Falling In Holes

The Chest

AN: I just realized the warden could have been Preston. God damn it.

Bella ran back through the field. It was pitch black by now, other than the lights set up around the camp. She reached Stan to see that he had made a lot of progress.

"Woah!" She exclaimed. "You've really been working!"

"Yeah," Stan huffed.

"Coming down," Bella announced, jumping into the hole. "How's it going?"

Stan paused for a second to give the girl a kiss.

"Who knows?" He asked, returning to his digging. "I could be digging up diamonds and not see them."

"I don't think Kissin' Kate Barlow would have buried her treasure this deep," Bella said. Stan paused, thinking.

"Come on," he said. "We gotta make it wider."

"How do we know one of her gang didn't already come back and dig up the treasure, huh?" Bella asked.

"We don't," Stan said. He dug at the edges of the hole and paused when his shovel hit something hard. "...Did you hear that?"

He hit the object with his shovel again.

"Yeah, I heard that," Bella nodded. She helped Stan to dig out the dirt around the mystery object. Soon they were able to pull it out of the dirt and Stan laughed excitedly.

"We found it!" He shouted. Bella shrieked gleefully.

"Come on, come on!" She pulled it out of the dirt. It fell to the bottom of the hole and they worked together to lift it up. "We found it!"

"What did I say, what did I say?!" Stan beamed. He tried to open the lock when two flashlights were pointed at them. Stan and Bella looked up to see the warden and Powers standing above them.

"Thank you, you two. You've been a big help," the warden smiled.

"Oh, wow," Powers paled when a group of yellow-spotted lizards crawled onto the teens and the chest. The warden gasped stumbling backwards. "Get back!"

"Oh my god."

Bella screamed when she finally noticed the lizards. The two teens panicked and tried to remain still as the deadly lizards jumped onto their shoulders.

"Well get in there," the warden hissed, "and pull it out."

"You get in there," Powers hissed back.

"...Fine. I'll just wait," the warden watched the scene below. "Won't take long."

"No, it won't," Powers agreed. Trigger came over, shining a flashlight into the hole.

"Oh my god!" He gasped.

"Yeah, check it out," Powers nodded as the lizards jumped and crawled over Bella and Stan. Stan squeezed his eyes shut as a lizard crawled up his chest. "Here we go."

"Hey Stanley, guess what?" Trigger grinned. "You're innocent! Your lawyer came by yesterday to get you. Too bad you weren't there."

"Don't listen to him, Stan," Bella hissed.

"At least now we'll have a body to give her," Powers mumbled.

"What about Kitty?" Trigger asked.

"Kitty was never here," the warden said. The girl looked up at her. "We got lots of holes to choose from. ...Do you know how long I've been waiting for this? My granddaddy owned the whole lake. Then it dried up. He drove himself crazy out here digging holes. Made me dig, too- even on Christmas."