50
SHE COULDN’T STAND it anymore. She couldn’t stand simply sitting there doing nothing while her stomach hurt from hunger and her son constantly slept because he had no more strength to stay awake.
With a deep sigh, Mrs. Sigumfeldt stared at the dog. She wasn’t the only one eyeballing the dog, thinking it could keep them alive for a little longer. She was certain everyone in the cave was thinking the same thing. Except for that Rebekka woman and the handsome David Busck, who Mrs. Sigumfeldt remembered having seen on TV. He was much more handsome in real life. Even better looking than Michael West had been.
The bastard.
Tine Sigumfeldt couldn’t believe he had abandoned her like that. Hadn’t he cared for her at all? After all those years of coming to her house and sleeping with her when Mr. Sigumfeldt was away on business trips. Didn’t they mean anything?
He never loved you, you fool. You were nothing but sex to him. He used you, that’s all.
The thought made Tine Sigumfeldt angry. She had really liked him. Him coming to her house had always been the highlight of the month for her. The kids never knew he was spending the night. She made sure he arrived when they were asleep and left before they woke up. But not on the morning of the collapse. That particular morning, Tine’s youngest son, Frederic, had been awake early. He had knocked on the door to Tine’s bedroom at five thirty and told her he had a bad dream. Tine had put him back to bed and tucked him in, but knew he wouldn’t sleep. The dream had been too bad. Tine had to sit at his bedside, holding his hand until it was time to get up. Afterwards, she had sneaked back to her bedroom and told Michael West to wait till they had left the house to go to school.
It was strange how small decisions or coincidences ended up being so important…and some even fatal. His decision to leave all of them in the cave had been just that.
The bastard only got what he deserved.
Tine didn’t finish the thought before she watched Brian Jansen and his gang get up and walk towards the dog.
If they eat that dog, I want in, she thought. I want some too.
She looked at Frederic, who was sound asleep, then back at Brian Jansen. To her surprise, he walked right past the dog, the two others following him.
Where are they going?
Tine Sigumfeldt stared at them as they disappeared out of the cave. She had a feeling they were up to something. She just knew they were. It was the same with her boys. Constantly out to get themselves in trouble.
Tine Sigumfeldt looked at her sleeping son once again, remembering how badly her husband had wanted sons. She had provided three of them, each time hoping in her quiet mind that it would be a girl this time. They had been so much trouble, almost to the point where she considered leaving all of them. It was just too much. She had been alone so much, since Mr. Sigumfeldt traveled for weeks at a time, sometimes ten days. Every time he had left her alone with the three kids, she had felt anger towards him. She had felt that he abandoned her. That was why she had decided to punish him by taking herself a lover. She felt she deserved it.
Tine Sigumfeldt stared after the three men once again. She couldn’t help being curious. Where did they go? They had seemed so determined, like they had somewhere to go to, when there was nowhere for any of them to go. The few that had tried, they had never seen again. Michael West ended up dead. She looked at her boy.
He’ll be fine. He won’t notice you’re gone.
Mrs. Sigumfeldt stroked his cheek, then got up and followed them into the tunnel. Even though she was in pain, she managed to move through the darkness, dragging her leg after her, hoping she could catch up with them.
As she walked through with her head bent, she saw a light at the end of the tunnel. It made her walk faster.
Maybe they found food? Maybe they know where to get water and just didn’t want to tell the rest?
The thought made her smile. When she walked into the cave and found who was carrying the light, she didn’t smile so much anymore. The eyes staring back at her from behind the flashlight were very well known to her. If she had known it would be her last word, she probably would have chosen it more carefully, but since she didn’t, she simply said, “You?”
51
I HEARD A scream and jumped up, holding the knife out in front of me. That was when I realized I had dozed off, even though I had promised David to keep an eye on Afrim and his dog.
“What was that?” David said and opened his eyes.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Afrim was fine. Buster was fine.
“It sounded like it came from one of the tunnels,” I continued. “Everybody alright in here?” I asked the others, who were now waking up and looking terrified at David and me. They too had been frightened by the sound.
“Mom?” Frederic asked. His voice was feeble. “Has anyone seen my mom?”
“I’ll go check,” David said, and took the knife from my hand. “Everyone else stay here.”
“No. Let me,” I said.
“Why?”
“If they come for the dog, I won’t stand a chance. I need you to protect Afrim and everyone else in here. Only you can do it.”
“If you say so,” David said.
“I think that’s best.”
“Let me go with you,” Kenneth Borges said. “I’m the one with most strength left, I think. You shouldn’t go in there alone. That scream sounded serious.”
“You’ll need this,” David said, and gave me the knife.
I took one last glance at the crowd left in the cave, while wondering what Brian Jansen and his gang were up to now. And where was Mrs. Sigumfeldt? Had she gone with them?
“Let’s go,” I said to Kenneth Borges, and led the way into the dark tunnel. We walked for a few minutes when I saw light coming from somewhere. I started walking towards it.
“You think it came from in there?” Kenneth asked. “But…but that’s the grave chamber. That’s where we leave the dead. I can smell it all the way out here. I don’t think it’s good for you to go in there. It’s unsanitary.”
