The Dead Man: Kill Them All by William Lee; Rabkin Harry; Goldberg Shannon

CHAPTER ONE

    Near Dry Wells, Nevada
Friday, 8:12 a.m.

    “Help! Over here!”
    Matt Cahill shaded his eyes. Even this early in the morning the fierce Nevada sunshine slammed down like a giant metal press. The desert was flat and freckled with flat rocks. Clumps of blue sage sprouted here and there, tiny flowers open and gasping with thirst. Matt had jumped off a flatbed truck when the driver turned east, figuring he’d easily catch another ride, but no one had passed this way in more than an hour. He’d started walking and was completely lost. Now he wondered if he was also hearing things.
    “Help!”
    A male voice? Then Matt spotted the boy, who was jumping up and down, waving frantically. He also saw a shirtless, sunburned man in overalls nearby, walking in circles. He took in the two racing bicycles resting against the side of what appeared to be an old, boarded-up mine located on some scruffy ranch property. Matt dropped his backpack, his grandfather’s ax, and his worn bedroll and sprinted in that direction.
    He jogged past a sign that read “Kearns Property Leave Shit Here,” and as he got closer to the boy, the situation clarified itself. The redneck man was shouting and cursing, delusional or completely drugged out. He had some mining tools and bottles of water, ropes and a few sample sacks. Perhaps he’d been prospecting in the mine when something collapsed. The two bikes were top-of-the-line, the kind used for long distances.
    One of the riders was missing.
    Panting, Matt arrived at the spot. The boy, a thin kid with freckles, wasn’t as young as Matt had first thought, maybe late teens. He had been crying. “She’s down there, my kid sister is down there. Do you have a cell phone, mister? I called our dad for help, but mine just up and died. I’m not even sure he heard me.”
    Matt shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t. What happened?”
    The boy said, “We were daring each other, just screwing around. My kid sister went down in there as a joke and something collapsed. Now I can hear her calling for help, but there’s no way down.”
    “No way down?” Matt looked at the miner, a wreck of a human with missing teeth. “How do you get down in there, friend?”
    The man screamed and batted at his own clothing. Speed freak, maybe. He looked useless. Spit flew from his mouth.
    The kid said, “I tried to crawl in, but it’s straight down—something fell apart. This old bastard won’t tell me what to do.”
    Matt stepped closer and looked into the mine shaft. The kid was right: behind the ring of rocks, everything just dropped away, but he heard the girl calling for help. Matt stepped back, evaluating. The miner had a lot of equipment, much of it modern. He’d clearly been down below many times. There were small cutting tools, extra-strength ropes, and a pair of night-vision goggles. The guy was just too stoned to help. Matt walked closer, but the miner grabbed a claw hammer and threatened him.
    “Easy, old-timer. Are you Mr. Kearns? Look, I just need to borrow some of your gear,” Matt said.
    “The fuck back!” Kearns bellowed as he swung the hammer at Matt’s head. Matt stepped inside the blow, knocked it up and away with his left hand, and punched twice, once over the heart and once in the side of the neck. Kearns sank to his knees, red faced and retching.
    “Stand back. What’s your name?” Matt said to the freckle-faced kid.
    “Jeb Pickens.”
    “Jeb, you keep an eye on that crazy son of a bitch. If you have to, hit him in the balls with something.”
    Matt Cahill grabbed some rope and a bottle of water from the miner’s stash. He examined the night-vision goggles, which seemed easy enough to work, so he took them, too. He moved quickly to the mine entrance. Here goes…
    Matt secured the rope to a boulder near the entrance, then lowered himself into the cool, dark mine. The air thickened…small things scuttled away…a rattler stirred and expressed annoyance. Matt tried to move slowly