Pete aimed his flashlight down the tunnel, but it revealed only a sharp bend some fifty yards ahead. “Okay, according to Lincoln, the next trap is a hidden pit. If we fall in, we die,” Pete said.
“Um, yeah, that sounds awful, so uh, what’s the plan for the pit, Pete?” David asked.
“Lincoln said once we turn the corner, the pit is twenty paces ahead.”
They all started walking in single file downward at a steep pitch. Once they rounded the corner, the small man-made tunnel funneled down to a cave that was obviously natural. It widened only slightly, but the ceiling rose higher – maybe twenty or thirty feet.
The smell was rancid, and the taste of the air was even worse, like a mix of feces and ammonia. Breanne knew that smell. She stopped short and pointed her light upward.
The entire ceiling was covered in bats.
The Petersburg kids gasped. “Oh my god. Please tell me those things are going to stay put?!” David asked, practically pressing his face into Paul’s back.
Paul shrugged him off and shot him a disapproving frown.
“It’s okay, David. Just move slow and be quiet. They will likely stay put until time to feed,” Breanne said.
“You’re not afraid of them?”
“I’ve been in caves and underground places all over the world – this isn’t the worst thing lurking in the dark,” Breanne said matter-of-factly.
David spun to face Breanne, his eyes widening in horror. “What? Really? You had to say that!”
Breanne laughed. For the first time since she danced with her father at the bottom of the Money Pit, she actually laughed. It felt good, for a second, but then the guilt washed over her. She had no right to laugh – not until her father was safe.
“So, when do these things feed?” David asked, turning his eyes resolutely forward.
“Usually, well, right around now, I would guess. They’re nocturnal, so—”
As if on cue, the cave erupted in shrill squeaks as the bats dropped from the ceiling, consuming the group in a cloud of flapping wings. David screamed at a pitch Breanne wouldn’t have thought possible for a boy. Everyone dropped to their hands and knees, ducking their heads. Everyone except Janis. She smiled and watched as the bats flipped their wings all around her. Within seconds nearly all the bats had evacuated the tunnel into the wet night air with the exception of one.
Breanne watched in horror as one lowly bat landed on David’s back.
David screeched and began flailing like a man on fire, blindly pushing past Paul, swatting frantically and screaming, “Get it off! Get it off me!”
“It’s okay, David, just stand still,” Breanne said, trying to calm him down.
“David, stop running! The pit, David! Stop!” Pete shouted, but it was no use. A second later, David dropped like a rock.
21
Red Rubies
Wednesday, April 6 – God Stones Day 1
Petersburg, Illinois
“David!” Pete shouted.
Everyone jumped to their feet and ran forward toward the pit.
The pit had been cleverly concealed with flat, thinly milled boards, then covered with dirt and, over time, a thick layer of bat guano. The old rotted boards collapsed easily under David’s weight.
Pete was the first to get to the edge. “David! Oh man! Hold on!”
“Help me, Pete! Jesus, help me! I’m going to fall! Shit! I’m going to fall!” he shouted as he clung to the edge of the pit, trying desperately to hold on.
Pete dove forward and grabbed David’s wrist just as his fingertips slipped off the edge. Pete couldn’t hold him and now he was being dragged headfirst over the side.
“Christ, Pete, don’t let me go, man. Please don’t let me go!” David pleaded, his eyes filled with a genuine fear.
“I’m not going to… let you… go! Guys… little help… please!”
Garrett and Lenny dove in unison, sliding on their stomachs, arms outstretched and fingers splayed, until they were clutching Pete’s ankles with both hands. For a long second, they hung there, not moving either up or down.
“Guys! I can’t see the bottom! I don’t think there is a bottom. Oh god! What if there isn’t a bottom?” David shouted.
“Don’t look… down… David,” Garrett grunted.
“Now you tell me not to look down. Now you tell me!”
