Chapter 4 - The Blackwood Quarry
The impact sent the heavy transport van fishtailing across the rain-slicked four-lane highway. Metal shrieked against metal as the lead black SUV pit-maneuvered their rear quarter panel, forcing Ethan to fight the steering wheel with every ounce of strength in his twelve-year-old arms.
"Hold on!" Ethan screamed.
Claire reached across the center console, grabbing the handbrake. "Cut the wheel right! Ethan, now!"
Ethan yanked the steering wheel toward the shoulder. Claire wrenched the emergency brake upward. The van whipped around in a violent 180-degree slide, skipping over the gravel verge and blowing through a rotten wooden barricade marked CLOSED TO PUBLIC - QUARRY ACCESS.
The vehicle tumbled down a steep gravel incline, branches and heavy brush whipping against the shattered windshield before the front axle slammed into an abandoned limestone berm with a bone-jarring crash. The engine sputtered, hissed a plume of white steam, and died.
Ethan groaned, blinking away spots of dark gray. His forehead was bleeding where it had clipped the sun visor, but the adrenaline surging through his blood kept the pain at bay. He turned frantically to his right.
"Mom? Mom, wake up!"
Claire was awake, coughing as smoke filtered through the dashboard vents. She unclicked her seatbelt, her fingers working faster now as the paralytic wore off under the sheer surge of survival instinct. "I'm okay. We have to move. The quarry leads to the old rail line, but they’ll have thermal scopes on those trucks."
Ethan helped her climb out through the broken passenger door into the driving rain. The storm had turned the quarry basin into a pit of thick, ankle-deep red clay. Behind them, at the top of the ridge, two sets of halogen headlights pierced the gloom. Men in tactical windbreakers were already descending the slope, their assault rifles raised at the low-ready position.
"They aren't cops," Ethan whispered, clutching the silver locket tight inside his fist.
"They’re private contractors," Claire replied, her voice steadying into a grim, protective fury. "Richard’s corporate security firm. If they catch us, they won't arrest us. They'll bury us right here under fifty tons of gravel."
They slipped into the shadow of a rusted conveyor belt system that had once carried crushed rock to the freight cars. Claire leaned against an iron pillar, scanning the terrain. Her eyes locked onto an old explosives shed half-buried in the quarry wall, its reinforced steel door secured with a heavy master padlock.
"Ethan, the hammer from the church—did you drop it?"
Ethan patted his jacket. Tucked through his belt loop was the pry bar he had grabbed from the church maintenance wall right before grabbing the sledgehammer. He pulled the rusted crowbar free and handed it to her.
Claire wedged the wedge under the padlock's shackle, using her entire body weight to leverage the ancient rusted brass. With a loud SNAP, the bolt sheared off.
They slipped inside just as heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel outside.
Through the crack in the shed's corrugated siding, Ethan saw three armed men fan out across the wreckage of the van. One of them keyed a radio pinned to his shoulder.
"Target vehicle is empty. Fresh blood on the dash. They’re on foot in the basin. Richard, bring the perimeter car around to the tracks."
Richard’s voice crackled through the speaker with chilling clarity. "Find them before the state troopers trace the 911 calls from the church. Take the boy alive if you can—I need the passcode for the trust fund. But Claire doesn't leave that pit."
Inside the pitch-black shed, Claire’s hand found Ethan’s shoulder. In the dark, she reached out and tapped three times on his arm.
One. Two. Three.
May you like
Ethan looked down at the shelves lining the shed wall. In the dim light filtering through the siding, he saw wooden crates marked with orange hazard diamonds: DANGER - MINING GRADE GELIGNITE - 1994.
And sitting right next to the crates was a spool of green water-resistant safety fuse and an industrial flare gun.
