Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 01:27:27 +0000 From: Michael Offutt Subject: Wraith Chapter Five - Gay Science Fiction All the usual copyright stuff applies. I appreciate you, dear reader. Email: kavrik@hotmail.com Website: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html Twitter: @MichaelOffutt Author's Note: If you visit my website, there is a picture of Jordan that I drew myself in the gif image (website link above). You will also find a link to a blog post I wrote on Kolin and killsuits (with a pic of him I drew myself). "Wraith" uses characters featured in the science- fiction novel "SLIPSTREAM" by yours truly. Both of these stories are based off of the events established in the short story, "The Insanity of Zero" also published on the Nifty Archive. If you haven't read it, please check it out because it explains SO much. ***** Chapter Five Rocks that ranged in size from that of a human toe to some as large as a horse obstructed their path to freedom. Even when the tunnel widened, they came across places that could barely accommodate them, extolling a cost of skin from naked elbows and hands. Hours had passed by the time they reached the edge of the abyss that Jordan recalled on the map. He believed it to be about a hundred feet wide, and it fell into an indiscernible depth. Behind Jordan's shoulder, the walls rose steep, sheer, and unmerciful into a cavernous expanse swallowed in shadow. A span of wooden timbers extended over the gulf, reinforced by cables anchored into the ceiling. Jordan tried to imagine mine carts rolling along on the tracks, over the bridge, and into tunnels where workers loaded them with ore. Despite the cold, sweat rolled off his brow and into his eyes. He could almost hear the pickaxes and smell the explosives the miners would have used. "Let's stop a moment and rest," Kathy said. "I'm hungry, and I've been listening to your stomach growl for the last hour." She plopped down next to the abrupt edge of the ravine and fished out what little food Ashley had packed for them. She found a single plastic bag with some dried fruit in it and two pieces of beef jerky. Kathy handed Jordan some of each and took the rest for herself. As they chewed-on in silence, she passed the water bottle over to him. Both of them didn't say much, but they thought the same thing. "You afraid of heights?" She asked him at long last. He shook his head. "I got on the super swing at the amusement park at Six Flags remember? You were too much of a coward to go with me." "I was not. I-It's just that I didn't have the twelve bucks extra, and since the park admission didn't cover that particular ride, I didn't see the sense in borrowing the money." Jordan squinted his eyes in joy, recalling that memory as if it had occurred just yesterday. "I could have lent you the money. Admit it, you were afraid." "I was not," she said, taking back the water bottle and drinking from it. Jordan continued to stare at her. "W-Well, maybe just a little." Jordan's eyes smiled. "If the truth of the matter be known, I was a little afraid too. I guess that's what made the ride fun, but in the end, I did it. I don't think I'd do it again, though. It was a one-time thing." A long pause followed and they both finished up what little food they had. It was the kind of silence that would normally have gone unnoticed in a crowded room with background noise to fill in the gaps between conversations. But in the mine, there wasn't any of this, and it was clear that they both thought of Kolin and what had happened to him. But neither one of them wanted to mention it. "Are you having fun now?" she asked him, staring out over the gulf of darkness. She directed the flashlight along the ceiling where webs still shrouded the rocks but without misshapen bulges in their canvas. Rather, it seemed remarkably smooth and featureless. "Not really," he admitted. "Me either." Jordan pushed himself to his feet using the palms of his hands and dusted them off on his already filthy denim jeans. "Then I guess we'll get a move on. Do you want to go first or shall I?" Kathy turned back from whence they came and shone the light down the mine shaft, illuminating boulders and rocks but nothing else. "Do you hear that?" she asked. Jordan closed his eyes, and listened. "I don't hear anything." "No-it's there. It's a scratching sound coming from that direction." Jordan tried listening again, but he still didn't hear anything. "Look, we're both stressed," he said at long last. "Let's just get moving and get out of here. The map showed that it's probably only a mile more once we reach the other side of this. Then we just follow the tracks to where the elevator is marked. Whether or not it's operational, we'll be able to use the shaft to get to the surface." She acknowledged his statement with a simple nod, but her face had drained of all color. Jordan turned away from her and stretched out his foot wrapped in a size ten sneaker. Gingerly, he put all of his 150-pounds onto the first wooden beam. It groaned under his weight, but otherwise it seemed sturdy. He walked out onto the bridge in this manner, keeping his eyes on the rickety wood illuminated by the flashlight. His sister stepped out onto the bridge behind him and carefully picked her way along the rails, stepping where he stepped. About midway, the track before him went dark, and he turned back to see Kathy shining the flashlight again in the direction from which they had just come. He heard the noises from the darkness beyond the beam. A scratching and clicking sound came from the mine shaft exactly as she'd described. "I hear it now," he whispered. Fog emanated from between his lips. His hands started to tremble with fright. For several long minutes, the two of them stared along the path illuminated by the beam from the flashlight, but nothing came into view. However, the clicking and scratching grew audibly louder. Kathy swung the torch over the gulf of darkness and back onto the bridge before Jordan's feet. "Move. Let's get off this thing and onto the other side." Jordan grimaced and looked down at his filthy sneakers, picked up his pace and took less cautious steps onto the wooden trusses. Underneath them, the bridge protested with loud groans. The other side came into view, and he felt a wave of momentary relief as he stepped firmly onto solid rock again. He turned back and helped his sister off of the bridge. Behind them, he heard the wood continue to squeak. Something else had stepped onto the bridge. In her hand, the flashlight shook. "It's reached the far side," she whimpered, eyes as wide as saucers. Jordan reached out and steadied her hand and held it forward so that she wasn't tempted to look back on whatever hunted them. "No," Jordan said. "Let's just run. Don't look at it-I don't want to know what it is." The two of them clasped hands and raced off following the rail