by J K Ellem
“Well you kind of fell out of the sky in front of me,” Shaw said, his feeling of awkwardness increasing. “I really did nothing.”
Jessie smiled. “You saved my life. That’s twice now.” Jessie studied his face, wondering who the hell this person was. Where did he come from? Where had he been and why had it taken so damn long for their paths to cross? “You’re blushing,” Jessie said, feeling her warmth rising, transforming into something else at the sight of Shaw’s embarrassment. She swung her leg up and straddled him. She took his face in both her hands and kissed him hard. All the coldness she felt instantly seeped away from her body. She felt like she was covered in a blanket of warmth and safety.
“I’m cold, Ben.” She looked deep into his eyes. “You need to heat me up,” she said, her voice suddenly husky. Jessie wanted to forget what had happened, wipe it from her memory for a while. She needed this, she needed him, here, right now.
Shaw glanced sideways. “The ground is hard.”
“I don’t care.”
“It’s cold, I’m cold,” he said.
“Then do something about it.” Jessie unclipped her wet bra and pulled off her panties. “I need you now. I want to feel your warmth inside me.” She pulled him close.
“I might not be able to…” Shaw’s voice faded.
Reaching between his legs Jessie felt along Shaw’s thigh, her fingers soon finding what she wanted. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll have a problem.”
“Right here? Right now?” Shaw asked.
Jessie slowly nodded.
The ledge was narrow and hard, the air was cold, and the surroundings were unpleasant. But for Jessie, she had everything she’d ever wanted.
For the next twenty minutes Jessie felt like she was being gently caressed by a warm summer breeze while lying on a huge king-sized bed, sprawled on top of its soft deep mattress, surrounded by a sea of feathered pillows in the penthouse of a luxurious hotel.
That was the effect he had on her. He made her forget the bad things in her life.
They dressed in their damp clothes and Jessie’s skin was aglow with a lingering heat.
Panning the light above, Shaw noticed a depression on the side of the wall, maybe thirty feet above the ledge they stood on. He climbed up, the rugged wall offering easy handholds and footholds, and found it was actually a large concrete drainage pipe recessed into the rock. The pipe must have emptied excess ground water from above into the rock funnel, but it was now bone-dry. Shaw helped Jessie climb up but she needed no incentive to get out of the cold dark rock funnel that had nearly claimed her life.
Once inside the pipe, Shaw led the way. They crawled on their hands and knees, the flashlight guiding the way, the smooth concrete surface of the pipe angled upward slightly. Unlike the rock funnel they had left behind, the air inside the pipe was warm and, despite the cramped space, they made fast progress.
The pipe twisted and turned before ending at a large vertical grate. Jessie held the flashlight while Shaw inspected the sides around the grate. A series of latched hinges held it in place from the outside but they were rusted and worn with age. Shaw pivoted, then while sitting facing the grate he kicked it repeatedly with both feet. One corner latch broke free before the entire grate came away with an echoing clang.
Shadows pressed in around them, Shaw could sense a large structure looming over them once they were outside. They were standing in a huge concrete pit. Grimy walls rose up on all four sides. They were standing in a huge basin. Huge pipes fed into the basin and rising above them they could see a framework of steel gantries.
“What is this place?” Jessie whispered, her voice echoing off the walls.
“Looks like some sort of slurry pit, maybe where the coal used to be washed before going to the surface.” There was a network of conveyor belts on supports that ran along the upper framework.
“Let’s get out of here,” Shaw said, motioning with the flashlight to a steel ladder that was bolted to one wall.
The top of the ladder was at the bottom of some huge machine. Long steel plates, grinding mechanisms, rusty and seized with age, angled down toward them like an inverted church spire.
“This must be a newer part of the mine,” Shaw said. “Maybe dating back to the 1960s” The place certainly looked more modern than the older parts of the mine Shaw had passed through. Their voices echoed in the cavernous space. The air smelled of rust, raw metal, and coal dust.
