by L. E. DeLano
I’m trying to walk as fast as I can, but there’s a tremendous amount of debris in some places. The Greaver mine was closed down sometime after the Great Depression when a collapse took the lives of over two dozen men and rendered the mine unusable. The owners lost everything between the collapse and the charges of negligence that faced their business afterward. The Greavers were all but run out of town at the time, ruined financially and socially. The mine has been boarded up ever since, with nothing done beyond the recovery of the bodies—the ones they were able to recover, anyway. I shudder at the thought of the ones that are still in here. Oh please, don’t let me see any bodies. And don’t let any of them be Finn.…
I’m so lost in that thought that I round a bend in the tunnel and a second later, I’m pulled backward as Ben grabs a fistful of my sweatshirt and yanks me toward him.
I start to let out a shout and immediately cover my mouth, hoping I didn’t alert Eversor, if she’s somewhere behind us. Ben steps forward carefully, peering over the edge of what looks like an elevator or maybe a ventilation shaft. I peer down with him, but it’s completely black. I take one of the glow sticks and drop it down. It takes a few seconds before I hear a muted splash and a very faint glow lights up the shaft. Well, at least we can see it now.
“You need to be more careful,” Ben urges. “We’re getting into the working areas now. There are going to be shafts and maybe even old explosives lying around. Watch your step.”
I nod, moving away from the edge. I won’t be any good to Finn if I’m dead at the bottom of a mine shaft.
We’re traveling more slowly now, and it’s maddening. Every second we take is another second that she can be closer to us. Or another second that Finn could be bleeding his life away. Ben stumbles over a pile of twisted metal that blended right into the rock and goes staggering, falling heavily into one of the posts. I grab him, steadying him before he falls any farther, and a rain of fine dust and tiny bits of rock falls all around us. I can see the outline of another shaft ahead. They must have them at certain intervals throughout the mine. I break open another glow stick, tossing it down the shaft so we can see it on the way back.
No wonder she chose this place. It’ll be easy to dispose of the bodies.
I suppress a shudder and we keep moving, and we’re doing fine for a while until I catch my arm on something sharp that’s sticking out from a wall. I let out a startled sound that seems to echo through the place in an astonishingly loud way.
It only takes a second, and I hear him.
It’s the faintest, strangled kind-of sound. One someone would make with a gag in their mouth.
“Finn!” His name bursts out from my lips, along with a sense of relief that it’s not too late. We find him a few hundred feet ahead, around another bend and just past another shaft. Ben grabs my glow stick to mark it as I rush over to yank the gag off Finn’s mouth. She’s tied his hands and feet, and he’s sitting against a wooden column that’s warped far more than I’m comfortable with.
“I need some light!” I crouch down next to him as Ben shines the flashlight on Finn’s wrists.
“Jessa,” Finn says quickly. “It’s Eversor! She’s—”
“She’s working for Rudy, I know.”
“Careful,” he says urgently. “Don’t yank too hard—this is a load-bearing column.”
“How did she get you?” I ask as I pull at the ropes, leaning down to get my teeth in them so I can untangle them. After a few moments, one of the knots starts to slip free and I’m able to tug it loose. Once his hands are free, Ben focuses the light on Finn’s ankles and Finn starts to work at the knots, but his fingers are too numb and much larger than mine. I push his hands aside and take over, conscious that every second we waste is one less second to get far away from here.
“She was watching your house. When she saw me, she knew we were both back.”
“Back?” Ben looks confused.
“How?” I ask.
“Because I wouldn’t have disappeared if you were here,” Finn says. “When I left to get coffee, she followed me to Mugsy’s. She came inside, told me she had a flat tire, and asked for my help to change it.”
Ben gave him a look. “That’s what you get for being a good guy,” he says.
“So I see you got my message?” Finn asks me, smiling. The action pulls at a cut on his cheek, and I see him grimace.
“Yes, and hopefully she doesn’t know that,” I answer him. I help him to his feet a bit clumsily, and then I slip my arms around him.
