Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
The passage narrows further, barely wide enough for our shoulders, the ceiling dropping so low we have to crouch. The sound of pursuit grows fainter behind us, though whether we’re actually outpacing them or they’re simply letting us go deeper, I can’t tell.
“Where does this lead?” I gasp, the close confines triggering a claustrophobia I didn’t know I had.
“I don’t know,” Jensen admits, his voice tight with tension. “But it’s away from them, and that’s all that matters right now.”
Except they could be herding us into a dead end, into a trap.
31
JENSEN
The beam of my flashlight cuts through the darkness, illuminating patches of the ancient cave walls in ghostly fragments. Aubrey moves ahead of me, her silhouette occasionally merging with the shadows as she follows what appear to be deliberate marks scratched into the stone—three parallel lines, repeated at intervals, like a trail of breadcrumbs leading us deeper into the mountain’s heart.
“She left these,” Aubrey says, her voice hushed with a mixture of awe and dread as she traces the marks with her fingertips. “Lainey was still lucid enough to leave a path.”
I say nothing, watching her shoulders stiffen with determination even as her voice cracks with grief. The revelation in the journal has shaken her to her core—the confirmation that her sister transformed, that she became one of the hungry ones, that somewhere in these caves, something that was once Lainey still exists. I can only imagine the conflicting emotions warring within her: the horror of the truth battling against the strange comfort of finally knowing and the yearning to be with her loved one.
“These look fresher than the others,” I observe, examining a new set of marks that appear less weathered, the scratches lighter against the dark stone. “She might have made these later, after…”
I trail off, not wanting to say what we’re both thinking: after she changed, after the hunger took hold.
“After she transformed,” Aubrey finishes for me, refusing to shy away from the truth. “The question is why? Why leave a trail at all if she was no longer…herself?”
The marks lead us through a series of narrowing passages. The air grows thicker, heavier with each foot of progress, the weight of the mountain pressing down on us both physically and psychologically.
Then, abruptly, the passage opens into a massive chamber, so vast that our flashlight beams can’t reach the far walls or ceiling. The sudden expanse after the confined tunnel creates a momentary vertigo, a disorienting shift in perspective.
“Holy fuck,” Aubrey breathes, her voice absorbed by the emptiness around us.
As our eyes adjust, the contours of the chamber begin to resolve in the meager light. The floor stretches out in a roughly circular shape, the center dominated by what can only be described as a settlement—crude shelters constructed from salvaged materials, arranged in a vaguely ordered pattern around a central open space. Evidence of long-term habitation surrounds us: discarded clothing, containers repurposed from modern hiking gear, tattered tarps strung up to create private spaces.
“They’ve been living here,” I say, the realization settling cold in my stomach. “Not just existing. But living.”
Aubrey moves toward the nearest shelter, a structure cobbled together from broken tent poles and weather-beaten fabric. She crouches at its entrance, shining her light inside.
“Look at this,” she calls, her voice tight with tension.
I join her, peering into the small space. Inside lies a pallet of filthy blankets and rags, arranged with clear purpose as a bed. Beside it, a small collection of objects are carefully displayed on a flat stone: a tarnished locket, a man’s watch with a cracked face, a child’s plastic toy—a horse, its paint mostly worn away.
Reminds me of Duke.
“Possessions,” Aubrey says softly. “Mementos.”
“Or trophies,” I counter grimly, unable to ignore the implication. “From their victims.”
She straightens, sweeping her light across the settlement. “This suggests a level of intelligence, of organization. Nathaniel or Lainey. They’ve maintained enough of their humanity to create shelter, to collect and arrange objects with meaning.”
“Different stages, maybe,” I suggest, examining a pile of modern hiking equipment—torn backpacks, single boots, broken trekking poles—gathered near one of the larger shelters. “The longer they’ve been transformed, the more they retain or recover. Hank and Red are newly changed. But these others…Nate called them the originals. They’re different.”
Perhaps they can even be reasoned with.
Perhaps that’s our way out of here.
“Some of these items look decades old,” Aubrey notes, carefully lifting a metal canteen of a design I haven’t seen since my grandfather’s day. “And look at this.”
Her light illuminates a far section of the chamber where the evidence of habitation becomes progressively older, more primitive. Structures made from branches and animal hides. Tools fashioned from bone and stone. Artifacts that speak of generations of occupation, stretching back far longer than seems possible.
“This can’t be right,” I mutter, crouching to examine what appears to be a handmade clay pot, its surface decorated with crude symbols that echo the marks Lainey left. “The Donner Party incident was only 175 years ago. These artifacts look fuckin’ prehistoric.”