Chasm Page 10

  The main float—the one carrying all the candy and chocolate and prizes—he saw crashing at the bottom of Ford Street and everyone on the float getting injured. He didn’t know how he’d seen it or if he was imagining things, but the image was so vivid that he couldn’t take the chance. So right before the parade, when all the floats and riders were gathered at the Lodge Building, Daniel called in an anonymous fire alarm.

  While everyone gathered outside and waited for the fire trucks to come, Daniel snuck in and inspected the float. Sure enough, the trailer hitch wasn’t fastened securely; the pin had come loose. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Daniel reattached the pin and checked to make sure the rest of the trailer was safe. Meanwhile, his friends helped themselves to all the candy and prizes their bags (which Daniel told them to bring) would hold. Hey, he was doing something good, right? He at least deserved a reward.

  Yeah, well, good luck convincing Sheriff Meisner (or his mother) of that. He imagined how it would play out.

  Yes, Sheriff Meisner, that’s correct. I had a weird image pass through my head of a float disaster and was doing my civic duty to protect the citizens of Grisby. Oh, about the candy and prizes? Well, surely you can understand growing boys needing their daily nutritional sustenance.

  Yeah, right. Daniel figured it best to keep his mouth shut and take his lumps the hard way. He’d rather be considered a criminal than a crazy person.

  The memory was cut short. There was a rustling in the trees and the old man’s ears perked up. “We must go,” he whispered.

  Daniel chuckled. “This guy is something else. One minute he’s playing hypnotist, the next minute he’s all serious.” Daniel looked around. I don’t even know what he’s looking at. There’s nothing there except … whoa, a deer! Cool!

  “Follow me,” the man said. “And keep your head down.”

  Daniel smiled and waved to the deer. “Relax. It’s not going to hurt anyone. It’s just a cute little d—”

  “Now,” said the old man.

  “But …”

  “Perhaps it would appear cute to you, but things are not always what they seem. You would be wise to remember as much. Now come along.”

  The old man led the way through a narrow ditch. Daniel followed, but under protest. He didn’t see what the old man was getting so worked up about. After all, everybody liked deer. Or was it “deers?” He couldn’t remember: what was the plural of deer? I know moose is moose and mouse is mice, but what is deer? I know the answer: who cares? I’m not in school right now. How do you say ‘more than one obnoxious old man’? Two of him is how you say it.

  “Why does everyone in my life have to be so dramatic?” Daniel stopped. “Darn it. I knew I didn’t feel as heavy as before.” With all the pressure the man put on him to hurry, he’d forgotten his backpack. The old man was probably going to flip out when he told him. “Uh, mister,” his voice cracked, “can you stop for a second? We have to go back.”

  Daniel was thankful the old man didn’t flip out, but he did give Daniel a stern look and told him to stay put while he went for the pack. “I shall return shortly,” he added and scampered through the woods.

  Daniel kicked at the ground while he waited. “I shall return shortly,” he mocked the old man. He wondered why adults talked weirder the older they got. Would he talk like that when he was old, saying things like shall and thou? Daniel impersonated a grown-up’s voice: “I shall serve dinner shortly, if thou will set the table.”

  “Heck, no,” he said. “I’m never going to talk like that.”

  He turned his attention to the old man. The man was weaving through the thicket in a hurry. It was kind of surprising to see a maybe-eighty-year-old person moving with that kind of agility. The man came to a tall tree and, with the speed and balance of a frightened squirrel, shinnied up it in a matter of seconds.

  Daniel gasped. “How did he do that? That was unbelievable!” The old man scoured the woods until he spotted the backpack then slid down and sprinted after it. “This guy may be an antique, but that was still pretty amazing.”

  The man returned and handed Daniel his pack. “Consider being more careful next time,” he said. “The fewer times I do that, the better off we both shall be.”

  Daniel bit his tongue. He figured it wasn’t worth getting into an argument about. Besides, he thought, you can’t reason with old people. They’re too stuck in their ways. He dug his hands into his pockets and started walking.

