Page 47 of So Insane

“Because Benny ran off twenty-two years ago,” Diller explained. “Hasn’t been seen since.”

“What happened?” Michael asked.

“Well, he didn’t like my brand of discipline, I suppose. George and Carol were too soft on him, let him get away with anything. When he moved in with me, I told him I wasn’t going to allow that. He was going to do what he was told, or he was going to feel the end of my belt. I guess he didn't like that. He stuck around a few months before he ran off. I never heard from him again. My guess is he's somewhere out California way where everyone thinks it's all peace and love and rainbows."

“You don’t think he might have gone into the mines, do you?”

“If he did, then he’s nothing more than bones now,” Diller replied. “I don’t truck with none of that ghost nonsense, but people are right to be afraid. I guess I made that clear enough. I won’t say it again.”

“So you don’t think it’s possible he could still be alive and living in the mines?”

Diller looked at her in amazement. “That what they teach you in FBI school?”

“Just answer the question, please.”

"Is the answer not obvious? Come on, agent. How would he survive? Even assuming he didn't fall face-first down the nearest mine shaft, how would he eat? How would he find fresh water? How would he do anything? And how would people not have seen him in twenty-two years?"

“A lot of the mine is unexplored since the collapse,” Faith replied, “and there are nearly twenty miles of natural caves not mapped.”

“So he just hangs out in the dark eating bats and drinking from underground pools? No, he's not there, and neither is anyone else. Not for any length of time anyway. If you got a killer in there, then all you gotta do is wait. He'll come out eventually. Or he'll never come out, and the mountains will have taken care of him for you."

“I’d rather not wait for that,” Faith said. “Not while people are still at risk.”

“You want to end the risk? Close the damned thing. If there’s one thing all people have in common, it’s that they’re stupid. The only way to keep people from dying in those caves is to seal the entrances so they can’t get in in the first place. Otherwise, you won’t need a serial killer to account for their dead bodies.”

Faith and Michael shared another look. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Diller,” Michael said, standing and handing him a card. “We’d appreciate it if you stayed in town for a while.”

“Where the hell else am I gonna go?” he said. “Ain’t nothing out there for me.”

***

They made it just back to town when the call came. “We have two more missing,” Jones said, “a couple of kids from Brightwater. The sheriff there just called me.”

“Shit,” Faith said. She put the phone on speaker and said, “Go ahead, Jones.”

“Francis Cole and Shawna Leavenworth. Both twenty-four. They run a video blog about haunted places. I guess they were planning to do a bit on the mines. They were supposed to check in with a friend of theirs last night, and they never did. Aren’t answering their phones either.”

“When were they last seen?”

"Well, the last time anyone saw them, they were on their way here. That was last night around ten o'clock or so. They were supposed to check in with their friend at eleven, but they didn't. I'm on route to the mine entrance with a few officers."

“We’ll meet you there,” Faith said.

She hung up and said, “Well, that rules out Diller.”

“You think we have a chance to reach these ones alive?” Michael asked. “Maybe the killer hasn’t found them yet.”

Faith thought it just as likely that they had eloped to Canada, but she didn't reply. Michael turned down one of the dirt paths that branched off from Breaker's Ridge Road and headed for the mountain. The old Bronco jumped and bounced along the washboard road, and Michael swore a few times when a particularly large bump caused his head to bump into the roof of the SUV.

Faith kept her eye on the looming shape of the mountains as they approached. They looked bleak and forbidding, and in the light of the thin crescent moon, they seemed like enormous shadows. She could understand now why so many cultures associated deities both benevolent and malevolent with mountains.

And why other cultures associated devils with what lay underground.

They reached the mine just before three o’clock. Jones and three uniformed officers stood next to an old Ford pickup parked just outside of the mine. When the three agents reached them, Jones pointed at the front of the truck at two strands of fishing line tied to the truck’s tow hooks.

“Looks like they tied themselves to the truck so they could find their way back, but—” he pulled on one of the lines, and it moved easily. “Something cut the line.”

“Have you sent anyone inside yet?” Faith asked.

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