Blood smeared the flashlight lens. She rinsed it carefully in the water, wiped off the lens with the edge of her jacket.
Her hands burned as if from a hundred cuts. Although the infection could not be transmitted via a bite or scratch, she nonetheless wanted to disinfect her wounds. She rinsed her hands in cold water, but needed something to kill any bacteria festering in the injuries.
She slung Falcon’s bag over her shoulder, and crawled toward the narrow, low-hanging tunnel, lighting her way with the flashlight. There were no more bats, but the pathway was so tight she worried she would be unable to squeeze through, that she might be stuck in there and forced to use the explosives to free herself—which seemed like suicide.
By crawling on hands and knees, her belly scraping against the dirt, she made it through the tightest section of tunnel, a length of nearly ten feet. She reached a wall. But it was a wall that felt and looked like a panel of wood, not rock.
Like the back of a piece of furniture, she thought, heart knocking.
She pushed against it with both hands. The object yielded, the bottom grinding against the stone floor.
When she had created an opening large enough to accommodate her, she crawled through, and into a more expansive area. Rising, she shone the light around.
She was in a bedroom.
“I must be dreaming,” she said, aloud.
The walls were made of rock, and the craggy ceiling was well over ten feet high. A queen-size bed stood against the far wall, sheets and pillows precisely arranged. A metal nightstand stood on one side of the bed, and held various items: a lamp, a sixteen-ounce bottle of water, a digital clock, a bottle of medicine.
On the other side of the bed, she saw a waist-high machine that looked like an industrial-grade air purifier. Farther away, against a wall, stood what looked like a large portable-toilet, the lid snapped shut. A small metal table near the toilet held a four-pack of toilet tissue and a tall bottle of hand sanitizer.
“All the comforts of home.” She laughed at the absurdity of it all.
A large, weathered storage trunk had blocked the tunnel she’d used to enter the room. She lifted the lid and panned the light beam inside. The trunk held men’s clothing: shirts, khakis, undergarments. Everything was neatly stacked and folded.
Kent Falcon’s clothes? It really floored her that the man had apparently lived in here, deep in an abandoned freakin’ mine. That fact alone qualified him as insane.
She crossed the chamber, rocks crunching under her soles. She turned the power knob on the lamp.
White light blazed from the bulb, chasing away the darkness.
Some sort of tiny lizard stood next to the water bottle. The reptile regarded her with beady eyes. Emily braced herself for an attack, but the animal appeared more interested in the water.
“Sorry, buddy, I’m taking this,” she said. She twisted the cap off the bottle. The water was as cool as if it had been stored in a refrigerator, not surprising because the temperature in the room bordered on chilly. She consumed most of the water in three gulps.
The bottle of medicine was store-brand ibuprofen. She chased down four tablets with the rest of the water.
The bed was inviting, but if she stopped to rest she worried that she wouldn’t get up for hours. The digital clock flashed 1:37am, way past her normal bedtime.
She had to keep moving. She needed to find a way back to the others.
The electrical cords of both the air purifier and lamp were connected to a thick, rubber-coated power cable that snaked along the floor, and wound through a wide doorway on the other side of the chamber. She headed through the door.
The next room was larger than the sleeping area, with a higher ceiling. She found a lamp on a small table, and flipped it on.
The power cord led to a panel hanging on the wall; a single cord from the wall panel fed into a power generator, the machine humming softly in the corner. A couple of tables lined with various items occupied the space, a swivel desk chair standing between them. Another doorway yawned on the far side of the chamber, the area swathed in blackness.
She also found a portable sink, and a mini-refrigerator. Her stomach growled as if activated by a switch. She made a beeline to the fridge.
As she went to open the door she remembered the wounds on her hands; the blood had clotted but it looked as though she had dunked her hands in a bucket of red paint. Bacterial infection was a legitimate concern.
Although her stomach ached with hunger, she stepped to the sink, instead. The faucet provided a weak trickle of lukewarm water, but it was enough to wash away the blood.