“Are you all right?” I hold him, reveling in the feel of him, safe in my arms.
“I am now.” He squeezes me tight. “You shouldn’t be here.” He looks across at Ben. “And you shouldn’t have brought her.”
“You ever try to talk her out of something?” Ben asks.
Finn raises his brows. “Good point.” He gives Ben a nod. “Thank you. I would imagine you have a lot of questions.”
Ben lets out a sound between his teeth. “That’s an understatement. But they can wait until we’re someplace safe.” He looks over at me, and then back to Finn. “Then we need to talk.”
“Fair enough,” Finn says. “Let’s get out of here.”
He takes my hand and indicates that Ben should lead the way, since he’s got the flashlight. I give Finn one of my glow sticks and start to move forward, but I slam into Ben, who has suddenly stopped moving. Finn’s hand jerks mine back, trying to pull me behind him.
“Jessa! Get back—”
He doesn’t need to finish. I can see her. Eversor is clearly visible in the light of Ben’s flashlight, and so is the gun she has trained at Finn’s head. I pull my hand away from his and step forward.
She maneuvers herself between us and any sort of escape, and then she sets a heavy glass lantern down on the rock floor, where it lights the room with a muted glow.
“Oh, but you’ve made it easy for me,” she coos. “All three in one place. I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me.”
“You’ve got to listen to me,” I say to her, smacking at Ben’s hand and pushing Finn with my shoulder as they both try to pull me back.
“You have such talent, Jessa,” she says almost sadly. “One of my favorite pupils, truly. But this is necessary. A necessary evil.”
“You can’t do this,” Finn tells her. “Think of all the repercussions.”
“We deal in trade-offs every day,” she snaps. “Stop this one from crossing the street, and they may go on to marry that one two years later. Remind that one’s child to return his overdue library book, and he’s kidnapped and murdered on his way to the public library by a serial killer. The tougher laws that come from public outcry save countless lives. We let people die every single day, and all for the greater good.”
“Rudy is lying to you,” Finn says evenly. “He lied to me, he lied to Jessa, he lied to Mario. What makes you think you’re getting accurate information?”
“There are rules!” Eversor exclaims. “Your Dreamer has a plan, and you follow the plan! Rudy wouldn’t lie.”
“Please…,” I plead. “We’re talking about people. We’re talking about families.” We’re talking about my family, I think but don’t say. “You’re going to help Rudy kill billions of people!”
“Not kill. Simply remove. Billions upon billions, if you also count their descendants.” She shrugs. “It’s the way we operate, Jessa. Surely you’ve learned this. We can’t get involved. Just consider this another job.” She smiles a little too wide to be anything but creepy. “But it is all for the greater good, you see? Rudy is doing this to simplify. We crave simplicity. It is in our very nature. He wants what is best for us all.”
Ben holds up his hands defensively and walks forward, keeping his eyes on the crazy teacher with the gun. “Listen,” he says cautiously, “I’m not part of this. And I left my truck out front. Any cop patrolling will see it. They’ll have to come check things out.”
She gestures with the gun, motioning for him to get back,
and he does.
“And what a shame when they find what’s left of your bodies in the mine, buried under a collapse.” She steps forward to tap on the wooden column gently with the edge of the gun, drawing our eyes to the deep score marks she must have put there earlier. “Once I’ve taken care of you, this will only need one good push. Teenagers are always ignoring warning signs.” She makes a tsk-tsk sound with her tongue. “And your poor mother, Jessa! Meeting two boys here at the same time? What will she think of you?”
I have a sudden picture in my mind of my mom and Danny, standing alone outside the mine, with their arms around each other. I can feel their grief like a living thing, eating my insides, and I am burning with anger. As furious as I am about what Rudy is trying to do to me, the effect on my family just seems so much worse, for some reason. And what about Ben’s family?
Finn has no family, not anymore—but he has me. He has me, and I will stand for him. I will stand for him, and for all my families, across all the realities. None of them deserve this.
