THE EXPLORERS

David hammered the pedals of his bike as he tried to get the tears to stop flowing.

The turn to the county park lay just ahead on Route 4, which had a narrow shoulder that gave him a blast of hot air each time a car would roar by. For a moment, as he thought about turning left, he wondered if he could time it just right so a huge truck was coming in the opposite direction and couldn’t stop in time.

But the traffic going north was calm, and there was a long enough break in the cars to make the left turn easily. His bike clattered as it went off the smooth pavement and onto the dirt road.

He picked up as much speed as he could, feeling the anger and humiliation still clinging to his body like a wet coat.

David pedaled through the parking lot and onto one of the trails that led to the mountain. His muscles burned as he channeled his feelings straight to his legs as he pushed his way into the woods.

He knew where he was going.

A left turn on a rocky trail brought him to a steep, narrow path. Before long he had a view of Los Gatos and could even see the middle school where the latest humiliation had taken place. His thoughts began to chant and scream at him.

Why didn’t you stop him? Why didn’t you say anything? What are you some kind of a wimp?

He rolled past a flattened wooden sign that pointed toward the Orchard View Trail. He continued on and turned left out of the trees and into a small clearing covered in fallen pine needles and huge pine cones.

Just to his right stood a rusty mine car that sat on weathered rails. Twenty feet away was the side of the mountain and the east entrance to the Los Gatos Silver Mine. There was at least one other entrance to the mine elsewhere in the huge park but risks of cave-ins and methane gas - plus the fact the parks department made sure to keep the entrances closed and locked to visitors - kept people out.

But not David.

He knew this entrance. So did some of the other kids at his middle school and the high school. Even though the entrance was open, most of the time kids would come up to that spot in the mountain, drinking or smoking while sitting on and around the mine car and occasionally daring one another to go inside. Not that many kids were brave enough to do it, but some of the ones that did drew clumsy-looking maps of their efforts and hid them outside the entrance to help others.

Still wiping away tears, David stopped the bike and flipped down the kickstand. He walked over to a rusty metal bucket just outside the mine entrance and pulled it away. Sure enough, on the back of an old auto repair receipt was a crude map of the tunnels. It wasn’t very thorough, but it did show the location of what he was looking for: the shaft.

Before his best friend John had moved away the previous summer, they took flashlights and explored the tunnels together. They found the mine shaft - which had been helpfully labeled DANGER on the crudely drawn map - after about fifteen minutes. David remembered picking up a stone just next to one of the wooden support beams and dropping it while John held both flashlights. The amount of time that passed between the moment David dropped the stone and the sound of it hitting the bottom seemed to be hours.

More and more, during the lonely time in the seventh and eighth grade without his best friend, David would think about that spot. As scary as it was, it was also peaceful in a way, and he would occasionally imagine leaving his house or the school, heading up the mine shaft, and jumping inside.

It would be there they couldn’t bully him any more.

David looked over his shoulder at his bicycle and then back into the mine. He then tore a corner off the auto repair receipt and, on the rear rack of his bike, scribbled a note. A teardrop landed on the paper as he signed his name. He then stuffed the note between two brake cables on his handlebars.

David walked up to the entrance, holding the map. As he stepped between the rails and into the mine, he brought out his cell phone and found the flashlight.

He followed the map and in less than a minute, the light from Los Gatos vanished behind him. He passed one tunnel on his left and another on his right.

After several more footsteps, David began to wonder if he had somehow made a wrong turn or missed the entrance, but then he realized the map wasn’t drawn to scale.

Another tunnel was coming up on his left. Sure it would lead to the mine shaft. David made the turn and began to walk faster. The tears began to dry in the cool air. He wiped away what was left and his breath echoed in the darkness.

He kept going. The support beams of the tunnel seemed to be placed every eight feet, and the more he walked the more he felt he would be walking for eternity. Eventually, the tracks at his feet disappeared, but he paid it no mind. It had been drawn on the map.

