by Steven Bird
Once Nate was back in a position of cover, Jessie quickly moved forward while Nate covered him. The two men continued this series of movements, but could not keep Britney and her captor in sight.
“What the hell is this?” Nate asked, urging Jessie to join up with him.
“It looks like a paw print, but it’s the size of a human’s foot.”
“I saw the same thing back where you were ambushed,” answered Jessie.
“You reckon this goes along with the get-up that guy, or thing, was wearing?”
Shaking his head, Jessie responded, “I’d imagine that’s the only sane answer. Not that sanity has a place in this world.”
Moving a little farther forward, Nate came across what could only be assumed to be the drag marks made by a kicking and screaming unwilling participant. “We’re not gonna catch back up with them,” he concluded. “We're gonna have to just stay on their trail and figure out where they’re going.”
“Why the hell would they have cut Hank’s saddle off?” Jessie wondered aloud. “I mean, if you were going to take the horse and the saddlebags, why not the saddle?”
“A diversion maybe?” Nate pondered. “We did stop our pursuit to check it out.”
“Ah, who the hell knows?” Jessie grumbled. “This whole thing is nuts. Let’s just keep moving and worry about figuring it all out after we get her back.”
Pressing on, Nate and Jessie worked their way through the woods, following the trail left behind by Britney and her captor, determined to return her to safety, a cause they would see through to the end, regardless of the cost.
Chapter Six
Awakening to a throbbing headache, Britney felt her body surge forward. Struggling to move, she quickly realized her hands and feet were bound and tied by two separate lengths of rope. Screaming in terror, she heard her voice echo in the darkness that surrounded her.
The figure dragging her through the dark, damp place grunted as if to show aggravation with her cries and struggles. For fear of reprisal, she suppressed her protest and just lay there, being dragged along in the darkness.
Attempting to survey her surroundings without the benefit of light, Britney could feel that she was being dragged along on some sort of animal hide or rug. Every sound seemed to echo as if she was in an enclosed space. There was a total absence of light—she was in total, utter darkness. She wondered for a moment if she had been blinded by the apparent blow to her head that had caused her unconsciousness.
Her surroundings felt damp and cool. The air was calm, with virtually no wind, merely the occasional cool draft. She was inside, but inside of what? The rough, uneven surface was certainly no floor. She could hear the echo of dripping water. There was something familiar about the strangeness of this place. But what was it?
She was startled to feel several hands grab her and heave her body several feet. She landed on a cold, metal surface, slamming her heard against a hard, rib-like structure. The surface moved side to side, and she could hear the sound of water lapping against it from its motion.
A boat! she thought, still confused as to why she couldn’t see.
Feeling one of the figures that had tossed her step into the boat alongside her, causing it to rock side to side, she recoiled and cowered the best she could, silently fighting against her restraints.
Hearing the sounds of a paddle or oar entering and exiting the water to propel the boat forward, she looked toward the sound and saw a faint green glow of light around what she could only assume was the face of one of her abductors. The sight both confused and horrified her.
Try as she must, Britney couldn’t make out any details, just the faintest glow of light. At least I’m not blind, she assured herself.
After what she could only assume was traveling by boat for several minutes, she was grabbed once again and lifted up. No longer feeling the rocking motion of the boat, she presumed the figures holding her were now standing on dry land.
One of the figures heaved her up and onto his shoulder. The man, assuming it was a man, seemed very large and strong to her.
Feeling herself freefall, she impacted the ground once again. Her body ached, and she struggled to regain her breath as she felt the sensation of being dragged along the floor on a rug or a fur once again. Rolling to her side, she reached out with her bound hands to feel the cool, damp sensation of rock and grit.
Allowing her hands to drag across the ground, she felt an object and took hold of it with her fingers, picking it up. What is this? she wondered as she felt the long, slender object. When the weight and feel of the object became apparent to her, her hands instantly released it, thinking, bone! as chills ran up her spine and shivers flowed through her body.
When the dragging sensation abruptly stopped, strong hands once again took hold of her, heaving her onto the figure’s broad shoulders. She could feel the rhythmic motion of footsteps, with the occasional stumble. While she was carried through the darkness, she intermittently grazed against what felt like rocks above her as the overhead clearance of the space was low.
Bent over the large figure’s shoulder, feeling the impact in her ribs with every step, Britney could smell a musky, animalistic, dirty scent, as if the figure carrying her was a beast and not a man at all.
Feeling the figure come to a sudden stop, Britney was tossed back onto the ground. Stunned by the impact, she could hear the sound of chains clanking together as she felt a hand pull her by the foot and fasten some sort of metal restraint around her leg.
Once the hand released her, everything went silent save for the sound of droplets of water splashing as they dripped from above.
Her mind raced, and she felt her senses, out of the sheer desperation of her unknown circumstances, becoming almost hypersensitive to her surroundings. Britney began to smell several foul odors. The smell of what she assumed was human waste began to waft through the confined space, as did the smell of urine, and what she could only assume was putrid, rotting meat.
Jerking her head in an attempt to shake a fly from her face, Britney heard a weak, raspy voice say, “I think they’re gone.”
