In this chapter, we bear witness to Val's next escape plan. The scene that takes place in the mine didn't really come out the way I had hoped, but I still had fun writing the eerie descriptions. Don't ask me what the things that live down there are; I'm not sure what I was going for.
Also, the 'post-wartime tune' that's mentioned shortly is "Der Fuhrer's Face" by Spike Jones, and very funny song from the 40s that makes fun of the Nazis, and at one point seems to suggest they're all very "super-duper", if you catch my drift. And the chapter title is actually the name of a Doors album, as well as a line from "The End" – it seemed strangely appropriate. n_n
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Chapter Three: Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine
"You'll come to love it!" he reassured, putting an arm around her and leading her down the hall, Jared following along.
"Yeah, maybe when Jim Henson comes back to life, takes over and makes this place into Muppet Theater."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk," he shook his head, "Superjail is no place for pessimism."
"Have you looked around lately?"
They were passing through an area where prisoners were milling around aimlessly, giving her a rather disconcerting collective look that she wasn't sure how to interpret – but she knew it most likely wasn't good.
"Ugh, and I'm supposed to talk to these people on a daily basis?" she whispered to herself, rolling her eyes. That's when something she never expected to happen occurred.
"Val? What are you doing here?" said a familiar voice from nearby, and she looked over.
"Oh God… Darryl? What are you – you know what, never mind. Knowing you, you're here for a very good reason."
"Run into an old friend?" the Warden asked Val.
"Worse. An old boyfriend," she gave Darryl a dirty look.
They looked each other over. "I see you're still a satanic neo-Nazi," she said flatly.
The weird guy took on an amused tone. "Remember how I wanted you to be more like me?"
"Oh sure, like I'd ever be Nazi garbage like you. Dream on, 'superman'."
"Ja, ve is the supermen, super-duper supermen!" the Warden sang, doing a dance.
"Yeah… Great rendition of a post-wartime tune," Val said, giving him an odd look.
"Why don't we leave you two alone for a while, so you can catch up?" the Warden smiled suggestively.
"Is that really a good idea, sir?" Jared questioned, and he pulled him down the hall.
"Come along, Jared," he said in a singsong tone.
"Don't leave me alone with this freak! He bites!!" Val shouted, but not getting a response. She sighed heavily, and Darryl smiled at her.
"So, why are you here?"
"I'm a hostage. I have no plans to stay here, either. Maybe you could help me."
"Does that mean what I hope it means?"
"No! Jeez, why do I bother trying to get help from a perverted bastard like you?" she started to walk away, and he grabbed her by the arm.
"Wait, what is it? How can I help?"
"Don't say it like that. You sound desperate for human contact."
"I'm desperate for your contact."
"Man, I swear, keep it up and I'll tell the Warden you were harassing me."
He laughed. "What can I help you with?"
"Do you know any ways out of here?"
"I've heard some rumors," he said, "But I've never confirmed any of them."
"Well? Tell me already – if I don't come back, maybe one of them was a valid tip."
"Or you're dead, since this place is essentially a giant death-trap." She stared at him like she was about to bash his head in, and he chuckled. "Okay, there's a few things I've heard…"
A little while later…
The Warden and Jared were coming back the way they came to go find Val, when they spotted her up ahead. She had Darryl's long black hair grasped tightly in her hand, apparently trying to rip it out of his head.
"I said no touching! That means you keep your hands off, you moron!"
"Aww, they're having a lover's spat," the Warden said, and Jared gave him an uncertain look.
"I'm not so sure, sir. It seems more like she's trying to kill him."
"Now get lost!" she screamed at him, meriting stares from everyone else in the vicinity, and he slunk off, still smiling like the blithering idiot he was. She was joined by the Warden and Jared, which didn't seem to thrill her. "Great, as if I really wanted to see any of you again so soon."
"Cheer up, Val, we're going to show you around a bit!" the Warden said cheerfully.
"Oh, hallelujah," she replied.
"So, any chance of you two getting together again?" he nodded in the direction Darryl had gone.
"Uh, no, I hate his guts. Besides, when I fell in love, I turned my back on all other people."
"Hm, I could fix you up," he suggested, and she scoffed.
"God, I hate you."
Sometime later…
After a very long, not to mention horribly disturbing, tour around Superjail, the Warden suggested that Val explore a bit to get herself acquainted with her surroundings. Of course, she had no intention of doing that whatsoever.
Of the possible escape routes Darryl had described, only one sounded remotely safe. And Val wasn't about to waste any time standing around.
He had described an inconspicuous entrance somewhere that was only recognizable by a long scratch running across the clean steel surface, that led down into a mine abandoned for unknown reasons. For that matter, no one seemed to know what they'd been mining for down there either.
She found the door, like the last one, unprotected by anything outwardly noticeable, quickly making sure no one was around and then slipping into the dark passage beyond.
The air was very cold, and besides a lone light bulb swinging back and forth from some sort of electrical cord drawn through a hole in the ceiling, there was very little light. There were some sort of long rectangular lights hanging from hooks on the wall, and taking one down, she turned it on, illuminating the area in a blue-purple glow.
"Heh, an ultraviolet light. Why would they need these?"
Figuring a UV light was better than none, she slowly began to walk along the path, her footsteps echoing off the cold stone walls. She could hear the soft trickle of flowing water getting closer as she walked, knowing it was most likely running through trenches along the path where miners drained the lizard during their work.
