THE END - Book I - Of THE EVENT SERIES

by Marshall Huffman

  Raymond took the clipboard from him and just turned and walked out of the office without another word. He briefly thought about going straight to Brandon’s office but decided that it might not be his best move. Since Lawton had been hired, profits were up forty-three percent and he knew that money would win out over hard work or loyalty.

  It was just such a long and arduous process of doing the inventory. The caves consisted of almost two miles of twisting caverns.

  “Hey Ray, where you going with that frown?” his right hand man asked as he stomped into the storage shed.

  “Get your coat and coveralls on. We have to go take the goddamn inventory again,” he said, slamming the clipboard down on a battered oak cask.

  “Do it again?”

  ”You’re not deaf are you? We gotta take it again. Seems like Mr. MBA doesn’t think we can count.”

  “That’s horseshit. Did you tell him we always check twice?”

  “What do you think? You can’t tell a prick like that anything. That MBA means they already know it all.”

  “What the hell does MBA mean anyway?”

  “Mind Boggling Asshole from what I can tell. Who the hell knows? It just means they get paid a lot for making everyone’s job a hell of a lot harder,” Raymond replied.

  “We have to do the entire system?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “When?”

  “Right frickin’ now. You think I told you to put on your coveralls because I think you look cute in them?”

  “Raymond, I can’t stay now. My wife is going in for induced labor at noon. You know that. I told you every day this week that I had to be home to take her in at noon,” he replied.

  “Shit. I forgot all about it. Christ. You’re the only other one that knows the system. Shit, shit, shit. All right, you go on. I’ll get fuzzbutt to help me.”

  “Who?”

  “Fuzzbutt. You know, the new kid. Hell, I don’t even know his name. The kid they just hired last week.”

  “Allen?”

  “Whatever.”

  “He isn’t here today. He cut his hand on the cask banding machine. Took fifteen stitches or so to close it.”

  “Damn it. I told them that no one should use that machine unless they had been properly trained. He is lucky it only cut him. I’ve seen it take fingers right off. No one ever listens to me, Damn it.”

  “Hey, here is a thought. Why don’t you sell Mr. Bigshot on going with you in the caves? Tell him you want him to see firsthand how inventory is taken. Act like you’re doing him a big favor by letting him in on a secret.”

  Raymond thought for a minute. Not bad. Not bad at all.

  “Hey, that’s a hell of an idea. Yeah, I like that. Thanks. Good plan. You go ahead and take off and give your wife my best. I hope it’s a boy this time.”

  “It is. We peeked,” he said smiling.

  “No kidding? Congratulations. A boy. Damn. Way to go. Now get out of here before she has the baby worrying about you getting home on time,” he said and patted the man on the back.

  ****

  Raymond knocked on Lawton’s office door.

  “Come.”

  Raymond opened the door and stood in front of his desk while Lawton looked at him suspiciously.

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking. The inventory system we use was devised by me. No one else in the entire company, including Brandon, knows how it works. They just tell me what they want and I have it brought out.”

  “And?”

  “And, what would happen if I got hurt or left the company?”

  “Left the company? You thinking about leaving because of having to redo the inventory?”

  “I’m just saying anything could happen. I could get into an accident on the way home. Who would know what the inventory was then? How would anyone know how much we have on hand and where it was located?” Raymond asked.

  “Okay. You’re telling me that you are the only person at the vineyard that knows where we keep things?”

  “In a nutshell,” Raymond said.

  “Is this a thinly veiled threat?” Jim asked.

  “Thinly veiled? I don’t even know what the hell that means but it’s no threat, just a fact, and that’s the long and short of it,” Raymond replied.

  “Alright. So what are you suggesting?”

  “You come with me. You’re the operations person according to your title,” Raymond said nudging the plaque on his desk with his hand.

  “I don’t need to know where everything is. That’s your job,” he said.

  “Still. I would think if you want to really know how we do things, you should at least take part in an inventory once. How would it look if I got hurt and Brandon wanted an inventory update and you had no clue how it’s done?”

  Lawton looked at him, biting his lip, for a few seconds before answering, “How long does it take?”

  “With the two of us? Six hours. Seven tops.”

  Lawton looked at this watch. He sat back, pulling on his lower lip.

  Raymond did have a damn good point. As the Operations Officer it wouldn’t be too good if he couldn’t at least understand the inventory system. Crap. It’s cold and damp in those caves. He had only gone through them during his initial indoctrination to the vineyards.

  “I think you have a valid point. I’ll go with you and you can show me your system,” Lawton said at last.

  “Great. That’s great,” Raymond said, smiling.

  He had played the sucker like a violin.

  Lawton told his secretary he was going to be in the caves for a few hours and to hold all his calls. She seemed shocked at the news. Raymond could hardly keep from laughing. The college boy was going to have to do some actual work instead of sitting on his butt in his office all day. They went to the work shed and he got Lawton a set of coveralls and a jacket.

  “Your feet are going to get cold. You might want to put on those boots over there,” Raymond said.

  “I don’t think so. I paid a fortune for these shoes. I don’t want to screw them up.”