  They traveled quietly for a couple of hours. The man seemed preoccupied and a lot more serious, but that was fine with Daniel. The longer he went without the old man’s prattling, the happier he’d be. He grabbed his pack and held it tightly. How could I have forgotten this? This is how all the trouble started. If it wasn’t for this stupid … (Hush.) He forgot. If the old man was trespassing on his thoughts, he sure didn’t want him knowing about the onyx.

  The man stopped and turned to Daniel. “We’re here.”

  Chapter 17

  Kidnapped

  Covering his face with his hands, Joshua opened his eyes, peeking through the slits of his fingers. No blue, he noticed. So far, so good. Cautiously, he removed his hands and looked into darkness.

  There is darkness, such as sitting in a dimly lit movie theater, then there is darkness: the pitch-black, raise-the-hair-on-the-back-of-your-arms kind of darkness. This was the second type, and it scared him half to death.

  “Where am I?” Joshua said and immediately put his hands to his throat. He felt a searing pain and recognized it right away. It was the same rasping pain he felt two years earlier when his dad took them to a hockey game and he screamed his lungs out. Joshua gently massaged his throat and tried to come to grips with his surroundings.

  Except for a faint glow coming from overhead, it was useless trying to see. Instead, Joshua listened for any sound, any movement, something he could recognize. But there was nothing, only the familiar sound of his own breath, growing more hurried by the second.

  With no sight, nor discernible sound, Joshua fought for control of his other senses. Whatever this place was, it was cold and damp, and Joshua huddled against himself, tightly wrapping his arms around his knees. “It smells like wet leaves in here,” he whispered, then gently massaged his throat. That really hurts.

  A few minutes passed in this manner, with Joshua afraid to move, afraid to make a sound in case someone heard him. He’d read enough comics to know that when the bad guys heard the prisoner moving around in a cell, that’s when they came to torture him. Joshua had never seen a guy tortured when he was asleep, so right now that was his plan, to be as quiet as a church mouse, and maybe they’d forget about him.

  It was a two-edged sword, though. While the silence was probably keeping him safe from his captors, it was taking a heavy toll on his mind. He needed to hear something, anything, other than the emptiness around him. Joshua screamed inside his head, drawing it out for as long as he could. Something about hearing his own scream—the loudness of his voice—he found relief in this. But as he drew his next breath, the silence returned, along with the fear. Joshua began to cry.

  This time, there would be no holding back the tears. His cries would fill the air and alert the bad guys that he was awake, then they’d inflict numerous kinds of punishment on him. But it didn’t matter anymore. He was just a boy. This wasn’t fair. All he’d done was try to protect his brother.

  Joshua cried at the top of his lungs, his breath convulsing as he sobbed. “I don’t care if they hear me or not,” he said, his throat burning as he spoke. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t like this place.”

  Joshua had never been a boy who kept his feelings bottled up and, true to form, he held nothing back. His voice rose high in the air and echoed throughout the room. As he cried, wiping the snot from his nose, Joshua recalled the events of that night—how he got the weird feeling, like a prickling of his skin, and knew Daniel was in trouble. How he ran through the woods with the feeling inside telling him w
hich way to go. The feeling led him to the mausoleum.

  This time, he wasn’t afraid. All he cared about was finding Daniel and he raced through the arboretum at full speed, praying he found him in time. But he got there too late and Daniel was already gone. The next thing he knew he was being captured by the creepy-looking goon and taken into the awful blue light.

  Now, Joshua simply wanted to go home again so he could see his mom and brother. He was lonely and scared, and spit drooled from his lips as he cried. Everything about this place was terrible. He was sitting on an iron grate that made his butt hurt; as far as he could tell, he was in some sort of cave; and worst of all, he couldn’t see. “Please let me out of here,” he said. “I want to go home.”

  He wiped the final tears from his eyes. Final tears are always the worst, but they can’t last forever, and these, too, began to fade, leaving Joshua struggling to catch his breath. As the tears subsided, his screams turned to sad whispers. “I wish this was a dream and it was Friday night movie night, and me and Daniel were making a fort. Then when I opened my eyes, we’d be sleeping inside our pillow and blanket fort …”

  Pillow and blanket forts. It was such a simple memory, but one that came at the perfect time. Of course. My flashlight wristwatch! The question was whether it still worked. Joshua crossed his fingers. “Please work,” he whispered, pressing the button on the side of the watch. “Please, please, please work.”