Breanne was almost there when Paul made it to Pete and threw himself onto his stomach. He reached down, taking hold of one of David’s wrists, allowing Pete to secure David’s other wrist with both his hands. “Alright, David, we got you. We’re going to pull you up.”
Breanne was at the edge now on her hands and knees. Maybe she could help calm him down. “It’s okay, David, they have you – just relax.”
“I don’t want to be invisible anymore! I just want to be able to fly. Oh man, please let me get the power to fly,” David begged, his eyes locked with Breanne’s.
As Paul stretched out into the pit, his headlamp flashed over the side, panning across the bottom far below. It almost seemed as though she was looking down onto a twinkling city from a mountain top, but instead of white lights it was a city made of glittering red rubies. But the illusion shattered when she noticed the ruby lights were moving.
Breanne drew back involuntarily as her eyes widened and her breath hitched.
“What? What is it?!” David shouted, swiveling his head to look down.
“Don’t! David, don’t look. Look at me!” Breanne begged.
But it was too late.
David began kicking wildly at the wall. “Get me out! Get me out! Oh god, please get me out!”
“David, stop fighting us. You’re going to fall!” Pete shouted, unable to hold David’s wrist any longer. His hand slipped from Pete’s grasp.
David flailed and twisted, his back now facing the wall of the pit.
“Dammit, kid!” Paul shouted, now holding all his weight by one twisting wrist.
Breanne watched in horror as below him a thousand rat eyes shone in her brother’s headlamp.
David continued to flail.
“Guys, grab me and pull me back before we both go over!” Paul shouted.
Pete, Lenny, and Garrett jumped into action, grabbing Paul and together pulling a flailing David up and over the edge of the pit.
David lay there gasping.
“That’s twice in the last hour I have saved your ass, kid – don’t let there be a third!” Paul said.
Lenny was leaning out over the edge of the pit, shining his flashlight into its depths. “I’ve never seen river rats this big!”
Garrett joined him at the edge. “Yeah, well, I have once. Saw one dead in the road. Those things can get as big as a small dog. I’ve just never seen so many. You can’t even see the ground.”
Pete brushed himself off and peered over the side. “Well, look at it this way, David, I don’t think the rats would have been an issue for you had you fallen.” Pete pointed at the spikes sticking up from the floor of the pit. “You would have been shish-kebabbed by one of those spears long before the rats ate you.”
Breanne watched David’s eyes get big as the blood drained from his face.
“You think Lincoln dug this pit? It’s got to be twenty-five feet deep,” Garrett said.
Breanne eased over next to him and studied the pit. “No way. Even with his pal, that Bowling Green guy, it would have taken them years to dig this.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Lincoln only refurbished it. Tricked it out with spears. It was the Potawatomi who dug this pit long before Lincoln ever had anything to do with it,” Pete said, nodding his head at Breanne.
“Really?” Breanne asked skeptically.
“Yeah, that’s what I was telling you, this Native American kid told Lincoln all about this place and what was inside. He convinced him if it were ever discovered the world would end. He said his people fought to come back here to ensure the white man never found this place. The plan was already in place for Petersburg to be bui
lt practically right on top of the entrance, and the Sangamon River was becoming busier and busier with trade.
“Lincoln promised the boy he would find the entrance and conceal it. Of course, Lincoln didn’t fully believe the sensational story until he found the entrance right where the boy said he would and saw for himself what was inside. If Lincoln was anything, he was a man of honor – a man of his word. And even though it practically destroyed him, he took the secret to his grave… Well, except for the journal.”
Observing the distance across the pit, Lenny turned to the group. “Any ideas how in the hell we’re going to get across this pit? It’s way too wide to jump. Wait? Does anyone have superpower jumping abilities that I don’t know about? Paul?”
The lines on Paul’s face deepened into a frown. “What do you mean ‘Paul’?”
“Well, you have super-strength, right? Can you just jump across, or flex across, or maybe He-Man yourself across, or something?”
