White Cave Escape (2 page)

“Ooooh,” groaned Tony. He looked up: “Oh, NO!”

A huge, shaggy shape came crashing out of the bushes above them. Hobart seemed to hang suspended for a split second, all four paws paddling the air. Then gravity kicked in, and the big Newfoundland dropped heavily onto the pile of kids below.

“
Woof
!” said Hobart, shaking his head in surprise at his sudden flight and abrupt landing.

“
Oof
!” came Tony's muffled voice from somewhere beneath the black, furry body.

Shawn raised his head and gazed slowly around.

“Whoa,” he said. “What
is
this place?”

chapter
2
The King Quarry

“It's a golf-ball graveyard!” gulped Tony. “The ground is white with them!”

“The only ball around here is
you
, goofball,” said Petra, as she struggled to her feet. “Look closer— those white things aren't golf balls. They're rocks.”

Tony squirmed out from under Hobart and blinked. “Whoa, you're right. Hey, what
is
this place?”

“I'll tell you what this place is,” said Craig. “It's
awesome
!”

The four friends gazed at the strange landscape surrounding them. They were standing in the bottom of a barren and rumpled valley. The ground beneath their feet was littered with broken white rocks. Large bone-coloured boulders lay lumped together in scattered piles. Above them a white cliff, scarred and weathered, hunched its rounded shoulders against the sky. Its lower slope was covered in a scree of white gravel. Scraggly tufts of weeds bristled from the severe cliff face. It reminded Shawn of a shaggy old man with bushy eyebrows and an overgrown beard scowling down at them. Along the top ridge of the cliff, the pointed prongs of fir trees jutted sharply skyward, like the crown of some old storybook king.

At the base of the cliff, the ground rippled unevenly in a series of humps and hollows. Clumps of thistles, asters, burdocks, and wildflowers sprouted out of the white gravel. Winding and dipping through the middle of it all was the faded track of an old dirt road. In its washed-out ruts, chunks of white rock gleamed through the red dirt like bones.

“Creepy,” said Shawn.

“Cool!” said Craig. “What an awesome place for mountain bikes! Look at that dip over there—it's like a half-pipe!” He jogged over to the dirt road. Following it up a small hillock, Craig stopped at the top and peered over the edge. On the other side, the track careened down a short but steep incline before rising up over another hump a short distance away. “Oh yeah,” Craig called back to the others. “We could get some serious air here.”

Shawn looked at Petra. “Do you know where we are?”

Petra nodded, slowly. “I think we just found the King Quarry.”

“The what?” said Shawn.

Petra picked up a chunk of the white rock. Kneeling, she scratched it against a flat slab of shale. A bright white line appeared on the grey stone.

“Uh-huh. Just like I thought,” she said, tossing the piece of white rock to Tony.

“Neat—chalk!” said Tony, drawing white X's and O's on another grey rock.

Petra shook her head. “Gypsum,” she said.

“Gypsies? Where?” said Tony, staring around in surprise. “I didn't know there were gypsies in Hillsborough.”

“She said
gypsum
, not gypsies,” Shawn laughed. “Gypsum is the stuff they use to make drywall and plaster.”

“The hills around here are full of the stuff,” said Petra, nodding. “They used to mine it and haul it down to the Petitcodiac to be carried away on ships. But then the company closed down. The gypsum mines and quarries were abandoned.”

“Why do they call this place the King Quarry?” Shawn asked, glancing up again at the looming cliff with its spiky crown.

“Because it was the biggest one, I think,” said Petra.

“You mean there's more than one gypsum quarry?” interrupted Tony.

“Sure,” said Petra. “The woods back here are full of abandoned quarry pits. There are underground mines running all through these hills, too.”

Using the white rock, Tony sketched some more white lines on the grey boulder. He stepped back and surveyed his artwork proudly. It was a stick figure of a girl with ponytail.

“Hey, check it out!” he said with a grin. “It's a Petra-glyph!”

Just then, a buzzing noise like a far-off chainsaw ruptured the silence that lay over the valley. It increased rapidly in volume into a snarling, motorized whine. A pheasant erupted from the bushes, squawking in alarm as three ATVs roared out of the forest. Tires skidding on the loose gravel, the vehicles careened over the jumps and bumps in the old road, bucking like broncos. The hoots and jeers of the drivers rose over the noise of their engines.

