Joel and Eric were losing their battle with the stubborn rock. A hand holding a Taser snuck through a gap and waved about blindly hoping to hit one of them.
“JUST PICK ONE!” Eric yelled.
Alicia slid her hand into the crack highest up. She contorted her face in disgust as she stuck her hand into a smelly, slimy substance that filled the gap. “Eewww!” she screamed then felt a solid object further in. She pulled. Nothing. She then twisted it, the rock wall to her left fell back two meters to form an alcove. Alicia stepped in and looked about her. A shaft rose up into darkness like a dirty chimney. “I think this is a way out. It looks like an elevator but I don’t know how to turn it on.”
Joel and Eric were overpowered. They crawled back and the boulder rolled away from the opening.
The two men crawled in.
“That’s cause you’ve forgotten something,” Joel said. “Eric go to Alicia now!”
Eric did as he was told.
Joel ran, jumped up, grabbed the object and then ran blindly through the dark towards the voice of Alicia calling out his name over the thunderous rumble.
Joel stumbled into the alcove.
Chapter 20
Roy, Nadia and Tony explored the surrounding area. The only thing remotely being of any use among the dried dead twigs and fallen branches was a length of old fence wire. But it was only at the most ten meters long.
“Damit,” Tony cried in hopelessness. “Nothing.”
“We shouldn’t have come here,” Roy said nervously.
“Everything will be ok,” Nadia said fooling no one, even herself. “We just need to keep a steady head.”
On that the ground beneath them shook for a few seconds then stopped as suddenly as it began. The three instinctively crouched a little to keep their balance.
“Was that an earthquake?” Tony asked. “Keep a steady head hay Nads, steady as a rock.”
“Now we can start freaking out,” Nadia returned. “We better go check on them.”
They made their way through the sweet smelling scrub back to the hole at the top of the hill. As they got closer they saw, through the trees Eric returning from his hike to his car to retrieve a rope. Roy made to hail his brother but was suddenly yanked down to the ground behind a large rock by Tony. “SSSHHH” Tony whispered with his fingers pressed to his lips. “Look”
Nadia, Roy and Tony slowly lifted their heads over the rock and saw two men close behind Eric dressed in dark clothing, with thick red ropes over their shoulders. One held a Taser into the small of Eric’s back hurrying him along.
Confused eyes watched Eric reach the hole and stick in his head. The man with the Taser thrust his hand into Eric’s back and he disappeared down into the hole. Before Roy could yell in shock Tony clasped a hand over his mouth and hid his scream of horror.
In a flash the two men also vanished into the dark square hole.
Tony lowered his hand and the scream escaped, “ERIC NO!” he went into hysterics.
Tony eventually calmed Roy down and then they moved away from their cover and on towards the entrance that was swallowing people whole. They never made it; Nadia suddenly stopped them as she noticed movement from the corner of her eye. Further over the hill another man also dressed in black stood flicking his head left and right keeping watch with a black Taser in his hand at the ready.
“What do we do? Who are they?” Nadia whispered.
Tony shook his head, “don’t know but he’s not a friend. If we run he’ll see us.” Tony looked about the ground by his feet and bent down to pick up a thick freshly fallen branch roughly a meter in length. “You two stay here. I’ll just give us a head start then you two run to the car.”
“No” Nadia protested.
“He’ll catch us and probably throw us in as well if I don’t.”
“No, not no for that, no for staying here, we’re coming with you.”
Tony smiled.
The ground shook again with a feint rumble then stopped.
Nadia guided a teary Roy with them as they slowly snuck around from behind the stranger. Ten meters away from the man Nadia and Roy hid behind a tree and Tony continued on treading slowly and meticulously. He slowed even further as he took the final steps in close. Tony clenched the branch tight and sure. He raised it over his shoulder baseball style and aimed high. With all his strength Tony stepped forward and swung.
