Chapter 13 - The Surface Horizon
Ava sat alone in the settling dust of the collapsed tunnel, holding Karen’s lifeless hand until the skin turned cold.
The sound of rushing water grew closer, spilling through the cracks in the granite wall like a weeping wound. If she stayed here, Karen’s sacrifice would mean nothing. She would drown in the dark, forgotten beneath millions of tons of stone.
Ava folded the laminated card tightly, sliding it deep into the inner pocket of her raincoat. She looked down at her left leg. The swelling had turned the skin a deep, mottled purple; the bone felt dangerously loose beneath the surface.
She crawled back to the debris, picking up two sturdy, splintered wooden slats from the broken railroad ties and a strip of heavy rubber insulation from the ruptured car wiring. Gritting her teeth until her gums bled, she bound the wood against both sides of her shin, pulling the rubber wire tight with her teeth.
The pain made her vision white out for several seconds, but when she blinked the darkness away, the limb was immobilized.
Using a fallen iron crowbar as a crutch, Ava forced herself to stand.
Every step sent a jolt of fire through her spine, but she leaned her weight entirely onto her right foot, dragging the splinted leg behind her. She moved toward the rear of the dead locomotive, following the faint draft of fresh, crisp air.
Behind the rusted switcher box near the emergency alcove, an old corrugated iron hatch hung half-open. Ava shoved it with all her strength.
It opened into an abandoned drainage culvert leading upward at a steep incline.
She crawled through the mud on her knees, scraping her elbows raw against the jagged concrete pipe. The air grew colder, cleaner, smelling of pine needles, wet earth, and rain.
After what felt like hours of agonizing movement, Ava burst through a cluster of thick blackberry briars at the end of the culvert, tumbling out onto a muddy embankment.
She looked up.
Dawn was breaking over the Cascade Mountains. The sky was an expanse of bruised purple and pale gold, illuminating a vast, mist-shrouded valley of towering pines below. She was free of the house. Free of Richard. Free of the tunnel.
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A hundred yards down the mountain slope, bordering a deserted two-lane state highway, stood an old, flickering payphone outside a shuttered gas station.
Ava clutched her crutch, wiped the tears and mud from her eyes, and began the slow, agonizing descent toward the road.