In the cabinet underneath the basin, Kent had stocked a literal medicine cabinet of products: more ibuprofen, a first-aid kit, anti-bacterial ointment, and more. After carefully drying her hands with a paper towel, wincing at the pain, Emily applied a liberal coating of the ointment, and covered the wounds with Band-Aids.
Finally, she returned to the mini-fridge. A small stack of canned goods stood on top: various types of soups, vegetables, a couple cans of Spam. The refrigerator contained about a dozen bottles of water, but no food.
She tore into a can of Spam and ate the meat with her fingers. She was so hungry that it might have been the finest filet of Kobe beef. She tilted the can and let the remaining contents dribble into her mouth.
Satiated, she took stock of the rest of the room. Random items were organized on the tables, mostly equipment that one would have used to navigate the dangerous depths of the mine. A hard hat with a mounted lamp. A compass. A pack of AA batteries. A twelve-pack of chemical light sticks. A loop of rope. She took the light sticks, as they were potentially too useful to pass up.
But the finding that most interested her was what appeared to be an old, hand-drawn map of the mine.
The mine evidently spanned three levels, a section of the map devoted to outlining each level. Key areas were indicated by neat handwriting in blue pencil.
Emily’s heart knocked. She removed her iPhone from her fanny pack—the device had survived her fall down the shaft with barely a scratch—and snapped several pictures of the map. She couldn’t wait to share her discovery with the others.
It was exactly what they needed to find their way out of there.
***
Soon after leaving the lab with the evidence they had found, Deacon had no clear idea of their next destination. They were following the trail Mr. Falcon had left behind, which, thus far, had worked well for them. It had led them to the lab. Presumably, Falcon knew where to locate his renegade brother, too.
But after a few hundred yards, the tunnel they had followed away from the laboratory split again. A shallow pool of cold water blanketed the floor of both passageways, fed by a steady trickle streaming down the rock walls.
“The water here is masking Falcon’s trail.” Deacon played the light along both tunnels; they looked nearly identical. “Any idea where to go next?”
“Split up and explore a bit, see what we find?” Hannah asked.
“Don’t like that idea. We’re already separated from Emily. We need to stay together.”
“Flip a coin?” She bounced her flashlight from one tunnel to the next. “Honestly, I’ve no idea either.”
“Then we go right,” Deacon said.
“Why right?”
“Gut instinct.” He shrugged. “Not scientific but that’s how I sometimes roll.”
As they started along the path, their radios buzzed. It was Emily again. She had found, incredibly, a map. When they gave her an approximate idea of their current location, she confirmed that they were headed in the correct direction.
The other path, the one they had not taken, led to an alternate exit from the mine.
Deacon trotted back to the tunnel intersection. Using one of the ancient drill bits he saw lying against the rocks, he scratched a small “x” on the wall to mark the exit tunnel.
The tool splashed in the ankle-high water when he dropped it on the ground, the echoes
reverberating over them.
“You hear that?” Hannah asked. She cocked her head.
“What was it?”
“Sounded like a scream . . . distant, though. Maybe my ears are deceiving me.”
“I doubt it. Let’s get moving.”
According to the map Emily had found, the mine had three levels. Currently they were on level one. The plan was to rendezvous with Emily at the juncture of level two—where she had found Falcon’s bedroom—and the third level. In Deacon’s opinion, if Kent Falcon were to be found anywhere there, it would be in the deepest, most remote region of the mine—an appropriate hiding place for a murderous coward.
And once they found him, he was going to answer all of their questions, whether he wanted to or not.
***
Following Emily’s directions, they traveled from level one, all the way down to the juncture of levels two and three. As the paths sloped ever downward, the air grew cooler. Deacon could see his breaths frosting in front of his face as he scanned the flashlight ahead of them.
More old mining equipment was scattered amongst the walls. Water dribbled from the rocks in an unending trickle. Several times, they had to find their way around rusted mine carts that lay overturned on the tracks.
