Chapter 10 - THE MINE HEART

Ezra helped Mara drag Caleb into a side chamber.

They bound his wrists with rope.

Caleb fought them once.

Then went limp.

When he spoke again, his voice switched between himself and strangers.

“Mara.”

A man begged for help. A child asked for the door. Then Lena spoke.

Mara pressed heated iron near his ear. The thing screamed through Caleb’s throat.

Ezra stopped her.

“If you pull it now, you may kill him.”

“You said heat drives them out.”

“Small ones.”

Ezra showed her another section of Halverson’s notebook.

A drawing of branching black lines around a human skull.

“When they stay too long, they connect to the nervous system.”

“How long?”

Caleb had complained of ringing for two weeks.

Mara felt sick.

“How do we remove it?”

Ezra pointed toward the bottom of the mine map.

THE HEART.

“The network has a central body. Ruth found it. That’s what changed everything.”

“You want me to destroy it?”

“If we can.”

Caleb laughed from the floor.

“You can’t.”

His voice was now unmistakably female.

Lena.

Mara looked down.

“Get out of him.”

Caleb smiled.

“We’re already in all of you.”

Ezra froze.

The walls began whispering.

Every scratch.

Every crack.

Every dark seam in the rock.

Voices filled the mine.

Mara heard her father.

Her mother.

Lena as a child.

Caleb heard people Mara did not know.

He began sobbing.

Ezra screamed, “Cover your ears!”

Too late.

The whispers became a chorus.

The lantern dimmed.

Mara felt pressure inside her skull, like fingers pushing from behind her eyes.

Then three clean bell strikes cut through the whispers.

The whispers stopped.

Ezra looked stunned.

“What was that?”

Mara remembered.

“My truck.”

“What?”

“I keep an emergency locator beacon in my medical pack. It has a manual alarm.”

Caleb’s pack.

Upstairs.

Far above them.

The bell sounded again.

Someone was inside the cabin.

Ezra whispered, “Nobody comes here in winter.”

Heavy footsteps entered the cellar.

A man’s voice called down the tunnel.

“Mara Vale?”

She went still.

The voice continued.

“This is Sheriff Cole. Answer me.”

Ezra turned pale.

Mara whispered, “You know him?”

“Yes.”

“What’s wrong?”

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Ezra backed away.

“Sheriff Cole died eleven years ago.”