Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 02 - Apple Pots and Funeral Plots (15 page)

I couldn’t see where the mines actually were.
There were a few small mounds of dirt to the right, so I headed over.
I
wouldn’t go
into the mines — that would be stupid — but I could look in, especially since I had a light.

Shelby
ran behind me and I turned and yelled at her, “
Shelby
, come on.
Stay with me.”

I took a step backwards and heard the ground crunch under my feet.
I wasn’t concerned, since the ground had been crunching since I left the forest.
Then I felt myself start to fall backwards.
It seemed as if someone
pulled
the back of my shirt, but that wasn’t possible because I was all by myself.

My foot started to slip downward and the ground gave way.
I reached up and grabbed for some of the branches.
But they slipped through my fingers.
I tumbled down through the ground.
I screamed, but there wasn’t anyone to hear me except, maybe, the person who had pulled on my shirt.
After a few seconds I landed on the ground, fell backwards and hit my head.
Then the world went black.

Chapter 15

When I woke up, my head
pounded
again.
It was pitch dark and it felt like I
had landed
on a huge pointed rock.
I shifted my butt off the rock and onto the ground, then reached up and touched my head.

Great!
Now I had cut on the left side of my forehead.
It was more superficial than the last time and didn’t appear to be bleeding.
That was good.
And thank God I’d changed into long pants or my legs would have been cut up, too.
But I hurt all over again — after my body was just starting to recuperate from my car accident.

I glanced upward.
The hole I had fallen through was barely visible.
It was either very small or I’d fallen quite a few feet down.
I reached around on the floor and began searching for the helmet with the light.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find it, but I did find the sharp end of an ax that was lying on the ground.

Great!
My finger
was
bleeding.
Maybe I should forget the helmet light and just use my cell phone; hopefully it hadn’t been crushed in the fall.

I pulled it out of my pocket and it didn’t have a single crack in it.
That was a good sign.
I opened the phone and the
display read, No Service
.
What good is a cell phone if it never works when you need it to?
Last time I had bought an expensive cell phone so it would work at clown camp.
I returned it because I didn’t need it any more.
Maybe I should have kept it.

I put the cell phone back into my pocket.
Maybe it would work in another section of the mine.
Kate had told me that there were timbers that held up sections of the mine but I wasn’t sure how tall they were.
I was afraid to stand up and end up hitting my head again, so I crawled around the floor in search of the helmet.
The ground felt dusty, like it was covered in loose dirt, and had several pointed rocks protruding out of it.
I was sure I was cutting up my hands on the rocks, but I couldn’t just sit there and wait for someone to find me.
No one knew where I was.

The floor of the mine was also very uneven, sloping downward in several places.
I kept slipping and almost hitting my face on the ground.

Finally I felt the helmet.
I switched on the light; thankfully it hadn’t broken in the fall.
The shaft was illuminated.
There were timbers on the walls and ceiling.
The shaft looked at least ten feet tall, so I stood up.
I stretched my back and arms, trying to work out the aches that
had started
to set in because of the fall.

I went over and felt the timbers on the walls.
They were securely attached with rebar.
The place really looked stable.
I wondered how James could be caught in a cave-in in a mine so well constructed.

Shelby
was going nuts above me.
I could hear her barking up a storm.
It’s hard to herd something that disappears on you.

“
Shelby
!” I screamed.
“Go get help.”
Then I laughed.
I felt like I was in an old Lassie movie but instead of Timmy falling down the well, I had.

Suddenly I didn’t hear
Shelby
anymore.
Maybe she had actually gone for help?
That was a step in the right direction.
Now, I had two choices: sit down and wait for someone to rescue me or find my own way out.

Okay, I’m afraid that I doubted
Shelby
’s ability to go and actually find someone to help me.
And even if she did, how would she communicate to them that I had fallen down a hole and needed rescuing?
I glanced around the mine.
I had no idea what I was doing, but doing nothing was not an option.
I always tell the kids in my class to never give up, so I wasn’t going to either.

I might as well see if I could find my own way out.
I couldn’t get
more
lost, could I?

Thinking about all the stories I had read about Hansel and Gretel, I decided to mark the place where I’d landed.
That way if I ended up back here, I would know I
had walked
in circles.
But with what?
The only thing I had with me was my cell phone and one granola bar.
I didn’t want to leave the cell phone because I might be able to use that in some other section of the mine.
If I used the granola bar, some rat might come along and eat it, just like Hansel and Gretel’s bread.
I went back to where I had fallen into the mine and retrieve my walking stick and the ax.
Then I searched around the ground and found several small rocks.
I piled them up into a small hill.
Out of the top of the pile of rocks I put one small section of my walking stick that I had cut off with the ax.
It looked like a memorial with a flag post and no flag.
Then I went for a walk.

The scenery never changed.
All the walls and the ceilings looked exactly the same.
When I got to a fork in the road, I marked it with another pile of small rocks and two small sticks, then kept going.
In one section, I found a small stream of running water.
It probably wasn’t a good idea to take a drink.
Who knows what parasite was living happily in that water?
Better in the water than in my body, that’s for sure.

