Chapter 3 - Footsteps in the Timber
The yellow paint was fresh; the chemical smell of aerosol still lingered faintly against the moldering stench of the mine.
"Dad or Daniel?" Melissa muttered under her breath.
"Uncle Daniel came up here last weekend," Sophie said, remembering. "He said he was hunting elk, but he came back with mud on his boots that looked just like this."
"He was scouting," Melissa realized with a wave of cold fury. "He picked this shaft because he knew where it went. Or because he wanted to make sure nobody ever found the bodies."
Suddenly, a dull thump echoed from somewhere behind them, followed by the clatter of tumbling stones.
Melissa spun around, instantly reaching down to click off the flashlight. Darkness swallowed them—thick, heavy, and terrifyingly total.
She pulled Sophie against the wall of the drift, shielding her with her body.
Above, near the opening they had fallen through, came the sound of shifting gravel. Then, a low voice filtered down the vent, distorted by the stone chimney.
"Did you throw the tarp down?"
It was Daniel.
"Just drop the loose slate, you fool," Richard’s rasping voice answered, cold and impatient. "A natural cave-in looks cleaner than a tarp. If the sheriff comes out with dogs, we tell him the ground gave way while they were taking pictures near the old hoist."
Heavy boulders crashed down into the pit, slamming onto the timber supports where Melissa and Sophie had been lying just twenty minutes earlier. The sound was deafening, sending clouds of choking dust swirling down the corridor.
"Dad," Daniel’s voice drifted down, tight with anxiety. "You're sure they didn't survive? I thought I heard a cry right after they went over."
"They fell thirty feet onto solid rock, Daniel. No one survives that. Even if they did, the slate will seal the vent. By tomorrow morning, the frost will finish whatever the fall didn't. Now haul the rest of these brush piles over the hole. We need to be back at the diner in Ouray by eight to establish our timeline."
The sound of dragging brush and rolling rocks continued for another ten minutes until the faint glimmer of daylight far behind them was extinguished completely.
The surface was sealed.
In the suffocating pitch-black, Sophie’s small fingers found Melissa’s wrist. She wasn't crying anymore. The shock had burned away into a quiet, stubborn stillness.
"Mom," Sophie whispered into the dark. "We aren't going to die here."
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Melissa clicked the flashlight back on, its small beam illuminating the narrow tunnel stretching deeper into the mountain. "No, we aren't, baby. They think they buried us. But they forgot we know how to dig."
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