Return to The Quarry

Chapter Twenty-two

Laura's heart sank.  "That poor woman," she said.  "She found something she wasn't supposed to, and it cost her dearly."  

Ryan snapped his fingers. "The scrapyard! I always heard it was as old as the quarry itself, but it's been an actual scrap business for only like fifty years."

"That's great and all," said Dylan. "But where in the scrapyard do we need to go? I don't remember seeing any tunnels the last time Kaitlyn and I were there."

"The tunnel's hidden, genius," said Kaitlyn, dryly.

Dylan rolled his eyes. "Right. And that still doesn't help us."

Grace frowned. "But it doesn't sound like Deirdre was able to actually carry out her revenge plan. So how did Silas Vorez get cursed?"

Laura reached into the copier paper box lid. "Not really an answer," she said, taking out the various papers she read earlier, "but I found this."

The others anxiously scanned the reports, zeroing in on the names they knew and the situations that seemed connected to the series of strange occurrences that led up to that one night in 2021.

Ryan looked quizzically at Laura. "Oh, yeah. I remember that. Silas Hewitt."

She shrugged. "Unfortunately, these papers don't explain any connection between him and the microorganism."

With a determined sigh, Kaitlyn turned back to the red fire extinguisher on the floor beside her. "Well, if someone could help me hoist this bad boy up, I think I might be able to get someone's attention in the lodge."

Grace gasped and suddenly threw open her backpack. "Oh no!"

Anton knelt beside her and surveyed the contents she sifted through. She looked up at him, her face stricken.

"Ginny's first journal! I didn't zip up all the way and it must have fallen out!"

Dylan, adjusting his grip on the red metal tank next to Kaitlyn, shrugged. "You still have the never-before-seen journal. Isn't that the one you need to prove what happened?"

"More importantly, it's the one that describes how we get out of here." added Laura.

"Don't worry about it for now," instructed Kaitlyn, holding the black hose nozzle like a hand gun. "Dylan and I are about to try and raise someone next door. Once we do that, though, we might just get that dude's attention instead. We have to be ready to move."

"Remember the beams," Grace said, climbing to her feet. "I'll have the camera out, but maybe the extinguisher will make them more apparent."

"Okay." Ryan said, unlocking the glass doors. "Showtime."

* * *

Alone in the glare of the pool house floodlights, a pair of blue eyes peeked around the side of the white-sided lifesaving station. Those people the Man in the Hood was following got away up the road. So far, no one had been hurt, thank God, and all accidents had been avoided. That meant there was still time to make things right. And for all the auburn-haired woman in the green dress knew, the other spooks trapped there knew it. Why, the ground practically buzzed with anticipation. Their time being trapped, unseen among the rocks and trees, might soon be over. Soon, they might all be free.

It was all her fault, and she knew it. All of the ugliness and death that followed her arrival at Hackett's Quarry all those years ago. How long had it been? A century? Anyhow, when she came to North Kill with murderous revenge in her heart and a ghastly weapon in her small suitcase, she started in motion the whole darned machine that was still grinding all these years later. Somehow, those people had almost managed the bring the truth to the surface only a few years ago. For reasons the auburn haired woman couldn't explain, telling the secrets of the Hackett family to the world would stop those gears from moving. Once the truth about the family was told, it would be like a spell was broken. Centuries of people bound to the stones by the web of secrets and lies would be unchained. This was bigger than any audition, any opening night, any film take that ever was. She couldn't miss this chance. Something in her bones – or however that expression applied to someone in her state – told her it was tonight or nothing. This was her last opportunity to put it all right again. She just had to.