Ripple Effect: A Novel (32 page)

But I know he can’t. By the time Owens calls, questions us eighty times, and gets to the coordinates, Leison will be gone and three girls will be dead. We have no other option!

“I love you, Mom. Tell Adie I’ll be home soon to take care of her, okay?” I say to her.

“Don’t you hang up this phone, Cecily Wolf!”

I end the call and stare at the large tree once more. Its leaves rustle in the wind, even releasing a few here and there, and the clouds of gray behind it are awfully discouraging. Everything goes blurry and tears stream down my face as I shake silently with upset.

“Hey,” says Kelly.

I gasp and turn to look at him. I wipe the tears from my cheeks and try to smile.

“I found an Exacto knife for you.” The blade is extended—his way of telling me that it’s a viable weapon.

“Great,” I say quickly and take it from his hand. I stare at the shiny blade. “This will be great.”

Kelly rests his hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I just talked to my mom,” I answer.

Neither of us says anything. I play with the knife for another minute before I stick it in my front jean pocket.

“Let’s go,” I say quickly and Kelly nods. I push past him to go inside and round up the cavalry.

Staring at the cold and dark ground below me, I have to fight the swelling sensation in my throat and the tears that want to accompany it. Why is it so hard to be
brave?
I know that being brave is not about being fearless, but it’s starting to feel like neither is possible.

We pulled off to the side of a dirt road, one that hasn’t been in use for a while. Little weeds grow on the mound of dirt between the grooves, caused by the once-regular passing of vehicles. We are surrounded by dying shrubbery and tall trees, filled with flaming colors of fall. Beyond the forest is the mountain, tall and booming against the gray sky.

Fortunately it’s still early afternoon and we have plenty of light to see by—even if it’s all gray light.

We are at the beginning of the trail to the mine tunnel––where hopefully we’ll find Leison and the girls. All of this according to that map. This better not be a goose chase! Because I don’t want to freaking die right now!

Kelly is standing beside me and we are both staring up at the gray sky. I’m positive that I just heard a clap of thunder. I wrap my hand around his and squeeze tightly. I’m terrified, but I won’t cry.

“Have you ever been up to those old mines?” Kelly asks, pointing his finger at the large mountain before us, filled with the fiery colors of fall.

I shake my head. “Those mines killed my father. The only pieces of those mines I’ve experienced have been in horrible nightmares.”

Landon, paler than a vampire, is an odd contrast next to the Spanish Sabrina. Sabrina is leaning on him, like he is more than just a friend
.
I’m starting to realize just how arbitrary and meaningless all these social rules are. As weird as it is, I’m not one to judge.

“How cool would it be to find zombies in there?” Darien asks, slicking his dirty colored hair back.

Hazel elbows him in the ribs. “Not funny!”

“Let’s go, guys,” I say to the group before opening the back hatch of the car. We’ve stood here long enough, staring up at our imminent doom. I grab a backpack filled with stuff, like our makeshift weapons––screwdrivers, hammers, utensils, things like that––a flashlight, food for the girls, and whatnot.

“Your cell phone won’t work in there,” Stacy reminds me. She seemed to really want to help us, so I told her to meet us here. She got here about five minutes ago. The girl is definitely ill by her coloring, but I get the sense that it isn’t just an average cold.

I look down at the cell phone as I pull it from my pocket. She’s right. “Get the stuff together. I’m making another call to Owens.”

Everyone does as I say and gets ready for the hike. Alone, it will take about an hour to get up there. No one knows how long it will take to go through the tunnel.

Once again, all I get is his voicemail. “Agent Owens, it’s Cecily Wolf. We are going into the tunnel now,” I give him the coordinates, “and there is an old service road we are parked on. Please come as soon as you can. Something happened to the Sheriff. Um, yeah, just come here when you get this, because we don’t want to be dead. We’re just trying to buy you time, please don’t hate me. Okay. Bye!”

Kelly stands beside me and sighs. “No answer?”

I shake my head and pocket my phone. “Kelly, whatever happens in there I want you to know that––”

Hazel grabs my arm, completely unaware that I am about to tell Kelly that I really, really, care about him. “Come on, you two! Mack on each other’s faces later . . . we have people to save!”

