The Drop Out Part III

The next day was uneventful, except for the little man sitting in the lobby of the boarding house. When I entered the main sitting room or lobby, whichever you call it, he stealthily removed himself from the area. As the days passed, he continued this behavior. However, the rest of the town warmed up to me. I found the people of the town initially distrustful but as each day passed, they opened up and spoke a little more. One day, I asked the clerk at the desk about the man.

"Frank? Hell, he's just plain weird. Babbles to himself all the time. We don't pay no attention to him. Just let him go his own way. He don't like strangers. Jus' about pisses every time he sees one. God forbid you talk to him. Don't think he's a danger but wouldn't invite him for an overnight without locking the door on my room. If ya' git what I mean? He's a little touched in the head and ya' never know."

In order to maintain my cover, I would spend long hours in the desert. I found a particularly interesting rock formation. It was a massive collection of rocks and looked solid but it wasn't. While looking for a place to sit in the shade, my foot slipped and lodged behind a large rock and the wall of the formation. No matter how I pulled, my foot would not come free. Pushing the rock with my feet and hands was useless. I rummaged through my backpack, looking for something I could use to help me pry myself loose. I had nothing. I thought if I used my leg as leverage, perhaps I could move the rock just enough to free it. I placed my back solidly on the wall of the formation and put my hands to my sides with the palm against the face of it as I stiffened my knee in preparation for the push.

As I did that, something amazing occurred. My right hand sunk into the wall of the formation and the rock pinning my foot slid easily away as it revealed an opening large enough for an adult. I knelt down and wriggled through the opening. It was a little narrow but once you squeezed through the hole, there was a large room with a maze of passages. The narrow tunnel was only a foot or two before you entered the room expansive enough to stand and move about. It looked like it might have been a place of worship for ancient tribes or a safe haven and provided a perfect place for my daily journey to the desert.

Within minutes of entering, the rock slid back to the original position and I found myself trapped. I panicked. This is not where I intended to die. I pushed at the rock in an effort to move it away from the entrance. My attempts seemed useless. The rock wouldn't budge. No one would miss me. They'd never look for me. Sure, I had talked to a few of the people in town but they had no idea when I would go. They'd simply chalk up my disappearance to my return to the university. I felt my heart beating out of my chest as I realized that my supplies would only last a day or two at best. I doubted that anyone else would ever stumble on this same discovery. Serendipity led me to the cave. Perhaps, serendipity is the wrong word. In cases of serendipity, there's a happy outcome. My plight looked like there was no possibility for a happy ending.

I knew my struggle was futile, so I decide to save my energy and rest for a while. Even though there was no light from the outside, the room was illuminated. There was incandescence from the walls that gave enough light for you to see, once your eyes adjusted from the outside. I laid my backpack on an open area and used it as a pillow while I rested.

Time passed, don't ask me how long because I was in and out of sleep. It might have been a day or only a few minutes when I heard a noise and saw a bright light. It was the rock rolling away from the opening. Someone was here to save me. I rejoiced in my good luck and waited for the appearance of my savior. My shock turned to disbelief and then fear.

The face of the man crawling through the passage was familiar. It was Frank, but not the timid Frank I saw in boarding house. It was a fierce angry Frank. A Frank the boarding house clerk had only mentioned in passing but I didn't heed the warning. His eyes were blazing with rage and his stature was not frail but twice as big as he appeared in the lobby. I stood up attempting to run through a passage but he grabbed me from behind choking me with his forearm as he held my hair tightly in his other hand. His cheek was next to mine when he blasted me with words.

"Who the f*ck are you? What the h*ll do you want here?" As he talked his arm, far stronger than it looked, pressed against my throat tighter. "Tell me, dammit. Tell me or I swear I'll kill you." Was he a spy, someone from the government looking for people like me or simply insane? He wasn't the same timid man I'd seen in the lobby. He was a tough almost professional fighter of amazing strength. I had to confess and end my disappearance from society or he'd end my life. He tightened his hold and I could no longer breathe. "Tell me dammit, tell me." He accented each word by putting his forearm tighter to my throat and then relaxing the grip a bit at the end of the phrase, waiting for me to tell him my secret.

Continued in Part IV