He continued on and was just beginning to wonder how much further it was to the shaft when he came to a three-way split in the tunnel. A set of rusty tracks crossed his path.

David blinked at the sight and consulted the map. The mine shaft was the only thing that was drawn on the third tunnel, and he distinctly remembered it was the entire width. How could he have passed it?

He looked to his left and saw the tracks leading into darkness and a rusty mine car sitting silently. To the right the tracks continued but seemed to head downward.

David shook his head, reasoning he must have somehow forgotten about the split in the tunnel. But surely he’d remember the sight of another mine car, wouldn’t he?

David crossed the tracks and kept walking along the bare, sandy ground. Occasionally, he glanced behind him at the tracks as they disappeared from sight.

A bat screeched in his face and he dove for the ground, dropping his phone and smothering the flashlight. Darkness like he had never seen before surrounded him. As the sound of the bat faded away he got hold of his phone and reactivated the flashlight.

On his hands and knees in the tunnel he stared in bafflement. Had he turned completely around?

David walked in the direction where he thought the tracks and the mine car were, but after a few minutes he realized he must be walking away from them.

He stopped and shone the flashlight ahead. The tunnel split once again to the right, and he was presented with another set of tracks.

David cursed silently and consulted the map. He must have taken the wrong tunnel. He was sure of it.

He turned and walked back in the direction he had come from, keeping an eye on the support beams above in case there was another bat. But he then came to a wooden alcove lined with rotted shovels he hadn’t noticed before.

David looked around and his shoulders fell. He was lost.

He kept walking and came to the three-way split once again. David pointed the flashlight to the right but to his astonishment he saw nothing but bare, empty rails that headed up into the darkness.

He pointed the flashlight left. An old mine car sat twelve feet away in the darkness.

It was on the right, wasn’t it?

“Hey!” a faraway-sounding voice called from the tunnel. “Is someone there? Hello!”

Startled, David dropped his phone once again, and again the light went off.

“Hello!” the voice said again. “Is someone there?”

David finally got hold of his phone and reactivated the flashlight. His heart pounded as he listened.

“Hello! I need help! Please!”

David brought the flashlight up and was almost reassured when he saw the mine car blocking most of the tunnel. The voice was coming from the darkness behind it, and, after a moment, David saw what he was sure was the tip of a far-off flashlight.

He stayed still and thought about the voice. It didn’t sound at all like one of his bullies. It sounded like someone who was very scared. David glanced down the tunnel where he was sure he needed to go to find the mine shaft and then back toward the source of the voice.

“Hey,” David called, wincing at the echo of his own voice.

The response was immediate. “Hello? HELP!”

David took one more look at the tunnel from where he had come and headed down the tracks, squeezing past the mine car, and into more darkness. As he stepped on the railroad ties, he studied the walls more carefully than he did before, hoping to notice some landmarks.

A yellow flicker of light was ahead. “Hello!” The voice was definitely that of a young boy. “Hey! Is someone there?”

“I’m here,” David said as he stepped forward into another junction. This one was much larger than the last and had three mine cars lined up on one side. There were four other tunnels - three of which had tracks - that led in all directions.

He shined his phone flashlight toward the ground and illuminated a shape up ahead. David looked up and saw a boy with a mop of dark hair and a striped shirt with a wrinkled collar.

“Hi, I’m…David. Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m so glad I found someone!” The boy said. “I’m Charles. Charles Kelley. I’m really lost. And my batteries are going.”

David looked at the large, silver-colored flashlight the boy was holding in his hand. A tinny bulb blinked and yellow light emerged. When the light hit the walls David could see just how scared the boy, who looked about his age, really was.

“Uh, I don’t know how much help I can be,” David said, glancing around the cavern. “I got a little turned around too.”

“Can I stay with you until we get out?” Charles asked, pointing to his flashlight with his free, trembling hand. “If this goes out I don’t know what I’ll do.”

David glanced at his phone. He had 21% battery life remaining and turned down the screen brightness.

“Alright,” David said, pointing over his shoulder. “I came up from the east entrance which I’m pretty sure is back this way.”

