Chapter 11
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He landed hard on his ankle and he screeched. It was a long fall. It had to be more than ten feet. Twenty feet. Fifty feet. No, he would have died from fifty feet. Probably twenty.
He stood up, but fell back down. His ankle wasn't broken, but it was definitely sprained. His elbow burned. He touched it and it felt warm and wet. And bleeding. He sat at the bottom of a ladder in the dark, sucking in his breath from the horrible smell of the place. He touched the ground around him.
Nick felt old cloth, cans, weird gooey stuff and other nasty things he couldn't make out. He forced himself to stand up and stepped onto the first step of the ladder. Pain shot up through his ankle. The rail broke and he hit the ground once more. He couldn't get out. He was trapped.
This thought freaked him out big time.
"It'll be okay," he told himself. His own voice seemed to calm him down a little.
"Help!" he cried, peering into the darkness of the cave above him. No one answered. He slumped back onto the floor. The guys had to come around sometime.
He sat there for who knows how long. Probably ten minutes, but it felt like hours. His head jerked up when he heard a strange sound.
He looked up into the darkness and saw part of the ladder. He couldn't see the top half, including the top of the drop.
"N-Nicky... Nick? Are ya down there?" he heard someone say.
"Help! Down here!"
"How'd you get down there?"
He couldn't tell who's voice it was. He didn't care.
"Try climbin up."
"I can't!"
"I'm goin down," he heard one of the guys say.
"No! You can't leave me up here with Howie and Brian!" Nick heard the other reply.
Whichever one it was started climbing down the ladder. When he got to the bottom he looked Nick straight into the eyes.
"Nick, we gotta find help soon! We gotta get you outta here!"
He recognized it as Kevin's voice.
Nick and Kevin looked up as another one of them came down. They couldn't tell who it was. He was a few feet away from them.
"Guys! How do I get Howie down there?"
It had to be Brian that just came down. AJ was up there with Howie.
"AJ, you have no choice but to drop him. Just do it. I'll catch him," Kevin said.
"What?!" AJ screamed. "How can you drop an unconscious human BEING down some huge drop?"
"Easy. Just close your eyes and let go. That's all there is to it," Kevin said casually. He ran over to directly under AJ and looked up.
"Just drop him."
AJ squeezed his eyes shut really tight and let go of Howie.
