Hello again everyone! Hope ya'll still doin' gewd!
So yeah, I did a time skip again, because hey, they were stuck in the cave for New Years, and Fireworks would just be plain, downright stupid. So Spring it is!
Sunnysides4life - Glad you like it :3
Sunstreaker's Squishy - Yes, for some reason we know all your holidays for no reason. Maybe it's because they on putting them on calendars or something. I dunno. :3
Sweettea1 - They might be, they might not be. I haven't made up my mind yet.
I'm still looking for a Beta reader. If anyone is willing, that would be nice! :D
Onwards! And don't forget to RnR! :3
There were light slapping sounds emanating from the infirmary. Will swatted at the source of annoyance, burying his head deeper into the pillow. The slaps became harder.
"Get up, Sleeping Beauty, time to get to work."
"'ive mo' minutes." Will groaned into the pillow. There was a slight sighing sound accompanied shortly after with the sound of fading footsteps. The footsteps became, however, louder once again.
Will was introduced to the cold.
"GAH! WHATCHA DO THAT FOR!?" Arabella had dumped a bucket of slushy snow on him.
"Had to get you to wake up somehow, now that my air horn has run out." She shrugged. Will fumed through his shivers. "Now get moving! We have more work than you can imagine at the moment, and the sooner you get you sorry beee-hind a movin' the sooner we can get out of here! Hut, hut, hut!" Arabella shouted, dragging the shocked Lennox out of the bed.
After a quick round of exercises and an even quicker breakfast, they set off to find buckets. Big ones. They got some shovels too, and worked their way to the entrances. Arabella let out a low whistle.
"The snow is a bit farther in than usual. Must have been a big storm, but I reckon we could have this one cleared in, say…" She scratched her chin as she did the calculations "four hours? Maybe five. Alright! Enough lolly gaggin'! Fill those buckets, and fill them good."
Loading as much snow into the buckets as they could, they carted them out to the waterfall's cave, tossing the snow over the edge.
xxxxxPCxxxxx
On the outside, the world was serene; a calm silence graced the untouched snow. It lay in a thick blanket and was thicker around the base of the mountain. The squirrels started poking their small heads out of their little hiding places and small buds graced the ends of the branches. There was an odd scuffling sound ringing out over the fields of snow, which made the animals pause. They all turned to look at the mountain where the noise was coming from.
Suddenly, a shovel broke through the surface and all the animals skittered away. The shovel retracted and a gloved hand pawed at the hole it had made. A head popped out.
"FREEEDOM!" A Scottish accent rang out as Arabella wormed her way through the snow. Mel Gibson would have been proud at her execution of the famous war cry. Rolling out into the sunlight, she plopped onto the ground, smiling as the sun warmed her face. Will crawled out from behind her and was nearly blinded by all the light. He squinted at her and realised she was wearing snow goggles.
"Now how come I didn't get a pair of goggles?" He whined.
"You didn't ask." She smugly replied, taking the moment to catch her breath. It was warm out, the snow glistening as it gave subtle hints of melting. She dug out the extra pair of goggles and tossed them over to Will, who donned them quickly. "Will, tell me what you notice." Will paused and took a good look around. The shadows were long and the sun was getting close to the horizon.
"Wha…" Will looked up at the mountain, down at Arabella, and back at the lowering sun. "But we've only been up a couple of hours…" He trailed off. This didn't make any sense.
"Will, I woke us up at 1 o'clock, or 1300 hours. During the winter months, I have been shifting our sleeping patterns forward in preparation for what's ahead. It's nearly six now, and you will only start to feel tired at about four in the morning. Now, as much as I would like to continue this conversation, we have about half an hour of light left to clear out as much of this as we can. Luckily we just need to shift the snow out of the way. So grab that shovel and get back to work." She flipped out of the snow before sliding back down through the hole. She tossed the shovels back through the entrance and they set to work.
xxxxxPCxxxxx
"Alright, sunshine. Do you still remember how to use these?" Arabella tossed a box in front of Will. Inside were a couple of military grade night vision goggles. Will took them out and whistled.
"Where'd you find these babies?" Arabella shrugged.
"It's amazing what you find in some people's basements. I swear that guy had been ready for the zombie apocalypse. It's where I found most of my shotguns." She pointed over her shoulder at the neatly displayed weapons. Will glanced over to them, nodding in approval.
"Well, that guy was well prepared." He pulled out a pair and took a good look at them. "Well, what you have here are night vision goggles that have been equipped with infrared and some level of binoculars. This guy did not pick them up from the corner store, if you know what I mean." Arabella grinned. You always did find the best stuff on the black market. Will frowned a little as he inspected the piece he held. "Hit the lights, will ya'?"
Arabella skipped over to the switch board, pulling down on the lever that fed the lights. The main lights of the cavern cut out, leaving only the emergency lights burning hazily in the background. Still able to see her way around, she made her way back to Will.
"What's the verdict?" She asked, hopping on the table beside him.
"This one's batteries are dead, but we should be able to revive him. Here, hold this." He shoved the goggles into her hands and grabbed the next one. He tutted. "I think it's the same here. It looks like it might have been damaged… hang on." He gave the instrument a good hit with the flat of his hand. "Ah, there we go. Fixed!" Arabella giggled at him. He tugged the strange goggles off his head. "You can turn the lights back on." She handed him the goggles back and went over to turn the lights on again.