“I don’t want to go that way,” Charles said, shaking his head vigorously. “The follower was up there.”

“What?”

“The follower. He was with me while I was in the park, and he followed me into the tunnel. Every time I looked back, he was there. I think I may have finally gotten ahead of him.”

“What is he? Some kind of a playground creep?” David asked.

“I don’t know,” Charles said. “I just know I need to get away. I thought I could lose him in the tunnels but my map isn’t any good.”

With a trembling hand, Charles held up something that looked like it had been torn from a newspaper. In the white space of a cigarette advertisement that showed a man in old clothing was a badly drawn map. The word ‘North’ was scribbled on the top.

“I didn’t know there was a north entrance,” David said.

“No, it’s always been open. Now, which way should we go? Not that way, though.”

“Well, I know the west entrance is a lot lower down the mountain than the north, so if we head more downhill, we should eventually find it.”

“Okay,” Charles said, nodding. “Can we find it now?”

David took a deep breath and started down one of the tunnels that felt like it would be the right one. Charles followed him with his flickering flashlight.

“Do you remember any of this?”

“No,” Charles said, glancing behind them as they walked. “All I remember, just past the entrance an old wheelbarrow was leaning against the wall.”

“And that entrance is open?” David said. “How did I not know about this?”

“I don’t know,” Charles said. “I’ve known about it for a while at my school.”

“Where do you go?” David asked. “Byron Middle?”

“No. Kennedy Middle.”

David shook his head as they continued walking. “Where? Los Gatos?”

“Yeah,” Charles said. “On the corner of Tillman and Montgomery.”

“Wait, there?”

“Yes,” Charles whispered. “It’s only about twenty minutes for me to bike here.”

“Is that what you did?”

“Yeah,” said Charles. “My Schwinn. I leaned it against a tree right outside. I hope nobody took it.”

They came to another junction. A tunnel led to the left and downward, into more blackness.

“How long have you been in here, Charles?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “My watch stopped.”

“Do you know how long you were walking?”

“No,” Charles said, panic creeping into his voice. “I may have…wait!”

The boy grabbed David’s arm, making him stop mid step. He looked down at his feet which were on either side of a rusty rail, and at Charles’ feet, which looked like they were standing in old dress shoes.

“I hear him!” Charles whispered.

“The…follower?”

“He’s here,” Charles said, looking up at David with tears filling his eyes. “He’s coming!”

David opened his mouth to respond but heard a hollow thump coming from the darkness behind them. He shone his flashlight but saw nothing. It sounded like very loud footsteps - so strong they nearly shook the walls of the tunnel.

The sound grew closer.

“We have to go,” Charles croaked. “Now!”

He broke into a run but this time David stopped him. “No,” he said. “Let’s go this way.”

Keeping his phone in front of him, he walked faster as Charles began to make whimpering noises.

They both nearly broke into a run. The pounding sounds grew closer. David swore he could see a flash of dust floating from the support beams with each thump and for the first time began to worry about a cave in.

“Oh no!” Charles said, his voice in a full panic. “Which way now?”

David looked ahead and saw yet another split in the tunnel. The one on the right had several old pieces of lumber leaning up against one side.

“This way,” David said, pointing to the left.

Charles broke into a run. His flashlight began to flutter in and out again.

“Wait!”

David ran after him. The sound of the pounding grew softer and all they could hear were their own footsteps and breathing.

“Stop,” David said. “I think we lost him.”

He looked ahead just in time. The tracks had disappeared and a massive opening was in front of them. It was the shaft.

David reached his hand out and got a hold of Charles’ belt. The boy fell hard on the ground and the old flashlight bounced out of his grasp and rolled to a stop by a support beam. David stopped in the nick of time and his sneakers sent dirt flowing over the edge of the shaft.

“Oh,” was all Charles could get out as he looked over the opening. It seemed to take the gravel a long time to reach the bottom.

