Tam Farrier
Present: 32 Days Ago

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Tam fearfully glanced behind her to estimate the progress of the chase car headlights further down the hill. Mistake. The curve in the road came up too fast, and the tires immediately screeched in objection to the centrifugal force, pulling the back end of her car rightward off the bend in the road. Thankful she had practiced this scenario, Tam braked lightly and white-knuckled the steering wheel in the direction of the skid to correct the slide. She lost precious seconds, but she knew she still had just enough of a lead to make the turn-off undetected.

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Gunning the gas once more, Tam’s Honda hatchback jerked forward to complete the next two bends, first a sharp curve at the summit to the left and then a bend downhill to the right. In the middle of the second curve, a smaller road branched off to the left. The fork, she knew, was not visible from the summit. Furthermore, the twisting dirt lane disappeared behind rocky outcroppings and thick intervening foliage. After diverting to the inconspicuous side road, Tam cut the lights and engine until she heard the noisy van race onward down the main route. The pursuers wouldn’t realize their mistake for a mile or two, gaining her precious minutes.

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But she couldn’t dawdle either. They’d quickly determine where she’d gone, even though she previously had disengaged the vehicle GPS and ditched her phone. They had been tracking her visually, relying heavily on her car lights in the moonless night.

Quickly navigating the familiar forested backroad that drew steadily away from the northbound West Virginia state highway, Tam soon approached the overgrown entrance to a long-abandoned logging road that jutted off to the left. She swerved off through the brambles hiding the pathway, brought the car to a rest a few yards in, and exited the car. Tam grabbed a branch torn off by the trampling vehicle and used the bough to brush away the car tracks indicating her deviation from the lane. On the return to the Honda, she even propped up some disturbed vines to further disguise her exit. Her pursuers would be looking more carefully for digressions this time.

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The logging path didn’t go very far. The old roadway traversed a steep incline before ending abruptly on the berm of a slope leading down to a paved county road that was not contiguous with the state highway at the summit.

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Unable to drive farther, Tam would have to abandon her Honda in the woods. But first, she grabbed her precious cargo from the passenger seat: an 18-inch cube nestled securely in a black cloth carrying pouch. The pouch sported two shoulder straps that allowed Tam to carry the cube in backpack fashion, albeit awkwardly. Outside the vehicle, Tam hoisted the bulky device on her back and opened the hatchback to extract her trail bike and night vision goggles. After initially adjusting the goggles on her head in the flipped-up position, she quickly dragged the bicycle down the hill to the county road, turned on the infrared handlebar light, lowered the goggles, donned leather gloves from her jacket pocket, and hopped aboard.

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Downhill Tam raced, knowing her hunters would be hard-pressed to catch her now — as long as she didn’t crash. Even though she knew the wide, well-maintained road included only gentle arching bends along this section, Tam stayed laser-focused on her task as the pavement sped underneath her and the summer wind generated by the exhilarating ride furiously whipped her long, thick, black hair restrained only by the goggles. The expensive night gear was well worth having to cash out a little bitcoin.

Halfway down the mountain, Tam detected approaching headlights. She temporarily flipped up her googles to preclude eye damage from the enhanced visual display of the oncoming vehicle. Using the illumination projected from the nearing car and applying her practiced knowledge of the road, Tam coasted until the oncoming car passed her by.

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At the base of the mountain, Tam sped through a series of turns to bring her to a closed state park. Circumventing the public traffic barrier, she peddled rapidly along dirt trails and narrow rocky passages until she had to dismount and escort the bike on foot through the rugged terrain. At last, she found the unremarkable but massive granite outcroppings marking her destination. She dragged the bike down a narrow ravine to a ditch overgrown with briars at the base of the boulder mount.

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Pulling back the briars with her gloved hands, Tam shoved the bike into the ditch and then scrambled back up the ravine to the last dirt trail she had ridden. From her boot she removed her trusty knife, cut a leafy branch from a bush, and swept the path clean of tire tracks. Although she had more time to do a thorough job than she had at the logging road junction, Tam was soon forced to quit by the pending dawn. She must not be seen by anyone, and early hikers were not unusual here. Her last visual check of her escape route was performed without the goggles in the early light.

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Returning at last to the ditch, Tam jumped in the gully and crawled over the downed bike while repositioning the vegetation behind and above her. When she finished, Tam sat quietly in the depression beside the bike with the thorny plants loosely arched overhead. Anyone hiking by would not be able to see her or the bike, although they might be able to hear her. She listened for a moment to ascertain the presence of approaching people. 

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Not detecting any potential threats, Tam slid both carry straps off her shoulders, removed the heavy cube from her back, and gently placed her treasure beside the bicycle before reclining lengthwise in the gully alongside her possessions. The intensity of the downhill dash had masked her awareness of the weight of the cube, but now Tam’s shoulders ached from the bite of the padded straps. Still, she wasn’t done.

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The far side of the trough consisted of a 15-foot-long rock ledge protruding from the three-story boulder mass. Tam rolled under this ledge. The space under the ledge allowed approximately 36 inches of head room and just enough depth for her to pull the cube and bike underneath and away from the foliage. Consisting of hard-packed dirt, the ground angled up sharply as she went deeper under the ledge. Tam crawled up the incline, dragging first the cube and then the bike farther under and upward until the ledge overhang ended and the ground leveled out into a large, open, pitch-black space.

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Her cave.