Escape (Chronicles of Hart) (4 page)

Ethan’s shoes were filling with water. He felt like he was walking in a swamp as muck sloshed around inside his socks. He wished he had thought to dress better for this excursion. He should have packed something warmer for Grace too. Underground the air had a damp chill to it that was pleasant against his flushed skin while he worked up a sweat walking. Soon, however, the cold air would be a problem. Grace was only wearing thin layers and could easily catch a chill or pneumonia from the exposure in the passageway and he needed to get her out alive.

TUNNEL

Grace moved quickly, cautiously testing her footing with each step after almost falling over what was probably a tree root. She made her way through the tunnel hoping that there would be no fork in the road along the way. With no light, she couldn’t check the map Ethan had given her. At every support beam Grace would pause, quickly pushing a hand in front searching for a wall before her, afraid of walking into it head on. She was disappointed a little bit more each time she swiped her hand through the air and felt nothing in front of her.

The tunnel inclined slowly, growing steeper as Grace moved on. Downwards it grew danker and darker. The air was almost too thick to breath.  Like soup it caught in her lungs making it harder to press forward. Grace pushed on determined to make it to the next checkpoint before the guards caught up. She knew the entrance to this tunnel was still passable with the junk caught up in the opening preventing it from closing safely behind them. It was a dead giveaway as to where she and Ethan had disappeared to. With all of the commotion the moving floor had caused in the cellar they would have to be incompetent not to realize they were down that hole in the floor. She was wondering how far behind they were when her foot slipped from under her. It sent her sliding down a wet hill and it took her a moment of fumbling to regain her footing. She was covered in mud and sweat, lurching forward through the soupy muck, ankle deep in parts. As the caked mud began to dry on her arms and back in a breeze from below, she became uncomfortable and cold. The drying mud cracked on her skin as she moved.

Behind her a dim light bounced against the ceiling as it ambled along like a humble green cloud in the distance. She quickened her pace and it began steadily growing farther away, but she would not let up until she was through the checkpoint and had closed it behind her. She hoped the guards had not caught up to Ethan. He was surely somewhere behind her, he hadn’t kept pace and when she whispered his name no one answered. She hoped he would catch up soon. She would wait for him on the other side of the checkpoint. Surely the guards wouldn’t know how to get beyond it. She could rest while she waited, knowing that she was finally safe. The thought pulled her through as her foot became suctioned, stuck in the thick soup of goop beneath her.

***

Back in the church’s great room the guards turned, looking to one another with confusion as a loud crash shook the decaying floorboards beneath them. Pieces of angels fell from their pewter holdings in the boarded up windows, crackling across the room with an eerie twinkle as they shifted across the floor towards Steve and Walt’s feet, “Was that the storage room?” asked Walt, looking to his companion with a confused bewilderment. Their hostage was down there and it felt like he was bringing the rest of the church down with him. The floor shook again with more force. From beneath the floorboards a sound like shattering wood resonated against their creaking floorboards. It was as if hell had opened up beneath them. Walt was suddenly fearful. Remorse swam through his veins as he deliberated.

“Yeah, we’d better both go.” responded Steve. He looked terrified at the thought of going back into the dark cellar again to discover what that unearthly noise was. Stepping over the broken coloured glass carefully he lead the way to the staircase, deliberately choosing his footing carefully to stall, hoping Walt would take the lead.

The guards ambled grudgingly down the flights of stairs and into the cellar slowly with their weapons drawn. Walt had never fired a gun in his life. His hand shook as he held the tip of the gun away from his face, safety still on. It was more for intimidation than anything. With their flashlights out, the two circled the wrecked room together looking for their captive. All they found was an empty post and a sinkhole in the floor. The two stopped short of the opening, cautious of the floor giving way beneath them.

