“It’s him! It has to be him!” Miley says as she’s sprinting out of range of my flashlight.
“Miley, wait up for me!” I yell as she runs into the darkness. I kept running and calling her name for what felt like five minutes until I got to a four way junction in the tunnel. I flash my light in all directions, trying to stay quiet to listen for Miley. After a few seconds of echoes of her footsteps running and fading away, I decide to yell out for her, “Miley! Miley, where are you, which way did you go?”
I wait for a response as my voice echoes through the tunnel but after my voice dissipates, I hear a small voice that sounds very far away. I try to stand as still as possible, listening for what the voice was saying and also what direction it was coming from. It was closing in but I still couldn’t make out what it was saying. As it got closer, it became harder and harder to determine where the voice was coming from. It almost sounded like it was echoing out of all four directions at the junction, even behind me.
As I turn around, I hear the voice much clearer and it sounds like Miley. “Miles! I’m right here! Where did you go?” I attempt to communicate with her but I still can’t make out what she is saying. “ Miley just came to the four way junction, you had to have passed it!” I yell.
Out of the corner of my eye, to the left in the junction, I see someone standing there just watching me. It’s much too tall to be Miley so I don’t move my head in hopes of it staying there for me to observe what it is before it devours me. I give the figure a side eye but it notices and vanishes into the dark.
The voice is coming much faster now and it’s still coming from all four directions. I could hear what Miley was saying now, “It’s him! It has to be him!, It’s him! It has to be him!, It’s him it has to be him!”
It was Miley’s voice, but it was being repeated like a loop over and over. It was him. It had to be him. It was The QuarryMan.
This revelation disorients me and out of instinct, I place my hands around my head and crouch to protect my organs, waiting for the inevitable. He was going to take my tongue and my voice. As I wait for the pain to start, my mind starts racing.
This is how the little boy in the 1920’s would have felt when he got lost in these tunnels too. I wonder whose voice The QuarryMan imitated to get him in the tunnels. He was so young and I always thought it must’ve been his mom’s voice he used but that wouldn’t make sense. Why would his mom be in a dark tunnel in his grandfather’s quarry? That would probably scare him even more. No, it was probably his grandfather’s voice, promising a fun game that you can only play in the dark, beckoning his youthfulness with his calming, familiar voice. Maybe it was a worker at the quarry that the kid used to know who fell victim to this hellish tunnel monster. Whatever it was, it was coming after me, and I didn’t want to imagine what it could or would do to me.
I could hear the voice close to me but I refused to open my eyes, scared to see that thing, and it be the last thing I ever see. Miley’s repeating voice slowed down and I could feel its presence. I felt it coming from the three directions in front of me, slowly.
“Adam, I can hear you, where are you?” I hear Miley yell from behind me.
As soon as I heard her voice say something other than ‘It’s him! It has to be him!’ I felt like I was safe. That quickly faded as I heard what sounded like something running away in all the three directions in front of me when it approached me.
I opened my eyes and all I could see was darkness at first and then I remembered my flashlight so I frantically looked around as I sat on my bottom, amongst the loose dirt that was kicked up.
I look behind me and see that it’s my flashlight, illuminating the tunnel that was behind me.
“Adam? Adam, I could hear you and someone else, did you find someone?” Miley’s voice echoed down the slightly illuminated tunnel. The light could only see to the wall that was created because the tunnel made a sudden right turn as he faced it. “Adam, I can’t see anything! Please help me!” Miley yells again. I sit there frozen, not knowing if this is The QuarryMan or really Miley. If I yell back and it’s him, he’ll know where I am. But if I stay quiet and it’s Miley, she might get even more lost in these dark tunnels.
“Adam please.” She wails as she begins to cry out loud.
Hearing this made my heart drop. I realized that I was doomed either way so I went to yell back, but before I could make a noise, I saw Miley, crawling on her hands and knees around the corner. She looks up and we lock eyes. Her entire body is covered in dry dirt and her tears are making streaks down her face as it wets the thick layer of dirt that she had accumulated from crawling her way here.
Sitting there, I contemplated what to do for far too long as Miley collapsed from her position, not unconscious but defeated. I had no clue what she had been through but if it was anything like or worse than what just happened to me, she was likely hanging on by a thread.
Miley sobs, likely a mixture of relief of finding me with my flashlight and whatever terror she just endured.
After a few moments of processing what just happened, I crawled over to Miley and put my arm on her back as she sobbed. I sat there for as long as she needed to cry before I even attempted to come up with a plan.
That’s all I’m willing to talk about now but please write back, I enjoy our conversations.
Sincerely,
Adam Markin ——————————————————————————————————————————————- This is a letter I received from my prison pen pal, Adam Markin. His record shows that he’s in prison for kidnapping and the murder of two people.
When I first started writing to him, we exchanged pleasantries as one would, when conversing with a stranger. He was pleasant and unlike any other prison pen pal I’d ever written to, he was charismatic. A lot of people do these penpal things to look for a girlfriend after they get out or if they’re in for life, just someone to talk to and that’s why I go for the people who are in for life. Don’t get me wrong, some of the lifers look for sexual conversations but I usually report those and move on.
Adam though, he was different from any other person I have corresponded with through this program. After looking further into his case online, I found that it was shrouded in mystery. There wasn’t a whole lot of anything in the news about it and the only thing I can find about the trial was that he was found guilty and sentenced to life. For something to happen in such a small town like that, I figured there would be at least a little news on it. I call it a small ‘town’ but from the research i’ve done, Felton is just south of phoenix but right on the border enough for some to consider it Phoenix, hell, some people don’t even recognize the town as its own entity. The population is very low, and the house value is lower. After not finding a whole lot about his case, I decided to ask him. I knew it was a bold thing to ask and probably even rude, but I had written to enough criminals to know that they are mostly open to sharing what landed them in prison, unless it was a sexual crime or something to do with children. Those guys usually say something like, “I’m in for assault on an officer.” This is an easy excuse for having a long sentence and not wanting anyone to know why.
Adam was hesitant when I asked about his crimes but eventually he started to open up, little by little. I have two letters from him regarding the crimes and his possible explanation of his side of the story of what happened to the two people he is convicted of killing. The first one is what you just read. If anyone has any more information about this case, can you please let me know?
Thanks guys, peace.