The man before him vanished below the swing and the momentum spun Tony right around on his heels. Tony regained his balance and realized it wasn’t just the man who vanished but also the ground he was standing on. It had dropped away with a rumble crashing into a thirty meter oval shaped abyss.
On the far side three objects spurted up from the ground as the crater grew bigger and deeper consuming the once solid dried ground. Radiating out its destruction in a circle Tony watched the falling earth approach him. His mind suddenly comprehended what was happing, the hill was caving in.
Tony dropped his weapon and ran as fast as he could. His fingers on either hand clenched the arms of Roy and Nadia as he ran past them and helped them hit top speed. “RUN!” he cried at the shocked faces. “THE HILL’S COLLAPSING!”
Nadia and Roy dared to look back over their shoulders then needed no more convincing to hurry the hell up. The three of them dodged, leapt and zigzagged through the scrub as the thunderous noise of cracking rock and snapping trees chased them.
Roy started to lag behind, Tony urged him on but his limbs felt heavy and his concentration blurred. Tony and Nadia leapt cleanly over an old brittle log, Roy’s right foot clipped the top of it and he crashed down over the log. He flipped onto his back and his calf lay on top of the old dried log. The vibration of the earth intensified under his body and then the log fell away. Roy scurried backwards on his butt and watched through his sweat smudged glasses the rim of the hole pass his feet, pass his knees, and then suddenly stop. So there Roy sat, on the edge of a newly formed cliff as the rumbling echoed away and a cloud of dust and dirt drifted back down towards its new resting place. His eyes bulged with disbelief and his body froze with fear.
Tony dragged him back to safer ground.
“The others, they would have been crushed,” Nadia cried.
**
Alicia hit the ground hard. She had never felt so many different sensations crammed into a time frame no longer than a blink of an eye. She remembered Joel crashing into her and Eric and then a rush of air as they were pushed up by an invisible force through the darkness. Then the heat of the sun on her face, the rush of air vanished and gravity took over pulling them down, pulling them down into the ground hard.
She was examining the stinging pain in her knee when Eric lifted her up to her feet and yelled at her to run. The world seemed to be falling down before her. Joel easily hit the lead and the flatter and less vegetated land aided them in out-running the cave in.
When the noise and dust settled Alicia saw on the opposite side of the sunken mountain three small figures through the dusty haze. “Look there’s the others,” Alicia said with relief.
“Hey?” Eric mumbled through his hand that was cupped around his mouth. He followed Alicia’s waving finger and spotted the others. “ROY!” he yelled across the crater. The others responded with waves and laughter. “Get to my car, we’ll meet you there!”
Alicia then noticed two dark figures move through the scrub towards their friends, “LOOK OUT! TO YOUR LEFT!”
“Look Out!” Came Tony’s muffled instant reply and pointed towards her left.
They saw another two guys crawling up the rim of the new drop-off, the same two men from the chamber.
“No way they’re still alive” Joel said.
“Let’s move,” Eric not contemplating the men’s survival techniques. “Get to my car and get out of here.”
“That’s great for us but the others are heading in the wrong direction,” Alicia pointed out.
They had no other option so the three of them ran as fast as their t
ired legs carried them.
**
“Stop yelling RUN at me,” Roy cried. “What do you think I’m doing?”
“Just do it faster would you,” Tony called over his shoulder, slightly out of breath. The ground flashing past under foot started to flatten out and become more firm.
“Isn’t the car…” started Nadia but the question was answered by Tony before she could finish.
“I know Nads.”
“Then where are we going.”
“Over there,” Tony pointed to a farm house just under a kilometer away.
The two men in dark clothing continued to follow.
Roy’s legs finally gave in as they reached the wooden-farm house’s front porch. He collapsed onto his knees, his glasses fogged up and his face soaked with sweat. Tony panted heavily; hands on knees and drawing in deep breaths to sooth his racing heart. Nadia hardly lifted a sweat.
