“Weird,” said Tony, looking around the empty clearing. He shrugged. “Oh well. Let’s go.”
“But he was just here,” protested Petra. “Where did he go?”
“Uh…guys?” It was Craig. He pointed a trembling finger at the ground. “What’s that?”
Shawn, Tony, and Petra hurried over to look. Pressed deep into the mud beside the ATV was a paw print.
A very big paw print.
“P-p-p-please tell me that’s a Hobart track,” quavered Tony.
“Way too big for a Hobart track,” said Shawn, shaking his head. He knelt down and placed his hand inside the track. The print had a rounded pad and five toes. On the end of each toe was a long, sharp claw. Shawn looked at Petra. Petra looked at Tony.
“Don’t say it,” Tony begged her. “Please don’t say it.”
“Bear,” said Petra.
Tony gulped. “She said it.”
Craig’s gaze moved from the fresh paw print to the abandoned ATV, still lying on its side.
“Oh man,” he breathed. “You don’t suppose Colin…I mean, the bear was just here and…and now Colin’s… not.”
“You think Bambi Boy is bear bait?” Tony shuddered.
Petra’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh no!”
With a loud snapping of branches a large, brown body sprang out of the underbrush and landed on the trail in front of them.
“GAAAAAAAHHHH!” yelled all four friends.
The deer threw them a look of white-eyed terror and leaped away, vanishing into the forest in a single bound.
Tony clutched his chest. “Oh man,” he gasped. “I can see the headline now: ‘Twelve-year-old dies of heart attack after being ambushed by white-tailed deer.’”
“Come on!” Shawn urged. “Let’s get out of here.”
They ran.
But now bear-shaped shadows seemed to lurk behind every bush. Was that a paw with long, cruel claws reaching toward them…or just a gnarled branch? Was that a breeze blowing those leaves…or a bear’s hot breath? The trail rippled along the forest floor, caged in by a wall of tall, silent trees. Branches closed over their heads like interlocking fingers, shutting out the sky. The trail was changing.
Knee-deep weeds and ferns now obscured the dirt track. Craig tripped over a dead branch that lay hidden beneath the greenery. Tony stumbled in a rut. The air was hot and close.
“What I would give to have my water bottle right now,” moaned Petra. She rubbed the back of her hand across her dry, cracked lips.
“Look!” cried Craig. “Another path.” Another trail flowed through the forest, slicing across their own before vanishing again into the trees.
“Maybe that’s the way out,” said Shawn, leaning against a tree to catch his breath. They swerved off of the overgrown path onto the new trail. But a few minutes later, this track was bisected by yet another path that snuck off into the trees in an entirely different direction.
“Oh, brother,” said Craig. “Which way do we go now?”
“Which way is the wind blowing?” panted Petra, holding a stitch in her side.
“Eeny-meeny-miney-mo,” said Tony, picking a handful of grass, “please tell us which way to go.” He tossed the grass into the air. The green bits fluttered briefly before dropping back down around his feet. “Great,” said Tony. “There’s no more wind.”
“I have no idea where we are anymore,” said Petra, shaking her head.
“Or where the fire is,” added Shawn uneasily. Smoke wafted around them from all directions like a poisonous fog.
“Let’s go this way,” said Craig. He turned right, heading down a path with a decisive stride. The others jogged to catch up with him.
“Why this way?” Tony asked him as they ran through the never-ending trees.
Craig shrugged. “I dunno. I’m right-handed.”
Another path appeared and skittered out of sight around a mossy knoll, as if teasing them to follow. The kids stumbled to a stop and looked at it in confusion.
Tony groaned.
“It’s like being lost in a maze! Which way leads out?”
“Who makes all these paths?” wondered Craig.
Caw-caw-caw!
High above them, a flock of crows flapped overhead, cutting through the smoky air like black arrows. Through the treetops, the black shapes flitted in and out of sight, moving with remarkable speed. Petra stared at them. Suddenly, she jolted to life.
“We’ll follow the crows,” she yelled. “They’ll fly away from the fire, not into it! We can follow them to safety!”
