by Willow Rose
Malene couldn’t believe it. The woman heard her and turned to look.
“You’re awake,” she said, and approached Malene. Malene froze. Could she trust this woman?
“Hi, I’m Rebekka and this is David,” she said.
“Malene.”
“Look what just opened up. Isn’t it wonderful?” Rebekka asked, and spread out her arms widely.
Malene couldn’t quite see what was so wonderful about this place. It was dark and clammy. “Is this the way out?” she asked.
“It just might be,” Rebekka answered. “How are you? Are you in pain?”
Malene nodded carefully. “My back and neck hurt.”
“You bruised your face as well,” Rebekka said.
Malene touched her forehead and remembered hitting the stove and the granite counter in the kitchen. She didn’t know if she should tell this woman what happened. She decided to keep it to herself for now. The poet didn’t seem to be here.
“A long story,” she said. “Where are we?”
“We believe we are in the limestone mines of Monsted Kalkgruber,” David said. “We think this is one of the many caves underground that are connected by tunnels.”
“The mines? But that’s so deep underground? How did we end up here?” Malene asked, but then she remembered. She remembered staring into the deep dark hole while sliding and trying to grab onto something. Then it all went dark.
“The ground caved underneath the entire neighborhood,” Rebekka said. “We believe it was a sinkhole. Do you live on Blegevej?”
She shook her head. “I was…visiting someone when it happened.”
“Me too,” Rebekka said.
She stared at the high ceilings above them. It looked almost like a cathedral when Rebekka shone her lights on it. Underneath the ceiling hung a flock of bats. Malene shuddered. She hated bats, but the air felt a lot fresher in here.
“At least it’s better than where we came from,” Rebekka said and looked at David. “Let’s bring everybody in here.” Rebekka looked at Malene. “Maybe you can help?”
26
HIS FINGERS HAD started to bleed. Thomas had been biting them since he and Brian had ended up in an even smaller cave after crawling through the tunnel.
The blood was running down his fingers and landing on the soil, making a puddle that soon turned into a flood.
“Damn it!” Brian yelled. “I can’t believe there is no way out of this freaking hell-hole.”
The flood disappeared and Thomas looked at Brian sitting next to him. He had blood running out from his ears. Thomas wanted to reach out and touch it, but wasn’t sure it was really there. The lack of oxygen made his visions even more vivid.
“You think we should go back?” he asked. He hoped Brian would say no. Thomas didn’t want to go back and face that girl. He had hoped it was nothing but a dream, but there she was. With that bruise on her forehead that he had given her when he…when he smashed her into the stove.
Thomas giggled, thinking about it again.
“What the heck are you laughing at, poet-boy?” Brian snarled. “I’m not going back there, no matter what. They’re going to die in there, you hear me? All of them. I’m not going down with them. If that’s what you want, then go ahead. I don’t care. Is that what you want?”
“Nnn…no.” Thomas bit his nails again while the flood of blood reappeared. It was soaking his shoes. He moved his feet and it made a splashing sound.
“What the hell is that?” Brian asked.
“What is what?”
“That sound you’re making with your feet?”
“I…I don’t…know.” Thomas felt confused. Was the blood really there?
Brian leaned over and put his hand in the soil. “It’s wet,” he said. He put his fingers to his mouth and tasted it. “It’s water,” he said. Then he laughed. “It’s water, Thomas!”
“It is?” Thomas felt relieved. For a second there, he had been afraid it was his own blood.
“Haha. Do you know what this means?” Brian asked. He cupped his hands and drank from it. Then he sighed, satisfied.
“No.”
“It means we won’t die from thirst. Do you know what else it means?” Brian said, agitated.
“No.”
“I’m no engineer, but I’m guessing that the water has to have come in here from somewhere, right?”
Thomas shrugged. Brian drank some more water and smeared it on his face, leaving red traces everywhere. Red drops of blood dripped from his chin.
