The Undergrave • part 9 - Crossroad

Juniper put her palms against the wall at her back, ready to push off and sprint the dozen feet to the pile of rubble and climb for her life, but something stopped her. A bit of tan material lay at the base of the settling hill. She could see that there was a strap attached.

The keys.

She grasped the pack out of the dusty sand and leapt onto the mound. While scrabbling wildly up the side, she looped the strap over her head.

At first, she made little progress, the loose material moving under her like an impossible treadmill. Slipping and straining, she gradually began scrambling her way upward.

When she reached the top she stood, trying to balance on a surface that continued to rumble and shift. She was able to reach the inside lip of the metal box that had contained the coffin and then to pull herself upward into the grave. The surface above her seemed impossibly distant.

She climbed, her arms shaking with the effort, and got her feet up into the shaft. Pieces of wooden beam and jagged shale bit into her fingertips as she clung desperately to the wall.

Everything was slick with rain and rot, making her progress painfully slow. The fear of plummeting back down into the clutches of the evil below nearly robbed her of the will to move at all.

Two feet from the surface, a rock gave under her foot and she fell, scraping down the rough wall before catching a narrow shelf with one hand. The camera was knocked from her head, falling back down into the shaft along with its light. She allowed herself one last look into the pit below and saw the streams of black slime receding, returning to the shadows, its greedy hunger for a sacrifice having been satisfied by Wes’s blood.

Testing each hold before giving it her weight, she climbed up toward the rectangle of dark sky. Her leg was burning and stiff. Blood filled her shoe. She could feel it squishing between her toes. Both hands stung, raw and threatening to betray her. When she reached the point that her body had nothing left to give, she touched wet grass. Gripping and tearing at the sod, she pushed off from the last foothold and dragged herself out of the grave to lay on her back, gasping, relishing the cleansing rain even as it choked her efforts to breathe.

I’ll get up. Just a few seconds to rest. Just a minute.

Something moved in the corner of her eye. Something large. She flinched away as a massive slab of granite slid from its base and struck the muddy ground beside her with a shuddering slap. She turned and saw it sink an inch, then another. Then the grave that it had marked fell away, a chunk of earth dropping into the cavern below. She turned to see other tombstones falling, more sinkholes appearing in their wake.

She got to her feet and tried to orient herself. Moonlight reflected from the wet stones. The mausoleum stood in the distance like a dark castle on a hill. The world ignited with dazzling whiteness as lightning jagged across the night. In the glow of the flash, she saw the gate, buried in slick ivy.

You’re a goddam fast one.

She ran over the shaking ground, slipping in muck, stumbling over broken bricks. All around her the world was falling away.

When she reached the gate, she tore the thick vines aside and pushed against their tangles. Feeling along the iron in the dark of the canopy, she found the opening and fell out of the brush to land on the road. Behind her, the gate and fencing began to rock, metal rods bending, squealing, then ringing out as they snapped.

She dragged herself to the car and fell into the driver’s seat, slamming the door to shut out this impossible night. It took a moment to remember where the keys had gone. She unzipped the pack on her chest and dug them out from where they jangled against loose change.

When the car started, cold air blew over her from the vents before she could turn the fan down and shift to heat. The wipers fought a losing battle to clear the windshield of pounding rain. In between swipes, the land before her lurched and heaved. She could feel the car shaking. She cut the wheel and hit the gas, nearly backing into the ditch, sliding through the mud and spinning the tires until they found some traction.

In her rearview, the Undergrave continued the violent process of devouring itself.

The journey through the dripping woods was a blur of stopping, starting, losing the path and finding it again. At the end of the gravel lane, she finally came to the paved asphalt crossroad. Wet blacktop stretched beyond sight in both directions. Across the road from where she sat were a pair of signs, bright in the car’s headlights. The one on the left read “64 West to Ohio/Kentucky.” The sign on the right, “79 East to Pennsylvania/New York.”

As the car’s warmth worked its way into her cramped muscles and aching bones, the shock began to settle and she convulsed with sobs. Helplessness crashed over her like an avalanched.  

Through blurred eyes she saw that the road to her right snaked around a carved-out mountain and dropped away into a hard, unfamiliar land.

She looked to her left and saw herself returning to Todd’s trailer, to the trap of her life, and shook with disgust.

But that’s all I have. No family. No money. There’s nowhere else to go. It’s either left or right.

Her phone was still in her back pocket, and she slid it out to find that it was shattered and dead. With a sigh, she pushed the car’s turn signal bar down. The left blinker strobed against the road signs and the dark trees. The needle on the dash claimed that the tank was near to empty. She would not get far in any direction without gas. The wound on her leg had stopped bleeding but needed to be cleaned and dressed. And as sick as she felt in that moment, it had been hours since she’d had any food or water.

There was no cash to be found inside the car’s console. Juniper pulled the sling bag up over her head and dropped it into her lap. Her hand swam blindly through its leather interior.  No plastic credit card. Not even a dollar bill. Only change. The coins felt odd against her searching fingertips. She lifted them out, surprised by their weight and the soft, deep tones they made clicking against one another. When she turned on the light, the cup of her palm was filled with nine large gold coins, each stamped with a woman on one side and an eagle on the other. Gasping, she flipped the light back off and scanned the night all around herself.

She was alone.

Rainwater ran down the glass.

Warm air from the vents dried her tear-lined face.

You run like hell.

Juniper returned the coins to the bag, zipped it shut, and looped the strap over her shoulder so that the pouch lay against her heart. With a hand that was no longer trembling, she flipped the turn signal up until the right blinker pulsed its amber light, then pulled out onto the empty highway.