Eleven, Twelve ... Dig and delve (Rebekka Franck Book 6) (6 page)

Now he was determined, more than ever, to get out of this place, whatever it was. He was walking through a tunnel of some sort, feeling his way with his hands on the limestone, the woman following him closely with the kid in her arms. He wanted to save them. He wanted to help them and do something good for someone else, for once in his life.

“Do you see anything?” the woman asked, panting behind him. He had asked if he should carry the kid, but she had refused. Something about a promise she had made to herself.

She had told him her name was Rebekka Franck. Once he heard her name, he realized he knew who she was. She was widely known in his journalist circles. Hell of a reporter who had given up a promising career as a war correspondent to go work for a small newspaper in her hometown. Her decision sent waves of shock through the industry. It was something people talked about. She had chosen it for personal reasons, he remembered people saying. Some people said she was scared. That a bad experience in Iraq had made her quit her job at the prestigious paper. Somehow, David never believed that. There had to be more to her story.

“No. It’s all darkness. You sure you can carry the kid? I’ll be more than happy to take him for a little while.”

“I got it,” she said.

“As you will.”

David crept further up. He bumped his head on the ceiling. “Ouch.” He felt it with his fingers. He was bleeding. He could feel the blood on his fingers.

“You okay?” Rebekka asked.

“Yeah, yeah. Just keep walking and mind your head.”

“Luckily, I’m not as tall as you,” she said.

David stopped. His hands had bumped into something in front of him. His heart started pounding while he felt it. Panic spread quickly through his body. Whatever it was, it seemed solid.

“What’s going on?” Rebekka asked. “Why have we stopped?”

“I…I bumped into something.”

“Well, what is it?” she asked.

“It…it seems to be a wall of some sort.”

Rebekka became quiet. David kept feeling the wall in front of him. “It’s not limestone. It’s dirt. I think the tunnel crashed. Maybe when the ground opened.”

Rebekka sighed. Her voice was shaking slightly when she spoke. “So, it’s a dead end?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Try digging into it with your knife. See how deep it is.”

David found his pocketknife and dug it into the wall. “It’s deep, Rebekka. It’s a wall.”

“Walls can be broken. Try some more. There has to be a way to get through. We have to keep trying. It’s the only way we have. There has to be a way out. There simply has to be.”

17

B
USTER WAS GETTING BETTER.
Afrim was so happy to have his friend next to him again, even though he was hurt. A few minutes after being pulled out of the ground, he started moving his legs and ears. It made Afrim’s heart jump with joy. Buster had been his best friend for as long as he could remember. Afrim had only been a baby when they got him, his mother used to say. And as soon as he had learned how to walk, Afrim would grab onto Buster’s tail and follow him everywhere in the house. Now he touched Buster’s broken tail and heard the dog whimper slightly.

“You’ll be fine, Buster,” he said, and put his head next to the dog’s. “Now that we’re together, I know we’ll be fine.”

The woman lying next to Afrim seemed to be more dead than alive. Every now and then she would moan in pain and scare Afrim half to death. It was cold in the small cave, and Afrim missed his parents terribly. Especially his mom. The two men in the cave had started to dig out another arm, but then they had stopped and now they were discussing something. Afrim was wondering if they had realized it belonged to yet another dead body. He pretended not to be, but he was listening in on their conversation.

“I’m just saying it,” the big guy Brian Jansen from number five said. “We should think about it.”

The tall skinny guy that Afrim knew lived across the street from him, but he hardly ever saw, nodded. Afrim could tell he agreed. Brian lowered his voice, but Afrim could still hear him.

“I tell you, if we keep pulling these people out of that mud, we’ll end up getting cramped in here. There simply isn’t enough room for all of them. And definitely not enough air. We hardly have enough as it is. We might have to spend many hours down here before they’ll manage to dig us out. We need to think about our own survival. In a situation like this, we can’t afford to…”

That was when Afrim saw something he had given up hope of ever seeing again. “Mom!”

“What was that?” Brian said.

Afrim pointed and searched for the words. “Mmmm…Mom!”

“What’s wrong, kid?” Thomas said. “Did the dog die?”

He looked like he hoped that was the case.

