The Balkan Escape (Short Story) Read Free

loud crack split the air as a chunk the size of a Mercedes slammed down and disintegrated into boulders.
    She shielded her eyes, then peered through a veil of dust.
    Her mind was keeping count. Probably less than ten seconds. She whipped the beam to the left, then right, and spotted a smile forming in the remaining wall that was quickly expanding into a yawn.
    She made a decision and leaped.
    Another blast pulsated the mountain.
    Behind her, the entire tunnel vanished but the crush of rock onto rock became muffled by a barrier of rubble, sealing off the hole that had existed only moments before.
    Rumbles continued for another minute, then faded.
    She lay on her stomach and held her breath.
    Absolute darkness devoured her.

    She exhaled and tried the flashlight.
    The bulb still worked.
    She examined her prison. The chamber was not tall enough to allow her to stand, maybe a meter and a half, the ceiling and floor slanted upward. To her dismay she was trapped inside a long, narrow box sealed at both ends. Her wet clothes were caked in dust, as were her face and hair.
    She cleansed her lips with a spew of breath.
    The air was breathable, but motes of dust hung thick like a blizzard.
    She worked the flashlight around the confines and forced any negativity from her mind. The suspended dust bounced the photons back at her like tiny stars. She swiped a clear spot of air where she could breathe.
    And noticed something.
    She stretched out her hand and gently probed the beam.
    No, it wasn’t her imagination.
    The particles were moving—slowly, nearly imperceptibly, but definitely shifting to the right.
    She belly-crawled forward.
    The floor sloped toward the ceiling. At the end of the chamber the floor gave way and, a few centimeters down into the blackness, she spotted a slit, a good meter long and a third that high. Rock filled the space, but not tightly. She hinged her torso down and peered through the opening. Dark beyond, but it looked like a crawl space, large enough for her to fit into.
    More movement in the air encouraged her.
    She tried to dislodge the rubble. The stones were stacked loosely, but held firm. She swung around so her legs stretched forward and slammed the soles of her boots into the stones.
    Three whacks and the rock gave away.
    She cleared a path and saw that the space was negotiable. What encouraged her even more was that the air had freshened. She was proud of herself for staying calm. Tight places, though, had never been her weakness. Heights, especially from airplanes and helicopters, bothered her. She had a rule. If she couldn’t run around in it, she didn’t fly in it. Unfortunately, time after time that rule seemed to be violated. Trouble had a way of following her. One thing after another. Today seemed a perfect example.
    She crawled forward on her elbows and wiggled down into an even smaller space. Her beam revealed another rectangular path, less than a meter square, which stopped a few meters ahead. In the floor, at the far end, she spotted yet another opening.
    She worked her way forward on her elbows and peered down to see a drop, at an angle, like the laundry chute she recalled from her childhood home. The path then appeared to rise again, and she noticed dust drifting that way.
    Could she make it over the hump?
    Becoming stuck did not sound pleasant.
    She folded herself forward to where the rock angled back up. The space seemed wide enough so she wiggled over and pointed the flashlight downward, spotting a rock floor about two meters away littered with lichens.
    Freedom?
    She curled over the hump and slid head first, hands extended forward, from her confines.
    Her body came free.
    She stood in what appeared to be a tunnel—roomy, long, extending in both directions—and brushed dust from her clothes.
    She sucked a few deep breaths.
    A light appeared to her right and grew in intensity. In the ambient glow she saw Lev Sokolov.
    She readied a fist.
    But released it when a gun appeared in the