Sacrifice

by Michael Arches

  “They have several sticks of dynamite!”

  Shit. Not what I’d wanted to hear. It’d been one of those days. And it was getting worse. “We’ll figure something out.”

  She frowned. “You don’t understand. They thought you might come. They expected Leo to tell you about this place. And they planned to blow you up.”

  And almost had. “Well, things never work out quite like we expect, do they? Unfortunately, we’re still in big trouble. We have to follow the monsters. They have to know another way out.”

  She had no response to that, and I’d delivered enough bad news. “Before we can go, you need clothes. You’ll be a little chilly in your birthday suit.”

  She pointed behind the open door. “Only a peasant dress and loafers. I’m freezing. And they almost broke one of my ankles!”

  I checked behind the door and found her few items. “Put these on. Can you walk?”

  “I hope so, some.”

  She sat up, and I realized she was lying on a black piece of fabric covered with demonic symbols like pentagrams. At least they hadn’t started cutting yet.

  Sandy pulled the dress over her head. I put the loafers on her feet and helped her slip off the table. When she landed on the floor, she whimpered for a moment but stayed upright. Then, I gave her my parka. It hung down to my knees, way too big for her, but didn’t drag on the floor. At least, she’d be warm while she limped through this hellhole.

  “Okay, anything else I need to know before we chase two people with guns, dynamite, and a big black dog?”

  “It’s a hellhound. I saw its glowing red eyes.”

  “Okay,” I said, “we’ll deal with the canine, whatever it is. Who besides Melody Wilcox was with you here?”

  “Fergie. They didn’t use last names.”

  Fergie had to be Fergus Kirkpatrick. I strapped the rifle across my chest. “Let’s get going. I have to hold my dog’s leash in one hand and my pistol in the other. You need to point my phone’s screen in front of us. Stay as quiet as can be.”

  We stepped out into the dark passageway. Sandy hobbled along on her badly bruised ankle. I sympathized but knew I had to push her to the limit if she was going to survive this brutal night.

  To Boomer, I said, “Find them.”

  He woofed in agreement.

  Chapter 21

  We walked deeper into the mountain as quickly as Sandy could go, that being a snail’s pace. If I’d brought insulin, I wouldn’t have rushed to catch up with Wilcox and Kirkpatrick. But Sandy was living on borrowed time. That changed the calculus.

  The three of us crept along in total silence and almost complete darkness for a couple hundred yards. Then, we reached an inclining tunnel on the right and a declining one on the left. Those were tilted tunnels bored to move equipment and miners up and down in the mine. During the winter months, it would’ve been difficult or impossible to use the zigzagging roads outside.

  Boomer didn’t hesitate. Pulled us toward the incline. Sandy took my hand in hers. She was shaking worse than before, and she stuttered as she whispered, “How can we be sure he knows where he’s going?”

  “Sniffing is the only thing he’s really good at,” I whispered back. “Also, I’m sure he’s right because I talked to a guy who knows this mine well. He told me the workings below us are flooded.”

  I paused for her to digest that, then said, “Let me know when we need to take a break. Otherwise, the quicker we follow the assholes out of here, the better.”

  -o-o-o-

  As we climbed higher in this cold gloomy circle of Hell, I couldn’t help but worry about what would happen next. The worst possibility would be that Wilcox and Kirkpatrick turned on us. Not much I could do to stop them. Sandy kept deteriorating, could barely lift her feet anymore. She was breathing hard despite our slow pace. We had to get out of here ASAP.

  Or, I realized, the monsters ahead of us could lead us to the exit. Then, they could slip outside and toss their dynamite at us without worrying about whether the explosion would bring down part of the adit ceiling on them, too.

  Both alternatives were terrible. All Sandy and I could do would be to count on Boomer to warn us before we got close to the monsters.

  Soon, Sandy couldn’t put any weight on her injured ankle. She leaned against me like I was a crutch. And climbing the incline was taking a helluva lot out of her. I didn’t know how much farther she could go on.

