Summer Searcher

by M K Dymock

  That light dimmed—a rope dropped down the hole. Jen shot to her feet and grabbed her bag. Did she have time to flee, or would it be a fight?

  13

  Sol had been bested by a child, and it grated on him to no end.

  He’d managed to find the ledge where he’d discovered Ben a few days prior but could not find any trace of the cave house. He spent no small amount of time walking and then crawling through the brush. Still he couldn’t figure out how an eight-year-old with no skills and no tools had managed to climb above. After a few hours, he admitted defeat, pulled out his own rope, and began the ascent.

  The rope was more a precaution, as the cliff didn’t pose a huge challenge. He was a rock climber more out of necessity of the world he lived in, rather than chasing the adrenaline rush. He would minimize the danger.

  Sol pulled himself onto another ledge. The bushes sticking out of the cracks in the granite managed to grow thick, refusing to bow down to their difficult conditions. He examined the outside branches along the ledge until he finally found what he’d been searching for—a trail. Pieces of Ben’s shirt still stuck to broken branches.

  Forced to the ground by the thick growth, he crawled along until cold air filled his lungs. He faced a crack in the rock, barely big enough for a child and definitely not big enough for a man. Dim light shone into a space, proving the crack went somewhere; there had to be another way in.

  The ledge, minus the crack, was as smooth as if God had sandpapered it. A gap about a foot wide existed between the wall and the brush, and he took advantage of it. He followed it about twenty feet until the contours of the wall changed ever so slightly. A series of indents had been carved into the granite, each about a foot apart. Sol stepped into the first and then the second. These makeshift stairs hadn’t been created by accident. No longer needing the rope, he scaled the fifteen-foot cliff to another ledge only a few feet wide, ending at a hole.

  He peered down into the darkness, the only other light coming from the crack Ben must’ve crawled through. It was a sheer drop. Had there at some point been a ladder? With a rope and a few minutes’ time, he lowered himself into the cavernous room.

  His first step wasn’t on to rock but something soft and slinky. He jumped back and ducked his head to highlight the ground with his headlamp, fully expecting to see a coiled snake. Instead a rope lay under his feet. He squatted over it. The threads showed no wear. He traced around the rope with his finger—dust underneath, dust on the side, but no dust on top.

  He stood too fast, slamming his head into the rough surface above. Despite his hat, he managed to scrape part of his scalp. Sol swallowed his yelling by slamming his hand to his mouth. Was someone else in the cave?

  He slowly drew his sidearm and slipped off the safety.

  With the other hand, he took out a Mag light and shined it into each corner of the dwelling. The light bounced off the surface until it hit one spot in a far corner. A movement caught his eyes.

  Sol ran to the far wall, where the beam of light had disappeared into a hole. Next to the crack, a small handhold had been carved in a rock. He pulled, and a makeshift door opened with surprising ease.

  He ducked his head in and pushed the light into its farthest reaches. Something red flashed before it disappeared. There’s another way out. The narrow tunnel did not allow for much of a berth, so he stripped off his jacket and pack without thinking. Within a minute of first breaching the door, he crawled into the hole headfirst.

  His light shined on her brown eyes, startling her like a deer in the woods. “I found you.” His tone held more surprise than accusation.

  She dropped out of the light. He crawled after, the rocks scraping his elbows despite his thick flannel shirt. Between the rocks and the brush, he understood the stinging definition of death by a thousand cuts. He ignored them; he would not lose her again.

  He shined his light on the wall ahead of him; he should’ve been shining it on the ground beneath him. When the ground fell away, Sol had no warning. A few jagged rocks slowed his descent by tearing into the soft skin of his stomach. He landed in a heap, rolling into the fetal position. A jarring pain stole the last of his oxygen, and he lay immobile.

  14

  Merrell had never built a dwelling with only one exit. Jen ran to the far corner, her fingers sliding around the rock until she found the slip of a crack and pulled. A hole barely wider than her opened up to the main tunnel she’d searched before.

