by James Hunt
Both Liz and Maisie threw their arms around their father, squeezing tight.
“I’ll bring her back,” Terry said. “I promise.”
When they let go, Terry walked back to the wheelchair where the piece of gold had fallen. He hesitated but then snatched the chunk of gold from the ground. He waited, wincing, his body breaking out in a cold sweat, but there was nothing. No echoing holler of doom, only a slight tug toward the darkness.
Terry looked back at his girls, praying to God that it wouldn’t be his last time. He had come too far, and they had all sacrificed too much to not be able to come out on the other side of this alive. It wasn’t right that they should be the ones to suffer, but at the very least they would stay alive.
Terry faced the darkness ahead, the force pulling at him harder, accompanied by a heat instead of a deadly cold. And the next time he turned around, he found himself alone, bathed in darkness.
“Amy!” Terry screamed, his voice echoing but never fading. He kept his arms outstretched, reaching blindly into the darkness, disoriented. He felt for the rope around his waist and then the pendant around his neck, both reminding him of his mission and the hope that he could return home.
Finally, the sound of a voidless realm disappeared, and the darkness took the shape of red rock that jutted from the earth in violent patterns. He glanced up to a crimson sky, painted with streaks of black. It made the sky and ground bleed into one another on the horizon, making Terry feel like he was in a dome by himself.
He stopped to examine his new surroundings. He had wished for something that he could see with while he traveled through the darkness, but this new world had suddenly made him long for the darkness that he had just escaped.
Terry checked the rope again, but this time, while he found that it was still tied around his waist, after three feet behind him the rope just disappeared. It remained taut, sticking straight out. It was like some demonic magic trick.
He grabbed hold of the rope, and while he couldn’t see it, he felt the parts that were missing. But he didn’t dare linger here longer than he had to.
“Amy!” Terry stumbled forward into the realm, squinting ahead. He coughed and hacked, the air thick with a smoke and scent that meant to kill him. “Amy!”
And then, to his left, he saw a body lying on the rocks. He sprinted toward it, but the terrain and the atmosphere slowed his pace. And just before he managed to get there—
“GAH!” Mulaney veered at him, tackling him to the ground, the pair rolling over one another until they came to a stop, Mulaney on top of Terry, although his image had changed.
The meticulously groomed and pedicured Mulaney had been burned away, replaced with charred skin, bleeding muscle, and exposed bone. He snapped his jaws angrily, his motions akin to a rabid dog, and he reached for the rope tied around his waist.
“I want to go home!” Mulaney howled, pieces of skin dripping off of him like juices from an overcooked goose.
Terry kneed him hard in the stomach and then flung him to the side, eliciting another cry as he writhed and screamed on the blacktop. Terry hurried to his feet and ran toward his wife, who was still in the distance.
He glanced behind him, finding Mulaney hot on his heels, chasing after him with a ferocity and vigor that only a man focused on survival could match.
But Terry focused on his lifeless wife’s body ahead. He had to get to her. He had to bring her home. They couldn’t end like this. There was too much life to be lived, and he couldn’t imagine her not seeing Maisie grow up or watch Liz become the woman she was meant to be. He wouldn’t fail his family now. Not after he had failed them so much in the past.
Liz, Maisie, and Kara kept a tight hold on the rope, leaning back, feet planted firmly in the ground as if the three of them were in some life or death game of tug-of-war. Liz’s hands ached, and her back and legs burned, her muscles unfamiliar with the rigorous exertion.
But she wouldn’t let go. Just like she knew Maisie wouldn’t let go, and her dad wouldn’t give up. You didn’t quit on family. No matter what.
A harsh tug came at the other end of the rope and jolted all three of them forward, dragging them into the darkness. They all screamed, but it was Kara who got to her feet first, followed quickly by Liz.
“We need to pull it back,” Kara said, shouting above the strains of keeping the rope taut and stopping the sudden pull. “ON three!”
Liz and Maisie nodded, each of them bracing for a final pull.
