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

Near the opening, a rock fell from the ceiling, bounced off the ledge, and then smacked the ground.

“That was a big one.” She whispered to herself a lot now. Anything louder seemed freaky, out of place.

A second rock hit the ledge below the opening, then stopped. A shower of smaller stones followed, some piling on the ledge, others clattering to the floor.

“Levi?” she said, breathless, barely audible, even to herself. Finally, he’d come back and she could leave this horrible tomb. She snuffed out the candle, and all but ran to meet him, keeping to the edges to keep from getting brained by falling rocks. The angle of the portal let in very little light except for up on the ceiling.

Donita stood against the wall beneath the ledge next to the dangling ropes. She kept her headlamp on its dimmest setting so as not to blind Levi when he started down. Frantic to see his face again, she cupped a hand to her mouth to call up.

More rocks fell, which was weird. Levi was more careful than that. He had to know that she’d be down here, going stir-crazy waiting for him to come back.

He was supposed to whistle before he came down, signal it was him and that she was safe.

She pressed her back against the rock face. Gravel continued to pour over the lip of the ledge – but no whistle.

The climbing rope to her right swayed, and then the carabiner attached near the ground began to rise as someone started to haul it up. Levi had used this one to get out and then lower the water down to her. Someone gave the rope to her left a tug. Her ascenders still hung on the dangling line, one above the other. Anyone who pulled up the rope and saw them attached would know she was still down here.

She thought of trying to take them off, but the rope was already rising. She’d need slack to release the cam that held them in place. Instead, she drew the folding knife Levi had given her. Holding slack above the cut so anyone at the top wouldn’t feel the sudden increase in tension, she managed to saw through the line moments before it rose out of her reach. The cut would look suspicious, but not as much as the ascenders at the end of a rope.

The ropes disappeared over the ledge. She clicked off her light and trotted as quietly as she could back around the wall to her cot. She switched the headlamp to a dim red glow, hoping it couldn’t be seen from above, and then scooped up her bedroll and cot and shuffled behind the largest of the stone support pillars in the small beetle-head room. She chanced one more quick trip to get her pack and then ducked behind a second pillar with her back to the underground pool. She switched her headlamp off and waited. In the darkness behind her, droplets of water plopped into the underground pool. Rocks continued to chatter against the floor, echoing through the Great Hall.

Donita thought she heard voices, held her breath, still hoping it might be Levi. A whirring buzz suddenly pierced the darkness, whining loud enough to cover the noise of persistent rock fall. Bats? No. She’d been here long enough she would have seen bats. The whir grew louder, filling the cavern, bouncing off the rock. It seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

The buzz of ten thousand bees.

It was almost on top of her now, waiting on the other side of the column, daring her to show herself.

Donita covered her ears and clenched her eyes tight, pressing tears of fear through her lashes.

Darkness was absolute – but it didn’t matter. She didn’t have to see to know exactly what it was.

Chapter 49

Lori Maycomb sloshed through ankle-deep water, shoulder to shoulder with Cutter. Every breath filled her lungs with more of the dark that never came back out, making her heavier and heavier until she felt sure she would collapse. The tiny pools of light from their headlamps were far too feeble to help her steady herself in the unbearable closeness of the mine. Cutter walked in silence, waiting for her to unburden herself, surely unable to imagine the things she’d done.

She jumped when he spoke, gasping in more darkness.

“You can change your mind,” he said.

“No… I…” She looked sideways, aware of her lamp and not wanting to blind him. “What would you do if your wife got so drunk she woke up next to some guy in a homeless camp?”

Cutter walked in silence for a time. “I have no idea.”

“Right answer,” Lori said. “I’ll spare you the lead-up, but my drunk brain told me booze was far more important than my husband and our little boy. I remember going to Anchorage to work on a story, and telling myself I’d just have a couple of beers at a little sports bar in midtown. A couple of beers turned into seven, and all the little bottles of liquor from my hotel minibar – even the baby Patróns, and I hate tequila. Every day for a week, I tried to outdo my previous record. The lady at the Brown Jug even started to cajole me when I went in. I stopped calling home the third day. By the fourth, I stopped answering my phone. The next day, I lost the phone in a bar somewhere. Six days in, I was trying to stumble back to my hotel room when I saw a drug store off Northern Lights that was having a sale on box wine…”

Lori shuddered as the memories came rushing back.

“The next thing I know, I’m waking up in a tent under the trees in some greenbelt in midtown. I had no idea how I got there, or how I met the lump asleep beside me. I mean, I love my husband. I drink, at least I did, but