They made their way up a series of steel ladders and staging platforms looking for an exit, but it was obvious they were still at the lower levels of the processing machinery. They paused on one platform then made their way across a narrow service gantry to the side of the structure. There, against the wall, they found a large safety placard. It was an old map of the processing plant area. It was faded and coated with years of grime and dust. Shaw wiped the map with his hand. Emergency exits were marked in red and Jessie felt her spirits lift when she saw a yellow dot marked “You are here.”
“Thank God,” she whispered.
“Four more levels up,” Shaw said, tracing his finger along the grimy map. “Then there’s an exit point here. Maybe an elevator, but I doubt it has worked for years. But there’ll be a way of climbing out.” The map only showed this section of the old mining operation, not where Shaw had been when he’d seen the school bus and Abasi Rasul.
“What about Tanner?” Jessie asked. Shaw looked at her in the beam of the light. He had to get her to the surface, out of this place, to safety. Then he would return, make his way back somehow to where the bus was. He had to. He didn’t need much of an imagination to realize what they were going to use it for. But when he told Jessie of his plans, she was furious.
“This is not your fight, Jessie… please.” Shaw tried to explain. But Jessie refused to leave him. “We’ve come this far, isn’t that the deal we made?” Jessie argued as she gave Shaw a defiant look.
There was no point trying to convince her otherwise, Shaw thought. She was certainly fiery and what she had endured in the last few days had given her a hardened edge.
Shaw conceded, and they made their way up the next set of stairs.
Two levels up, the configuration changed. The stairs to the next level above were on the far side, along a narrow gantry that spanned across the cavernous gap above the machinery and the concrete sink below.
Their footsteps clanged on the steel grating and partway across Shaw stopped and looked down. It was a two hundred foot drop to the huge concrete sink they had climbed out of.
Shaw placed his hand on the rail and felt a small vibration. Jessie was standing right behind him, not moving. Shaw turned and lifted the flashlight farther along the gantry.
The beam of light settled on a shape lumbering toward them. It was a man. The light caught his face that was twisted in a rictus snarl. His skull was deformed, one side peeled completely back, the skin torn away to reveal bone, gums, and teeth, like an anatomical diagram of the human face. The jaw hung cocked to one side, the face a Halloween mask of blood, spittle, and raw flesh. One arm, limp and deformed, hung by the man’s side, shattered bone protruding through the skin, a torn gash of meat. He looked heinous, monstrous.
Hoost had survived. He had bounced and battered off the walls of the narrow shaft but had managed to grab hold of a beam, halting his fall.
Though his body was broken and warped, limbs twisted and shattered yet his brain raged white hot and evil. Pure hatred the only thing keeping him alive until he found the person who was the cause of his grotesque injuries.
The blade of a knife glinted in Hoost’s good hand as he approached.
Shaw backed up slightly, and for the second time in two days, he told Jessie to run.
Unlike the last time when they were confronted by danger, she held her ground now, anger not fear welling up inside her.
59
It was much better than he had imagined. A lot better. Pritchard made his way back from the rock funnel, lantern held high. Shadows sk
ipped and danced as he walked, his mind buzzing.
He was going to use this place from now on. It was perfect. While the shed was convenient—with his tools close to hand and the location secluded —it was still cumbersome to dispose of the bodies.
While the nearest neighbor was a good two miles away, there was still a chance someone would see him digging the holes even under the cover of darkness.
But up here, up in this mine, no one would come up here, let alone find him. He could come and go as he pleased. And now he had a perfect way to dispose of the bodies. Just throw them into the rock funnel.
As he walked, Pritchard felt his spirits lift, his mind already mapping out the design of the new “workroom” he was going to set up in the mine. He had picked out a particular chamber he had seen. It was closer to the entrance of the rock funnel than where he had held Jessie. And next time he wouldn’t make the mistake of unchaining them.
And for next time he planned to use Freddy Monk. The kid was a sniveling little shit. With him out of the way, he would move on to the kid’s mother. Tight little bitch in that tight little waitress uniform. Pritchard could feel his loins stir just thinking about what Sally Monk wore underneath.
