

  Chapter Twenty-One — Alone

  KRISTIN COULDN’T BREATHE. EVERY time she tried to inhale, her breath hitched and caught. Light leaked back into her eyes slowly, and the scene it revealed was horrible. Joy was lying on the floor of the mine next to her. Joy’s face appeared calm, but her body was ripped open. Joy’s arm had been flayed, but the worst was her ribcage. The bones were broken apart and her shirt torn. Kristin could see Joy’s exposed organs.

  She turned away and squeezed her eyes shut. It couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening.

  “Stop,” she whispered. She opened her eyes and reassessed. Yes, Joy was there, and she was dead. Denying it wouldn’t help anyone. Kristin needed to act.

  She abandoned Joy’s hand and pulled away from her body. Kristin held still and darted her eyes every direction, looking for the assailant. She saw nothing but the mine shaft. She whipped around and looked behind herself. Her headlamp revealed nothing. The walls and ceiling seemed to press in. Her heart beat faster as she thought about how she was underground in a tunnel carved into rock. It could collapse at any second.

  These thoughts were crazy.

  Kristin oriented herself. She knew where the exit should be. She turned her back on Joy and started walking. Her legs were barely under her control. She jerked forward like a marionette. Every few steps, she glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Joy was still there, split open like a side of beef.

  Kristin ran.

  When she saw the blue of the night sky, she could hardly believe it. Hope welled up in her chest, but she forced it back down. Believing that she might take a breath in the open air was a jinx. She refused to jinx herself out of that gift.

  When she burst through the entrance of the mine, Kristin threw her arms and head up to the sky. She sprinted to her left. She tripped on a rock, but kept pumping her legs until she regained her balance. She saw the dark Jeep sitting there on the access trail.

  “Ryan!” she screamed.

  He didn’t answer.

  She ran right for the driver’s door and clawed at it with one hand while jamming the other into her pants pocket for the key. In her panic, neither of her hands completed their tasks. She stopped. She pulled the handle, swung open the door and then took a breath before reaching for the key. She was back under control. Her helmet banged on the Jeep’s frame as she climbed in.

  Kristin had never driven a manual transmission before, but she knew the concept. She found neutral and got it started. With the lights on, she started to believe that everything might be okay. Again, she chased away the jinx back to the corners of her mind.

  In the rearview mirror, a shape appeared.

  Kristin screamed and her foot came off the clutch. The Jeep bucked and then stalled.

  “You scared the fuck out of me,” she said.

  “And you me,” Ryan said. “Where is everybody?”

  “I don’t know,” Kristin said. “Carlos disappeared and then…” Her tears burst forth like a stinging cloud. Kristin willed them back. “Someone killed Joy in the dark. She died in my arms. Her blood was everywhere. We have to get help.”

  “What?” Ryan asked. He squeezed between the seats and landed in the passenger’s seat. “What the fuck? Where is everyone else?”

  “We split up. They’re staying. Listen, can you drive this thing? We have to get help.”

  “Where’s Joy?”

  “She’s in the mine,” Kristin said. “Are you going to help me or not? I’m not going to stick around here waiting for something to happen to me.”

  “Yeah, of course. You’re sure there’s nothing we should be doing to get the others out before we leave, right?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Because I don’t want to have everyone saying that we should have helped our friends before we went off trying to find help, you know?”

  “I know what you’re saying, but I’m sure.”

  Ryan nodded. “Switch places with me.”

  Kristin crawled over the seat and flopped down in the back. Ryan worked his way carefully over the gearshift. She let out her breath as he started the car again. Ryan put it in reverse.

  “Hold on,” he said.

  The Jeep lurched backwards.

  Chapter Twenty-Two — Glow

  THE CEILING WAS HIGH and arched. The glow was coming from up there. The jagged crystals were translucent and light was seeping through them. The brightness was fairly consistent, but every now and then the light would either swell or fade and then return back to where it started.

  Travis glanced at Miguel.

  Miguel shrugged back.

  “How should I know?” Miguel whispered.

  Travis patted the air, telling him to be quiet.

  Miguel adjusted the straps of the backpack. The lump of ore pressed into his back. It felt reassuring. At least they were making progress. And the light seemed like a good sign. It felt like they were getting closer to civilization.

  They reached a branch.

  Travis started to head to the right. Miguel put a hand on his shoulder.

  Miguel pointed to the left. Travis shook his head.

  “Stay with the light,” Miguel whispered.

  Travis got close to his ear to whisper his response. “We don’t know what that light is coming from. It could be some secret military stuff or something.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Are you?”

  “If we go that way,” Miguel said, pointing, “we have to fire up our lights again. How long do you think this carbide is going to last?”

  “It’s reacting all the time either way,” Travis said. “Whether or not we burn the gas, it’s still giving it off.”

  Miguel shook his head. “We turned off the water.”

  “It’s still wet. Trust me, these torches are on a timer.”

  “I still think we should stay with the light. It must be man-made. I’d rather stick to the part of the cave where people have left a mark, you know?” Miguel asked.

  Travis was about to respond when another burst of air chuffed out from somewhere deeper in the cave. A second later, a blast of warm wind came from the tunnel with the glowing crystal ceiling. The air smelled vaguely of garbage, or compost, or a dumpster that has sat too long in the sun.

  Miguel pointed to the darker passage of the cave. “Go that way.”

  Travis rolled his eyes and nodded.

  They picked up speed as they walked into the darkness. As soon as they moved around the first turn, they had to spark their headlamps again. Travis was right, even with the water off there seemed to be enough gas for a flicke
ring flame. Miguel turned on his water drip again to even out his headlamp. They picked up speed as they got away from the glow. Being under that crystal ceiling, they had moved slowly, almost reverently. It was like they thought they needed to tread carefully, lest they wake something up.

  When Miguel had been a boy, they had moved around their apartment the same way on Saturday mornings. Nobody wanted to be the one who accidentally woke up their father. Miguel watched Travis climb up over a rock that blocked their passage. As soon as he was up and over, Miguel followed.

  Travis pointed at something as he walked by. For a second, Miguel didn’t recognize the brown lump on the wall. He moved closer and then jerked back when he saw the eyes. The bat tucked his head back into his wing and ignored Miguel.

  “We must be close to the surface, right?” Miguel asked.

  “I guess,” Travis said. “Maybe we should wake him up and see where he flies. We could follow him out.”

  Miguel shook his head.

  They both turned when they heard another expulsion of air behind them. It sounded like it was off in the distance, and they felt no wind. Miguel’s heart felt a little lighter—they were moving away from the unknown. But they were also moving away from someplace that felt living, almost inhabited, and walking through a dark, inert cave. He was conflicted.

  Their cave took a downhill turn. Travis put a hand out to support himself on the wall. Miguel leaned back. The backpack helped him balance himself as they descended.

  Travis stopped at a lip. Miguel drew alongside him.

  Their cave opened up to an enormous room. Miguel stumbled back a step at the sight. The floor of their tunnel fell away at a steep angle. They were at least halfway up the wall of the huge room. Miguel didn’t like the way his light petered out before it reached the other side. He could see a few stalactites near the center, and he could see the white sediment on the cave floor below, but the other side was lost in darkness.