by Gary Chesla
“He did?” Ken asked. “That is good news!”
“Do you want us to go down and finish the tunnel now?”
“No, we don’t want to have an opening on the outside yet that one of the dead could fall into,” I replied.
“Yeah, it could break its leg or something and we would never be able to get it out of the tunnel,” Dave said.
“We wouldn’t want something like that to happen,” I smiled.
I stood back and watched as Ken and Dave uncovered the opening to the tunnel. When they were done, I removed the barrel top and the boards.
“Is there a piece of rebar or a thin pole around here?” I asked.
“There is a piece of rebar over here,” Ken replied, then ran over to the bin containing the blacksmith tools and pulled out a five-foot section of rebar. “We used this to measure how deep to dig the first part of the tunnel when we started to dig.”
“Good,” I said as I picked up a hammer off the anvil in the center of the shed. “Bring the rebar and follow me.”
“Where are we going?” Ken asked.
“I needed to check out the end of the tunnel,” I replied. “After all we’ve gone through to get this tunnel dug, I need to make sure that when the time comes that we will be able to use the tunnel to get out of the fort. If there is a tree or a large rock over where we expect to get out, that would be a big problem. If there is a problem, we need to fix it now.”
“I thought you said we weren’t going to finish digging the tunnel exit now?” Dave asked.
“We’re not, but I need to know what to expect when we do decide to dig it,” I replied. “I’m going to drive this rebar up through the ground at the end of the tunnel. If we hit something, then I know we have a problem.”
“OK,” Dave said, but he still looked puzzled. That was the reason that I felt I needed to do this part myself. I didn’t feel that I could trust Dave or Ken with this job and expect them to get it right. They would either collapse the entire tunnel or drive the rebar into tree roots and then tell me everything was fine.
“OK, Ken come with me and Dave you wait here until we get back, or until you hear us yelling, in that case you will need to come and dig us out,” I said.
“I’m staying here?” Dave asked, then added, “with your dog?”
“It would get too crowded for what I want to do with all of us down in the tunnel,” I replied.
“Don’t you want to take your dog, I think he would like it down there,” Dave said.
“You’re afraid of the dog,” Ken laughed.
“Of course, I’m afraid of the dog, he could eat me in one bite if he gets hungry while you two are down there,” Dave replied. “When was the last time he ate?”
“Bear doesn’t eat people,” I smiled. “Bear, give Dave your paw.”
Dave’s eyes grew large and he started backing up as Bear approached him.
The terror in Dave’s eyes eased when Bear sat down in front of him, opened his mouth and panted, then held up his paw.
“Go ahead and shake his paw, Dave,” I said. “That way you and Bear will be friends, and friends don’t eat friends.”
I could hear Ken snicker.
Dave slowly reached down and nervously shook Bear’s paw.
“There, now you don’t have anything to worry about,” I said as I lit a small torch and dropped down into the opening of the tunnel.
Ken brought the rebar and we slowly made our way out through the tunnel. The tunnel was narrow and low, it was tight enough to almost give me claustrophobia, but otherwise those two had actually done a good job. Myself, I would have made it a little bigger, the tight space made me feel uncomfortable, but if we would be able to get safely out of the end of the tunnel, it would serve its purpose and we could all deal with the tight space.
We crawled for a few minutes before Ken said anything.
“Right up ahead is where we ran into all those tree roots,” Ken said.
“I can see the roots,” I replied. “You’re right, you would have never been able to dig through all of those.”
“It gets a little tight where the tunnel turns to the right,” Ken added. “There was a rock in the righthand side wall so we couldn’t make it as wide there as we wanted, but if you turn on your side, it’s not too hard to make the turn.”
“Thank goodness all of us are skinny,” I groaned when I rolled onto my side and began to make the turn. “It might be a good idea if none of us eat anything for the next day or two, just in case we have to use this tunnel,” I laughed.
“Do you think Bear can get through here?” Ken asked. “He is a big dog.”
“If he can’t, he’ll make the tunnel a little wider himself,” I laughed. “I’ve seen him crawl down a rabbit hole half this size to drag out a rabbit. Don’t worry about Bear, he can get through anything.”
We made the first turn and the second, then followed the tunnel until it came to a dead end. I’m normally not too claustrophobic, but there was something about coming to a dead end, six feet underground, that sent a chill through my body.
“It seems to be a lot wider at this point,” I said.
“We had to make it wider here,” Ken replied. “We had to have someplace to turn around. The first two times we went out of the tunnel, we had to crawl backwards. That was too damn hard, so we made a place here where we could turn around. It made it a lot easier.”
“OK, give me the rebar and hold this torch,” I said. “It’s a wonder that the two of you didn’t suffocate down here, that damn torch gives off so much smoke it makes it hard to breathe.”
“It does, but it’s a lot better than getting hit in the eye with a rock,” Ken replied.
I guess I couldn’t argue with that logic.
I maneuvered around until I was on my back. The tunnel wasn’t high enough to put one end up to the roof and still be able to hit the other end with the hammer.
