‘What a bunch of dumb shits,’ I said to myself as I picked up the stick and headed back toward the room with Mandy. They were actually going to be helping me scare the shit out of them!
Mandy was just finishing with my knife when I came into the room and knelt down beside her. “We don’t have a lot of time,” I said as I began stripping off long strips from the piece of wood.
“Why, what’s happening,” Mandy asked as she looked over my shoulder like we were in extreme dire straits.
“Those stupid fucks are drinking that shit from the flask,” I said as I gathered up the strips and began wrapping them together into a makeshift fuse. “Get that flask open,” I said as I lifted up the small bundle I had made to inspect it.
If you need a fuse,” Mandy said as she stood up, “Then how about one of these?” Mandy stepped over to the corner of the room where the remnants of a few old baskets lay on the ground. Reaching down she then picked up a foot long piece that looked like old rope. “Will this work?” she asked as she stepped back over to me and placed the rope in my hand.
There is nothing like being outdone by your girlfriend, especially when the shit really matters. I took the piece of rope and looked at it under the light. It was woven nice and tight, and appeared to be in rather good shape considering that it was more than 100 years old. “Perfect,” I said as I began stuffing one end of it into the opening of the flask.
“And how about instead of using a leaf,” Mandy said as she reached into her pack and pulled out the small plastic case that held her diaphragm, “can you use this?”
Now you guys can understand why I kept her calm when the banditos came over the hill toward our camp. It was this very kind of thinking that really allowed her to excel in everything that she did. A one hundred year old piece of rope and a rubberized diaphragm…what a combination!
“You’ve seen me make turkey calls before,” I said as I dug in my pack to find my lighter.
“Yea,” she responded as she pulled her diaphragm out of its protective case.
“Can you make a similar sound with that thing?” I asked with genuine interest. This whole idea of mine was going to depend on if she could make a sound loud enough for those guys to hear outside.
“Oh yea,” she responded as she folded the small round rubber membrane in half and prepared to slip it into her mouth.
“Not now,” I said as I stopped her in her action. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to make the loudest sound you can with that thing and I am going to slam this up against the bottom of the brush pile. Those idiots will hear the sound coming from somewhere and then be suddenly met with fire. That should scare the hell out of them.” Mandy nodded her head in agreement as she listened to my plan. “But we need to hurry before those idiots pass out from drinking this shit or else it probably won’t work.”
“Let’s do it,” Mandy replied just before she leaned over and kissed me full on the lips.
It was a bit risky in that any of a million things could go wrong. But it was the only real chance we had of getting rid of those idiots outside. Was this a good idea? That was yet to be seen. But we were a team in action and it was time to do our stuff.
As we approached the opening in the ceiling we could still hear the men outside. They were talking and laughing like they didn’t have a care in the world. Boy was that about to change! I stopped Mandy in the middle of the tunnel about 50 feet away from the big pile of debris. I figured that was a good safe distance for her. I walked right up to the debris pile and got the flask ready. My heart was beating so hard I almost couldn’t function as I raised my lighter and gave Mandy one last look. It was go time.
I lit the wick and gave Mandy the quick thumbs up. With the diaphragm in her mouth and her hands cupped over it, Mandy blew as hard as she could. The sound that came from down the tunnel sounded like a cross between a woman’s scream and some unearthly wail that resonated with this weird reverberation from the tunnel. Outside I could hear the voices of the men suddenly stop as they all heard the freaky sound.
At that exact moment I spun around and threw the flask with the lit fuse up at the bottom of the brush pile as hard as I could. The throw had to be that one in one hundred million because it went straight through the leaves without hitting a thing, leaving a perfectly round hole where it had exited the underworld and sailed out into the open space above at an almost straight up angle. I froze in place as I did not hear a thing. I spun around quickly to see Mandy looking at me from the darkness with a look of utter astonishment on her face. There was no way that could have happened.
“Sum bitch,” I said quietly as looked up with my mouth hanging open.