My face flushes and I give Hazel a look of annoyance.

Kelly kisses my forehead. “Is everyone ready?” he asks.

Hazel points to the others and they are far past ready to go. “Come on already!”

I make an attempt to laugh lightly and I follow her. “Cool your jets. I didn’t know you were so excited to run into a serial killer again!”

Hazel drags me along to the mouth of the trail, the others hiking behind us. She looks at me seriously, as if she has finally figured out how scary this will be. “You sure about this?”

I start humming a song, one only familiar to Hazel and me.

Hazel nods and smiles at me. “We can do this.”

“I know we can.” I hug her tightly and can’t be more grateful for my best friend.

Landon and Darien pass us. “You’re so full of it . . .” Landon says.

“Not as full as you!” Darien jokes back.

They laugh together and head up the dirt trail. Obviously we didn’t get the memo. I’m thinking that they are like besties or something, like a bromance . . . or just united geeks?

Laughing, Hazel catches up with them and I stay back with Kelly, though Stacy and Sabrina are between us. Stacy is oddly quiet, but Sabrina is humming her own little song of hope, one that I think is Spanish based. I wonder if she is thinking about her mother as she hums . . .

You’d think that they could be quiet. We are sneaking into a cave that could potentially house the victims of a very violent serial killer. Did they forget that part?

They’re laughing and hooting and hollering, like the idiot teenagers that they are. Here I am on a stealth mission, and I find myself with the monkeys and the traveling circus. Watch out world! Here come the insufficient and erratically moody teenagers to thwart corrupt authorities, arrogant FBI agents, and evil itself!

“It’s pointless,” Kelly reminds me, when he sees how annoyed I am. “They won’t ever be quiet.”

I laugh and try to ease up a bit. What can I do about it? If Leison is already waiting for us, he’ll know we are coming either way. At least we can have one last laugh, one last hurrah before our encounter with the monster.

“Let’s call my uncle, one more time,” Kelly says quickly.

I wait patiently as he calls Owens, only to get a voicemail. He doesn’t bother leaving one and looks at me. Shrugging, he leans toward me and kisses me softly before taking my hand in his. “It was worth a try,” he says, and with that we continue up the mountain.

Some trees are bare; others are full of rich hues. Most plants are dwindling down and hold a yellow-green color. The ground is carbon rich from the decades and decades of old soot being poured down the side of the mountain, staining it black.

“Stop!” Kelly puts an arm out to stop me.

The rest of the gang finally shuts up for a half a second while Kelly squats down to look at the black soot-and-dirt ground. I bend to see the imprint of a boot in dried mud.

“That’s definitely a man’s foot,” Kelly mentions, touching the hardened footprint.

Hazel points to a rock that is just off the old trail. There is a reddish brown smear on its stony surface. “What’s on that rock?” she asks fearfully.

Darien checks it out. “Dried blood,” he replies, gulping loudly. “This is real life stuff.”

“It is,” Kelly says quietly, standing up. “We must be close.”

I look up the hill and see an opening in the side of the mountain, almost perfectly disguised by moss and greenery. It’s the mouth of the old mine. “Closer than you think,” I whisper. I can’t be more relieved or terrified at the same time.

Now, at last, there is silence. We hike the last few feet and pause at the opening, taking a breath. Everyone fidgets nervously. I stare out over the small city, and Kelly looks down at the darkened slope we just climbed.

“Does anyone else smell rose oil?” Stacy asks.

I look at her, surprised. “You know the smell of rose oil?”

“You think you’re the only one out to get Leison?”

Hazel, Sabrina, and I gasp loudly.

“You?” Sabrina asks, stepping towards her. “What does he have over your head?”

“My chance at being Valedictorian.” Stacy swallows a lump of tears.

It all snaps into place. The Slut, the Victim… and the
Brain.

“Why haven’t you told?” Sabrina asks, evaluating Stacy with hesitant eyes.

“Same reason you haven’t. I don’t want to be murdered or dragged to some mine to starve to death.”

Eerie chills swarm my skin. I should have known when I saw how pale she is. She’s been traumatized. “I wish you would have told us, Stacy.”

“How the crap did you stay so quiet?” Darien asks.