  The tunnel continued steadily upward. We kept moving until Boomer chuffed. I put my gloved finger to Sandy’s lips to keep her quiet then put pressure on one shoulder to tell her to her lay on the incline’s floor. Then I positioned Boomer next to her, also down low, and knelt in front of them so my body armor would protect us all.

  Total silence until a hissing sound came from above us. It sounded like a lit fuse someone tossed down the incline. I turned to face Sandy, closed my eyes, and prayed.

  BOOM!

  The concussion knocked me back against her and the dog, but I’d expected that. Chunks of rock slammed into me. Fortunately, we were much farther from this blast than the first one. The mutt had saved our lives.

  Dust filled the air, but that was a minor inconvenience. The hound whimpered, but he didn’t sound injured. “You okay?” I whispered.

  Off in the distance, I could hear our tormentors scurrying away like rats. We had no choice but to follow.

  Sandy slowed even more, but finally, we reached the adit above us, the Three Hundred Level. But Boomer crossed the adit and continued upward.

  Sandy groaned. “I-I c-can’t go on. Too hard.”

  “Time’s not on our side,” I whispered. “Let me help you more. Put your arm around my neck.”

  I tied Boomer’s leash to my belt in front. She placed her right hand along the right side of my neck. I put my pistol in its holster and grabbed her hand to keep it in position. My left arm wrapped around her waist and held her tight. She kept my phone with her free hand, the screen facing forward most of the time.

  The only good thing about the crazy arrangement was Boomer was still hot to trot, pulling like crazy. He dragged Sandy and me up the incline.

  The three of us shuffled along, rising ever higher. Then, up ahead, I spotted two small red lights close together. Boomer growled deep in his chest. That was his warning for a nonhuman threat, like a bear or lion.

  Sure enough, I heard an even deeper growl up ahead. The fucking hellhound.

  We crept forward—no choice.

  “Hang on to my neck, Sandy. I have to let go of your hand for a minute to grab my pistol. Might have to shoot the damned thing.” Although I didn’t understand the red eyes, I didn’t believe in demons. Not the immortal kind anyway. I’d met plenty of monsters, but they’d all been flesh and bone.

  If I was wrong, our lives would end right here in the middle of this dark, cold, merciless tomb. But if I was right, a .45 caliber bullet to the head would solve all our hellhound problems lickety-split.

  I loved canines of all sorts, adored them, and I couldn’t blame an animal for how someone had trained it. But I’d shoot without hesitation to save us.

  We kept stumbling uphill. The attack dog came into better view. It was the largest canine I’d ever seen, definitely bigger than Boomer. It snarled and snapped its jaws while prancing back and forth across the passageway. Could’ve been a wolf, but its face was too blocky.

  Then I noticed someone had tied its leash to an empty wooden spool several feet in diameter.

  When we came within twenty feet, it howled and surged forward until he couldn’t come closer. That was a promise he’d attack when we did.

  “Sandy, here comes a shot.” Her thin body stiffened.

  I fired, aiming at the floor of the incline a few feet to the side of the dog. The muzzle blast was incredible inside this confined space. The flash blinded me in my goggles. Boomer yelped and bayed. Then he cowered.

  The attack dog in front of us howled, scurried
behind the large wooden spool, and whimpered. The gunshot seemed to have taken all the fight out of it for the moment. We had to get past it quickly.

  The huge dog tried to avoid us as we went by. “Stay! Sit!” I kept repeating those words.

  The dog was an enormous cane corso, an Italian mastiff. His face looked like an oversized mixture of a black Lab and a pit bull. Had to be a male. He actually had two sets of eyes. The red ones glowed above his real, dark gray ones. Someone had painted two large, red phosphorescent dots on his forehead. Not a demon after all.

  Sandy, Boomer, and I continued our slow but steady shuffle up the incline. I wouldn’t abandon the cane corso to die in the mine, but I couldn’t trust him enough to cut him loose. This place would be crawling with law enforcement in a couple of hours, and we could safely collect him then.