David glanced over the edge. It was the mine shaft he remembered finding with John two years earlier. He remembered talking with his friend - the last really good conversation he had with someone - the day before he moved away.

“Thank you for stopping me,” Charles said numbly.

David caught his breath and stayed still. He then remembered his own map printed on the auto repair shop receipt.

“It’s okay,” David said, consulting the map. “I know where we are. If we can get to the other side, we should walk right out of the east entrance.”

Charles shook his head. “My bike is at the north entrance.”

“Mine is at the east entrance,” David said. “We’ll be outside and you can go find your bike from there.”

“It could be dark by then,” Charles said nervously. “I told my mom I’d be home by dark. And what if the follower goes outside with us?”

David shook his head. “We’ll be fine. I’m sure.”

He looked down into the shaft. Even his powerful LED flashlight on his phone couldn’t see the bottom.

“That’s an amazing flashlight,” Charles said. “Where did you get that?”

“WestCom Mobile, at the mall,” he said.

Charles held up his own silver flashlight. “Never heard of that. I got this at Radio Shack.”

David looked around the mine tunnel and at the shaft. A support beam stood on the left side. When he grabbed it, his thumb went right through the dry rotted wood, making Charles jump.

“Okay,” David said. “We need to get to the other side of this. Charles, do you think you can jump?”

He shook his head vigorously and gestured at the nearly eight foot wide opening. “No, It’s…too far, and the other side looks higher than this one.”

David nodded. Charles was right. The other side was at least a foot higher than the side they were standing on, making a jump seem impossible.

“Okay,” he said. “I saw a pile of boards back there. We can make a bridge.”

“Really?”

David nodded in the darkness. “Yeah, we can do this. Just stay calm, okay?”

They both made their way back down the tunnel to the junction where the lumber was stacked. David worried about how light the wood seemed and wondered how durable it would be.

He banged some of the lumber against a rail while dragging it back to the shaft.

“Careful!” Charles whispered urgently. “The follower is still out there!”

David continued dragging the lumber. He held one of the boards at its end and eased it across the shaft. It cleared to the other side with just a few inches to spare but again made a loud banging noise, making Charles wince.

“It’s okay,” David said. “Just a couple more.”

He did the same thing with the second board, and kept it quieter. When he set the third board in place, it went into place nearly silently.

“That’s it,” David whispered.

“Is that safe?”

David looked at the makeshift bridge. It was barely a foot wide and only had about two inches of either side resting on the ends of the shaft.

“We go real slow,” he said.

“I just don’t think it is going to…”

A loud pounding noise made them both turn. It sounded like a footfall.

“Oh no! He found us!”

Another footfall. The tunnel shook.

David looked down into the shaft and then to the crude bridge. “I’ll hold it,” he said. “You go first.”

“Wha...what?”
David dropped down to the ground and grabbed the edges of the bridge with his hands. He then looked up at the trembling Charles.

“I’ll hold it steady. Go!” David said.

The thumping footsteps grew louder. Charles stepped onto the crude bridge, giving David another glimpse of his plain leather shoes. Even while lying on the ground holding onto the boards, David could see Charles was shaking terribly.

“Take two steps,” David said. “I’ve got this. Just go! You can do it.”

He took another step. Then another. The bridge creaked and sagged as the footsteps got closer. The tunnel shook more.

David looked over his shoulder and still couldn’t see who or what was coming up the tunnel. But the footfalls were definitely getting closer. Charles had only three feet left of the bridge to cross. “You’re almost there,” he said encouragingly.

Another footfall - this one louder than any other - and the tunnel shook violently. The wood surrounding the shaft shifted and one of the boards on the makeshift bridge fell away, twisting out of David’s grip.

“Charles!”

The boy sprang forward in the nick of time. All three boards fell and tumbled out of sight down the shaft.

Charles was on his hands and knees on the opposite side of the shaft, still holding his flashlight, looking at David in horror as the boards finally clattered to the bottom.

