Inhabited
Chapter Twenty-Three - Evidence
Chapter Twenty-Eight - Deduction
Chapter Thirty-Three - Tracking
Chapter Thirty-Seven - Survival
Chapter Forty-One - Observation
Chapter Forty-Seven - Abandoned
Chapter Forty-Nine - Battlefield
Chapter Fifty-One - Confrontation
More by Ike - The Hunting Tree
More by Ike - The Vivisectionist
More by Ike - Lies of the Prophet
INHABITED
B
Y
IKE HAMILL
Dedication:
For my mother, whose help was invaluable.
My deepest gratitude to
Karen Atkinson
,
Lisa Harper,
and
Jayn Olinick
who provided wonderful assistance editing this book.
Special Thanks:
Cover design by BelleDesign [BelleDesign.org]
Chapter One — PrefaceThis is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and events have been fabricated only to entertain. If they resemble any facts in any way, I’d be completely shocked. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the consent of Ike Hamill. Unless, of course, you intend to quote a section of the book in order to illustrate how awesome it is. In that case, go ahead. Copyright
©
2015 by Ike Hamill. All rights reserved. (3)
1978
-o-o-o-o-o-
“Don’t move,” Clarence whispered. He blinked his eyes and then returned them to wide open. It didn’t help. He had never experienced a black so profound. There was
nothing
to see.
“I can get us out,” Joan said. She sounded perfectly calm and rational. “If we follow the right wall until we get to the big gap, all we have to do is…”
“Shh!” Clarence said. He reached out to touch her, but his hand found nothing but emptiness.
“Is this some ruse to frighten me?” she asked. Her voice sounded like it was only inches from his face. Something about the carved rock around them reflected the sound and played tricks on his ears. “I have three older brothers. When I was little, they used to lock me in the cellar with the lights off to try to frighten me. It never worked.”
“Listen,” Clarence said. He returned his voice to a whisper. “Something shut off our lights.
Something
. It wasn’t me, and I’m assuming it wasn’t you. I brought a lighter, matches, a flashlight, and a damn candle, but
those
are all gone. Unless
you
have the bag, then maybe that same
something
took our backup lights as well.”
“It wasn’t me,” she said. For the first time, she sounded uncertain. The confidence returned to her voice quickly. “Regardless, sight is only one sense. I can still hear, and I can still feel. This isn’t a cave, where we have to be concerned about slipping down into some endless chasm. All we have to do is follow the walls until we get out. You said it yourself—this mine isn’t even very deep.”
“No,” Clarence said. “What I said was that this is a shallow ore chute. Ore was dropped in from above and carted out through here. As chutes go, it’s not very deep but it does connect to the rest of the mine.”
“Connects how?”
“Up through a vertical shaft.”
“Oh!” Joan said, giving a little laugh. “So as long as we don’t stumble
up a vertical shaft
, I think we’re okay.”
Clarence heard the slide of her shirtsleeve just before her hand grabbed his. He managed to not scream or jerk away. He yielded to the tug of her warm hand.
“Come on,” she said. I can get us out of here.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Clarence let his feet slip forward over the rocky floor. There were puddles in places, but he had given up on dry feet some time ago. Besides, he had fresh shoes and socks out in the car. He stumbled on a rock and had to lean on her grip to stay upright. At the moment, nothing was more important than the feel of his hand in hers. If he had only known that utter darkness was what it would take to feel her touch, he would have dashed his light against a rock twenty minutes ago.
Clarence ran into her back.
“Shhh!” she said, stealing his line. He heard her hair swoosh as she turned her head from side to side.
“What?” he whispered. He honestly didn’t care. For the first time in a long time he thought he had a shot at something more than friendship with Joan, and that was way more important than being a hundred yards down an ore chute. After all, it wasn’t even a very deep chute. Holding hands in the dark wasn’t much, but it was more than he had expected.
“I guess it’s nothing,” she said. She shuffled forward a few more feet and then stopped again. This time, she squeezed his hand to alert him to stop, instead of letting him run into her. “Here’s the gap.”
“What?”
“The gap in the wall. When we came in, there was that room on our left. If we just follow straight across this gap, we should pick up the other wall, right? I mean, correct?” She laughed at her own confusing statement.
“Yeah, I see what you mean,” he said. But was she sure? It was way too soon to find that gap. If they were passing the room, then they were close to the entrance. This close to the entrance and they should be able to see moonlight. His eyes were still registering exactly nothing.
