The Unfortunates Read online

  There’s a hesitation, and I think she’s going to blow me off, but she starts talking.

  “I live with my grandma.”

  “Ruth, right? The harpist?”

  “You remembered.”

  “Of course,” I reply, trying not to sound too eager. “What happened to your parents?”

  “My dad’s down at Red Onion. Never getting out. My mom got into crack.”

  “I’m sorry. Did she pass?”

  “No.” She wraps her arms around herself. “But sometimes it’s easier to think of her that way. She lives in Richmond. I see her now and then. She used to come around. She’d sit on the couch and cry, braid my hair. I couldn’t understand it at the time. If she wanted me so much, if I meant that much to her, why couldn’t she take me with her? I made up every excuse you can possibly imagine when she didn’t show. I was always defending her to everyone. But there were times when she’d show up looking for money. She didn’t want to braid my hair. She didn’t even want to look at me. I used to tell myself she had a twin sister—an evil twin—but I knew the truth.”

  She stares past me, into the dark. “I felt bad about it, the lowest you can feel, but my grandma taught me right.” She sits up a little straighter. “Got me involved in sports, church. Made sure I was where I was supposed to be at all times. It was annoying, especially in middle school, her telling me who I could and couldn’t be friends with, but she was right.”

  She pulls her ponytail over her shoulder. “She tolerated Kit hanging around, because he was harmless, he made her laugh, and she knew he didn’t have anybody. But when other boys started coming around … forget it. She even chased one of them off our steps with a rake. Can you imagine?” She smiles, but it quickly fades.

  “Now, she’s in and out.” She swallows hard. “Alzheimer’s. Some days she remembers me, sometimes she thinks I’m my mom. Some days she thinks I’ve broken in and I’m trying to rob the place. But on the good days,” she says as she leans forward, “it doesn’t get any better than that. Like going to the tree-lighting ceremony. She’s always trying to show me a better life. I remember looking at you, your sister, your parents, thinking how perfect your life must be. You had on this dark-blue wool coat with six buttons. You were all matching. Like dolls at the store. It was like someone just pulled you out of a package and set you on stage.”

  “I guess you didn’t see the big zit right in the middle of my forehead then? My mom had her makeup artist working on that thing for at least an hour.”

  “Well … you couldn’t tell.”

  “You’ll have to tell her it was a big success. She works really hard to project that image.”

  She gets quiet, and I know she’s thinking about what’s going to happen when we get out of here.

  “My mom’s going to love you. She’s strong, like you.”

  “That’s a crazy thought.” She sinks into the rock a little deeper. “Me, sitting down with your mom. Having tea.”

  “Why not?” I look around our cramped quarters. “Stranger things have happened.”

  “Sometimes I wonder how we got here,” she says, her brow furrowing up. “I made good grades, stayed out of trouble, worked hard, and then something like this happens and you think … what’s it all for? I believe in God. I do. I believe everything happens for a reason. But, for the life of me, I can’t figure this one out. What good could possibly come from all this? Kit’s dead. Darryl’s dead. Us being trapped down here with some kind of killer … some kind of monster,” she says with a shivering breath.

  “I’m going to get you out of here. We’re going to make it. We have to.”

  I don’t know if it’s lack of sleep, lack of food, the cold, or the dark, but I feel myself slipping. I don’t want to fall asleep, but I’m so tired.

  Shy reaches out to touch my face. Her hands feel like cool marble gliding across my feverish skin, her soft brown eyes piercing right through me. I’ve never met anyone like her. She’s struggled her whole life, but look at her … she’s amazing. She held me together down here. All of us. And as I stare into her eyes, I decide right then and there that if we get out of here, I’m going to follow her to the ends of the earth. And if she won’t have me, I’m going to do everything in my power to make her life easier … to show her the kindness she showed me, that she showed every single one of us down here. She’s tough, but I can see right through her, too, and she’s breathtaking.

  “Sleep,” she whispers.

  23

  WHEN I open my eyes, I’m alone.