I dug out the roof as much as I dared, then angled the rebar and pushed it up into the soft dirt of the ceiling for about a foot. Then I used the hammer and pounded the rebar until it was all the way into the ceiling.
“Are we OK?” Ken asked.
“I think so, as long as I didn’t just manage to find the only few inches of ground above us without any rocks in it,” I replied.
“It should be OK,” Ken replied. “Like I said, we only ran into three rocks the whole way out to this point, we shouldn’t have a problem getting out at this spot.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “Now the only question is where is this spot?”
“The only way we are going to find that out is to dig our way out and see where we come up,” Ken replied.
“Maybe not,” I said. “Let’s turn around, lead us out of here.”
When we finally made it back to the blacksmith shed, I saw Dave shaking Bear’s paw when I stuck my head up out of the hole.
“What are you two doing?” I laughed.
“I wanted to keep reminding him that we are friends,” Dave replied. “I didn’t want him to forget. You know, he isn’t all that fierce once you get to know him.”
“So, you’re not afraid of him anymore?” I asked.
“Not at all,” Dave smiled. “We’re buddies now.”
“So, if he growled, it wouldn’t scare you?” I asked.
“No, of course not,” Dave smiled.
“Bear,” I said. “Growl at Dave.”
When Bear bared his teeth and started to growl, Dave fell over backwards. I at first thought he had fainted, but when I saw him scampering backwards, I realized he had just tripped over his own two feet.
“Bear, apologize to Dave,” I said.
Bear ran over and licked Dave’s ear.
I know it might have been a little cruel, but I felt it important that Bear’s reputation as a fierce animal, someone not to be messed with, be maintained here at the fort. I didn’t want rumors to get started that Bear was just a big old cuddly lapdog.
Ken and Dave fo
llowed me out of the shed and over to the ladder for the back wall. They were curious to find out how I was going to determine where the tunnel would come up.
When we climbed up the ladder, Bill was sitting down on the platform, staring intently over the wall.
When Bill finally heard us coming up to the platform, he looked at me.
Tom, I was just about to come find you,” Bill said. “There is something going on over behind that tree near the tree line. Is there any such thing as a zombie snake?”
I looked out at the tree. Five feet behind the tree, the piece of rebar that I had driven into the roof of the tunnel was sticking about two feet above the ground.
“What is that?” Bill asked. “I watched it crawl up out of the ground. It has just been standing there for the last ten minutes and hasn’t moved since. I think it has been watching me.”
I smiled to myself, it reminded me that I should have left the fort a few days ago when I had the chance.
All I could think was, that there was no way any of these people were going to survive the next few days.
Chapter 13
The tunnel ended a little short of where I had hoped, if we had to use the tunnel, it could give us a chance to slip away into the trees unseen. But it was a gamble, we would have to run across twenty feet of open ground, but everything in life now days was a gamble. It at least would give us a chance. But you don’t know how hard I was hoping that things would never come to that point.
Just in case and to increase our chances, I had Ken and Dave, who had eagerly volunteered, to try and dig the tunnel a little further until the exit would be in the woods instead of twenty feet out into the clearing. The few extra feet and the cover of the brush could mean a big difference when the time came.
I was thinking over our options, trying to be prepared for the most likely possibilities. But being prepared or getting anything accomplished with this group was an exercise in futility, but I was attempting to do what I could. Hopefully, things would all work out. Who knows, maybe some of the luck that had kept these people alive for the last year would rub off on me, at least I could hope.
All the members of the group, except for Ed, Bill, Ken and Dave, had gone to their quarters. They were doing what they knew best, how to hide, but at least it should keep them out of trouble.
For the rest of the morning, Ed, Bill and I watched as what seemed like thousands of the dead streamed passed the fort far off in the distance while Ken and Dave were doing whatever they were doing. Hopefully they were digging, and they hadn’t gotten into another fight. Maybe I should have left Bear with them to make sure they kept out of trouble, but then they probably would have been too afraid to do anything. They both seemed to enjoy playing in the dirt and digging, so hopefully they would manage to finish digging the tunnel.
As I watched the dead off in the distance, I realized that I hadn’t seen this many of the dead since I had left Lexington, but back then I didn’t know what I was seeing. I didn’t know which was worse, knowing what I was seeing or not knowing. Both situations were scary and worrisome.
At least for now, the dead didn’t seem like they would come anywhere close to the fort.
Hopefully, the unexplainable luck of these people would hold up and the dead would just go somewhere else and leave us alone.
As I watched, I began to see movement near the woods line between the group of the dead going off to the left and the group off to the right. Soon the slow stream of the dead coming out of the woods began to form a group in front of the trees. This was what I had been afraid would happen, if I was right, this would be the group that would come directly at the fort. The group that could cause all hell to break loose.
My mind began searching for ways to stop that from happening.
We didn’t have many options, but I felt I had to do something, I couldn’t just let them come marching straight at us without at least trying to do something. I knew whatever I did, I couldn’t rely on this group for any meaningful help.
