Kit Crumb - Body Parts

The two women clutched one another, as if either let go, the other might disappear.

“Claire what happened? I thought you’d fallen and I was terrified. I couldn’t tell what it was.”

Claire shook her head in an effort to clear her thinking but stopped when the pain intensified. “I’d wrapped the cable around an old iron wheel; it must have been pulled over the edge.” She ran her hand over the back of her head, it came away wet and sticky. She knew it was blood. Her head throbbed and her hands burned.

“Help me open my butt pack, I need some ointment.”

The two women did a little dance, Claire rolling onto her stomach too unsteady to stay up on her knees, Crystal tracing the belt with her fingers until she found the butt pack. There was no ointment.

With considerable effort, they pulled out everything they could find that would burn—lint, Kleenex and gauze. They used the last match, made a small mound of dirt and hollowed out the center, then built a tiny fire. At first, they stared into the flames and Claire’s feelings of being closed in vanished, but Crystal’s gasp alerted her to their surroundings.

The two were perched on a ledge approximately twelve feet long but only about three feet wide. Crystal was plastered to the wall, eyes wide with fear. Claire fell into her roll as EMT, took Crystal’s hand and looked for a way to distract her. “I can see the top. We’re only about fifteen feet down.”

Her words seemed to bring Crystal around. “Do you think we can climb out?”

Claire gave a tug on the cable and was surprised to find it solid. “The timber must be holding, I think so.”

The giant timber, pulled to the rim of the shaft by Claire’s weight, was long enough to span the narrow opening.

They found the iron wheel teetering on the lip of the ledge, pulled it on end and gained another three feet by standing on it. With Claire’s help, Crystal was able to climb the cable, then help Claire come up the last couple of feet. The women were exhausted, the fire on the ledge was out and they were in darkness again. Urging each other on, they crept away from the opening of the shaft, then collapsed onto their backs panting and gasping.

sed by 20415 Pericolo Lane. Just beyond Claire’s Austin-Healey, it turned around in a driveway and parked on the dirt road. Two men in blue suits got out and walked down toward a giant gate but didn’t stop. Instead, they stepped over the drooping barbed wire of a dilapidated fence and sat on a huge stump just inside a circle of trees. Neither spoke as they watched the road.

Rye drew his revolver and was about to step into the clearing to confront the group, when another man emerged from the woods to join them. Rye sat back down into a crouch holstering his gun.

The foursome walked toward some cliffs that emerged from the hills, then disappeared. He quickly high-stepped through the woods, going around logs, stepping over branches, until he could see where they had gone.

Slowly at first, a shadow came into view until he realized it was the opening to a mine. The last man to join the group had a flashlight and was using it to lead the others inside.

Claire heard the noise first and pushed herself into a sitting position. “Listen.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Crystal said.

“Shhh. Now do you hear it?”

“Yeah.”

Claire stood up. “I’m sure I heard talking.”

Crystal stood, flailing her arms around in the dark until she found Claire. Grabbing the hand that smacked her in the shoulder, Claire guided her over to the wall.

“I think somebody’s coming. We need to get to the other side of the shaft and find a place to hide,” Claire said.

Without another word, she pulled out her lighter and began walking along with Crystal in tow, using the light cast by each spark.

When they reached the vertical shaft, they flattened themselves against the tunnel wall and shuffled past. As soon as they were clear, they began to walk.

Crystal pulled back against Claire’s forward movement. “What’s that?”

“What?”

“Do you feel it?”

Suddenly something soft and cool brushed against Claire’s cheek. “I feel it.”

She began spinning the wheel of the lighter in earnest, keeping it close to her body to protect the flame if it lit. It did for an instant, then flickered out.

“I can really feel it now. C’mon the air’s coming from the right.”

With Crystal in tow, Claire made her way following a cool breeze that seemed to be guiding her deeper and deeper into the old mine, never knowing that Rye was hiding in boulders just outside the mine shaft.

The light illuminated a shoe print that plainly displayed a logo—an oval with “EMT Special” in the center. “Shit, that seals it, they’re here.” All heads spun around as though they might be able to see the intruders.

Then everyone looked at Simms. “Bonnie, you and Derrick stay put. Hubble and I’ll go back to the mansion.”

Rye ducked back around behind a boulder when he heard the sound of running. Two men emerged from the mine and ran to the edge of the clearing where they disappeared down a trail that led into the woods.

The two men burst into the clinic panting and breathless.

Simms turned to face Hubble. “Get into storage and take the C4 plugs and detonators to the mine. Send Derrick and Bonnie back, I’ll need them here.”

Hubble looked Simms in the eye and seemed to comprehend what was going to happen.

“I’ll need a key.”

“Of course.” Simms turned and led Hubble into his office, removing a key from his top center desk drawer.

“Go! Set the C4 at the opening of the morgue and around the mouth of the mine, then wait for me.”

As soon as Hubble was out of the office and down the hall, Simms took out another key, unlocked the small drawer on the right side of the desk and removed his .45 pistol. Then he followed Hubble about fifty yards into the woods and stepped off the trail.

Rye watched from his hidden vantage point as a man entered the clearing just in front of the mine entrance. Moments later Derrick and Bonnie went back down the trail. He watched Hubble head into the mine, and took that as his cue to come out of hiding, In one quick move, he lunged forward and placed the barrel of the pistol in the center of the man’s back.

In a flash, Hubble moved to the side using his right arm to knock Rye’s gun arm to the left. Rye tightened his arm, pulling the trigger in response. But Hubble was well out of the way and drove a left palm strike to Rye’s temple.

As soon as his gun arm had been knocked away, Rye knew he was facing a trained martial artist. Seeing the palm strike from the corner of his eye, he twisted his head at the last minute to avoid full contact. He attempted several of the moves Claire had shown him over the years but they were all slow and poorly aimed. His opponent, though smaller, was landing strike after strike. Rye knew that one was bound to bring him down. Lurching to one side he managed to avoid a kick aimed at his kidney and turning, sprinted into the mine. Hubble, wanting to get as far away from the mine as possible, did not follow.

Both women peered back into the black, at the sound of the pistol shot. Claire increased her pace and was suddenly being hit full face by a steady breeze.

She shook the lighter. “Come on, light goddamn it.” Her thumb was raw from turning the rough wheel.

Spin, spark… spin, spark

Spin, flame. Claire quickly cupped her had around the flame. “Do you see a shaft anywhere? It’s got to be close. Must be an air shaft leading to the surface.”

Crystal released her grip on Claire’s sleeve and ran to a small hole in the rock, about the size of a manhole cover, Inserting her head and shoulders into the ascending shaft. Claire took a last look and let the flame go out. Staggering and flailing her arms, she found Crystal. She could just make out the airshaft into which Crystal had climbed and could see her extended hand.