Down the Rabbit Hole (3 page)

Jonathan didn’t know her
name, but he’d seen her at school. She was only a freshman. She had
no business being at this party.
What sort
of perv takes advantage of a drunk kid?

Jonathan gave them the
benefit of the doubt for about two seconds. “Where do you guys
think you’re going with the jailbait?”

“None of your business,
punk.”

Since there were two of them
and only one of him, Jonathan struck without warning or mercy. A
gut-busting sidekick dropped the strutting peacock on his right to
his knees. Before he hit the ground, Jonathan threw a right cross
to the jaw of his scrawny companion. It snapped the creep’s head
back a good six inches. But it only made him mad. Never judge a
book by its cover — or a potential rapist by his size.

The guy danced around with
his elbows tucked in and his fists in front of his face like a
boxer. He obviously knew how to fight. Jonathan didn’t mess around.
He knocked the guy out cold with a round-house kick to the side of
his head.

The perv was lucky Jonathan
and Franklin had switched identities. If he’d been wearing his
hiking boots instead of Franklin’s running shoes, the blow might
have killed him.

The girl he’d just rescued
was too drunk to walk. Jonathan wanted to get to Franklin, but he
couldn’t just leave her lying by the side of the trail. He picked
her up, tossed her over his shoulder and carried her back to the
bonfire. She thanked him by puking down the back of Franklin’s
parka.

When he got back to the
party, Jonathan lowered the girl to the ground, yanked his arms out
of Franklin’s ruined parka and turned it inside out. He used it to
position the girls head so she wouldn’t drown in her own puke if
she threw up again. He didn’t see Heather, so he grabbed the first
half-way sober girl he saw and enlisted her help.

“Hey, Carrie, do you know
this chick?”

“Sort of. She’s just a
freshman. What’s she doing here?”

“Getting herself
raped.”

Carrie’s eyes widened and
her mouth formed a little “O” before she frowned.

“A couple of guys were
hauling her into the bushes. I roughed ‘em up pretty good, so I
don’t think they’re going to be a problem, but can you keep an eye
on her? Make sure she doesn’t wander off. I gotta go find my
brother.”

Jonathan suddenly felt
light-headed as the last of the adrenaline from the fight left his
body. He sagged onto the log next to Carrie and grinned when his
car keys poked him in the butt. Franklin wasn’t going anywhere
without him.

“Sure. But, you might want
to find Jonathan before Richard finds you.”

Jonathan had almost
forgotten about the whole switched identity thing.
“Why?”

Carrie made a sour-lemon
face then cocked an eyebrow. “Did you or did you not ask Naomi
Huffman to have sex with you in the back of the Rover?”

“Oh.” A sudden headache
tightened Jonathan’s scalp. He’d forgotten about that too. What a
mess.

“I didn’t ask Naomi to have
sex. I only implied it.”

Carrie snickered and nudged
his shoulder. “You’re actually pretty funny after a couple of
beers. You should drink more often. Anyway… Naomi told everyone
that Jonathan put you up to it —told you she was easy or something.
She cried on Richard’s shoulder until he got so wound up he wants
to kill both of you.”

“Shit. I really fu — messed
it up this time.”

Carrie’s eyebrows shot into
her hairline.

He’d already tarnished
Franklin’s reputation when he put Trisha in her place. Dropping the
F-bomb wasn’t going to help. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said
that.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell
anyone.”

When Jonathan leaned forward
to stand up, Carrie grabbed his hand. “If you ever get over your
crush on Heather Compton, give me a call.”

Jonathan was only about
three inches off the log. Carrie’s revelation unbalanced him and he
sat back down. “How’d you know about that?”

Carrie snorted and spread
her fingers, releasing his hand. “Everyone knows you’ve been
crushing on that girl since the day she moved here. You should just
tell her, ya know? She likes you too. Or at least she did. She’s
pretty pissed off about you propositioning Trisha.

