The Becoming - a novella (5 page)

Tim resumed hiking
and five minutes later stopped in the middle of the forest, awestruck. He had
found the old mine. And it was magnificent.

***

The clearing was filled with
relatively new forest growth, just like the abandoned road leading to it. Field
grass swayed in the warm breeze, thick and hardy in patches, thin and dying in
others. A rusted chain-link fence encircled the area, topped with nasty-looking
rolls of concertina wire, complete with a closed gate which had been padlocked
for security. Tim’s heart sank. He had stuffed a few tools inside his backpack,
but his mom’s boyfriend didn’t own a set of bolt cutters and Tim knew he
wouldn’t have thought to bring them along in any event.

He approached the
gate slowly and as he got closer, he realized the padlocked entrance would pose
no problem because he wouldn’t be using it, anyway. Thirty or so feet into the
woods to the left of the gate the fence listed severely, to the point where Tim
guessed he could crawl right over it, barbed wire be damned. A tree had crashed
down onto it during some long-ago storm, and the fence had suffered the worst
of the confrontation.

Tim left the old
road and walked along the fence line to the damaged portion. A closer
inspection revealed accessing the old mine would be even easier than he had
thought. An unknown adventurer who
did
own a pair of bolt cutters and
who
had
remembered to bring them along had very thoughtfully snipped
right through four feet of links immediately adjacent to the support pole on
the left side of the damaged fence. Tim inspected the links and concluded the
adventurer, whoever it was, had done his exploring a long time ago, because the
slices in the metal were as rusted as the rest of the fence.

Tim didn’t care.
He had hoped for access to the mine and now he had it. He dropped to his knees
and forced the fence away from the metal support pole. The links were stiff and
hard to move and when he touched them, rust flaked off in Tim’s hands. He
placed his backpack on the ground and pushed it through the opening, then
belly-crawled behind it.

And just like that
he was in. He stood and brushed the dirt off his clothes and turned toward an
ancient wood-frame building positioned roughly in the middle of the clearing. It
was obvious that at one time this had been the mining company’s office. Decades
of Pennsylvania weather had scoured the paint right off the siding and it now
stood gray and forlorn, beaten-looking. The front of the building faced what
had at one time probably been some kind of rudimentary parking lot and Tim
wondered whether cars had even been invented nearly a hundred years ago, or if
horses had stood tethered to poles outside the office like in the old black and
white Western movies his dad used to like to watch before he pulled up stakes
and moved on.

The most
interesting part of the building, though, was the front door, because it hung
awkwardly off its frame, inviting Tim to walk right through and explore the
inside. He approached and examined the door as closely as possible without
actually touching it, fearing the whole thing might just drop off its rusty
hinges and fall on him.
Jeez, stop being such a wuss,
he told himself.
You
came all this way, and now you’re afraid to check the place out?

He took a deep
breath and squeezed through the small opening, trying not to disturb the
rotting wood, holding his breath until he had slipped safely past the entrance.

Inside the
decrepit building was . . . nothing.

Tim wasn’t sure
what he had expected to find—decomposed human bodies or caches of weapons or
maybe a chest filled with priceless treasures—but whatever it was, this wasn’t
it. Decades worth of dust and grime littered the floor of the open space, which
had been cleared of everything but one lonely table in the far corner. It was
as if there had been no room on the last moving truck to leave the doomed
mining compound, so the owners just said the heck with it and left it where it
stood. The office windows were so dirty a twilight-like gloom permeated the interior
despite the fact it was barely past noon and outside the sun was beating down
on central Pennsylvania through cloudless skies.

Well, this is a
letdown,
Tim thought, and hurried through the empty office toward a back
door, which, against all odds, still seemed to fit snugly in its frame. It was
unlocked. He turned the grubby handle and pushed and the door popped open after
a moment’s hesitation, as if it had been closed for so long it couldn’t quite remember
exactly what it was supposed to do.

Tim squinted and
shielded his eyes against the blazing sun, which seemed even brighter now than
it had been before after the murky dimness of the old office, despite the fact
he had spent no more than two or three minutes inside. Finally he spotted what
he had come for.

