The Unfortunates Read online

  Why not? It’s not like it’s blocked off with anything serious … just a flimsy strand of construction tape. Maybe they just did this because of the school trip. A liability thing.

  And the fact is, if I don’t do this now, I may never find the nerve again.

  Putting on the extra layers, a pair of Gore-Tex pants and an all-weather coat, I secure my harness and headlamp and toss my pack down to the ledge below. Now I have no choice but to go in after it. Slipping my rope through the anchor that’s already embedded in the rock wall, I give it a hard tug, just to make sure it’s secure, before I attach it to the harness. It’s only about a forty-foot drop; I could easily free-climb it. But I need to get used to the harness, figure out the weak spots, before I reach the big drop at Widow’s Peak.

  As I look over the edge again, an ill wind seems to rush up from below, brushing my hair back from my face—almost like it’s trying to tell me something. I know this cave is just a piece of limestone buried beneath the surface, but as I stare into the void, my headlamp illuminating the unknown, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s strangely alive, like I’m dropping into the mouth of some ancient monster. Maybe that’s only fitting.

  The truth is that, while I changed, the world stood perfectly still. Everyone said it would fade over time, but it felt like this festering sore. Every day the bacteria multiplied until the heat of infection spread from my belly to my heart. It was fatal.

  Letting out a shaky breath, I think about the months of planning and preparation it took to get here. I made sure everyone knew I was looking forward to the trip. Bennett, Parker, and even Catherine will be interviewed, saying I was in good spirits. People saw me running from class, excited for break. I was seen at Outdoor World buying all the right equipment. I had a little bit of trouble when I forgot the ascent gear, but I think that might actually work in my favor. He’ll tell the police I seemed a little too eager. I ate my dinner, even took seconds to show I had a hearty appetite. My paper was nearly done, clear of any quotes that could possibly be misconstrued. I filled out my housing questionnaire for GW. I even called a girl, asking her out on a date. Bennett and I have a tee time for next Friday. I left a pair of pajama pants on my bathroom floor. Neat, but not psycho neat. For all intents and purposes, I was a young man—full of promise, full of hope—whose life was cut short by a tragic accident. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  My father will have the adventurous son he always wanted. My sister can use this tragedy to get to that boarding school, and my mom won’t have to be reminded of her failure every time she looks at me. I’ll just be another hidden door in the wall.

  Yeah, I feel bad for doing this to my family, but I feel even worse for the families of my victims. I hope they can feel like they got some kind of justice. An eye for an eye.

  I’ve been through every possible scenario a hundred times over, and this is the only way I don’t have to betray my family, or betray myself. It’s win-win. No one gets in trouble, no one gets hurt—well, except me. But accidents happen. And I made sure that’s exactly what this will look like. That’s life. I know firsthand how quickly everything can be taken away from you.

  All I wanted to do was face the consequences of my actions.

  But no one would let me.

  Glancing up at the cloudless sky—a cross between Carolina blue and robin’s egg—I take in one last hit of ozone.

  I don’t have any profound last words. There’s no eleventh-hour reprieve.

  “I’m sorry,” is all I can manage to whisper before I take a giant leap backwards off the ledge, into nothing but air.

  10

  THE initial drop makes my stomach lurch in a way that’s sickening and exhilarating all at once. As I brace my feet against the side of the rock wall for the first push back, a hint of a smile takes over my face. This is the first time in I don’t even know how long that I feel fully in control. Down here, all I have to think about is my next move, my next breath. There’s no one to judge me, no one to pity me. I’m not a senator’s son or a murderer. And soon, I’ll be free.

  I’m about to push off again when I see a dark shadow looming overhead. I stop my descent, freezing in place. I’m bracing myself, waiting for someone to start yelling at me, telling me to get out of there, but all I hear is a whisper clinging to the stagnant air. The same wordless whisper that’s plagued me since the incident.

  What do they want from me?

