Switched and Fears by Shannon Rieger

Author:Shannon Rieger [Rieger, Shannon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-06-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

The darkness was unforgiving. I ran my fingers over the wall, its rough edges reminded me of my cell. I followed along the damp, musty wall, feeling with my foot for a hole leading to a sub-basement of a tunnel with a ladder to climb down. The squeaks of rats echoed as the only signs of life in this dark passage. I listened for movement.

The sound of water dripping, echoing into a corridor below suggested I was near the hole. I tapped my foot, inching closer with each small step and I found an opening.

I knelt and slid my hand around the circumference of the hole until I could find the ladder. A metal rung just below the surface gave me passage and I moved my body to put my foot onto it, facing the tunnel.

I put my second foot on the rung below. I searched for a moment, not finding it, glancing out into the tunnel and thought I heard something. I paused…watched…nothing stirred. My mind was playing tricks on me and then I found the next rung. I waited like that for a moment. I listened for sounds echoing down the tunnel. I listened for the shelf to scrape and the drywall to be removed.

I climbed down the ladder and found the last rung. My foot dangled, reaching for the ground. I wondered how far it was to the bottom. I would likely have to jump. It was dark and I couldn’t see, no matter how much I focused. I closed my eyes and listened to my heart beat like a drum. I took a deep breath, and then let go. I landed with bent knee to prevent injury and then stopped to listen to my thud echo down the passage.

I touched my foot about to hoping to find the bag Jaxson said he tossed at the bottom of the ladder. I found something and reached down and felt the cloth. I opened the drawstrings and felt inside. Shoes! Socks! A soft wool of a sweater. I slipped them on. Immediately I felt warmer. For so long, the cuts on the bottom of my foot bled. Now they had a chance to heal.

When I found the flashlight, my heart did a dance. The dark had helped to play tricks on me. I flicked it on. Nothing happened. The flashlight didn’t work. I almost panicked but told myself to trust the darkness. The darkness meant no one wanted to be down here. The lack of sound meant that no one was here to hurt me and that no one was following me.

I reached in and to my relief, I found batteries. I fiddled with the flashlight, dropped the batteries and hurried to stop them from rolling. I sat on the cold stone and waited to hear if I had inadvertently stirred anyone’s suspicion.

I banged the battery door open and placed the batteries in, the correct way for the first time in my life of putting batteries into anything, and switched the light on.

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