“What’s this?” asked Walt, looking at the sunken floor and the shifted boxes. He pointed his light at a pew caught in the gap, half splintered from the force.  The dust had settled back down, but the stench of rotting damp earth was pungent and stifling in the confined space of the cellar. It clung at the hairs on the back of Walt’s neck as he realized what was happening. He should have read the manual when he had taken the position as a guard at the church. Something was in the basement, he just couldn’t remember what. Looking at the damage the sinkhole had caused to the crushed boxes and rubbish, he was sure it was nothing good.

Steve pointed his flashlight at the opening, leaning into it to take a look at the dark crevasse beneath, “Look Walt, it’s a tunnel
!” he exclaimed. In the confusion he confirmed that he had not read the manual either, “They must have left together through there” He paused, circling his flashlight over the hole “...I’m calling this in,” He trailed off reaching for his cell as he tucked his light back into his belt.

“Do we follow or wait for backup?” Walt asked before Steve had a chance to get his phone out of the pocket he was struggling with.

“I’ll call it in, they’ll probably tell me to do that anyway...” he trailed off as his phone came free of the tight breast pocket he had slipped it in that morning. He walked away to the stairwell looking for a signal. He glanced over his shoulder at Walt, worried about leaving him alone in the cellar. If the girl and her fugitive were capable of this, he wasn’t sure how far they would be willing to go to get out of the church. She
was
a criminal after all.

Walt waited at the entrance to the tunnel, keeping his light trained on the opening as he listened intently for any sounds of movement in the cellar. He was not fully convinced that they had even entered the chasm. It could just as likely be a trap for him and Steve to stumble upon. They were probably looming in a corner waiting for Steve to return so they could shove them in and close the ground back up, leaving them lost forever. Walt looked over his shoulder cautiously, jumping at the sound of Steve walking back towards him after several minutes of silence.

“Called for backup.” Steve said struggling to replace the phone in the tiny chest pocket of his uniform shirt, “I say we follow, both of us. Just until backup gets here,” He stopped to pull his flashlight back out, clicking it on with gusto “at least it will look like we tried,” he smiled to Walt knowing that neither of them wanted to face the girl anyway.

Walt waited while Steve adjusted his holster, checking his gun clip just in case he needed it in the tunnel. Walt looked for an opening big enough for them to fit though. He crawled down shining his flashlight looking for lights, listening for sounds. When Steve joined him he knew they were too far behind to catch up. They trudged on anyway, knowing the consequences if they did not follow were worse than a walk through a murky tunnel.

HIDDEN

Ethan slowed his pace, looking frantically with his dim light from side to side. He hoped to see Grace paused for a break. He secretly worried that he had passed her already. He knew as a child she had been filled with energy, but after years of captivity he was concerned about her keeping up and ahead of the guards that were likely soon to follow. He was exhausted and having trouble breathing in the damp warm air. His breathing became heavier as the tunnel dipped further into the earth and his lungs burned from exhaustion. The air grew staler and thicker the farther in he went. Ethan could not breath, pausing to catch his bearings he dared turn his light off for a moment to conserve the battery life. He held his hands over his head to open up his airway, a trick he had learned as a child to help overcome severe asthma attacks. He crouched on the balls of his feet, taking deep painful breaths trying desperately to stifle off an attack. The guards had frisked him before tying him against the post in the cellar, his inhaler had been chucked somewhere in the piles of boxes surrounding him. He may have had a backup in the messenger bag of supplies he had toted in over the wall, but the contents had been spilled in a trail over the front steps and across the church floor. It was empty before they had reached the winding staircase. He knew he should have chosen a more secure bag for the supplies. Now scattered out of reach, he wasn’t sure they would have all the necessary tools to get through the tunnels.

