by James Hunt
“Amy?”
She peeled her eyes away from the mine, looking toward Terry, who had veered off the road and stood with the girls on the boardwalk that lined the front of the buildings.
“Are you all right?”
Amy nodded quickly, joining her family on the boardwalk. “Sorry. Just daydreaming.” She wasn’t sure if Terry bought the lie, but she walked briskly ahead of her family, trying to act like nothing had happened.
But just before she veered into the lobby of the building marked as the hotel, Amy cast one last glance toward the mine. Unlike before, she felt nothing.
The room was under Terry’s name, and they were handed actual brass keys, not the electronic pads used in most modern hotels. Apparently, they wanted the experience to be authentic, but Amy and the rest of them were thankful that they had A/C and an elevator.
Their room was located on the top floor, and when the elevators pinged open, Maisie was the first one out and sprinted toward their room at the end of the hall, wedged right in the corner of the building.
Terry inserted the brass key and swung the door inward. “Oh wow.”
Old wooden floorboards, gaps between most of them, acted as the flooring, and the walls were accented with decorative wallpaper, which had begun to peel near the ceiling.
The furniture matched the vintage style of the building, and when Maisie jumped onto the mattress the bed springs squeaked, making her giggle.
“It’s bouncy,” Maisie said.
Liz stepped around Amy and then dropped her bag on the floor, frowning. “Does this place even have running water?”
“It’s not that bad,” Terry said, fixing his tie in the mirror. “I’ll be back for dinner. If the meeting ends up going longer, then I’ll give you a call.” He picked up his briefcase and grabbed Amy’s arm. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
Amy nodded.
“Okay.” Terry headed toward the door and waved to the girls. “Be good for your mother.”
“Terry, wait.” Amy chased after him, and he stopped at the door, but she pushed him out into the hallway, giving them some privacy.
“How much will you have to work during the trip?”
“I have the meeting today, and then my final inspection is tomorrow,” Terry answered, frowning. “Why?”
“I was hoping we could spend some time together as a family,” Amy said. “Do normal things.” She glanced back to the room and lowered her voice. “Dr. Lawrence said this trip would be good for us, and I think it’d be nice to just relax for a while—”
Terry’s phone rang, and he quickly reached for his pocket. “I’m sorry. Can we talk about this later?”
Amy feigned a smile. “Sure. Good luck.”
Eyes glued to his phone, Terry grunted a thank you and headed for the elevator. Amy waited until he was gone before she returned to the room, finding Liz laid down on the bed by the window, Maisie still bouncing rhythmically on the other mattress.
“So, can we go check out the mine?” Maisie clasped her hands together in a hopeful prayer.
“Yes,” Amy answered, then looked to Liz. “Why don’t you come with us?”
“Pass.” Liz had to keep her arm extended with her phone off the bed so it could reach the charger’s cord.
Knowing it would be a losing battle, Amy dropped it. “If you need anything, just text me. And don’t order anything from room service, we’re on a budget.”
“Like this place even has room service,” Liz said, texting a mile a minute.
Amy grabbed hold of Maisie’s hand. “Ready?”
Maisie tugged her mother’s arm forward, leading them out of the room. “This will be so cool!”
29
Considering the run-down nature of Ghost Town, it was surprisingly busy. The line to the mine attraction snaked from the entrance for nearly sixty feet, each tour consisting of one guide and twelve guests. Amy was thankful for the awning that blocked out the sun, though she still sweat.
Like Amy and Maisie, most of the visitors in line were parents with kids. But while her daughter rattled off the facts she had learned about the place, Amy remained fixated on the mine’s dark entrance. It swallowed the light, and wind kicked up sand that blew across its entrance, as if the earth itself was frightened to enter.
Amy hugged herself. A heavy pressure started to build in the back of her head, and the world blurred. Her heart rate spiked, and she hyperventilated.