“Someone’s coming,” Ryder whispered. Ahead a curve of light bobbed towards them around the bend of the tunnel, like a slow approaching subway train. Then the crunch of heavy, confident footfalls.
Beth nodded. They both flipped off their flashlights and took aim at the edge of the curve, anticipating where the person who was walking toward them would emerge.
Swiftly Ryder pulled Beth sideways into a deep alcove. She had a better idea.
Pressed in behind a pile of waste rocks and discarded old timber, they crouched in the darkness and waited.
Voices drifted closer along the tunnel. People talking. One complaining, the other laughing.
Then two men came into view, both carrying semi-automatic rifles and flashlights. They continued past the alcove without glancing in, their voices eventually fading with the light as they turned and disappeared down another branch tunnel.
Once certain they were gone, Ryder and Beth emerged from the alcove.
“Who the hell were they?” Beth asked as they cautiously stepped back into the main tunnel. “I don’t know, but we’re going to find out,” Ryder said, her voice low. She could still make out the men’s voices. “We’re going to fall in behind them and see where they’re heading.”
Pritchard rounded a corner and entered the branch tunnel from the other side. Instantly he saw the silhouette of two people standing in the middle of the tunnel thirty feet in front of him, facing him.
The harsh glare of light hit him squarely in the eyes, blinding him for a second before he could react.
“Stop right there, pal,” came a voice.
Then another voice. “Put your hands where we can see them.”
Pritchard stood still, one hand shielding his face. Still bathing in the euphoria from throwing Jessie into the rock funnel and thoughts of what he was going to do to Freddy Monk and his mother, Pritchard had dropped his alertness, grown too confident. He certainly didn’t expect other people to be down here with him.
Treading cautiously, Ryder and Beth entered the branch tunnel. In the distance they could see the glow from the men’s flashlights, a shrinking yellow ring. They hung back in the shadows behind the two men and covered the ground as best they could without using their own lights.
Then the two men stopped dead ahead.
Ryder and Beth stopped too.
Beth strained to see what was happening in the darkness.
Another light appeared beyond where the two men were standing. The two men with rifles were talking to someone else in front of them. Maybe a colleague, Beth thought.
Words were exchanged, threats, then shouts.
Gunfire opened up, a crushing deafening sound that echoed and bounced off the walls, two shots in rapid succession.
Ryder and Beth split sideways, each taking an opposite wall.
Farther into the tunnel Beth could clearly see the silhouette of a single person now, not three, holding a light.
The person took one step forward, over something, then shot into the ground, twice more, left then right, on either side of where they stood, just to make sure.
The person paused for a moment, then started running toward where Ryder and Beth were crouching in the dark, coming straight at them, lantern in hand. Any second the person would see Ryder and Beth pressed up against the wall, guns raised.
At the very last moment Ryder flipped on her flashlight and so did Beth, painting the man with twin beams from opposite sides.
Beth’s heart jumped out of her chest when she saw the man’s face.
Pritchard didn’t stop, he just raised his gun again, and pointed at the shape on the right.
Beth fired from the left and kept firing.
Pritchard fired.
Ryder fired.
Rapid gunshots rang out, flashes strobed the walls, some shots controlled, many wayward, hectic, desperate attempts to kill. Chunks of concrete burst then sprayed the air.
The first shot hit Ryder in the thigh and she went down hard, dropping her flashlight.
Beth ducked then went to her stomach, shooting upward, a difficult angle, her flashlight moving wildly in her hand. Bullets screamed past her, she kept shooting through the mayhem, squeezing the trigger continuously, not stopping, determined to kill Pritchard.
Ryder rolled on the floor in pain, swearing.
Dropping a spent magazine, Beth reloaded but the shooting had stopped. Pritchard was surely dead on the ground, riddled with the onslaught of shots from her own gun.
The air cleared and Beth staggered to her feet, her ears ringing.