Normally in a situation like this, the best thing to do would be clear out of the area and come back when the odds were more in your favor, but I knew this group wasn’t going to go anywhere. Even if they would agree to leave the fort, taking these people out into the wild for even a few days would be like trying to wrangle a herd of cats.
The best thing for me would be to just head out on my own, but my conscience wouldn’t allow me to abandon these people at a time like this, even if it did make sense.
I looked down at my arrows and thought what I could do. I only had a few good arrows left that I was hoping to save for hunting, but maybe they might be put to better use for another purpose. The arrows would not be of much help if I was dead. The main benefit of these arrows was that they were accurate and would travel a great distance. As I thought, all I could think was that it would be a long shot, but it was worth a try. I had used this maneuver before in the past and it had worked here at the fort only a few days ago. But with what was happening out there now, I could also envision how it could backfire on us. But based on what could happen if I didn’t do anything, I figured that I needed to do what I could and then let the pieces fall where they may. All I knew was that if I ever made it out of this fort alive, I would be much more selective about who I joined up with next time, that is if I was ever able to find another group of the living. After this last year, I had serious doubts that I would ever run into another group of living survivors.
“Hey Tom,” Bill whispered as he crawled over my way. “I think I see another group coming out of the trees way down at the front tree line.”
“I see them,” I replied.
“I’m not sure, but I think they are coming straight at the fort,” he said. “That’s not good.”
“I agree,” I replied. “I think maybe you should go get Charlie.”
“You want me to go bring Charlie?” Bill asked.
“Yeah, I think he should see this,” I replied.
“Does this mean we might get to go down into the tunnel?” Bill grinned.
“Maybe the time for using the tunnel is getting close,” I replied. “It depends on what happens with that new group. Go tell Charlie to come up here and take a look, then tell him I want to discuss something with him.”
“I’ve never been in a tunnel,” Bill said. “It sounds scary. Are there bats in the tunnel? I hear that bats like to hang around in tunnels.”
“No, there aren’t any bats in our tunnel,” I replied. “We just finished digging the tunnel, the bats haven’t had a chance to discover the tunnel yet, but something tells me that our tunnel isn’t exactly what bats are looking for.”
“Why not?” Bill asked.
“Just go get Charlie,” I said. The dead will end up getting to the fort before I finished explaining to Bill about bats and tunnels. If all went well, we could finish this conversation at some other time.
“OK,” Bill replied and crawled down the ladder.
I heard him nervously talking to Bear when he reached the ground, then I heard the sound of his footsteps fade as he moved across the courtyard.
I took one last quick look out at the dead, then I crawled down the down the ladder and told Bear to follow me. I ran off behind the corner of the buildings that served as the groups sleeping quarters and ducked down out of sight.
I waited a few minutes until Bill and Charlie walked passed where I was hiding, then I watched as they continued walking towards the back wall.
When they were almost over to the ladder, I slipped out of my hiding spot and staying in the shadows, I made my way towards Charlie’s quarters.
I didn’t know when I would have another opportunity, so I decided to take a quick look into Charlie’s quarters while I had this chance. If Charlie felt that time was short, of if he wanted to play his hand out before I left, he could make his big announcement about him finding the women at any time now. If I was going to expose Charlie before he tried to pass himself off as their savior and brilli
ant leader, I needed the answer to my question. Was Charlie hiding the women in his quarters?
I figured with all the members of the group hiding in the buildings and Charlie on his way towards the back wall, I could look in his quarters and get back over to the lookout post without him knowing what I had done. Charlie was the most likely suspect on my list for taking the women that had disappeared and I just had to know if he was the one that had kidnapped those women before we all got killed. It had been frustrating enough being at the fort with these people over the last two weeks, I didn’t want to die without knowing what had happened here. I didn’t want my ghost to end up haunting this place for eternity, trapped here because it had unfinished business to complete before it could move on. With my luck, even if I didn’t believe in ghosts, I could see something like that happening to me. I’m not sure whether I believe in ghosts or not, but after the last year, I certainly believed in Hell.
I ran over to Charlie’s building and slowly opened the door and looked inside. Charlie’s room had been the fort’s display room for how the settlers at the fort had made clothing and blankets when the fort had been a tourist attraction. It was one large room, easy to quickly see what was inside the room, but other than finding that he had a lot of quilts to keep himself warm at night, I didn’t see anything else unusual.
I’m not sure what I had expected to find, maybe four women tied up in the corner, or a secret back room with four women struggling to get loose from their bounds, but I was expecting to find something. I felt disappointed. If Charlie was the person that had kidnapped the women, he wasn’t keeping them in his room. I didn’t have time to search his room for hidden closets or a pit he might have dug under his bed, but I seriously doubted that I would find anything like that in his room. It just seemed to be too clean and orderly, but that didn’t mean that Charlie was innocent. It could just mean that Charlie was too smart to hide the women in his room, but where could he have put them.