“Heads up…they're coming this way,” Shawn warned in a low voice.

Sure enough, the riders had spotted them. Spinning in tight, gravel-spraying doughnuts, the three ATVs changed course, speeding directly towards Shawn and his friends.

“I've got a bad feeling about this,” said Tony, as the machines roared towards them.

“You and me both,” said Shawn. He could make out the riders now. Teenagers. High-schoolers…maybe grade eleven or twelve, Shawn guessed. Two were wearing camouflage jackets and pants, and the other, a worn plaid shirt. The grins on their faces weren't the friendly sort. The camo-clad leader crouched lower over his handlebars and revved his engine into a protesting screech. The other two quads fanned out on either side of the lead driver, cutting off any possible avenue of escape.

“Um, they're going to go around us…right?” said Tony in a worried voice. “
Right
?”

But the ATVs kept coming straight at them. Closer. Closer.

“This can't be good,” breathed Petra.

The boy on the lead ATV pointed at them, cocking his finger like a pistol. Shawn saw him grin. The ATV accelerated.

Petra reached out as if to grasp Shawn's sleeve.

Then, in a rush of noise and exhaust, the quads were upon them.

Shawn got a whiff of gasoline, saw the mud-spattered headlamp, and glimpsed the metallic glint of braces beneath the sneering upper lip of the lead driver. Instinctively, he flung one arm in front of Petra and the other over his face. He heard Tony yell…and then the ATVs swerved, missing them by mere inches, and spraying them with gravel. Guffawing loudly, the leader flicked something at Petra as he sped past.

“Ow!” she cried, clutching her arm. “You idiots! You…you…” But for once Petra was at a loss for words, speechless with outrage.

Tony tapped her on the shoulder. “Allow me,” he said. “I believe the words you're looking for are: YOU BLUBBER-BRAINED BUFFOONS! YOU NEOLITHIC NINCOMPOOPS! YOU MUD-SWILLING, MOLD-MUNCHING MORONIC MOLLUSKS! IF YOU EVER BOTHER US AGAIN WE'LL FEED YOUR BOXER SHORTS TO THE BEAVERS!”

“Yeah—what
he
said,” shouted Petra, shaking her fist at the disappearing vehicles. She sighed and turned. “Thanks, Tony,” she said.

Tony waved his hand. “Aw, no problem—I have a way with words,” he said modestly.

“Are you okay?” Shawn asked Petra.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Petra, inspecting a small, angry, red mark on her arm. “What did that lame-brain throw at me, anyway?”

“This,” said Tony. He squatted down near the side of the dirt road and pointed at a small yellowish object on the ground.

“A cigarette butt!” exclaimed Shawn angrily.

“Oh, gross me out the door,” said Petra in disgust.

“It's still smouldering,” observed Tony.

“Stamp it out,” ordered Petra. “Everything around here is as dry as matchsticks…a spark is all it would take to send these hills up in smoke.”

Tony ground the butt ferociously beneath the heel of his sneaker.

“Come on, guys,” said Shawn. “Let's get back to the course. Are you ready, Craig?”

No answer.

“Craig?” Shawn looked around him in alarm. His younger brother was nowhere to be seen.

Shawn shouted again. “
Craig
!”

The white cliffs glowered down at him in obstinate silence. Shawn turned back to Tony and Petra. “Where is he?” he asked.

“And where is Hobart?” said Petra.

chapter
3
A Ghost Underground

“Okay,” said Petra, “everybody just stop and think— when was the last time one of us saw Craig or Hobart?”

Shawn ran his hand through his hair, and scanned the impassive cliff face for the hundredth time. “I don't know.”

The three of them had dashed about the quarry, searching without success.

“
Think
,” insisted Petra. “When was the last time anybody heard Craig say anything?”

“I don't
know
,” Shawn said again in frustration.

“What about when the ATVs came?” Tony said. “Craig loves anything with an engine…I can't imagine him keeping quiet about that.”

“You're right!” said Shawn. “He can't have been with us when the ATVs showed up or he would have said something for sure.” He shook his head angrily. “I thought he was right behind me when the ATVs came. How could I have not noticed that my own brother was missing?” He kicked a rock savagely, sending it bouncing off the stubbly chin of the cliff.