“I don’t know what He-Man myself across means, but sure, maybe I could jump across. However, I’m not planning to find out by trying to clear a – what? – thirty-some-foot jump over a rat-infested pit of death spikes. Besides, even if I could, that doesn’t get the rest of you across.”
Lenny held up his hands in surrender. “Fair point, bro.”
Pulling the backpack off his shoulders, Paul sat it on the ground and peered inside. “But I have an idea,” he said, pulling a coiled rope from the pack.
“Jesus, dude, is there anything you don’t have in there?” Lenny asked. “And why didn’t we use that to get down the embankment?”
Paul chuckled. “I served in the United States Army – we pride ourselves on being prepared. I knew we could get down the embankment without the rope and that we’d likely need it later. That’s one thing I learned while working on difficult dig sites in remote locations with my father – don’t leave your key gear at the top.” He paused, his smile fading, his thoughts momentarily drifting somewhere else.
Breanne watched her brother’s expression fall and a pang of pain shot through her heart.
Garrett forced a smile and gave Paul a slap on the shoulder. “Well, I’m glad you came prepared because other than a couple cheap flashlights, a screwdriver, and a hammer we’re about as unprepared as it gets. I’m curious though, you aren’t expecting that thin little rope to hold our weight, are you?”
“Of course it will hold us – this is military-grade climbing rope with a working load rate of eight hundred and twenty pounds.” Paul scowled, then yanked the rope in each direction as if to show how strong it was. “It’ll hold at least three or four of us at once, easily.”
David perked up. “I don’t think I like where this is going.”
Paul rummaged some hardware from his pack, quickly finding what he needed. “I’m going to scale the wall high enough to anchor in above your heads, then scale horizontally across the pit to the other side, cross to the other wall, and anchor off near the floor. You guys will then slide across on the rope,” he said, making a swiping motion with his hand, starting at his head and finishing near his waist.
Garrett nodded slowly. “How will we slide across the rope?”
Paul smiled and pointed at Garrett’s black belt. “That belt wraps around you twice, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Perfect – between you and Lenny we can cut enough lengths of belt for everyone to loop it over the rope and use it to slide across.”
“Wait a minute, bro, you expect us to cut our black belts into pieces?!” Lenny said.
Paul smiled. “Yes, that’s exactly what I expect.”
Breanne watched as Paul did something strange. He placed a hand on Lenny’s shoulder like a big brother might do – like Ed might have done when Paul was Lenny’s age.
“It’s just a belt, Lenny. Do you think I am less a soldier because I don’t have a uniform on? The belt doesn’t make you who you are. Take it away and you’re still a black belt, right?”
Lenny sighed then nodded and began reluctantly untying his belt. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Alright, guys, train your flashlights on the wall and give me as much light as possible.” Paul climbed the wall a few feet, then skillfully anchored a cam into a small fissure and knotted the rope. “Everyone listen up,” he said, jumping back to the ground. “I anchored this only high enough that you should all be able to easily climb to it.”
They looked up at the rope.
“Lenny, cut that belt into approximately twenty-four-inch pieces,” Paul said, passing Lenny a black-handled folding knife. “This is my baby, Lenny – take good care of it and get it back to me when we get to the other side.”
Lenny unfolded the knife, flicking it into place with a soft click. “Did you get this when you were in the military?”
“No, they don’t give you a knife like this one in the service. This one is special.”
Lenny nodded sharply and went to work cutting his belt.
No one else noticed, but Breanne saw her brother’s face sag just a little. Her brother Ed had given him that knife.
“Garrett, you too,” he said.
Garrett quickly untied his belt.
Paul motioned for Lenny to hand him a piece of the belt. “Pay attention, people. You’ll need to wrap one end around your hand, gripping it tightly like this,” he said, holding it in his left hand as he wrapped the belt around it. “Then I want you to loop it over the rope and wrap it around the other hand the same way. You have to do this right. If you try just holding it in your fist, it will slip out no matter how hard you squeeze.” He gazed sternly around at the group. “I repeat, if you don’t wrap it around your hand, it will slip.”