  -o-o-o-

  When we reached the horizontal adit at the Two Hundred Level, Boomer followed his nose to the left, farther into the mountain. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but the mutt was our only chance to get out of this house of horrors alive. Walking on level ground was a lot easier for Sandy, but she was growing steadily weaker. I was basically carrying her. Her time was running out.

  After about a hundred yards, we came to another tunnel, perpendicular to the adit. This had to be a drift. Those were tunnels that followed veins of ore.

  The air here was noticeably colder. That was good news. We were getting close to an opening to the outside world. I hoped we were very close because Sandy was starting to drift in and out of consciousness. I’d taken my phone from her before she dropped it. With my left arm, I pulled her waist close, and my left hand pointed my phone’s dim display forward.

  Boomer pulled us to the right. Up ahead, I couldn’t see a damn thing, but the temperature kept dropping.

  This was sure to be the most dangerous part of our journey. I looked for a spot where I could safely leave the hound and Sandy. Every so often, we’d passed pieces of equipment that had been left in the old workings. Then, we came upon a rusty old iron ore cart. That seemed like a good, protected spot where I could drop them off before more shooting began. The heavy metal cart would shield them from both gunfire and another explosive blast.

  Sandy was completely limp, hadn’t moved for a few minutes. I gently laid her on her back behind the cart. The rocky floor was rough and hard, but I bunched up a bit of the parka’s hood under her head to provide some cushion. Then I tied Boomer to the cart next to her.

  “Stay,” I whispered to the dog. To Sandy, in case she could hear me in her daze, I whispered, “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

  After they were safe, I hurried ahead for a few minutes—until a bright light flashed before me. An explosion, but it had been too far away to injure me. The concussion did knock me on my ass, though. The blast was followed by a rain of small rocks and dust. Thankfully, the goggles protected my eyes.

  Behind me, Boomer bayed again. He was having a helluva night.

  A few seconds later, before I could get up, a second, similar explosion occurred.

  That blast didn’t catch me by surprise. Sandy had said they had several sticks of dynamite. I figured they were probably trying to blast the exit closed after them so I couldn’t follow. But according to the expert miner who’d taught me, that wasn’t likely to work. They’d have to bore into the rock and pack the holes with explosives to have much luck in causing a cave in.

  How many sticks did they have left? Hopefully none, but Sandy hadn’t been specific. Thank God, she and the mutt were too far away from the blasts to get seriously hurt. And even though the dynamite exploded inside the mine, the opening to the outside would tell the cops below where they were. I hoped that’d bring help.

  Then, silence.

  Chapter 22

  Again, I felt an urge to wait, to be patient, but Sandy’s only chance for survival would be for me to get help quickly. That meant I had to get outside where the walkie-talkie I carried could communicate with my team. The devices didn’t work within the mountain.

  Wilcox and Kirkpatrick had to be outside. They never would’ve set off dynamite while they remained in the tunnel, and it didn’t seem likely they had the sophisticated detonation equipment they’d need to set the dynamite off from a distance. So, if they were smart, they’d be leaving me behind as quickly as they could.

  But neither had impressed me with their intelligence so far. I crept forward, holding my phone in one hand and my service pistol in the other. I carefully placed my feet to keep the noise to a minimum.

  The drift continued to get colder, and it turned breezy. I had to be damned close to the exit. My goggles didn’t see very far ahead, but then I remembered the rifle still strapped to my back and its night vision scope.

  I holstered my pistol and removed the rifle, using the scope to survey the tunnel ahead. Didn’t see anything except a pile of junk on the right side of the drift about fifty feet ahead. I crept forward and knelt behind a jumble of old timbers.

  This time, when I checked with the scope, I saw something move farther up where there was a splash of white. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like snow was entering the drift up ahead.

  I listened carefully and seemed to hear wind whistling through the opening. Now, all I had to do was to avoid getting blown up or shot on the verge of escaping. If I hadn’t seen the movement, I would’ve rushed forward. Instead, I waited, but I might’ve imagined the motion.

