by Scott Carson
“This was where they were supposed to hole through?” he said, using a term Gillian had heard from him before. Holing through was a tunnel builder’s term for breaking ground on one side or the other.
“Right,” she said. “But they never came close. It was a dead project long before that.”
“Then what the hell are we doing here?” Aaron said.
No one answered. They just stood there in the cool shadows on the valley side of the mountain, staring at the forgotten, purposeless basin and all of its trapped rainwater.
Gillian was just about to speak, when her father lifted his hand.
“Listen,” Deshawn Ryan whispered. “You hear that?”
They listened. Gillian heard the stirrings of tree limbs in the breeze, but those were very soft, with the mountain blocking most of the air. Other than that, all she heard was water—the churning in the basin beneath them, the tumult of the waterfall behind them, and the quiet plinks of dripping water in the gorge all around them.
“It’s like a… knocking,” Aaron said, stepping farther out, head cocked.
“That’s coming from up above,” Gillian said. “It’s the water dripping down the rock.”
Aaron and her dad shook their heads in unison.
“Not that,” Aaron said. “The sound’s a little bit deeper.”
She walked closer. Listened and waited. There it was, yes, a deeper sound. Something close to the slow, steady drips, but with more force.
“It’s a pick,” her father said. “Or a rock hammer. But it’s damn sure not water. That’s metal hitting stone.” He swiveled his head, listened for a few more seconds, and then pointed into the roiling waters in the basin. “It’s not coming from above us, either. It’s coming up from below.”
This time she heard it and agreed. The sound was muffled by the water, and if you removed that buffer, you’d have heard the metallic crack of the stone clearly.
While her dad and Aaron pressed closer to the discharge chamber, listening and seeking the source, Gillian turned the other way. She looked downstream, following the water as it flowed into the shallow creek bed. It vanished in the wooded and shadowed valley, but she knew where it was going: into the Ashokan Reservoir, and then into the city.
“They got it right,” she said softly.
Both of them turned back to her then.
“What?” her father said.
“I don’t know why it hit Torrance first,” Gillian said. “Maybe a distraction, maybe added pain, maybe part of the original design. But the water and the crew are supposed to come this way.”
No one spoke for a moment. The wind whispered, and beneath it a muffled ting and crack tremored up out of the water and through the ancient stone walls of the basin.
“So what do we do?” she asked at last.
Her father swallowed, looking a little ill. He leaned the rifle up against the fence, muzzle toward the sky, and then bent and began to untie his boots. “I think we’ll have to take a look. I will, I mean.”
“Take a look where?”
He pointed into the unsettled, coffee-colored surge of floodwater. There wasn’t much current to it, but it was still deep.
“You learn to swim at some point that I’m unaware of?” she said.
“I can swim,” he answered with an indignant tone that would have made her smile on another day, in another place.
“You can tread water, Dad. I don’t think it’s really ideal for going down there to have a look. I’ll do it.”
“No, you won’t,” Aaron said. “It’s why I’m here.”
She hesitated. His eyes were fierce and his jaw was set. He wanted to do it. And, quite frankly, she wanted him to.
Still, it was her duty. Not his.
“I’m in charge,” she said. “Sorry.”
“Come on. It’s the one thing I was born to do. This is it. It’s why I’m here with you two now. I was going to end up back in the water at some point.”
“It’s supposed to be me,” her father said. “I came all this way because it’s supposed to be me.”
“Or maybe you were supposed to get us here,” Aaron said. “I don’t know. But I think the only thing we all agree on is that we probably don’t want to waste much time here. Someone’s got to go down there and see… whatever the hell there is to see. And that person has to come back up. Agreed?”
No one spoke.
“Then you put the best person in the water,” he said. “The person who was trained for it. I trained for this. We can all go in if you’re so damned stubborn, but I’m going in regardless.”
“Your foot?” Gillian asked.
“Foot’s bad,” he admitted. “But you know what’s fun about flippers? They’re an improvement on feet once you’re in the water.”
“You’ve got them?”
He unslung the duffel bag from his shoulder. “And a mask,” he said. “So there you go. The guy with the right tools wins, right?”
She looked at her dad. Deshawn Ryan was clearly unhappy but not vocally resisting.
