Hello everyone! Hope you're doing well! Okay, so canonically Josh does not like rats. Whether he's afraid of them or just plain doesn't like them I figured I'd use that as fodder for this chapter. Hope you all like it! :D
When Josh was five years old his mother snatched him up by the back of his britches and told him he was forty pounds of bad ideas and dumb luck. He didn't know what she meant right then, only that his mother was mad because he was trying to play with a rattlesnake in the front yard. He didn't think about it for a long time, what those words actually meant, until he found himself dropped into the middle an abandoned mine shaft when he was eight.
He'd lost track of how many times his mother had warned him to stay away from the mine. It had been abandoned years before when part of it collapsed, trapping half a dozen men inside and burying them alive. The townspeople had dug and scraped for days trying to rescue them but after a week of not finding any trace of the missing men, it became clear there was nothing left to save. A makeshift memorial was set up in front of it and the entrance was boarded up.
The ground all around it was loose and flimsy from years of digging and burrowing and people tended to avoid the area entirely due to the possibility of the ground collapsing out from under them without warning. There were signs posted around the area warning of death and injury and advising passersby to steer clear of the unstable ground. It was dangerous and hazardous and it was exactly the kind of place little boys liked to play when their parents weren't watching.
There was a pack of them out there today, six in all, and they were all taking turns testing their grit and bravery by circling some of the gaping holes that opened up into the abandoned mine shafts below. There were dozens of holes, some clustered together, others farther apart, and all of them were dangerously close to caving in at any second. The darkness below them was impenetrable save for the few beams of sunlight that cut through the holes and illuminated the tracks down below.
One of the older boys, Moses Baird, was taking it to another level by leaping across the holes and pretending to wobble and sway exaggeratedly after each landing. He's pretend to lose his balance, arms flailing and scrabbling for purchase in thin air. It was a show, a game, and the other boys loved it. After each successful jump, Moses would grin at the look of shock and horror on his friend's faces and repeated the process over another hole.
Josh watches him carefully, waiting for his turn in the spotlight. He was eager to set himself apart from the younger boys in their group, ready to show that he was just as brave (and stupidly reckless) as the older kids. At eight he fell right in the middle of the age group their pack consisted of. The oldest, John, was supposed to be supervising and keeping an eye on the younger boys but at thirteen he was still just as much of a kid as the rest of them and had no trouble joining in. The youngest of their group, Matthew, was Moses' younger brother, just old enough to tag along with the older kids and join them in play. He's five, maybe six, and he follows them around everywhere.
They should have been helping Mr. Willis with his livestock but he let them go early seeing as how most of the chores were finished. Left to their own devices, the boys had to figure out what to do with themselves for the rest of the afternoon. It was hot, there was no school and it didn't take too long for them to find themselves out near the mine again even though they were told probably once a week to avoid it.
Moses makes one more leap across one of the larger holes and lands easily on the other side. He gives his friends a cheeky, gap-tooth grin and nods toward the ground. "Beat that!"
Josh accepts the challenge immediately and, without a word, takes a running jump across one of the largest holes visible. It's easily a three and a half foot gap but he clears it easily enough. The stunt evokes the desired response and the other boys whoop and cheer him on from the other side. They laugh and cheer for a few more seconds before one of them dares him to jump back across with his eyes closed. Never one to back down from a challenge, Josh takes off in a dead sprint, closes his eyes, and leaps across the hole again.
This landing is different from the first in that the ground crumbles away the second his foot touches the other side. One minute he's above ground and the next minute he's below it, tumbling a good fifteen feet into the dark, cold shaft below. He lands with a heavy thud and hisses as a shock of pain jars a choked gasp out of him. Nothing is broken but he landed hard and it knocked the wind out of him.
He can hear the other boys calling out his name, anxiously asking if he's alright. He groans and looks up at the blue sky shining through the hole he fell through. It seems impossibly far away and the walls are almost completely vertical all around him meaning he can't just climb back out. He winces and pulls himself up, dusting dirt off his pants.
