Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 01:27:27 +0000
From: Michael Offutt <kavrik@hotmail.com>
Subject: Wraith Chapter Five - Gay Science Fiction

      All the usual copyright stuff applies. I appreciate you, dear reader.

      Email: kavrik@hotmail.com
      Website: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html
      Twitter: @MichaelOffutt

      Author's Note: If you visit my website, there is a picture of Jordan
that I drew myself in the gif image (website link above).  You will also
find a link to a blog post I wrote on Kolin and killsuits (with a pic of
him I drew myself). "Wraith" uses characters featured in the science-
fiction novel "SLIPSTREAM" by yours truly.  Both of these stories are based
off of the events established in the short story, "The Insanity of Zero"
also published on the Nifty Archive. If you haven't read it, please check
it out because it explains SO much.

                                         *****

                                     Chapter Five

      Rocks that ranged in size from that of a human toe to some as large
as a horse obstructed their path to freedom.  Even when the tunnel widened,
they came across places that could barely accommodate them, extolling a
cost of skin from naked elbows and hands.  Hours had passed by the time
they reached the edge of the abyss that Jordan recalled on the map.  He
believed it to be about a hundred feet wide, and it fell into an
indiscernible depth.  Behind Jordan's shoulder, the walls rose steep,
sheer, and unmerciful into a cavernous expanse swallowed in shadow.  A span
of wooden timbers extended over the gulf, reinforced by cables anchored
into the ceiling.  Jordan tried to imagine mine carts rolling along on the
tracks, over the bridge, and into tunnels where workers loaded them with
ore.

      Despite the cold, sweat rolled off his brow and into his eyes.  He
could almost hear the pickaxes and smell the explosives the miners would
have used.

      "Let's stop a moment and rest," Kathy said.  "I'm hungry, and I've
been listening to your stomach growl for the last hour."

      She plopped down next to the abrupt edge of the ravine and fished out
what little food Ashley had packed for them.  She found a single plastic
bag with some dried fruit in it and two pieces of beef jerky.  Kathy handed
Jordan some of each and took the rest for herself.  As they chewed-on in
silence, she passed the water bottle over to him.  Both of them didn't say
much, but they thought the same thing.

      "You afraid of heights?" She asked him at long last.

      He shook his head.  "I got on the super swing at the amusement park
at Six Flags remember?  You were too much of a coward to go with me."

      "I was not.  I-It's just that I didn't have the twelve bucks extra,
and since the park admission didn't cover that particular ride, I didn't
see the sense in borrowing the money."

      Jordan squinted his eyes in joy, recalling that memory as if it had
occurred just yesterday.  "I could have lent you the money.  Admit it, you
were afraid."

      "I was not," she said, taking back the water bottle and drinking from
it.

      Jordan continued to stare at her.

      "W-Well, maybe just a little."

      Jordan's eyes smiled.  "If the truth of the matter be known, I was a
little afraid too.  I guess that's what made the ride fun, but in the end,
I did it. I don't think I'd do it again, though.  It was a one-time thing."

      A long pause followed and they both finished up what little food they
had.  It was the kind of silence that would normally have gone unnoticed in
a crowded room with background noise to fill in the gaps between
conversations.  But in the mine, there wasn't any of this, and it was clear
that they both thought of Kolin and what had happened to him.  But neither
one of them wanted to mention it.

      "Are you having fun now?" she asked him, staring out over the gulf of
darkness.  She directed the flashlight along the ceiling where webs still
shrouded the rocks but without misshapen bulges in their canvas.  Rather,
it seemed remarkably smooth and featureless.

      "Not really," he admitted.

      "Me either."

      Jordan pushed himself to his feet using the palms of his hands and
dusted them off on his already filthy denim jeans.  "Then I guess we'll get
a move on.  Do you want to go first or shall I?"

      Kathy turned back from whence they came and shone the light down the
mine shaft, illuminating boulders and rocks but nothing else.  "Do you hear
that?" she asked.

      Jordan closed his eyes, and listened.  "I don't hear anything."

      "No-it's there.  It's a scratching sound coming from that direction."

      Jordan tried listening again, but he still didn't hear anything.

