Mountain Rampage

by Graham, Scott

  The steady stream of cool air pouring into the tunnel chilled him as he headed toward the mouth of the mine. Night had fallen. He increased his pace, anxious to return to the warmth and light of the cabin.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and wiped the face of its waterproof case with the butt of his hand. Just past eight o’clock. If he hurried, he might make it back before the girls fell asleep. He smiled as he imagined the girls’ response to his grit-covered appearance at their bedsides, and a tingle of anticipation ran up his spine at the thought of the hot shower he would enjoy right after he kissed them goodnight.

  He looked at the end of the tunnel fifty feet ahead, and froze.

  The heavy metal door was closed.

  FIFTEEN

  Chuck charged down the mine tunnel, the bouncing beam of his headlamp illuminating the iron door.

  “Hey!” he cried out as he neared the end of the tunnel.

  No response.

  He lowered his shoulder and rammed the door. An arrow of pain shot down his back, but the door did not budge.

  He reached through the welded lattices that made up the top half of the door. His searching fingers found the chain wrapped around the door and frame. The padlock, which had been hanging open in a link of the chain these last weeks, was secured through the chain.

  He peered through the lattices. The mine site was deserted.

  “Hey!” he called again through the lattices. “Hey!”

  Nothing.

  He took off his pack and slumped to a sitting position, his back to the locked door.

  Who could possibly have known about his visit to the mine this evening? Answer: no one. He hadn’t even known he was coming here until he’d climbed into the truck outside the library and turned the key in the ignition.

  Had someone spotted him leaving town and followed him? Or, had someone trailed him all the way from the resort?

  He squeezed his eyes shut, thinking.

  The library was next door to the Estes Park Police Department at the east edge of town.

  Had Hemphill seen Chuck exit the library? Had the officer followed Chuck up Trail Ridge Road? Why would Hemphill have done so? And, more to the point, why would he have locked Chuck in the mine and run off?

  Locking Chuck in the tunnel wouldn’t result in his death; surely he could hold out against the cold for the few hours it would take for him to be found. Which led to the question: what could anyone possibly gain by temporarily trapping him in the mine?

  The cold of the metal door seeped through his soaked jacket and shirt, burrowing into the muscles of his upper back. The temperature inside the mine was its normal, fixed fifty degrees, not uncomfortable in a dry jacket and long pants, but brutally cold in soaking wet clothing.

  Chuck stood and looked out at the stars gleaming through the top half of the door. He stuck his hand through the lattices. The air temperature outside was roughly the same as inside the tunnel.

  He weighed his options. He kept a butane lighter stowed in a sealed plastic bag in his pack for emergencies, but he didn’t dare start an oxygen-eating fire in the enclosed tunnel—not that, in any case, he’d have any success setting the moisture-laden floorboards alight.

  He turned away from the door. Thanks to his text, Janelle knew he was at the mine. How long would she wait before she sent Clarence to check on him?

  He set off down the tunnel, swinging his arms and taking long strides to generate body heat. Back and forth he marched, pounding the reattached floorboards in the first 150 feet of the tunnel with his boots to work blood into his feet.

  He considered stripping off his pants, jacket, and shirt, but the residual insulation provided by his soaked clothing was better than no insulation at all. He focused on steady movement aimed at maintaining his body’s warmth at a level that would dry his clothes from the inside out while not robbing his stores of energy too quickly.

  With no sunlight to replenish their batteries, the floodlights at the end of the tunnel burned out within an hour. He walked steadily, the way ahead lit by his headlamp, each fifty minutes of movement followed by ten minutes of rest. By eleven, his clothes were no longer soaked. He slowed as midnight approached, punished by his second straight night without sleep.

  He took to stopping for five minutes after every twenty-five minutes of movement. Finally, unable to keep his eyes open any longer, he sat down and fell asleep slumped against the cold rock wall of the tunnel just inside the locked door. He awoke shaking uncontrollably and unable to bend his numb fingers.

  He rolled to his knees, climbed stiffly to his feet, and looked through the lattices at the newly risen, nearly full moon hanging in the sky above the eastern plains. He lifted one foot, let it fall to the floor, and repeated the process with his other foot, his feet as cold and unfeeling as his hands.

  Where was Clarence?

  He vaguely recognized the first stages of hypothermia—his brain growing numb along with his body. He wandered sluggishly down the tunnel, barely capable of remaining upright. He stepped off the last of the reaffixed floorboards and continued along the gravel bottom of the mine, where the floorboards and ore cart tracks from the last section of the tunnel were stacked to one side. The gaping hole at the end of the tunnel appeared without warning in front of him. Before his listless brain could react, he took another step. His foot landed at the edge of the pit, the sole of his boot skidded forward on the gravel, and his feet flew out from under him. He gyrated his arms and toppled backward, striking his head.

  Dazed, he stared at the gray roof of the tunnel in the light of his headlamp, his feet hanging over the lip of the shaft, the back of his head throbbing. He pushed himself away from the hole and cradled his head in his hands. He struggled upright only to collapse sideways, his shoulder to the wall of the tunnel, his eyes closed.

  He clung to one thought: he had to keep moving.