“Have some,” Brian said, splashing tiny drops of water on Thomas. “It tastes good.”
There was more water now, and it was easy for Thomas to get some inside of his hand. He held it up towards his mouth and looked at it.
“Drink it, you fool. Don’t just look at it,” Brian grinned.
It didn’t look like blood when he had it up close like this. Thomas closed his eyes and drank. It didn’t taste like blood either.
“There you go. See, we feel much better already. Now, I suggest we start digging,” Brian said.
“Digging? Where?”
“Where the water came in, you fool. Right there above us. It looks like it’s running down from there.”
“But what if the ceiling crashes on us?” Thomas asked.
“It might. But it might not. There might be a way out where the water comes in.”
“Guess it’s worth a try.”
Brian dug both his hands into the dirt above them and started digging. Thomas felt indecisive about Brian. Either he was a genius, or he was a damn fool that would end up getting both of them killed.
27
“YOU TAKE THE LEGS, I’ll grab the shoulders,” I said to Malene.
She bent down and grabbed the legs, and together we lifted the woman I had seen arguing in the street before the collapse into the air. She had lost consciousness, but was still alive. Malene was strong for a girl her age, I was happy to learn. But she was also in a lot of pain. I could tell by the look in her eyes. Her back was hurting, she had told me earlier. I hoped it wasn’t bad. We needed her. We needed as many helping hands as we could get. There were many bats in the cave as we entered it, but few were left after we scared them off, and soon they were gone. I was happy to see that, since I really didn’t like bats very much. Still I wondered where they went. If they knew a way out or if they hid in another place.
David took the boy I had carried with me in his arms. We put them all inside the big cave that had opened up to us. I was tired, but so happy to have found it. There was plenty of room for all of us and, most importantly, plenty of air. We were far from out of danger yet, but it was a huge improvement. I was beginning to regain hope that we might be able to survive.
“Let’s put her next to the boy,” I said.
“It’s her son,” a voice said.
It was Afrim. David had carried him and his mother in. He seemed to be better. Buster was in his lap. His mother was awake and looking at us. She was still coughing up blood, but seemed a little better. The fresher air made us all feel stronger, I think.
“It is?” I asked with a smile. “This boy?” I pointed at the boy I had carried in my arms through the tunnel.
Afrim nodded. “He goes to my school. His name is Frederic. The woman next to him is Mrs. Sigumfeldt. It’s his mother.”
My heart dropped. “Really? That’s amazing.” I felt so happy to be able to bring the two of them together again, even given the circumstances. I thought about my own children again and how badly I wanted to be able to touch them…to hold them in my arms.
“Let’s put them real close together,” I said. “That way, they’ll see each other first thing when they wake up.”
“If they wake up,” Malene said.
“At least they’re together,” I said, ignoring her pessimistic remark. I was filled with hope again, and she wasn’t going to take that away from me.
“Are there any more?” David asked.
“No, those were t
he last two,” I said.
“So, we’re just leaving the dead bodies in there?” Malene asked.
I looked at David. Our eyes locked for a second. I shrugged. “I guess,” I said. “We have to think about our own survival now, and getting these people back to the surface. They’re already starting to smell. We can’t have them in here.”
David nodded. “It’s the only thing we can do. If…when they dig through to get us, we can tell them where to find the bodies so they can recover them for the relatives. It’s all we can do for them at this point.”
Afrim’s mom coughed. I looked at her and saw more blood coming up. Afrim saw it too. He looked afraid. He held his dog tightly in his arms.
“So, what do we do next?” David asked.
I turned and lit around the limestone cave with my phone. “There seem to be three tunnels leading out of this cave, three other than the one we came from,” I said. “I say we gather a search team and try to find a way to the surface. The mines cover more than sixty kilometers of mazelike tunnels. I visited them once many years ago on a trip with my family, but we only traveled through the top layers. We could easily get lost.”
“So, who should go?” Malene asked.
