Jon Fore - Black Water

The passage came to a sharp curve, and then to another. As they rounded that, they could see light, not the blaring warmth of the sun, but the soft subdued glow of the night’s sky.

When Abby caught sight of this, she immediately began to weep again, this time from pure relief that it was about to be over, this tormented journey through this God forsaken dungeon was over, and they could get help for Madison.

As she was about to leap out from inside the passage and into the night air, Ethan grabbed her violently and pulled her back. She revolted, her eyes blinded by the tears, her fists pummeling him. “Let me go! I want out of here!” she screamed desperately, hovering just above sanity.

“Abby! Stop for shit’s sake!” She had caught him in the eye, and he held it now gingerly. “Look out there!”

She wiped away the moisture from her lashes and blinked herself into focus. There before her was the cool but still warmer night air, the stars and moon hidden by the mountain. However, below that was a sheer cliff, smooth but for a few fissures and a drop of some eighty feet or more. She had almost leapt to her death in an attempt to be free.

“We have to think this through, Abby,” Ethan urged.

She began to weep again, her emotions a conflictive surge, she hated and loved, despaired and hoped all at once. She threw her arms around Ethan. “I’m so sorry…” she wept.

“I know… I know…”

“Let’s jump for it anyway, what do you say?”

“Abby, it will kill us…”

“I know!” She shouted, and then began to sob in earnest. “I don’t care anymore, Ethan! We’re going to fucking die in here anyway! Let’s just get it over with! We can die together…” she said this last softly, tenderly.

“Not going to happen, Abs.”

She sagged in his arms and cried, cried for near an hour; all that time, Ethan looked out at the open sky for what he was certain would be the last time and enjoyed his closeness to Abby and the aroma of a wild forest in late autumn.

After crying for some time, Abby fell into a fitful sleep, comfortable if only for the fresh air and secure feeling of Ethan’s arms. He let her sleep while he struggled with his own guilt and fears, his sorrow and feelings of helplessness. Madison was not his girlfriend, or even really his friend, but he could not convince himself that he was not responsible. His father had taught him early that women were a treasure to cherish, to look after and keep safe. In this, he had failed.

The sun slowly began to rise, almost without Ethan noticing. He wondered if perhaps he had fallen asleep as well. His back had locked long ago in a cramp, and one of his arms had fallen asleep, yet he loathed waking her—she was at least resting and would need her strength, especially with the injury. He would just allow her to wake on her own, something he hoped he would not have to wait for long.

The edge of the sun broke over the horizon and began to pour like hot milk, setting the forest below to blaze. Ethan felt his throat tighten at this, the majesty and wonder of the beauty.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Abby asked sleepily.

“Incredible…” he said, waiting patiently for her to rise on her own. After a number of minutes, she did not seem likely to move herself, so he said, “You should sit up and see below.”

She rolled up from him and peeked down the cliff face to a small lake below. The brilliance of the sun had just begun to reach the water, and the ripples of its surface began to toss it about like a glimmering plaything. “It’s dazzling…”

“I knew you would like it,” Ethan said as he began to rub his arm and arch his back. “Aren’t you glad you stuck around to see it?”

She turned on him, her face glowing with infant sunlight, her eyes wet and excited. She suddenly leaned forward and kissed him hard, searchingly, lovingly. “Yes, I am, Ethan.”

“I’m glad you did, too. Hungry?”

“Not as much as thirsty.”

“Me, too, but we are light on the water, just a bit, okay?”

“I know, just a bit,” she repeated and sipped at the bottle of water Ethan offered. “It looks like we are still about fifty feet up. Do you really think there is an entrance down there somewhere?”

“I really don’t know; God, I hope. For all I know, this could be it,” Ethan said, the glimmer of hope waning in his voice.

“How would they get supplies all the way up here?” Abby asked sarcastically, trying to reignite both of their hope.

“I don’t know. It does not seem like it would work, I guess. However, there had to be a way to get people up here in secret and supplies to the jail that would not go the same way as the house, if this place was supposed to be so secret. We will find it.”

“I think we will, but not sitting here,” Abby said longingly, taking in the sky and the faint warmth of the sun.

They sat together for a short while, the sun growing warmer and more intense as the time slipped by. Neither cared to abandon the outside, the smell of pine, the still remaining splashes of fall color, but both knew they were not to be rescued from there and must make their own way out. Still, it was some time before Ethan nudged her.

“Come on, let’s get moving. The exit won’t come to us.”

They stood together, Abby still hindered by her ankle, but not so much so as yesterday. The cane, even with its off-balance center and crude handle, had become more comfortable, easier for her to manage. It thumped rhythmically with her footsteps as they headed back toward the main passage.

They made the left as they should and worked themselves deeper into the unending darkness. After some time, the floor of the passage became naked rock, the sand behind them scattered to the sides where it made tiny drifts like snow. The walls as well became rough, more like a mining tunnel than a proper passage. The ceiling had become rougher still, a frozen undulation of rock, like the tide of a never moving ocean frozen in its rush toward a missing shore.

“Maybe this had started as a mining project…” Abby mused quietly.

“If it did, dear Abby, then they had to have begun digging at the base of the mountain.”

“That means there is a way out of here!”

Ethan could hear the smile on her face.

“Unless they had not finished construction…”

“Shut up,” Abby said lightly as they continued down the now-curving passage.

The faint sound of dripping water came to them, sharp and echoed, but certainly distant. It was the sound of many drops of water falling into a body of itself, a musical tinkling that for whatever reason inspired an even greater hope. Water—one of the primary staples of life—was somewhere inside this hellish place. It was proof that God had not abandoned them entirely, that even the evil here could not stop the gentle persistent hand of nature.

They decided not to stop for a rest but to push on to the water. Abby longed to wash her face, wash the filth of the dirty passages, the collapsed floor, and the bones she had touched from her hands. Ethan hoped that the water had found its own way out, possibly running to the outside and the lake below. The tunnel they were in was descending in a slope, and it was very possible they had gone down the fifty feet and they were that much closer to being free.

They began to find old wooden supports along the passage, shoring up the ceiling where rubble had fallen and left gapping openings in the ceiling above. Thick lengths of timber were fixed together with the same large iron nails, their heads pounded and misshapen. It reminded Ethan of a Wild West tour he had taken as a child, one that included a manufactured gold mine.

Abby suddenly stumbled, her feet troubled by something on the floor of the passage. She caught herself by way of Ethan’s shoulder. She turned quickly to see what had tripped her, and her flashlight fell upon a ravaged corpse of some animal, some creature, about the size of a small dog, left heaped in the corner, useless. Its coat was torn and laid open from the thin white bones now poking through. Whatever it had been, it was unconsumed.