  Jen slipped backwards into the rock tube, giving up on pulling the slab tight behind her at the roar of an unexpected voice. The connecting tube between home and tunnel rendered a person almost motionless. All she could manage was a slow squirm back until it widened enough to stand.

  Less than ten feet through the narrow neck, her pants caught on the edges. A light shined through the hole, flashing on the rock ahead of her. She was running out of time. Her hips had filled out some since childhood.

  She slipped off her belt and squeezed out of her jacket, giving her an extra inch to squeeze through.

  Jen had moved back far enough to be out of the glare. A curse echoed through the rock with the scraping of a jacket. He’d followed her. His breathing felt like it was on top of her.

  The tube’s end dropped beneath her toes. She inched her way back. The drop was enough to injure someone unfamiliar with the mine’s turns—someone like him. She found the first ledge with her toes about four feet down. Now confident in her steps, she slipped her leg down for the next step.

  One jump and she hit bottom. Unfortunately, it was a lot longer than she’d remembered. Her butt slammed into the ground, and she literally bit into her tongue to keep from crying out.

  “I just want to talk.” The familiar voice ripped through her, and she bled out shame. She should’ve never asked that man for help.

  She crawled to her feet, pain shooting from her tailbone to her toes. Let him try to chase her through the underground, her world. Jen moved quicker now as the cave grew larger, making it a good twenty yards before she heard his body slam to the ground, followed by a groan. He’d found her fall but missed the first step. And it was a doozy.

  He cried out with an animal yell, whether pain or anger she couldn’t tell, and she wouldn’t wait around to find out.

  Jen waited until a scraping sound echoed around her. He had to be getting up, which would mean he would come after her. Anyone from the outside would be lost in a second in the larger cave. If he followed her, he would get what he deserved. She fled into the tunnels, purposely taking as many turns as she could.

  The cave didn’t allow for much oxygen, especially not this deep. Her gasps filled the air as she sank down onto the rock, trying to control her breathing. She tried to push down the guilt that overwhelmed her as she thought back on the one day they’d spent together.

  Once the rest of the police had showed up at the trailhead parking lot, they’d insisted she get her head checked out. She protested all day, but by dark she knew it would look odder if she didn’t. She acquiesced, but only to have a medic look at her, refusing to leave the mountain. The EMT, barely a man and younger than her, shined a light in her eyes and diagnosed her with a likely concussion.

  Someone, probably Sol, procured a sleeping bag and a tent for her, where she never slept but waited for dawn. By morning she’d reconsidered her ill-conceived decision to ask for help but figured running would attract way more attention at that point.

  She’d packed up her backpack and unzipped the tent. Sol sat on a nearby camp chair examining a map in the dark morning.

  “I’m going to find her,” he said by way of good morning, and, God help her, she’d believed him. Right up until he turned on her.

  That last morning of the search, she showed up at the sheriff’s office to ride up the mountain with him. He was arguing with his deputy.

  “I ran down her identity,” the deputy said.

  Her hand stopped short of the door handle. How stupid of her to give him her real name—c
oncussion or not.

  “She stole some dead kid’s identity,” he continued.

  “She lied about everything, didn’t she?” Sol voice carried straight into her. “Let’s bring her in. Cancel the search.” She’d fled the county and cursed herself for reaching out for help.

  Back at the other entrance of the mine, Jen caught what breath she could as she weighed her options. Nothing she’d done in the last few years had led her to her family. If she wanted to find them, she needed to go back to where it started. Merrell had learned about these mines long before they’d arrived. If she could find his notes, maybe she could find where they’d gone.

  She considered Sol in the cave behind her. If he tried to follow her out, he’d never discover the entrance. The labyrinth didn’t allow for mistakes. It didn’t matter, she told herself, he wasn’t her problem.

  By morning she’d be on a bus back home—her first home.

