Jimmy spit dirt from his mouth. His left arm hurt like hell, but it didn’t feel broken. He tried to stand and couldn’t: a weight held him down, pressed across his lower back. Jimmy rolled to his right, looking up.
The hole they were in was dark. Far above—it was impossible to judge the distance—faint starlight glowed, streaming through the opening of the pit into which they’d fallen. If there’s light coming through, Jimmy thought, it must mean the cabin isn’t there anymore. That was a comforting idea: if those goddamn thugs hadn’t kidnapped him, he wouldn’t be here lying on the dirt floor wherever here was—but at least their stupid little house had been smashed in return.
Jimmy pushed up with his hands. Behind and above him, someone moaned. “Oh, God,” the voice said. “Oh, God.”
“Get the hell off me,” Jimmy said, twisting hard, trying to shake the weight loose.
The voice moaned again, but the weight fell away and Jimmy was able to pull himself to his feet. “Who is that?” he said.
“Danny.”
“You still got that staff? You’re not glowing,” Jimmy said.
“I don’t know,” Danny said.
From a few feet away, Dale said, “Is everyone okay?”
Jimmy laughed. What did the bastard think? They fell down a goddamn hole and here he was asking if everyone was okay?
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “I ain’t too busted up.”
“I feel sick,” Danny said, “but I think I’m okay.”
“Nothing’s broken?” Dale asked. “On either of you?”
“We’re damn peachy,” Jimmy said. He stared up at the mouth of the pit. “Which, if you think about it, we really shouldn’t be.”
Dale came up beside him. Jimmy could see his shape, but couldn’t make out any of his features. “That must be fifty feet or more,” Dale said. “How’d we survive it?”
“Fuck if I know.”
Dale crouched next to Danny. “Can you stand up?”
“I think so.”
Dale helped him to his feet.
Jimmy said, “Could be, whatever it was tore that place apart, it brought us down here nice and gentle.”
All three stood together, staring up. “What do we do now?” Danny said.
“This tunnel continues on for a while,” Dale said. “We can follow it, see if we can find a way out.”
“Anyone got a light?” Jimmy said.
“Matches,” Dale said.
“Nothing,” Danny said. “Sorry.”
Jimmy looked at him. “What about that staff? It’s gotta be around here somewhere, right? You were still attached to it when we fell.”
“No…” Danny said.
Jimmy continued, “I mean, if you pick it up again, might be the thing starts glowing again, too. That’d give us plenty of light.”
“No,” Danny said.
“We’ll try it carefully,” Dale said. “If it hurts, if you don’t like anything about it, we’ll stop.”
“No,” Danny said. “What if it gets stuck to me again?”
“We won’t let it,” Dale said.
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “We’ll break you free this time.”
Danny unenthusiastically agreed. The three of them wandered around near where they’d landed, feeling out with their hands, looking for the staff. After some minutes, Dale called out, “I have it,” and held the staff out to Danny. Danny looked at it. Even with the time for his eyes to adjust, there still wasn’t enough light for Jimmy to make out Danny’s expression, but he figured the kid still wasn’t liking the idea.
“It’ll be okay, Danny,” Dale said.
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “Just give it a touch and see.”
Danny did. He reached his hand tenderly toward the staff. When his fingers were six inches away from the wood, it began to glow—faintly at first, then stronger.
“Stop,” Jimmy said.
“Why?” Danny said, but he stopped.
“I got an idea. Alex, you hold the thing. Danny, you stand close to Alex. Maybe we can get it to glow enough to see by without you having to touch it. And that should keep it from sticking to you like before.”
Jimmy’s plan worked. They had to move slowly, Danny and Alex maintaining the cumbersome equilibrium of not so close together they were bumping, but not so far apart that the staff lost its light. But they were able to walk along the tunnel with plenty of illumination to keep from slamming into anything.
Later, Danny said, “How’d you get in that house with me? Was it the strange man? The one with the tools?”
“No,” Jimmy said. “Just a couple of black dudes with this goddamn staff. They jumped me. At a bus stop, can you believe it? Drove right up in a van and tossed me in, drove me up into the mountains, and then you know the rest.”
“How about you?” Danny said to Alex.
“I was on a job.”
“What kind of job?” Jimmy said.
“I’m a detective. Private. I was hired to find something. I had a lead, some people who seemed to know about what I was looking for. I followed them from a bar. The cabin’s where they came to.”
“Where they black?” Jimmy asked.
“Just one. The other was white.”
“Was the black one African? I mean with an accent?”
“No.”
“So the way I understand it,” Jimmy said, “is we got the three of us all ending up in this crappy cabin at the same time, except that I’m shanghaied by a couple of Africans who drive me up here, our detective follows some good old Americans, and the kid is grabbed by a dude with tools. That all right?”
“Uh huh,” Danny said.
“Yes,” Alex said.
“And then we all fall through the floor.” He was quite for a moment. “So anyone here have any goddamn idea what’s going on?”
