STILL SITTING IN OUR SECRET MINE, and with the Mystery of the Lunatic Asylum still unresolved, we were about to call it a day and head for home when I heard something.
I caught my breath and grabbed Ashley’s hand as I strained my ears.
Voices!
There were voices in the distance. Voices getting closer.
“Did you hear that?” Ashley whispered.
“Shhh!” I whispered back.
Voices! Men talking. Two, then three of them. They were coming up the mountain, getting nearer and nearer, their voices growing louder. They stopped uncomfortably close to the hidden entrance to our mine.
Ashley was squeezing me so hard I could barely breathe. I had to pinch her arms to get her to release her stranglehold. The pounding of both our hearts drowned out the conversation the men were having.
Who would possibly be tramping around up here? On our mountain? Outside our mine? We had never before seen hide nor hair of anyone up here, not a single soul.
I was frightened. The only thing I could think of was that these were crystal meth cooks looking for a place to do their dirty work and set up a methamphetamine lab. It scared the crap out me. That stuff was bad news. Guys like that, if they knew you knew what they were up to, could do serious damage.
Ashley and I were frozen in place at the far end of the mine, trying to mask the fear in our breath. You know how when you’re trying to be quiet, really quiet, all sorts of things happen that make your body want to scream out? Suddenly I had to cough, I had to sneeze, I had to pee so bad I thought I would wet myself. But I just clung to Ashley and closed my eyes and hoped to hell that neither of us would have a heart attack.
The voices continued up the mountain and out of earshot.
“Shit!” Ashley whispered.
“Double shit!” I whispered back.
“Who do you think they are?” Ashley whispered.
“Meth cooks! Who else could they be? If they find us we’re dead!”
“Raped and then dead!”
“Beaten, raped, and then dead!”
“Enough!” Ashley said in a low voice, pinching me. “What do we do? They went up the mountain. What goes up must come down.”
“Shit!” I whispered.
“Double shit!” Ashley whispered back.
West Virginia was the crystal-meth-lab capital of the universe. Guys went into the woods and set up methamphetamine labs and cooked up this whacked-out illegal drug that screwed you up big time. People used it to stay awake, to amp up their energy, to increase their alertness. Guys at school would brag that they were “Breaking Bad” and could stay hard for days on meth.
The only thing I saw were guys hard up—twitchy, depressed, psychotic, toothless with meth mouth, and crazy as hell. They were like the witches/vampires/zombies/ death-eaters all rolled into one.
Not only was the drug illegal and awful, but it was also dangerous to make and the toxic waste from meth labs totally screwed up the environment.
Kingdom Number One was way too kind a category for a guy on crystal meth. The typical high school loser was a king compared to a meth head. They deserved a ranking all to themselves. A special place in boy hell. A total zero.
We waited a few more minutes and, hearing nothing, snuck out of our mine and made like the wind. We knew every tree, every boulder, every twist and turn on Tom. Once we got going there was no stopping us. It would take way more than a gang of meth heads to catch us.
At the bottom of the mountain, near where we had stashed our bikes and where the road took a turn toward the river, there was a truck parked. There was nobody in it.
Emblazoned on its side were the words “American Mining Company.”
Ashley and I pedaled for home like the death-eaters themselves were on our tails.