Inhabited

by Ike Hamill

  “It’s got to be a hundred yards across,” Travis whispered.

  “More,” Miguel said. “I don’t believe it.” His breath came in short gulps.

  “We have to turn back,” Travis said. “We’ll try the other glowing tunnel.”

  “No,” Miguel said. “I think that’s the wrong idea. Bigger is better.”

  Travis just looked at him.

  Miguel tried to explain and realized that his gut reaction was hard to put logic behind. “These caves are formed by erosion, right? Rivers and stuff get bigger downstream. If we head downstream, we’re bound to find a way out. If we continue upstream, we’re just going to find a trickle of a cave that we can’t get through.”

  “I don’t think it works that way at all,” Travis said. “Besides, this wall is smooth. If we drop out of this tunnel, there’s no going back. Is that what you want?”

  “There’s already no going back,” Miguel said. “We can’t make it down from that ledge in one piece. The only other option is where that wind is coming from. I’ve come around to your side—I don’t want to know what’s making that wind.”

  Travis moved his light around the big room. Miguel followed Travis’s beam and added his own light to the features of the giant room below. There were a few stalagmites that rose up from the floor of the cave, but it looked mostly flat and was covered by that white sediment. It looked almost like a dry lakebed. They could see cracks in the white floor. The walls sloped down from the ceiling, making the bottom of the cave a giant bowl. Off to the right, just at the limits of their headlamps, they could see what looked like a huge passage that led off from the enormous room. It was impossible to tell unless they got closer.

  “I don’t even know,” Travis said. “We could slide down this edge. It looks easy enough. But, like I said, there’s no coming back.”

  “I’m okay with that,” Miguel said. “We’ll find a better way out. There has to be a way.”

  “I’m not so sure that’s true.”

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  It was easier than it looked. Miguel went first. He sat on the lip of their tunnel and then scooted forward. He rode down the smooth rock like a slide. As it curved towards the floor, his acceleration was kept in check by friction and he slowed to a stop before he even got to the white sediment.

  He turned and watched Travis.

  Travis slowed to a stop even higher. They stood up on the unstable angle and began to walk the circumference of the bowl. Based on the caustic powder they had encountered earlier, they kept their distance from the white sediment. But walking sideways along the slope was incredibly tiring. Miguel’s ankles burned.

  “This sucks,” Miguel said. He stopped.

  “It’s okay,” Travis said, but he immediately turned his feet uphill to the relieve the strain of holding his feet on the tilted slope.

  “I’m going to see if I can walk on the flat part,” Miguel said.

  He inched his way down the slope. It felt better immediately as the bowl-shaped wall got closer to horizontal. When he got to the edge of the white, he touched the toe of his shoe to the chalk. It was firm. He raised his foot and looked at the sole—his shoe seemed no worse for wear.

  Miguel coughed into his hand and tried his whole foot. The white chalk was solid.

  “It’s fine,” he said.

  He stepped onto the edge.

  They continued walking, and Miguel began to pull away from Travis. Stubbornly sticking to the sloped wall, Travis struggled to stay upright.

  “You’re going to have to come down eventually,” Miguel called back to him. “The wall gets vertical a little farther down.” Miguel coughed again. He tried to keep his footfalls clean. He didn’t want to accidentally scuff up any of the dust, in case it was irritating his lungs.

  “I’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Travis said.

  Miguel looked back. Travis was hunched over, retying his shoe.

  While he walked, he turned his light to cast it across the bowl of the room. His light still didn’t reach the other side. It was creepy to think of what might be over there, on the other side of that haze. Miguel slowed down. The far side hadn’t looked hazy when they were up on the lip of the tunnel. He distinctly remembered that his light had disappeared into black. For some reason, down here, looking across was like trying to see down the length of a long road on a hot summer day. Everything shimmered into a haze.

  Miguel kept moving.

  His own shoe was a little loose. Walking sideways like that had done a number on his laces too.