“Oh my gosh!” Charles blubbered. “I took too long. I’m so sorry!”
David turned toward the footsteps and then back to Charles, who stood frozen on the other side of the mine shaft.

David looked down just as another footfall made the sides of the shaft shake and send dust falling. He had thought about jumping into the shaft so many times in the past two torturous, miserable years but now he knew it wasn’t something he was prepared to do.

He looked up again at Charles, who stood terrified.

“Take this,” David said, tossing his phone over the shaft.

Charles reacted with surprise as he managed to catch the phone with both hands pressed against his chest.

“Use the flashlight and get out,” he said. “Go right and follow the tracks. You’ll make it.”

Charles’ lower lip trembled. “Are you sure?”

David nodded as the loud footsteps got even closer. “Yeah. Just go.”

David turned back toward the sound of the footsteps, and the light from his cell phone flashlight now in Charles’ hands cast his shadow against one of the walls. He straightened his back and even though he hadn’t punched anyone since the fourth grade, he made fists. He still couldn’t see who or what was coming down the tunnel. At that moment, he wished it was any number of the kids that picked on him day after day.

The light behind him shifted, and his shadow grew shorter. David turned and saw Charles placing the phone in the sand at the edge of the shaft so the flashlight would shine upwards.

“What are you doing?”

“I can’t leave you like this,” Charles said. “I’m going to jump across and help.”

“Charles, you told me you can’t jump that far!”

“It’s higher on this side, it’ll be easier” Charles said, wiping a tear from his eyes. “I have to do this. I have to help you. I have to. I can’t let the follower take you!”

The footsteps sounded like they were just five feet ahead. David looked up and saw his shadow once more but he also saw something else. A blackness darker than anything he had ever seen slowly consuming the tunnel and even the light from his cell phone. The shape began to darken David’s shadow. As impossible as it felt, the darkness was a solid, towering figure and David could nearly feel it breathing.

“Get out of the way,” Charles said. “I’m jumping to you.”

The footfalls sounded enormous. David raised his fists higher and felt the blackness inches from his face.

He heard rapid footsteps and a yell behind him. The shadow of Charles suddenly appeared in mid air behind him as the boy leapt over the shaft. A loud boom and darkness filled the tunnel and David fell to the ground.

He blinked. The sound of the footsteps were gone. He looked up and saw his shadow still cast by the phone flashlight on the other side of the mine shaft behind him.

Charles was crouched next to him and he looked over to David in amazement. “I didn’t know I could do that!”

David got to his feet. “What happened?”

“He’s gone!” Charles said excitedly. “The follower. He’s really gone!”

David glanced around the tunnel but saw no one. He then looked into the mine shaft behind him and saw nothing but blackness.

“Did he fall?”

“Thank you,” Charles said, smiling. “When I saw you ready to fight I realized I needed to fight too. I couldn’t keep running anymore. I couldn’t.”

David nodded numbly.

“There’s more planks of wood back there, right?”

“What?”

Charles had made his way in the darkness back to the junction point with his flickering flashlight. He returned, dragging another board.

“We can make another bridge,” he said.

David took some tentative steps past Charles back toward the junction, where he took a board in each hand and carried it back up to the shaft.

The boys quickly set the boards in place, and David held them still as Charles crawled across their new makeshift bridge. He held the boards firm on the other side, and David followed. He picked up his phone that was still embedded in the sand where Charles had left it. He glanced down into the shaft, still unable to see the bottom.

A quiet, electronic beep was heard. His phone’s battery was dead and powered off.

“Mine still works,” Charles said, waving his chrome flashlight. Let’s go!”

David walked with Charles and they took a left at the junction. After a few moments, David pointed.

“Isn’t that…a wheelbarrow?”

“That’s it!” Charles said happily. “This is where I came in!”

They turned and kept walking, the bulb of the flashlight still flickering. David could almost feel his pupils widen to try to collect any light that was left in the tunnel.

Then they both saw a dim light up ahead.

“There it is!” Charles said, snapping the flashlight off.

The two walked closer to the light. David could barely make out a tree in the blinding whiteness.