  It’s so dark I’m not even sure if I’m a person anymore or a spirit floating through the ether. I wonder if this is how it starts … how the rapture sets in.

  But then I remember Shy and Maria.

  I reach for my headlamp. It’s gone.

  In a panic, I call out their names.

  A flashlight turns on and they sit up, groggily rubbing their eyes.

  “Hey.” I let out a heavy sigh. It’s so cold you can see my breath. “They were just lying down, that’s all,” I say to myself.

  “Are you okay?” Shy asks.

  “Yeah. I don’t know. I think it was just a nightmare.”

  “Here, you need to drink.” Shy lifts the water bottle to my cracked lips. It’s hard to swallow at first, like my throat forgot how, but after a few sips, it feels a little more natural. I don’t even taste the dirt anymore.

  “And you need to eat. You still have some ice cream left.”

  “I’m okay. Really.”

  “If you pass out … if you die … we’re never getting out of here. You need to be strong for Maria, and Kit, and Darryl. Be strong for me.”

  “Okay.” I take the last freeze-dried bite, letting it melt in my mouth, down my throat, but it only seems to anger my hollow stomach.

  As we pack up and trudge deeper into the tunnel, every drip, every scattering stone, has us completely on edge.

  I’m thinking anything would be better than this. Being lost at sea. Stranded in the woods. It’s the unknown that scares me the most—the darkness right beyond the reach of our light, where anything could be waiting for us.

  “Did you remember more?” Shy asks, her voice startling me. “Is that what the nightmares are about?”

  I clear my throat. “From the incident?”

  “The incident?”

  “Yeah, sorry, that’s what everyone calls it. They whisper it like it’s a dirty word.”

  “Like Voldemort,” she says with a smile. When I don’t smile back, she says, “It was an accident, Grant. People make mistakes.”

  “Not like this.” I swallow hard. “I try not to go there, but sometimes I think, what if I just walked in on Lewis and Catherine and gave them my blessing. Or if I just turned a blind eye, and let those guys break into his parents’ wine cellar. Or if I didn’t have that second shot. Or if I didn’t go to the party at all—”

  “We all play what ifs,” Shy says. “But it won’t change anything. Yeah, you shouldn’t have been driving, and maybe you were a jerk before, but I don’t know that person. The Grant I know is kind … and damaged. But not broken. You can fix this. You can do the right thing. Until you accept what happened, face it, you’ll never be able to live. But I believe in you.”

  Her words seem to cut right through me, to the heart of the matter.

  Because if someone like Shy can believe in someone like me, I can’t be that bad.

  When we come around the bend in the rock we see that the tunnel is completely submerged in a dark, murky pool of water. My heart sinks.

  “Darryl was right.” Maria tears up as she stares at the glassy surface. “We’re all going to die down here.”

  “No we’re not,” Shy says. “There has to be a way. Right, Grant?”

  I take a deep breath, trying not to freak out, when I get a whiff. Guano. Grabbing the flashlight, I search the cavern for the bats. I’m starting to think I might be hallucinating the smell, until I spot a long, narrow slit in the stone above the s
ubmerged tunnel. It’s not big enough for us to squeeze through, but it’s big enough for the bats.

  I start taking off my clothes.

  “What are you doing?” Shy lets out a nervous laugh.

  “I’m going in.” I can’t look up at her or I might lose my nerve. “And if I get my clothes wet, I’m as good as dead down here.” When I open the emergency kit to take out the dry pouch, I see a glow stick. I’m so happy to see it that I give it a kiss.

  “If I can find a way through—”

  “Wait.” Shy steps in front of me. “You can’t just dive in there and leave us here … not without a plan.”

  “I’m just going to see how far it goes. It could be a quick duck to the other side.”

  “You’re not thinking straight. We have to be smart. How long can you hold your breath?”

  “Probably forty-five seconds.”

  “So that means at twenty seconds you have to turn back,” she says as she grabs a rope out my bag. “And I’m tying this around your waist in case you forget how to count.”