Across a small
empty space Tim could see a gradual rise in the earth into which had been
carved the entrance to the mining operation. It seemed somehow small and
insignificant given the amount of attention it had received so many years ago.
A semi-circular tunnel had been dug, barely higher than Tim’s five feet, four
inches, and reinforced with a frame constructed of thick timbers.

Tim’s heart
hammered excitedly in his chest. This was it! Unless there were other mine
shaft entrances scattered throughout the area, this had to be what he was
looking for. There was a problem, though. When they shut down the old mine
almost ninety years ago, the authorities had sealed the shaft entrance with a
thick slab of concrete. It was enormous, big enough to close off the entire
entryway, and had been secured in place with heavy iron bolts, rendering it impassable.

But as was the
case with the exterior of the office building and the fence encircling the
compound, the passage of time and nearly a century of Pennsylvania weather had
taken its toll on the patch job. A network of cracks criss-crossed the concrete
slab, some of them close to half an inch thick, Tim guessed. The iron bolts had
suffered from the passage of time, as well. They had been heavily corroded by
rust, and Tim knew there was no way they would ever turn as they once had.

He had come
prepared, though, knowing that if he was lucky enough to find the old mine, he
would likely not be able just to walk right into a shaft. He unzipped his
backpack excitedly, pulling out the tools he would need. They had weighed down
the pack, making the hike here much more tiring than he had expected it to be,
but now he congratulated himself on his foresight.

He placed the
tools side by side on the ground, lining them up neatly: A hammer with a heavy
iron head. A wedge Matt used to split wood in the back yard. A long screwdriver
with a thick metal shaft. He had thought long and hard about what to bring on
this hike, and it appeared his planning had been perfect.

He picked up the
wedge, inserting the thin, sharp end into the small gap between the concrete
slab and the thick wooden beam, lining it up with where he figured the rusting
iron bolt should be. Then he grabbed the hammer and prepared to smash the
wedge. His plan was to slice through the bolt.

Tim knew he would
probably destroy the wedge in the process, and the feeling of guilt that had
been eating away at him since deceiving his mom this morning intensified. First
he had lied and now he was about to destroy someone else’s property.

He shook his head,
embarrassed at being such a baby. The wedge was just a hunk of forged iron. It
would probably be months before it was even missed, and when it was, Tim could own
up to losing it and pay Matt out of his paper route earnings for a new one. No
big deal. Tim vowed not to lose his nerve over something so stupid.

He took a deep
breath and prepared to swing the hammer. It felt unbalanced in his hand, the
iron head much heavier than he had expected. He braced the wedge against the
concrete and then reared back and swung the hammer hard. And missed the wedge.
The hammer’s iron head whistled past his hand and smashed into the wooden beam
with a squishy THUMP.

Oh, man. That was
close. Tim tried to imagine hiking two hours back to his house from the middle
of nowhere with a broken hand and grimaced.
Be more careful, dummy.

He steadied
himself and swung again—this time with a little less backswing, to hopefully
provide a little more control—and connected solidly with the wedge. A metallic
TINK sang out and the wedge vibrated and Tim wondered if he had done any damage
to the bolt. He swung again and connected again, then swung a third time and
was rewarded. The wedge sank out of sight, disappearing between the concrete
slab and the wooden beam.

He knew he had
snapped the bolt and smiled. He felt like Indiana Jones or something. His plan
was working!

Tim picked up the
screw driver and slid the end into the gap between the slab and the beam. What
had started out as a sliver, just barely enough room to slide the thin end of
the wedge into, was now at least an inch thick, forced apart by the base of the
wedge.

The screw driver
was massive, at least two feet long, with a thick steel head. It was no
ordinary screw driver; it was more like a pry bar, so big Matt used it as a
poker in the fire pit behind his house. Tim hoped it would be strong enough to
do what he was about to ask of it.