As his breathing calmed, Ethan heard noises in the tunnel behind him. It sent his heart racing in a panic. Standing quickly, he turned back to look and noticed that the tunnel was growing brighter like a train coming towards him with its high beams on. The lights were bright and numerous. Someone had a light and was following up behind him. It confirmed his hopes that Grace must be ahead of him, Ethan rose and continued on in the dark. He tucked his flashlight back into his pocket leaving it off, not wanting to give away his location. He tripped forward catching a face full of the putrid mud that infected the tunnel floor. The path was more intense than he had anticipated. More like an obstacle course than a gateway and without the light of his flashlight he was unfamiliar with the loss of his sense of sight. He only hoped that he could make do without it long enough to evade the guards closing in behind him, once they spotted him it would be over and both he and Grace would be dead. Rising from the slick muck he began forward at the fastest pace he could manage as his feet caught and he tried to rely on his other senses.

Grace, with one hand grazing the wall beside her, came to a halt as her other hand finally made contact with something solid. With two hands she felt the stones in front of her and began searching for a dial. A grin spreading across her face as she realized that she was finally close enough to safety to relax in a moment, just as soon as she got the dial set. Heavy breathing was growing closer, Grace paled as she felt her safety slipping away. She traced the wall frantically searching for the dial until finally her hand made contact with the circular protuberance. She started spinning it wildly, hoping to land on the right number by luck as she randomly stopped it trying to push in before resuming with spinning again. The breathing was right behind her. She froze in the middle of a spin of the dial as something hit the wall heavily beside her.

“Ugh.” Ethan groaned as he fell beside Grace.

“Thank goodness it is you and not the guards, I see you have finally caught up
.” Grace chided breathing out heavily as she calmed down from the excitement, “I can’t find the numbers on the dial.” She pointed to the wall, not realizing that Ethan couldn’t see her in the dark.

Ethan stood, blushing in the dark cavern. He was almost glad for the lack of sight as he reached into his pocket and retrieved his flashlight. Clicking the button, he squinted, his eyes adjusting to the dim light again.

Grace blinked twice quickly to clear her eyes as she frantically turned the dial to seven and pushed it in with as much force as she could muster. With a slight clicking noise the wall began to lift before her. She watched as it disappeared into the ceiling leaving only a foot of the original wall dangling with the dial sticking out near the top. Grace ducked under swiftly, stepping over the gap in the floor where the wall had sunken in leaving a deep trench swelling with water from an underground stream. “Switch it back off,” she whispered to Ethan urgently, watching as light approached from the distant hollow of the tunnels.

Ethan reached up pulling the dial back out and giving it a quick spin before diving under the wall. He nearly got caught in the trench under it. Luckily the wall was slow moving or he would have been one foot short of a pair as his sneaker caught perfectly in the groove. Slowly the wall lowered back to the ground with a damp click, sloshing stale water at them in a shallow wave as it locked in place.

Taking a quick break on the other side of the wall, Ethan and Grace relished in the fact that they were finally safe from the guards. Slowly their hearts settled back into a natural rhythm as the pressure and terror of the situation died back down to a simmering roar. From here on out, they could take their time as long as they made it out before they starved that was. Ethan couldn’t help but feel guilt at the fact that they were now travelling without supplies and he was unsure of what the trek ahead of them held. All the research he had done had been ambiguous. The tunnels were said to be a myth and the books that had acknowledged them as fact had little to no information regarding their magnitude. They were running blind with nothing to carry them though. Although he worried, he couldn’t let on to Grace just how dire their situation was. She needed to have hope. She didn’t deserve more to worry about, so Ethan kept his lips sealed.

“How long is this maze?” Grace asked, looking around the small opening they had entered.

“My source said it could take a while, I had supplies...but,” he trailed off apologetically, realizing that she was worrying about the length of the tunnel. He smiled at her through the dim green glow of his flashlight as it glowed around them, “shouldn’t be too bad,” he added, trying to lighten up the situation by being cheerful.

“Hey, don’t worry about that...” Grace began, chuckling lightly as Ethan held the light at his chin making a goofy face into the beam as it shone across his face. The light etched in strange shadows that gave him the look of a ghoul, childish, but she had missed his humour. Grace continued to stare at him as he spoke to her softly, bringing the light between them brightening them both up like they were in a bubble of light together in the dark of the earth.