Startled, she flinched, quickly turning her head toward the source of the sound. “Who… who’s there?” she asked in a quivering, panic-stricken voice.
“Don’t worry. I can’t hurt you,” the voice assured her. “I’m bound, like you,” the young-sounding man’s voice continued with the sound of rattling chains permeating the space. “See? I’m chained down the same as you.”
“Where… where are we?”
“My guess is Hell,” the voice lamented. “And those were the demons.”
“Stop it!” she snapped, in no mood to have her emotions toyed with.
“You’ll see,” the mysterious person in the darkness sighed in defeat.
“Are there others here?”
“There were several. Now it’s just him and me… well, and you.”
“Was? Who’s him?” she asked.
“There’s a guy to my left. I hear his chains move every now and then, but he won’t talk. A boy named Trent was here until yesterday. There were several others before that.”
“Where… where did he go?” she asked, almost afraid of the potential answer.
“They took him.”
“They? Where?”
“Wherever it is, it’s not far from here. It’s… down here, wherever here is. When I got here, there were other people in chains. Every other day, at least, from what my mind perceives as days, one of them was taken away. Not long after, the screams would start, and grow in intensity until they just stopped. You never even hear a whimper after they cease. Something bad happens. I don’t know what, but they never come back.
“Based on how things work, I’m probably the next to go. To be honest, I’m ready. I can’t take this anymore. It’s hell. It’s a maddening hell,” he lamented as his voice began to crack.
Wanting to get as much information from the strange voice in the darkness as she could, Britney asked, �
�What’s your name?”
Pausing, the voice replied, “Greg. Greg Toliver. Or at least I was, at one time.”
“I’m Britney,” she responded, in her best attempt at a friendly and calming voice.
“I’m sorry,” Greg replied.
“Sorry?”
“Sorry that you’re here,” he sobbed.
Britney could only imagine why Greg was beginning to weep.
In an attempt to keep the exchange of information going, Britney asked, “So, where are you from, Greg?”
“Memphis,” he replied. “My parents and I lived in a suburb on the southeast side of Memphis—not too far from the airport.”
“I heard Memphis was hit pretty hard during the attacks,” she blurted out, though quickly realizing her error.
Hearing a sniffle, she heard Greg shuffle a bit and then say, “Yeah, my dad never made it home from work that day. He was killed by one of the gunmen. I still can’t believe the world got so evil so fast. Leading up to that, it seemed like the country was a powder keg, just waiting for a match. Neighbors were turned against neighbors by the powers-that-be. School shootings, protests turned to riots… it was obvious something was going to happen. So when a busload of gunmen were unleashed on downtown, well, I guess we really weren’t all that surprised it happened. I was just surprised my dad got caught up in it. I’d always pictured him being there for us, no matter what.
“My mother and I joined up with my uncle and his wife. He was a marine before becoming a cop, so we knew we would be in good hands with him. Or at least, we thought we were. He was killed in the middle of the night in our camp when a group of strangers tried to rob our group. My aunt couldn’t take it after all the losses and insanity. She took her own life a few days later.
“From there, my mother and I traveled east, heading for the hills, I guess. You know, that’s what everyone always joked they’d do, when and if the shit hit the fan. Head for the hills and live off the land,” he scoffed.
Hearing him try to regain his composure, Britney empathized, “I lost both of my parents recently.”
“I guess we’ve got a lot more in common than just being here,” he fretted.
“Yeah. I guess,” she sheepishly replied. “The foreigners kept moving us from one refugee camp to another, with promises of having better resources. That was a lie, of course. They bussed us out into the middle of nowhere where there were no prying eyes, where they planned to murder everyone in cold blood. Women, children, the elderly, it didn’t matter one bit to them. It was like we were merely cattle being brought to slaughter. Every single person on the bus…all, except for me.”
Hearing her begin to sob in the darkness, Greg stammered, “That’s… that’s… I just can’t begin to grasp how things could come to that. How did you escape? How were you the only one to get away?”
Clearing her throat, she explained, “A group of men, a militia, I believe, killed the UF soldiers and rescued me. It was only minutes later when a counterattack killed all but one of the militiamen. It was awful. Me and Nate—he’s the militia guy—met up with a man on horseback who helped us to get away. It was like something straight out of a western. It didn’t even seem real to me. Then again, none of this seems real. I was with both of them until we were ambushed and a big man covered in fur brought me here.”
“I wish I could say something stupid like, ‘don’t worry,’ we’ll be fine,’ but we won’t. I’ve accepted that, and I just want to get it over with,” he conceded.
“It!?” she exclaimed. “What’s it? What do you want to get over with?”
“Like I explained, whatever happens when they scream. I look forward to the moment when I no longer scream. When I’m no longer hungry, suffering, or in pain. I look forward to the time when I’m finally at peace. Even if we somehow escaped from this hell hole and got away from here, something else bad would happen. I mean, look at your story. You were supposedly being taken care of, and…”
Hearing someone in chains moving around in the darkness, Greg said, “That’s him. He spoke a few words the other day, but nothing since.”
