The Hole Read Free Page B

the sound of water dropping into the new chasm told him it was of some depth. The pond no longer existed. In its place was a huge muddy hole that even now was falling in at the edges, soft clay soil seeping farther into the gaping hole.
    Fred shifted his weight, and the septic tank lurched to one side alarmingly before settling again.
    “Get some rope,” he said to Hopman. “And you’d better do it quick.”
    Hopman complied this time, and moved away out of sight. Fred made sure that they were in no immediate danger of toppling backward into the hole, and checked on Charlie. The older man was out cold, his face white with only a high patch of color on each cheek. The wound at his brow looked superficial, although it was still bleeding, and he was breathing, fast and shallow, but breathing.
    “Stay with me, Charlie,” Fred whispered. “You’re the only friend I’ve got in this town.”
    Hopman came back seconds later.
    “Grab hold,” he shouted, and threw down, not a rope, but a long length of exterior electric cabling. Fred had to shift his footing to get it wrapped under Charlie’s armpits, and his heart thudded faster as the septic tank slid back a foot before coming to a stop. He tied the cable in a knot he prayed was strong enough to hold.
    “Okay, take him up,” he shouted. He hoisted Charlie’s weight as long as he could while Hopman took the strain. As Hopman started to haul Charlie up, Fred stepped off the tank and tried to climb the bank to keep pace. There was a crash behind him. He turned in time to see the septic tank fall away out of sight. The thud as it hit bottom seemed to take a long time to come.
    Then Fred was in a scramble for his life as the soil sloughed away beneath his hands and feet. He slid back three feet before he caught purchase, his legs swinging over empty air.
    He looked down.
    The hole fell away into a dark pit far below. Something moved down there, something large and pale, but it was gone before he could make out what it was. He grabbed at a thick root, half expecting it to give way beneath his weight. But to his surprise and relief it held, long enough for him to clamber away from the lip of the hole and roll aside; traversing the rest of the muddy bank in a zigzag crawl that brought him within range of Hopman’s reaching hand.
    He took it gratefully, and let the man pull him up onto the lawn where he lay beside Charlie’s unconscious body, gasping in air, wondering what had just happened, and wiping away a fresh nosebleed.

 
     
     
    4
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Janet Dickson had just realized that all of her patients that morning were from the east side of town. She decided that the sheriff needed to know, and was reaching for the phone when Fred Grant arrived in the waiting room, half carrying Charlie Watson. The older man had blood seeping from a scalp wound and looked to be unsteady on his feet. She put the phone down and moved quickly to help. She couldn’t miss noticing the rank smell that hung around the men, but ignored it as she helped Fred get Charlie to the treatment room.
    “I’m fine,” the wounded man said and tried to push them away. “Ain’t nothing a little Jack won’t cure.”
    “I’ll be the judge of that,” Janet said. She finally persuaded the older man to sit on one of the gurneys, and set about trying to clean the wound.
    “It’s a nasty cut. What happened to you?” she asked.
    It was Fred who replied.
    “John Hopman’s septic tank fell on him,” he said, deadpan.
    Janet almost laughed but stopped when she saw he was serious. And she was now also intrigued, so she let Fred stay while she stitched Charlie up, the story unfolding as she did so. “It’s a big hole?” she asked as both the story and the stitching came to a conclusion.
    Fred nodded.
    “And getting bigger by the looks of things. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Hopman house isn’t at risk before the day is out.”
    “Any idea what’s caused it?”
    “Nope,”