  “You’re making a mistake. It gets slippery and damn cold after a few hours. You really should put them on,” Raymond replied.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Suit yourself,” Raymond said, picking up the clipboard and putting a fresh inventory package of sheets on it. The inventory was fourteen pages long and set up in order of the branches that ran off the main cave passageway. He grabbed a couple of flashlights and stuffed two extra pencils in his coverall pocket.

  “What do you need the flashlights for?” Lawton asked.

  “The lights go out from time to time. It gets damn dark in there.”

  “Really? They go out? Why?”

  “Some critter chews through a wire, the breaker pops, just a bunch of little reasons. I learned the hard way, that’s why I take a couple of flashlights with me,” he said.

  “Hum. I guess I never heard of that happening before.”

  “No reason you should. It only matters if you’re in the cave when it happens. I doubt the lights go out very often in your office,” Raymond replied, heading for the cave.

  Lawton decided to just let it go. They got to the cave entrance and Raymond opened the door. The cave had been enclosed ever since an unusually cold winter came with high winds and it cooled the first two branches to the point they lost the wine.

  “Here, you take the clipboard and I’ll show you how it works,” Raymond said, flipping on the light switch. Row after row of lights came on. All the bulbs were 25 watts so there was just enough light to see but not enough to make it bright.

  “Okay, this is branch A. We inventory the right side first, across the back and then the other side on our way out. They will all be Chardonnay. This year’s racking is in this branch,” he told Lawton.

  They started down the row and Raymond called out the figures, each representing how many bottles was in a rack.

  When they got to the end of the bran
ch Raymond said, “That should make four thousand two hundred bottles.”

  Lawton glanced at him with a surprised look. He quickly added the numbers up and found that he was exactly right. They continued on and at the end of each branch Raymond would spew out the total. He was right every single time. Exactly to the bottle.

  Even more shocking to Lawton was that he could also keep the running total in his head and then recite exactly how many bottles of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Muscat and every other wine they produced totaled as well.

  Lawton was starting to gain a new respect for him. When they got to the end of the main tunnel they crossed over and started working backward from the far end to the entrance.

  “This is where we keep the newest red wines,” Raymond explained.

  “Why so far back?”

  “Reds take longer to mature as you know. We put them back here until they have reached the correct maturity and then we rotate them to the branches near the door,” he explained.

  “So the ones ready to drink are always up front?”

  “On the red wines, yes. That way no one gets lazy and pulls from the wrong branch.”

  “Excellent. I have to give you credit. This is exceptionally well done. Your system is really excellent,” Lawton said.

  Raymond looked out the corner of his eye to see it he was being put on but decided that he really meant it. He was pleased that what he had done was making an impression on Mr. MBA.

  “You cold?”

  “Damn feet are freezing off but I wasn’t about to admit it,” Lawton said and laughed.

  Raymond couldn’t help but laugh with him.

  “I remember the first time I came into the tombs. I had on shorts and sandals. Big tough guy like me didn’t need boots. I about froze my gonads off. I got smart real quick.”

  “Yeah, you can bet your ass if you offer me boots next time I’ll damn sure wear them,” Lawton said, slapping Raymond on the back.

  This had been good for both of them. While they had been taking inventory, Lawton had shared some of his problems and solutions that he was working on. It was way above Raymond’s head and he was glad he didn’t have to deal in the financial world. He only understood as small portion of what he was saying.

  “Look, I can finish this. Why don’t you go and get warm. I think we both learned something today,” Raymond said.

  “I’ll stick it out,” Lawson said.

  “Shit. Don’t go and spoil it. Go, get warm and I’ll get this done in no time. You see how it’s done and it’s just repetition from here on out. I’ll bring you the new totals just as soon as I’m finished.”

  “Really, I can make it,” Lawton said.

  “Well, unless we put blue lights in here, I would say you’re about to freeze your ass off. It isn’t worth getting sick over. I’ll finish and think none the less of you,” Raymond said.

  Lawton let out a loud laugh.

  Raymond blushed but it was undetectable under the lighting, “I didn’t mean it…”

  “I know, I know. It just sounded so...perfect,” Lawton said and they laughed together.

  “Go,” Raymond finally said.

  “Right. Thanks for the lesson. All of them,” Lawton said holding out his hand. Raymond shook it without hesitation.

  “Be along soon,” Raymond said to the retreating COO.

  Raymond had just started down the next branch when the lights flickered once and then went out. A deep rumble filled the cavern and the walls and ground shook. He was knocked to the floor and the clipboard went flying. He heard it clang off a rack of bottles someplace in the dark.

  “What the hell?” he said, trying to get up.

  A second shock wave rolled through the cave and he was knocked back against a rack of wine. He tried to steady himself but the rack pulled over and the wine bottles came crashing down. He felt a sharp pain as one of the bottles banged against his shin.

  “Shit,” he yelled.

  The roar continued but the shaking stopped. He sat on his butt on the floor and fished one of the flashlights out of his pocket. What the hell just happened he wondered? An earthquake? He had been down here before when tremors occurred but it had never been anything like this.