  15

  Sol’s heart pounded through every part of his body. Breathe, he reminded himself. A small gasp escaped his lips, accompanied by more pain than it was worth. The walls gathered around, and he couldn’t move an inch without hitting rock. His breaths came in spurts as he realized he could be lying in his own grave.

  Stop it; take inventory. Sol slowly counted to ten and then counted the things he had going for himself: his legs and his head were relatively unscathed, he could climb, and he wasn’t dead. But was he alone?

  “I’m still searching for her,” he yelled into the darkness. “If that matters at all. If you come back and help me out of this, we can work together.” He groaned, as it felt like his ribs were pushing through his skin.

  “You can’t leave me hurt in here!” he yelled. The nothingness of her answer spoke volumes. Despite all his years going it alone in the mountains, he’d never experienced such darkness and silence as he did while awaiting her reply.

  Sol took advantage of the solitude and screamed into the black void as he attempted to regain his feet and climb back up the hole. The pain threatened to rip him in half.

  At least he now knew where he stood with “Hylia.”

  He’d spent a good chunk of his life in some degree of danger, but he’d never known fear like this. He struggled to his feet and moved deeper into the cave, using the occasional old wooden beam to hold himself up. The wood was dank and soft, and he considered how much rock the beams held up and how close they were to collapsing. Several already had.

  At the second turn, he rethought his plan to follow her—knowing he’d never solve the labyrinth. The only way out was the hole he’d plummeted through.

  If he got out of this, he’d track her down and then the child—if she existed. Then he’d make sure that woman sat in a prison as dark and dank as this one.

  Sol attempted to climb out of the hole the woman had led him into. Twice he made it up five feet before falling into a screaming ball of agony on the sharp rocks below.

  He debated challenging the maze and going the other way but gave up on that. Knowing his only choice lay between climbing out or dying in the bottom gave him extra strength. Ignoring what felt like were his insides tearing open, he pulled himself hand over hand until he dragged himself into the original room.

  Daylight still slipped through the crack, meaning he hadn’t lost the entire day in that hole. He rolled onto his back, waiting for the pain to ebb and wondering if that would require him to spend the night.

  He took in his surroundings. The room appeared to be partly created by nature and partly carved out by hand. Shelves, large enough to sleep in, had been hollowed out in the rock. Four shelves were in one corner, two on each side—a makeshift bedroom.

  One of the lower ones must’ve been the “bed” Ben used. The boy couldn’t have found a better place to survive the wild than this. Other than an old hide, whoever had stayed here hadn’t left much else to be discovered.

  As protected as the spot was, Sol couldn’t imagine wintering in the hole. Ben was lucky he hadn’t disturbed a bear or a nest of snakes.

  Where had Ben found the toy? Other than the wrappers left by Ben, he didn’t spot any other sign of a child or a woman. Perhaps the toy was a remembrance of a different time. Sol himself had a stuffed bear he’d won for his wife at the summer fair during their year of marriage—a memory he both tried and refused to forget.

  He pulled himself into a sitting position, and his still-lit headlamp shined on the wall opposite him. Child drawings made with charcoal covered the walls. Dread replaced curiosity.

  Stick figures, square houses, and skinny trees filled the space. Some of the drawings, at least the higher up ones, had a more advanced level of skill. Those had faces that were filled out, eyes that were more than a dot. At the bottom were the scribbles of a toddler.

  Had one child visited this dwelling over the course of years, or had more than one child stayed here?

  Below one of the higher drawings of a woman with long hair and downcast eyes, a few letters appeared. Maybe an ‘m’ followed by an ‘l’. Had the artist tried to sign their name? The rest of the signature had been smudged out.

  Sol got up and stood within a few inches of the wall. A few of the other drawings had smudges, always in the corners. The images had been allowed to remain, but the names were erased. Where were the children now?

  The ‘m’ could be an ‘h’. The woman in the woods had called herself Hylia, a name they’d assumed had been fake but maybe not. Maybe they knew who she was all along.

