The Graves of Plague Canyon (The Downwinders Book 3) Read online

  Winn brought two backpacks and dropped one at Deem’s feet. He also held the bolt cutters, which he took to the chain. It was snapped open within seconds, and he walked the bolt cutters back to the Jeep.

  Deem reached into her backpack and pulled out a flask. She tossed back a single gulp, shaking her head after she swallowed. Then she handed it to Winn as he returned from the Jeep. He took it and downed two gulps like water.

  “That tastes different,” Winn said.

  “It’s so nasty I don’t know how you can tell it’s different,” Deem replied.

  “Well, it does,” Winn said. “Did you change it?”

  “It’s the first batch I’ve made myself. I finally ran out of my dad’s. He had gallons of it.”

  “Just like a Mormon, stocking up a two year supply,” Winn said under his breath.

  “I hope it’s as good as his,” Deem said. “I took notes when he showed me how to make it, but I was a little frustrated at how incomplete my notes were.”

  “Are you telling me we’re testing out questionable protection?” Winn said. “I wish you’d have said something. I could have brought my own.”

  “Where’s yours?”

  “Back in Moapa,” Winn replied.

  “Then yes, I guess we’re trusting mine.” She replaced the flask. “It worked for David.”

  “Who’s David?”

  “I didn’t tell you about him?” Deem asked. “Erin called me to rescue him. He got stuck somewhere and needed help. You got the pulsebox?”

  “Tuned up and ready to go,” Winn said, slapping his backpack. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with inside, and I’ll figure out where to drop it.”

  Deem pulled on the iron door and it slowly swung, its metal hinges groaning. A blast of sour wind from the mine rushed out to greet them.

  “Smells awful,” Winn commented. “Do we have any idea of the layout?”

  “None,” Deem said. “It was sealed up long before the mine hobbyists started mapping things.”

  Deem stepped inside and Winn followed. The tunnel ran level, with rail cart tracks in almost perfect condition under their feet. It began to angle downward after fifty yards, and it soon opened up into a large room that held wooden ore-processing equipment. Deem wondered if Winn would choose to leave the pulsebox here; he preferred to set it up in a location near an exit route, to ensure they’d have a clean way out in the event they had to make a hurried departure from the mine. Above them in the ceiling was a large shaft running straight up.

  “Capped off,” Winn said, shining his flashlight into the shaft. “Just like the entrance. They sealed this place up tight.”

  “At least they didn’t bulldoze it,” Deem said. “We’d be screwed if they’d done that.”

  Three tunnels lay ahead of them, snaking deeper into the mine. “Why don’t you leave the pulsebox up by those tunnels?” Deem said. “It’ll keep all three clear.”

  “I’m gonna leave the pulsebox here,” Winn said, “because I think we should go that way.” He nodded toward the west wall of the room, away from the tunnels.

  “There’s no tunnel there,” Deem replied.

  “Remember Devil’s Throat?” Winn said.

  Deem dropped into the River and saw the false wall. Then she dropped back out, not wanting to stay in the River for long and unnecessarily attract any zombighosts.

  Winn turned on the pulsebox and set it on the ground. They walked to the edge of the room and dropped back into the River to pass through the false wall. Beyond it was a small room with a tunnel leading out the other side. There were four skeletons along the southern wall of the room, with a large amount of rubble under the bodies where ceiling rocks had caved in. Even though they were standing several feet from the skeletons, Deem could see that the bones had been nailed to the rocks. Large railroad spikes had been driven through their arms, neck, and legs to keep them pinned to the wall.

  “I’m not liking the look of this,” Winn said.

  “Is it time for the gas masks?” Deem asked.

  “The treasure you seek is down that passage,” came a familiar voice from behind them, and they both turned.

  “Carma?” Deem asked.

  Carma was standing next to a small boulder, her hand raised, pointing at the tunnel that led out of the room.

  “That way,” she said, smiling at them.

  “What are you doing here?” Deem asked.

  “Tagging along,” Carma answered. “Thought I’d join in for the fun.” She lowered her arm and took a step toward them.

  “How do you know it’s in there?” Winn asked.

  “I can sense it,” Carma replied. “It turns to the right. Keep turning, and you’ll find it.”

  Deem and Winn stepped toward the tunnel and were about to enter it when they turned around to check on Carma. “Are you coming?” Deem asked.

  “No, I think I’d be more comfortable waiting out here,” she replied.

  Winn walked into the passage and Deem followed. They had gone about twenty feet when it curved sharply to the right. After another ten feet it turned to the right again.

  “This is taking us back to the room,” Deem said.

  “It can’t be,” Winn said. “There was only one tunnel.”

  After a few more steps another turn to the right occurred. They walked for a few more yards.

  “We should have run into the tunnel that left the room by now,” Deem said. “We’re going in a circle.”

  Winn kept progressing down the passageway, and after another ten feet it turned to the right once again. “We must be going down,” Winn said. “It doesn’t feel like it, but we must be. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  They walked another fifteen feet and came to another right turn. “Stop,” Deem said, and she paused. “Do you hear that?”

  Winn stopped. “Hear what?”