Kenneth froze. I could tell he was afraid.
“Unsanitary or not, I have to check it out,” I said. “Someone might be in trouble and need our help.”
Kenneth grabbed my shoulder. “Those bodies have been in there for days. You don’t know what kind of diseases have developed in there. There could be cholera and worse.”
“I’ll have to worry about that later. Besides, David was in there earlier today. If he is fine with it, then I’m fine too, but you can stay here if you like.”
“I think I’d like that,” Kenneth Borges said.
With the knife in my hand, I walked towards the cave that we had all been in at first, before we had managed to dig ourselves out and end up in the mines. I hadn’t been in there since we left the dead bodies there and, to be completely honest, I felt scared to death by the thought of going in there. I usually didn’t believe in ghosts or any supernatural things, but at that moment, I thought about the possibility of the screams coming from someone coming back from the dead. I clenched the knife in my hand as I walked closer, wondering if it would be enough to defend me. I took in a deep breath and ducked down to peek inside the hole. Then I froze. It wasn’t a ghost; it wasn’t the undead coming back to haunt us and take us with them to the land of the unliving. Whether what I saw was human or not, I don’t know. It sure didn’t feel like it. What I saw made me sick to my stomach. Inside the cave sat Brian, Kurt, and Lars. They were bent over the body of Afrim’s mother, biting off chunks of her meat.
52
I COULDN’T BELIEVE what I was looking at. It looked like something out of a horror movie. I understood that hunger could lead people to do the strangest things, the most desperate things, but this?
I wanted to do something. I wanted to chase them away and let Afrim’s mom rest in peace. I don’t know if it was the look on their faces or what, but something told me if there was a fight, I wouldn’t win. I gasped and backed
up in terror till I was back where Kenneth was waiting.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, and rushed past him, tears pricking my eyes.
“What was it?” Kenneth asked, as he came after me. “Did you see anyone? Was anyone in there?”
I felt sick just thinking about it again. I couldn’t let go of those appalling images. “There was nothing there,” I said. “Let’s move on.”
We took a turn into another tunnel and didn’t walk long before another cave opened up. One I hadn’t seen before. I wondered if the entrance to it had opened up in one of the latest collapses that still happened on a daily basis. I felt my way through the darkness only lit by the light of the cellphone I had taken with me. I was only pressing the button when it was necessary, to save the battery, since it was our last cellphone. I had been worried about us losing light completely. All we had left back in the big cave was the thick candle, and it was almost burned down by now. I wondered which would come first. The death from thirst or the loss of light? Were we just going to die in darkness?
I shook the thought and entered this smaller cave, followed by Kenneth. I gasped once again as I shone the sparse light around. On the ground, lay the body of Mrs. Sigumfeldt, or what was left of her. She had holes in her chest and face from something being poked through her.
“Oh, my goodness,” Kenneth said, and held a hand to his chest.
I kneeled next to her body and looked at her wounds. They were thin, round, and deep…just like the ones I had seen on Michael West. Besides the wounds from something poking her, she was missing a lot of flesh on her stomach and arms. I lifted her arms and spotted marks on them.
“They look an awfully lot like teeth marks,” Kenneth said, realizing the horror. “Oh, my God! Has someone…did someone…eat of her?”
I rose to my feet. “Like David said earlier, hunger brings out the darkest sides of man.”
I felt anger rise in me while thinking about what I had seen in the grave chamber. The way I saw it, there was only one conclusion to this. Brian Jansen and his gang had killed Mrs. Sigumfeldt and eaten of her, then continued onto Afrim’s mother. But did that mean they had killed Michael West as well? What about Malene and Mr. Bjerrehus? And Thomas Soe? Maybe they had started with him? Had they eaten him first, then moved on? But why would they leave Mrs. Sigumfeldt to go eat from another body, when they clearly weren’t finished with this one?
It made no sense. But, then again, none of their actions made much sense.
“Let’s get back to the others,” I said, and started backing up. I didn’t want to touch the body or take it back to the grave chamber. All I wanted was to get the hell out of there…and fast.
“I think we need to get out of here,” I whispered to David as we got back to the big cave. “Cannibalism has started to spread. It is only a matter of time before they’ll take us down as well. ”
“Brian Jansen?”
“Yes. I spotted him and the two others eating from Afrim’s mother’s dead body in the grave chamber. We found Mrs. Sigumfeldt killed and half eaten. I think we need to find a new cave somewhere to hide in.”
“But some of the people can hardly move,” David said. “They’re too weak. I’m also worried about Afrim. His wound is infected. I just noticed it a few minutes ago. He let me take a look at it. He’s in a lot of pain. He hasn’t told anyone because he has been too worried about his mother. It’s bad. He doesn’t have long, if you ask me. If we move him, we risk making it worse. I think he has a fever.”
I stared at Afrim, who was holding on to his dog. His small body was shaking and his eyes were shining feverishly. I felt a knot in my stomach. Was this the way it was going to be? Was everyone going to die, one after another, until there was no one left? I felt sad. I had come to care a lot for Afrim and Frederic, who was now also without his mother. I wasn’t going to let them die. I would fight for them if I had to…fight Brian and his gang…kill them, if that was what it took to keep them away.