“Um, I was right. I don’t like this,” David said.
“Wait, we’re actually going to zip-line over that pit?” Janis asked.
Without acknowledging Janis’s question or checking for understanding, Paul started his horizontal scale of the wall. “You’ll need to hold on like your life depends on it and don’t let go until you hit the ground on the other side.”
Lenny finished cutting his belt and handed the knife to Garrett.
Paul was already halfway across the pit, making the climb look effortless. “Oh, and you probably shouldn’t look down either. Just shut your eyes and don’t open them until you hit the other side!” He jumped to the ground, crossed the tunnel, wedged an anchor into a crack close to the floor, and tied off the rope. “Okay, let’s do this!”
Lenny took the knife from Garrett, who was finished cutting up his belt, and tucked it firmly into the back pocket of his dobok before tying the staff onto his back. “Paul? Incoming!” Lenny shouted as he jumped up onto a jutting section of cavern wall and looped the segment of belt around over the rope, twisting to create the wrap Paul had shown them as if he had done it a thousand times.
Everyone watched anxiously.
“Careful, bro,” Garrett said.
Because moving at the speed of natural gravity wasn’t enough for Lenny, he kicked off the wall and whooped as he slid swiftly down the rope and across the pit, handing Paul his knife once he landed.
“Show-off!” Garrett shouted across the pit.
“Who’s next?” Paul asked.
Pete went next and everyone else followed – no one as effortlessly as Lenny, but all made it without any issues.
Even David crossed without incident, though he made sure everyone knew he hated every second. Once in flight, he let out a whoop of his own, but rather than mimicking Lenny’s shout of confident exhilaration, David’s came out more a shout of terror. He slid down the rope, landing hard on his ass, but he followed Paul’s instructions to the letter, keeping his eyes closed the entire time and not letting go. Once safely across, he still didn’t open his eyes or let go of the rope. He sat there, not daring to breathe, his hands still fixed on the belt, knuckles white.
Breanne knelt beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, David, you made it.”
David opened one eye, looked around, then let out a long breath.
“Alright, Pete what’s next?” Garrett asked.
“We walk. I’d say we still have a mile or so before we get to the temple entrance.”
“What about traps?” Breanne asked.
“Yeah, one more section, but it should be obvious.”
“How’s that?” Lenny asked.
“We’re going to get to a section that narrows. Lincoln lined the floor of the narrow section with fur traps.”
“You’re shitting me,” Garrett said.
“What do you mean ‘fur traps,’ Pete?” Breanne asked.
Pete lowered his voice as deep as he could to summon the voice of Lincoln. “In the narrow crevice, I placed several steel traps of varying size. I bound these traps by stake. As the years have passed, I no longer recall the number of traps I set forth. I know only that there were many. Or some shit like that,” he said, returning to his normal voice.
“Oh! You were doing Lincoln! I thought you were impersonating Darth Vader,” Lenny said.
“Wrong! I was impersonating your mom, asshole!”
“Hey, so how narrow is narrow?” Garrett asked. “I mean since we crossed the pit it has gotten narrower – we’re just a couple shoulder widths now.”
“And what does he mean by ‘varying sizes,’ Pete?” Janis asked.
“And please don’t answer in your Lincoln impersonation voice… ever again,” Lenny said.
“You mean your mom’s voice?” Pete said, punching Lenny in the shoulder.
“Alright, you guys!” Garrett said. “Pete, seriously? I don’t want to go walking blindly into these things.”
“Alright, alright, listen – you’re fine,” Pete said easily. “Lincoln said the tunnel narrows so that a man can barely fit through sideways.” He turned to Janis. “The varying sizes must mean animal sizes. Trappers use different size traps depending on the size of the animal. For example, you wouldn’t use a bear trap if you were trying to catch a rabbit, nor would you use a rabbit trap if you were trying to catch a bear.”
The Keepers Of The Light (God Stone Book 2) Page 16