  Despite the fact that it was dark outside, it was a much brighter dark than the total blackness inside the mine. That little bit of light from outside made it easy for me to see the area around the opening. I waited. Could the motion have come from an animal instead of my prey?

  Then words drifted down the tunnel. I couldn’t understand what was being said, but those were whispering human voices. They didn’t seem to realize how well sound carried in these passageways.

  The assholes were waiting for me. Why didn’t they just leave?

  I thought there were two but wasn’t sure. Nor did I know how well they were armed. Someone, probably Kirkpatrick, had fired a pistol at me earlier. The AR-15 I was holding was a much better weapon, and the scope gave me a big advantage, too. The rifle had a large capacity magazine, but the asshole I’d shot below had fired at least a dozen rounds already.

  Someone fired several shots at me with a rifle. My so-called advantage wasn’t so great after all. He probably had a night scope, too. The bullets slammed into the junk piled in front of me, and one ricocheted off of the top of my helmet. I’d been seen. Too fucking close. Time to end this.

  The snowdrift up ahead provided a good contrasting background. When something moved against it again, I squeezed off a round. A man roared. That warmed my heart. The bastard should’ve taken off when he’d had the chance.

  Another person moved up ahead, darting to the right. I fired at them but no sign of hitting the target.

  Nothing moved for several minutes. After all that had gone before, I was damned tired of waiting. Didn’t know how many bullets were left in the rifle’s magazine, but I intended to find out. I began shooting at the white background and ran forward.

  No responding fire. I ran faster. When I reached the opening, I found a wooden crate filled with rubble that had been pushed up against the exit. Kirkpatrick lay behind it with a bullet hole on one side of his forehead. No sign of Wilcox or anyone else. She must’ve been the one who took off.

  The mine’s exit consisted of a ragged, rectangular hole. It started at the roof and extended down the right wall until it ended four feet off the drift’s floor. The crate had been moved in front of it and filled with dirt and rocks to provide a step up.

  Water had apparently eroded the initial hole, but it looked like someone had expanded it more, forming the rectangle about four feet high and two feet wide. Plenty of snow had blown in and covered the floor and the crate, forming an icy circle ten feet in diameter. But the explosions seemed to have knock
ed loose enough dirt and debris to provide a good grip on the ice for my boots.

  The big question was, where was Wilcox? Was she outside the opening waiting for me to stick my head out?

  -o-o-o-

  Indecision paralyzed me. I stood against the wall next to the opening and listened. Heard no signs of life. Just the howling wind.

  The Satanist had to have realized that the explosions had alerted the cops below to her location.

  I wanted to wait to be sure she was gone…but Sandy’s life was ebbing away.

  Then, something hissed. A stick of dynamite flew through the opening and hit the far wall of the drift.

  My heart stopped. Certain death.

  Without thinking, I dashed over and grabbed it. Adrenaline blasted through my veins, but my mind stayed clear. The fuse was a half-inch long and burning. I thought about jamming it against the ice to try to put it out, but that had to be hit or miss. I couldn’t afford a hit.

  Somebody was going to die in the next few seconds, maybe me. The whole world became meaningless, except for the glowing end of the fuse. I lobbed the dynamite back through the gap. My arm was so weak, I almost hit the wall on the right side.

  As soon as the murderous thing left my hand, I ducked down behind the crate and laid on the filthy ice and snow.

  BOOM!

  -o-o-o-

  Thank God, I was wearing body armor. Some of the concussion entered the mine and knocked rocks loose along the jagged edge of the gap. Something large and heavy slammed into the back of my left shoulder. Damn, that hurt.

  Then, only the shrieking wind.

  I rolled, trying to lessen the pain in my shoulder, but that only made it worse. No time for screwing around on the dirty floor.

  After scrambling to my feet, I tried to climb through the gap with only one good arm. Stabbing pain tore through my torso from my various wounds.

  Getting out was almost impossible because the gap started so far off the floor. I reminded myself that the stone bitch outside might’ve survived. I needed to get out there fast, before she could recover.