"I'm okay," he calls back up, looking down the darkened tunnels on either side of him. They stretch on endlessly in either direction, a gaping void of blackness leading deep into the earth. It makes him shiver. "Anybody got a rope or somethin'?"
John leans over the side of the hole and he can just barely make him out in the dusty gloom. "We don't got any!" he shouts back, looking between the other boys as if for confirmation. He can hear them mumbling amongst themselves for a few seconds, coming up with a plan. "Just stay there, Josh! We're gonna run back to town for help!"
"No, don't!" Josh cries out after them but it's too late. He sees them disappear from the edges of the hole, running back in the direction of the town and leaving him alone. He grumbles in frustration and kicks a rock. He's not so much worried about being stuck down here as he is the verbal lashing he's going to get from his mama when he gets out. She'd told him over and over not to play around here and he didn't listen now this happened.
Forty pounds of bad ideas and dumb luck. Her words come back to him now, poking through years of memories and conversation. He thinks he understands what she meant now that he's alone, in the dark, at the bottom of a mine shaft.
He looks down either tunnel again and tries to figure out what to do. They both look the same, dark corridors of rock and wooden tracks, and it's impossible to tell which one is the safer option. The tunnel is still collapsed on one end but he can't tell which end that is. There are no markers down here, no signs or arrows pointing in the right direction. It's a gamble either way ans he knows it.
He weighs his options for a few more seconds, mentally debating what he should do. If he waits here it will probably be close to dark by the time the others get back and get him out. To be completely honest, he's not too fond of the idea of being down here after dark. Maybe he can find his way out before the other boys get back? They wouldn't need to tell anyone and his mama couldn't be too mad at him if he got himself out without her worrying. Trouble is, from down here and looking up, it's hard to tell which tunnel would lead to the boarded up entrance.
If he takes the wrong one it could lead him deeper into the mine, away from help and away from safety. He could get lost, swallowed up by the mine just like those miners. But if he stays here, he'll have to wait for help to get back and then face his enraged mother. Neither option is favorable but he would rather not have to explain himself to his mother. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slow and takes the tunnel to the left.
The ground is even enough and the walls of the tunnel are high overhead so it doesn't feel as cramped while he walks. The holes they'd been jumping over cut through the ceiling every once in awhile, a bright slice of sunlight cutting through the darkness of the tunnel. He pauses occasionally as he passes under them, looking up at the bright blue sky overhead and wondering if he's going the right way. He keeps following them, thinking it's a good sign that they're still slightly clustered together and not spaced further apart.
As the track continues to wind on, dipping and raising without warning, he begins to wonder if he's going the wrong way after all. He convinces himself that he couldn't be that deep in the mine, that the entrance should be coming up soon and he just has to keep walking. It should just be around the next bend…
But as the tracks keep winding on with no end in sight, he begins to get nervous. Maybe he took the wrong tunnel...maybe he's gone miles deeper into the mine in the wrong direction…
Josh breaks into a jog, heart pounding and thick waves of anxiety and apprehension tearing at his stomach. He runs across the tracks, careful to avoid broken boards and chunks of rock that have fallen across them over the years. He begins shouting, calling out for help, hoping for any kind of response but nothing comes. The tunnels wind further, the darkness feels heavier, and he gets scared.
The thought creeps into his head that he's going to die down here, alone and forgotten all because he was too stubborn to mind his mama's warnings. The town will put a little cross outside the entrance, the children will be warned over and over again about the dangers of the mine, and his mama will die of a broken heart. He's running now, sprinting through one glaring blast of sunlight and the next, tears streaming down his dusty face.
He wonders if this is what the miners felt like when the tunnel collapsed, when they realized these tunnels had become their graves. He wonders if this is how they felt knowing they were never going to find their way out. He thinks about their bodies that were never found, the darkness and earth that just swallowed them up without a second thought, and he runs faster.