“One!”
Liz readjusted her grip, a surge of adrenaline helping her push past the pain of fatigue.
“Two!”
She licked her lips, poised and ready.
“Three!”
In unison, all three of them ran as hard and as fast as they could toward the elevator, screaming along the way, and they didn’t stop until they ran out of space at the elevator.
And suddenly the rope went slack in their hands.
Exhausted, Liz spun around. “Dad? Mom?” Maisie was by her side and tried to head into the darkness, but Liz kept her back.
“Daddy! Mommy!” Maisie screamed, her voice more frantic and panicked than her older sister.
But the longer they waited in the darkness, looking for any sign of life, the faster the hope drained from them.
Kara placed a hand on the girls’ shoulders. “I’m so sorry—”
“Liz!” Terry shouted, his voice coming from the darkness. “I need a hand.”
Liz sprinted blindly into the dark and found Terry dragging her mother from the tunnel. She was unconscious. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know,” Terry said, finally bring her to a stop. He pressed his fingers against her neck and then checked her breathing. He hovered over her, shaking her head. “She’s not breathing.”
Liz glanced back to Kara, then to the wheelchair where the coconut sat on the seat. “The water.” She sprinted over and grabbed the coconut, rushing quickly back to her mother’s side. “Tilt her head up.”
Terry cradled the back of Amy’s head, and Liz brought the water to her lips, which parted as she poured the liquid into her mouth.
With half of it gone, Liz set the coconut aside, and waited. “C’mon. C’mon.” She held her mother’s hand, squeezing tight. It had to work. It just had to.
“Liz—”
“Just wait,” Liz said, clinging to the hope that she could bring her mother back. It couldn’t have all just been for nothing.
Finally, Amy coughed, spitting up some of the water that she had swallowed.
“Thank God,” Terry said, slumping from exhaustion.
Liz smiled and laughed. Maisie ran over and wrapped her arms around Amy’s neck.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Amy squeezed her daughter back. She was weathered from her time in the spirit realm, but alive. Holding Maisie, she locked eyes with Liz. “Thank you.”
Liz lunged forward, adding to the pile of hugs, followed by Terry, the four of them lingering in the darkened mine, holding onto one another.
Terry kissed Amy hard and held her with both hands. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Amy said. “Let’s go home.”
Ben kept the rifle trained on Bishop all the way back up to the surface, though he didn’t push back at all.
At the surface back in the town’s main street, Amy finally took stock of Terry’s injuries. “What happened?”
But Terry only pulled her close. “Bad job interview.”
Both Liz and Maisie clung tight to their mother, but while Amy enjoyed their affection, she saw Kara off to the side, pushing her grandfather’s empty wheelchair.
“He gave himself up to bring you back,” Terry said.
Amy nodded and then kissed each of them. “I’ll be right back.”
Kara looked tired and ragged, but even exhaustion couldn’t erase the intensity of her gaze. She didn’t smile when she saw Amy, only gestured to the empty chair. “He wanted to make things right.”
; “I know.” Amy reached for Kara’s hand. “Thank you.”
Kara squeezed back and nodded. When she let go, she sighed. “Mulaney’s people are going to drag this out. There are too many bodies for someone not to go to jail.”
Bishop cleared his throat and stepped toward her. “I might be able to help you with that.”
Before Amy could respond, Kara lunged forward. “Go home. Be with your family. We’ll take care of the rest.”
Amy nodded, too tired to protest. “Take care of yourself, Kara.”
“You too.”
Amy lingered in the street while Kara and Ben said their goodbyes to the rest of the family and headed off into the desert, arms around one another while they walked, hoping for the time and space to grieve.
“Are you okay, Mommy?” Maisie asked.
Amy smiled and then nodded. “I’m fine, sweetheart.” She turned back toward the mine and the dark, cavernous mouth that had called to her when she first arrived. “Everything’s fine.”