I back up a little, snaking my hand behind me and feeling around until it lands on a crumbling crevice in the rock wall. I push back and feel the edge of a good-sized stone. I start working it with my fingers behind me, back and forth, rocking it to free it. It’s not much, but it’s the only weapon I’ve got.
“You’re a Traveler,” Finn says. He’s got one eye on me and he’s clearly trying to stall her. “You of all people should know that actions have consequences—and not always good ones.”
“We lose a little more every day as each world splinters and fragments and re-forms into other realities. The possibilities are becoming too infinite. We must return to a state of control. Rudy is the only one brave enough to make the tough choices. The ones that will restore order.”
I dig my fingers farther under the rock, feel warm blood on my fingers as I tear up my knuckles, but it’s starting to shift now. Back and forth, back and forth …
“Oh, but it is such a shame about you, Finn,” she says apologetically. “You had such promise. Rudy always thought so.”
“I don’t give a damn what Rudy thinks,” Finn snaps. “And you’re a fool to believe anything he says.”
“Year after year, century after century,” she says with a flamboyant gesture of her hand. “We hesitate and we doubt ourselves, making only the smallest changes, the ones with the least risk. We need a leader who isn’t afraid to take those risks, to move mankind forward with purpose and vision. To make the sacrifices that must be made. You, Jessa, are one of those sacrifices.”
She sighs, and her face settles into determined lines. As she centers the gun and squeezes the trigger, I pull my arm back and throw the rock as hard as I can.
I hit her wrist, sending the shot wide and making her drop the gun. Ben is closest. He and Eversor both make a dive for it, but my eyes are on Finn as he staggers back, slamming into the wooden post and raining dirt and small rocks on us. He’s clutching his shoulder, and blood is running down his arm.
“Finn!”
“It’s only a graze,” he says. Then his eyes widen as he looks past me. “Ben! Don’t let her—”
I whirl just in time to see Ben holding the gun on Eversor, who has crawled over to the lantern. She puts her hand to the reflective glass, and in the blink of an eye, she vanishes.
The gun drops to the ground with a clatter as Ben stares, openmouthed. “What the hell!” he says in disbelief. He turns to look at us. “What just happened?”
But there’s no time to answer him. A second later, a cracking sound turns into thunder as the post crumples and rock rains down all around us.
“Run!” Finn shouts, as everything shakes. A giant cloud engulfs us, throwing dirt and debris into our mouths and eyes. I feel a hand latch on to my arm, yanking hard, and we run, coughing and feeling our way along the wall. Ben’s foresight with the glow sticks helps to dimly illuminate the way out, and we stumble forward until the air begins to settle. It’s still so thick, I can’t see much, and the dust chokes my throat as I hold on to that hand like a lifeline.
I swipe at my eyes as the flashlight switches on, shining first on me, then around. It’s reflecting off the dust, but it’s enough light for me to see that it’s Ben’s hand I’m holding. The flashlight is in his other hand.
And I can’t see Finn.
I call his name once, then again, coughing to clear my lungs so I can call him louder.
Ben’s hand tightens on mine.
“Jessa,” he coughs.
I wave my other hand, trying to clear some more of the dust, and I look around wildly.
“Finn!” I call out again. “Finn!”
I pull my hand from Ben’s so I can feel my way along the wall and back the way we came, but he moves to get in front of me.
“Don’t go back there,” he says grimly. “Stay here—I’ll look.”
“No! Finn!”
I push past him and I am running, stumbling, falling to a pile of rock and debris so monstrously wide and tall, it’s impassable. I skid to a stop, tearing up my knees as I scream Finn’s name. I’m grabbing rocks and throwing them, determined to dig my way through.
“Stop!” Ben’s voice is urgent behind me. “You might bring more of it down! Stop!”
But I’ve found him. I’ve found his arm and it’s ominously still. Ben shines the flashlight down, and he reaches across me, putting his fingers to the wrist to feel for a pulse. He pulls his hand away, and something breaks inside me as he silently shakes his head.
