The Lonesome Trials of Johnny Riles by Gregory Hill

Author:Gregory Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Leapfrog Press
Published: 2015-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 33

In addition to being long and dark and narrow, this final crawling shaft was also full of twists and turns. The walls and floor were so smooth they almost felt slick. The size of the shaft varied. Sometimes we could crawl comfortably, other times we had to shimmy on our elbows and knees. The shaft wandered left and right and expanded and contracted. Always, we moved downward.

As I felt along in the darkness, the air grew tight. The center of the earth could not be far away.

I bumped into Jabez’s ass. This made her laugh.

I said, “Why’d you stop?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she continued to laugh. This went on for some time. When it finally appeared as though she had gotten control of herself, she let forth with the most vile fart I’ve ever had the misfortune to take at point blank range in my entire life. The sound was like the earth tearing itself apart. And the smell. It was like being punched in the face by a fist of shit. My nose and mouth and eyes became filled with foulness. I scurried backward, but it meant nothing. The fart went on and on. And Jabez laughed and laughed while I cried tears of real pain.

I remembered that I had matches. I wedged a hand into my pants pocket and worked one out. Then I twisted onto my back. Jabez continued with her laughing. I struck the match against the top of the shaft above my face.

The match ignited and burned bright and then went to a dim yellow. I let the flame creep down to my fingertips before shaking it out. Jabez continued tee hee heeing. The smell had eased considerably. I blinked the tears out of my eyes and lit a second match. It burned less brightly than the last one, but with my eyes clear I was able to see around me some.

The shaft was covered with handprints. As far as I could see—and it wasn’t very far—but as far as I could see there were handprints and more handprints layered on top of each other all over the shaft, the top and bottom and sides.

The handprints were all tiny, like they belonged to children, babies even.

I said, “Jabez. Can you see this?”

She must have heard the seriousness in my voice. She sobered up some. “Can I see what?”

I said, “Gimme your hand.”

She reached back and I passed her a couple matches. She struck one and remained silent until the flame went out. Then she said, “Those are not meant to be seen. Let’s get along. We’re almost there.”

I kept account of our progress. Each time I lifted my right knee, I counted another step. Fifty-six more steps and the shaft leveled out. Another nine steps and it got so small that I couldn’t count steps any more. We shifted forward like worms.

Then Jabez said, “Ahhh.”

I heard her scuttle forward quickly and then I felt the walls recede. We were out of the crawling shaft and we were into a room.

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