Deep Down (Sam Stone Book 1) (16 page)

Cheryl’s skin was sallow and clammy, beginning to show signs of the lesions that had peppered the skin of the guards as they lay upon their cots in the dining cavern.  The older woman’s upper lip was coated with tiny beads of sickly sweat and her breathing was shallow and almost nonexistent as Jenny strapped the mask over the Cheryl’s face.

“C’mon, Cheryl, hang on just a little bit longer,” Jenny urged as the woman drew in a small breath of oxygen-rich air from the mask.

Cheryl coughed weakly.  Jenny own breath caught in her throat in fear.  If Cheryl had another coughing fit, Jenny was sure that the woman wouldn’t survive.  There was no more Albuterol in the inhaler to stop a coughing episode, and the woman looked too weak to survive even two or three minutes of coughing on her own.

Cheryl sucked in another breath of air slowly, but she didn’t cough again.  With relief, Jenny set the timer app on her phone for three minutes, giving Cheryl an extra minute of oxygen in hopes that she’d recover slightly.   Jenny decided that she herself would take only one minute worth of oxygen from the mask when it was her turn. Hopefully the extra minute would be enough to keep Cheryl alive.

With the timer set, Jenny returned to Stone’s side slowly, giving up on her search of the lockers.   Dizziness made her stagger, and her legs felt as if they weighed a thousand pounds as she dragged herself over to the lift.   

“Any progress?” she asked as she squeezed inside the lift next to him.

“None,” Stone said, voice tight with pent up frustration.

“I want you to know that I’m not leaving here without you.  I’m not leaving you down here to die.  We’ll go together or not at all,” Jenny told him, knowing that her own voice came out sounding strangled with emotion of another sort.

Stone sighed, the sound heavy with frustration.  “Jenny, we can’t send Gilbert and the others up by themselves.  This lift is much, much smaller than the main lift.  It has far less power than the museum’s lift and it will take quite a bit more time to get to the surface.  Someone will have to be inside the lift with them to swap the mask around.  Otherwise, some of them might not be alive when the lift reaches the top.  That means you’re going, and I’m staying.”

Jenny shook her head.  As her mother used to say, only
some
hills were worth dying on, and this was one of those sorts of hills.  “I won’t leave you behind.  We’ll just have to overload the lift.  Take everyone up at once.”

“That’s dangerous.  The lift cables might break.  Or, it might not have enough power to get all of us all of the way to the top, and we’d be stuck in the shaft.”

“And have you thought about what might be waiting for us on the surface?  Perhaps the CDC will be up there, just waiting to shoot us all or send us right back down in the lift?.  If that’s the case, I’m going to need your help when the lift gate opens at the top.”

“Hopefully that won’t happen.  I’m betting that Dave will have done something after he received that message.” Stone said, fiddling at the key panel with nimble fingers. 

“But it could happen.  It could. And who knows if Dave received the message at all?” Jenny said.

“It could,” Stone agreed.  “But it won’t.”

It was Jenny’s turn to sigh.  “Stone, my life is not worth living without you.  I’d rather stay down here and die than to face the rest of my life without you.  I’m not going up this lift without you.”

There was a spark of electricity from the wires that Stone was now rapidly twisting together.

“I got it!” Stone said, triumph in the tone of his voice.

Jenny’s phone timer app buzzed.  Cheryl’s time with the oxygen was up. 

There were now five minutes of oxygen left in the tank.

Jenny hurried over to the tram as fast as her shaky legs would carry her.  Stone was close behind her. 

When they reached Cheryl’s side, the woman was still breathing.  Jenny was extremely grateful to see her chest rise and fall with each shallow breath.  She liked the woman.  Even if she hadn’t known her long, Jenny had been able to tell right away that the woman was all heart and compassion and old-fashioned charm.

“You take a turn on the mask for a while,” Stone said as he removed his mask.  “I’ll swap with Paul.”

“But what about Alice?  How long has it been since she’s had a turn?” Jenny asked.

“She was the last person who had a turn before you woke up.  She should be good for another two minutes.”