“We’ll have to take our chances. It’s the only way,” I said. “We can carry both of the boys, you and I. The dog will have to follow if it can.”
I finished the thought, then felt tears roll across my face, just as Kenneth Borges suddenly yelled.
“Did you hear that? I heard something! Listen.”
53
“DO YOU HEAR IT? What a beautiful noise!” Kenneth was yelling…ecstatic. He grabbed me and spun me around. “Do you hear it? Eighteen years I have worked with drills like these. I can recognize the sound of a drill like that in my sleep.”
When he put me back on the ground, I looked at David. He looked like he wasn’t sure if the guy had lost it or if he had actually heard something. He was dancing back and forth between people in the cave telling them to listen.
“They’re coming for us! They’re coming for us,” he chanted.
I tried to listen, but couldn’t hear a thing. I guessed that Kenneth had simply lost it. After all, we were all bordering on insanity.
“Kenneth…” I said, wanting to tell him to calm down, that he was just hearing things…that he was imagining things that weren’t there, but felt real to him. We had been through it before with others who thought they could hear drilling.
But, as I was about to finish my sentence, I heard it too. I heard the sound of something spinning, grinding, and hammering. It sounded very far away and, for a few seconds, I was certain I had started imagining things too, but slowly, hope grew in me. And soon I was as excited as Kenneth.
“It’s true,” I said, putting my ear against the limestone wall. “I hear it too. I really do.”
For half an hour, the roar grew steadily louder, and around forty-five minutes later, David was ready to believe it too. It was unmistakably a drill, the sound traveling through thick layers of dirt and limestone.
“It’s true, people. They really are drilling for us,” I said to the rest of the crowd. Afrim smiled in his blushing feverish face. He hugged Buster. “Do you hear that, boy? They’re coming for us.”
“Now, it will take a while before they get to us,” Kenneth said.
“How fast can a drill like that travel?” I asked.
“It depends on a lot of things, but I’m guessing they’ll reach us within seven to ten hours,” he answered. “We must be patient.”
“I thought they had given up,” Irene exclaimed. She had gotten up from her seat for the first time in days and was walking towards me on her trembling legs while holding onto her son, Benjamin.
“Me too,” Kurt’s wife, Annette, said. Her voice was breaking and she started crying, hiding her face in her arm.
“I hardly dare to believe it,” Irene said, biting her lip. “Are you sure they’ll be able to find us?”
“I…I hope so,” Kenneth said. “It sounds like the drill is definitely getting closer by the minute.”
I could tell he had his doubts as well. My head was spinning with this information. What if it stopped right above us? Oh, the terror of receiving a ray of hope. There was always the possibility of being disappointed. But it was still better than nothing. I was about to lose all hope in humanity down here.
“Should we get the others?” Irene asked. “Maybe call for them? Does anyone know where they went?”
I looked at David. I felt terrible. Then I looked at Frederic. He was soundly asleep. I hadn’t told him about his mother yet. He hadn’t been awake since I got back. David shook his head.
“I don’t think we should tell them yet,” he said. “Let’s wait till they break through to the cave.”
It was a decent answer, without me having to explain what I had seen. It would have been devastating to Afrim and Frederic if they knew. I didn’t feel like anyone else needed to know…not yet, at least.
54
HE KEPT CALLING her that name. Rikke. Malene wondered who Rikke was and why he insisted on calling her that. But she played along. For days, she played his little games and pretended she was that girl.
It se
emed to make him happy, and it kept her alive.
She had refused to eat the meat he had served for them on the first day, but on the second, she couldn’t resist it any longer. She was so hungry it hurt, and watching Thomas eat it with such delight made it even worse. She had to do it, she told herself. To survive. Just like she had to pretend like she liked Thomas Soe, like she had to pretend to be his girlfriend. Seven days had passed. Seven days she had counted by making marks on the wall at night when Thomas was asleep next to her. Seven days of being trapped with him…chained to his leg.
Every night, she wondered if there was some way she could get out. Every night, she lay with her eyes wide open and stared into the white limestone ceiling above her, wondering if she would ever get away.
The human meat made her feel nauseous, but it kept her alive. And he had water. Thomas had plenty of water for her to drink. Slowly, she started to feel better physically; she regained much of her strength and started to think more clearly.
He was being nice to her. He would only slap her across the face if she wept and cried. He couldn’t stand that, he said. He couldn’t stand her whimpering. So, she only cried at night when he was asleep. He told her he would try and make her happy. That all he wanted was to get a second chance…that he was so happy she had decided to come back to him. He needed her.
“I need you, Rikke. I can’t live without you. You know I can’t,” he said, over and over again.
The more she heard about this Rikke, the more Malene realized she had to have been that ex-girlfriend of his that he was once accused of having killed. Malene remembered the headlines on TV and the pictures of Thomas. At first, she had tried to talk to him about it, to tell him she wasn’t Rikke…that Rikke was dead, but it made him so angry, she never dared to do it again. She learned to play along.