The Becoming - a novella by Allan Leverone Read Free Book Online Page A

would be in huge
trouble, then, and for what? To prove he was more of a man than his friends?
    If he left now and
really moved, he might still be able to get home before Mom, even if she did
leave work early. She hadn’t said she was getting out right now, so she
probably meant she was going to take a couple of hours off at the end of her
shift. Normally she got home around 5:30, so if he was right, today she might
be back by 3:30. Tim thought he might be able to get home and back in bed by then.
    Plus, he could
still take a couple of pictures to prove he had accomplished what no one else
was tough enough to do. He could get one of himself standing in front of the
broken concrete seal over the mine shaft, and maybe a couple more inside the dilapidated
office building. He didn’t really have to actually enter the mine shaft
or anything.
    He made up his
mind. That was what he would do. He stretched his left hand out as far as he
could, camera turned toward his body, hoping he could get a wide enough angle
so the picture would show that half his body was inside the mine shaft everyone
was so afraid of.
    Then he froze.
    Something was
wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on what it might be, but something was definitely
not right.
    Then Tim realized
what it was: Total silence had fallen over the old mine. The site was one
hundred percent quiet. Tim knew there was always ambient noise, even in the
middle of nowhere: Birds chirping, rodents rustling the grass, animals moving
through the woods.
    But now there was
nothing. Even the light breeze had abruptly died down. The phrase deathly silence flashed into Tim’s head and he suddenly understood its meaning. The
formerly bright sunshine now seemed muted and dim and the only sound Tim could
hear was the blood rushing through his ears, loud as a waterfall, and all at
once he recognized exactly how alone he was out here, miles from anywhere, and
that he had told no one of his plans.
    No one knew he was
out here.
    No one knew where he was.
    And something
touched his ankle.
    Tim screamed even
though no one could hear him and he instinctively jerked his leg toward his
body, away from whatever awful thing had touched him. He pulled his leg up and
tried to propel himself away from the broken concrete slab and out of the mine
shaft, but his left foot was barely touching the ground and it slipped on the
weed-strewn dirt.
    And then he felt
it again, except this time the thing—it was thin and ropy and felt slithery and
throbbing and somehow alive, all at the same time—wrapped itself around his
ankle in an instant. Tightly.
    Tim screamed again
and tried to regain his footing, but the thing began pulling him, and it was
powerful, it was unbelievably powerful, and it pulled on his ankle and Tim felt
himself being dragged steadily over the slab. Into the tunnel.
    He scraped his
shoulder on the top of the wooden beam which until just a few minutes ago had
held the concrete seal over the mineshaft. He didn’t notice.
    He scraped his
head against the beam as the thing continued pulling, reeling him in like a
fish on a line, and he didn’t notice that, either.
    He felt blood
trickle down his neck from the scrape on his head and didn’t care.
    Then he
disappeared into the mine, the blackness so complete it was like floating into outer
space, still screaming for all he was worth.
    But it didn’t
matter. Because he was all alone.
     
    3
     
     
    Julie McKenna stood in her son’s
bedroom doorway, puzzled. Tim’s bed covers had been thrown back haphazardly, as
if he had gotten up in a hurry, and Tim was nowhere to be found. She had come immediately
to his room to check on him upon her arrival home from work, and after
discovering he wasn’t there, she had searched the entire house—it was easy,
being just a five room ranch—ending up right back here in a matter of minutes.
    An ill-defined
feeling of unease took root in the pit of her stomach. Tim was not the type of
kid to take off without