      "Look, we're both stressed," he said at long last.  "Let's just get
moving and get out of here.  The map showed that it's probably only a mile
more once we reach the other side of this.  Then we just follow the tracks
to where the elevator is marked.  Whether or not it's operational, we'll be
able to use the shaft to get to the surface."

      She acknowledged his statement with a simple nod, but her face had
drained of all color.

      Jordan turned away from her and stretched out his foot wrapped in a
size ten sneaker.  Gingerly, he put all of his 150-pounds onto the first
wooden beam.  It groaned under his weight, but otherwise it seemed sturdy.
He walked out onto the bridge in this manner, keeping his eyes on the
rickety wood illuminated by the flashlight.  His sister stepped out onto
the bridge behind him and carefully picked her way along the rails,
stepping where he stepped.  About midway, the track before him went dark,
and he turned back to see Kathy shining the flashlight again in the
direction from which they had just come.

      He heard the noises from the darkness beyond the beam.

      A scratching and clicking sound came from the mine shaft exactly as
she'd described.

      "I hear it now," he whispered.

      Fog emanated from between his lips.  His hands started to tremble
with fright.  For several long minutes, the two of them stared along the
path illuminated by the beam from the flashlight, but nothing came into
view.  However, the clicking and scratching grew audibly louder.

      Kathy swung the torch over the gulf of darkness and back onto the
bridge before Jordan's feet.  "Move.  Let's get off this thing and onto the
other side."

      Jordan grimaced and looked down at his filthy sneakers, picked up his
pace and took less cautious steps onto the wooden trusses.  Underneath
them, the bridge protested with loud groans.  The other side came into
view, and he felt a wave of momentary relief as he stepped firmly onto
solid rock again.  He turned back and helped his sister off of the bridge.
Behind them, he heard the wood continue to squeak.

      Something else had stepped onto the bridge.  In her hand, the
flashlight shook.  "It's reached the far side," she whimpered, eyes as wide
as saucers.

      Jordan reached out and steadied her hand and held it forward so that
she wasn't tempted to look back on whatever hunted them.  "No," Jordan
said.  "Let's just run.  Don't look at it-I don't want to know what it is."

      The two of them clasped hands and raced off following the rail line.
Behind them, Jordan heard a loud crash, and he surmised that whatever it
was had tried to cross and been too much for those old timbers to handle.
At least, he hoped this had happened.  In any event, they reacted to the
sound with vigor and flew down the tunnel, their sneakers kicking up dirt
and rocks as they sped over the half-buried rail track.  After the first
half mile, a stitch started to build in Jordan's side.  He dismissed the
pain and ran, trying his best to keep an eye on the path illuminated by the
bobbing and weaving light.

      After a mile, they stopped to catch their breath.  The passageway
before them lay strewn with webs from wall to wall.  Jordan could make out
a handle and steel door that must belong to the elevator and the mechanical
lift apparatus.  Beyond this point the mine continued of course, but they
had no intention of going any further.

      Kathy squeezed his arm.  "I hear the sound again, Jordy."

      He listened over the pounding of his heartbeat but couldn't hear the
scratching and clicking that had been so apparent back at the bridge.  He
realized that Kathy's hearing exceeded his own, just as his eyesight was
superior to hers.

      "Well, whatever it is, it survived the fall into the ravine," he
breathed, "but it's still a ways away, because I can't hear it.  We have a
few minutes."

      He crooned his neck about, bending over with his hands on his knees,
trying to slow his heart rate down while taking in the surroundings.  After
a long moment punctuated only by the sound of their joined breathing, Kathy
broke the silence.

      "How long have we been down here?" she questioned him.  Honestly, he
didn't know.  He took out his iPhone.  "This thing hasn't worked since we
got here, and I don't have a watch.  Best guess--ten hours?"

      "That sounds about right," she agreed, "give or take thirty or so
minutes."

      Jordan looked past her into the darkness and saw precisely what he
wanted to see.  Nothing.

      "Shine your light over there where the metal handle is protruding,"
he indicated.

      His sister did so, and Jordan tried to pull some of the webbing out
of the way with his outstretched hand.  It stuck to his skin.  He managed
to break some of the strands, but each thread felt stronger than packing
tape.

