Boom! A huge crash sounded. Nat glanced in the rearview. The police car was spinning like a pinwheel, an alternating flash of black and white. The police must have hit the tire tread. No other cars were around, so she could see in a flash that the cops wouldn't collide with anyone.
She blew down the highway, switching to the shoulder so she wouldn't crash. She couldn't stay on the open road. The other cruiser would see her. They'd catch her on the straightaway. Then she figured out where to go. Someplace they'd never look for her. She saw the sign that read Brandywine Valley Museum and knew she was on the right road. She aimed for the exit, dead ahead. She could still hear the second siren getting closer. She took the exit, steered around a car waiting at a red light, and barreled forward.
HONK! Nat ignored the sound and took a right turn, then a left, getting closer. She slowed her speed and whipped around the winding route into more rural territory and drew her first breath for the first time in what seemed like ages. She took the next curve at speed, then another switchback, cruising around the country road.
On the way, her brain went into overdrive, functioning in emergency mode. She'd have to ditch the Neon. The cops knew the license plate. They'd find her as soon as they put out an APB, calling in more cars. A cop killer in a bright blue Neon wouldn't be joyriding for long. She was maybe twenty minutes away, then ten, then five. She reached the vicinity and eyed the stone barns, sheds, and outbuildings, assessing them for her purposes. She drove by a well-maintained house, then spotted a decrepit stone barn and slowed to a stop.
A faded sign read, Property For Sale. The barn was encircled by muddy acreage, snowy in patches. Its stones crumbled into white dust, and its green door was peeling, showing graying boards. A gravel road led from the road to the barn door, and only a busted electrical fence bounded the property. In short, it was perfect.
She jumped out of the Neon, ran to the fence, and pressed the wire down with her feet, then jumped back in the car, maneuvered it into the driveway, then drove over the fence. She jumped back out of the Neon, ran to the fence and righted it, jiggling one of the weathered posts. She hurried back to the car and drove down the old driveway, careful to stay on the gravel so her tire tracks wouldn't betray her.
She reached the barn and leaving the car in idle, got out and yanked on the rusty door handle. Finally, the door slid to the right on a rust-laden track. She wedged herself inside the door and shoved it open the rest of the way, clammy with flop sweat under her coat. She looked quickly inside the dark barn. Cobwebs draped from the rafters like her mother's swag curtains, and moldy-smelling hay sat stacked next to an array of trashcans. An old tarp partially covered a dusty workbench and a greasy old red oil tank. Against the filthy stone wall, a chain harrow slumped on a floor covered with dirt, old hay, and rocks.
Nat hurried back to the car, drove it into the barn, then cut the ignition, and climbed out of the car, stuffing the construction file inside her purse. She hustled to the door and rolled it closed behind her. It was dark inside the barn, which had only sideways slits for windows. She remembered the blue tarp on the workbench and made her way there until her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She grabbed the tarp, went back to the car, and threw it over the top, managing to cover the bumpers on both sides.
Her heart lifted for the first time all day. She might have escaped both the cops and Graf. She never would've thought she had it in her. Her father would never have believed it, either, though she wasn't sure how proud he would have been. But that didn't seem to matter so much anymore, for some reason. She stepped backward to inspect her handiwork, which was when she heard the unmistakable sound of wood creaking somewhere.
And before she realized what was happening, the floor gave way beneath her feet and she was falling.
Nat had no idea what happened. She sat splayed at the bottom of some sort of dark, narrow hole. She had fallen on her butt, which hurt. She looked up, shaken. The floorboards had splintered, about five feet over her head. She was ten feet underground, or more.
She scrambled to her feet, wincing in pain, and picked up a small piece of wood that had tumbled inside and landed on top of her leg. Its rough surface felt light and porous to the touch. She broke it in two with her hands; it snapped with ease. Rotten, worm-eaten, or maybe gnawed by termites. A terrifying thought struck her. Was the Neon going to fall in on her?
She flinched and covered her head reflexively, as if that would have done any good. She looked up, cringing. It was dark in the hole, and the only light came from its mouth, jagged with splintered wood, broken in the center. The Neon was parked to the right of the hole. She looked ahead and couldn't see anything. Her back was to a wall, and she turned and felt it. Cold and wet to the touch. Dirt. She pulled her hand away and smelled it. Earth. She turned back and couldn’t see anything.
She figured out the situation. Dirt and rock covered the barn floor, but the part of the floor nearer the door was made of wood.
She'd weakened the old floorboards when she drove over them, breaking them just enough so they'd give way under her weight. The Neon must have been parked on the solid dirt floor, so it wouldn't fall in.
Great. At least I won't get hit by a car. In a hole.
Nat put a hand out and felt the wall directly across from her. It was as if a hole had been dug in the earth, tall and skinny, but big enough for a person. She visualized it as being made by an index finger poked down into topsoil, as if to plant a seed. But she had to get out. She jumped up but couldn't reach that high. When she came down, her feet slid a little, but didn't touch dirt on the other side. Why?
She peered down at her feet, but it was too dark to see anything. It creeped her out. What was down there? A horror-movie image of a snake pit slithered into her mind. She tried to edge away but there was nowhere to go. Her back was literally to the wall. She jumped again but kept slipping when she landed. The floor of the hole was uneven. She couldn't see a thing. Then she remembered something. The key ring for the Neon had tons of stuff on it, the typical keychain of a teenage girl.
She reached in her coat pocket and pulled out the keys. The keyring held a pink plush heart, a small pink Swiss army knife, and a tiny pink penlight. Nat flicked the penlight on and aimed it at her feet. No snakes, just dirt. The penlight cast a faint, almost translucent, circle of light on the dirt wall opposite her, and she gasped. The wall on the other side of the hole didn't go all the way down, as she had assumed. It stopped at about thigh height, and the bottom half appeared to lead to another underground hole.
"Hello?" she said, but there was no echo. She crouched down as much as she could in the narrow hole and aimed the light inside the other hole. The light didn't reach far enough to reveal what was down were. Images of treasure chests full of gold doubloons and skeletons chained to walls popped into her head. She sat on her butt, then stuck her feet in the hole and aimed the light down her body. She could see a dirt bottom not far under her feet.
Nat let herself slip down like a kid on a muddy sliding board and tumbled into the bigger hole. She yelped, and dirt muffled the sound. She cast the light around the new hole. It was dirt on all six sides, rich brown earth veined with burnt-orange clay. Stones stuck out from the dirt. The ceiling was tall enough to stand up in, if you were as short as Nat, and like the walls, was reinforced by old wooden boards.
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