  If he wanted to find her now, Sol would have to find who she was.

  16

  Jen was a quarter mile from the entrance when her confident stride faltered. Could she really leave Chapa in there?

  Cursing herself and him, she made her way back to the cabin. From a ridge opposite its entrance, she waited and watched. It took a few hours, but Sol eventually climbed out. With him no longer her problem, she turned her back on him and the mountains.

  Wasting no time and knowing he’d try to stop her, she thumbed her way to the highway and then got another ride to the Greyhound station a hundred miles away.

  Hours later, Jen stared out the bus window at the I-5 traffic rushing past, flinching every time a car changed lanes next to them. Definitely crazier than the Lost Gorge highway, which had a nature-induced speed limit of 25 miles per hour through the canyon. Any faster and a car would spin off the edge. Still way better than that month she spent as an Uber driver in Mexico City. She’d almost died daily and had sworn she’d never drive again.

  But the anxiety she felt driving in a city of nine million where she’d learned how to say hola only the week prior was nothing compared to the fear of going home. Her heart raced so much she could’ve pushed the diesel there herself.

  Seattle was the city of her birth but not her parents’. They’d moved in the late ’80s so her mom, Charlotte, could finish her medical residency. The timing proved fortuitous for her dad. The decade prior had witnessed the rise of the computer, and David, a man who spoke better in code than English, was guaranteed work. But, like the generation prior, he’d rather build his own computer in their garage than work for “the man.” It would be a few years before he realized how much the man owned him.

  Their parents worked out a mutually agreeable plan. Charlotte would work her ever-changing schedule at the hospital. David would take in contract work and build his own software that would one day, maybe, let them retire early. In the meantime, he would handle a lot of the heavy lifting of raising their infant daughter.

  With his thick beard and geeky awkwardness, David fit in well to the burgeoning tech world. Charlotte fit in everywhere, but she had that kind of personality. They eventually had Link and led a good life until it ended with Charlotte dead in their own bedroom.

  A few years after leaving the mountains and a few thousand miles away from Lost Gorge, Jen had borrowed a phone from her fellow bus passenger on her way to Mexico to look up news articles on her mother’s murder. She hadn’t dared before. Merre
ll had warned them about the Internet and its all-seeing eye every time they went into town for supplies. “We’d all have been safer being born a hundred years ago, maybe two hundred, to avoid the industrial revolution.”

  But Jen figured borrowing a cell phone couldn’t be traced back to her. The first article that came up, “Doctor Commits Suicide” made no sense. It detailed how her mother locked herself in her room and pulled the trigger. Jen hit the back button and found several other headlines blasting the same lie.

  Merrell had called her mother’s murder part of a larger plot against them. Told her and Link that as long as they still breathed they were in constant danger. Her mother’s murderer wouldn’t stop at her. Jen had believed him. Otherwise she would’ve left the mountains sooner than at twenty years old. But a few years of living outside his influence had grown her doubts, at least until she’d read that article.

  Jen knew it was a lie, knew that someone had covered up the truth. No one could ever convince her that her mother committed suicide any more than they could convince her the moon was the sun. She’d been there that day; she knew the truth.

  Returning to Seattle was an iffy proposition at best, but what choice did she have? Roaming the mountains in hopes of stumbling on her family hadn’t done any good. She had to go back to where it all started.

  Jennifer disembarked at the main bus terminal in Seattle. The marine layer from the Sound added a heaviness to the air the Rockies rarely experienced. She breathed in the briny smell and wondered how she’d gone so long without it. A light drizzle brought chills to her arms, and she zipped up her gray jacket.

  Greyhound could only get her so far, and she boarded a city bus to go the rest of the way north. The traffic backed up on Ship Canal Bridge, and a distant memory surfaced of riding a boat underneath on their way to Bainbridge. How long had it been since she’d been in an actual boat?