  “Listen,” Deem said. “I hear something.”

  They held still, straining their ears. The faint cry of a wail could be heard in the distance, then dozens of wails.

  “Ghosts?” Winn asked.

  “I think so,” Deem replied.

  “Which direction?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t like this,” Winn said. “I feel like we’re trapped. If they come from behind, we don’t have many options.”

  “I wonder how much farther this goes?”

  Winn turned his flashlight to the path ahead. “Come on, let’s speed things up. Carma said to keep turning right, and we’d find it.”

  Deem followed Winn and they moved more quickly through the passage. She noticed that the walls seemed closer together the farther they went. When they started, the passage was about five feet wide, but now it was three feet, and the ceiling was lower, forcing them to lower their heads at times. They made three more right turns, and Deem was beginning to become lightheaded.

  “I’m not sure I can keep going,” Winn said. “This is too narrow for me. Look ahead, it just keeps getting tighter.”

  “This can’t be right,” Deem said, bringing Winn to a stop ahead of her. “We’re not going down, or up. Things are level. We couldn’t have possibly made this many right turns.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out a gas mask, slipping it onto her head. Winn did the same.

  They sucked in a lungful of clean air. “I need to stop for a minute, and clear my head,” Deem said to Winn through the gas mask.

  “No problem, I’m not for going any farther, anyway.”

  They lowered themselves to lean against the wall of the passageway, but when they leaned back they kept falling until they hit the ground. Deem looked around, and saw they were in a huge room nearly two hundred feet wide. “Winn? You seeing this?”

  “Yeah.”

  They stood and turned to inspect the room. The ceiling was almost so high their lights couldn’t reach it. The floor was covered in a fine dust, and they could see their footprints in it.

  “My tracks,” Deem said. “My boot p
rint is here dozens of times.”

  “We were going in a circle,” Winn said, then turned to look behind him. In the center of the circle they’d been walking were dozens of ghosts, hovering off the ground.

  “Shit,” Winn whispered, and Deem turned to see what he was looking at. The ghosts moved three feet, turned to the right, and moved another three. They were endlessly moving and turning in a circle, walking through each other with blank faces, like robots left on auto.

  Deem wanted badly to drop into the River so she could make sense of the images in front of her, but she knew it was too great of a risk. If the ghosts saw her in the River, they’d transform and attack.

  “I’m assuming these are the gifteds who were asphyxiated here,” Winn whispered. “They think they’re still in the tunnel.”

  Deem watched their faces — the blank stares from hollow eyes, the drudgery of having walked endlessly for a hundred years. “Since they were gifteds,” Deem whispered back, “do you think they’ll transform if I drop in real quick?”

  “Don’t do it!” Winn said. “We don’t know where we are, how we’d get out.” He glanced around the room. “I don’t see any exits. There’s no way out of this room.”

  “Maybe there’s a false wall somewhere,” Deem replied. “We’d have to enter the River to see it.”

  “Let me try conventional methods first,” Winn said. “I’d rather err on the side of caution. If I can’t find a way out, we might risk it.”

  Winn began to walk around the large room, the dust kicking up from his feet. Deem followed, and they made a wide circle around the walking ghosts, searching the walls of the room for any kind of exit. Several areas of the room had rock outcroppings, and it took a while to circumnavigate the entire area.

  “We’re back where we started,” Deem said. “At least, I think so.”

  “No way out,” Winn said, and Deem could sense the edge of panic in his voice. Winn had always been claustrophobic, and she knew it was getting to him.

  “We got here by putting on the gas masks,” Deem said. “That’s the way out.”

  “The gas masks?”

  “Yes,” Deem replied. “If we take them off and start to breathe whatever is in the air here, I think we’ll find ourselves back in the tunnel.”

  “Let’s test that theory before we try anything with these ghosts,” Winn said. He reached for his gas mask and pulled it off, taking two large breaths of air. Then he began to panic. “Deem? Deem? Where are you?”

  Deem pulled off her gas mask and let her lungs fill with the air. She saw the walls of the tunnel reappear around her.

  “Thank god,” Winn said. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “I never lost sight of you,” Deem said. “I think the room is what’s real. This tunnel is the trick, a hallucination brought on by something in the air.”

  “That’s how they asphyxiated the gifteds,” Winn replied. “They lured them in, and once they were in deep enough, the bad air took over and finished them off.”

  “But where are their bodies?” Deem asked. “We need to find that vacuum box.”

  “There weren’t any bodies in the room with the ghosts,” Winn answered. “Not that I noticed, anyway.”

  “I’m going to ask them,” Deem said, putting her gas mask back on.

  “Deem, no!” Winn said.

  “They’re gifteds, I don’t think they’ll attack us,” Deem said. “And if they do, I’ll just put the gas mask back on, and return here. I think they’re stuck in the room, not here in the tunnel.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Winn said as Deem disappeared from his view.

  She saw the room reappear around her, the ghosts in the middle slowly pacing, turning, pacing. She walked a little closer and let herself slip into the River, knowing she’d be exposing herself to the ghosts. Their features came into view, and she saw their old clothes, deteriorated and falling from their bodies. None of them turned to look at her.