      After a few minutes, he'd cleared enough of it so that they could get
to where the handle jutted out from the side of the elevator door.  He took
out his keys and cut away the webbing with the edge of one of them.  Then
he traced around the seam of the elevator door, cutting free any restraints
that might hold it closed.

      "I learned this trick from cutting open UPS packages that coach got
before practice," he told her.  "Keys can cut open tape just like a box
knife."  Satisfied with his work, he tried to force the door open by
planting his right foot on one side of the door and his back against the
elevator frame.  It budged a little, but something held it closed.

      Kathy walked over to the lever and threw it down.  A loud grating
noise followed by a loud boom shook dust from the lift.  The door released,
opening up wide enough for one person to enter as long as Jordan held the
door open with his feet and back.

      Kathy got on her hands and knees and peered between Jordan's legs at
the shaft beyond; she stared up and down with the flashlight.

      "The elevator is stuck a few levels beneath us.  I can see the top of
it from here.  It also looks like the cable to it is broken, but I see
rungs that go up and some dim light from above.  I think it may be
sunlight."

      "Great," Jordan grunted.  "Find something to block this thing open,
would you?"

      Kathy stood back and looked around.  Her eyes settled on the head of
an old rusted pickaxe.  She picked it up and lay it down so that the length
of it could act as a door stopper.  Then Jordan relaxed and gently let go
of the door.

      He shook the dirt and rust from his hands once he became convinced
that it wouldn't just immediately slam shut again.  Shortly after this,
Jordan heard the faint clicking and scratching again.  It had come upon
them much sooner than the last time, and Jordan deduced that it had picked
up speed chasing after them.  He looked back at his sister and without a
word she swung into the shaft and caught one of the rungs of the ladder
that ascended toward the dim sunlight above.

      When she'd pulled herself up ten feet or so, Jordan followed suit,
only he deftly hooked the head of the pickaxe that braced the door with the
toe of his right sneaker.  With one solid tug, he sent it flying into the
elevator shaft and the metal door slammed shut, sealing the two of them
inside.  The sound that the pickaxe made as it collided with the roof of
the elevator below resembled thunder.  It probably echoed in every
unexplored corner of the mine.  Kathy shone the light down at him to make
certain he remained okay, and that was when Jordan saw the statue through a
hole in the roof below his feet.

      The statue had been carved of stone and placed on the lift by someone
or something a long time ago, probably with the intention to take it to the
surface.  It looked misshapen, surrounded by ropy tentacles and other
depictions of awful things.  Although he couldn't discern details from
fifty-feet above it where he hung suspended by his own arms, it seemed to
Jordan as if the whole belonged to some kind of black stone uncommon in the
mine itself.  Otherwise, he'd have seen it in the walls as they fled.  The
statue had a lower body comprised of multiple arthropod-like legs.

      "What's that?" Kathy asked him.

      "I don't know," he uttered, his fingers growing numb from supporting
his weight.  "But, I'm not going down there to find out, or for that
matter, to get a better look at it."

      She wiped sweat from her face and resumed her climb up the shaft.
Jordan followed her shoes up as they ascended out of the darkness, one rung
at a time, watching with apprehension as the light steadily grew in
radiance above them.  Right before the top, Jordan experienced his greatest
fear as he prayed nothing would happen to cause them to fall away from the
light.

      After five minutes, their ascent stopped at a wooden door from behind
which, sunlight streamed brightly.  Jordan jumped onto a narrow ledge,
balancing himself like he did on the diving board at his old workplace and
kicked at the door with the ball of his left foot while gripping a portion
of the wall to steady himself.  On the second kick, the wood gave way and
the door swung open revealing the setting sun over the arid desert.  He
turned back to give his sister a hand and they collapsed onto the earth,
breathing heavily and looking up at the darkening sky.

      From down below rose the awful cacophony of something huge assaulting
a metal door.  Whatever they had left behind had now reached the elevator
shaft and had flown into a rage at their escape.


                                             *****

      Chapter Six coming soon. Thanks for reading and visiting my website
link to look at the pretty pictures of Jordan and Kolin. Reader love is
awesome love.