Dandy has been gone almost a week now, and they have blocked off lot 12 as a hazard site so that no one else can go in. No one is allowed to work in the lot, no one is allowed to finish the house, and no one is allowed to investigate the hole that has already claimed two lives. We have already started construction for the house on lot 13. Dandy and the work on lot 12 are finished. Gone. Right?
But they’re not.
What if there is a way that Dandy is still alive? When I first looked down the hole almost a week ago, I was sure that no one could survive a fall like that. But what if they could? What if Dandy is waiting down there to be rescued? It’s been so long, she must be hungry and hurt and afraid. Someone has to help her.
Or maybe it’s all in my head. Just my grief trying to give me some hope.
Or maybe it’s not.
Either way, I’m headed down.
Tonight.
The air is arctic cold tonight as I run through the streets without shoes and with bare arms. The grappling hook I have slung over my shoulder keeps bouncing off the small of my back in a steady rhythm. That was all the Hispanic boy had told me to bring. Ever since the day that Dandy fell, I have started to become friends with the little twelve year old boy who first told me about the hole. He is always working at the Tinkerwood Reconstruction site like I am, and we have taken our lunch breaks together for at least the past five days. He is a sweet boy, still cheerful after all the horrors that he has seen in the past seven years. He still won’t tell me his name, as he does not remember it, but I have started referring to him as Juan. Juan jumped at the chance to help me find my Dandy after I told him that I started hearing her and that I thought that she might still be alive. He claimed he was an expert at climbing and that he would help me get to the bottom of the hole. As I run in the night, I read all of the street names that I pass, hoping to find the one that Juan told me to meet him on. Garden Row. Ocean Way. Baker Street. Here it is. Arnold Square. I already see at the distant corner a tiny figure standing with arms full of stuff.
“Is that you over there, Georgia?” he hollers quite loudly across the silent expanse between us.
I shush him as fast as I can. “Do you want to wake up the whole neighborhood?” I whisper as I walk up to him.
“Oh right, sorry.” He blushes, “Come on, the Tinkerwood neighborhood is only a few blocks from here.” He hollers before running off.
By the time we make it to the neighborhood, climb over the fence around lot 12, and stand at the edge of the hole, I am entirely out of breath. The run was far more than a couple blocks, and that fence is not easy to hurtle. “So… what… now?” I huff.
He says nothing, just takes the grappling hook and rope off of my shoulder and starts wedging the hook in the ground. Once he has decided that it is secure, he starts to tie the other end of the rope around my waist. “Now all you will have to do,” he starts, “Is hang onto this rope, while I lower you down.”
I look down into the deep blackness of the hole. If he can’t hold on, it’s going to be one dark free fall. “Are you sure you are strong enough?”
“What do you think I’ve got this guy for?” he smiles, nudging the grappling hook with his foot. He reaches into the box of stuff that he brought with him, and pulls out an old, beat-up flashlight, probably made before the Apocalypse. “This should help you look for her once you reach bottom. You just press this button and the light turns on.” He says, acting out his instructions. As I slip the flashlight into my apron pocket, he pulls out another item from his box, a knife. “And here is this, in case you run into… anything else… down there.” I do not know what “anything else” might be, but by arming me, I don’t believe that Juan thinks that it is a good thing. I slip the knife into the pocket next to the flashlight.
Kneeling down next the chasm, I wonder want on earth might be down there. It should be just rocks and dirt and Dandy, right? But what if there is “anything else”? What if there is some terrible monster left over from the Apocalypse that lives down in the darkness? What if Dandy is dead, not because of the terrible fall, but because one of the monsters got her first? Despite my fears, I swing my legs over the edge and slowly peel my hands away from the rock wall, gripping the rope so hard that my hands turn red. Now I am dangling over the pit of darkness, free of any sturdy soil. Slowly, but steadily, hand over hand, Juan starts to lower me down, down, down. Very early on, I pull out my flashlight and balance it in the crook of my elbow, still not daring to let go of the rope for too long. The light casts shadows on the wall that startle me, but they remain only shadows. No monsters yet. I am guessing that we are a quarter of the way down, but Juan has stopped. I look up, and I see Juan’s tiny silhouette surrounded by many other silhouettes that were not there before. I also hear voices, one of which I recognize. The Headquarters man that asked my questions for his census, he was there, probably along with many other Commanders.
“Do not worry, Ms. Georgia!” the census man shouts, “We will have you back up here any minute.” No. I can’t go back up. Any fears of what might lie at the bottom of the hole has melted away, and I feel my heart being pull down into the depths. Dandy might still be down there. I can’t give up on her yet.
“I’m not coming back up!” I retort even as I feel the rope yanking me higher. I have to think fast. The starry sky above me keeps getting bigger and closer by the second. Then I feel it, bouncing up and down on my thigh. The knife in my pocket. If I could just cut the rope enough to be free…
For half a moment, I let go of the rope, grabbing the knife from my pocket, and start hacking away at the rope. The census man above me seems to have noticed what I am doing, and orders his Commanders to work faster. But they are too late. The last chord as snapped.
Now I am falling…
Down…
Down…
Down…
Down…
Down.
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