I looked around. Mr. Bjerrehus was sitting up. He seemed to be doing better. So was Lars Dalgas, the librarian.
“David and I will go,” I said. “You, Lars, and Mr. Bjerrehus here…”
“Just call me Sigurd,” Mr. Bjerrehus said.
“Okay. You, Lars, and Sigurd will stay behind and take care of the others. Will you be okay with that?”
Malene seemed skeptical. She was trembling. I didn’t know if it was from the cold or fear.
“I promise we’ll be back,” I said, and put a hand on her arm. “Listen to me. I promise. Alright?”
Malene nodded. “Okay. Just go.”
28
IT WAS WITH some nervousness that David and I left the flock and started walking through the tunnels. We chose one that looked big enough for us to walk through. We had to bend our heads a little, but soon it seemed to open up further and we could walk upright.
The white limestone walls seemed to close in on me at times, and I had to fight the feeling of claustrophobia as I followed David through the first tunnel. Soon, it opened up and we found ourselves in a bigger cave again. David brought out the knife and made a mark on the wall.
“That way, we know which way we came from,” he said.
In the cave, I saw more bats hanging from the ceiling. We seemed to disturb them. I shivered when one squealed loudly and flew across the cave, very close to my head.
“What do we do now?” I asked, and shone the cellphone’s light onto the white walls. There were four openings leading away. “Which one do we pick?”
David shrugged. “I guess one way is as good as any.”
I looked back at the tunnel we had come from, wondering if we would ever be able to find it again. I had promised Malene we would come back, but it was going to be harder than I first thought.
David picked one, and we continued into the darkness. Every time we came out of a tunnel, he made a mark on the exit, so we would be able to see which ones we had gone through, and hopefully find our way back.
We walked for half an hour or so before we reached a dead end. The tunnel had crashed and was blocked by dirt so we couldn’t pass. We turned around and walked back till we reached the cave again. David carved a big X in the side of the tunnel we’d come from, so we wouldn’t go through it again. Then we chose another one. It was small and seemed to get narrower as we walked. At some point, I slid and scraped my knee. We walked with our heads bowed until we reached yet another dead-end. More dirt blocked our way.
“Should we try and dig through it?” I asked. “You think there might be a way out on the other side of it?”
David sighed and felt the dirt wall. “It’s pretty solid. Probably crashed when the neighborhood went into the ground. It seems like it has crashed everywhere. I just hope it hasn’t blocked all the tunnels. Digging will be our last option. We need to save our strength.”
My stomach started growling…like a deep groan. I felt the dryness of my mouth every time I moved my tongue. I wasn’t sure I would last long without anything to eat or drink.
“Let’s take one of the other tunnels,” I said, and started backing out of the tunnel. It wasn’t big enough for me to turn around. I scraped my knee on the way out again and cursed.
Once back in the cave, I shone my light on the wound. It was deeper than I thought and bleeding a lot.
“Just what I needed,” I growled.
“Let’s try this one over here,” David said, and pointed at an entrance to a tunnel. He had carved a big X on the one we came from as well. Only two were left. If they were blocked too, we’d have to find another cave and another tunnel. I was losing track of the tunnels and caves, and feared that we couldn’t find our way back. What if we finally found a way out? Would we be able to go back and find the people? Would I do it even though I’d be risking getting lost in there? I didn’t want to think about it.
I followed David into yet another tunnel and we walked for a long time this time. That was a good sign, I thought. We found the end of it, and another cave opened up. David stopped in front of me.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
He sighed. “The cave has crashed. It’s filled with debris from the collapse. There is no way out.”
“Debris?” I walked past David to take a better look. The ground was filled with wood and tiles; I even spotted part of a table and half a couch.
“You think it’s the remains of a house that fell into the hole?” I asked.
David went closer and lifted up a piece of broken wood. “Looks like it.” He threw the wood further away, picked up a few bricks and moved them. “It’s all broken into pieces.”