"What were they looking for down here?" she asked, and as if to answer her question, the walls suddenly lit up in fluorescent shades of green, red and blue.
She looked around in awe, the rock all around casting an eerie glow all along the path. "Was that what they were after?"
Moving ahead a bit, the walls became mostly blue, making her feel almost like she was in an aquarium at night. "I wonder why they stopped mining… These rocks are worth a fair amount of money, especially the blue ones."
Aside from the otherworldly glow of the stone in the UV light, the emptiness of the mine was slowly beginning to creep Val out. There had to be some reason they stopped working down here, and considering that the mine was structurally stable enough that they hadn't put up support beams to prevent cave-ins, it was rather unlikely that it was unsafe to harvest the rocks…
"This place is freaking me out," she said aloud, a slight echo reaching her from further into the mine.
She was becoming aware of something she couldn't exactly place, almost like a slight sensation of someone being nearby, like if someone was in a room and they were faintly aware of other people in the next room over, but the feeling was quickly beginning to be overly noticeable; the sense of not being alone.
"I wonder how far this thing goes, anyway," she said, trying to take her mind off of it, until something echoed far off.
She stopped dead in her tracks, listening. Mines were usually quiet places, with an occasional drip of water or a ventilation system running somewhere, but what she heard sounded like a door opening, then shutting and something small running very quickly through water. She held perfectly still, because it sounded as if, whatever it was, was coming at her. The mine suddenly went quiet, except for the water flowing, and she held the UV light out ahead of her, looking around for anything moving.
"Huh, probably a rat, or something," she assured herself, going to take a step forward, and then looking up to see what appeared to have once been a human being standing in front of her, but he… it… couldn't possibly be anymore. What seemed to have been a man at one point was covered in blood, a section of his skull smashed in, exposing part of his brain. He had a grim smile on his mutilated face, and although she could see him standing right in front of her, she wasn't sure whether he was really there or not.
"Are… you a ghost?" she questioned, trying to figure this whole thing out, not really sure what to do.
It took a step forward, and she took a step back, coming into contact with something very cold. She peered over her shoulder, seeing about five more similar freakish-looking things. She stepped away, back to where she'd originally stood, looking back and forth from the loner to the group. None of them moved.
She wasn't sure exactly what they were doing - and since she had no clue what they really were, that didn't help – so she stayed put, wondering how they would react if she tried to get away. Ever so slowly, keeping her attention divided between the individual and the group, she inched towards the water-filled trench, hoping to perhaps slip around the single guy.
Their eyes followed her with every movement, and she dearly wished that she could tell what they were thinking. When her foot hit the edge of the trench, she moved sideways past the guy in front of her. They just stood there staring at her, until the loner let out a wail that was unlike any living creature on the earth and came at her in a jerky, robotic manner.
"Oh, damn it all!" she shouted, getting as irritated as she was scared by the situation and throwing the UV light at the creature. Unfortunately, it caught it. "What the hell, man?" she said, and it smiled at her.
Knowing she shouldn't waste any more time, she ran down into the mine, the weird things following her at their relatively slow pace. It was dark without the UV light so she couldn't see a thing, which is why she was so surprised when she hit a steel door.
"Well, that was a stupid thing to do," she murmured, feeling around frantically for a handle as the footsteps of the things behind her came closer.
She finally found the knob and turned it, putting all her weight against the door and pushing it open, quickly running through and pushing it shut behind her. Val took a deep breath, leaning heavily against the door. The footsteps on the other side stopped, and after a moment the creatures pounded on the freezing cold steel surface. She stayed put, one hand holding the knob tightly in place, hoping they didn't know how to open doors. It felt like a billion agonizing years, but the creatures lost interest, and she could hear the ghostly echo of footfalls heading away until they suddenly disappeared.
"O-okay," she said calmly, trying to gather her senses, "I should get the hell out of here."
Since walking along leisurely led to the rather unpleasant encounter before, she thought jogging along might be safer… that is, until she got tackled by something that weighed as much as a bull elephant seal and had the build of a Mr. Universe candidate.
Hitting the ground hard, she could barely get a breath, let alone react to what just happened. She made a futile attempt to get up, but it felt as though a rhino was on top of her.
"You're not going anywhere," a familiar voice greeted in the darkness, and Val didn't need to see to know who it was.
"Alice?" she wheezed, "Where the hell did you come from??"
"No one escapes from Superjail if I have anything to say about it," she replied. "You're lucky I don't rip your guts out and hang you with them."
"Oh wow, I feel the love," Val coughed, becoming increasingly more aware of exactly how sharp the rocks on the mine floor were, "Could you pl-please get off? You weigh a ton."
Alice grabbed Val by the back of the neck, picking her up off the ground and setting her heavily on her feet. "Shut up, before I hurt you."
"Sure thing," she answered as Alice grabbed her by the arm roughly and yanked her back in the direction she'd just come.
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Yes, there are rocks that glow under UV light in brilliant shades of blue, green and red… I still can't remember what the hell they're called, though, and I wrote this chapter a LONG time ago. They harvest the rocks from mines in New Jersey – especially one near my hometown that I'd like to go to.
Again, I don't know what those things are… They're sort of like ghosts… And zombies… Ghost zombies lol!