“Fuck!” Ryder screamed clutching her thigh, blood pouring through her fingers. Her gun fell from her hand, the pain excruciating. “Did you kill him?” Ryder groaned, her teeth gritted in pain, her only concern was killing Pritchard.
Beth ran to where Ryder lay. “Christ, Carolyn.” Beth knelt down. The material of one leg was sodden red. Beth took off her jacket and pressed it against the wound, ignoring Ryder’s grimace. Beth looked around.
Pritchard was gone, had vanished like a ghost, leaving behind the two men he had shot dead and an injured Ryder.
“Bastard’s gone,” Beth said in disbelief. She turned her attention back to Ryder.
“So I get shot for nothing,” Ryder gave a laugh that was more like a snarl, pain etched on her face. Beth peeled back the jacket, the blood started to ooze again, thick and dark.
“How did we not hit the prick?” Ryder cursed.
Beth covered the wound again and applied more pressure this time, trying to stem the flow of blood.
Ryder screamed.
Beth swiveled around, both hands pressing on Ryder’s leg. It was then she noticed another smaller tunnel off to the side where Pritchard had gone.
Ryder glanced up. “Go after him, Beth,” she hissed. “Find him and kill him. If you don’t, he’ll run. We’ll never catch him.”
Beth looked longingly at the tunnel where Pritchard had gone. Then she looked at Ryder on the floor, a river of blood seeping down her thigh, mixing with the dirt and dust on the ground.
“Go!” yelled Ryder. “Don’t worry about me. Kill him.”
It was a dilemma. Beth knew she could catch up with Pritchard, but she needed to go after him right now. She was certain she saw Pritchard shudder like he’d been hit. But Ryder would bleed out if she stayed here too long. There was a first aid kit in the SUV if she could just get to it and get back.
“I need to get you out of here and go for help,” Beth said, taking Ryder’s hand and placing it over the wound. “Keep pressure on the leg. Press down as hard as you can.”
“No shit.” Already Ryder’s face was covered in beads of sweat, her breathing shallow.
“I’m going for help.”
“No,” Ryder protested. “Go after him. I’m
sure I hit him. He’s injured.”
Beth’s mind screamed, torn with the indecision of hunting down the man who had haunted her nightmares for so long or going for help.
Beth stood, her mind made up. She slammed a fresh magazine into Ryder’s gun for her and placed it next to her.
“What are you doing?” Ryder asked, disbelief in her eyes. “Leave me. Go after him. I can’t walk. Come back for me later.”
Shaking her head, Beth took out her phone. There was no signal. No one knew they were here. Ryder had insisted on telling no one. No one was coming.
“Once I’m outside I’ll call Miller and tell him what’s happened.”
“No, Beth, get after Pritchard,” Ryder pleaded.
Beth knelt down again. “Like I said, keep pressure on the leg.” She touched Ryder’s face. “I’m getting you help, Carolyn. Nothing else matters now.”
Ryder could see the determination in Beth’s eyes. No amount of arguing was going to change it.
“Do you remember the way back? The rocks I left marking the turns?”
Beth nodded. The longer she stayed, the less time Ryder had. “Don’t go anywhere,” Beth said. “I still owe you that drink I promised.”
Ryder smiled, tears in her eyes, but not from the pain this time. “I’ll hold you to it, you know that.”
Beth nodded, checked her gun, then ran back along the tunnel.
60
Hoost edged along the gantry, dragging one leg behind him, his eyes focused on Shaw and Jessie, the blade held in front, slashing side to side.
Despite his injuries he was determined to kill Shaw, the woman was just an added bonus.
Shaw pushed Jessie farther back, then Hoost lunged forward. Shaw had to end it, here, now. With a flick of the wrist, the blade of the knife came at Shaw’s head, not fast, but determined.
Stepping to meet it, Shaw blocked Hoost’s arm, latched onto the man’s wrist, and snapped it back. Hoost couldn’t use his other arm to defend or retaliate to what Shaw did next. There was a loud crack of the wrist, then the knife tumbled over the railing and into the darkness below.