“No! No! No, please! Finn!” I squeeze his hand, willing life back into it. “Finn. Finn.”
I begin throwing rocks like a madwoman; my fingernails break off and blood pours from my knuckles. I can feel the pile shifting and sliding, sending rocks down that bounce and strike me.
“Jessa! We have to get out of here!”
I can hear Ben’s voice, but I’ve got to get to Finn. It can’t be too late. It can’t be.
“Jessa,” Ben says urgently, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me back. “Come on! We need to get out of here. It’s still not safe!”
“I didn’t get to say good-bye.” I can hear my voice echo off the walls, high-pitched and shrieking. “We didn’t even say good-bye!”
The rocks shift again, sliding fast and covering Finn’s body completely as Ben drags me, kicking and fighting, through the tunnel. The mountain groans and shudders around us, but I can barely hear it over my own screams.
We emerge into the bright light of day, and I fall to my knees, so full of anguish I’m sure I’m going to die of it. I stuff my fist against my mouth to keep from screaming again. I know if I let myself start, I’ll never be able to stop.
Ben drops to his knees next to me.
“Are you okay, St. Clair?” His hand comes up to gently smooth back my hair. “Jessa?”
I can’t answer him. I hear him let out a huge breath as he pushes to his feet and digs out his phone.
“We have to call the police,” he says, pacing. “But I … I mean … how do I explain about Eversor? I don’t even…”
My head snaps up. “You can’t do that.”
“We have to tell them about Finn,” he says quietly. “His family will be looking for him.”
“He doesn’t have a family,” I say, and the pain washes over me again. “He didn’t have a family. He was alone.”
“What are you saying?” he splutters. “We can’t just—”
“He didn’t belong here!” I shout. “He shouldn’t have been here! He only came here to save me and now he’s gone!”
I cross my arms to my chest, and my forehead meets the ground again. “He’s gone.” I say it again, as I rock and rock, fighting with everything I have to keep it all in and failing as the tears pour from my eyes. I feel Ben’s hand on my back, and I cry for a very, very long time. Finally, I can’t cry anymore.
“You need to tell me what’s going on,” I hear Ben say softly. “All of it.”
“You�
��ll never believe me,” I answer, not even bothering to look up. “None of it will make any sense to you.”
“None of it makes any sense now,” he retorts. “A crazy teacher threatened your family, tried to murder us all, and disappeared before my eyes! What the hell!”
“My family!” I reach out, gripping his hand. “Ben, my family! Please—take me to my mom—and Danny. Please! I’ll tell you everything—just … later, okay? I need to know they’re safe.”
He pulls me to my feet, and we run for the truck. As we drive away, my eyes linger on the mine, and the coldness inside me spreads, leaving me hollow.
45
Aftermath
It’s a five-minute drive to the retirement home, and to my relief, my mom and Danny are fine. Mom is a little shaken when she gets a look at us—filthy, scratched, and bleeding. My numbed mind can’t even come up with anything, so Ben does it for me.
He tells her I was researching another ghost story, and he’d agreed to drive me to a spot in the foothills on our lunch break. We’d taken a tumble down a slope, so he brought me straight to her.
She bought it, but she’s pretty pissed at me for my carelessness, considering my arm still isn’t entirely better. I can’t stop shaking, and while she calls me out of school and goes to collect Danny, Ben makes me drink a cup of coffee from the vending machine. He watches over me like a mother hen as I drink every bit of it.
We follow Mom and Danny home, and we both sit quietly as she fusses over our scrapes and cleans and bandages all our scratches. Once we’ve both washed up, we stand staring at each other in the living room, and I have no idea what to say.
The last thing I want to do is talk. A curious numbness has set in. I can hear Danny starting up a game of Mario Kart in the other room, and I’m absurdly grateful for the background noise. I’m too empty to be surrounded by quiet.
Ben sits down on the couch next to me, wrapping an arm around me and pulling my head to his shoulder.