80
Six months later
Snow covered the backyard, the powder fresh and white and untouched by life in the early morning of dawn. Amy stood near the frosted window, wrapped in her robe, cup of coffee in her hand, a few grains of sleep still in her eye.
“Good morning.” The salutation was accompanied by the pair of familiar strong arms that held her tight and then kissed her neck.
“Good morning,” Amy said, leaning into Terry.
“How’d you sleep?” Terry asked.
“Good. You?”
“Best night of rest I’ve had in over a year.”
Amy laughed. “Me too.” And it was for good reason.
The judge that had taken on the case against Earth Core to investigate all of Mulaney’s business dealings since his ‘disappearance’ had dismissed Terry’s involvement with Earth Core and found him innocent of any wrongdoing while under the employment of Mulaney and Earth Core. Had he been found guilty, Terry would have faced no less than three years in prison.
Terry spun her around and kissed her lips. “So. What do you want to do with the girls today?” He looked past her through the frosted window. “Looks like that fresh powder needs to be tended to.” He looked back at Amy. “We can take the girls up to Messier’s Peak. Make a day out of it.”
“I’d like that,” Amy said, unable to keep her smile from tightening the skin on her cheeks. “I’d love that, actually.”
“Good.” Terry kissed her again and then turned for the kitchen. “I’ll get breakfast started if you want to wake the beasts.”
Amy rolled her eyes and then made her way up the stairs, passing the pictures hanging from the wall, moments of her family’s life captured and frozen in time for her to relive again and again.
Maisie woke up easily enough, sliding from her bed with her hair plastered to the left side of her face, and zombie-walked down to the stairs.
Liz was a different story. Amy had to sit by her side, coaxing the teenager up and out of bed, and practically pushing her out of the room and down the stairs, grumbling the entire way down.
Amy watched her daughter from the top of the stairs, smiling with her arms crossed. It was good to be back to normal things, especially after what the girls had gone through. What they’d all gone through.
Therapy had helped. They’d gone once a week, every week, for the past four months. They went together and had sessions as a group, and then individually. They worked through it, and it was a safe environment for the girls to talk about what happened without being judged.
It wasn’t something that they could talk about with anyone else, lest they be committed to a psych ward. And there was only so much that a daughter would tell her mother, so much a wife could share with a husband.
It had taken a long time, but they were finally in a place of healing, in a place of peace.
Amy was off her medication since the events at the resort. And she hadn’t heard any voices since they’d left. Whatever the medicine man had done to her, it vanished when he disappeared into the spirit realm.
None of them had any contact with Kara or Ben either. She knew that their court case was being handled differently due to their Native American heritage. It was being investigated by the FBI. They hadn’t reached out to her, so she didn’t reach out to them. Both families had seen enough of one another.
Liz’s door was still open, and just before Amy took a step down, a flash of amber caught her eye. She stopped, turning back to her daughter’s room, and stepped inside.
The flash shimmered again from the light coming into the window which faced the east, and Amy tracked the amber color to Liz’s bed. She maneuvered the sheets around and then froze when she saw the pendant on the bed.
It was the pendant that the medicine man had worn. The same pendant that Kara had worn. The same pendant that warded off the evil of the curse of that gold mine.
But the curse was ended, broken by the cycle of the medicine man’s sacrifice.
Amy pushed the panic aside. It was probably just a memento, something to make her daughter feel better, a rational way to remember that what happened was real and it wasn’t something that she’d made up in her head.
That was something they spoke about in therapy. Acknowledging the truth of both what you know, and what you feel, was important in moving on.
Amy picked the pendant off the bed and twirled it between her fingers. She set it back down and headed for the door.
“Amy.”
She froze, a chill running through her veins, and she turned slowly toward back toward the room, half expecting to find another apparition waiting for her, but she saw only the bed and the light flicker of amber from the pendant.
She walked toward it and picked it up again. This time, when she picked it up, a warmth spread through her, and she smiled. She placed it around her neck and then walked out the door and downstairs to her family.
It was fine.
He had said it would be.