  He had to wait up for Travis anyway. Miguel bent over to tie his shoe.

  He was only halfway through retying his laces when the world began to sparkle. Bursts of light fired off in his eyes. His balance floated away on a dream. Miguel started coughing and couldn’t catch his breath.

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  Travis kept to the slope out of equal parts stubbornness and caution.

  Nobody else had been burned by the powder. They didn’t understand how much it had hurt. In fact, they barely seemed to care. Travis was going to steer clear of the stuff if at all possible. Of course, he didn’t know if it was even the same white powder, but better safe than sorry.

  He could tell something was wrong with Miguel even before he keeled over.

  His friend had slowed to a stop while he was looking out over the floor of the vast cave. He had seemed distracted, or even hypnotized by what he saw. Travis was about to ask him what the problem was when Miguel went down.

  Travis rushed down the slope to go help him.

  He noticed the smell immediately. Something in the air burned his nostrils and made him think of his old car. The battery had exploded one hot day, spewing acid all over the inside of the hood. That’s what it smelled like down near Miguel.

  He started coughing as he grabbed Miguel by the arms. There was something bad down in the bowl—he knew that for sure. He had to drag Miguel up. Travis pulled.

  “Get up!” he yelled.

  Miguel’s body convulsed and spasmed as he gasped for air.

  Travis’s feet slipped on the powdery rock as he tried to drag his friend up the slope. He couldn’t get traction. Meanwhile, as Miguel’s body contracted, every little motion seemed to propel him back down. Travis spotted a stalagmite a few paces away. He dragged Miguel laterally towards it. When he reached it, Travis braced himself against the spire of rock and pulled at Miguel’s shirt and the straps of his backpack. He clawed and pushed at his friend’s body to shove him up the gentle slope.

  Miguel’s convulsions graduated to a full-on seizure. He bounced and flopped. Foam leaked from the corners of his mouth. Travis pushed.

  The air smelled fine here. Travis couldn’t detect anything like the choking smell from below.

  Miguel stopped thrashing. His breath still tore through his throat in a wheeze, but at least he was breathing with a rhythm now.

  “Miguel,” Travis said. He leaned over him and nearly lost him down the slope again. He propped Miguel up, so his own feet were braced against the stalagmite. “Miguel!”

  His friend moaned. He began coughing again. Travis rolled him a little to the side so whatever he coughed up would go out instead of back down into his lungs. Travis patted him on the back.

  “Are you okay, man?” he asked.

  Miguel coughed harder. Travis heard the liquid rattling around in his chest.

  “Spit it out,” Travis yelled.

  With an enormous, hunching effort, Miguel shook as he tried to clear his lungs. Finally, the blockage began to come up. Miguel spat and chewed and coughed. Travis backed away involuntarily as he saw the stringy blood start to fly. The rock below Miguel was stained with dark blood. Miguel’s coughing transitioned to vomiting. The stuff that came up with his retching was even blacker. Wave after wave of chunky blood flowed from Miguel’s mouth and nose. The smell alone, let alone the sight, was enough to make Travis’s stomach turn.

  “Oh, shit,” was the only thing Travis co
uld think to say. He repeated it.

  After a minute Miguel shook and then became still. Travis checked his wrist. Miguel’s heart had stopped.

  Chapter Twenty-Three — Evidence

  JUSTIN SQUATTED NEXT TO the mildewed bag and picked through the contents. He pulled out the old paperbacks and flipped through them. Some of the paper was disintegrating, but he found half of one book that seemed like it might be flammable. He set it aside and shook the bag. There was another pocket. He found a silver-barreled flashlight that didn’t even slightly work. After unscrewing the red cap, he saw the problem. The batteries were bloated and oozing greenish acid.

  He turned the bag upside down and shook.

  “Great,” he said. “Half a book.”