line. Behind them, Jordan heard a loud crash, and he surmised that whatever it was had tried to cross and been too much for those old timbers to handle. At least, he hoped this had happened. In any event, they reacted to the sound with vigor and flew down the tunnel, their sneakers kicking up dirt and rocks as they sped over the half-buried rail track. After the first half mile, a stitch started to build in Jordan's side. He dismissed the pain and ran, trying his best to keep an eye on the path illuminated by the bobbing and weaving light. After a mile, they stopped to catch their breath. The passageway before them lay strewn with webs from wall to wall. Jordan could make out a handle and steel door that must belong to the elevator and the mechanical lift apparatus. Beyond this point the mine continued of course, but they had no intention of going any further. Kathy squeezed his arm. "I hear the sound again, Jordy." He listened over the pounding of his heartbeat but couldn't hear the scratching and clicking that had been so apparent back at the bridge. He realized that Kathy's hearing exceeded his own, just as his eyesight was superior to hers. "Well, whatever it is, it survived the fall into the ravine," he breathed, "but it's still a ways away, because I can't hear it. We have a few minutes." He crooned his neck about, bending over with his hands on his knees, trying to slow his heart rate down while taking in the surroundings. After a long moment punctuated only by the sound of their joined breathing, Kathy broke the silence. "How long have we been down here?" she questioned him. Honestly, he didn't know. He took out his iPhone. "This thing hasn't worked since we got here, and I don't have a watch. Best guess--ten hours?" "That sounds about right," she agreed, "give or take thirty or so minutes." Jordan looked past her into the darkness and saw precisely what he wanted to see. Nothing. "Shine your light over there where the metal handle is protruding," he indicated. His sister did so, and Jordan tried to pull some of the webbing out of the way with his outstretched hand. It stuck to his skin. He managed to break some of the strands, but each thread felt stronger than packing tape. After a few minutes, he'd cleared enough of it so that they could get to where the handle jutted out from the side of the elevator door. He took out his keys and cut away the webbing with the edge of one of them. Then he traced around the seam of the elevator door, cutting free any restraints that might hold it closed. "I learned this trick from cutting open UPS packages that coach got before practice," he told her. "Keys can cut open tape just like a box knife." Satisfied with his work, he tried to force the door open by planting his right foot on one side of the door and his back against the elevator frame. It budged a little, but something held it closed. Kathy walked over to the lever and threw it down. A loud grating noise followed by a loud boom shook dust from the lift. The door released, opening up wide enough for one person to enter as long as Jordan held the door open with his feet and back. Kathy got on her hands and knees and peered between Jordan's legs at the shaft beyond; she stared up and down with the flashlight. "The elevator is stuck a few levels beneath us. I can see the top of it from here. It also looks like the cable to it is broken, but I see rungs that go up and some dim light from above. I think it may be sunlight." "Great," Jordan grunted. "Find something to block this thing open, would you?" Kathy stood back and looked around. Her eyes settled on the head of an old rusted pickaxe. She picked it up and lay it down so that the length of it could act as a door stopper. Then Jordan relaxed and gently let go of the door. He shook the dirt and rust from his hands once he became convinced that it wouldn't just immediately slam shut again. Shortly after this, Jordan heard the faint clicking and scratching again. It had come upon them much sooner than the last time, and Jordan deduced that it had picked up speed chasing after them. He looked back at his sister and without a word she swung into the shaft and caught one of the rungs of the ladder that ascended toward the dim sunlight above. When she'd pulled herself up ten feet or so, Jordan followed suit, only he deftly hooked the head of the pickaxe that braced the door with the toe of his right sneaker. With one solid tug, he sent it flying into the elevator shaft and the metal door slammed shut, sealing the two of them inside. The sound that the pickaxe made as it collided with the roof of the elevator below resembled thunder. It probably echoed in every unexplored corner of the mine. Kathy shone the light down at him to make certain he remained okay, and that was when Jordan saw the statue through a hole in the roof below his feet. The statue had been carved of stone and placed on the lift by someone or something a long time ago, probably with the intention to take it to the surface. It looked misshapen, surrounded by ropy tentacles and other depictions of awful things. Although he couldn't discern details from fifty-feet above it where he hung suspended by his own arms, it seemed to Jordan as if the whole belonged to some kind of black stone uncommon in the mine itself. Otherwise, he'd have seen it in the walls as they fled. The statue had a lower body comprised of multiple arthropod-like legs. "What's that?" Kathy asked him. "I don't know," he uttered, his fingers growing numb from supporting his weight. "But, I'm not going down there to find out, or for that matter, to get a better look at it." She wiped sweat from her face and resumed her climb up the shaft. Jordan followed her shoes up as they ascended out of the darkness, one rung at a time, watching with apprehension as the light steadily grew in radiance above them. Right before the top, Jordan experienced his greatest fear as he prayed nothing would happen to cause them to fall away from the light. After five minutes, their ascent stopped at a wooden door from behind which, sunlight streamed brightly. Jordan jumped onto a narrow ledge, balancing himself like he did on the diving board at his old workplace and kicked at the door with the ball of his left foot while gripping a portion of the wall to steady himself. On the second kick, the wood gave way and the door swung open revealing the setting sun over the arid desert. He turned back to give his sister a hand and they collapsed onto the earth, breathing heavily and looking up at the darkening sky. From down below rose the awful cacophony of something huge assaulting a metal door. Whatever they had left behind had now reached the elevator shaft and had flown into a rage at their escape. ***** Chapter Six coming soon. Thanks for reading and visiting my website link to look at the pretty pictures of Jordan and Kolin. Reader love is awesome love.