The two men chasing had gained a little ground on them but were still a half a kilometer away.
Tony straightened up and banged on the old flimsy front door, “Hello,” he called.
No answer.
They began to panic.
The cream painted windows kept their eyes’ shut.
The three circled around to the back.
The house was ill kept; the painted wooden wall down the side of the house was cracked and pealing exposing the bare flaking wooden boards underneath. The back door was wide open; a thin fly-screen door with drooping mesh detached at the top corner the only barrier between them and a phone that sat on a stool half way up the corridor. Tony tried the screen door but it was locked. They could no longer see the two men but knew that they would be upon the front of the house any minute. Tony stepped back, charged forward with his shoulder down. The screen door ripped off its hinges and crashed to the ground with Tony on top of it. He lifted his head and found himself staring down the two barrels of an old copper smelling shotgun.
An old man of about a-hundred and thirty with sunken features, thin white hair and a snaring lip peeped over the gun down at him.
“What do you know, he does have a shotgun,” Tony said, raising an unexpected smile.
“What ya doin on my land?” the old man hissed.
“Running away from it,” Roy said as he stepped inside hands over his head with Nadia close behind.
“Disrespectful kids. What were you doin out there? Setting off explosives?”
“NO, no we didn’t. We were on a school excursion when we saw two guys acting all suspicious on your land,” Roy thought fast. “We went over to see what they were doing and they chased us here.”
The old man looked at them through the slits of his eyes. “Yeah, then where are these two guys?”
Tony, Nadia and Roy pointed towards the front door.
The old man lowered his gun and clumsily carried it in one hand towards the front of the house. He peeked out the front window then returned. His face changed from anger to determination. “Get inside,” he said and kicked the fallen screen door to one side and shut the more solid wooden back door.
At the same time the sound of a car engine came out of the distance and then up to the side of the house.
“It’s Eric,” Roy said.
The four of them looked out a side window and their hopes disappeared.
Instead of a blue flaming mustang there was a dark blue Four-wheel drive with two more sinister looking strangers inside.
The old man lifted the phone to his ear, slowly shook his head in disappointment and returned the hand set to its holder. There was a sound of glass shattering and the window exploded. The air around them shuddered as the old man turned to the window and pulled the trigger setting off a deafening bark. The back door thudded and shook on its frame. The old man repeated his action. He turned to the back door, pulled the trigger and filled the air with the noise and smell of gun powder. What was odd was the sound of the gun didn’t dissipate but seemed to get louder. It was a few moments before Nadia, Tony and Roy realized it was the sound of Eric’s car.
The old man dropped his gun, “I’m out of bullets. I only had two, being a pensioner and all.”
“Thank god,” Tony said. “Is there a way out the side?”
“Through the spare room window. No screen.”
Tony lifted the screen-less window and the three slid out.
Eric was parked beside the blue Four-wheel drive on the gravel drive way.
Joel called from the car telling the three to hurry.
Nadia noticed the Four-wheel drive’s driver side window open and took a quick detour. She stuck her head in to the car reached down and popped the bonnet. Nadia went to the front, held the bonnet open with one hand and reached into the engine bay with the other and ripped out the leads.
Nadia was the last one into the car, greasy leads still in her hand.
Eric floored it, the car easily spun around kicking up rocks and dust into the faces of the four strangers and sped off down the road. Pulling away into the distance they saw all four men hop into the Four-wheel drive, pause, pour back out and then get into the old man’s 1978 Ford Falcon.
“I don’t think we can play together anymore Nads,” Tony said then nodded at the leads snaked around Nadia’s hand. “I’m starting to be a bad influence on you.”
Nadia smiled and threw the leads out the window.
“Can’t believe that prick put five-hundred watts into my ass cheek and pushed me down that hole,” Eric said, his eyes concentrating on the road. “What did I do to them?”
“We found something they desperately want and desperately want to keep secret,” Alicia said.