I walked closer and shone the light at the many pieces that used to be a house. I saw part of a chair and a crushed microwave. I walked around, lifting up some things, then uncovering others.
“It looks like the remains from a kitchen,” I said. As I spoke the words, I spotted something that brought back the smile to my face.
“Found something!”
“What?” David approached me. I shone the cellphone’s light closer to it. An entire pantry was crashed into pieces, leaving at least a dozen cans stuck in the dirt. I pulled one out and dusted the dirt off.
“It’s tuna,” I said. “And, lucky for us, it’s the kind with a pull tab.”
29
AFRIM WAS FEELING AFRAID. Not for himself, but for his mother. She was very weak and hardly awake the most of the time. When she was, she would smile at him and call him baby boy in Albanian.
It was when her eyes rolled back in her head and she drifted off again that he became really afraid. He would lie in the cave with his head on her chest to make sure he could hear her heartbeat. Buster was right next to him, breathing heavily.
“I love you, Buster,” he whispered in the darkness.
The old Mr. Bjerrehus was feeling a lot better. He came closer, dragging his hurt leg after him, and sat down next to Afrim. Afrim felt so tired. The thirst was bad. He knew it wasn’t good to be this thirsty, or hungry, for that matter. He felt so weak, and fought the urge to doze off. He didn’t dare to fall asleep. Who would look after his mother? Who would listen to her heartbeat and make sure it didn’t stop?
No, he had to stay awake. Awake and alert.
“Pst, kid?” Mr. Bjerrehus said.
Afrim lifted his head and looked at the old man who used to live next door. The man who always got so mad at Afrim if he let Buster pee in his hedge. Afrim had always been a little afraid of Mr. Bjerrehus, and especially of his wife.
“I have something for you,” Mr. Bjerrehus said.
Afrim was curious, but didn’t dare to ask what it was. He merely stared at the man’s hand that was in his pocket.
“But, you can’t tell anyone else, alright?”
“Come closer,” Mr. Bjerrehus said. He coughed. It was a bad cough. Then, he moaned and leaned his head back with a sigh. “It’s okay. Come on over here. I can’t reach that far. I hurt my arm in the fall, you see.”
Afrim looked at Buster, then at his sleeping mother. Finally, his curiosity got the better of him and he let go of his mother and crawled over to Mr. Bjerrehus. The old man smiled. Afrim could tell he was in pain. Mr. Bjerrehus pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to Afrim. Then he smiled. “Remember. Not a word to anyone.”
Mr. Bjerrehus leaned back with a deep moan and closed his eyes. Afrim looked at what he had been handed. It was small bag of bonbons. It was only half full, but there was still a handful left.
Afrim smiled, then looked at Mr. Bjerrehus. “Thank you,” he whispered.
Mr. Bjerrehus waved at him without opening his eyes. Afrim reached into the bag and took a bonbon out. He put it in his mouth and sucked on it for a long time. It felt heavenly. Afrim closed his eyes and tasted the sugar, let it melt on his tongue. It felt so good. Then he pulled the bonbon out and put it against his mother’s lips. He smeared the sugar on her lips and tried to get it inside onto her tongue. Immediately, she licked her lips, and he could tell she liked it.
“This will make you feel better, Mommy,” he said.
His mother groaned for her answer. Afrim could already feel how the sugar helped him stay awake, how it helped him feel better and less tired. Maybe it would do the same for his Mommy?
He took the bonbon back in his mouth and sucked on it some more before he again put it against his mother’s lips. Every now and then, he sent Mr. Bjerrehus a friendly smile, even though the old man didn’t notice it, since he was still sitting with his eyes closed. Afrim wanted to thank the old man, but had no idea how. He didn’t understand why he had given him the bonbons. Why he hadn’t kept them for himself? Afrim thought of all the nice things he would do for Mr. Bjerrehus once they got back to the surface. He most certainly would never let Buster pee on his hedge again.
