Inhabited (31 page)

“Why?” Travis asked. “Let’s see if we can get out of here.”

“Just do it,” she said.

Travis cut the engine and they were dropped into silence again. After being outside, the interior of the car felt claustrophobic. Justin itched to get back out. He felt trapped in there.

“I’m with Travis,” Justin said. “I say we see if we can get out of here. Like you said, it doesn’t look like they want to get inside the Jeep, and we got here just fine.”

“What happens if we break down?” Kristin asked. “This vehicle has been put through the ringer. Half the windows are busted out. You think we’ll last if the engine gives out while we’re driving through one of those shadow traps?”

“I don’t know,” Travis said. “Maybe.”

“Yeah, and maybe not,” she said.

“Why do you think it’s any safer to stay here?” Justin asked. “As far as we know, we’re better off hiding behind that rock like we were. I don’t get what the point of this is.” He tried to open the other rear door, but the crushed roof was holding his door shut. Justin knocked away the broken glass and began to slip through to the night.

“She wants to wait,” Travis said.

Justin dropped back in. “What?”

“She wants to wait for Carlos. She still thinks he’s coming out,” Travis said.

“But we yelled forever,” Justin said. “Seriously?”

Kristin looked away. She didn’t meet their eyes as she answered. “Don’t you think we have an obligation to see if he comes out? We have to warn him about the thing, don’t we?”

“He knows about the thing,” Justin said. “He’s the one who told us. He’s got his eyes shut and everything. Trust me, he’s fine.”

“I don’t want to leave him,” she said.

Justin and Travis looked at each other.
 

Travis was the one who spoke first. “Then don’t. You wait here behind that rock. We’ll drive out and get help, right? We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

“You guys would seriously leave me here alone?” Kristin asked. “That’s cold.”

“It’s practical,” Justin said. “I mean, it’s a risk either way, right? We will increase our odds of survival if we try both things.”

“Yeah. That makes sense,” Travis said.

Kristin covered her face with her hands. “Why did I let you guys talk me into this? This whole trip was a horrible mistake.”

“Hey,” Justin said. “This was everyone’s mistake. Don’t blame us. Are we going to split up or stay together?”

“I don’t want to split up,” Kristin said. “I don’t want to be alone out here again, okay?”

“Fine, but we’re going to try driving away,” Justin said.

Travis scratched the side of his nose while he squinted. “I don’t know. Maybe we could stay for just a little bit. We could see if Carlos gets up the nerve. If we see that thing coming out of the mine again, we’ll back away in a hurry, right?”

Justin let out a disgusted sigh. “You guys are crazy.”

“Twenty minutes. Half-hour, tops,” Travis said.

Justin shook his head.

T
HEY
STOOD
OVER
IT
.

“Whose flag is that?” Roger asked.

“Purple and red is J-2. Aaron and Kevin,” Florida said.

Roger turned his weak light to the wall where the drop stamp was mounted.

“Hey!” he said, turning. “Try the…” he cut himself off.
 

Florida was already pushing the switch on the radio. “Command, this is team J-6. Request radio check. Over.”

Roger raised his eyebrows as he waited. Florida wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Command, this is team J-6. Request radio check. Over.”

The radio crackled with static. “J-6 this is Command. Where have you been? We’re ready to pack up for the day. Over.”

A radiant smile broke over Florida’s face. They locked eyes. Roger beamed his own smile back. His headlight winked out. He slapped the side of his helmet and it came back on with one last gasp of electricity. Roger shook his head and smiled again.

“Command this is J-6. We’re a little lost. We’re at a flag of J-2 at the moment. Can we get some help here? Over.”

“J-6 stay put. We’re going to send a team out on J-2’s path. Confirm—J-2’s path. Over.”

“Yes, we’re on J-2. That’s purple and red. We’re going to stay put. Over.”

“J-6, we will check in by radio on the fives. Over and out.”

Florida’s shoulders fell as she let out a big sigh.

She wandered over to the wall and pressed her back against it. She slowly eased down to a seat. Roger limped over and eyed the floor. He decided to stand.

“You think we can move a little farther away from that crack?” Roger asked.