  By the time I work up the nerve to look up, they’re gone.

  I try to shake it off, because honestly, it doesn’t matter anymore.

  Whether it’s some reporter looking for a story or a crazed vigilante wanting to scare me, they’re too late. The next time they see me, I’ll be in a mahogany box.

  But as I’m preparing for my final leap to the chasm floor, I hear a strange set of popping noises, followed by a low grumble. I watch a deep crack traveling from the top of the drop all the way to the bottom, and before my brain can even process what’s happening, the rock shelf below disintegrates, leaving nothing but dead space beneath me. I’m trying to scrabble up the rope when the rock slab I’m anchored to gives way.

  I feel completely weightless as I plummet to the depths.

  The walls are collapsing around me, kicking up ancient dust and debris, shards of limestone flying through the air with deadly force. I can’t breathe, I can’t see; I feel myself falling but I’m so disoriented I can’t even tell if I’m falling down or falling up. It’s like God has turned the world upside down, giving it a hard shake. This is what I wanted, but still I fight—against gravity, against nature, against my family, against myself—because in this moment, all I want to do is remember.

  As I’m plunging through the darkness, I’m thinking this is it, exactly what I deserve, when a chunk of rock breaks free from the slab I’m tethered to and comes hurtling toward me.

  I feel a burst of warmth—

  And then nothing.

  11

  I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

  The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars

  Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

  Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

  Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air …

  I COME to, suspended in midair, dangling from my harness, like a fly caught in a web. Gasping for air, I cough up rocks and blood from my lungs. I can’t feel my lower body, but when I shift my weight, tiny pinpricks of electricity flood my legs.

  Looking up, I see the giant slab that I’m anchored into is wedged into the crevice. Nothing but an avalanche of boulders built up behind it, blocking out any light from the surface.

  Letting out a shuddering breath, I force myself to look down. There’s nothing but black. I pull out a shard of rock lodged in my harness and let it drop.

  “One, one thousand,” I count. “Two, one thousand. Three, one thousand. Four one thousand.”

  I swallow hard before continuing.

  “Five, one thousand. Six, one thousand. Seven, one thousand.”

  I’m getting short of breath.

  “Eight, one thousand. Nine, one thous—”

  When the stone finally hits the bottom with a faint snap, tears sting the corners of my eyes, but I don’t dare take my hands off the rope to wipe them away.

  The bottom has dropped out, making this chasm deeper than Widow’s Peak—deeper than my worst nightmare. It feels like a portal straight to hell.

  And yet, for the violence that just occurred, it’s eerily quiet. Like any hope of the outside world has been blotted out along with the sun. The only sounds I hear are a sporadic drip, rope scraping against the metal clamp, an occasional breeze wheezing through the cracks in the rock. Or maybe it’s a whisper. Even down here I can’t escape the feeling like there’s someone with me. Watching. It’s that same feeling you get when you rush down a dark stairwell, like something’s right over your shoulder … breathing down your neck.

  “Hello?” I whisper. And when I he
ar the distorted echo whispered back to me, it makes me want to crawl out of my skin. All I can do is hang here like bait.

  Starting to panic, I search my surroundings. I’m too far from the rock ledge on either side to even think about getting out of this, but there’s a hazy beam of light streaming in from everywhere I turn.

  “Is someone there?” I manage to choke out as I whip my head around, frantically trying to see where the light’s coming from. My head’s throbbing. Reaching up, I discover the source of the light—my headlamp—but I also find the left side of my hair is matted with dried blood. How long have I been hanging here? Hours … days? I look at my watch, but it’s not working—stopped at 11:57 P.M.

  If I dropped in around nine this morning, that means I’ve been hanging here for nearly fifteen hours. Maybe more.

  As I stare down into the abyss, I remember why I came down here in the first place. I couldn’t ask for a better scenario. It’s like the universe is saying, Let me help you with that. No equipment failure, no human error … it’s just a collapse. A natural death. All I have to do is detach from the rope and this will all be over.

