The body of old Sigurd Bjerrehus had started to smell and rot. It was a smell far worse than anything Malene had experienced before. Thomas had cut off so much meat from his body that you could barely tell it was the body of a human lying there on the ground, smelling. He had roasted the meat on his small bonfire to make sure it could last for a while. But now, they were running out. On the seventh day of her being trapped with him, they ate the last of the meat for lunch. She wondered what he would do next. They still had water for a couple of days more, but that would eventually run out as well. What was he going to do? She feared he would kill her and eat her next.
So, Malene had made an escape plan. Every night, while Thomas was sleeping, she thought about it, and tonight was the night. She knew where he put the butcher’s knife. He put it in the same place every day on a small rock next to the old man’s body. The chain between the two of them seemed to be just long enough. If she stretched out, she thought she might be able to reach the knife while he was still asleep. Maybe she could cut the chain with the knife. Maybe.
If not, then you’ll have to kill him. You have to do it.
“You’re not eating.” Thomas looked at her with his head tilted. “You’re not getting sick, are you? Rikke?”
She forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just tired, that’s all.”
Thomas smiled. His hands were shaking as he pushed the food closer to her. “Now eat, so you can get well.”
Malene grabbed the meat and lifted it. It still made her sick to her stomach, knowing where it came from.
“That’s it. That’s my girl. Eat it,” Thomas said. “You gotta eat to stay pretty.”
The smell of the meat made the nausea worse. She closed her eyes and imagined she was with her mom and dad again, and that they were eating roasted chicken. Sophus, their dog, would sit next to the table, waiting for food to be spilled, or for her mom to feed him under the table, hoping no one would notice. Malene smiled, thinking of her family. She missed them so much. As she sunk her teeth into the meat and the juices filled her mouth with the taste of human flesh, she imagined herself in their arms again, hugging them, kissing Sophus, and playing with him like she did when she was a child.
“Good,” Thomas said. “What is it they say? Eat or be eaten, right?”
Then he laughed.
55
IT WAS THE strangest of feelings. I was excited, hopeful, and at the same time, more anxious than ever. The mood in the cave had changed. The hope had changed them…had transformed the lethargy that almost bordered on apathy among the people. Those who barely spoke, were now talking amongst each other. Those who could walk were up on their feet, walking around, grabbing each other’s hands, smiling, crying, and telling each other it was going to be all right…that they were coming for us.
I stood for a long time with my ear against the limestone wall, listening to the distant sound of the drill. Kenneth was right. It was the most beautiful sound in the world.
Now all we had to do was to wait patiently. The drilling continued into the afternoon. It felt like it was still unbearably far away.
“Do you think they’ll come through tonight, or will we have to wait till tomorrow?” Irene asked Kenneth.
He shrugged. “I…I…it’s hard to predict. The layers get more solid, the further down it gets. Might slow it down a little as it reaches the limestone.”
“So, we should brace ourselves for one more night down here?” she continued.
“I would think so,” he said.
It suddenly seemed like too much to ask of these people. I, for one, couldn’t bear the thought of having to spend one more night down here. Not now that we had the hope that we would actually make it out. While Kenneth tried to assure everyone that it would be fine, but that they had to be patient, and it would take time before they would be able to get them out of there, I was suddenly struck with a horrendous fear.
What if they never break through? What if it stops? What if it passes us? What if they miss?
“I can’t stand it,” Annette said. “The air down here is so tight. I need fresh air. I need to see trees. I need to feel a breeze on my face. I can’t stand one more night down here, I simply can’t!”
“Well, you have to.”
The voice was Brian’s. My heart stopped, and I turned to look. Brian, Kurt, and Lars had come back. Their faces were still smeared with dried up blood and dirt. I kept seeing them bent over Afrim’s mother’s body.
Oh, the horror. They’ve come back to kill all of us and eat us, haven’t they? Starting with Afrim’s dog!
Brian grumbled and walked past me. He sat down on the ground. “It’s gonna take a long time before that drill comes through,” he continued.
Annette looked at Kurt. “Sweetie? Did you hear it too?” she asked. “They’re coming for us.”
Kurt sighed deeply. Then he nodded. “Yes. We heard it too.”
Annette smiled widely. “Good. Do you want to sit over here with me?”
I could tell Kurt was arguing with himself. He took one more glance at Brian, then made his decision.
“I’d like that.”
Lars threw himself next to Brian. I walked up to Afrim and sat next to him and Buster. The dog wagged its tail. I petted it gently on the head. It looked like it wasn’t going to last much longer. Brian cast a glance at Frederic, who was still asleep. I didn’t like the way he looked at him and I pulled the boy close to me. I felt his pulse. It was very weak.
“I say we sue someone once we get out of here,” Brian yelled. “Let’s sue the city or whomever built this neighborhood. Kenneth, you said you tried to warn them, right? Maybe you could be our star witness?”