Jenny nodded, “And how many minutes do you have left on your tank?”

Stone bent to check the gauge.  “Three minutes.”

Jenny’s heart skipped a beat.  

With both of their tanks combined, they had about a minute and eight seconds of oxygen left for each of them.  She hoped it would be enough.

“We need to get them into the lift,” Stone said.  “I’ll drive the tram up as close as I can to the lift so we don’t have to move them far.”

Jenny nodded. 

They both ignored the silent question hanging in the stagnant air.  Who was going and who was staying below?

Jenny stepped back as Stone started the tram and expertly maneuvered the unwieldy vehicle until it was right next to the lift’s entrance.

They moved Cheryl to the lift first, propping the elderly lady up in the back left corner of the lift.  The poor woman’s eyelids didn’t even twitch as her body was moved. 

Next, Stone lifted Alice’s slight form out of the tram and placed her next to Cheryl.  Then it was Debbie’s turn. 

After all of the women were loaded into the lift, there was precious little room left in the cramped space.  Stone paused, and looked down at her, love shining in his eyes.

“Jenny…”

She didn’t let him finish.  “No, Stone.  Either put Gilbert and Paul in and then send it up to the surface, or we’ll all get in and take the risk together.  I’m not leaving without you.”

There was no more time to argue, and he knew it.

“Fine, Baby.  We’ll risk it together.”

Jenny helped him haul first Paul and then Gilbert into the lift.  The men had to be squeezed in beside the women, and when they were inside, there was no room left on the floor at all. 

Stone climbed in, carefully stepping over legs and between ankles, and then held out his hand to her.

She took it and stepped gingerly inside, squeezing right up next to him where he stood next to the jerry-rigged panel.

He leaned precariously to the side and rolled the metal door shut.  It latched with a loud metal clang.  The sound held a certain finality.  Jenny quickly realized that it could very well be the sound of their tomb closing.

She squeezed her eyes shut and flung her arms around Stone’s chest as he pressed the operator’s button on the hot-wired panel.

The lift lurched upward.  There was an unsettling whine, like metal cables being stressed to capacity, and then the lift began to rise.  Slowly.

Jenny sighed in relief, then began counting the seconds in her head.  Thirty…. Sixty… Ninety…. One hundred and twenty…

There was no way to know how long the ride would take, or if they would reach the surface at all.

She dug the flashlight out of her pocket and turned on the beam, then reluctantly let go of Stone.

Carefully, she stepped over sprawled legs and made her way to Alice, then quickly swapped the mask from her face to Alice’s. 

The lift lurched, bouncing slightly on the metal cables that held it aloft, then resumed its upward climb once more.  Now even slower.  The metal cables squealed, and Jenny thought she could smell the faint tang of smoke in the stagnant air of the lift. 

The lift began to shudder, vibrating the floor under their feet.  The motion made Jenny’s teeth chatter together.  She stepped over to Stone’s side again, and his arms surrounded her and pulled her in close.

If the lift cables broke, and she fell, at least they would be together in the last few moments.

Jenny closed her eyes and counted the seconds again.  Thirty… Sixty… Ninety… One hundred and twenty…

The tanks were now out of oxygen.

She shuddered in the circle of Stone’s embrace.  His strong arms tightened around her.

The lift continued to shudder and climb ever so slowly toward the surface.

Nine hundred seconds later, the lift lurched to a stop.  Smoke sifted in through the crack in the metal door.  But, so did light.  And sweet, fresh air.

Stone kept a hold on her with one arm and reached over to haul the gate open with the other.

After the gloom of the caverns below and the dimness inside the lift, the light that glared in through the open door was almost too much to bear.  Jenny’s eyes watered. She squinted and peered out the door.

Light flashed in her face, brilliant and blinding.  Strobing. Unnatural.

Through the unnatural flashing lights, Jenny could just barely see that the lift opened out into a small room with a scuffed painted concrete floor.  The light came from a multitude of cameras, flashing as the camera operators took photo after photo.