“No…no, look there…over there, it’s my mother’s fingers sticking out. Look at the ring. It’s her ring!”

Brian shook his head. “She’s dead, kid. Forget about her.”

“No. No. She’s moving. I just saw her move a finger. I swear to you. It’s her and she’s alive.”

Thomas looked at Brian. “I’m just saying. There isn’t room or air for all of them and us. We have to choose at some point.”

Thomas nodded. Brian went to Afrim and kneeled next to him. Afrim growled in pain when he tried to move closer to his mother’s fingers. Buster lifted his head.

“Listen, kid,” Brian said. “Forget her. Forget you ever saw that finger or that ring. That’s my best advice to you.”

“No!” Afrim yelled and startled Buster. “You have to save her. You have to dig her out. Please!”

Brian shook his head. Then he slapped Afrim across the face and grabbed his shirt. He pulled his face close to his. “I’m not going to say this again. Your mother is dead, you hear me? She’s gone.”

“But…?”

Another slap burned across his face. He tried hard to hold back his tears.

“No buts here. It’s over. Learn to live with it, kid. Grow up. Or, I swear, I’ll kill you as well. Make more room for the rest of us.”

Afrim felt the warm tears roll across his face as Brian let go of him. He stared at the three fingers sticking out of the dirt. If only he could. If only he hadn’t been hurt, he would dig her out himself.

Afrim felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the lady sitting next to him with the bent leg. “Let it go,” she whispered. “Please. They’ll kill us.”

Afrim became silent. He was biting his lip to hold back the tears, when suddenly he heard something. A new sound. A scraping coming from the wall behind him. It was coming closer. Afrim held his breath.

18

W
E CRASHED THROUGH
the wall of dirt and landed in a cave of some sort. David and I had frantically dug our way through in desperation, refusing to accept that this could be the end of the road.

Five sets of eyes were looking at us. One of them belonged to a dog. I put the boy in my arms carefully to the ground.

“What the…?” a big guy said, as he turned his head and looked at us.

“Who are you?” the boy with the dog asked.

“I know who you are,” the big guy said and pointed at David. “You’re my neighbor Martin’s brother. You’ve been staying with him for some weeks now, after that calamity in Syria. I’m Brian Jansen. Where did you guys come from?”

“We were caught in a pocket further down, but dug our way out,” I said. “We found a tunnel and followed it here.”

The big guy’s eyes lit up. “A tunnel, huh? So maybe there is a way out?” He walked closer to us and stuck his head out in the tunnel we had come through.

“You think we can get out that way, Brian?” the tall guy said. I recognized him now as the acclaimed poet Thomas Soe, who, a couple of years ago, had written some horrifying poems about killing his ex-girlfriend. I never liked the poems much, but the critics did, and the praise was never-ending. He always seemed a little fishy to me…even now.

“We believe we’ve landed in the limestone mines somehow,” David said.

As he spoke, I took a good look around. There was a woman I recognized as the one who had been in the street arguing with another woman when my taxi had stopped right before I was pulled into the ground. She looked bad. Her leg was bent the wrong way and she was in a lot of pain. She wasn’t even looking at us. A boy sitting next to her with his dog on his lap had tears in his eyes.

“Is everyone alright in here?” I asked. Something seemed a little off. The boy was sobbing.

“Well, apart from us being stuck hundreds of meters underground, we’re all peachy!” the big guy said.

I didn’t listen to him. I kneeled next to the boy instead. “Are you hurt?”

“Only my leg,” he said.

“What’s your name?”

“Afrim. This is Buster.” The dog didn’t look too well. Still, it wagged its broken tail.

Afrim looked at me like he wanted something from me, like there was a need only I could fulfill. “Please,” he whispered.

“Please what?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

He was still whispering. “Please help…my mother.”

“Your mother? Is that your mother?” I asked and pointed at the woman next to him.

He shook his head. Then he lifted his hand and pointed. I turned and gasped as I spotted three fingers sticking out of the dirt wall.

Oh, my God!

“David!” I said, my voice cracking. “We’ve got to help her. There’s a woman trapped in there!”

