I was partially to blame, though. I’d let Jared and Bob’s plan fester like an untreated disease.
Now, it was time for retribution.
29
Natalie
“You are a very pretty girl. Papa Toft sure knew how to pick ‘em.”
Jared ran his finger down my cheek, and I prepared for the worst.
“Fuck you,” I spat out. I was done playing nice. What the fuck did he even mean by that, anyway? My dad didn’t pick me as his daughter.
“That’s good. I like that fire.”
Bob held the gun and the light on me.
“You’re just going to stand there and watch while he does what he’s going to do?” I gritted out toward Bob, who shrugged.
“He goes first.”
“Yeah. Jared always seems to go first. It’s clear who the alpha between the two of you is.”
“Now look here, you stupid little bitch,” Jared said, holding my jaw. “We did rock paper scissors for this. That’s how unimportant you are to us. Stop trying to play your silly little mind games with us. They won’t work.”
“No they won’t,” Bob echoed.
“Such cowards, both of you. Well yeah, go ahead. Get your retribution. Fucking take it. But the ghosts are watching, you know.”
They both bust into laughter.
“Ghosts? There’s no ghosts. We just made that up to mess with you,” Jared said, running a hand up and down my taped body. Using a knife, he cut the tape that was keeping my leg attached to the leg of the chair and impeding my mobility.
I immediately kicked him in the groin, and he dropped the knife.
“You little bitch.”
“I’m not going to make this easy for you.”
“We like it that way,” Bob chimed in.
I hated both of them, so much. Hated everything about this ridiculous week, so horrible and wild that I could scarcely believe this was my reality.
Jared clumsily grabbed my lower legs.
“Alright, no more fucking around.”
He started to unbuckle his belt when I heard the same Darth Vader noise I’d heard earlier.
“Holy fuck,” Bob said, and I noticed him shaking, and looking in the other direction.
I saw my opening and went for it. I eluded Jared’s grasp and took a few big steps forward, then kicked the gun out of Bob’s hand with my free leg.
“You fucking bitch!”
Jared grabbed me from behind and knocked me down to the ground, and searched for the gun with his headlamp.
“What the fuck is that?!” Bob said, shaking as he looked in the direction of the noise. It was pitch black.
The voice just kept saying, over and over again, seventeen.
My pulse quickened.
“This place isn’t really haunted, is it?” Bob asked.
“You fucking dumbass!” Jared yelled. Bob had grabbed the gun. “Fire, you dipshit! It’s Shane! Can’t you recognize his voice”
Bob fired in the direction of the noise, six times.
I heard, clear as day, Shane’s voice ring out in agony.
“You fuck! I’m bleeding! You didn’t have to kill me!”
My heart sank. My eyes filled up with tears. “You fuckers! Ah!” I spun around and whacked Bob with the chair, then sat on him.
He screamed out in agony. I didn’t know in which body part I had penetrated him, but I didn’t care.
Jared grabbed the gun out of his hand, and stood there in front of me, breathing hard. He wiped his sweaty, dirty face, and I could barely see his eyes illuminated by Bob’s headlamp. Bob wasn’t moving.
“You killed Shane! Isn’t that enough, you asshole!” I screamed.
He looked down at Bob, who was bleeding out, still and lifeless.
“You killed him. He was my only friend. Now, I’m going to kill you first.”
“First?”
“Yes. Kill you first, and then…”
Through the shadows, I could just barely make out the the swinging of an object in the dark.
Jared’s body went limp, he hit the ground, and his figure was replaced by another man.
I could barely make out Shane’s shadowy figure in the dark.
He breathed hard, his skin dirty, holding a shovel in his hand and looking around at the two men lying lifeless on the ground.
My eyes widened and my heart raced, trying to process what had just happened.
“Did they hurt you?” Shane asked, chucking the shovel on the ground and swinging behind me. He couldn’t undo the duct tape with his hands.
“Jared has a knife,” I pointed out.
“Had.”
“Had?”
He took the knife from Jared’s pocket, and felt for his pulse.
“He’s dead.”
“Is Bob?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit, I killed him! I thought he’d killed you! That yelling…”
“Acting. I figured they’d be easier to sneak up on if they thought I’d went down.”
“How did you navigate through the shaft?”
He finished cutting the duct tape off of me, then turned and looked at me.
“I used to come down here with my dad when I was a kid. I could walk through here with my eyes closed.”
“Oh.”
We paused, looking at each other with the flicker of light available.
“Natalie. I think we can both agree this is a very bad situation,” Shane said after a few moments.
“Yes.”
“We didn’t want to kill them.”
“But we had to.”
He gripped my forearm and nodded. “And now, we’ve got to destroy this place.” He grabbed Jared’s headlamp and put it on. Looking down, I saw him pull two sticks of dynamite out of his back pocket.
He searched in Bob’s pocket and found a lighter.
“You feel okay right now?”
I nodded. “I’m okay.”
“Can you run?”
“If I know where I’m running to.”
“Good.” He lit the dynamite stick, and tossed it on the ground.
Shane took my hand and guided me as we ran as fast as we could toward the elevator shaft.
We got to the top just in time, ran outside and jumped in the snow as we felt the vibrations of the explosions. I was actually surprised at how well the mine contained the explosion, how barely noticeable it was in the fresh air.
I lay on top of Shane as he lay on the ground, feeling his chest rising and falling against mine.
We were snowy. We were cold. We were hot. We were dirty. We were good. We were evil.
But our hearts were still beating.
“Did that all really just happen?”
He nodded. “Feels like it was a dream, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” I breathed. “I wish it were.”
We lay like that for a minute or so, not saying much.
Finally, he stood up.
The sun was shining, almost blinding the way it reflected off the snow.
“Natalie, I think it’s time to get the fuck out of Black Mountain.”
“I second that.”
“One more thing I need to do first.”
He got into Jared’s truck, and drove it full speed into the mine, jumping out right before it got to the elevator shaft.