She balled her hands into fists, squeezing until they ached. She clenched her jaw, her muscles tightening, her entire body seizing up. She didn’t want to have an episode here. Not now. Not when she had come so far. Why had she left those damn pills?
“Mommy?”
Maisie’s voice broke through the anxiety, and Amy forced her eyes open. She glanced down at her daughter, whose eyes were wide and worried. Amy smiled, catching her breath, and unclenched her fists.
“Hey, sweetie,” Amy said.
“Are you okay?”
Amy nodded quickly. “I’m fine.” She glanced around the open room and caught a few of the stares aimed in her direction. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and cleared her throat as she kissed the top of Maisie’s head. “Everything’s fine.”
The assurance was enough to end Maisie’s worry, and they drew closer to the front of the line.
Everything is fine.
It was a phrase that she repeated like a mantra. She had to constantly remind herself that she had corrected what had been wrong and that she was normal again.
She had gone thirty-nine years without so much as a warning as to what was coming her way. She struggled to escape the anxiety of the possibility that another episode would reappear just as mysteriously as it had three months ago. It was maddening.
Once they reached the front of the line, Maisie lifted her arms, and Amy scooped her off the ground so she could see the tour guide, dressed in overalls and boots, with make-up smeared on his face to simulate the soot of the mine.
“Welcome, fellow gold rushers!” The miner spread his arms wide, projecting his voice over his new group of twelve. “The gods of fortune have brought you to the harshest environment in the world to test your mettle on your quest for riches beyond your wildest dreams.”
Maisie giggled at the grandiose speech.
“But!” The miner extended a single finger into the air. “Your fortune will not come easily. It will require sacrifice and sweat-” He lowered his voice. “And blood.”
While the rest of the group watched the tour guide, Amy watched Maisie. Every ‘ooo’ and ‘aww’ her daughter made was the best medicine that she could have taken.
The miner pointed toward the mouth of the mine, eyes wide. “Beware of the ghosts that haunt this ground, for to extract the treasure that lies inside costs a terrible price.”
The tour guide had the group on the edge of their seats, but while he spoke, a pain pricked the back of Amy’s head, and she winced. It was followed by a high-pitched din, and when she finally opened her eyes, she saw the tour guide staring right at her with a gaze that made her blood run cold.
“It will take everything from you,” he said, his voice as dead as his pair of eyes. “You cannot keep safe what you hold dear.”
The skin around Amy’s eyes twitched, and her lungs choked for breath. She was paralyzed, frozen as the tour guide kept his gaze locked onto her.
“Mom?”
Amy blinked and drew in a quick breath, Maisie still in her arms, but the tour guide and the group were already entering the gold mine, leaving Amy and her daughter alone, standing in the desert sand.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Maisie asked.
Amy set her daughter down and nodded, quickly wiping the sweat that had accumulated on her brow. “Of course.” She smiled again and then ushered her daughter forward.
It was fifteen degrees cooler once they entered the darkness of the mine, which was dimly lit by a string of lights hanging from the ceiling.
Maisie walked alo
ng the side of the group, Amy keeping a watchful eye on her while the tour guide continued his storied speech through the winding and claustrophobic tunnel on their descent into the earth.
But while Amy watched her daughter, her thoughts circled the possibility that she was slipping back into a relapse. While all of the doctors and specialists that she had spoken with were encouraging in her recovery, each of them did say that it was possible for her to slip back into another manic state.
They had told her that any potential triggers would come from an overwhelming amount of stress, but she hadn’t felt stressed at all. Worried, maybe, and slightly irritated from her husband thinking that she was a glass doll that was going to shatter into a million pieces at the slightest sign of adversity. But not stressed.
The tour guide stopped and pulled the crowd’s attention to a nearby wall, deep within the mine. “In 1853, gold was discovered on this land. But it belonged to the Chemehuevi Indians, a proud and aggressive tribe.”
Amy remembered the protestors out front and suspected they were from that same tribe.