  She walked closer to the group, estimating that there were twenty or thirty. She stepped in front of one of them, and it passed through her without stopping.

  Excuse me, she said, turning to look at another. It didn’t stop either.

  Winn joined her. Talk about being in a rut, he said.

  They’re not attacking, Deem said.

  I don’t think they realize we’re here yet, Winn replied.

  Excuse me! Deem said again, raising her voice. The ghosts didn’t notice.

  EXCUSE ME! she screamed in frustration.

  Nothing, Winn said. No sense screaming, they’re not listening.

  How do I get their attention?

  We could try a trance, Winn suggested.

  Deem picked one of the ghosts and began to follow it as it walked. She concentrated on it, focusing all of her thoughts toward the entity moving in front of her. She mimicked its walk, trying to eliminate anything that might distract her.

  I don’t think that’ll work, Winn said.

  Shut up, Deem replied. I’m concentrating.

  She could hear Winn sigh, and she tried to eliminate him from her thinking. Just concentrate on the ghost right in front of me, she thought. Nothing else. Just this guy. Who was he? How did he come to be here? What was important to him?

  To her surprise, the figure in front of her stopped. The ghosts around her continued to walk and turn, but the man in front of her had come to a halt. Something she did had reached him.

  He turned to face her. She braced for him to react, to materialize and turn rabid, but he didn’t — he just studied her face.

  What kind of creature are you? he asked, squinting his eyes at her and sticking his neck out.

  Human, she replied. I’m wearing a gas mask. She held her breath and lifted the mask briefly to expose her face, then pulled it back down. I have to use it or I’d be hallucinating that I’m walking through an endlessly spiraling tunnel.

  That’s what I’m doing, the man replied, his voice thin and raspy. He had a full beard that came down to his chest, and Deem thought she could see crumbs of food nestled between the hairs of it.

  You died in here, I’m guessing, Deem said. Why did you come in, in the first place?

  There’s gold at the end of the tunnel, the man said, his eyes widening. Enough to set me up for life!

  Who told you that? Deem asked.

  Brother Johnson, Dewayne Johnson, from Ol’ Port’s gang. Once I find it, I’ll be rich. Won’t have to work anymore, and neither will my family. It’s just ahead, around that corner up there.

  Deem felt sorry for the ghost, the same sorry she always felt. Trapped in their pattern, unwilling to move on to the next life, they endlessly replayed some important moment, over and over. Thinking he was just inches from becoming rich must have been this man’s important moment.

  Do you know where your body is? Deem asked.

  My body? The man replied, looking down at himself. Oh, yes, my body. It’s at the end of the tunnel.

  I’ll let you get back to your walking, Deem said, dropping from the River. She saw the faint shape of the man turn away from her and resume his trek.

  “You heard that?” Deem said to Winn, who was twenty feet away, at their footprints. “I think we have to go farther down the tunnel.”

  “We’ll be breathing the bad air again,” Winn said.

  “We’ll stop and use the gas masks every twenty feet or so,” Deem said, “to clear our heads. Then continue on.”

  They removed the gas masks and found themselves back in the tunnel. Winn turned to shine his flashlight down the slowly narrowing passage. “I don’t know if I can make it if it continues to shrink.”

  “I can make it,” Deem said, walking around him and taking the lead. “You come as far as you can, then I’ll finish the rest.”

  They walked ten more feet, came to another right turn, and continued on. They stopped to use the gas mask for several breaths, then continued. Turns began to come faster and faster, and the passage narrowed to tw
o feet wide.

  “Deem!” Winn called from behind her. “I don’t think I can…”

  Deem turned to look at Winn, and as she did, she heard something crunch under her feet. She pointed her flashlight down and saw bone.

  “We’ve hit a body,” Deem said. She moved her flashlight farther down the passage ahead, which made a sharp right after three feet. She could see the legs of another body sticking out from the corner. “And there’s more ahead. Can you help me start searching?”

  “I think so,” Winn said.

  “I’ll go deeper and let you search these bodies here,” Deem said. “Remember to put on your gas mask every couple of minutes, or you’ll wind up like these poor suckers.”

  “Got it,” Winn said.

  Deem turned and walked farther down the passage, making the turn and continuing another five feet before another right turn appeared. She walked over at least ten corpses before she decided to start searching. The bodies were mummified, hard and dried, and the clothes were still intact. She went through pockets as quickly as she could, coming across penknives, money, and jewelry. She moved from body to body, trying to be thorough, but it was hard to see through the gas mask.

  One body had a small satchel, and she opened it. Inside were a couple of old, leather-bound books. She opened one of them and saw that it was handwritten, using a fancy script. She tried to read the words, but couldn’t make out their meaning. For a moment she thought it might be written in another language, but she dismissed that idea when she realized each word was definitely English. The way the words were strung together didn’t make sense.

  She dropped the satchel, but something told her she was making a mistake. She stopped for a moment. Why take it? We need the vacuum box. Leave it.

  But she reached down and grabbed the satchel. Its leather carrying strap snapped as she pulled it up, so she reached down to grab the entire thing, and slipped her backpack off to stow the satchel inside.