“I thought it would be dry,” he said. “I didn’t expect that.” He gestured at the dark, deep pool.
“Okay,” Gillian said. “Best one in the water goes in first. That’s the right approach, and I’ve got the command here. But, Aaron? You go in first. That doesn’t mean you’re the only one going in.”
“Fine,” he said, but he was already focused on his bag, unzipping it and removing his gear.
“You take a look, and see if…”
See if what? What was she supposed to instruct him to look for? The swimming dead? Ghost laborers?
Yes, she realized with incredulity, that’s probably very close.
“… see what’s down there,” she finished. None of them were sure, and as she and her father watched Aaron gear up for the cold water, she knew that neither she nor her father wanted to fill his head with any ideas of what might await.
When he came back up, he could tell them.
If he came back up.
64
The cargo helicopter brought in enough explosives not only to crack open the seals on the intake tunnels but to knock out what was left of the dam and probably split the lake bed in two. Mick was forced to leave his solitude on the bluff and return to the group gathered at the dam, where he listened patiently while Ben Quirk expressed his dismay.
“We’re trying to punch through ten feet of concrete plugs, not rattle the remains of that dam right into downtown Torrance!” Quirk shouted, watching the crates of explosives being unloaded.
The Army sergeant who’d arrived with the payload calmed him down, explaining that he hadn’t been given a specific requisition, just told to arrive with options and quantity.
“I’m not telling you we’ve got to use it all,” he said. “I was just ordered to bring you plenty.”
“Well, you sure didn’t disappoint me in that regard!”
The sergeant was unflappable. “Under-promise and over-deliver,” he said. “You’ve got options now, sir.”
Indeed they did. There were your big three classics—TNT, ANFO, and nitroglycerin—along with a handful of varieties with which Mick wasn’t familiar. His blasting education was limited but he knew the process would be to drill holes into the stone, pack the holes with explosives, and use fuse cord and detonators to fire the charges. His concern wasn’t so much with the process, but with—as Quirk had aptly pointed out—the resulting vibration. An over-blast this close to the wounded dam might have catastrophic results downstream in Torrance.
A problem, because the catastrophic results needed to happen downstream in New York City. For the Galesburg crew to successfully redirect the floodplain of the Chilewaukee, things had to be held in perfect balance. The tunnels must burst open; the dam must not.
There were at least five blasting engineers on-site now, and all of Mick’s structural knowledge had already been shared with them. Nevertheless, Quirk looked to him now and said, “Mick, any thoughts?”
He had
n’t been anticipating the question, or the way the whole group would turn to him. For an instant he felt the old nerves and an urge to explain in rushed, clipped speech that this was not his bailiwick, thank you very much. Then he saw Anders drifting just behind the crowd, pacing on one of the pallets that had been stacked near the cargo chopper, and he felt the calm come over him.
“Dam’s holding and the rain has stopped,” he said. “There’s urgency but not the kind worth risking too much ground tremor. I’m not sure how far back they plugged those tunnels. Fifteen feet, maybe? Twenty? It won’t be far. So if you have to handle it in a series, blast and dredge, blast and dredge, that’s worthwhile risk aversion. We don’t need to drop it all in one shot.”
This was met with the approval of the demolition experts—further evidence that Mick Fleming’s general authority at the Chilewaukee Reservoir seemed accepted.
A hint of a smile started to slip over his face then. He pinned his lips back down, but not before Quirk saw it.
“Mick?” he said, more curious than upset. It was, after all, not a day for smiles.
“It’s a strange time to be grateful,” Mick said solemnly, “but I can’t help but think how much we owe them.”
“Owe who?”
“The originals,” Mick said, gesturing at the intake tunnel doors that loomed just above the waterline. “Everyone who labored to take those tunnels as far as they did. I’m sure they felt it was a waste by the end, you know? Sealed up and forgotten. Pointless. But today we need every inch they gave us.”
Quirk nodded, looking over Mick’s shoulder and out to the cracked stone seals that protected the tunnels.
“I hope,” he said, “they gave us a few inches more than we know.”
This time Mick had to turn away to hide the smile.