“None of us noticed,” Petra said bluntly. “We were all a little preoccupied with the problem of impending death.”

“The half-pipe!” exclaimed Tony, suddenly.

“The what?” said Shawn—but Tony was already running.

“The half-pipe!” Tony called back over his shoulder. “That big dip in the road…Craig said it would be a good place to ride a mountain bike.
That
was the last thing he said.” He took off along the dirt road.

When Shawn and Petra caught up with him, Tony was standing at the top of the dip in the road. It did look like a half-pipe.

“This is it,” said Tony. “This is the last place I remember seeing Craig.”

Petra shaded her eyes with her hand and scanned the quarry again. “We looked over here already,” she said, shaking her head. “I still don't see anything.”

“CRAIG!” called Shawn.

“HOBART!” yelled Tony.

Nothing.

Shawn strained his ears, listening:

A fat bumblebee hummed quietly to itself as it burrowed busily into the petals of a purple flower. Grasshoppers clicked their wings in a stuttering staccato. A flock of crows cawed accusingly in the distance. And from somewhere beneath their feet, a ghost began to moan.

Ooooooooo-ooooooo…

Tony's bristly hair stood up even straighter than usual.

“D-d-d-did you guys just hear that?” he whispered.

“Uh-huh,” Shawn whispered back.

Ooooooooo-ooooooo…

“Petra, do you know what's making that noise?” whispered Shawn. Wide-eyed, Petra shook her head.

Ooooooooo-ooooooo…

The sound came again.

“Aw, I'm sure it's n-n-nothing,” quavered Tony. “It's probably just the wind, or a creaking tree trunk, or the ghost of some long-dead miner buried in the gypsum and doomed to haunt the quarry forever.”

“Way to make us feel better,” said Shawn.

“Don't mention it,” said Tony.

Ooooooooo-ooooooo…!
the sound moaned from somewhere below them.

“Spare me, O Great Ghost of the Quarry!” cried Tony, falling to his knees.

“Tony, there are no such things as ghosts,” hissed Petra.

Ooooooooo-ooooooo…!

“Oh y-y-yeah?” chattered Tony. “Tell that to our p-p-paranormal pal down there.” Tony pointed to the ground.

“That's exactly what I intend to do!” huffed Petra. “There must be a logical explanation…” She walked away from the boys, staring hard at the ground.

“Uh, Petra…what are you doing?” asked Shawn warily.

“Looking for our underground ghost,” she answered. “That sound has to be coming from somewhere.”

Shawn moved cautiously across the quarry floor, kicking at piles of white rubble and pushing aside clumps of scraggly bushes. “And what are we looking for, exactly?”

“Oh, just the usual stuff,” Tony interjected before Petra could answer. “You know—gateways to the underworld, portals to alternate universes, rips in the space-time continuum…stuff like that.”

“You watch way too much TV,” Shawn told him.

“Well, you never know,” said Tony seriously, talking over his shoulder as he pushed his way through a patch of tall weeds. “I saw this show on TV last week about UFOs and—”

Tony disappeared.

Shawn blinked. One moment, Tony had been standing in the long grass, a few metres away. The next, he was gone.

“This has got to stop happening,” said Petra.

Shawn and Petra sprinted towards the spot where Tony had been standing.

“
Whoa
!” yelled Shawn, skidding to a stop as a gaping hole suddenly appeared at his feet. He teetered, arms flailing, and then Petra's hand was gripping his elbow, yanking him back from the edge.

“It's a sinkhole!” gasped Petra.

Shawn gave a low whistle. “That hole could swallow my dad's car! What made it? A meteor?”

Petra shook her head. “The ground collapsed. Gypsum erodes really easily. So when rain or underground springs wash away a pocket of underground gypsum, there's nothing left to support the soil on top, and the ground sinks in on itself. Kind of like when you dig a hole in a snowbank and the roof caves in. My uncle says there are all kinds of sinkholes back here…and more could open up at any time.”

“Hey, stop talking and GET ME OUT OF HERE!” It was Tony's voice, sounding weirdly hollow, and it was coming from the sinkhole. Shawn threw himself on his belly and peered over the edge.