“Hello, over there,” Britney called out, attempting to get the other stranger in the darkness to talk.
“It’s no use,” Greg grumbled. “I’ve tried. He doesn’t even cry anymore. At first, he wouldn’t stop. He cried for what seemed like a solid day. Now…now, nothing. Nothing but a few rattles of his chains here and there.”
Laying her head back on the cold, dark rock behind her, Britney contemplated everything Greg had told her. Was this it? Was this where she would meet her fate? Why? Why would God bring her out of the hands of the UF only to leave her here, in this pit of utter darkness and despair, to die a miserable death? She couldn’t accept that. She couldn’t accept the fact that she would meet her end here, in this all too real version of Hell.
Chapter Seven
Following the trail, Jessie and Nate worked their way down the rocky hill toward what appeared to be a clearing ahead. “I’ve lost it,” Jessie grumbled as he frantically scanned the ground for signs of Britney and her captor.
“Over here,” Nate gestured, pushing his way through the overgrown brush toward the face of a cliff.
The clearing they could see through the trees was approximately fifty feet below their elevation. Between them and the clearing was a steep rock cliff that cut back and underneath, almost like a shelf or an overhang.
“We need to find our way down to the bottom,” Jessie suggested, trying to spot an obvious path. “We may be able to pick up the trail again down there. It’s all rock between here and there. That won’t help at all.”
“This way,” Nate decided, working his way along the edge of the drop, hanging onto roots and trees as he went, until reaching a switchback that led them toward the clearing below.
Reaching the base of the cliff, they looked around for tracks or signs of Britney or her captor’s presence, to no avail.
Nestled along the bottom of the rocky cliff was a seam of limestone that sloped downward toward the level area below. At the base of the rock face, where it met the limestone seam, was an opening. “Check this out,” Nate said, pointing toward the opening. “And there are those crazy footprints,” he declared, pointing at the fine, powdery dirt and rock debris surrounding the opening.
“Is that a cave?” Jessie asked.
“It appears to be,” Nate replied while cautiously looking inside. “This area is riddled with cave systems. As a matter of fact, Tennessee has more caves than any other state, and that’s saying something, considering the fact that it’s not even close to being the largest state in terms of size.
“The mapped and documented caves number above eight-thousand, I believe. A cave on our homestead saved our bacon during an attack on us once. It served as the perfect place for folks to hide and live during the peak of the fighting.
“I’m not from here,” Nate continued, “but someone explained to me that this part of the country was under a shallow sea millions of years ago. Sediment from that sea formed the limestone layer that lies so close to the surface throughout the area. When the tectonic plates shifted and pushed the mountains up, it formed the widened passages through the limestone, and the subterranean streams ate away at it until it formed the elaborate cave system beneath us. There are rivers and even lakes underground here. Several of them became big tourist attractions for the area, such as Forbidden Caverns, which isn’t too far at all from here, and the Lost Sea down in Sweetwater.”
“Hmmm,” Jessie pondered. “Well, if I wanted a secure and secluded hideaway, a cave system would be on the list.”
As Nate worked his way closer to the cave’s entrance to get a better look inside, Jessie reminded him, “Be careful, we’re sitting ducks out here, and there’s a good chance someone in there is drawing a bead on you this very moment.”
Thinking the situation over, Nate turned to Jessie, and declared, “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“What?�
� Jessie asked. “That we have to go inside?”
“Yep, I’m afraid so,” Nate concluded.
“Damn, I don’t wanna go crawling in there, but…”
“Yeah. Trust me, I know,” explained Nate. “But if those tunnel rats back in Vietnam could go crawling into a tunnel they knew was probably boobie-trapped or full of VC, we can do this.”
With a sigh, Jessie agreed, “Yes. Yes, we can.”
Looking around, Nate determined, “We’re gonna need some light.”
“Let’s step away from the cave for a moment,” urged Jessie while he pulled his pack off his shoulder. With his back against some large rocks for cover, Jessie knelt down, then looked up at Nate, saying, “Keep an eye out while I do this.”
“Do what?”
“I’d prefer a flashlight, but usable batteries aren’t readily available at the moment. I’m gonna unleash my inner Indiana Jones,” Jessie quipped, with a sly grin while unzipping his bag.
Seeing that Jessie was beginning to work on some sort of small project, Nate said, “Don’t you mean your inner MacGyver?”
With a chuckle, Jessie shook his head. Removing a small, brown bottle from the main compartment of the pack, Jessie placed it aside and then removed a roll of cloth bandages from a pocket on the side of his pack. Placing a lighter off to the side as well, he said, “Now, we just need a handle.”
Looking around, he saw a young tree with a trunk at around two inches in diameter. Removing his hatchet from his pack, he quickly chopped through it and then fashioned a handle approximately two feet in length.
Placing the handle between his knees, Jesse took the cloth bandage and began wrapping it tightly around the handle. “You probably know this, but the trick here is to get the wrap really tight. If it’s loose, it’ll burn too fast.”
Once he had the bandage wrapped tightly and with sufficient thickness, Jessie placed it aside and opened the brown bottle.
“What’s that?” Nate asked.