“Nope,” Florida said. “I’m going to stay within an arm’s length of that flag and I’m not going to stop looking at it until help arrives. And you’re going to stay right here with me.”

Roger nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He didn’t settle to the floor, but he leaned back against the wall next to her. “They’re going to shit their pants when we tell them about Carlos and everything.”

Florida nodded. “We didn’t run. We didn’t panic.”

“Well, you ran a little, but it wasn’t out of panic,” Roger said.

“When they ask, we stayed together. We followed protocol and stayed together,” she said. “We’ll tell them that someone took your pack. Maybe it was Carlos. Hell, it was almost certainly Carlos. He was probably tracking us all day.”

“What about measurements and stuff? We didn’t take any readings past the hangman’s cave,” Roger said.

“Maybe we did,” she said. “Maybe the readings were stolen with your bag. Maybe we followed every protocol. Then you get paid and I get credit.”

Roger nodded. “That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

The radio crackled. Florida jumped and then smiled. She picked it up.

“J-6, we are en route. Confirm that you’re still on a J-2 flag. Over.”

She pushed the switch. “That’s right, Command. We’re sitting on a J-2 flag. Over.” Florida looked up to Roger as an idea occurred to her. She whispered to him without triggering the radio. “You can get the ID from the drop stamp. They’ll know how far along we are.”

Roger turned and looked at the drop stamp. His light flickered and went out again. He hit the side of his helmet and it came back one more time. He read the ID and Florida relayed it by radio back to Command. They waited for a response.

“J-6, did you say 7812-217? Over.”

“That’s right, Command. 7812-217. Over.”

They waited. Florida whispered, “That’s it, right?”

Roger confirmed the stamp ID and then nodded.

“J-6, that’s not a valid stamp ID. Are you sure you’re reading it right? Over.”

Florida got to her feet quickly and joined Roger. He beat the side of his helmet as his light went out again. Florida shushed him and read the ID for herself.
 

“Command, I’m looking at the ID. It is absolutely number 7812-217. Over.”

Her statement was met with a long silence from the radio. Florida held it up with both hands, like she was about to begin praying to the thing.
 

It finally crackled again and the friendly voice came from the speaker. “No worries, J-6. We’ll get everything sorted out when we get to you. Over and out.”

Florida ran her fingers over the raised numbers on the drop stamp. She looked at Roger and then looked back at it.

“Weird,” she said.

“I wish they would hurry up and get here,” Roger said.
 

“It can’t take more than a few minutes,” Florida said.

Roger took off his helmet. In the faint light from Florida’s headlamp, he took out the batteries. He blew on the ends, flipped them, and stuck them back in.

“You didn’t honestly think that was going to work, did you?” she asked.

“Worth a shot,” he said. He flipped the switch on and off. Nothing happened. “Maybe we should light a flare or something?”

Florida shrugged and then took off her pack. She began to sort through it. “You know, it’s not a terrible idea. They’ll definitely be able to see us from a distance with one of these. They don’t last too long, but they are really bright.”

She handed a flare over to Roger. He moved closer so he could read the instructions.
 

“Huh. It expired,” he said. “Typical. Put my back to the wind—right. This burns about fifteen minutes. Is that long enough?”

“I’ve got three. Go ahead.”

Roger followed the instructions and struck the abrasive cap against the of the flare. It was like lighting a giant match. The flare burned with a bright, noisy, red flame. Roger set it down and waved his hand in the air to disperse some of the smoke.

Florida put her arm across her nose and shrank down to the floor. Roger moved next to her.

“That’s a lot of smoke,” he said.

“And a lot of light.”

Roger turned and looked up the length of the tunnel. Aside from the smoke, he decided that the flare was a very bad idea. The shadows danced in the red light. The tunnel looked like a decent approximation of what Hell might look like.
 

“Look at that,” Florida said. She sat up straight.

“I know. It’s creepy, right?”

“No, I mean look at the flag,” she said.

Roger shrugged. “What about it?”

“With the red light from the flare, the colors look black and white. That’s the flag of group F-6, I think.”

“So?”

