Day 81 - Sinkhole

 Sinkhole 

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

A sinkhole in the woods had revealed the caverns underneath. A person needed to rappel in order to explore. Once enough had done so, it was understood that there was no great secret to be discovered, no hidden wealth of minerals or ores, no forgotten history of moonshiners or ancient ancestors, nothing of explicit note.  

The nearby town did enough exploration to determine any risks and evaluate the surrounding areas. They moved to stabilize things and prevent further collapse, but didn’t think it was possible or worth it to try and fill much of the underlying caverns. The caverns were in the woods and the town didn’t seem to be growing with any great speed. They worked on a simple drainage plan and promised to revisit things during the next fiscal year. Somehow there were never enough funds and time moved on anyway. Parents warned their children about playing in the woods, but people grew up and forgot.

The boys always played pranks on Richard. He was used to it. He had grown to expect it and treated it like a fact of life. He had grown so accustomed to it, there was no reason not to assume it was a prank when new terrible things occurred.

One night Calvin went missing. The boys had been playing a form of tag out in the woods that involved determining who needed to run from the main group. Most times if you were caught, little could happen. Sometimes it resulted in a bit or wrestling or roughhousing. Sometimes worse. A few black eyes and bruises, and parents would shake their heads the next day and say things like boys will be boys. It was never much worse than ripped clothes or mud stains. Certainly no one had ever gone missing before.

The searches continued daily, but no signs of Calvin were found. The boys were forbidden to go back to the woods at night, but did so anyway. Richard was scared and didn’t want to go, but he felt bad about Calvin and the other boys preyed upon his empathy and made him feel guilty not to go out and search.

Richard fell behind and lost his way after getting turned around and losing his sense of direction. Growing frightened, he ran and ended up tripping and rolling down a hill. Embarrassed, in pain, he began to limp in the direction he thought was home. He knew the other boys would tease him the next day, but he didn’t care. He was tired and hurt and wanted his mother.

Through a sheer accident of fate, Richard stumbled upon a bag left behind. After he opened it, he stumbled back in fear, and his foot sank into the soft soil behind him. Suddenly, half his body was sinking down. He grabbed for anything to steady himself, tugging at branches as he fell back. It was awkward and his body bent as one leg sank and the other stayed above ground. His hamstrings tugged and he was worried some tendon would tear or snap as his pelvis pulled apart. He was sure something had torn as his entire torso and right leg screamed out in bent agony.

But luck, if there was such a thing, was enough on his side that Richard did not sink entirely into the depths below. His night was long and exhausting, but he would eventually pull himself back out and away from the sinkhole.

The next day, a search party of adults found him crawling through the woods. They located the hole and the bag that had been the cause of his catastrophe. They studied the hole, and looked for signs of a way Calvin could have fallen into the caverns below. Aside for Richard’s accident, there was no other obvious entrance. What was more troubling was what they found in the bag. Bones, human, but adult. No sign of Calvin anywhere.