He started forward again when she tugged on his hand.
“Oh!” Joan said. She stopped once more. “I think I found the bag.” Her hand descended as she knelt down. He heard her fumbling with something for several seconds. “No. It’s not the bag. It feels like a shirt or something? Do you remember passing a shirt?”
“No,” Clarence said.
“Gross,” she said. She pulled on his hand more as she lowered down. Clarence heard water flowing and wondered what she was up to. Her grip tightened and then slacked. She did it again and then her hand went completely limp.
In the dark, Clarence tilted his head and smiled as he wondered what she was up to.
“Joan?” he whispered. “Joan!”
He tugged at her arm. She offered no resistance.
Clarence knelt and took her hand in both of his. The fingers didn’t grip back. He worked his other hand over to her shoulder and shook. From what he could tell, she was basically laying on the ground.
“What are you doing?” he asked. His smile became expectant. He moved his hand up her shoulder and towards her face. She didn’t stop him. He pictured her in the dark, laying down, and waiting for his touch.
He reached his shaking hand out towards her chest. Even if she objected and pulled away, he would still get the thrill of one fleeting touch. It was worth the risk. When his hand landed on her soft bosom, she didn’t react at all.
-o-o-o-o-o-
“Joan?” he asked. The corners of his mouth began to turn down. He felt on her wrist for a pulse—it was weak. He moved his hand up to her neck to check her pulse there. Perhaps she was having an episode and needed resuscitation.
When his hand touched her neck, Clarence froze. Her skin had been parted. So had the muscle and sinew underneath. His hand touched an artery that was pumping out the last of her blood. Clarence pressed his head down to her chest and heard the final beat of her heart.
He popped his head back up and spun it around rapidly, desperate for any light or sound. He heard nothing but his own breathing and his own hammering heart. Clarence let go of her hand and rose silently to his feet. His knee clicked and inside his head he cursed the noise. He didn’t have time to worry about her body, and he certainly didn’t have time to panic. Something was loose in the mine and he would be its next victim if he didn’t act decisively.
First things first—he had lost his sense of direction and no longer had any idea which way was out.
Clarence patted his pockets. He had his keys, a knife, and some change. Everything else was back in the car. He opened the pocketknife and held it out against the dark. With his other hand, the hand sticky with blood, he used two fingers to pull a single coin from his pocket. He tossed it towards where he thought the wall might be. The coin sailed through the air and reported back with a little clang. Clarence tried to get a sense of the place based on the reverberation of the noise. He also hoped that the sound might draw away whatever had… He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about Joan.
He slid a foot to his left. There was a wall over there somewhere. Clarence shifted his weight and moved his right foot to join the first. He repeated the process several times. Each time, he expected the wall. He remained disappointed for a while.
The toe of Clarence’s sneaker finally scraped on the rock wall.
He heard another sound immediately after. From off to his right, he heard something that sounded liked a breathy sigh. Clarence froze. He closed his eyes to the darkness.
With calm, even breaths, he set his mind to the problem. He remembered the details of their entry. They had walked in casually, pointing their headlights at chains hanging from the supports, looking at the graffiti from a thousand trespassing vandals. She had never been in a mine before, and she was thrilled by every detail. Clarence had played the magnanimous guide. He had explored many abandoned mines. Back East, he had been a caver. Mines were off-limits in the Smokey Mountains because they would fill up with poisonous gasses. Out here, they were fair game.
They had made two turns. The shaft turned left and then right. There was one big room to the side. Clarence pictured it from the top down, like a map. He imagined the two of them going deeper and deeper, around the two turns, until both of their lights had gone out for no reason. At first, only Joan’s light had gone dark. Clarence moved to help her. A second later, his had gone out too.
He pictured where they had stood and then tried to guess the direction they had gone after she took his hand.
Clarence nodded to himself in the dark.
He figured it out. If they had headed the wrong direction, her right hand would have lost the wall quickly as the tunnel curved away. That’s what happened. She had assumed that they were passing by the big room, when instead they were going deeper into the shaft.
Clarence reached up and touched the wall. He knew what he had to do.
He turned around and began a very slow walk away from Joan. He moved like Scooby and Shaggy would when they were trying to tiptoe around a ghost. He reached out, toe first, and set his foot down like he was trying to balance on eggshells without breaking them.