  As it cut through the darkness and filled the room, that tiny beam of light, however faint, appeared to shine no less brightly, no less brilliantly, than a thousand torches burning. “Score!” Joshua said, again placing his hands to his throat. “Ouch, that really, really hurts.”

  He was still alone, his throat still hurt, and it was still way too quiet, but at least he could see and his spirits lifted. First things first, I have to figure out where I am. He shined the light on the near wall. And then how to get the heck out of here.

  ***

  It wouldn’t be easy. Joshua was surrounded by a stone wall, and the iron grate below him, designed in a medieval-looking pattern, covered the entire floor. The shadows splayed across the room danced like goblins over the stony walls. “If it looks like a dungeon and smells like a dungeon, then it’s probably a dungeon.” Joshua’s lip quivered, but there were no more tears to cry.

  He placed his hands on the wall. The stone was smooth, evidently worn from time. However, its surface was uneven and Joshua was quick to notice several spots that might provide small handholds. Joshua spotted a hold three feet overhead and decided to go for it. He pushed off with his free leg and stretched his arm as high as it would go. He strained but quickly reached the hold, allowing him to balance securely on his feet.

  Joshua looked down. He was out of breath from those two simple moves but had climbed five feet. Five feet down, forty-five left to go. It dawned on him, he wasn’t sure if that was a more encouraging thought or disappointing one. He pushed it from his mind and scaled higher.

  Joshua wasn’t trying to escape, not by any stretch of the imagination. He knew that if he tried to escape it would take time to work up the courage to do so. Right now, he was testing the waters, getting a feel for the wall and what it would be like to scale fifty feet of it with no rope or safety net, clinging for dear life against its surface. Joshua decided to come down. He lowered his foot to the previous toehold but his hand slipped, causing him to tumble to the ground.

  Joshua crashed hard against the iron grate, his elbow taking the brunt of the collision. “I think it’s broken,” he cried and sat on the floor, rubbing his arm until the pain subsided. His confidence was shaken by the fall. If it hurt that badly falling eight feet, what would happen if he got to the top and fell? Would he break every bone in his body … or worse?

  “It doesn’t help that this stupid floor is made out of iron!”

  Shining the light overhead, he squinted to see the top of the cave and thought he saw the shape of something move. He squinted again but saw nothing. “There’s no way I can do it. No way can I climb this in the dark.”

  He did have to escape, though. The thought of Goon-Face entering the cave made him cringe with disgust. Plus, what if there were others that looked like him, an entire gang of freakos, all giant and ugly?

  I have to get out of here. Joshua got on his knees and scoured the wall with his hands. He voiced his last hope. “Maybe there’s a secret passageway.”

  Chapter 18

  Reminders of Home

  Daniel looked around. Wherever “here” was didn’t look any different from where they’d already been. However, he wasn’t about to inquire as to their location. He’d made himself a promise and was adamant to keep it: no more questions, no matter how curious he may be. After all, he reasoned, if I don’t ask questions, I won’t get strange answers in return—no more riddles.

  The man navigated the forest trail with a cane he’d fashioned from a fallen tree branch. Daniel picked up one and stripped it of loose bark. Not that he needed a cane (he wasn’t sure why the old man needed one, either, given some of the moves he’d performed) but it helped take his mind off things, especially the temptation to question the man for answers.

  With the bizarre events of the day, Daniel hadn’t once thought of food. But now hunger overcame his curiosity and he figured he’d give everything he owned to be sitting at Stevie’s kitchen table sharing a large pizza. Of course, anyone who knew anything about food knew the best pizza in the world came from Marco’s Pizza in Grisby. Stevie’s mom was cool about it. She ordered the boys their own pizza, rather than making them share the adult one. The way Daniel saw it, real pizza didn’t include chicken, onions, and other vegetables. If that’s what someone enjoyed, why not just grill a chicken breast, boil some carrots, and put it all on a plate? Stevie and Daniel considered themselves connoisseurs of pizza, and any connoisseur knew a real pizza was pepperoni, sausage, extra cheese, and, of course, Marco’s secret recipe tomato sauce. Daniel’s stomach growled. He could almost taste the pepperoni.

