Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 67263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
I lowered my view and glanced at Boris.
He leaned against the frozen wall and snored.
At least, he can get some sleep. He was probably dealing with a lot of pain.
I turned back to Jean-Pierre. He returned to staring at the skeletons getting closer to him. He looked to be in a worse dilemma. His lips shook. His head too. He had his soaking wet arms wrapped around himself as if he were trying to hug away the cold.
“God, I can change. I can change.” I closed my eyes and screamed, “I can change!”
Then, the rain stopped. It was like. . .someone flipped a switch. Maybe, it had already been lessoning and I wasn’t paying attention due to my conversation with God.
Or maybe. . .
Like a madman, I grinned at the hole. “You heard me? You came through?”
I laughed.
Jean-Pierre shifted his gaze to me.
“You’re the man, God.” I chuckled. “You really are the truth! You are!”
Boris woke up and turned my way.
“We just. . .” I let out a long shivering breath. “We just need to find a way to survive until the morning.”
Shaking, Jean-Pierre spoke, “We are not staying in this hole tonight.”
Boris turned his way. “No?”
“I have an idea.” Jean-Pierre wiped dripping water from his nose. “We break those skeletons and use the strongest bones to climb up the dirt wall. We can stick them in the wall. It could give us a good grip to raise our bodies up.”
I gazed at the floating skeletons. “That shit seems so disrespectful.”
“It’s survival.” Jean-Pierre grabbed the skeleton with no jaw and then he drew an invisible cross in front of him. “Their souls are somewhere else.”
Boris eyed him. “Where?”
With determination in his eyes, Jean-Pierre yanked the arm away from the skeleton’s shoulder with a loud snap. “Where what?”
Boris sighed. “Where are their souls?”
Jean-Pierre’s expression shifted to sadness. He broke the arm into two pieces. “I don’t know.”
I rose from the water and walked over to the other skeleton. “You really think this will work?”
“I have no idea.”
Boris nodded. “It’s going to work. And. . .if I can’t climb up. . .go without me.”
“We don’t leave people behind, Boris.” I drew a holy cross in the air like Jean-Pierre and picked up a floating skeleton. The bones were cold and slimy in my hands.
Then, I followed the Butcher's plan, knowing secretly that it probably wouldn't work.
Better to try, then to sit and cry.
I didn’t know how much time passed, but we separated arms and legs and shattered the skeletons rib cages with large rocks we’d found within the muddy pool around our bodies. The misbegotten skulls and broken bits of bones floated on the water. We undressed a little. Our wet suit jackets and shirts were piled in the corner.
And we continued working.
Night came.
Jean-Pierre pounded large bones into the damp walls with a rock. Mud smeared his face. I helped where I could. Some of the bones slipped out the dirt, yet most remained.
Still, I wasn’t sure the bones could hold our weight or even help. In fact, I didn’t think Jean-Pierre thought so anymore either.
Maybe, we just needed something to do, some form of hope to cling too.
Perhaps, the trying and thinking we could get out, would be enough to escape the hole we’d fallen in.
"Alright." Jean-Pierre stepped back and stared at the muddy wall of bones. Tons of human bones stuck out of the mud, jutting at all angles. Femurs and ribs, bits of pelvises and skulls.
My stomach knotted. "Now what?"
"We climb to freedom." Jean-Pierre grabbed one and tried to lift his body up. Fast, the bones slipped out. He fell back, splashing water around us.
I looked down at him. “Do you want me to try?”
Defeat covered Jean-Pierre's face. Rage burned in his eyes. He opened his mouth and a dark, ragged scream tore from his throat, so loud, the noise vibrated through me and the water rippled. So loud, a flock of startled birds whooshed past the hole. It was the sound of agony and suffering pride.
I looked up at the hole’s opening and screamed with him.
Soon Boris joined in, wailing his grief to the sky. The noise echoed along the hole’s walls.
We were mad men, deranged and lost. Sad and abandoned knowing we were at the end of our lives.
However, sometime in between our screams a metal chain ladder appeared.
Clink.
Jean-Pierre and Boris continued to scream.
Clink.
I stopped as the ladder lowered.
Who is this? Are we being saved?
Splashing water, I rushed to Jean-Pierre and shook him. “Wait."
He screamed again.
I hit his arm and pointed up. "Look. You see that or am I imagining things.”
Boris ceased with screaming and widened his eyes. “Can you see who is lowering it?”
“I don’t care.” Jean-Pierre jumped up, almost dragging me down. “I’ve got to get out of here! I can’t take this anymore!”
"But, wait!" I hurried and grabbed his arm.