I pointed at the fingers. They weren’t moving. Immediately, David started digging with his knife and fingers. Soon, we managed to get her arm free.

“It’s difficult,” David said. “She’s stuck pretty far in. If we dig any further, we risk causing the wall to crash.”

“Don’t do it. You risk killing all of us,” Brian said. “If that wall of dirt comes down on us, we’re done. She’s probably dead anyway. They all are. There’s no way they can survive in there, buried in the dirt.”

His words made me rise to my feet. I looked around in the dim light from a small Zippolighter placed on the ground and, little by little, I realized she wasn’t the only one stuck.

David gasped when he saw it as well.

“We believe they’re all dead,” Brian said. “We should focus on how we will survive, instead of on rescuing the dead.”

My head was spinning. The many body parts stuck in the dirt looked like they’d been taken from some horror movie. I couldn’t stop wondering…what if they were alive? How could anyone be so cynical and not at least do something?

“If no one else will, I’ll save them all myself,” I said, and kneeled next to Afrim’s mother’s arm and started digging. Seconds later, David kneeled down next to me.

19

I
T WAS HARDER
to dig the woman out than I had expected. I was sweating, even though it was very cold underground. David was working hard as well. He was growling while his hands moved agitatedly. I could tell he was as anxious as me. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving this woman in the dirt. I kept thinking of poor Afrim sitting on the ground behind me and the desperation he must have gone through.

It was devastating.

“You’re wasting your time and strength,” Brian growled. “I say we use our energy on trying to get out of here instead. And you’re using up all the air. Our air.”

I couldn’t believe they could be that cynical. Lucky for us, we had the only knife down here, in case they tried to stop us. I was so happy to have David on my side.

“I think I see her head,” David said. “I might be able to grab onto her shoulders if I reach deep inside.”

I looked at Afrim. He followed our every move with anxious eyes.

Please let her be alive, please, dear God, don’t do this to the boy.

“There’s no chance she survived in there,” Brian continued with a sigh. “If you pull her out, you risk all of our lives. All that dirt on top of her will come down on us. I, for one, am waiting in the tunnel.”

Brian and Thomas left the cave and went into the tunnel, taking the lighter with them, leaving very little light for us to see. They watched as David reached inside the hole, grabbed onto the woman’s shoulders and started pulling. “It’s really hard,” he moaned. “She’s still stuck.”

“All that trouble for a dead body. You’ll get yourself killed. I’m just saying,” Brian yelled.

Afrim whimpered. I could have killed Brian on the spot.

David tried to pull again, some dirt came loose and ended up in a pile next to my feet. My heart started racing. Was Brian right? Would the entire wall come down on us?

“Is she moving at all?” I asked David, and looked inside the hole we had dug.

He shook his head.

“Any sign that she is alive?”

He shook his head again. I took in a deep breath and felt lightheaded. We didn’t have much air for all of us.

“Let’s both of us try.” I reached inside the hole and grabbed the woman’s lifeless arm and shoulder.

“On three,” David said. “One…two…three!”

We pulled with all of our strength.

It’s moving! The body is moving!

Suddenly, it gave in. The body came loose, and so did the dirt surrounding it. A huge pile of dirt crashed on top of us. For a second, I thought I was about to die. I kicked and pushed the dirt away, but it didn’t move. Not until David started removing it from the outside and I could breathe again. The body of Afrim’s mother was on top of me. I pushed the dirt away and David dragged her out.

“Mom!” Afrim screamed, and tried to drag his body closer to her. Buster followed him closely.

“Oh, great, you made the cave smaller,” I heard Brian say. “And for what? A corpse that will start to smell soon?”

“Is she alive?” I asked, ignoring his remarks.

“I…I…” David had turned her around and was looking at her. He wiped dirt away from her face. “She…”

I froze. She didn’t look to be alive. Her eyes were closed, she was very pale, and had dirt inside of her mouth.

“We have to clear her breathing passage,” I said, and stuck my fingers in her mouth. I dug out all the dirt I could.

“She’s not breathing, Rebekka,” David said.

“Mom?!” Afrim said, and crept closer. He put his head on her chest. “Talk to me. Say something. Please, Mom. Please, be alive!”