Jonathan swore again, but
didn’t bother to apologize this time.

“Like I said, if things
don’t work out with Heather, give me a call.”

“Jonathan’s single. Do you
want me tell him to give you call?”

“Hell no. I have too much
self-respect to go out with that two-timing man-whore.”

Jonathan cringed then tried
to hide it behind a shy smile. “Okay then. I guess I better go
check on the man-whore
… try to keep him
out of trouble.”

Carrie snorted. “Good luck
with that.”

Jonathan found Richard, and
everyone else, crowded around the entrance to the mine. He shifted
his weight to the balls of his feet and tapped Rich on the
shoulder. “I hear you’ve been looking for me.”

Instead of taking a swing at
him, Richard tugged at his collar and cleared his throat. “Your
brother went inside the mine. We’ve been yelling at him for like,
ten minutes, but he won’t come out.”

“Well, quit yelling. You’re
going to trigger a cave in.” Most of the timbers and support beams
inside the mine were over a hundred and fifty years old.

Franklin knew better than to
go inside the mine. Never mind the fact that Jonathan went in there
all the time to access his stash of pot and beer. He knew what he
was doing and never went so far in that he lost sight of the
entrance. He prayed Frankie was just screwing with him. Trying to
get back at him for kissing Heather.

He frowned at Rich. “You’re
sure he went inside? This isn’t just some prank?”

There were too many solemn
faces and wide-eyed stares for it to be a prank.

Rich shook his head. “It’s
no joke.”

“Has anyone called 911,
yet?”

Naomi extricated herself
from Rich’s arms. “You have to find him, Franklin. What if he’s
hurt?”

A premonition of disaster
gnawed at Jonathan’s gut, but he couldn’t just sit and wait for
help to arrive while Frankie was in danger. The longer he was
inside the mine, the more likely something bad would happen; if it
hadn’t already.

“Any of you guys have a
flashlight? Or a rope?” Jonathan had both in the Rover, but all he
had on him was the penlight attached to his keyring.

“I got a
lighter.”

Jonathan didn’t even try to
guess which moron came up with that bright idea. He rolled his eyes
and pulled out his keys. The tiny beam from the penlight flickered
and shimmied across the rubble and splintered beams that blocked
the tunnel. When he aimed it between the cracks, the oily darkness
inside the mine swallowed the light before it touched the
ground.

“Here, take this.” Someone
handed him an LED flashlight and a climbing rope. Jonathan muttered
a quick “thanks,” and turned his back on the crowd. He focused his
breath to calm himself and crawled over the pile of rubble. A
broken beam scraped his back and left behind a swath of splinters.
He really wished that girl hadn’t thrown up on Franklin’s parka.
The deeper he went, the colder he got.

Five minutes later, he
rounded a bend and found Franklin sitting on the ground, knees
bent, with his head on his forearms.

He sighed, but didn’t look
up. “Go to hell, Jonathan.”

“I’m sure I will, but I’d
rather it not be tonight. Come on, let’s get outta here.

“You can have anyone you
want, why’d you have to go after Heather?”

“I didn’t—”

Franklin’s head jerked up.
“I saw you kiss her.”

“No, Franklin. You
did
not
see me kiss
Heather.
She
kissed
me
but
only because she thought
I was
you!”

“It should have been me.”
Franklin dropped his head back onto his forearms.

“Shoulda, coulda, woulda.
You’re such an idiot! You could be kissing her right now. But
you’ll never get to kiss anyone if we die in here. You know it’s
not safe this far back in the tunnels.”

Jonathan reached out towards
Franklin. His left arm was still extended when the support beam
collapsed.

Hot, searing pain shot up Jonathan’s arm from his
left hand into his armpit. The agony lifted his mind out of the
trance just enough for him to remember that none of this was real.
But it sure felt real. Worse than real. He’d broken his hand in the
mine, not severed it.

