Bone Rattle by Marc Cameron (best ereader for pdf .TXT) 📕

with Van Dyke in tow and realized immediately that she had something even better. The hand trolley waited on the far side of the ravine, meaning someone had used it to get across.

She was on the right track.

Chapter 46

Rock and gravel slid off Arliss Cutter’s back as he pushed himself up on all fours. A high-pitched squeal assaulted his ears. His head felt as though he’d been hit between the eyes with a sledgehammer. The darkness was thick enough to cut.

Stunned, he coughed, trying to catch a breath that wasn’t full of grit. He felt movement beneath him in the darkness, heard a muffled cry.

“Lori?”

She flailed blindly in the blackness, brushing his face with her outstretched fingers. “Cutter? Are you all right?” His ears rang so badly that her words sounded like they were coming from the bottom of a well.

He took her hand, held it tight to his chest. She’d admitted to being scared of tight spaces and this had to be terrifying for her. Cutter, who’d never been claustrophobic, found himself suddenly reeling and disoriented. He tried to speak, but coughed again, sputtering this time. “Light,” he finally managed to say. The Streamlight he’d been holding was hopelessly gone, buried after it had been knocked or blown out of his hand.

Maycomb found her light first and flicked it on, pointing toward the ground. Cutter squinted anyway, blinded by the relative brightness until his eyes adjusted. The timber supports were gone, buried under a mound of rocks that completely blocked the exit and sloped into the tunnel. Gauging from the location of their safety cutout, the first ten feet of the mine had collapsed from the explosion.

A rock the size of an axe head and just as sharp fell from the ceiling and clattered at Cutter’s feet, narrowly missing Maycomb’s head.

Cutter snatched up his pack. “Let’s put our helmets on before we both get brained.”

“They buried us alive,” Maycomb said, breathing heavily. She pressed tightly against Cutter as she fastened her helmet under her chin and switched on the headlamp.

“Do you bend anywhere you shouldn’t?” Cutter asked.

“I… No,” Maycomb said. “Can… we dig our way out?”

“Eventually,” Cutter said. “I need to know if you’re hurt.”

“I’m fine,” Maycomb snapped. “We should start digging now so we—”

“We could,” Cutter said. “You’ve been in tougher jams than this. Don’t you think it’s better if we take a breath, look at the situation from all sides.”

Maycomb looked up at him, her chin quivering under the helmet strap. “O… okay…” she stammered.

“Good deal,” Cutter said, trying to convince himself there was a way to get out of this and still reach Donita Willets in time. “You’ve got the CO and O2 meters in your pack. Go ahead and check our levels while I take stock of ammo and other gear.”

Cutter knew exactly what they had, but he wanted Maycomb to know, to understand that they were fine for the near term. That there was no need to panic.

They knelt facing each other, their packs between them, and he ticked through the gear – ropes, ascenders, foil blankets, candles, water bottles, thin gloves, jackets, extra headlamps and batteries, along with his regular everyday carry of a small knife, a small flashlight, and Zippo lighter. He had another six rounds for the Python. The Glock magazine had six rounds left, plus the one in the pipe.

Maycomb followed each item he pulled from the pack, but none of it seemed to register with her.

He reached inside like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. “And toilet paper. My buds always bring a bunch of weapons and then forget to bring TP.”

“I need a cigarette.”

Cutter ignored her, pulling a gallon-size ziplock bag from the main portion of his pack. “And I saved the best for last. My nephews stashed some biscuits in here.”

Maycomb looked up, blinking, a defeated look on her face. “That’s the best thing in your pack? Biscuits?”

“I don’t know,” Cutter chuckled. “They’re good biscuits.”

“I’m going to start digging,” Maycomb said.

“Okay,” Cutter said. “Mind if I borrow your phone?”

She was on the verge of hyperventilating. “There’s no way we get a signal in here.”

Cutter kept his voice low and even. Calling her Captain Obvious wouldn’t help matters at all. “I want to look at the maps you got from Horning.”

“Whatever.” She dug in her pocket. “It probably doesn’t even work.” She passed it to Cutter, who gave it back.

“I’m going to smoke.”

“Nope,” Cutter said. “Not in here, you’re not. Password?”

She used her thumbprint and passed it back, then began to cast around the tunnel floor, presumably looking for something to dig with.

Cutter scrolled through several pages of map thumbnails until he found one that read CC#2. “Here’s something.”

“What?” Maycomb asked, her back to him. She’d found a rusted shovel, but it looked about to crumble in her hands. “Photos of biscuits?”

“That’s cute,” Cutter said. “No, come look at this.” He lowered the phone so Maycomb could see. “CC#2 means it’s the second entry Horning discovered into a mine named the Cross Cut.” He used his thumb to swipe to the next page. This one displayed a sectional map of a large bubble-like stope complete with support columns. The entry was located at the top and necessitated a rappel to get inside. It was labeled CC#1. Opposite this areal entry was a shaft – a winze in mining terminology – dropping down to a secondary tunnel with the notation “to CC#2.”

Maycomb read it three times, swiping back and forth between the two maps. “So,” she said, still unconvinced. “We just go to the end of this tunnel, rappel down, and then end up in this big room with another way out?”

“According to Horning’s map,” Cutter said, tapping the screen.

“What about these marks?” she asked, pointing to a series of blue hash marks beside the down shaft.

“No idea,” Cutter said. “But we need to go look.”

A single tear rolled down Maycomb’s cheek, creasing a line in the thin layer of dirt there. “Remember when I