In a way it was a good thing that the flask did not burst on the underside of the brush pile like I had planned, because it made it high up into the air without a one of the banditos seeing it. And, being the educated man that I am I should have remembered Newton’s law. What goes up must come down. I managed to hear one of the men say something just before the bright orange fireball roared over the top of the brush pile and the thunderous explosion echoed through the valley.
“Do it again!” I hollered to Mandy as I moved back away from the hole overhead.
Mandy blew against the diaphragm in her mouth again, repeating the unearthly sound as I could plainly hear panicked yells and hollers from above. I could only imagine what was going on out there as the flames slowly began to burn away the brush that was covering the opening.
“We’re in it now,” I said as I pulled the machete out of its sheath and prepared to fight.
Mandy and I stood in silence and watched as the flames over the entrance grew in intensity. “Do you feel that?” Mandy said as she held her hand out and turned slightly to the side.
I paused for a moment and turned on my senses, giving myself the chance to recalibrate to our surroundings. It only took a moment for me to feel what Mandy had felt. “That’s a draft,” I said as I turned and looked up the dark passage with Mandy.
“Hurry up,” she said as she spit her diaphragm out and headed up the passage with her flashlight waving back and forth erratically. “We need to find out where that’s coming from.”
I trotted up the passage behind her while pulling my key ring out of my pocket. I never thought I would need it until now but I had one of those stupid little single AAA flashlights on my key ring. With only the little bit of orange light from the burning leaves to assist, that little light was bright enough for me to see. Quickly I caught up with Mandy in the room with the big chair in the middle of it.
“It’s coming from over here,” Mandy said as she walked back and forth right next to the back wall. “I can feel it on my legs and on the top of my head,” she said as she looked at the massive granite wall.
“Ok,” I said as I looked back up the passage toward the now wide open hole. “Be prepared for anything,” I said as I began walking up the passage with the machete out to my right.
“Stay here,” Mandy pleaded as she climbed onto the stone chair to peer over the back. “David!”
I had to look. There was no way around it. At some point and time I had to look and find out what had happened to our would be robbers. I turned my ears up wide open and listened for the slightest sound as I approached the big column of light shining down through the hole in the ceiling. I could definitely smell the burnt vegetation outside as I began the task of climbing up the vines
The damage was a little bit more than I had expected. There was only smoldering ground at the entrance to the catacombs, but at the bungalow the forest was burning at a pretty good clip. Everything within 15 feet of the ground was either burning or severely scorched, and the fire seemed to be moving to the east, pushing our robbers farther and farther away from us. The general plan had worked and worked well.
I took a few steps out, away from the opening and found a pair of sandals perfectly aligned on the ground. Apparently, whoever had been wearing them leaped right out of his shoes when the flask exploded. I looked at the ground down near the corner by the bungalow and I quickly found scrape marks and digs in the ground where the banditos had bolted from the explosion and the awful sound Mandy had made. We were in the clear.
Ever so faintly, off in the distance in front of the flames I could hear the hurried yells and hollers of the men as they ran away from the burning forest. I seriously doubt those men will ever come back here.
Mandy was standing just inside the opening when I returned. She had the expression on her face like she was expecting kittens or something when I stepped into her field of view. “Did we get them?” she asked while she held her hands together in front of her breasts.
I reached down and picked up the pair of sandals that were on the ground next to where I stood. “Oh yea,” I said as I turned both of the shoes around once before tossing them off to the side. “Those guys won’t be back.”
My guess is that if they survived the run through the forest they would have a tale to tell similar to that of the man who had run out of here in 1522. Only these guys would add the twist of the supernatural to it, ensuring that almost everyone would stay away. Mandy smiled really big at me as I climbed back down in the hole.
“My man,” she said as she stepped up to me and planted a big kiss on my lips. She wrapped her right leg around me and pulled herself toward me as she hugged me really hard. I could feel the relief in her as she almost melted against me. “That was genius,” she said as she pulled away and stood directly in front of me.
“If I was a genius,” I said after taking a quick look at the hole overhead, “Those guys would have never found us.”
“Maybe,” she said as she turned and looked up the passage. “But you did find this place,” and she gestured toward the darkness in front of us with her hand. “Come on; let’s go see what you have discovered.”
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