  Justin took the dry half of the book, put it back in the bag, and put the moldy strap over his shoulder. As he walked away, his headlamp began to sputter. It wasn’t the first time. He took it from his helmet and shook it. The flame came back to strength.

  As he turned around, he noticed something. The other book, the paperback that Carlos had pulled from the bag earlier, was a good five paces away. He tried to remember back to when they’d found the bag. Had Carlos thrown the book? Had he carried it away from the bag? Justin didn’t think so, but then again he hadn’t really been paying attention. It wasn’t just the book though. When he’d returned to the spot where he had sat in the dark, he had expected to find his X made of matches. Both the matches were there, but they were separated by several feet.

  The cave looked like an old, dried-up riverbed. It acted like the river was still there, slowly scattering things left in the ghost currents.

  Justin devised an experiment. He took the stack of old books and set them at different elevations of the cave. They were in a line, perpendicular to what he imagined was the direction of flow. With that set up, he continued on his mission.

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  It wasn’t difficult to find the portal back to the circular room. When they had dug out the caustic white powder, it had scattered everywhere. Justin followed the path and ducked through the hole. He retraced his steps back to where they had dug out the gold ore.

  Justin wasn’t interested in the vein of quartz. He turned his attention to the pods of white chalk embedded in the wall. In one, they had found the skeleton. In another, they had excavated Miguel’s knife. Justin wanted to know what was in the others.

  He found the flat rock they had used for scraping and dug it in where they had found Miguel’s knife. Justin was about to give up and move onto the next round, chalky deposit when he hit something. He scraped frantically to expose the thing.

  It was a buckle. Laced through the buckle was a green strap. The chalky powder flew as Justin beat at the wall. When enough of the strap was exposed, he started pulling. Soon, he freed the canteen from the wall. He unscrewed the cap and shone his light on the water inside.

  Justin had his headlamp removed in an instant. Careful to not disturb the flame, he filled the torch’s reservoir with fresh water. The flame perked up somewhat. It was good enough for the moment.

  Justin recapped the canteen and stuffed it into the moldy bag. He almost set it down but thought better of it. He put the strap over his shoulder and kept the bag close while he returned to scraping the wall.

  He didn’t find anything else in the deposit. It ended when Justin uncovered the rock behind the chalk. He scraped the rest of the chalk away from the wall and stepped back to look at the result. There had been an alcove in the wall a couple feet across and a foot deep. Something had filled it with the white chalk, Miguel’s knife, and the canteen. He swung his light around the rest of the room. There were a bunch more chalk deposits and even more depressions that hadn’t been filled. He moved to the next one with chalk.

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  The bag was heavier on his shoulder.

  The most disturbing things he had found were two more skeletons and a carcass that still had meat on it. He didn’t know for sure, but one of the skeletons looked like it was from a dog. Another might have been a gopher. The carcass with meat was the biggest thing. From the ears, he guessed it might have been a donkey at one time.

  Combined with the human skeleton they had found earlier, he deduced that something in the cave had claimed four lives. Justin didn’t care. Maybe the carcasses had died of natural causes.

  He had more pressing problems. Fortunately, one of those problems didn’t weigh as heavy as it had before he started digging. His bag now held one of the lost jars of carbide. With it, he could refill his headlamp a few more times. He had also added a rope to his collection. It wasn’t one of Joy’s super-strong ropes, it was an older thing made of some kind of fiber. It seemed to be in good shape.

  His last find had been the most interesting. It was a steel box. The latches were corroded shut. He had beaten them with a rock to get the box open. Inside, he had found a journal. Justin hiked back through the round caves so he could get back to the dry riverbed cave. For some reason, he felt more comfortable there.

  -o-o-o-o-o-

  Justin worked by candlelight to scrape out the carbide chamber of his headlamp. It might have had another twenty minutes of fuel left, but he felt eager to prove that he could refuel the thing and make it work again. It turned out to be pretty easy. The expended carbide came out like a paste. He imagined Joy’s disapproving look as he dumped the sulfurous mess on a rock. He put fresh carbide in and screwed the headlamp back together. The effect was undeniable. His light was bright and fresh.