“We made it! We made it!” Charles yelled.

David squinted and looked around as they stepped outside of the tunnel. His eyes adjusted slowly.

“Look! There’s my bike!” Charles’ voice rang out. “Right where I left it!”

The boy’s face filled David’s vision as he continued to struggle to adjust to the bright sunshine. He could feel Charles’ small hands on his shoulders.

“David,” Charles said. “I couldn’t have beaten the follower and gotten out without you. Thank you.”

“You’re…you’re welcome,” David stammered. “Are you okay getting home?”

“My bike is right here and I know the way,” Charles said. “Can you get to your bike from here?”

“Yeah…thanks.”

“Take this just in case it gets dark,” Charles said, thrusting the chrome flashlight into his hands. “I’m going home. David, thank you.”

A loud, metal clang was heard. David took it as the unmistakable sound of a kickstand being put up. It was followed by the cheery sound of a bicycle bell.

“I’m going home!” Charles screamed in delight.

David still squinted in the sunshine as he heard the pedals turn and the tires crunch on the pine needles and leaves. He could hear Charles’ laughter echo as he got further away.

David blinked continuously as his pupils narrowed. He could finally see where he was. To his astonishment, he was in a part of the park he had never seen before. A rusty stack of old rails stood by the open mine entrance behind him. Trees surrounded the clearing, camouflaging the entrance.

He took a few steps forward, still holding the flashlight. To his surprise, he saw an old bicycle leaning against a tree a few feet away. It was a rusty, classic-looking frame with cracked tires. The tree had grown around and through the frame, holding the bicycle nearly two feet off the ground. The word Schwinn was stamped on the chainguard. A rotted bell sat on the handlebars.The bicycle must have been sitting there for decades.

David’s hand found the vine-wrapped kickstand. He flipped it up and it made the same sound he had heard moments before when Charles left.

A piece of paper at his feet made him glance downward. He reached for it and brought up the cigarette ad that had Charles’ map on the back. But what caught his attention were the details from the ad itself as well as the date on the bottom of the page: January 12, 1977. The paper itself was yellow and cracked apart when he touched it.

Still holding the flashlight, David broke into a run. Keeping the view of downtown Los Gatos in sight, he made his way back through the trees until he intercepted the Orchard View Trail. He then scrambled along and followed it to the east entrance.

His own bike was still there. The note he had written was still on the handlebars.

He looked down at the heavy, chrome flashlight in his hand. The lens was cracked and filthy, the bulb was missing, and rust was visible at both ends. Blue dust from rotted batteries was on the frozen switch.

David let the flashlight fall to the ground.

He closed his eyes and looked again at the piece of newspaper in his hand. For the first time, he turned it over and saw a torn piece of a headline with a faded photo of a face that looked like Charles. The words “Calls off Search for…” were the only words visible on the headline.

David remembered a story someone had told about a missing kid back when his grandparents were growing up. There were even anniversary stories in the news from time to time. But that was so long ago. But Charles’ school. His clothes. His shoes. His flashlight.

It couldn’t be.

David glanced into the mine and then down to the valley. His eyes could make out the spot where Charles said his middle school was. Or, rather, had been.

Still holding the yellowed piece of newsprint, he pulled the note off his handlebars and tore it in half before crumbling it up in his pocket. David looked over his shoulder at the open tunnel. He was sure he wouldn’t enter that dark place again.

“Thank you for your help, Charles,” he said softly as he mounted his bike and slowly pedaled back down the mountain.

Michael K. Norris is a writer of fiction and will never refer to that career in the past tense. He has been a senior aide for a California politician, a communications manager for a San Jose nonprofit, a sole proprietor of a failed cargo bike business, and a publishing industry analyst at Simba Information - where he made regular presentations at the London Book Fair and was frequently quoted in The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. Michael made his fiction debut in the January 2025 issue of Sky Island Journal. He also travels extensively and has ridden a bicycle in twenty countries and counting. Michael lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, artist Suma CM.