Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Holding my breath to ease my gag reflex, I move back toward the stones, pausing to study them in the brighter light of my own lamp. There’s no dust or anything down here in the cave, nothing to hint at how long ago these stones might have been gathered.
They don’t look like something that’s been lying in wait for over a hundred years, but I can’t know for sure. Time passes in strange ways inside caves and underground. It’s why so many archeological finds are discovered in places like this, places protected from the elements that damage artifacts left in the open air.
“Any bad vibes?” Tessa asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.” I reach for the stone on top, letting my fingers linger on the rough edges for a beat before I shift it gently to one side.
“Still good?” she asks again, making me laugh. “Sorry, I’m excited. If we actually find something, we only have to feel half as embarrassed about getting scared by bats and covered in poop.”
I glance up at her over my shoulder. “Shit? Did you fall in the shit, too?”
“Oh yeah. Covered in the stuff,” she says. “But on the upside, I caught myself before I came sliding into the hole after you. And I found your phone when I fell.”
My brows shoot up as I touch my pants, realizing my cell isn’t tucked into my back pocket where it usually is.
“Don’t worry, it’s fine,” she says. “I mean, it’s filthy, but not broken.”
My shoulders relax. “Good. Thanks.”
“No problem.” She makes a disgusted sound I feel at the back of my throat. “I think we’re going to need showers before the emergency room. Surely, as long as we get the shots sometime tonight, we’ll be fine, right? Do they still make you get a circle of rabies shots in your stomach? Or is that an urban legend?”
“I’m not sure,” I say, turning back to the stones. “But I can look it up on my phone once we have cell service. I had two bars for most of our ride.”
“Good idea,” she says as I begin to dismantle the pile in earnest, shifting larger and larger rocks to one side. “I should have brought my phone, but it wouldn’t have done us much good. Since Freya unplugged the charger last night.” She makes a worried sound. “I hope she’s okay. And won’t be too mad at us for showing up stinking of bat poop and then leaving again. But I can’t take a ferret to the emergency room, not even on a leash. Sorry, I know I’m babbling. I’m just nervous. Logically, I know this isn’t the part of the movie where the intrepid adventurers make the mistake of continuing to pursue the treasure, even after they should have run away—we’re not in a movie; this is real life—but my gut is screaming that we’re about to be attacked by hungry outlaw ghosts.”
I grunt, not wanting to admit out loud that I’m feeling the same way. Instead, I ask, “What would outlaw ghosts be hungry for?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “But it wouldn’t be something we’d be keen on giving them. Probably our blood or our souls. Maybe the skin on our faces. I have an irrational fear of losing the skin on my face.”
“I think that’s a perfectly rational fear. It would be really unpleasant to live without skin on any part of your body, especially your face,” I say, my pulse picking up as I near the bottom of the pile, and something dark gray and smoother than the stones comes into view.
I move faster, depositing the rest of the rocks in the new pile as Tessa asks, “What is it? Is there something there?”
I take a beat, catching my breath before I shift to one side, letting her headlamp beam fall on what we’ve discovered.
She sucks in a breath. “Am I crazy or is that an antique lockbox?”
I smile. “You’re not crazy. I think we might have just found Butch Cassidy’s long-lost treasure.”
Tessa emits a soft squeal that makes me laugh. “Should we open it? Or take it outside first? I’m putting on a brave face, but honestly, I’m ready to get back out into the sun, where me and the bats have more room to stay away from each other than we do down here.”
I try pushing the buttons on the front of the box, but they’re rusty with age and the lid remains firmly closed. “I can’t open it. It’s either stuck or we need some kind of combination. I’ll put it in my pack and we can work on it later.”
“Sounds good,” she says, squealing softly again as I slide my backpack off my shoulders and angle the large rectangular box inside. It’s made of some kind of iron and isn’t light by any means, but I think the nylon fabric will hold long enough for us to get back to camp. “Could be slipping in poop was the best thing that happened to us today!”