The fire began to lull the boys to sleep. They decided to pack it in so they could get an early start for the caves. Once inside the tent, away from the fire’s heat, they noticed that the night had cooled considerably. They climbed into their sleeping bags and quickly drifted off to sleep.
(14)
Denny woke up slowly, at first unaware of his surroundings. When he realized where he was, he slipped quietly out of his sleeping bag and out of the tent. It was morning, barely. The sky was brightening but the sun hadn’t yet appeared over the horizon. Denny slipped his sneakers on and went into the trees to take a piss. He decided he was done sleeping and started walking back toward the old building shells. The dew on the leaves sparkled in the silver-gray light. Birds were beginning to chatter up in the trees. Denny walked on, not wanting to get too far from the campsite, but enjoying some time to himself. All of the anxiety he’d been feeling had lifted. Spending the night out in the fresh air, away from the cloying hopelessness of his house, had done wonders. He walked with a carefree step, enjoying the sweet smell of pine that hung in the still air.
He reached one of the foundations and climbed down into it. He began moving some of the rubble around, thinking he might find a souvenir, an old belt buckle, maybe. Nothing as cool as a gun, most likely, but you never knew. He had moved several pieces of the old foundation and was about to give up when something caught his eye. Down below some of the larger chunks of concrete, something metallic shined in the growing light. He moved as much as he could, then went and got a sturdy branch and pried some more pieces away. The object was still unreachable, trapped below three large hunks of cement. He found a longer branch to give him more leverage and began working on moving the masses of cement.
By the time he had uncovered the object, the sun was fully up and Denny was bathed in sweat. It turned out to be a large ring attached to a chain. The other end of the chain was imbedded in a large, rectangular cement slab set in the floor of the foundation. It took a moment for Denny to realize he had uncovered a door in the floor of the foundation. He thought about going back and getting Billy but decided to open it and take a quick look before going back. He slid the branch through the ring and began trying to pry the slab open. He pushed with all his strength, the branch bending under the stress. But the slab wouldn’t move. He would need help. He scurried out of the foundation and headed back to camp. As he walked back he wondered about the door. Was it some underground storage room, possibly still full of ammunition?
Half an hour later after they had packed up the tent and eaten a quick breakfast, Denny and Billy were staring at the door. “I’ve been thinking, maybe they had something rigged to open the door. Like it would hook on the ring and they could crank it open.”
Billy looked at the wall of the foundation and moved away some branches that had fallen into it. “I think you nailed it, Denny. Look at this.” Two rods extended from the wall above the door. “I bet something was attached here, a crank or pulley or something.”
“Yeah, I guess so. But how are we going to get it open?”
“Maybe with both of us we can pry it off.” They found the longest branch that would fit through the ring and tried to get the cover open. The slab wouldn’t budge.
“It’s probably too thick to come off at an angle. We need to lift it straight up.” As he said it, Denny began moving the branch so that the ring was closer to the middle of it. Then he lodged one end of the branch into the top of the foundation. “If we can lift this end of the branch, the cover will lift straight up.” Billy joined him at the free end of the branch and they began pushing up on it. The branch began to bend and the ring was cutting into the bark. Suddenly a loud cracking noise drowned out the boys’ groaning and the branch moved up with a jerk. Denny thought the branch had snapped but when he looked over, the cover was swinging slowly from the branch. It turned out it wasn’t the weight of the cover that prevented them from getting it off initially, it was simply stuck in place by years of the elements. They moved sideways, holding the branch over their heads until the cover was no longer situated above the opening, and then let it down. They quickly ran over to look down the hole and were immediately assaulted by the smell coming from it. Both boys stepped back, coughing and gagging.
Denny remembered the time his father had forgotten to take a bag of groceries out of the trunk. In the bag among other things was a pound of hamburger. Denny had gone to get something out of the trunk a couple of days later and almost threw up when he opened it. This smell reminded him of that, but not exactly. Like there was another smell just as bad that he couldn’t identify mixed with that rotten meat smell. They covered their mouths and noses and stepped closer for a look. Rungs of a ladder were cemented into the side of the shaft leading down into the darkness. They moved back before risking taking a breath or talking. “What are we going to do now?” Billy asked, still with a look of disgust on his face. The smell was noticeable even back where they stood.
“Maybe the smell will get better now that the cover is off. Or we can try tying our shirts over our faces and see if we can stand it.”
Billy looked like he was considering both ideas. “Why don’t we leave it open for a while and look for the caves and then come back and see if it smells any better?”
Denny thought about it for a moment. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go down there at all, smell or no smell. At least looking for the caves would put off for a while having to climb down that ladder into who knows what. “Okay, let’s go. We can leave the tent and stuff here. All we need is flashlights and some rope.” They took what they needed and set out toward the caves. The day was already heating up even in the cover of the trees. They found what they were looking for shortly after. They had slept that night within a half mile of the entrance without even knowing it. It was sheer luck that led them to the opening at all.
After following the directions Billy’s father had given them they figured they were in the right area but couldn’t find the caves. They were on a fairly steep hillside with the lake visible in the distance at the bottom of the incline. That’s when Billy saw a big snake, and thoughts of the cave evaporated as he decided instead to catch the snake. The snake quickly slithered away into a dense patch of bushes. Billy crashed through the bushes in pursuit just in time to see the snake slip into a gap in the rocks. Billy thought there might be a whole nest of the things in there so he began moving some of the loose rocks. He pointed his light between the rocks and discovered the cave. The way it was concealed, if it hadn’t been for that snake, they never would have found it. And maybe they’d have been better off.
(15)
Walter “Bugsy” Cronin climbed into his ancient van and began driving toward the outskirts of town. He wasn’t nicknamed Bugsy because of any resemblance to the famous gangster that built Las Vegas, but simply because bugs were his life. Bugs and any other pests that needed killing. Bugsy was Haven’s exterminator, had been for over thirty years. He had been expecting this call ever since he heard Greymore was fixing up the old house. A house can’t sit for that long without being lived in. And if it ain’t lived in by people it sure as hell will be by the critters. Bugsy referred to all of his victims as critters regardless of whether he was exterminating ants or a nest of snakes under an old shed. Critters. He expected Greymore’s house to be infested with several different kinds of ’em and was prepared for everything from termites to squirrels.