Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
CASEY
The limited amount of sky visible from where Casey was trapped in the cave began to shift from black to gray to less gray.
He didn’t think he’d slept, but there had been a couple times when his eyes drifted shut against his will.
At least he was certain he didn’t have a concussion.
No double vision, just a headache and a lump.
The darkest hours had been passed watching the few stars he could see from his position slowly move out of sight as they crossed the night sky—or the earth turned, if you were a stickler.
“If you hadn’t been stuck in a hole, the night would’ve been enjoyable. You might have even dragged Gabriel out to witness it. Had fun at the fort for the northern lights, didn’t we?”
But Gabriel was safe at home, probably very worried about him. And with his phone somewhere in the deep, Casey had no way to contact him. If there’d been a miracle signal, there still was no way for him to call and ask for a rescue. The only person with a clue to Casey’s location was Lane Boyd.
“And don’t forget Lawrence, the environmental service guy.”
Casey huffed out a sigh. He was as ready as he ever was going to be to try and climb out of the cave.
“Not just try. You are going to succeed. You aren’t going to die down here. There is a whole life you plan on living.” Gabriel, Mickie, Elton, Bowie and Keith, Greta and Abby. He listed the names in his head. No way was he not making it out.
Now that it was a bit lighter, Casey could see a bit more of his surroundings and what he’d gotten himself into.
The panic over randomly falling further into oblivion receded.
He would move slowly like a sloth—as if he could do much else—and feel carefully in front of him, ignoring the throbbing pain that was his ankle.
He was thirsty, but at least he’d had that granola bar. That and daylight coming were about all he could count on the plus side. But at least there was one.
He began to crawl.
Casey had no concept of how far he’d gone.
It felt like miles but was likely mere feet.
He laughed. The sound was creepy and he wished he hadn’t, but it was that or break down and cry.
He turned his body around and started to scoot backward, up the incline on his butt.
The shooting pain in his ankle when it knocked against the rock because he had to drag his damn leg made tears come to his eyes, but it was slightly less painful this way.
Each inch took a lifetime. His palms and fingertips were cut up, bleeding, the rocks slick where he’d set his hands down.
He was sweating and shaking again, his jacket gross and damp on the inside—another night in the cave was unthinkable.
As he moved, displaced pebbles rolled past, skittering down, down, down, until they came to rest somewhere far away.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that.” Now he was talking to the geography.
“One more foot,” he told himself. He was his own personal cheerleader, and it was annoying the fuck out of him. “One more. You’ve got this.” The entrance seemed closer, larger, the light brighter.
His right palm landed against something that was not rock, making him start and jerk it back.
“Shit.”
Getting himself under control, he reached out again and found something cold and smooth.
Something not from the mountain, unless the mountain was suddenly in the business of creating what felt to him an awful lot like a box.
Casey pawed it closer, scraping the thing across the tunnel’s rough surface.
Once he had a decent grasp on it, Casey tried to get a feel for its dimensions.
The container was maybe six inches square and three or four inches tall.
He dragged his fingers across the exterior, feeling various dents and what he suspected were scratches from being, at the very least, tossed into a cave.
Had the box been hidden here or dropped accidentally?
Was it protecting something important? As a kid, Casey had collected rocks and kept them in something about the same size.
He shook it, but nothing thunked; the sound was more of a shuffle or flutter.
Without actually opening it up to see, he assumed whatever was inside was small or light, possibly both.
“You have no idea what this is doing in a cave, but you’re not leaving it here. Gabe wouldn’t dream of it. Can you imagine his face?”
Casey pictured Gabe’s expression wide and gleeful as he held the box high and declared it to be treasure.
“Get a grip, Lundin.”
Unzipping his jacket, Casey tucked the container inside. It was uncomfortable against his bare skin, jabbing him in tender places since his shirt had been put to another use. But it didn’t hurt more than his ankle.
Then he got moving again. At one point, his good foot slipped, and he instinctively tried to use his bad leg to right himself, resulting in him passing out for a moment. When he came to, liquid that was probably blood dripped down the back of one hand.
Casey wanted to stop moving, stop trying.
To rest for a while. But spending another night in the mineshaft would be deadly.
He had to keep moving. His concern over hypothermia was growing.
His shivering had stopped, and not from any warm temperatures coming in, and he registered that he wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.
“I mean, who would be?”
Once more, since he was not fucking dying down there, he forced his body up and forward, his focus on the light.
“Oh my god, Gabe’s gonna think it’s hilarious. I’m going toward the light.” Casey laughed more than a bit hysterically, the sound again careening off the walls of the tunnel, repeating until it faded into silence.
Breathing hard, he tried to squash the worry that he’d only managed to crawl a short way from where he’d originally landed. Progress was progress. He shook his head; he couldn’t think about how far, not now. He needed to focus on the end goal: Not dying.
How had he, of all people, ended up at the bottom of a mine? Casey couldn’t come up with an answer. It wasn’t like him to be careless. Stepping close enough to the edge to fall like he had was a deadly rookie move.
Had he hallucinated something bumping his shoulder before he’d slipped? Had someone helped him along? Pushed him? Casey squeezed his eyes shut, as if that would help him think better. It did not.
Now that he’d had the thought, he wasn’t able to completely discount it.
He wasn’t so far gone that he’d forgotten he’d heard something when he’d been poking around the abandoned buildings.
Assuming the sound and the bump against his shoulder weren’t just his imagination, then a mystery person, one who didn’t want him poking around, had followed him and taken the opportunity to get rid of him.
“And I just blissfully wandered around, not paying any attention. Discounting the warning signs.”
He could be wrong, but the boxes in that last storage building came to mind.
It was a tad suspicious that an isolated building in a forgotten valley was floor to ceiling packed with unlabeled containers.
Drugs? Weapons? He doubted they were stuffed with Scholastic books saved for the local elementary school book fair.
“Nah, no one pushed you, Casey. You fell all on your own like the idiot you are,” he muttered darkly.
Casey forced himself to get moving again. If he didn’t, he was a fucking dead man.