According to my cell phone I had been searching for a way out of the mine for over an hour and I still hadn’t seen any of my little rock piles.
This mine system must be massive.
In several places I found wooden tables against the walls.
I noticed that the tables didn’t have any dust on them.
It was like they had been recently used, except the mine had been closed for several decades.
It’s possible that James had used the tables, but he had been dead for five years, too.

On top of the table, I found an empty pack of cigarettes, possibly belonging to James or one of his students sneaking a cigarette during a mine excursion.
N
ext to the empty pack was an old Bic lighter.
I shook it.
It barely had any fluid left in it, but a lighter might come in handy if the light on my helmet went out.

Next to the table, I found a large pile of dust and touched it.
It contained tiny granules that felt like sand.
At the bottom I found a small piece of terracotta pottery with just a tiny spot of silver.
It looked like the handle from an apple pot.

That was weird.
What would an apple pot be doing in the mine?
Of course the festival has been going on for many years.
Maybe James used the pots for something when he led the excursions for the high school.
I’m sure people in town have several apple pots and use them for just about everything.

I put the piece of pottery into my pocket and kept on searching for a way out of the mine.
A few times I noticed one of the tiny mounds of rocks and sticks I
had
made.
Obviously,
I
had started
to go in circles, but each time I came to one of my marks, I’d go the other way and mark the entrance to that section of the mine with the next number of sticks.

Two hours later, I
came
across my piles at every turn, the light on my helmet was dimming, and I was exhausted.
Finally, I sat down on the ground next to one of the wooden tables.
My feet and back ached and I kept getting shooting pains down my legs.
My soreness could be from the fall or because I had on flip-flops, not the best choice of footwear for mine exploring.

I turned off the light, leaned my head against the wall, and sat in the darkness.
This wasn’t working.
If I kept walking, I
would
get more tired and eventually the light would go out.
I could eat the granola bar, but didn’t think that was a good idea until I was starving.
Who knows how long I’d be stuck in the mine?

I remembered what I had told Tom about sending up a smoke signal for help.
Never did I think I’d actually be doing it.
But how and where could I start the fire?
It probably was best to go back to where I fell into the mine.
But first I used the ax to break the wooden table into pieces.
I gathered up several of the pieces of wood and then backtracked, using the piles I had constructed.
When I got to a fork in the road, I’d follow the smaller numbered pile.
Eventually, I was back where I started.

When I reached the rocks with just one stick in it, the light on the helmet went totally out.
Great, now I had to build a fire in the dark.
Tom had taught me all these defense moves, but why hadn’t he taught me some survival skills?
I
would
put that on my list of things to learn next.

In the dark I tore off one of the sleeves of my long-sleeved shirt.
Would t-shirt material burn by itself?
Even the small amount of fluid in the lighter was definitely flammable, but if I broke the lighter would it still give me a flame to ignite the fluid?
I knew that some wood is treated with a pesticide to keep the termites from eating it.
If I lit the wood on fire, would the smoke be poisonous?
Die by starvation or poison?
Not a great choice!

My heart
beat
faster; it felt like it was trying to escape from my chest.
I couldn’t catch my breath, my head began
to pound harder, and panic set
in.
I was stuck in a mine, with no way to get out, and I wasn’t sure whether starting a fire would make matters better or worse.
I couldn’t sit and do nothing.
But I had to calm down first.

I slowly crawled back to the wall of the mine, sat against it, and leaned my head back.
I took in several deep breaths, slow and easy, and concentrated on my breathing.
Finally it returned to normal.
I had never had a panic attack before, but I was sure that’s exactly what had happened.
I sat there a while, allowing my entire body to relax.

Finally I crawled back to the middle of the room.
I needed to light that fire and I could always move away from the poisonous smoke, right?
Right!

First I tried to get the lighter to spark a flame –nothing.
My heart started to pound again, but I closed my eyes, breathed slowly and brought it back under control.
I shook the lighter and tried it again.
A small flame appeared.
I put the flame next to the shirtsleeve.
It wouldn’t catch fire.
Next I tried the wood.
It smoldered but wouldn’t catch fire either.
My only alternative was to break the lighter and hope there was enough fluid in it and that afterward I could still spark a flame and ignite the fluid.

I set the lighter on top of the pile of wood and shirtsleeve.
Then I hit the bottom of the lighter with the ax.
It shattered and the liquid oozed all over the fabric.
When I picked up the lighter, the liquid got all over my hands, too.
Okay, that wasn’t good.
If I sparked the lighter now, my hand would catch fire, too.

I tore off the other sleeve of my shirt and wrapped it around my hand.
Then I sparked the lighter, and held my breath.
There must have still been fluid in the lighter because a small flame popped up.
I lit the liquid on the sleeve and it started immediately.

It took a few minutes, but finally the wood ignited in flames, too.
The smoke didn’t smell funny but I had no idea what poisonous smoke would smell like, so I backed away from the fire and sat against the wall.
The flames were only a foot high, but they created a lot of smoke.
It went straight up and hopefully through the hole I had made when I fell into the shaft.

Several minutes went by.
It felt like an eternity.
My head
started
to feel numb and I was having trouble focusing my eyes.
Obviously the wood was treated with a poison and I’d chosen the way I
would
die.

That’s when I heard the most wonderful sound in the world – my dog’s bark.
I took back all the terrible things I had thought and said to her about her incessant barking.