“When did it start for you?” Hazel wonders.

Stacy looks down with shame. “It started last week.”

“You knew all along, didn’t you?” My brow rises as I look at Sabrina and back to Stacy. “That’s why you were always there, like some sort of guardian angel?”

Looking up, Sabrina lets out a loud sigh. “So that one time when Ces fell out of his classroom—?”

I clear my throat, not wanting to talk about it.

“That’s when I started to figure out that something was wrong at the school,” Stacy says. She looks at Sabrina. “You were being beaten. Everyone knew it. And then it happened to Cecily. Something was wrong and it connected to Leison’s classroom.”

“No wonder you’re the Brain
.
” Sabrina then sniffs the air and makes a face. Her focus is back on the mission. I reach for Stacy’s hand and squeeze, flashing a sympathetic smile. “I hate that smell,” Sabrina hisses.

“I don’t think it’s just rose oil, Sabrina,” Landon says seriously, staring into the dark mine. An odd breeze whistles through the shaft; on it, the smell of death. “Something is rotting.”

“We should get in there. The sooner we’re in, the sooner we’re out,” Kelly says, taking the lead.

“Wait––hold up!” Darien blocks the way. “What if someone is already down there?”

He’s smart to think of that.

“Darien and Landon, you guys stay out here, okay?” I say. “That way you can run for help if we encounter the bad guys.”

They nod and accept the job with gratitude. Who wants to be stuck in the dark, spooky den of a serial killer anyway? I wish I could stay out here . . .

“Come on,” Kelly says to the rest. “Let’s get this done.”

Kelly leads the way down an old railway, used for transferring carts of coal out of the mine. Thankfully, there were enough flashlights for each of us to carry one. It’s cold in the mine and the opening is barely high enough for Kelly to walk through without slouching. All we see is black . . . nothing but black.

Then the scrape marks start to appear on the walls, deep gashes carved out by the miners. They look like marks made by giant monsters, clawing at the earth as they pass through the old mines to some ancient lair. I freak myself out and cling closer to Kelly.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that those types of monsters aren’t real.

A few more minutes and we hear something scraping the wall. We all stop to listen. It’s still there, ever so slightly. A rhythmic scratching is heard, back and forth, over and over.

Hazel sneezes suddenly. It echoes down the entire mine and my heart stops. “Sorry,” she squeaks.

And then we hear it, finally—the whimpering of soft voices. The missing girls!

I grab Kelly’s arm in shock, relief, and fear, while staring down the black mine tunnel. Is it really them? They must be terrified!

Kelly moves quickly now. After another few minutes, we find the source of the whimpers. We shine our lights on the ground to find three girls chained to one of the old wooden beams found along the walls of the tunnel.

I freeze and do a double-take. I have to cover my mouth with my hands as I stare at them. It’s as if I’ve seen this before in a nightmare.

They’re alive, but they seem to be barely breathing. They huddle tightly together, bound by fear and illness, on the cold ground. Their bodies are almost skeletal, their clothes torn, their hair matted and snarled. Brown, purple, and yellow bruises pattern their otherwise pale skin. But their eyes are the hardest to see—lifeless, spiritless . . . empty of any hope or light.

They are just shells of their former selves, broken and beaten into submission.

Sabrina falls to her knees and crawls to the one with black hair. “You’re safe,” she promises her.

The girl looks at her, slowly turning her head, and fixes her terrifyingly cold eyes upon her. Her head twitches slightly and she looks up to me.

Immediately, I take my pack off and set it on the ground. I bust out easy things to eat, like applesauce packets, and hand them to the girls. I encourage them to eat, even hold it up to their mouths for them. Their heads shake and they refuse the food we’ve given them.

“We’re here to help you,” I say quietly. “Please, eat.”

They look at me dully, as if they are too exhausted and malnourished to even think.

“Guys!” Darien suddenly yells down to us. “Some officers are here!”

I turn to Kelly, holding my breath. I’m too worried to celebrate.

“It’s not a good thing, either,” Landon yells, and that confirms my suspicions.

A loud pound echoes down the old tunnel, followed by Landon’s scream.

“Hazel?” I say, fear bleeding into my voice. “I think this is our epic disaster . . .”