The creaks and groans of
settling debris pulled Jonathan back into the mine. His heart
raced. He had to get Franklin out of the mine before another beam
gave way.

“Frankie?” A quiet moan
sifted through the pile of rubble. At least he was alive. “Frankie,
are you okay?”

“No.”

Jonathan gritted his teeth
to keep from screaming and clawed at the beam that held him pinned
to the ground. It wouldn’t budge, but in his scrabbling, his hand
brushed against the flashlight. He turned it on and discovered a
narrow rift between the beam and pile of rubble. He shone the light
through the gap and found Franklin lying on the ground. The same
beam that pinned Jonathan’s left hand had splintered and driven a
piece of wood through Franklin’s torso, impaling him.

No. This isn’t right.
Franklin’s only injury in the mine had been a mild concussion. He
died in Afghanistan. This isn’t real.
But
the nightmare didn’t stop.

“It hurts Jon-Jon.”
Franklin’s head lurched forward as he struggled to free himself.
“Get me outta here!”

“Stop it Franklin! You’re
making it worse. Hold still.”

Why is this so much worse
than what really happened?
Blood oozed
around the three-inch diameter wound in Franklin’s belly, soaking
his shirt. “You’re okay, Frankie. This isn’t real. This isn’t how
you die.”

Franklin tried again to lift
his body off the pike then fell back with a groan. His hand went
limp, but his chest rose and fell in rapid shallow
pants.

“Hang on Frankie, I’m
coming. I’ll get you out.”

A sinister creak
reverberated overhead. The beam that had impaled Franklin and
trapped Jonathan shifted. Franklin screamed.

Stop this. Please, someone
make it stop.

Jonathan and Franklin’s
chances of getting out alive were decreasing with every second. The
constant moans of shifting debris and Franklin’s pleas for help
gave Jonathan the courage he needed. He ignored the agony of his
broken ribs, curled up into a ball, positioned his feet against the
beam on either side of his trapped hand, and exploded
backwards.

Jonathan hadn’t expected his
hand to separate so easily. He sat on his butt and stared at his
arm. He tied off the bleeding stump with his belt as best he could.
He was wasting time fretting over his stupid arm. He clawed at the
rocks with his right hand and begged God to save them
both.

God didn’t
answer.

An ominous sound, like a
runaway freight train echoed through the tunnels.

“Oh, no. No, no, no … please
God, no.” Jonathan doubled his efforts to dig through the rubble.
He even used the bloody stump of his left arm, but he’d never get
Franklin out before the mine flooded.

“Don’t leave me, Jon-Jon. I
don’t want to die alone.”

“I’m not going anywhere,
Frankie. I promise. Live or die, we’re in this
together.”

The ground shook as the roar
of rushing water grew louder. Jonathan squeezed through the gap and
wrapped his arms around Franklin. He lifted him off the splintered
beam and held him against his chest. “I’ve got you Frankie. It’s
okay.”

A wall of icy water slammed
into Jonathan’s back, ripping Franklin from his arms. Jonathan
screamed, but the churning river of debris swallowed the sound. His
lungs burned, starving for air. Instinct took over. The first
lung-full caused his body to convulse, expelling the life-stealing
water. His diaphragm rebelled and forced more dirty water into his
lungs. Through it all, Jonathan never stopped screaming Franklin’s
name.

“
Jonathan. Wake up.”

Jonathan barely heard the
voice. His ears and sinuses still throbbed with each desperate beat
of his heart. His lungs were still full of water. He couldn’t
breathe.

“Snap out of it!”

Jonathan’s body jerked like
it sometimes did right before falling asleep. He gasped and choked
as more water found its way down his trachea. But this time, the
water tasted like a swimming pool instead of brine. And it was
mixed with patchouli scented air. His eyelids fluttered open.
Blue’s face hovered over his.

“What the hell?”

“I’m sorry about throwing
water in your face, but you refused to come out of trance and I
have another client in ten minutes.”