Choke: 2 (Pillage Trilogy (Pillogy)) by Obert Skye Page B

from the back of the garage and into the forest. Wyatt was right behind me and Kate was on my left. I could see a couple of stars, but for the most part the sky was hidden by clouds. It was very dark so Kate held her flashlight so that the beam was shining directly in front of the metal detector.
    “I thought we were going to see the secret room and the slide,” Wyatt whined.
    “We will later,” I whispered. “We want to see where this goes first.”
    I heard something large running in the forest and stopped to make sure it wasn’t running toward us.
    “Must have been a deer,” Kate said.
    We moved again—the sound of the metal detector and our footsteps sounded in a weird, unsettling rhythm. I jammed my leg into a tree branch that I had not seen.
    “Shine the light better,” I complained to Kate.
    Kate directed the flashlight into the air.
    “Sorry,” I apologized.
    She moved the light back.
    “So, where do you think the track goes anyway?” Wyatt asked.
    “Straight,” I answered, keeping the metal detector directly in front of me. We walked through the thin trees as the ground began to slope up just a bit.
    “You think there’s a tunnel going through the mountain?” Wyatt questioned. “Maybe there’s some sort of secret place . . . with girls.”
    Kate and I both stopped and gave Wyatt annoyed looks.
    “What? All right, then why would there be a train here?” Wyatt said defensively. “The track is covered with trees.”
    “There hasn’t been a train on these tracks in probably a hundred years,” Kate said. “The trees have grown, but the track has to go somewhere. Maybe that place is gone too . . .”
    A huge deer ran right across our path. Wyatt swore while Kate dropped the flashlight and slapped me on the arm for no reason.
    “Don’t do that,” she said.
    “Do what? It’s not like I asked that deer to jump in front of us.”
    Kate bent down and picked up her flashlight. Once again she pointed the beam of light in front of us.
    My shoes crunched as I stepped over the forest floor. The track had not turned in the least. It was running perfectly straight. A tree branch swung back and smacked me in the face. When I realized there was nobody in front of me to make it swing back, I grew a little concerned.
    “I think the trees are out to get me,” I whispered.
    “It might help if you thought about somebody besides yourself for a minute,” Kate suggested.
    We came to a part of the track that wasn’t completely covered by dirt. I could see two wooden railroad ties and about three feet of rusted track.
    “Cool,” I said as Kate shined the flashlight on the track.
    “We’re getting close to the mountain,” I whispered, although my comment was unnecessary, seeing how the ground was beginning to seriously tilt upward. “What kind of train could go up a track this steep?”
    We hiked a couple of hundred feet more before the slope became too steep to continue. The metal detector still told us we were over the tracks. The side of the mountain was stone, and trees were growing sideways and at weird angles out of the cracks. Kate shined the light up and we could faintly see the track cutting between two large stone ridges and going straight up the mountain.
    I was familiar with the mountain. It wasn’t one I had hiked before, but it was the closest mountain to the manor. Despite that, however, I had never seen the railroad tracks on it.
    “What now?” Wyatt asked.
    “Let me see that,” I said, reaching for the flashlight. I took it from Kate and swept the beam over the ground and the small part of the mountainside we could see. There was nothing but trees and stone.
    “Shine it over there again,” Kate whispered, pointing to the left of the tracks. “Above those bushes.”
    I moved the flashlight’s beam. I could see a big bush growing right out of the base of the stone mountain.
    “I don’t see anything,” Wyatt reported for both of us just as a thin rain began to fall. “We should