He stood up and
leaned against the handle with all his weight, pushing and shoving, trying to
use the screw driver as a lever to force the slab away from the wooden beam and
break another of the iron bolts. And it worked. Sort of.

The nearly one
hundred year old slab of concrete broke apart. The top half shattered, breaking
along one of the thicker cracks in its surface. Tim lost his balance and fell
to the ground next to the slab as concrete pieces, some as big as his head and
others looking like tiny grains of sand, showered the ground in front of the
mine shaft.

Tim scrambled to
his feet and surveyed the damage, wide-eyed. This wasn’t exactly what he had
planned—less than half of the gigantic slab had been removed—but the opening
looked big enough to wriggle through. It probably wouldn’t accommodate a
full-grown adult, maybe not even a normal-sized kid, but for once in his life,
Tim was thankful for the fact that he was small for his age.

He grabbed a
flashlight out of his pack—another unwitting contribution from Matt—and swung a
leg over the top of the broken and crumbling slab. The inside of the ancient
mine was pitch-black and terrifying and Tim knew he would have to move fast or
else he would lose his nerve. He eased into a sitting position on the slab and
ducked his head and prepared to slide into the tunnel.

And his cell phone
rang.

He dropped the
flashlight and fumbled around in the front pocket of his cargo shorts. School
hadn’t gotten out yet, so it couldn’t be any of his friends calling. In fact,
there was only one person it
could
be. He lifted his phone to his face.
“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Timmy, you
sound much better! How are you feeling?”

He mentally kicked
himself for forgetting he was supposed to be sick, then lowered his voice and
tried to sound ill. “H-hi, Mom, yeah, I guess I’m a little better.”

“Is everything all
right? You sound preoccupied.”

“Uh, no. Yeah, I
mean. Everything’s okay, you just caught me in the middle of a nap, that’s
all.” He mentally kicked himself for not anticipating that his mom would call;
of course she would, he was supposed to be home sick, after all.

“Oh. Well, I’ll
let you get back to sleep, then. I just wanted to check in on you and let you
know I might be able to get out of work early and come home to take care of
you.”

“NO!”

“What?”

“I mean, you don’t
need to do that, Mom, I’ll probably just sleep the rest of the day, anyway. I’m
pretty sleepy.” He tried to yawn and realized he had no idea how to do it
convincingly when he wasn’t really tired.

“Are you sure
nothing’s wrong, Timothy?”

“I’m sure, yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll see
you when I get home, then.”

“Bye, Mom.” Tim
ended the call and slid the phone back into his pocket. He was suddenly
miserable. He hated lying to his mom. The rest of the adventure was cool, challenging
and fun, although also kind of stressful. But he had always been close to his mom
and almost never lied to her.

He picked up the flashlight
again, his enthusiasm suddenly dampened. If his mom came home early and
discovered he had faked an illness just so he could play hooky, it would be
months before he could earn her trust back, maybe longer. Heck, maybe he never
would. What had seemed like a harmless lark when he planned it now felt less
like something fun and more like a really bad idea.

He sat on the
crumbling slab thinking, his right leg dangling into the black pit. Did he
really want to do this?

His plan had been
to take a few pics from inside the mine with his cell phone camera to prove to his
friends back at school—the babies who liked to pretend they were tough but
hadn’t had the guts to join him—that he had really done what they were all too
chicken to do.

But what if Mom
really got out of work early like she said she was going to? He would be in huge
trouble, then, and for what? To prove he was more of a man than his friends?

If he left now and
really moved, he might still be able to get home before Mom, even if she did
leave work early. She hadn’t said she was getting out right now, so she
probably meant she was going to take a couple of hours off at the end of her
shift. Normally she got home around 5:30, so if he was right, today she might
be back by 3:30. Tim thought he might be able to get home and back in bed by then.

Plus, he could
still take a couple of pictures to prove he had accomplished what no one else
was tough enough to do. He could get one of himself standing in front of the
broken concrete seal over the mine shaft, and maybe a couple more inside the dilapidated
office building. He didn’t really
have
to actually enter the mine shaft
or anything.