  SIXTEEN

  He stumbled back to the mouth of the tunnel. Moonlight lanced through the latticed top half of the door. He pressed his hands to the door’s cold surface and leaned his forehead against its iron strips.

  He turned and weaved his way halfway down the tunnel before pivoting well shy of the vertical shaft and returning to the door. Up and down he shuffled until, finally, a shout sounded through the door from the far side of the mine site. “Chuck! Chuck, are you there?”

  Adrenaline surged through Chuck. He ran to the door. “In here!” he called through the lattices. “I’m locked in!”

  Clarence rummaged for the padlock key in the storage boxes, hurried to the mouth of the tunnel, and unlocked the door. He wrenched the door open, the hinges screeching. Chuck stumbled past him.

  Clarence aimed the flashlight from the field school van’s glove box at Chuck’s blackened clothes. “What the…?”

  “I wanted to see what was at the bottom of the shaft,” Chuck explained. “Bad idea.”

  Rather than leave the mine-mouth door unlocked as he had throughout the weeks of the field school, Chuck chained and locked the door, pocketed the key, and joined Clarence in heading back around the mountain. He warmed as he followed Clarence along the trail, his clothes drying in the cool night air.

  Clarence had headed straight for the mine when Janelle had called. “I knew you couldn’t resist coming back,” he said. “Did you find anything?”

  Chuck kept his eyes on the short length of trail lit by his headlamp behind Clarence’s heels. What use was there in mentioning the unknown object in the crevice? “Nothing I could be sure of.”

  “And you have no idea who might’ve locked you in there?”

  “I’ve come up with exactly nobody.”

  “Jan’s going to be absolutely freaked.”

  “If she hears about it.”

  “You’re not going to tell her?”

  “She’s got enough to deal with as it is.”

  “Por cierto.” Clarence ticked his fingers in succession. “Blood on the ground, my knife, asshole cops, collapsing floors, a
nd now you, locked in the mine. This whole thing’s getting more screwed up by the minute.”

  “No more word from Hemphill?”

  “No. Which is good news, far as I’m concerned. The longer he stays away, the better. I say we pack our things as soon as we get back to town. Call it quits and get the hell out of here.”

  “They’ll just put out a warrant for your arrest—and you’ll look all the guiltier in their eyes.”

  “We still can’t leave?”

  “Sorry. We have to stand our ground.”

  Chuck made his apologies to Janelle as soon as he reentered cell-phone range in the truck, explaining that his return to the mine site to assure the tunnel door was secured in the wake of the floor collapse had taken longer than he’d anticipated.

  The anger in Janelle’s voice was unmistakable. “You’re a married man now. A father,” she said. “This waiting until you’re about to go out of service range before texting me? Totally unacceptable.”

  “I know,” he admitted. He steered the truck with one hand, trailing the taillights of the field school van as Clarence led the way. “It’s just, things are moving so fast. I’m thinking of stuff and making decisions on the fly.”

  “You know how much I like your independent streak,” she said, softening. “I appreciate the breathing room we give each other—just not too much, you got it? We’re a family now—you, me, the girls. I know it’s a balancing act, but you have to understand what that means.”

  Back at the cabin, he hosed off his pack and set it in the bed of the truck to dry, stripped off his filthy clothes and shoved them out of sight beneath the deck, and went inside for a shower. He was so tired by the time he crawled into bed that it was all he could do to kiss Janelle’s exposed ear, her head buried in her pillow, before collapsing. He fell asleep within seconds.

  His eyes sprang open at the buzz of an incoming text. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and squeezed it in his hand beneath his pillow, stifling its vibration. He lifted his head to check on Janelle, who shifted position beneath the covers, but didn’t wake up.

  He slid the phone into view. Less than an hour had passed since he’d fallen asleep. The text message was from Clarence: Noises outside between the dorms.

  Chuck slipped out of bed, eased the dresser drawers open to grab a fresh flannel shirt and pair of jeans, and crept downstairs and out the front door. He dressed on the deck and set off for Raven House on foot, lighting the way ahead with his phone.

  He stuck his phone in his pocket when he left the shadowed woods at the bottom of the drive. The moon, now high in the sky, provided plenty of light out in the open. He rounded the conference center and crossed the fields in the middle of the resort, aiming for the swath of buffalo grass between Falcon House and Raven House.

  He slowed as he angled between the buildings, choosing his steps with care. The windows were dark, most curtains drawn. Clarence’s face was visible behind the screen in the open window of his unlit, second-story room.

  Any more sounds? Chuck texted him.

  Clarence’s face turned downward as he texted his reply. No.

  Chuck pointed toward the rear of the dorms and texted, This way?

  Again Clarence’s head dipped. Yes.

  Chuck set off for the woods behind the dorms. He breathed through his mouth to accentuate his hearing as he stepped onto the paved path connecting Raven House and Falcon House with the single-story dining hall that served the residents of both dormitories. A thick stand of trees stretched around the cafeteria on three sides. Beyond the dining hall, the forest continued up and out of the valley and on into the national park to the west.

  He peered up the slope into the darkness. Somewhere in the trees above, a twig snapped. He turned his head, listening. A pair of whispering voices reached him, then went silent.