“War broke out, and the Chemehuevi were forced off their land, a place they had called home for centuries!” The tour guide placed his hand on the wall. “But while they lost the fight, they wouldn’t let their home befall destruction and mutilation by the hands of the miners who wished to profit from it. And so, they cursed this ground and the gold inside, vowing that anyone who tried to take it from their lands would die a horrible death.”
“Is it true?” A little boy asked, raising his hand. “Did the curse work?”
The tour guide nodded. “In 1854 when the mine opened, sixty miners lost their lives during a collapse. It was so violent that it was another century before the mine opened again.” The miner walked along the line of the crowd, working the kids into an excited fright. “And in 1973, another collapse claimed the lives of forty-seven miners. Crushed by tons of rock and earth. But not before gold made it out of the mine. It was sent to a bank in San Francisco, and less than a day later, anyone that had come into contact with that gold had died.”
The children clung to their parents, Maisie included, a mixture of delight and fear etched upon her face.
The tour guide then lifted a single finger in the air. “This place is alive.” He placed a hand against the wall. “Living, breathing, just like us.” He spoke with a quiet devotion, as if the place had given him life and guidance. “It is a protector of the earth, and it will harm anyone who tries to take what it holds dear.”
Maisie stepped forward, drawn by the actor’s showmanship. “What does it hold dear?”
The miner smiled and opened his mouth wide and spoke slow. “Gold.” He stepped toward Maisie, then knelt in front of her, shifting his attention between her daughter and the rest of the crowd. “And anyone that takes the gold from this place must pay with their lives.” He leaned in close, his attention focused solely on Maisie now, lowering his voice to a whisper.
The parents smiled while the children all let out a low-lying gasp, and the miner stood, seizing the hold he had over those so young and willing to believe.
The miner smiled. “Are any of you brave enough to test the curse?”
Loud, emphatic no’s echoed through the mine shaft, followed by giggles from the children who hopped up and down with that excited fright. Maisie turned back to her mother, sporting the biggest toothless grin Amy had seen all summer.
“Well.” The tour guide clapped his hands together and rubbed them with vigor. “There is a loophole.” He walked a little farther into the mine, toward a section of earth that had been chewed up by picks and hammers. “Only gold falls under the curse. Here we can harvest geodes, beautiful crystal structures that you can take home.” And like flicking off a light switch, the tour guide who had so carefully crafted his mid-century miner character to life looked to the parents, the illusion dropping. “It’s twenty dollars if they want to try it.”
And while the parents fished their wallets from pockets and purses, Maisie rushed to her mother, tugging at her pant legs anxiously. “Mom, Mom, Mom. We have to tell Dad. He needs to know about the curse!”
Amy cupped her hands over Maisie’s cheeks and raised her eyebrows. “Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa.” She shook her head. “He’s not going to take any gold out of the mine. That’s not his job.”
Maisie’s eyes watered. “Promise.”
Amy kissed her daughter’s forehead, then smiled. “I promise. Your dad is perfectly safe.”
With her daughter calmed, Amy walked her over to the guide, forking over the money so her daughter didn’t have to be left out of the activities. She knew that money was tight, but she couldn’t deny Maisie the simple joy of adventure.
A chorus of giggles and hammers erupted as the kids went to work. Parents snapped pictures, the flashes like lightning strikes as they captured moments.
Amy.
The hairs on the back of Amy’s neck stood straight up, and her blood stopped cold. She slowly turned behind her toward the source of the whisper, deeper into the void of the mine. She squinted, unable to tell if she had only misheard.
Amy.
Hesitant, but unable to keep herself still, Amy stepped closer. She carefully maneuvered over the worn tracks that cut down the middle, most of the wooden planks either missing or broken, the metal bars warped and rusted like bad tattoos.
The deeper Amy traveled, the more the mine swallowed her up. It was as though she wasn’t moving of her own free will. A string had been pulled around her waist, and something on the other end was tugging her closer and closer toward a truth that she couldn’t quite understand.