Stone stepped out of the lift.  Jenny followed.  A virtual army of paramedics, clad in bulky, yellow HAZMAT suits, swarmed forward, jostling past them to remove the rest of the group from the lift.

The throng of spectators and cameramen kept a careful distance from Stone and Jenny as they stood just outside the lift, letting their eyes adjust to the brightness.

Jenny took in a long, gulping breath, ignoring the broken-glass feelings in her abused lung tissues and enjoying the simple pleasure of breathing in fresh, clean air that was filled with life-sustaining oxygen.

A tall, thin man shouldered his way forward through the crowd, his ruddy, freckled face bearing a huge grin.

“Sam Stone!  What trouble will you get yourself into next?”

“It’s good to see you, Dave,” Stone said. 

The man stepped toward Stone without a qualm and grabbed him in a bear hug.  Both men thumped the other’s back vigorously, recognizing their long-term friendship with the simple gesture.

Jenny smiled at the friendly reunion, then turned to the paramedic next to her.   “Someone needs to turn on the air circulation pumps that provide fresh air to the museum immediately,” she began.  “And, there’s a chemical substance that has been released below in the mines.  It will need to be contained.”

“Some of the pumps are already on, Miss, fitted with filters to contain the biohazard and the toxic waste. They were started ten minutes ago at the museum site when the EPA took over the rescue and clean-up operations from the CDC.  A team has already been sent down in the main lift to rescue the survivors still in the museum.”

Jenny stared at the paramedic in relief and amazement as the knowledge of their success slowly sank in.  They’d done it.  They’d managed to get help for the survivors. The risk to make the call had been worth it. And Dave really
had
come through for them. In a big way.

Jenny lay against Stone’s chest, inside the circle of his warm arms, as they both reclined on the leather couch in the living room of his ranch house.   Brilliant sunshine crept through the open curtains to bathe them both in a buttery yellow light, doing much to chase away the memory of the constant dimness that they’d experienced in the underground tunnels.

The morning news was on the television, and though Jenny usually had no desire to see the sensationalized events of someone else’s life, for once, she was avidly watching the breaking story.  

The anchorwoman was cheerily reporting that the dead tattooed man found at the bottom of the second lift in the Sareyville salt mines had been none other than Hugo Mack, a notorious killer-for-hire last known to reside in or near Chicago.  The woman reported gleefully that Hugo Mack
used to be
number five on the Most Wanted List.   Though there were few recent photos of the man, his identity had become known when social media had been flooded earlier in the morning with information that he’d scheduled to post automatically in the event of his death or disappearance.   The perky anchorwoman on the TV news informed viewers that the information that had been sent out by the deceased’s accounts was even now being substantiated by some of their top reporters. 

So far, it had been confirmed that the CEO of CHRE, a multi-billion dollar company also based in Chicago, which had made the bulk its money in the manufacture and development of various pharmaceuticals, had contracted with Mack to release the toxic chemical waste being stored secretly, and illegally in breach of the storage contract, in the USF vaults by their rival company VeraCities.  When confronted with these allegations, the CEO of CHRE, Howard Wilsone, readily admitted his guilt in hiring Hugo Mack to release the chemical waste.  Mr. Wilsone also admitted his guilt when he’d been questioned about the other allegations made by Hugo Mack’s posts.  Thus far, Wilsone had admitted to knowingly, and willingly, facilitating the attempted murder of the more than one hundred people who had been guests and staff at the Strata museum on the night of the incident and also to embezzling more than three million dollars in funds from CHRE’s accounts over the course of his eleven years with the company. He had little hope of disavowing the allegations, since Hugo Mack’s proof had been so definitive, so Wilsone had thrown himself on the mercy of the public, hoping to plead his case for all the world to hear before it came to trial. The anchorwoman assured her audience that it would come to trial, promising that they’d have detailed coverage of that event too.