“How yellow were our lights when I looked at the flag before? I told them purple and red. Maybe it was blue and orange or something. Maybe the dim color of my headlamp was making me see the colors wrong.”

“You’re crazy. I saw purple and red too.”

“Yeah, using the same yellow light.”

“Calm down,” Roger said. “I’m sure that they’re on their way.”

“But what if that’s why they didn’t recognize the stamp ID?”

Roger exhaled. “Okay. Get on the radio and tell them that the color might be wrong. Maybe they have another way for us to identify which path we’re on. Better safe than sorry.”

“Yeah,” she said. She nodded. “Exactly.” She keyed the radio. “Command? This is J-6. We’re unsure about the flag color. When we spoke earlier, we said we were on a purple and red flag, but our lights were pretty dim? We’re unsure of the color. Is there another way to verify the color?”

She turned up the radio and waited for a response.

Roger whispered, “Color is a silly way to identify anything underground. You’d think they would put braille or something on the flag, you know?”

“Do you know braille?” Florida asked.

“No, but…”

Florida held up a finger and raised the radio when it began to crackle. She narrowed her eyes when no voices emerged from the device.

“Command, this is J-6? Over.”

She put the radio up to her ear. At first, the sound was so faint that it was indiscernible from the background static. A single note emerged. The voice swelled from the speaker. Florida pulled the radio away from her ear. Roger drew close and they listened as the moan broke into a chorus of screams. They couldn’t identify individual words or voices in the din. The radio emitted a sounds of horrible torture and chaos.

“Command?” Florida asked. When she let go of the button, the screams came through even louder. They filled the mine.

A
CCORDING
TO
THE
CLOCK
on the dashboard of the Jeep, they only waited five minutes. Travis was bouncing his knee, Kristin was compulsively turning her head to look in every direction, and Justin counted off the seconds.
 

“Okay, we gotta go,” Travis said.

“Yeah,” Kristin said. “Okay, I changed my mind. Let’s go get help. We can come back for him.”

“Good,” Justin said. “You’re finally making some sense.”

Travis turned the key. The Jeep fired right up. The engine seemed to be okay, but when Travis put it in gear, it was clear that the Jeep had taken some damage. They heard a grinding noise as he backed away from the entrance of the mine and turned the Jeep around.

Kristin spun in her seat to keep an eye on the entrance as Travis pulled away.

Justin climbed over the seat and brushed away debris so he could sit in the passenger’s seat. Kristin kept watch behind them. Travis drove in silence, sitting forward in his seat and concentrating on the dirt road ahead of them. Each time the Jeep bounced, one of the headlights flickered. Finally, it went out. Travis found the switch for the high beams. The remaining headlight did a decent job of showing their path.

“What happens when I get to the shadow trap?” Travis asked. “Should I drive right through it?”

“We made it through before,” Kristin said.

Travis and Justin looked at each other.

“Yeah. Fuck it,” Justin said. “Go fast.”

Travis nodded. He increased their speed. On the next bump, a crack split the windshield. Travis leaned to the side to see better. Justin pulled his seatbelt across and then thought better of it. They saw the turn ahead. The road descended into a little dip and then rose again. On the other side, next to the hill where they’d seen Kristin, they saw the place where the big shadow trap stretched across the road. Kristin leaned forward and Travis sped up a little more.
 

They all studied the road ahead, trying to guess where the shadow trap began.
 

When the Jeep bounced over a bump in the road, Justin gave a shout at the sound. The Jeep sped on. Travis guided the vehicle around the turn and down another hill. When they started to climb again, Kristin spun around and looked at the hill they had just passed.

“We’re by it,” she said.

“Yes!” Justin said.

Travis nodded and didn’t take any of his focus from the road ahead. They bounced over a rough patch of road and the backend of the Jeep began to get a little squirrelly. Travis eased off the accelerator and loosened his death-grip slightly. Over the crest of the next hill, they saw lights in the distance.

“That’s the highway,” Justin said. He banged his hand down on the dashboard. Justin moved up to the edge of his seat. “Holy shit, I was starting to think we would never make it, you know?” Justin turned back to smile at Kristin.