Kenneth nodded. “Yes, I did. I told them the earth underneath is limestone, that limestone erodes over hundreds of years, creating these holes underneath us. When the limestone erodes, it forms pockets, like these we’re sitting in. Sinkholes are depressions or a collapse of the land surface as the limestone below cracks and develops fractures. Acidic waters seeping through the soil lead to the breakdown over long periods of time. We just had a high accumulation of rainfall in a brief period of time and that is, in my opinion, why the collapse happened at this time.”
Brian smiled. “See. That’s what I’m talking about. We could become millionaires after this. I say we get ourselves some great lawyers and sue the bastards. Someone has to pay, that’s for sure.”
“Let’s get out of this place first, shall we?” David argued. “It is a little ridiculous to talk about money and lawyers while we’re still trapped down here.”
Brian grumbled, annoyed. I agreed with David. It seemed wrong to think about going to court and settling scores when we were still buried alive underground.
56
HE HAD GOTTEN the idea when looking at a map of the area, he told Martin. It was while lying awake at night, wondering if Rebekka could somehow still be alive.
“That’s when it hit me,” he said, his eyes sparkling with hope. They were standing in Martin’s hotel room that morning, eleven days after the collapse. Martin was packing up. They were going to live with Mathilde’s mother until the insurance company found them a temporary house to live in. Martin had finally given up hope of ever seeing his baby brother again. They had told them they had stopped looking for survivors, and now their only concern was the ground’s stability. They were only drilling samples and lowering cameras into the ground to examine the deeper layers of the soil. They wanted to make sure the rest of the surrounding areas weren’t going to collapse as well. That’s why they had started drilling further away from the crash site. They were very sorry, they had told them, but there was no way there could be any survivors anymore; it was simply impossible, and they weren’t able to recover their bodies without risking the ground collapsing further. That was the message they had given Martin, and he had chosen to believe it. There was no use in fighting it anymore. David was gone, so was their house, and all their belongings. It was over. They had to find a way
to move on from here. He had just talked to Mathilde about how he looked forward to getting away from this place and never coming back, when Sune knocked on his door. Sune put the map on the table and showed him.
“Monsted Kalkgruber is the world’s largest limestone mine. It covers sixty kilometers of tunnels underground, six stories in thirty-five meters depth. But, that’s only what they know about. I read a lot about it online and an underground like that might have many pockets and tunnels that might spread further out and deeper down than what we think.”
“Like, over here where our neighborhood used to be?” Martin said.
“Over time, the limestone erodes and creates these pockets or caves underground. That’s why the collapse happened. But if Rebekka and the rest could in any way be alive, it would be by hiding in those caves and tunnels.”
Martin looked at the map, then at the papers Sune had printed them out from the limestone mine’s webpage, showing the caves and tunnels and telling how you could get a guided trip down into the mine and watch a movie of how they used to mine the limestone.
“There are only eight hundred meters of tracks made for visitors. Only two kilometers have lights. The rest is all just a lot of dark tunnels and caves.”
“Like an underground maze,” Martin said pensively.
“You said it yourself on the first day the two of us met,” Sune said. “You wished there was another way. Well, if there is another way to find them besides digging, then this is it.”
Martin had no idea what to say. Could this really be a possibility? Could they have survived down there in those caves and tunnels for this long?
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “There is no way they could have survived this long without water. Let’s face it. It’s over.”
Sune shook his head. “Come on. Let’s give it a try. Let’s walk down there and see what we can find. I can’t do it alone, and the police and firefighters won’t help. I tried all morning down at the site to explain this to them, but they say it’s over, that everyone is dead, and then handed me a card to an emergency psychologist if I needed to talk to someone. Come on, Martin. You’re my only hope.”
Martin looked at the map again. “How will you even do this? You said it yourself. There are only lights in two kilometers of the tunnels. We have no idea how deep this goes down. We could easily get lost ourselves. For what? The chances we could find them are so small, almost non-existent. I have a family, Sune…a child and a wife I have to take care of.”
“And I have three children, but I’m not giving up. I want them to see their mother again.”
“It could take days to even get down there,” Martin argued. He had closed that door, and really didn’t want to have to open it up again. Hope was such a deceitful matter. He really didn’t want to get disappointed again. He didn’t want to hope anymore. He wanted closure.
Holding their baby in her arms, Mathilde came forward. “I think you should do it,” she said.
Martin looked at her. She had never been more graceful than in this moment.
“This is the way to get proper closure,” she continued. “If you give up, you’ll always wonder.”
Martin stared at his beautiful wife and baby. What had he done to deserve such an understanding and caring wife?
“Who’s going to take care of your kids while we’re gone?” he asked Sune.
Sune smiled happily. “My father-in-law is here to help.”
57
WE WENT TO SLEEP. Well, most of us did. I, for one, couldn’t sleep. I didn’t dare to after what I had discovered about Brian Jansen and his gang. I felt like I had to keep an eye on them, and so I did. David stayed awake with me, holding the knife in his hand. Our last cellphone died a few seconds before it was time to sleep. Now, all we had left was a candle that had almost burnt out. Kenneth wore a watch and kept track of time for us. He told us we should get some sleep right before he went down himself.