“Petra, wait—” Shawn started to say. But Petra had already bolted into the forest. The boys sprinted after her. They raced pell-mell through the underbrush, crashing through bushes, scrambling up and down banks and gullies, dodging boulders and dead logs. But it was hopeless. The crows were gone. And so was the trail.
“Petra!” Shawn hollered, trying to catch up with the galloping girl. “Forget it! We can’t keep up with them. They’re gone!” But Petra didn’t slow down.
“I can still hear them!” she shouted back over her shoulder. “I can still—”
Shawn saw the danger before she did.
“Petra, STOP!” he roared. He launched himself into a flying football tackle. The impact caught Petra just above the hip. Down they went with a crash that knocked the breath out of both of them.
“What did you do that for?” Petra gasped. She struggled to get to her feet. “We have to follow the birds. We have to find a way out of here! We—”
Shawn held up his hand. Silently, he pointed to the ground. Right next to Petra, a gaping, black hole yawned out of the earth. She yelped in surprise and jerked back.
Just then, Craig and Tony caught up, skidding to a stop beside them.
“Holy cow!” exclaimed Tony in horrified amazement, looking at the hole. “Holy cow, that was close!”
Craig edged cautiously forward and looked down. He whistled. “Wow—do you think it goes all the way to China?”
“I don’t think I want to find out,” replied his brother, getting to his feet and offering a hand to Petra. “Sorry for tackling you so hard,” Shawn said as he pulled her upright. “Are you hurt?”
Petra shook her head wordlessly, still staring down into the black emptiness beside her.
Shawn nudged the ground at the mouth of the hole. A clod of dirt and rock crumbled away and fell into the unseen depths. Several heartbeats later, a faint splash echoed up from the darkness.
“Whoa,” said Tony.
“How deep would you say that is?” asked Craig.
“Fifteen metres, I guess,” said Shawn. “At least.”
“What is it?” asked Craig. “It doesn’t look like a sinkhole. For one thing, it’s kind of…square.”
“No,” said Petra, finding her voice at last. “It’s not a sinkhole. It’s a mine shaft. Look.” Now they noticed the rotting wooden beams showing through the soil and dirt. Although eroded with time, the walls of the hole were surprisingly regular, and sharply vertical—like an elevator shaft—plunging straight down into the earth.
“Man, don’t they know it’s dangerous to leave old mining shafts just lying around like that?” exclaimed Tony indignantly. “Somebody could break their neck!”
“Are there more of these holes just, uh, lying around?” asked Craig, looking around nervously.
“I don’t know,” said Petra with a shudder. “Maybe.”
Shawn looked at the mine shaft. “Hmmmm,” he said. “I wonder…”
“What?” Tony prodded him. But Shawn shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “I had a crazy idea, but it’s too dangerous. Forget it. Come on—let’s get out of here.”
Huddled close together now, the friends moved through the trees, eyes scanning the forest floor for any signs of holes, shafts, or collapsed tunnels.
“Did you notice there’s not so much smoke now?” said Craig after a few minutes.
Shawn nodded. “We must have put a bit of distance between us and the fire. Let’s hope we can keep it that way.”
At that moment there was a yelp and a splash. Shawn, Petra, and Craig spun around to see Tony thrashing about in a scum-covered bog. Shawn leaped towards his friend and hauled him onto solid ground. Snorting and gasping, Tony shook himself like a dog, spraying water everywhere.
“What happened?!” exclaimed Shawn, trying not to laugh at his bedraggled buddy.
“What does it look like? I fell in a puddle!” spluttered Tony.
“Must have been some puddle!” commented Craig. Tony was soaked from the neck down.
“C-c-c-cold!” chattered Tony. “And d-d-d-deep!”
“Hey, there’s another one here,” called Petra from a few metres away. She pointed to a small pool of brown water, half-hidden by weeds and low-hanging branches.
“There, too,” added Shawn, pointing out another boggy patch, its murky waters camouflaged by a green scum of algae and floating dead leaves.
“They’re everywhere,” exclaimed Craig, turning in a slow circle. “Where are we?”
“Welcome to the Pits of Despair,” answered a voice from the shadows.