  When I step into the freezing water, I have to clench my jaw so I don’t cry out. If there’s someone down here hunting us, the last thing I want to do is draw attention to our location. I look down into the stagnant pool, trying to get my footing. I don’t even want to think about what else is living in here. Darryl told me about some microbe in a submerged cave in Belize that goes into every orifice, looking for a host. That would be just my luck. Survive a cave collapse, and a monstrous killer, only to die three days later from a rare brain-eating microbe. But I can’t think about Darryl right now. I can’t think about dying. Maria and Shy are counting on me.

  I crack the light stick, which emits only a soft glow, but it’s better than nothing.

  Diving into murky water practically naked with only a light stick is crazy, but if I don’t do this—if I don’t find a way out—we’ll die, either from starvation or at the hands of whatever it is that’s hunting us down here. And after everything that’s happened, I refuse to go down like that.

  I take one last look at them, huddling on the muddy bank, dirt and grime covering their faces, and I get the saddest feeling. Even if we make it out of here, they’ll never be the same. Kit’s gone. Darryl’s gone. But beneath the filth, beneath the horror, we still have fight in us. We’re still here.

  I take three deep breaths and then duck under the surface. The shock to my system feels almost paralyzing, but then I think about what’s at stake and push forward. The salinity in the water won’t let me sink, and without weights or flippers, I have very little control. Even with the light stick, I can only see a few inches in front of my face. My eyes burn with the strain of keeping them open. I kick as hard as I can, but the dark water feels thick, like I’m swimming through gelatin. For all I know, this sump could go on for a mile. Even a foot beyond my lung capacity will be too far.

  I don’t know if it’s the grim thoughts, the muscle fatigue, or the cold, but it’s slowing me down. I can’t even feel my limbs anymore.

  Bashing into a rock, I drop the light stick. I reach out to reclaim it, but it seems to drift right through my fingers. Or maybe my hands aren’t working anymore. I try to go after it, but as the glow disappears, I quickly become disoriented, forgetting which way is up and which way is down.

  Panicking, I reach out for anything I can grab hold of. When my knuckles bash into jagged rock, I grasp onto it with hungry fingers, pulling myself along, like something straight out of a horror movie, until my lips find a pocket of air. I take every last bit into my lungs, hoping it’s not just an air bell with pure carbon dioxide poisoning my body, but as I pull myself farther, I realize it’s not just an air bell but a way out. I’ve reached the other side.

  I have zero visibility, no way of knowing what this space is like, but it feels vast.

  “Hello,” I whisper, and the cave whispers back. But it’s more than that. There’s a faint squeaking, along with what sounds like the occasional thrum of beating wings. The bats. They must be close.

  I feel a breeze brush against my freezing skin and I know there’s air moving through here. Either that, or the killer is standing right beside me, breathing on me.

  Just as I work up the nerve to swipe the air in front of me, I’m jerked back under water. I try to hang on to the rocks, but Shy’s too strong. The best thing I can do at this point is let go.

  I try to protect myself, but I’m dragged against the rock ceiling the entire way back.

  As I break through the surface, Shy’s yelling, “What happened? I told you to swim back after twenty seconds. Wait,” she says as she shines the light on my face. “You’re bleeding.”

  I feel my head. There’s blood, but I think it’s just a scrape from when she pulled me back. “It’s nothing. Listen … I lost the glow stick, but there’s a cavern.”

  “Did you see light?” she asks, the mere thought making her short of breath.

  “No. But I think I heard the bats. The surface can’t be far.”

  “Did you hear that, Maria?”

  We turn to find Maria rocking on the ground, staring at the water with a haunted look on her face.

  “I can’t go,” she whispers.

  “Why would you say that?” Shy steps toward her. “If this is about Darryl—”

  “No, Darryl would want me to survive.” She looks up at Shy, her eyes full of tears. “But … I … I can’t swim.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “You don’t have to swim. I’m going to set up a rope and all you have to do is hold your breath and pull yourself along.”

  Shy kneels down, putting her arm around Maria, talking to her quietly as I drill an anchor into the rock wall and tie off the rope. I’m shaking so hard from the cold that I can hardly find a grip.