“They won’t be drilling at night,” he whispered.
As the drilling faded, I felt myself losing hope again. I wanted them to keep at it, I wanted the sound to remain inside the walls. The sound fading caused me to panic slightly, and for a few seconds, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“Are you okay?” David asked.
I looked at him, gasping for breath. Then I started crying. I couldn’t help it. He put his arm around me and hugged me. “It’s okay, Rebekka. It’ll be okay. They’re coming for us, remember? Now, you listen to me. They will come for us. I know they will. When I was kidnapped somewhere in Syria, that’s what I told myself every day, every hour. Someone will come for you. Your family will pay the money they are asking. Even when I heard about other prisoners who had been decapitated and the videos of it sent out for the entire world to see, I stayed hopeful. I told myself that would never happen to me…that I was a survivor. You have to tell yourself that. You’ve survived eleven days down here. You can get through one more night. I know you can.”
I nodded and calmed down. “Thanks. I needed that.”
“I know it’s scary. We’re so close, but so much can still go wrong. Believe me, I know. It was the same thing when they came for me, put a bag over my head, and threw me in the back of their truck. I hoped and prayed I was going to be released, but so much could have gone wrong. They could decide to not live up to their end of the agreement. They could decide they didn’t care at the last minute. But I was released. I was left on the side of the road, kicked and beaten, but they left me, and I came home. I came home. You’ll get home too. You’ll get to hold that baby of yours again.”
I had no idea where he got the strength. I was impressed by him, to put it mildly.
“Now, I want you to get some sleep,” David continued. “I’ll keep an eye out on Afrim and Buster and whoever else might need my help. Don’t worry. You need sleep, Rebekka, or you won’t make it.”
I put my head in his lap and felt more secure than I had in a very long time. He stroked my hair gently, and soon I dozed off as well.
The drill broke through in the early morning hours. I had slept heavier and better than any other night underground, when I was awakened by a loud crash. Startled, I jumped up.
“They’re coming through!” David yelled. He got up. “Wake up, everyone. It’s finally happening!”
“I can’t believe it,” I said, and stood next to David.
While others joined us, we watched as more dirt fell into the cave from the hole they were creating.
David put his arm around me and held me close. “Me either,” he said. His voice was breaking, and I could tell he was moved. The grinding and pounding sound of the drill became extremely loud as it came through.
“Get ready, folks,” Kenneth said. “Don’t stand too close. It’s going to burst through now.”
There was a small explosion, followed by the sound of rocks tumbling to the ground. The grinding of metal against rock stopped, and was replaced by a whistle of escaping air. A big pile of dirt had landed on the ground. We looked up to see what looked like a pipe peeking inside of our cave. A drill bit inside the pipe was lowered and rose and lowered again.
“They’ve realized that the bit has entered an empty space,” Kenneth said. “Now they’re cleaning the shaft.”
The drill bit continued to be lowered, then risen again. I felt a desperation in my body. What if they didn’t know we were here? How should we tell them?
“Shouldn’t we knock on the drill or something?” I asked. “Maybe with your knife, David.”
“Good idea,” Kenneth said. “Do it now that the drill has stopped.”
David walked closer and started knocking on the drill bit. He was pounding it with all the strength he had left. Then, he stopped, and we listened to see if they would reply by pounding back.
But no sound came. Nothing but silence until the drill was suddenly removed again.
“It’s going back,” Annette screamed desperately. “It’s going back up and they don’t know we’re
here!”
58
MALENE WAS HOLDING her breath, trying hard not to cry. She had managed to grab the knife and had been working on the chain for hours now. Desperately, she pounded the butcher’s knife on the chain to try and cut it off, but every time she swung it and hit the chain, it would make a loud noise, and Malene was scared she would wake up Thomas. He had been in a bad mood all afternoon, and she had to wait for hours for him to finally fell asleep. She looked at her watch that had a little light in it if she pressed the button on the side. It was close to seven in the morning. Thomas would probably wake up soon. Desperately, she swung the knife against the chain again with a loud grunt. The knife slammed into the rock beneath it, and left a visible mark on the chain, but it wasn’t enough.
“Just one more time,” she whispered.
She lifted the knife again, when suddenly she heard someone. She paused with the knife in mid-air and listened. There it was again. Someone was screaming. The sound bounced off the walls. It sounded like a woman. Come to think of it, it sounded like several people. They were yelling and screaming.
It had to be the others from the big cave. Were they still alive? Were they so close that she could hear them screaming?
If so, then she would actually have a chance. If only she could find her way back to them. Malene let the knife hit the chain once again and felt how the blade slid right through. She gasped and looked at the split chain.
I’m free!
Thomas seemed to still be deeply asleep. With her heart pounding in her chest, she started walking backwards, fumbling her way towards the tunnel leading out of Thomas’ cave. Her eyes were fixated on the sleeping Thomas as she stepped inside the tunnel and started running. The tunnel soon became narrower, and she bent her head as she ran. In the distance, she could hear the voices of people yelling and screaming.