When Darkness Loves Us

She rested awhile, then scavenged the tunnel floor on all fours until she found a pointed rock. Chipping away at the old mortar proved to be a tremendous task, but she kept at it consistently, resting when she was too tired to go on, and taking trips back to the stream for fresh food and water. There was no sound except her own raspy breathing, no word from Clint. She knew that she was quite lost in the underground maze, that her bearings were so far off she might never again find either the Home Cavern or the stairs. This wall was her only hope. There must be something behind it.

She worked at the cement, chipping an inch at a time, until she had loosened one whole brick. With bleeding fingers she worked the brick loose from its slot and pulled it out. Half fearing what she would find, she reached her hand in the hole and felt . . . more bricks. A double wall. Her soul wilted. Would she never get used to disappointment? She summoned courage and patience and kept going. Eventually she had worked an opening that was five bricks wide and seven bricks high. She began scraping at the mortar of the inner wall.

The second wall of bricks was not as solid, and by putting her foot in the opening and bracing her back, she could make the whole structure give a bit as she pushed.

She worked one brick until it became loose. She pushed it with her hand, then her foot, until it gave way and fell in. Holding her breath, she listened. Nothing. Then a splash, way, way below, and the nauseating stench of mold, must, and rotting stuff wafted through the hole.

It was an old well, and where there was a well, there was access from above. Overcoming her sickness, she doubled her efforts to push out the inner wall. With one brick gone, the wall crumbled fairly easily. Soon she had an opening big enough to crawl through.

The effort was exhausting. She sat back and rested while her mind raced ahead. Here is a way out for all of us! She thought of Jackie, and called him. Instantly, he was there. He looked in the hole, and pulled his head back in revulsion. “This place is diseased. You can’t crawl up there. The well has been closed up for years. I’m sure the top has been sealed.”

“I can do it. I’ve got to get Clint out of here.”

“You can’t

do it. Look at you. You’re skin and bones and half dead. Do you know how you’d get up there, with no rope? And once you got to the top, then what? How are you going to open the lid? Forget it, Sally Ann.”

“I can do it and I will do it and I don’t need you telling me I can’t. Now you can help me or you can go away.”

“I won’t help you kill yourself. How fast have you been losing your teeth?” Her hand went to her mouth, to the sore gums and the holes she tried not to think about. “Come on, we can find our way back to the home cavern.”

“And do what? Rot? Have you ever thought what will happen to Clint after I get old and die? No, Jackie, this is our only way out.”

“What’s the difference, Sally Ann? You can die here, or you can die in that hole.”

She took his arm and looked into his eyes. He looked so sad. “Jackie, we can get out of here. All of us . . .”

“Not me, Sally Ann. I can’t go. I don’t know why, but when you don’t need me anymore, I think I’m going away.”

“Well, I certainly don’t need you now!” She was instantly sorry she had said that, and had time only to see the hurt flash through Jackie’s eyes before he faded away. “Jackie? Come back. I do need you. . . . Jackie!” But he was gone. She curled up in the corner by her pile of bricks and cried herself to sleep.

6

She took her time preparing for the journey. A plan was carefully followed and executed. She was determined to succeed. She began by eating all she could find. Each time she ate, she stuffed herself until repelled by the thought of another bite. She licked salt from the wall until tears came to her eyes, ignoring the stinging in her mouth, then drank her fill from the fresh water in the stream. She even fearlessly fished for crayfish, and ate them eagerly. She continually called out for Clint to come join her, but there was never a reply. She didn’t venture out farther than the stream for fear of losing her way back to the well, but her voice carried, and was so loud to her ears that she was certain he heard her. Each time the echoes rang hollowly back to her, the ache in her stomach rang with them.

She slept on a bed of moss that her body heat eventually made dry enough to be pliable. She shredded it, braided it back together, and wove a bag that she could sling over her shoulder to carry supplies, but she couldn’t make a rope strong enough to be of any use. She braided another bundle of moss to weave a kind of shirt, since her clothes were long gone and the air from the well was decidedly cool. She made a snug-fitting pair of booties and wound some more moss around her elbows and hands.