Jonah Havensby (2 page)

The caves his father had told him to run to were actually part of a larger system that worked their way up and down the bluff and ended in a sharp mountain range many miles further. They were a sandy red color. He liked going on trips to the farthest cave to the west, because there was a waterfall there with a clear blue pool his father would let him swim in. That’s where he headed that night.

They had walked to the caves quite often. The wilderness surrounding the house was never off limits for Jonah, his father just avoided the nearby town as long as time would permit. Jonah didn’t even have to think about which direction he was running, which was a good thing, since he wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on anything at the moment. He just ran.

As he emerged from the woods, he saw a heavy mist hanging over the pool in front of the waterfall. At any other time, the eerie sight may have frightened him. At the moment, he was already too scared to let even that register by anything but a passing thought.

He trudged up through the long grass and into the cave. The cave was damp and cold, the floor, colder still.  He walked the ten or fifteen feet into the mouth of the cave, past an old camping hammock he had helped his father put together, to a footlocker by the cave wall.

His dad had brought one footlocker to each of three caves in this area. He had wheeled them here on a dolly, which wasn’t easy to do through the long grass and through the trees by the house. Jonah could never exactly remember what all his father brought on their many trips to the caves. His father always had backpacks full of different things he said he was going to ’put away for safe keeping.’

The first thing Jonah’s eyes settled on was an old winter coat from last year. He immediately pulled that out and put it on. He rummaged around, past blankets and canned goods, flashlights and packs of batteries, and at the bottom, came upon a pair of boots his father had bought him last year, but had never worn. He pulled them on and immediately relished in the temperature difference.

He pulled a blanket out and wrapped it around himself and sat on the floor exhausted. He didn’t realize it at the time, but he’d been running on adrenaline and instinct all the way from the house. Now, sitting down and finally warm, everything that had happened to him suddenly caved in all at once and he began to cry. He cried until he fell asleep.

When he woke the next morning, he found himself curled up next to the footlocker. Hoping it was a dream, he sat up, wiped the sleep from his eyes and looked around, hoping to see his father.

No. It hadn’t been a dream. He was alone. His father was gone. Lost in an explosion.

Jonah hauled himself up, went to the mouth of the cave and looked around. The light momentarily stung his eyes. It was a crisp, clear day, without a cloud in the sky. There was a slight, chilling breeze moving though the tall grass. Daylight glistened on the pond to his right. He went back into the cave, fell into the hammock and fell asleep again trying desperately to escape this horrifying reality.

When he woke, he was hungry. Jonah and his father had long ago discovered that there were fish in the small pond and had spent many days hanging out and fishing. His father always threw back most of the fish, but he made sure Jonah at least knew how to clean and cook a fish. There was a small indent in the cave floor further back, perfect and safe for a very small fire. His father only used sticks and twigs. He often said a small fire was all you needed because if you used logs and made the fire too big, you’d get smoked out of the cave. At the moment, Jonah was simply too drained to even attempt to fish. But he would need a fire if he was going to cook something from one of the cans he had found in the footlocker.

He cast off the blanket and his coat and went digging through the footlocker. He came up with a pair of jeans, a tan t-shirt with a surfing logo across the chest, and a red sweater. Once dressed, he folded his red t-shirt and the basketball shorts and put them into that footlocker. He debated what to do with the gem. He could put it in the footlocker, but it didn’t actually lock. It had no lock, because his father knew the caves were too distant for most anyone to bother hiking to them, even if they knew the caves were here. Still, he didn’t feel right about leaving it out of his possession, so he stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans.

He walked into the woods on edge. Would all of the ‘dangerous men’ have been killed or injured in the explosion? Were some of them still around? Would they be satisfied after killing his father and simply leave? He didn’t know. So he stayed to the edge of the wood and picked up what twigs he could find and broke off small branches he could reach.

One advantage he could see about the cave was that it was on somewhat higher ground than the woods and anyone going to the cave would have to move through the high grass, so he would certainly see someone coming from the mouth of the cave. He could certainly make an escape to one side of the grass or the other if he saw someone. And then the thought occurred to him.

His father had planned for this. He knew some day the ‘dangerous men’ would come. That was the reason for different footlockers in different caves. If one cave was found out, there were more things stored in other places. How could he not have figured this out before? He had never asked. He had never thought to. He had just assumed all of this was simply storage. A bizarre storage area to be sure, but hadn’t at least some of the supplies come in handy when they camped out?

So if his father knew these men and knew they would come, what were they after? Jonah couldn’t be sure.

His mind reeled and his heart ached and his stomach rumbled.

After what seemed like several hours walking the perimeter of the woods, he went back to the cave with an armload of sticks and dropped them by the fire pit. He knew his father had put a few newspapers and a torch somewhere in the footlocker because Jonah had seen him make fires here many times. He dug in the footlocker until he found the paper and the torch and took a can of baked beans and the small iron pot.

His father had never actually let him light the fire before, but he figured he had watched enough times to know. He set a small pile of sticks into the pit and then ripped a few sheets of the newspaper. He balled up the paper and put it in different places in and under the wood. He didn’t know how much paper was needed, so this part was going to have to be trial and error. He touched the torch to one piece of paper and flicked the switch. The fire lapped at the newsprint, but quickly went out. He tried another and got the same result. So, he lit all of the balls of paper in rapid succession. What he got was more smoke than fire. His eyes burned a bit, and he considered abandoning the cave for a while, but through the smoke he could see that a few of the smaller twigs had actually begun to light. After a few minutes, he had succeeded in making a campfire.

He peeled back the top of the can of beans and emptied the can into the pot. Fortunately, all the cans he found were pull-tops, so that made opening them easy. He forgot he would need something to stir the beans, much less eat them with, so he put the pot right down on top of the fire and walked back to the footlocker.