  “I’ll have to go over first with the supplies,” I explain. “It will take me a few minutes to light the candle, set up the anchor, but when I pull on the rope three times, that’s your signal. The sump will only take about thirty seconds to get through—probably less with the guide rope.”

  “Grant, I just—”

  “It’s going to be okay. We can do this.”

  “No.” She looks up at me, her eyes shining in the dull light. “I just wanted to thank you for doing all this. For trying to save us.” The warmth in her voice nearly brings me to my knees.

  “I’m the one who should be thanking you. Finding me, the way you did,” I say as I take her hands in mine. “It might be the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  For a second I think maybe she’s going to kiss me, like Leia kissed Luke on the Death Star, right before they swung across that bridge, but then I remember that they were brother and sister, and I don’t want Shy to kiss me that way. I want her to kiss me like Leia kissed Han right before he’s frozen in carbonite. And I can’t even believe this is what I’m thinking about right now. My fever must be coming back with a vengeance.

  Maria starts coughing, and Shy lets go of my hands.

  Busying myself with the pack, I make sure the supplies I need are easy to find. “I’m leaving you in charge of the flashlight,” I say as I seal it in a Ziploc and hand it to her. “But I’m going to need your clothes. I know it’s freezing, but it’s vital that we have—”

  Without the slightest hesitation, Shy starts peeling off her sweatshirt, and I quickly turn away.

  As they hand me their clothes over my shoulder, Shy says, “You don’t have to be such a gentleman all the time. I think we’re beyond that now.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be beyond that with you,” I say as I seal everything up.

  Getting in the pool of water, I’m surprised that it feels warm to me now. That’s not a good sign. I submerge the bag and glance up at her one last time.

  She’s standing there in her underwear; her long legs seem to go on forever.

  Feeling the heat rush to my cheeks, I duck under the water.

  For once, I’m glad for the dark.

&nb
sp; It’s harder getting across with the rope and bag in tow, but I know what to expect now. Unspooling the rope as I go, I inch forward into pure darkness. It’s so disorienting, there are moments when I forget what I’m doing, why I’m even down here, but then I think of Shy and Maria back there, shivering on the water’s edge, and that’s enough to keep me going … to keep me striving for air.

  As soon as I resurface, I crawl my way onto the bank. Setting down the pack, I pull out the candle and the box of matches. I’m shaking so hard I can barely manage to grab hold of one.

  But as I sit there, poised to strike, a wave of fear comes over me.

  Maybe I don’t want to see what this place really is. The foul odor, the strange sounds … what if it’s not the bats but the monster’s lair? A cavern full of skinned snakes, severed bat wings, and rib cages dangling like chandeliers, from all his victims?

  And as soon as the thought creeps into my consciousness, it’s all I can think about.

  I squint into the dark, and I swear I can see someone in my peripheral—a white, shadowy figure, faceless, without form, darting around the vast space. My heart’s pounding. A deep thick thrum pulsing in my ears.

  I force myself to close my eyes, quiet my thoughts, and when I open them again there’s nothing but darkness, water, and cold.

  Whatever’s happening down here, I can’t give in to the fear. Not now. Not when we’re this close.

  I strike a flame, quickly lighting the wick.

  In the dim light, I see a giant slab of limestone precariously balanced over the sump. Highly unstable. This whole thing could come down at any moment. But above it all, I see the most beautiful sight in the world.

  Bats. Hundreds of them, hanging upside down from the ceiling. It must be daytime. What day, I have no idea, but all we have to do is wait until it’s feeding time and follow them out.

  “Out,” I whisper, my eyes welling up with tears.

  Hurrying to the side of the submerged tunnel, I carefully set up the anchor and pull on the rope three times to let them know I’m ready.

  As I crouch in front of the water, I count … and wait.

  Thirty seconds go by and I’m starting to get nervous. I hop back in the water, but I’m so cold I don’t even feel it anymore. Another ten seconds pass, and I’m about to go in after them, when Shy breaks through the surface, gasping for air.