Free Inhabited by Ike Hamill Page A

it to his forehead.  
    “What was it?”
    Joy glanced back at the hole and then took Travis’s hand. She pointed her light at his fingers and then back up to his head. Travis squinted against the light.
    “Let me see,” Kristin said. “Carlos, you look.”
    “That’s a chemical burn,” Carlos said. Travis had a red spot on his forehead where the skin had been burned. The spot was about the size of a dime.
    “Yeah,” Joy said. “I think so too. I think that powder is like lye or something. I think it burned your face when it touched the water.”
    Travis coughed and then sneezed before he could speak again. “So why did you pour more water on then?”
    “Oh,” Joy said. She was still holding the bottle. She showed it to Travis. “It’s soda. I figured the acid might neutralize.”
    “Maybe it just washed the powder away,” Justin said. He took the bottle of soda from Joy and walked back towards the hole.
    “How does it feel?” Kristin asked.  
    “It’s okay now,” Travis said. “It still hurts, but it’s not terrible.” He dabbed again with the rag.
    “Didn’t it hurt your finger too?” Kristin asked.
    “No,” Travis said, holding out his hand. “Why didn’t it hurt my… Fuck!” He scooted forward on his butt.
    “What?” Joy asked.
    Travis looked down and smiled. “Nothing. I burned myself on the lamp.” The headlamp on his helmet was still burning. Travis had grazed it. He picked up the helmet and set it gingerly down on his head, careful to wear it at an angle where it didn’t get close to his forehead.
    “We’re going to have to be really careful,” Justin said from over at the hole.
    They looked over to him. He had used a chunk of rock to scrape away the compressed powder from the perimeter of the hole. There was a spot of it on the back of his hand. Justin wiped it carefully on his shirt.  
    “You’ve got to be kidding,” Joy said. “I’m not going through there.”
    “Then this is where we split up,” Miguel said. He hunched over and ducked through the hole.

Chapter Nine — Lost

    “D O YOU SEE THIS ?” she asked. Florida jabbed her finger at the wall.
    “All I’m saying is that we can’t be sure we took the right path.”
    Roger looked down each of the tunnels. They were at a four-way intersection of identical tunnels.
    “Do you see this?”
    “I mean, think about it,” Roger said.
    “Is there any chance you’re going to answer me?” She thrust her finger at the wall again.  
    “Yes. Yes. I see it. Big deal. Why is that the point?”
    “These holes were made by you with that tool. There used to be a drop-stamp here on the wall. That means that we came through here.”
    Roger tried to diffuse her frustration by staying slow and calm. “Hear me out, would you? Can I just finish a thought before you jump in? All I’m saying is this—when we came down the shaft, there was no flag to point us in the return direction. Because there was no flag, we could have gotten turned around and gone the wrong direction.”
    She was equally as slow, but her voice didn’t sound calm. “If we had gone the wrong direction, then we wouldn’t have found this spot where a drop-stamp used to be.”
    “Maybe those holes are from something else. Maybe a team from a previous year made them,” he offered.
    “This is the first year Dr. Grossman has used drop-stamps affixed to walls, and this rock oxidizes quickly. See this color difference when I chip away part of the wall?” she asked. She illustrated by jamming their tool into the side of the tunnel. “That color will change over time. From what Dr. Grossman said, it only takes a month for this color to fade to that color. And you would know this if you had paid even the slightest amount of attention.”
    Roger didn’t reply right away. He wanted to master his anger first. “Please don’t try to lay blame for us being lost at my feet. It wasn’t my idea to climb up to see that noose.”
    “Stop changing the subject.