“Find. Find what. The only thing I found was mountains aren’t as stable as I thought,” Tony said.
“Joel, show them.”
Joel pulled out a bronze disk. It was his idiot medal. He apologized and dug his hand into his other pocket. When his hand returned it held a light bronze coloured metal disk. It was two centimeters thick, five centimeters in diameter and for the first time even for Joel they saw a string of tiny engraved symbols looping around and around. The loop got smaller as it twirled towards the centre like a snails shell. In the center appeared to be a tiny black hole.
Joel explained where it was found and their experiences inside the hill.
Eric finally pulled off the gravel road and hit the bitumen. He fed the motor, it roared with anger and picked up speed.
“I think it’s time I tell you all what website I saw those symbols on,” Roy said, but before he could finish Eric swore.
“Buckle up kiddies we got a car tailing us, and fast.” Eric’s eyes locked on the rear-view-mirror.
Eric pushed the car as hard as he could and G-force introduced itself to each one of them. He weaved and slid down the twisted road. Despite he’s effort the predatory car quickly gained on them and sat two meters from their back bumper. The two cars hit a small narrow straight stretch of road. Over head a canopy of branches leant across the road and joined hands like a bridal parade celebrating the new couple. A strobe of shadows flashed on and off momentarily disorientating Eric, he slowed slightly.
The cars kissed.
The car ran the back of Eric’s lifting it an inch off the ground. The team gripped what solid part of the car’s interior they could find as tight as they could. The Mustang jerked left then right but Eric’s quick reflexes straightened it up and he regained control. The other car; that had backed off a little, made another lunge.
Eric saw the road up ahead swing to his left, time slowed to a point where he remembered this up and coming bend. He thought to himself why would this bend stand out to him and then the answer slammed him back into real time. He was now traveling way to fast to slow down safely and even if he tried the pursuing car would run them off the road and down a two-hundred meter drop.
Despite Eric knowing that the turn was a hair-pin turn, Eric dropped the accelerator petal down to the floor. He hooked the steering wheel as hard as he coul
d and ripped up the handbrake.
The car screamed in pain.
The nose of the car pointed into the turn and the back end slid out sideways. Eric held the wheel locked tight then let out a sly smile when he saw his little friend still sunbathing in the center of the road.
The echidna watched with cool calm eyes the back end of the mustang head straight for it.
At the last possible moment Eric yanked the steering wheel the other way and the back swung away and around the echidna. Eric snaked his way back into a straight line.
The driver in the car behind reacted to a reflex action when seeing a foreign object on the road, he swerved. The car shot off the road and down the embankment. The limbs of trees snapped and cracked and slowly brought the car to an eventual stop twenty meters down. The car rested wedged between two trees, facing up at the road with buckled doors and shattered windows, wondering what happened and why his driver parked him on the side of a cliff.
The two occupants cursed at each other, each blaming the other. They had to kick out the windscreen to get out and when they eventually did they began the climb up the steep incline back to the road.
Chapter 21
Richard Bursik dusted off his jacket and pants then blended in amongst a small crowd of curious neighbors looking down into a crumbled-in valley.
“Amazing nobody was killed,” one man said.
“Nature is beautiful and scary,” a lady said.
“Can we go home I need to do a poo-poo,” a child begged.
Richard wondered through the ruble of rock and wood before and inspected the possibilities that any abnormal structures had still stood intact; satisfies there were none, he made his way past the park rangers and emergency personal setting up protection barriers and headed towards the closest farm house to discourage any possible witnesses looking for their fifteen minutes of fame.
**
Eric shut away his car from sight, parking it in the garage at the back of the yard. He pushed the swinging roller-door shut, locked up and ushered the five new friends into the house. Roy led the way through the lounge and into the clean kitchen they went.
Roy’s mother cutting up vegetables let out a surprised yelp when she saw them past. “Oh, if I knew you were bringing company over Roy I would have made more tea.”