Guardian of the Dark Paths (Children of the Ajda #1) - Susan Trombley Page 0,3

a manmade tunnel.”

Matt brushed dirt off his shirt and jeans. Even the gym-rat was breathing a little heavier from crawling through the beginning of the tunnel. “It’s a horizontal shaft into an abandoned mine. The entrance was caved in at some point and that hole dug out of it again, but the rest of the shaft is solid.”

Sarah glanced at him in surprise, then looked back at Beth, who had already brushed off her clothes. She had taken out a mirror to check her face, and was now wiping at a smudge of dirt on her cheek.

“You knew this was an abandoned mine?” Sarah spotted a portion of the old mine cart track peeking out from a pile of dirt and rubble. “Why didn’t you just say so? I think that’s a hell of a lot more interesting than a simple cave.”

Beth snapped her mirror closed and tucked it into the pocket of her shirt. She shrugged as she met Sarah’s eyes. “Technically, we’re not supposed to be here. I wasn’t sure you’d want to break the law, so I told you it was just a cave.” She turned to regard the dark shaft ahead of them.

“Dammit, Beth!” Sarah bit her lip to keep more frustrated words from spilling forth, reminding herself they were on camera still. “What is this place?”

Beth shrugged again. “An abandoned mine. That’s all.” She jerked her chin towards the darkness that their lights couldn’t penetrate. “Let’s keep going since we’re already this far in.”

With a sigh, Sarah followed in Matt’s footsteps, listening to the echo of his voice as he began to narrate for the camera. She found his overacting and his constant references to potential ghosts and spooky mine-monsters eye rolling but kept her comments to herself. This was apparently his show, though he gave Beth a few chances to speak as well. That was yet another fact Beth had misrepresented. Sarah wouldn’t have been so willing to come here if she’d known it was for Matt rather than Beth.

The two were probably disappointed as they headed deeper into the shaft, finding nothing very interesting along the way, except for a handful of rusted old cans. There were several offshoots of the main tunnel, but they ended in such short distances that their lights were able to reveal the far walls without them further exploring those areas. Sarah was about to call the exploration a bust. She felt a bit disappointed herself now that she had come this far only to view walls of uninteresting rock scarred by pickaxes and a couple of rusted cans.

Then they arrived at a vertical shaft. On one side was the elevator shaft, with the cables still dangling, but no sign of an elevator. On the other side was the manway, a series of ladders leading down into impenetrable darkness.

Matt told his camera they were going to head down those ladders, and that was the first time Sarah spoke up, interrupting him. “Are you crazy? That wood could be rotted through. We step on it and we go crashing down to our deaths!”

“Relax, Sarah,” Beth said from behind her. “The wood will hold. We’ll be fine. Besides, you know you want to see what’s down there.”

Matt turned to face her, getting Sarah’s face fully on camera. She flinched away from the bright light coming off his hat and camera, lifting a hand to block it from shining in her face. “My friends have already checked out this mine shaft. The ladders are solid.”

“Please, Sarah,” Beth said, giving her a dusty hug from behind. “Pretty please with sugar on top. Go down there with us.”

Sarah kept her hand up, blocking her face from the camera as she stepped a bit closer to the shaft. She leaned just enough to peer over the edge, seeing the ladders descending beyond where her light could penetrate. “This is madness, you guys. It’s not safe. There’s a reason we aren’t supposed to be here.”

“That’s because this shaft leads into a secret government facility,” Matt said, speaking for the benefit of his audience, clearly, since he was dropping a line of total bullshit.

Sarah shook her head, swiping her sweating palms on her dirty shirt. “There’s enough to be scared of just in the threat of collapsing rock walls. I don’t think you need to add government conspiracies into it, Matt.”

“Come on, Sarah,” Beth hissed in a low voice behind her. “Play it up! This is for the camera. Try to look scared.”

“I am scared, dammit,”