The anchorwoman went on to say that Mr. Wilsone himself had picked the date that Hugo Mack was to release the toxic waste in the underground mines, knowing that a special guest had been scheduled to attend the dinner theater that night.  The guest, who had to cancel at the last moment due to an unspecified family matter, had been Mike Rowe, former host of TV’s
Dirty Jobs
, and also a former visitor to the Sareyville salt mines
.
  Wilsone told our spokesperson that he had been sure that if illegally stored chemical waste from VeraCities had been responsible for the death of a celebrity
and
over one hundred other innocent people, the company would never have been able to recover from the scandal, and CHRE would have gained a sizable chunk of the pharmaceutical business when VeraCities folded.

“He was willing to kill us all for higher profit margins?” Jenny asked aloud, her question more one of horrified surprise than one that needed an answer. 

Stone seemed to understand this, because he simply tightened his arms around her and held her closer to his heart.

Jenny’s attention returned to the anchorwoman as she went on to explain that, after an anonymous informant had notified VeraCities that their illegally stored toxic waste had been discovered, it had been too late to stop the exposure of the museum visitors to the deadly compounds which had been comprised of a cocktail of deadly pharmaceutical by-products.  Realizing this, the President of VeraCities, Jack Kowerd, had leveraged his longstanding friendship with Dennis Malnon, formerly of the CDC, in an attempt to cover up the chemical spill.  Their plan had been a simple one: by allowing all survivors to perish from exposure, there would be no one left alive to tell the tale of what had actually happened that night at the museum.

Both Kowerd and Malnon, as well as several CDC doctors and their staff, had been arrested when their involvement was exposed.  The discovery of this attempt at an unsanctioned cover-up by the former CDC personnel was entirely due to information provided by another informant, a one Logan Stanley.

Here, the anchorwoman paused to gaze solemnly at the camera for a moment before she continued with the story.  Jenny shuddered within the circle of Stone’s arms, knowing what the woman was about to say. The anchorwoman reported that, though many of the visitors did perish, the twenty-seven survivors owed their lives, oddly enough, to an ancient bacteria that had been accidentally released at the time of the toxic chemical spill.

The camera point of view shifted here, going off scene to a laboratory setting in which a woman identified as infectious disease specialist Dr. Nancy Fein sat in front of a camera dressed professionally in a pristine white lab coat.  The doctor explained that the ancient bacteria, freed from its contained environment, had found and fed on the chemical waste, causing the waste to become inert even as the waste caused the formerly harmless bacteria to mutate into a serious threat to human health. During this process, the mutated bacteria had multiplied exponentially at an alarming rate. This process of multiplication on such a massive scale had burned much of the stored oxygen in the underground caverns, depleting oxygen stores far more quickly than they would have been depleted under normal circumstances, which had been especially problematic for the museum visitors after the circulation of fresh surface air had been terminated by Dennis Malnon.  Yet, during the process of rendering the waste inert, the bacteria had saved the lives of the museum visitors, in effect rescuing them from exposure to the toxic chemicals, though it then took many of those same lives later that very evening. Ironically, it had been discovered that it had been the bacteria that had also killed Hugo Mack, not the toxic chemicals that he’d released into the mines.

After the doctor finished her segment, the live feed once again returned to the newsroom and to the anchorwoman seated comfortably behind her desk.  The woman bestowed an artificially whitened mega-watt smile upon the camera, and then continued in her careful diction, announcing that the few survivors also owed their lives to the diligent efforts of two local heroes who had managed to gain the attention of the EPA, and to the weak December sunshine.  Interestingly enough, that anchorwoman reported, the ancient bacteria, in its mutated form, could not withstand direct sunlight or the Vitamin D produced by its human hosts when exposed to UV rays, either produced artificially or by the sun.

Here, Jenny’s attention wavered.  She knew the rest of the story from a first-hand perspective.  She didn’t need to hear any more.  She switched off the TV using Stone’s sleek, silver remote and turned in his arms to look up at his face.

“Do you have any objections to moving the wedding date up a little?  After recent events, which have just shown me how precarious and precious life really is, I’d like to get married sooner, rather than later,” she asked.

“No objections at all,” Stone told her as he bent down to kiss her lips.