  He stood, unmoving, for long, agonizing seconds. Had what he thought were whispers merely been the night breeze sifting through the trees? Perhaps. But the snap of the twig had been real.

  He reached for his phone, thinking to shine its light into the trees in hopes of seeing—what? As he pulled his phone from his pocket, a blood-curdling shriek came from uphill in the forest, directly in front of him.

  SEVENTEEN

  The shriek cut off abruptly. Chuck charged off the sidewalk and up the slope into the woods. Before he could click on his phone light, an outstretched tree branch, invisible in the darkness, gouged his arm.

  He spun away from the branch and fell to his knees. Scrambling to his feet, he turned on his light, illuminating the few feet ahead of him.

  “Who’s there?” he cried out.

  He turned off the light and stood, panting, just inside the line of trees at the edge of the forest. The night air smelled of dust and pine. Moonlight broke through the trees, speckling the forest floor with gray.

  He stilled his breathing. A faint moan reached him from up the slope, then the sound of crunching pine needles as someone, invisible in the darkness, ran away.

  Chuck turned his phone light back on. Its beam penetrated the gloom, lighting only the immediate forest around him. He sprinted uphill, swerving around bushes and dodging tree trunks. He paused after fifty feet and swung his light in a circle.

  The crackling footfalls of the retreating person came from far up the slope. Another moan sounded in the darkness nearby, to Chuck’s left. He hurried toward the sound. Within ten yards, a pair of feet shod in white canvas tennis shoes, toes pointing upward, appeared at the edge of his phone’s small circle of light. He swept the beam up a pair of bare legs.

  He ran to the prostrate body. In the light of his phone, he recognized Nicoleta, one of the international workers from Falcon House, a cashier in the Lodge of the Rockies snack bar from whom he’d bought treats with Carmelita and Rosie on several occasions.

  Nicoleta lay on her back, her arms flung wide as if attempting to grip the sloping earth. She wore tight denim shorts and a red-and-white blouse. No—her blouse was white, but drenched with blood.

  Chuck dropped to his knees and scanned Nicoleta’s body with his light. A leering red slash ran from ear to ear beneath her chin. She’d been knifed or, perhaps, garroted. Whichever the case, her neck was cut so deeply that her head was nearly severed from her torso. Blood coursed from her wound, spreading into the pine needles that carpeted the forest floor and seeping downhill.

  Chuck gagged, nearly vomiting. He reached for Nicoleta but paused, his hand outstretched, unsure where or how to help her.

  Her entire body shuddered. She moaned again, producing little more than a wet, gurgling sound that came from her slashed throat rather than her mouth.

  Still holding his light, Chuck lifted the back of Nicoleta’s head with his free hand, attempting to close the grievous wound at her neck. The young woman looked blankly up at him before her eyes closed. He dropped his phone and took one of her hands in his, her palm slippery with blood. She exhaled a long, raspy breath from her severed windpipe and lay still.

  He rested her head on the ground and retrieved his light. He put his fingers to her neck above and below the slash but found no pulse. She did not take another breath.

  Chuck stared at the gaping wound on the young woman’s neck. No amount of chest compressions would be of any use. There was nothing he could do. Nicoleta was dead.

  He smoothed her dark hair, tucked her arms beside her body. He sat back, teetering on his haunches. The blue-white beam of another phone light bobbed up the slope toward him through the trees.

  “This way,” he called out, his voice shaking.

  Clarence spoke from behind the bouncing light. “Chuck. What the hell?”

  “Clarence,” Chuck replied dully. “Clarence,” he repeated.

  Chuck turned Nicoleta’s head gently to one side. No bruises discolored the china-white skin of her face. Save for the wound at her neck, she appeared asleep.

  Clarence stopped at Chuck’s side. His phone light joined Chuck’s in illuminating Nicoleta’s sti
ll form.

  “Dios mio,” Clarence breathed, standing over Chuck.

  “911,” Chuck said. “Call 911.” His brain kicked in before Clarence could dial. “No,” he corrected himself. “Don’t. You’re not here. You can’t be here.”

  Chuck punched the emergency number into his own blood-smeared phone and spoke to the dispatcher as if by rote, giving basic details, setting things in motion. He ended the call.

  Clarence stumbled off into the darkness. He leaned against a tree, his head hanging. After a moment, he returned to stand over Nicoleta. “She’s dead? You’re sure?”

  “Yes. I watched her as she…as she…there was nothing I could do.” Acid burned in Chuck’s throat. He fought for control. “Tell me what you heard down by the dorms. Be exact. I’ll tell the police when they get here.”

  His phone buzzed in his hand—the dispatcher calling him back. He didn’t answer.

  Clarence kept his eyes on Nicoleta while he spoke. “Somebody was arguing. They were behind the dorms. I was sleeping light, believe me.”

  “What did you see?”

  “The two of them on the walkway.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “I couldn’t see much in the darkness.”

  “Was there a struggle?”

  “They were pretty fired up, I could tell that much. So I texted you. But then the argument ended. It got real quiet and they headed up into the trees.”

  “Did you hear anything else?”