LITMIR.BIZ

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needed my pack. I wasn’t leaving without it. I’ve been calling the shots for myself for three years and I’ve been doing just fine. You want me to do something. I would appreciate it if you ask. And be prepared for me to say no if so I choose. Just like I’m saying no now. Just leave me to die.”

      Lyssa clearly didn’t like that statement but nodded her head. “Fine, you’re right. I’m sorry for not listening to you. I’m also sorry for kneeing you.”

      “Well, I’m sorry for locking you in the dark tunnel.”

      She stands. “All right, enough pleasantries! Get your ass up off the floor already and let’s go!”

      I begrudgingly start to move and learn that I was absolutely correct about it hurting way worse to move. Somehow I get to my feet and carefully stumble after Lyssa.

      The stone stairs leading down spiral like the old turrets in those medieval movies I used to watch. I can barely see anything. The light coming from upstairs is dim and getting dimmer.

      “Hold on.” I reach into my pack and feel around for my matches. I light a candle and hand it to Lyssa, fetching another for myself. And we continue on.

      It feels like we have been going down forever. I lose count of how many steps we take. But there are only two options, up and down. We know what’s up, so down is the only other option. Besides, Lyssa must know where we’re going.

      Finally, we reach the bottom of the steps, it feels like we dropped three hundred feet or more, but it could just as easily have only been thirty. At the bottom there is chamber and big doorway, with a heavy chain and lock on it.

      “Man! How are we supposed to get through that?”

      Lyssa smiles. “That’s the decoy dummy. Over here.”

      She turns and walks behind the stairs we just came down and I see a narrow opening behind them. She disappears under them and I can clearly see a passageway. She beckons me to follow. Once I climb through, she pulls a stone door closed that I hadn’t noticed before.

      Lyssa passes by me. “It won’t lock, but if you don’t know it’s there, it’s hard to find. It was dad’s idea to make our escape a bit more secure. He figured it would take them ten to fifteen minutes to open that big door and find nothing but solid rock behind it. Then maybe, depending on how smart they were, fifteen minutes to find the other doorway. Heck, if they’re stupid enough, they might not find it at all.”

      Her dad and sounded a lot like mine. Again, I’m not surprised. As I’ve said, you had to be crafty and smart to survive the darkness. And they didn’t just survive, they thrived!

      The tunnel is short, just barely high enough for me to walk bent over. I have no idea how long it is, because the candlelight only goes so far. But it feels very confining. I’m tempted to mention my recent bout of claustrophobia, but I don’t want to come off like even more of a wimp than I already have, not to mention I’m a little worried about it taking hold of me if I talk about it.

      So instead, I grit my teeth and follow.

      After two or three hundred feet, the tunnel starts to slope downhill a bit dramatically. I’m almost afraid it’s going to drop off completely. The tunnel goes on like this for about two hundred and fifty feet and then levels off. I start to think about how far under the ground we are and feel a bit of panic well up in my chest. Sweat starts rolling off my brow in streams. Just when I’m about to shout out in terror to let me out, we emerge from the tunnel into a big room filled with seven or eight big turbines.

      “Is this the damn?”

      Lyssa shakes her head, “No, this is a power plant downstream. Come on, we have to get to the boat and then to the bridge before they find the surveillance room.”

      “Why, what would finding the control room do?”

      Lyssa starts running. “It would lead them right to us stupid! We don’t have any cameras past the bridge. But we have a long way to go before we get there.”

      I try to keep up, but really, I’m in horrible physical condition. Again, I curse myself for not following my father’s exercise routines. At one point, she gets so far ahead I lose her altogether. I keep running, but it’s no good. I’m totally lost.

      I stop, and just manage to wheeze out, “LYSSA! Wait up! I don’t know which way you went!”

      All I hear is silence.

      Great.

      I start jogging again in the direction I think she was heading and see a long passage that leads to a big door that is part way open. She must have gone through there. I race down the passageway and nearly fall into a raging river below me. The doorway goes to nowhere.

      I look below and see Lyssa struggling with a canoe below me. I scream to her, but the water is so loud she obviously can’t hear. I look back and see some stairs going down. I hope her plan is not to hop into that river because that would be the dumbest idea ever.

      I run down the stairs and find the door out to where she is with the canoe.

      “Are you kidding me? This water is way too crazy to get in that canoe!”

      She frowns. “We’re not getting in the water. Come on, help me!”

      I help her drag the canoe into the building and then down another set of stairs to a landing next to a really calm canal.

      “Oh crap, we forgot the paddles! Go back up and get them, I’ll put this baby in the water.”

      By the time I get back with the paddles she’s already launched the canoe, loaded my gear and the guns, and is sitting inside.

      Lyssa rolls her eyes and shouts, “Look, don’t just stand there looking stupid, give me the paddles and get in!”

      I hand her the paddles and jump in the front of the canoe (well, to be honest I carefully and awkwardly board). I kneel down just like Lyssa and she hits me on my shoulder with one of the paddles and yells for me to grab it. She pushes us away from the building and starts paddling like crazy, yelling, “Paddle, you moron!”

      I’m paddling as fast as I can. It amazes me how quickly we move through the water. I guess, I always thought canoes were really slow. But once you get a good pace going with the paddles, it almost glides along the water.

      We round a bend and enter into the part of the canal that has sheer walls, at least forty feet on both sides. Way down at the end of the canal I see a bridge. “Is that it?” I ask. “The bridge you were telling me about?”

      “I wish, no we have a bunch more like that one before we’re safe. But we’ll hit the river there.”

      I stop paddling and spin around. “Are you crazy? That river is way too wild!”

      Lyssa smiles. “Don’t worry ya nancy, the river up there moves, yes, but not like back at the plant. It’s just a river. Once we get there, you’ll see what I mean. The good news is we won’t have to paddle as much, which I know you’ll like. You know, since you’re so out of shape and everything.”

      Why does she always do that? It’s not like I’m a complete loser. I mean, I carried a sixty-pound backpack twenty miles! Well, it was probably closer to ten miles, okay, maybe eight... but still!

      “Look, I would really appreciate it if you stopped giving me crap.”

      Lyssa laughs. “I would, if you’d just stop being so pathetic.”

      I splash her with my paddle. I thought we’d get into a nice little war of splashing each other, at least that was my intent. But apparently Lyssa had never seen those romantic comedies where couples would play around, splashing each other with water while the soft music played.

      No, she just hit me in the back of my head with her paddle. Hard.

      Everything turns black. Just as I’m sliding into the abyss of unconsciousness, it reminds me of The Darkness, and how it felt to die.

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