There were worrisome weaknesses in the wooden beams, too. In some sections, paths off the main tunnel had collapsed completely, the weight of the rocks winning the battle versus the wooden supports.
“This old place,” Hannah said, “is held together like a house of cards.”
“Keep that in mind if we’ve got to shoot something,” Deacon said. “Don’t want to bring down the whole place on our heads.”
They continued on. Soon, reddish light glowed around the bend, just ahead: Emily’s marker. She told them she had found a pack of light sticks and would use one of them to communicate her position.
“Our girl’s right up there.” Deacon increased his pace, water splatting as his shoes slapped across the wet floor.
Before they hit the curve, Emily lunged out of the shadows and grabbed Deacon’s arm.
Deacon let out a gasp of surprise, but shut his mouth fast. Emily had brought her index finger to her lips in a “hush” gesture.
The three of them huddled in the small alcove where Emily had waited. With sufficient brightness cast by the nearby light stick, Deacon and Hannah doused their flashlights. The stick’s red glow gave all of their faces a crimson tint.
Emily looked like hell, Deacon thought. She had bandages wrapped around her hands, like a boxer after a bruising fight. Tiny cuts peppered her forehead and cheeks.
But she wore Falcon’s leather bag slung over her shoulder, the prize of her ordeal. He wondered about all the details of what she had endured, but hearing the story would have to wait for later.
Hannah spoke in a whisper. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s an elevator shaft, around the corner.” Emily gestured with her thumb. “Right before you guys got here, I heard something moving in it. Like something climbing up.”
Deacon glanced at Hannah. He didn’t need to speak a word to know that her thoughts matched his. She had seen the empty cages in the lab, too.
“We’ll check it out then since it’s on the way.” Deacon gave the shotgun to Emily and cocked the trigger of the .357. “We’ve got to keep moving.”
He clicked on his tactical flashlight again. As he took point, they crept out of the alcove and edged around the corner of the tunnel. The intersection of the converging passageways—one leading to level two, the other down to level three—was a broad space strewn with shattered rocks, splintered wood, and a rusted wheelbarrow. Wooden beams crisscrossed the ceiling, the boards broken in multiple sections.
“The ceiling in this area is weak,” Deacon said. “Based on your map, is there another way back up to level one if it all comes crashing down on us?”
“I think so.” Emily nodded. “Back the way I came, past Falcon’s bedroom.”
Nodding, Deacon turned to the elevator shaft Emily had mentioned. It occupied a large section of the wall. The metal door had been twisted off the hinges and lay on the floor in a puddle of water. From the looks of it, it had been that way for many years.
From a distance of perhaps ten feet, Deacon honed his light beam on the shaft. He saw only a pair of frayed cables dangling from a rusted pulley system.
“Not hearing anything,” he said. “Not seeing anything, either.”
“I know I heard something in there,” Emily said.
“Wait, the cables are moving,” Hannah said. “See?”
Deacon grunted. He noticed it, too. Gun held in the ready-position, light aimed ahead, he stepped forward.
“Hey, be careful,” Hannah said.
“I’m not going to go any further looking over my shoulder,” he said. “We settle this here.”
In spite of his tough words, his stomach had doubled up into a knot. He inched to the edge of the shaft. He panned the light downward.
A chimpanzee hanging from the cable bared its teeth. Its inflamed eyes seethed with fury.
Deacon’s response was automatic: he fired the .357. The gun boomed like a cannon in the enclosed space, and the shaft’s walls shook, rocks tumbling free.
But the primate had already scrambled out of danger. It clambered up the cable with ghastly speed and leaped out of the shaft, out of Deacon’s immediate range.
Behind him, Hannah and Emily screamed.
Deacon was going to swing around and fire, but he heard something else climbing up the cable. It was up the shaft and coming at him fast.
He stepped back, heart feeling lodged in his throat.