“I was supposing to charge in like a knight in shining armour to save you from your tower.” Ethan began quietly. “It was suppose to be chivalrous you know.” He raised a brow, looking up into Grace’s smiling dirt covered face.

Grace chuckled, “Ethan, you are ridiculous
,” she concluded, giving him a light shove in the chest. She was so relieved to finally have someone to talk to, she couldn’t stop smiling. She pulled him in for a hug, knocking the light tumbling ahead of them into the tunnel. She missed the look on his face as she embraced him tightly for a moment before he darted ahead to catch up with the flashlight, heart pounding.

The path continued on through a series of winding tunnels. Low ceilings in stone arched caverns left them crawling through sections and kept them on their toes, awaiting new obstructions and challenges along the way. Collapsed walls sent them climbing over debris just as they had gotten accustomed to the falling arches at their sides. Along the walls in even intervals were candles in delicate brass hinges, most looked as if they hadn’t been used in hundreds of years. Cobwebs clung to the dry wax drips, dangling from the holders as though the candles had burned through unobstructed by human life. It was like they were left to warn those who chose to use the tunnels after their purpose that they had once been a place busy with life. Names carved into the wooden pillars decayed into gibberish, crumbling as the lives they represented had long forgotten this place. Gloom crept through Grace as she wondered if anyone had ever been trapped in here, not knowing the next number in the sequence, stuck forever in a forgotten maze. She shuttered and stopped looking down, just in case she came across a straggler.

Ethan was struggling as his shoes caught in the rubble. Sopping wet, they squelched as he took steps, slipping on rocks and catching in crevasses. Grace, barefoot, seemed to have better luck scaling the small mountain. She brushed carefully under the ceiling and down the other side. Her feet were cracked and peeling from the mud, slowly drying in layers and falling off. The walls were dangerously unstable in this section, providing little support to the drooping ceiling. Grace and Ethan hurried through with desperation to find someplace safer to slow down.

“What were these tunnels for?” Grace asked, curiosity finally taking precedence over her silent struggle with the pile of debris laid out before her.

“Back in the civil war,” Ethan huffed, keeping up so he could keep his voice low “They were a safe way for the southerners to escape with their family through the church...not everyone got to pick their side...” he scoffed at the dampness “kind of like you and I...” he trailed off darkly, covering it up with an awkward forced laugh.

Grace bit her lip, imagining the families fleeing through these dank tunnels searching for their freedom like Ethan and her. Struggling through the tunnels like their very lives depended on it, she could relate and it made her feel even more depressed at the state of the tunnels. The real reason why they were one way; so they could never go back. The thought of leaving a loved one behind and never being able to retrieve them opened up a wound in her heart that she had been healing for years.

It had been forever since her and Ethan, best of friends in private school, had shared secrets with one another. She didn’t know how much Ethan knew of her capture and the circumstances surrounding it, only that she was locked up to keep certain things hidden. She didn’t want him to know either. Ethan would hate her if he knew. Maybe he already did. He was the thing she had left behind, never to return and with no way of turning back. She was not willing to throw away a second chance with him, not for anything.

They walked on in silence for some time. Both were lost in thought as they struggled with the underground terrain looking at it with a strange new understanding. This was never a happy place to be, anyone that had ever passed through had been running from something. If she was quiet enough Grace could feel the adrenaline of all those who had been chased through before her resonating against the decay still pulsating now in her veins. The tunnels seemed alive. She and Ethan had to pause briefly for an awkward washroom break in the already dank tunnels, each taking a turn walking back and away from the light to relieve themselves awkwardly. It was not as awkward as Grace would have thought. Because it was more of a factor in their survival, it became second nature not to talk about it. Ethan thought about this for a while nervously; his attempted chivalry had backfired so dramatically. Not only had she saved him from the villains, but urination in a tunnel reminded him more of imprisonment than freedom; it was embarrassing.