He's on the verge of complete panic now, crushing dread and fear gripping his chest. He has to get out of here, he'll claw his way out if he has to…He has to get out of-
His foot hits something, a rock or a piece of the track, and he trips and lands heavily facedown on the ground. For a moment he doesn't move, he just lays there shaking and crying and wishing he'd listened to his mother. His father had died in a mine when he was still a baby, blown to bits when a spark ignited an underground gas pocket. Josh had never met his father, knew absolutely nothing about him, but it looks like he's going to share a similar fate.
He hears something up ahead, a scittering, scratching sound like claws on gravel, and he looks up slowly. There's a rat about a foot away from him, large and brown with gleaming black eyes. It stares at him, whiskers twitching, and Josh panics. He pulls himself up quickly, backing away and pressing his back against the wall. He hates rats, he's completely terrified of them. He can deal with a lot of things but rats are not one of them.
The rat seems very unconcerned with his dislike and revulsion and turns to scamper back in the direction he had been running in. Josh watches it go, frozen and rigid and unable to move for several seconds. It occurs to him after a few moments that rats would need both a food and a water source to survive and, seeing as how neither of those exist in the mine, it must have come from outside.
He thinks that maybe, if he follows it, the rat could possibly lead him to an exit. But that means following the rat, getting close and trailing after it, and the idea makes his stomach flip. He shivers and stays pressed against the wall for a few more seconds. It takes several long seconds for him to convince himself that it's a better option than aimlessly running around in the dark and it's about as good a plan as any.
He stands slowly, trembling a little, and takes a step in the direction the rat went. The tunnel is dark up ahead but he can still hear the sound of scampers and dull, muted squeaks bouncing off the walls. He stumbles across the rat a few feet further up the tunnel and now there's about a dozen of them swarming around on the floor. They're all moving in a clump, their fur gleaming dully in the hazy light of the tunnel. There's probably ten of them, maybe fifteen, and the sight of all of them squirming and ginning around nearly makes him freeze again. Instead he swallows thickly, clenches his fists, and walks forward.
The rats scatter and scamper away but they're all going in the same direction so Josh follows them. They spread out across the tunnel, a teeming mass of fur and tails, and run through the darkness, oblivious to the lost child trailing along behind them.
After about another quarter mile of winding turns and darkness broken by sunlight streaming in from the holes above, a wall of wood appears in the distance. Josh nearly sobs with relief and runs toward it, scattering the rats as he does. There's daylight shining on the other side, peaking through the thin spaces between the boards, and he knows this is the boarded up entrance to the mine. All he has to do is figure out how to get past the wall now.
The bottom boards are flimsy and partially rotten and the rats scamper out from under them easily. Josh drops down to one knee and grabs one of the bottom boards, pulling it toward him with every ounce of strength he has. The board snaps and splinters and it hurts his hands but he doesn't care. Bright, golden sunlight streams into the tunnel and it's probably one of the most beautiful things he's ever seen.
He grabs another board, ignoring the splintered edges that dig into his palms, and pulls. It comes away just like the first and the hole is just big enough for him to squeeze his way out.
He finds himself flat on his back just outside the entrance of the mine, blinking up at the brilliant sunlight and squinting. He's never been so happy to see the sun and he's never been happier to have stumbled across a disgusting cluster of rats. If he wasn't so terrified of them he'd try to pet one in thanks. Instead he just lays there in the dirt and blinks up at the sky.
He hears a shout in the distance and turns his head, catching sight of a clump of people running toward him. He stands up, brushes himself off, and waves.
The group of boys he was with earlier are running up to him, several coils of rope looped over their shoulders. It looks like they've recruited a few of the older kids in town to help them but luckily there are no adults in the party. Apparently none of them were too willing to tell their parents where they'd been playing.
John skids to a stop in front of him, taking in his dusty appearance and bleeding hands covered in splinters. "We came back for you," he says rather obviously, the rope now hanging uselessly from his shoulder. He looks at the boarded up mine and shakes his head in disbelief. "You had to've been two miles in. How'd you find your way out?"
Josh just grins and shrugs. "Dumb luck."
Thanks for reading guys! More to come soon! :D