  In my head, this seemed like the easiest decision I’d ever have to make, but now, faced with the nothingness, the cold, the deep, I can’t help but wonder if I’m making a huge mistake.

  But it’s too late for any of that now.

  As I slide my hand down the rope and place it on top of the carabiner, the rock above me grinds down a few inches, making my heart stutter.

  “Wai … wai … wait,” I say through gritted teeth as I grip on even tighter.

  Pressing my forehead against the rope, I start to cry. Something I haven’t done since the night of the incident. I’m not even sure who I’m crying for. The truth is, I’m angry. Angry at the hand I’ve been dealt, at my family for not letting me face the consequences, at myself for not having the balls to face them. I always thought I was a decent guy. Why did it have to be me on that road, on that night, at that exact moment? What was the point of all this?

  But when I think of the real victims, all the pain I’ve caused, I know what I have to do. I don’t deserve to walk away from this unscathed.

  The way I see it, I have two choices. I can either hang here, starve to death, wait for the inevitable further collapse. Or I can take matters into my own hands and finish what I started.

  With tears streaming down my face, I reach up to unscrew the safety latch on the carabiner, but it’s jammed. Either it’s frozen shut or my hands are too cold and swollen to function properly. “Please,” I say as try to get it to move, but it won’t budge.

  “Help me,” I cry in frustration, and the rock grinds down another inch.

  As I hang there, limp and exhausted, I start to laugh at the absurdity of it all. How, even now, at the end of it all, I still can’t get anything to go my way.

  “If that’s how you want it … just do it!” I scream, opening my hands wide, but nothing happens.

  I start searching my pockets for anything I can use to help me open the latch, when I find the Swiss Army knife. Digging it out, I run my thumb over the monogram. GFT V. My dad gave this to me when I turned ten. I remember how excited I was to get one just like his. I almost feel guilty using it for this, but Dad said this trip would make a man out of me.

  As I open the blade, my chin begins to quiver.

  “Forgive me,” I whisper as I press the blade against the rope.

  “Hey,” a faint voice echoes through the cavern.

  Holding still, I glance over my right shoulder and see a headlight swerving up ahead.

  For a moment, I wonder if I did it, if I’m already dead, caught in a nightmare, an endless loop of that night … but as the glow gets closer, I realize it’s a flashlight.

  The light skims across my face. I fold the blade, concealing it in the palm of my hand.

  A rescue team. Damn.

  But I can still do this. All I have to do is stall them. This entire system is on the verge of collapse, and if worse comes to worst I can always distract them and slice the rope when they’re not looking.

  “I’m here,” I reply, shielding my eyes.

  “Thank God,” someone says.

  As they emerge from a tunnel on my right, I see their silhouettes. The biggest one steps forward to peer over the drop and then quickly backs away, clinging to the inside of the tunnel. “You have no idea how happy we are to see you.”

  “Is it just you?” another one calls out.

  I shift my weight. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “But we heard you talking to some—”

  “It’s just me,” I cut them off.

  “How should we do this?” a female voice says. “Are you going to take us one at a time?”

  “Wait…” I call back. “Aren’t you the rescue team?”

  “Hardly,” a skinny guy says with a strangled laugh. “We thought you were.”

  “No,” I call back, relief and dread consuming me at once.

  “So we’re stuck down here … same as him?” the bigger guy says, a nervous edge to his voice.

  “Well, not as stuck as him,” the skinny guy replies. “That would really suck.”

  “Shut up. You’re freaking him out,” a second, shorter girl says as she slaps him in the chest.

  The school group. It must’ve been their turn in the pitch when the collapse happened.

  A horrible realization comes over me. Did I do this? Am I the reason they’re trapped down here?

  The cave lets out a grumble of warning.

  “You have to get out of here,” I say.