The single strand of lights that ran along the mine’s ceiling flickered and shut off, casting the tunnel into darkness. Her toe snagged on one of the wooden boards along the track, and she stumbled forward, catching herself on her hands, her palms stinging from the harsh contact with the rocky earth.
Amy slowly raised her head, pushing herself to her knees, and finally realized that she was alone in the darkness. She turned behind her. All the lights were out, a black void surrounded her, and her mind immediately turned to her daughter.
“Maisie?” Amy stood, then stumbled a few feet before she knocked into one of the walls. “Maisie!” She spun around, all sense of direction lost.
How far had she walked? And for how long? Had she dipped into another episode? She shut her eyelids, pressing her dirty palms against her eyes, and tried to get her bearings. She focused on searching for a single truth, something deep within the darkness to help pull her out of the void that she was sinking into.
She listened, turning in different directions for any sign that she wasn’t alone. “Maisie? Hello!” Her voice didn’t echo, instead falling flat the moment she spoke. She cleared her throat, the panic rising to a scream. “Maisie!”
But while her voice strained, the words fell flat. A muzzle had been placed over her mouth, and the sudden restraint caused her to panic. She turned sporadically, shuffling forward a few steps before turning back and then trying a different direction.
Aaaaamyyyyyyy.
Slowly, Amy turned, her body laced with a terror that she had never known. Death was tickling the back of her neck. Death was calling her name. And just when Amy turned to face the great equalizer, a scream broke through the darkness.
Amy spun around, immediately blinded by the light on the tour guide’s helmet. She lifted a hand to shield herself from the brightness and fell backwards on her ass.
“Mommy!” Maisie screamed, and Amy craned her head around the beam of light still shining directly in her face.
“Can you turn that thing off?” Amy asked.
The tour guide flicked off the light on his helmet, and Amy lowered her hand. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
Amy pushed herself up off the ground, her knees popping as she dusted the dirt from her pants.
Maisie ran to her mother, hugging Amy’s legs. “We called you and called you, but you wouldn’t tur
n around.”
Amy picked Maisie from the ground. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Do you need any medical attention?” the tour guide asked, uncertainty lacing his voice.
And just when Amy was about to answer, she noticed the silence. The children had stopped their hammering for geodes and clung to their parents in the same manner that Maisie had done to her. Confused and worried expressions were cast Amy’s way, and she cleared her throat, forcing a smile.
“No.” Amy adjusted Maisie in her arms. “I get dizzy spells from time to time. I’m fine really.”
The tour guide nodded and then returned to the group, though the mood had shifted.
Amy kissed Maisie on the cheek. “Do you want to go and finish digging?”
“No,” Maisie answered. “I’m okay.” She twisted her mouth to the side, and then without looking at her mother, she asked, “Are you getting sick again?”
The question nearly cracked Amy’s heart in half. “Oh, sweetie, no. Hey.” She waited until Maisie was looking at her, those deep green eyes watery with worry. “I’m not sick anymore. I promise.” She kissed Maisie again and then pulled her daughter close, hoping it was a promise she could keep.
30
Suitcase in hand, Terry fiddled with his tie on his way through the lobby, bracing for the desert heat.
“Mr. Holloway.”
Terry stopped, turning abruptly to the man heading toward his direction. “Can I help you?”
A mountain of a man dressed in a black suit and tie with a white undershirt, his hair cut short, but still combed neatly, and freshly shaven with a nick from his razor just above his Adam’s apple. “I’m with Earth Core Mining. Mr. Mulaney sent me to pick you up.” He didn’t smile.
“I wasn’t expecting a ride,” Terry said.
“Mr. Mulaney insisted,” he said. “Follow me.”
The sedan was parked in the street, looking out of place amongst all the Western attire from the employees and the facades of the buildings that lined the dirt road. The man opened the back door and gestured for Terry to take a seat.