  Daniel noticed the old man watching him—rather strangely, too—and rubbed his mouth in case he’d been drooling. Whatever the man was looking at, he definitely had something on his mind. Daniel remembered his promise and dug in his heels, prepared to wait out the silence. Instead, the man surprised him. “Perhaps it’s time for you to eat,” he said, stroking his beard.

  Finally, an answer that made sense, and one Daniel appreciated. “Actually, I’m pretty hungry. And, yeah, I’d love something to eat.” Being in the middle of the forest, he made a logical assumption. “Are there some berry or fruit trees around here?”

  “Yes, but I believe we can do better than that. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  It was another of the man’s vague answers, but Daniel didn’t reply. A smell overtook him. It came from nowhere, yet filled the forest in a matter of seconds. It was a smell Daniel would know anywhere because there was only one place in the world it existed—Marco’s Pizza.

  Daniel let the smell fill his senses. He closed his eyes, breathing in the aroma. It felt good to hold onto something familiar.

  “Had I known pizza would make you so happy, we would have stopped to eat a long time ago,” said the old man.

  Daniel was tired of his mind being an open book to this person. He couldn’t figure out how the man was doing it, but he intended on finding out. However, before he spoke, his eyes caught sight of an image, one that stopped him cold. It was like someone had changed the television channel without warning, allowing the viewer to catch a glimpse of another program, then returned it to the previous show. Daniel saw the old man standing in the middle of an orange light with small stars dancing around him. The man was smiling and then … gone. No, not gone. He was still there—well, sort of. I was looking into his eyes, but …

  Daniel tried to replay the vision in his mind, but it was no use. The image had faded. He reminded himself why he was angry at the old man. Again, the man had trespassed upon his thoughts, his most
valued possessions. Daniel never said a word about pizza.

  “You didn’t have to. Now, are you ready to eat?”

  No amount of hunger was worth this much frustration. “I’m not eating anything,” Daniel said. “I’d rather take my chances on my own.” He took several steps in the opposite direction but stopped. Who was he kidding? He was lost, and if he had any chance of getting out of this place, there was only one person who knew how. Daniel took a deep breath, ready to apologize.

  “I’m sorry,” the man said. “I’ve been having a rather enjoyable time at your expense. Allow me the opportunity to make it up to you. Please join me for dinner and I will address your questions, without riddles.”

  Had Daniel heard him correctly? The old man was apologizing? Daniel kicked some dirt and watched the dust rise and fall to the ground again. “It’s okay,” he said. “Just no more sarcasm, please.”

  Daniel turned to face the old man and his eyes widened. How many hallucinations could a person have in one day? He didn’t know but was sure he’d met his quota.

  Before him sat a small, rustic house. The windows allowed a flicker of light to be seen from the inside. Candles, Daniel thought. A wooden porch lay as a welcome mat to visitors. The old man stood by the railing, watching Daniel’s expression change from amazement to curiosity to … disbelief. He smiled reassuringly, and for a second, Daniel thought he looked nervous.

  The house appeared warm and inviting. A fire was obviously blazing in the fireplace; soft, gray wisps of smoke floated through the chimney and across the darkened sky. Daniel smelled the wood burning and envisioned a living room with large, overstuffed furniture; heavy wood tables; and, he hoped, a well-stocked refrigerator.

  “Let’s go inside, Daniel,” the man said. “You need to rest. This has been a trying day for you.”

  Daniel walked through the front door and saw it was exactly as he pictured. There was a large sofa with a patchwork quilt draped loosely over the back. There were two overstuffed chairs, a wooden table, a brown rug covering the floor, a desk, burning candles, and a massive fireplace. It looked exactly like a cabin in the middle of the forest should look. Finally, something that was the way it was supposed to be.