  “You need to figure out how to get over to us.” The first girl shines her light over the scene.

  “We don’t have time for that, and I can’t do anything without my pack—”

  “You mean this?” She shines her light on my backpack, the strap clinging to a jagged rock.

  “Look,” I say as I squeeze the blade in my hand. “Even if we could figure something out, it’s too unstable. Any extra pressure on this thing and the whole system’s going to collapse. You should take my pack, find a way out—”

  “Find a way out?” The skinny kid pulls the pack off the rock. “Don’t you think we tried that?”

  “For real.” The smaller girl shivers. “I feel like we’ve been down here forever … walking in circles.”

  “You need to go east, toward the main entrance.” I grunt in pain as I shift my weight again. “Just follow the water patterns in the rock. They’re bound to lead you to an exit.”

  “Do we look like we know anything about water patterns?” he says as he rifles through my bag. “We don’t even know how to use any of this stuff.”

  “But he does,” the tall girl says, shining her light on me.

  A tremendous groan echoes through the cavern as the rock slab grinds down a few more inches, peppering me with limestone.

  “Just get to the surface and you can send for help. I’ll be—”

  “We’re not leaving you.” The tall girl zeros in on me. “Either you figure out how to reach us, or we’ll start improvising.”

  I don’t know what my face is doing, but I’m completely terrified. This is the last thing I need right now.

  When I don’t reply, she grabs one of the ropes out of my pack. “Fine.” Nodding toward a jagged pinnacle formation on the right, she says, “Somebody kick that rock.”

  “Why?” the shorter girl asks.

  “We need to see how secure it is. If it will hold his weight.”

  “Are you sure that’s a—”

  The ceiling grinds down another inch, making all the hair on my arms stand on end. “Please, just go. You don’t want to be anywhere near this place when it—”

  “Darryl … do it,” the main girl says, completely ignoring me.

  “Look, I know I’m fat but—”

  “Stop,” the smaller girl says as she reaches out to rub his arm. “She’s not saying that. It’s just because you took jujitsu.”


  “That was one time at the park, because it was free. I should’ve never told you guys about that.”

  “Come on,” the tall girl yells.

  He gives it a solid kick—it doesn’t budge.

  “Okay, loop the rope around and toss him the end.”

  “You should throw it, Shy,” the skinny guy says.

  “Shy?” I ask, feeling more frustrated with every passing second.

  “Short for Shyanne. Discus. All state.” He shoves the rope into the taller girl’s hands. “She’s going to the Olympics.”

  “He doesn’t need my life story,” the girl mutters. “I can get the rope to you, but you better be ready for it.”

  Before I can get a word out, she twists her torso, winds her arm back and then whips it across the cavern. It catches me right across the back, before falling to the depths.

  “Oof. That’s going to leave a mark,” the skinny one says.

  As she hauls it back up, I hear a few of them whispering, probably wondering if this is a lost cause, but the girl stays focused, staring at me unflinchingly. I don’t know if she’s doing this to try to encourage me, but it’s beyond intimidating. “You’re going to have to do better than that,” she says.

  “I’m sorry.” I let out a ragged breath as I shift my weight again. “But you’re wasting your time. This isn’t going to work.”

  She steps all the way to the edge. I think she’s going to yell at me, but she softens her tone. “I know you’re probably tired. We’re all tired. But you’re going to have to dig deep. We have to do this together.”

  The slab of limestone grinds down another inch, making me shudder.

  Closing my eyes, I take a few deep breaths. Clearly, there’s no way this girl is going to give up, and if this collapses while they’re trying to help me, they’ll be buried right along with me. The last thing I want right now is to be rescued, but I can’t have any more blood on my hands. I just can’t.

  “Ready,” I call out as I readjust in the harness and propel my body around.

  She hurls the rope in my direction and I lurch forward, barely snatching it out of the air.

  They all cheer, which makes the entire chasm tremble.