It was another frenzied chimpanzee. The primate snarled in his face. It was about four feet tall, maybe a hundred and twenty pounds. Twice as strong as a human under normal circumstances. Deacon remembered a story on the news a few years ago, of a woman mauled by an angry pet chimp. She had needed hours of surgery and a face transplant to look even remotely human again.
Wired with neurotoxin, the animals would be as powerful as monsters from the deepest regions of hell.
Can’t miss.
The chimpanzee charged him. He fired, and missed. The animal vaulted to the ceiling and grabbed onto one of the wooden crossbeams. It glared at Deacon.
Somewhere behind him, Emily screamed. Her shotgun boomed. The other primate screeched. Wood chips and bits of stone rained down on them. Shifting rocks groaned.
Other noises were coming from the elevator shaft, too. Scrabbling sounds. Screeching. The cables swung.
In a matter of seconds they were going to be engulfed by a mob of creatures of all sizes, all of them united by murderous rage.
“Shoot the ceiling and run for the tunnel!” Deacon shouted.
As he barked the words, he fired a round at the chimpanzee that scrambled above him. He missed the primate, but hit a crossbeam, blowing a chunk out of it. The wood buckled, and smashed rocks as large as his fist dropped to the floor with a bone-rattling crash.
Behind him, Hannah and Emily were unleashing firepower at the ceiling supports, too, guns booming like fusillades of thunder, muzzles flashing. As they fired their weapons, animals poured out of the elevator shaft. Raccoons. Another pair of chimpanzees. The infected animals howled and thrashed in the storm of falling rocks.
Deacon retreated into the passageway. A hunk of rock smashed against the back of his head, and he nearly passed out from the blunt force of it, his knees wobbling. Someone—it sounded like Hannah—screamed at him to follow them, and the terror in her voice kept him from losing his grip on consciousness. He staggered away, focusing on the sound of her voice.
Behind them, the section of mine they had damaged collapsed with a roar, the screams of the dying animals echoing in the dusty blackness.
***
Emily was hurt. Deacon shone his flashlight on her when she protested that she had to stop running.
“One of those crazy chimps took a bite out of me.” Grim
acing, she lowered herself to the ground. She touched her leg, appeared to choke down a cry.
Deacon looked at her wound and winced. She had a big, nasty bite on her left thigh, the spreading bloodstain on her jeans as large as a grapefruit. She was a tough one. If he’d had a wound like that he would have been hollering like a choleric baby.
“We’ve got to disinfect it,” Hannah said. She reached for the leather bag Emily had brought. “Is there anything in here we can use?”
“I brought a first-aid kit I found in Kent’s bedroom or whatever it was.”
“Good thinking.” Hannah tore open the bag and rummaged through the contents, carefully avoiding the explosives, Deacon noticed. She glanced at Deacon. “You took a hit on the head, too. I’ll check you out in a sec, okay?”
“Sure, doc,” he said. “Can you give me one of those light sticks, please? I want to see what’s going on around here.”
He snapped in half the chemical light stick Hannah gave him and placed it on the ground nearby. Soft, greenish light pushed away the shadows. Turning around, Deacon saw that an impregnable heap of rocks blocked the corridor they had left behind, like stones dumped from a giant wheelbarrow. Ahead of them, the tunnel stretched into nondescript darkness.
It felt like the most remote location on the entire planet. Deacon’s sense of isolation was so strong, actually, that they very well might have been on another planet.
“I really hope you were right about there being another way out of here,” he said to Emily.
“Promise.” Emily gasped as Hannah cleansed her wound. “I snapped a pic of the map with my phone. Every level was designed with at least two paths going up or down.”
“Have you seen this alternate route with your own eyes?” he asked.
“It’s on the map.”
“Can we trust a map of a mine that hasn’t operated in decades?” he said. “There might be paths indicated but who knows if they’re still passable? This place is falling apart.”
“It’s too late to worry about that now, isn’t it?” Hannah said. She applied a bandage to Emily’s wound. “I don’t know, Em. I did my best here but I think you’re going to have some serious mobility issues.”
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