They both winced as their eyes had to re-adjust to the sharp light. Will was looking at the gear again.
"Why did you bring these guys out now?" Will asked, still inspecting the pieces before placing them back in the box she had brought them in.
"I think the snow will have melted by next week, and I want to go into town. We only raided towns during the night and we had stock piled a bit. I want to go in to check my stores to see if we can actually afford to make a trip to Smithers and back without running out of gas. Besides," she reclined onto her bed "it will give us a chance to test the goggles and it will also give you an idea of what we are getting ourselves into. And hey, if they aren't ready by then, we will have the full moon out to guide us." She stated sagely. Will nodded.
"I should have them up and running by then." Arabella nodded in acknowledgement.
"Good. Now I'd suggest you'd get some sleep. We've got a long day ahead."
xxxxxPCxxxxx
The next day she woke them earlier than normal. They needed to go hunting; their stores were starting to run low. Neither Arabella nor Will had the heart to kill any of the does that had their kids with them. After a while of searching, they finally found a buck. It was good getting back into the routine of hunting after so many weeks of being trapped in the cave. By the time they got back, the light was starting to fade, and it was fading fast. They made quick work of the meat, but as they walked back through the dimly lit corridors, Arabella ducked into the shadows.
"Bella?" A dark hand reached out, grabbed Will by the collar, and dragged him into the darkness. Will was amazed to find the shadow had hidden a whole new set of tunnels. They were not lit like the others had been. Instead, they were lit by the light of Arabella's torch*.
"This way." She ordered as she made her way down the left hand corridor. These tunnels were narrower than the others and the dust lay as a thick, messy carpet. "I repeat my first warning of not exploring these tunnels. They became such a twisted mess we were lost for three days before we found a way out again. We just vowed never to use these tunnels." She had reached and intersection of four tunnels running into different directions in front of them. She didn't walk into any of them. She turned so quickly that Will almost thought she had fallen or something. He turned. He found that there was a corridor running almost parallel with the corridor they had just come from. He jogged to catch up.
Will could not shake the ominous feeling that had emanated from the four tunnels behind them. Arabella seemed to notice his discomfort.
"Those four tunnels lead to a sharp drop off. If you fell down, you'd get impaled by the stalagmites." She was silent for a moment. "Or is it stalactites? I could never remember. Either way, we are here." They stepped into a large room. It was four times as wide as the corridors and as long. Arabella walked over to one of the rocky walls and after a moment, a few dull bulbs flickered to life. Will whistled softly.
The room was bigger than he had originally thought. Looking around, there was various mining equipment lying around, mainly consisting of pickaxes, a few mining carts and here and there were pieces of broken track. Arabella was making her way over to the far side wall.
"James and I found this place, by accident really. We assume it was some old, secret gold mine." She looked over to the one wall. He followed her gaze. The cart tracks rolled into a few different mines tunnels in the one wall. "We followed the tracks once. Most of them ended in dead ends. There was one that had a smelting room, for safety's sake, we stayed out of there." She had reached the ladder that ran up the wall through another small hole. "Heck, it was out of respect."
"Why respect?" Will called out as she started scaling the ladder.
"We found the miner." She called without looking back as she made quick work of climbing. Will gave her a few moments head start before starting up himself. The hole became narrower here and there, but the squeezed through with no problems. If will had not been keeping an eye on Arabella's development, he would have smacked his head into her bottom. He stopped just in time.
Arabella had shifted herself so her feet were on the ladder and pressed her back against the wall to free her hands.
"You might want to cover your mouth. This is going to be dusty." She called down as she wrapped a small scarf around her mouth. She passed a scarf to Will, who copied her body stance and proceeded to create the filter. She waited a moment longer and moved a bit further up the ladder. Feeling around on the walls, she held tightly to the ladder as she split her legs, digging her feet into two rather small crevices in the walls. Holding still, she reached up and carefully pushed against a trapdoor. It creaked open and a wave of dust fell in, illuminated by milky white moonlight. Slowly, she lifted the door further.
The door finally fell open against a wall and Arabella lifted herself out, cringing slightly at the feeling of the dust on her fingers. As soon as she brushed her fingers against the pants, she turned and helped Will out of the hole. He was coughing. He soon got over it and looked around the room that was bathed in moonlight.
The light filtered through dirty windows, cracks in the walls and holes in the ceiling. The light fell over old tables strewn with old tools and cabinets whose inside had not seen the light of day in years. The dust was kicked up in clouds as they shuffled about. There were two large tarpaulin covered shapes in the old garage in which they were standing. The sharp contrasts between the light and the dark made for interesting shapes and gave the objects a haunting appeal.
Arabella walked over to the windows, drawing the brittle curtains to try and keep the light they would be making inside. The room plunged into darkness and there were some scuffling sounds before a match cracked to life, setting light to the small kerosene lamp. Will looked around again, mouth slightly agape in awe at the objects that had once been so common.
"Welcome to the next part of operation, Will. Hope you're ready for the work that lies ahead." She stated as she dramatically ripped the tarpaulin off the objects, sending waves of dust flying everywhere. As the dust settled, Will could feel the excitement starting to bubble inside him and started to smile.
*Torch- South African name for a flashlight. She was not planning on burning anything.
So there's the chapter! See you next week!