He found the plastic bag they stored the silverware in. There were two spoons, two forks and a hunting knife. He looked at the hunting knife. A weapon. He’d need a weapon if the ‘dangerous men’ came, wouldn’t he? He put the knife in his back pocket, took out a spoon and went back to the fire.

What he found was a bubbling mess. The place where he had put the pot down had crumbled, leaning the pot sideways, and the beans were bubbling over that edge. He instinctively reached for the pot to correct it. Burning his hand, he cried out, and dropped it into the fire, which almost immediately smothered the small flames.

He looked at his hand. The burn wasn’t bad, but it would sting for a few days. Then he looked at the mess. He’d have to let it cool and then clean it up if was going to try again, but he was too hungry for that. He went back to the footlocker, took out another can of beans and ate them just as they were.

There were two large empty water bottles in the footlocker as well.  He dropped the empty can of beans and picked up one of the water bottles. At the mouth of the cave, he made a quick scan of the area. Still no one around. That was good.

He walked to the pool of water and dipped his burnt hand in. It was cold, but not freezing. During the summer months it warmed up considerably and was really refreshing to swim around in. The water stung the burn, but there was some relief of it as well.

As he took the bottle of water to the waterfall, he tried to fill it without getting very wet, just as his father had shown him. When the bottle was full, he took a long sip and then capped the bottle. The water didn’t taste as good as the water at home, but his father said the waterfall acted as a natural filtration system, so it was safe enough to drink.

He walked back to the cave, removed the hunting knife from his back pocket and put it just under the hammock, within arm’s reach. He wrapped himself up in a blanket and lay down on the hammock, staring out at the gently swaying long grass.

He decided he needed some kind of plan. Was he going to live here? Just like this? He didn’t think so. He felt sure his father would have planned something different after this. Having this as a meeting place, or a hiding place, was one thing. To actually live in a cave would suck.

As the sun went down on that first night, he took a backpack from the footlocker, the larger pack that was obviously meant for his dad. He tried to think of what he might need, and didn’t have a clue. He spent most of the remaining daylight hours sorting through the footlocker. Since he had nothing better to do, he made a wide circle of the items, grouping them appropriately - these were clothes, these were cans of food, these were items with which to cook and eat.

In the end, he packed a change of clothes, the large water bottle, a flashlight, two cans of baked beans, one of the spoons and the hunting knife. He decided he would hike to the other two caves tomorrow where his father had also planted things ‘for safe keeping’ and see if the supplies there were any different.

The next morning he had a breakfast of canned peaches, which he had never tasted before and, as it turns out, he really hated, but he didn’t have it in him to go hunting for more wood and wasn’t the least bit interested in trying another fire just yet.

His hand was still tender from the burn, but thank goodness it wasn’t any worse than that. He left the empty can of peaches next to the empty can of beans from the night before, put on his coat and boots, and began to pack the items he selected into the large backpack. The last thing he did before he left the cave was put the silver chain around his neck and drop the green gem inside his sweater. He shook it to see if it would glow again. He only now realized it had gone out just after the explosion. Now it was the same stupid bauble with sharp edges that did nothing but make the world look green when you looked through it.

The pack turned out to be heavy, but not an impossible burden, as he slung it over both shoulders and set out for the other two caves, each of which, he knew, were almost exactly half a mile apart. He remembered his father measuring the distance out with a handheld GPS the first few times they travelled to the other caves. Again, it never registered with him why his father might be measuring the distance. For Jonah, it was about the adventure of exploring and the responsibility of being the leader when his father let him hold the GPS. His father would ask him questions about which compass direction they were going and what the geography was nearby. The GPS changed colors – green, if a dense patch of woods was nearby, a streak of blue if a stream was close, things like that.

After about a year, he and his father could find the other caves easily. His father had chosen the caves because they were higher up than the first, but he was evidently looking for places that had both a water source and a thicket of trees within walking distance.

Jonah walked into the second cave and checked the footlocker there. It was situated next to a camping hammock, the same as the first. Here was only more of the same, though, so Jonah only added a can of beans and two cans of peaches to the pack. He didn’t like peaches, but they were food, and that seemed important. He also decided he’d take the brown sweater he found here as well. The backpack was definitely getting too full.

Cave number three proved the same, except he liked the blue sweater he found more than the one he was wearing, so he traded it out and left the red one here in the locker. There were sneakers here, instead of boots, but he liked the warmth and traction the boots provided. He did find a bar of soap. For some reason, that just sounded like a practical thing to have, so he put that in the pack as well.

He was just about to leave when he spotted something that the other caves didn’t offer. Between two blankets, he found an electronic tablet and its power cord. When he pressed the power button, he found that it held enough juice to turn it on. It was loaded with everything, e-mail, a word processor, a web browser. The internet connection didn’t work out here, of course, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find somewhere to connect eventually.

It suddenly occurred to him that there might be some kind of evidence somewhere in this tablet. Maybe something about the ‘dangerous men’ and who they were or what they might want. Or maybe a note from his father, explaining what had happened and what he should do now. Jonah frantically searched everywhere he could think of within the tablet, but it seemed to be brand new. There was no e-mail address installed, there were no documents saved. There was no evidence or anything to tell him what to do.

Jonah swallowed hard. He had been unaware how deeply the thought had gripped him that this might be some kind of break-through. He took out the water bottle and took more than a few sips to make the clutching feeling in his throat go down. Then he thought he was pretty stupid. As if some hologram of his father was going to pop out of this machine and explain just what exactly was happening and where he should go and maybe that the explosion was just a cover–up, like in the movies, and he should come meet him at their designated secret base. That was just dumb. Wasn’t it?