  “Lawton,” he yelled out but no answer came back.

  Raymond knew he couldn’t have made it out of the cave that quickly, even if he had run.

  “Lawton. You still in here?” he yelled again but still no answer.

  He made a quick reconnaissance of the branch he was in. Racks were turned over and bottles lay in heaps on the floor. Most look like they had survived. Only a few appeared to be broken. He slowly got to his feet and carefully made his way to the main tunnel. A few bottles had tumbled out of the side branches but the main walkway was mostly clear. He started toward the entrance.

  About a quarter of a mile further down he found Lawton lying on the floor. Blood was running down the side of his face. Raymond rushed to him and rolled him over. Looking more closely, he realized it was red wine, not blood. He felt for a pulse and found it was strong. He shook Lawton until he finally started to come around.

  “What?”

  “Easy. You got knocked on the noggin,” Raymond said.

  “Gees. What the hell just happened? Why are the lights out?”

  “Damned if I know. I guess an earthquake must have hit this area.”

  “That must have been some quake. The damn epicenter must have been right under us,” Lawton said, sitting up and holding the side of his head.

  “Doggone. I’m bleeding.”

  “Nah, Zinfandel. Not half bad either,” Raymond told him, licking his finger.

  “Zinfandel? I prefer Merlot really.”

  “Maybe next time.”

  “So now what? We get the hell out of here?”

  “Seems like a plan to me. Inventory ain’t gonna mean much anyway. Most of the wine is now on the floors and I would imagine a lot of it got broken,” Raymond told him.

  “Great. Just excellent. Well, we can’t do anything about it right now. I’m not getting any warmer. Let’s get the hell out of Dodge.”

  “I’m with you on that.”

  They started down the tunnel. More and more bottles were now in the main tunnel and Raymond was pondering why when they came to the end of the main tunnel.

  “What the hell?” he said, shining his flashlight on the mound of dirt.

  “Cave in?”

  “It sure looks like it.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “From what I can tell it looks like it’s about another twenty or thirty feet to the door. That’s a lot of clay and dirt. My best guess is that they have already started looking for us and will be digging us out soon,” Raymond suggested.

  “We could start from this end. Do we keep any tools in here?”

  “Not really. I mean we have a small garden shovel. You know, a little one for leveling racks but that’s all.”

  Lawton looked at the mound of clay and dirt.

  “I don’t see that doing us much good. I guess we will just have to wait for them to dig us out,” he said sitting down and leaning back against the wall. He rubbed his head.

  “Hold on, I’ll be right back,” Raymond said and started back down the tunnel.

  “Don’t worry; I won’t be going any place soon.”

  A few minutes later Raymond returned with a bottle of wine.

  “Merlot,” he said holding up the bottle. He took a captain's tool out of his coverall pocket and uncorked the wine. He started to take a drink from the bottle.

  “Uh, you might want to let that breath...never mind. Really, go ahead, I’m sure it has breathed long enough,” Lawton said.

  “You want some or not?”

  “Hell yes. I know it won’t really make me warmer but I don’t give a damn at the moment,” he said and took a long swig from the bottle.

  “Hey, that's darned good for not breathing,” he said surprised.

  “Yeah. Good stuff,” Raym
ond said taking another long drink.

  “So why do you carry the corkscrew?” Lawton asked.

  “I always keep a captain’s tool on me. I have to make sure it’s time to rotate the inventory. Jamison is the real expert but I always give my opinion. Got pretty good at it,” Raymond told him.

  “So that’s why we're short on inventory,” Lawton said with a straight face.

  “Yep. A couple of real booze hounds. We come back here and drink a few hundred bottles a day. Developed quite a taste for the stuff,” Raymond replied.

  “I’ll bet we will need another bottle before they get to us,” Lawton said, taking a pull from the bottle, not exactly posh but when in Rome, he thought.

  He was more right than even he realized. No one was on the other side of the cave in trying to rescue them. No one even knew they were gone. In fact, no one cared at all that they were missing. It would be some time before they finally realized that no one was looking for them and if they were going to get out, it would be up to them to dig their way out.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lost World Cavern

  “I can’t believe how nervous I am.”

  “Oh bull, Willie, you know what you’re doing. Hell, you have almost as much time in there as I have.”

  “Yeah, but you grew up around here,” Willie protested.

  “So what? Your dad owned a repair garage and you don’t know squat about cars.”

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  “So you would like to believe. Look man, chill. Everything will be just fine. They put you on today for a reason. Monday, right at lunch time is always the smallest group. You won’t have over fifteen or twenty people tagging along.”

  “Fifteen or twenty people I am responsible for.”

  “No shit? We’re responsible for these people? I’ll be darned, no one ever told me,” he said.

  “Is that supposed to be funny?” Willie asked.

  “No, you being a jerk about taking a small group through there is funny. All you have been doing is whining about not getting to be in charge. Now you’re in charge and you are wimping out. Now that’s funny.”

  “So funny, I forgot to laugh.”

  “You have to admit it’s kind of strange to want something so bad and then when it lands in your lap you act like it’s a hot potato.”