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Into the Hole

What Germ had found was covered with rubble and large stones, but it led underneath the slab into darkness, and it led in the direction where the pit must be. It took all four of them to move the larger stones out of the way, and another half-hour to clear out the rest.

"If they didn't know the hole was there," Germ said, "no one would have even thought to try and clear this."

Bea squatted over the opening, "That looks awfully small though."

"I'll go first and check it out," Germ offered. "Tie the rope up around those rocks. And I'll use the harness."

Bea took it upon herself to tie off the rope around the bottom of a boulder that certainly wasn't going anywhere. She latched the carabiner to the rope around the base of the stone and tugged with all her strength. It didn't budge. Meanwhile, Germ was strapping himself into the harness and hooked the rope on, while the rest of the coil lay neatly at their feet.

Then he wriggled down into the darkness with his flashlight around his head.

His feet hadn't even gone out of sight before he called back, "It drops off a lot just inside here... AAAaaa!"

Suddenly his feet fell rapidly out of sight into the darkness and Gregg and Bea grabbed the rope as it began to uncoil much too fast.

"Germ!" Mae called into the hole. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah! Thanks for catching me! Pull me back up some. There's a ledge, and then it drops off out of sight."

Mae helped Bea and Gregg pull the rope back till Germ called for them to stop. He was incredibly light, Bea thought.

"Okay. I'm on the ledge. I'm going to unstrap the harness and hook it to the rope. You'll need it!"

Bea looked at Mae. "Mae? Are you feeling anything? Like... anything weird from down there?"

Mae shrugged. "Nothing like the last time anyway. No, I'm fine. It's gone."

The rope uncoiled more as Germ pulled slack towards him, then asked them to pull it back. The harness came through and Gregg unlatched it from the rope and began to put it on.

"Hey Gregg, can you tie the flamethrower to the rope first, and I'll pull it down?"

"Sure! Hold on a minute."

"Okay Germ," Bea called when they'd gotten it pretty secure. "We tied it up stock-first so the barrel will come down last. The flame is out, but it's still going to be pretty hot."

"Sounds good. I'll be ready for it."

The flamethrower disappeared into the darkness, followed shortly by Gregg.

"What do you see?" Mae called.

"Can't see much. It's deep. The flame doesn't go down very far." Germ called back, though his voice sounded quite close. "Sending the harness back."

Bea helped Mae get strapped in, but it was soon apparent that it wasn't going to work.

"Push harder!" Mae demanded, but even though Bea had already abandoned all attempts at modesty, Mae's butt just wasn't going to fit.

"Ow! Okay. Okay, stop Bea. I'm coming back."

"Germ, Gregg... Mae can't get in."

Mae looked embarrassed when she got back out.

"Sorry Mae," Bea apologized.

"Too fat," Mae said, sitting down outside the hole. "You think you can fit?"

"Hey Mae," said the voice of Angus over the walkie talkie, "don't feel bad. You made it farther than I did!"

"Thanks Angus," Mae said, then looked back to Bea.

"Only one way to find out," said Bea as she began to help get the harness off of Mae.

As Germ had instructed, they cinched it up pretty tight before connecting it to the rope. She felt like her crotch was trussed up in some sort of BDSM nightmare, but she endured it and began to wriggle into the hole.

From behind, Mae was helping her along, and she felt the rope go taught in front of her as Gregg or Germ was taking up the slack, keeping the rope from getting caught under her.

Fortunately her head-fins were flexible and weren't a problem. Her hips were her main concern, but the space was already clearing out ahead of her and she didn't mind the extra push from behind that Mae provided. With some frantic wriggling and pulling she worked her way through.

"Oh shit," Mae said behind her. "It's really dark here. Angus? You okay back there?"

"Yeah," came his voice, "But you're right. It gets... lonesome. I'm keeping my flashlight off most the time."

"Well, Bea's through. I guess I'll be your relay."

Bea emerged into a big space, lit by Gregg and Germ's flashlight as well as the flickering light from the flamethrower. All else was blackness. She was grateful to feel their hands pull her back against the ledge which was thankfully pretty wide.

"You okay Bea?" asked Mae.

It was odd to hear Mae's voice so near, but the echo from the chasm in front of her was even stranger.

"Fine Mae. So, what's next Germ?"

"I'm not really very familiar with this either, Bea. I guess we tie a rope to the end of this one and climb down."

"I'll go first,' Gregg volunteered, and Bea allowed him to help get the harness off her.

"Hey Mae, I'm going to pull the rest of the rope down. I've got the other end here," Germ said, and began pulling the slack through the hole above them.

Gregg set his rope down and got himself strapped into the harness, and Germ took Bea's rope and connected it to the harness as well.

"Anybody think to bring gloves?" Bea asked.

Germ shook his head.

"Well, we'll lower you down with this rope, Gregg. But keep a hand on the other one just in case something happens."

"I'm taking the flamethrower," he said in a voice that would accept no argument.

"Sure," Bea nodded. "Just don't burn the rope, okay?"

He nodded and took the device in hand, spraying the flame downwards. It illuminated only the sides of the chasm but showed nothing but blackness below.

"Okay. Here goes nothing!" he said, and stepped over the edge.

Fortunately his whole weight didn't suddenly yank the rope as he kept his feet against the wall, as both Germ and Bea slowly let more rope go.