  Justin used it to examine the journal he’d found.

  The ink was dark and clear, but he still had a hard time reading it. The looping script looked unfamiliar—almost like another language. Justin read carefully.

  Chapter Twenty-Four — Journal

  IF YOU HAVE A heart beating in your chest, I pray you’ll convey this diary to my loving wife. You’ll find her located as such:

  Gertrude Smith

  The Elms

  Rural Free Delivery #1

  Springfield, Massachusetts

  Our cave-in came as no surprise and was greeted with little fanfare. George Sinclair warned us that the east tunnel number fourteen was dangerously unstable. We sent carts through that gap on a fast rail with little concern. Hugh Sutton even joked that he would ride the cart ringing a bell if we would collect a dollar for the spectacle. When the ceiling finally did press down, we simply shifted our tailings to number seventeen and thought nothing more of it.

  Bert was the one who discovered the collapse of number seventeen.

  His news sent some of the men into an uproar, but we knew there was no worry. We could climb the raise and join the early crew for a late breakfast. I led the advance to ascend the winze. It was blocked. My report brought some real panic for the first time. Only the greenest men had a strong reaction. It was my opinion that we could sit tight and wait for the diggers to find us. Mr. Russell was in favor of continuing our work. I talked him out of it. It would serve no purpose to pile up carts on number fourteen if seventeen was the one they chose to rescue us through. We had no way of knowing. Furthermore, I knew we would use less air if we sat still.

  The men filled the silence with jokes at first. Bert told a story of when he was a boy. A melancholy mood spread through us and I called on Hugh Sutton to play us a tune on his mouth organ to cheer up the boys.

  Hugh Sutton was nowhere to be found. We searched the shafts and looked behind every rock. It was a short journey. Our cave-ins had left very few hiding places and Hugh Sutton was nowhere to be found. Conjecture spread that Hugh had found a way out and would arrive back to save us shortly. The mood rose and stayed high for nearly an hour. When it was clear that Hugh Sutton had been missing too long, the men became anxious. Even some of the old hands began to panic somewhat. I confess that only the need for leadership helped me keep fear out of my voice. I ordered everyone to settle down and stay quiet.

  Mr. Russell was moving rocks on number fourteen. Bert joined me back
at the carts. He said that a rumor was circulating about Seventy-Eight. That was the last year the mine had operated under its previous owners, and it had shut down amidst controversy. Precipitating the closure was the unexplained loss of many men. Since then, Mr. Montgomery’s commission had explained it all. Most of the missing men had run off with stolen fortune from a chance hit on gold. In the town, old miners whispered a different tale. The mine was haunted and it woke up every so often to add to its legion of ghosts. Bert told me that our men were debating that version of history as we spoke.

  He was right.

  Furthermore, the men had settled on a course of action to alleviate the problem. They said that the mine wouldn’t be sated until it had taken the head man into its rocky guts. They were going to offer Mr. Russell’s blood to the mountain and hoped it was enough.

  Bert is a good man, but I didn’t believe him. I knew all those men personally. Some were green, but none were unstable enough to drop into such insanity so quickly. I convened the group and told them to hold steady. I told them that help was surely on the way. All we had to do was keep our heads and stick together.

  I should have made a count of heads before I began my entreaty. As it turned out, another of us was missing. A young man named Yancy Bell had vanished without a trace. Upon this discovery, the rest turned on Mr. Russell and beat his life quiet with their tools.

  I’m ashamed to say that there was nothing I could say to stop them.

  Being the second-highest ranking man there, I’m afraid that if I was seen to be against them, I would have been next on their list. Mr. Russell’s body was left in the dark at the back of the deepest shaft. We retreated to the junction and waited. Men linked arms to guard against another disappearance. Nobody moved alone.