Badwater

39

Oliver shoved us. And then we found our footing and ran ahead of him back the way we’d come, back down the throat of the tunnel toward the thudding machine.

“I’m carrying an MP-five submachine gun,” Oliver bellowed, “and I’m prepared to open fire on anyone who does not announce his presence loud and clear and he goddamn well better announce it on his knees with his hands in the air.”

Air air air echoed down the tunnel.

I ran sickened. Walter in front of me ran hunched over and I knew as well as I knew anything what he was carrying. A load of guilt. And that psycho outside was carrying a blade and that’s what I fixed in my mind, instead of the memory of Dearing’s peeling nose.

We came to the ventilation shaft and Walter abruptly stopped to peer up but there was no ladder and no one larger than a child would have fit.

Oliver crowded me up against Walter. “Shut off your lights.”

We killed our lights and listened. No thudding. No footsteps. Just heartbeats. And then there was a shusshing sound.

I went queasy with fear.

Walter grasped my arm.

Oliver’s light flicked on and his subgun swung up and steadied on a timber bracing the air shaft. A small figure clung there, wings hanging like an open coat. Its eyes gleamed milky in Oliver’s light. We backed away from the air shaft. No need to bother analyzing the telluride soil. Bat’s telling us what we want to know. Its nesting ground is fouled. It found the mess.

The bat shrieked and its teeth suppurated blood. Like Soliano, I knew I was going to have dreams of teeth.

The thuds began again.

Oliver muttered a curse and took the lead. We advanced uptunnel toward the rhythmic thudding, which was only slightly less insane than retreating downtunnel and exiting to the ledge where the blade-wielding psycho had perhaps settled in.

If he hadn’t already come into the tunnel.

We passed the telluride vein and turned the corner and Oliver led us into a side tunnel that ran leftward. He stopped us there and shut off his light.

The thuds were louder, here. I wanted to scream for somebody to fix the damned machine. In the pitchy dark, I couldn’t tell forward from backward, up from down. I went dizzy. I reached for a wall. My hand closed on air. I needed to see. Where was Oliver? Where was Walter? I could not hear their breathing over my own. I found Oliver by his smell. I could differentiate his smell from Walter’s. We all shared a wet dog sweaty smell but beneath that Walter smelled of lemon drops and Oliver smelled of gun oil. I knew what I smelled of. Raw fear.

And then Oliver’s mouth was at my ear. No lights, he breathed, no noise. I breathed the message to Walter. And so we moved on, my hand on Oliver’s waist and Walter’s hand on mine. Quiet as mice, blind as bats. Slow as snails, feeling out the bumps and cracks of the ground.

My hair stirred.

Oliver veered to the side of the tunnel and we snaked behind him. The breeze was stronger now. Oliver put on his light. We’d found another shaft, this one with a ladder. Oliver aimed his beam downward but the shaft swallowed his light before it reached bottom. We listened to the thuds. There was no longer any question where they came from. My heart pounded in synch. My mind raced. Whatever lay thudding down there was a mystery. What lay behind us was not.

We put our heads together, whispering.

“Winze must go down to level two,” Walter said.

“Winze?” Oliver said.

“Shaft’s called a winze when it descends.”

“Who cares?” I hissed, “it goes down.”

“Winze ladder look solid to you?” Oliver asked.

“No obvious rotting,” Walter said.

“I did ropes and ladders at Quantico.”

“I trained on a submachine gun. National Guard. Eons ago, but…”

“Good man,” Oliver said.

“And you.”

They swapped — Walter’s headlamp for Oliver’s subgun — and guilt and blame over Dearing’s death seemed to go by the wayside. I hoped that mattered. I moved to the edge of the winze and switched on my headlamp to spot Oliver down.

Oliver inched his way, dipping a foot to test each rung.

Walter stood watch, feet spread, holding the weapon like it was his garden hose.

At long last Oliver called “come down.”

Down down down echoed as I got on my knees and fished a leg down. My boot connected with a rung. I glued my eyes to the wall behind the ladder, comforted by old rock if not by old wood. The winze took a long time to swallow me and when my feet at last connected with the floor I called up to the pinpoint of light “okay.” I lit Walter’s way while Oliver stood watch. It was not until they’d exchanged gun for headlamp and we’d moved from the winze alcove into the new tunnel that I noticed the thudding had stopped.

We hesitated. One passage branched left, one branched right, and between them tongued a third.

I brought out the Geiger and painted the walls with the wand, picking up only background noise. I was putting it away when the thudding started again. It came, distinctly, from the right-hand tunnel. It grew louder, less rhythmic. It grew frenzied. Clearly, no machine.

Oliver shouted, “I’m carrying an MP-five and I’m prepared to open fire if you don’t knock off that goddamn noise.”

The thudding stopped.

“Stay put,” Oliver whispered. He advanced into the right-hand tunnel and disappeared around a bend.

It doesn’t want to get shot, I thought, but it definitely wants to get found.

“Come ahead,” Oliver called. “You won’t believe this.”