Minutes passed slowly, with occasional eruptions from the flame thrower but neither Germ nor Bea could see over the edge since they were holding the rope with their backs against the wall. They saw only the glow from the far wall as Gregg faded further down.

"How's he doing?" Mae asked from overhead. "Angus is worried."

"Gregg? You doing okay?"

"No problem!" came his voice, though it had grown considerably distant and they could no longer see the flame bursts.

Minutes passed as they kept lowering down more rope.

Then, from a long way down, came Gregg's voice.

"Oh SHIT!"

"Gregg? What is it? Are you okay?" Bea called.

"What is it?" came Mae's voice overhead.

"Don't know yet," Bea answered her. "Hold on."

"I see the bottom," Gregg called from far below. "It's really gross. Bodies."

Bea looked at Germ, who was looking at the end of the rope.

"How much farther down?" Bea shouted down.

"Not far. Maybe 20 feet?"

"Mae, how much rope is left up there?"

"Not much. He's almost at the end."

"Gregg, there's not enough rope to lower you down the rest of the way without disconnecting from Mae's rope. We've got enough here though, I think."

"Okay. I'll disconnect her rope. You guys got me? The last bit widens out. I can't keep my feet on the wall."

Bea looked at Germ who was looking for something to tie the rope to.

"Germ?"

"Go ahead Gregg, we're ready," he called down, then to Bea he said, "don't worry. The ledge will help. Just lean back. When he gets down, I'll tie the rest around that rock."

The rope suddenly got tighter, but it was still not hard to manage once she'd got a good foothold against a crack in the ledge floor. They lowered the rope down carefully. Suddenly it became slack.

"I"m down!" came the faint voice from below.

Bea called up to Mae. "He's at the bottom Mae. Let Angus know. All is well."

"Okay Bea, we've got enough rope here to tie this up. Are you going down?"

"Yeah. I have to, if I can."

"I don't think I can pull you back up. Maybe Gregg. And once he gets up to Mae's rope, she can help too. Then all three of us can get you back up the same way. But Bea, this would be a lot easier if you stayed here."

"I can't, Germ. Casey's down there."

Germ called down to Gregg, "Hey Gregg - tie the harness to the end of the rope and we'll pull it back up."

Once again Bea snugged the harness up around her once they'd detached it from the rope.

"How are you going to lower me down?"

"I'm not. You're going to have to do it yourself, Bea. I haven't the strength. Gregg! I'm lowering the rope back down!"

They wrapped the rope a couple times around the harness' carabiner to help slow her descent.

"Okay. Well, walk yourself down by the rope, but don't let go. You really need something to work like a glove."

They looked at each other.

"Leggings?"

"Maybe if I wrap them around my hands?"

"Try it."

"I'm coming down in a minute, Gregg," Bea called, as once more she got herself out of the harness so she could get her leggings off. "Hey Germ, you got your knife?"

The bird smiled and whipped one out of his back pocket, the blade clicking to with a snap.

"Don't look," Bea said as she hiked her dress up over her hips and stripped off the leggings. The feel of the cool open mine air against her naked legs felt weird after all the time she'd worn leggings daily.

"Okay, Germ. Have at em!"

The sharp knife made quick work of splitting the leggings in two, and Bea wrapped them around her palms, then got into the harness. If it felt tight against her crotch before, now it was positively obscene, but she wrapped the bottom of her dress under and tried out the rope.

"I think it's going to work," she assured Germ.

"Just remember, if you get going down too fast, just pull up on the bottom part of the rope. You should be able to stop yourself."

In fact, it turned out to be pretty easy. Even the part where the wall fell away and she was dangling free wasn't too bad, though she was glad of the sacrifice of her leggings a couple of times. She was also glad of the light from the flamethrower below. Gregg was sitting, looking up at her. The grin on his face looked sincere.

"Hi Bea. Good to see you! It's lonesome down here with only, " he began with a nod behind him, "them for company."

"I'm down, Germ," Bea called back up.

Then she turned to look behind Gregg, but it was dark till he opened up the flamethrower a little more.

The lurid flickering light bouncing off of empty eye sockets and skulls was the first thing she noticed. They were all against the back wall of the creche that had formed at the bottom of the pit, presumably due to water that must have run across the floor at some point in the intervening months. Or maybe the Black Goat had tossed them there. They would never know.

Her heart sank, though, when she saw the skateboard jumbled up among the bones.

"Oh Casey," she said, her knees buckling, and Gregg noticed it then too.

He helped her to stand and they walked closer to the pile. Stained clothes still covered most of the bones, acting as bags to hold them together. Finally they saw the black hoodie. The skull within was crushed by the fall.

"Fuck," Gregg said, no longer able to maintain his normal demeanor.

"He died instantly," Bea said, trying to find something optimistic in the tragedy as they approached their friend.

Then Bea Santello sat down in front of the body of Casey Hartley and wept quietly for a while as she looked at what little remained of the only boy she had ever loved - even though the affair had been so brief. She reflected that one day, not so long ago, they had played a silly lovers game in the Grant house, naked but somehow still innocent. And a day or two later, that boy's body lay down here, alone and dead. She couldn't stop the tears, and she wished she had broken up with him more gently. He didn't deserve this fate. She should have been kinder to the poor doomed meth head.