65
Water had represented only horror and failure for Aaron in recent days, from the rescue school washout to the disastrous swim at the tailwaters that had left him bleeding and confessing to murder, yet as soon as he slipped into the frigid pool below the bluestone gorge, he felt a measure of peace.
He was able to use the basin wall to step down rather than making the jump from above, leaving a simple drop into the water. He allowed himself to sink, testing the current, which was negligible. This was trapped floodwater, and while it gathered speed quickly downstream, he was at the headwaters, and it was stagnant here. It also carried sediment washed down from the mountains, though, and that made visibility terrible. He could see his hands out in front of his mask but not much beyond that.
He surfaced and turned back to Gillian and her father, who were watching anxiously from behind the rusted fence.
“All good,” he called, making the universal A-OK gesture with his right hand.
Before either of them could answer, another muffled boom sounded from somewhere just beneath him. This one was the loudest yet, as if something massive had given way, and he felt a tremor in the water.
All three of them looked at the high, jagged rise of the gorge. From down here in the water, the slope looked even steeper, and he could no longer see the peaks of the mountains beyond. He felt a moment of claustrophobia rise within him even though he was free and mobile. There was something about being down here, surrounded by the slick rock walls of the basin, that gave him the sense of being trapped. It didn’t feel like open water so much as a pool.
Like the pool where it all went wrong. Me and Johnny Brass Balls and the panic drill. The moment when I showed the world what I was all about.
No. He couldn’t let that into his mind. This place was nothing like that. It was open downstream, and he could lie on his back and let the current take him anytime he wished. There was no one struggling in his arms, no one determined to pull him down.
Crack, BOOM.
More rock breaking off somewhere down below, the sound like a submerged thunderstorm.
“Okay,” he said, “I’m gonna go have a look.”
He slipped back under. It seemed important to hurry now. There were multiple forces at play, and they were accelerating. He felt this with a certainty, as if the water carried the message to him in its cold tugs and trembles.
He swam toward the front of the basin, clicking on a headlamp, which offered limited penetration in the hazy, dark water. He was able to swim easily, though, kicking primarily with his left foot, although the right didn’t hurt as badly as he’d expected. Maybe the cold water was an unanticipated friend in this regard, numbing the pain.
He was swimming quickly, and when the wall rose up in front of him, it appeared so fast that he almost went headfirst into it. His left hand made contact first, and he used it to push back. Then he looked from side to side, studying the obstacle. The ancient wall was cracked but mostly intact. He gripped it and held on, looking and waiting. What, exactly, was he supposed to see?
When his lungs began to burn, he released the wall and surged upward. Broke the surface, hauled in a breath, and turned onto his back to see Gillian and Deshawn.
“Nothing yet,” he said. “It’s just the old wall. I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking—”
Another muffled boom, and this time he felt a funnel surge in the water that flapped his right foot and sent a bolt of pain through him. The pain was almost unnoticed, though, because the water motion helped him pinpoint the source of the sounds.
“Be careful,” Deshawn Ryan hollered, but Aaron was already submerging again, swimming with a destination this time: down and to his right, the far corner of the basin’s wall.
As he closed in, he could see a swirl of bubbles rising toward him.
Memories of the corpse in the submerged branches teased his mind, but here the water was empty; there were no tree limbs or skeleton hands reaching for him. Another boom concussed the water, more felt than heard, and he saw more bubbles rise in the smothered glow of his headlamp. He followed them, descending while they ascended, searching for where they bloomed to life.
He almost swam right past it. The source was nothing but a shadow in the dark water, and he was focused on a cornerstone of rock, thinking that he would start there and work along the wall. Then the shadow flashed on his left, and he looked back over his shoulder and saw the hole in the wall.
It was more of a hatch than a hole, really—a neat square of blackness in the flat stone facing. But it was an opening.
He floated, staring at it, and while he watched, another boom shuddered through the depths. A single flat stone separated from the rest and tumbled free, falling, sinking…
And joining a pile of broken companions already on the basin floor.
Fascinated, he swam closer. Wrapped his hand around the rock that lined the hatch like a window frame and pulled his face down, peering through to the other side. His headlamp illuminated a rough-hewn tunnel. It was filled with water, but the tunnel angled upward slightly, and he thought that at the top it looked dry, as if the water wasn’t coming from inside the tunnel, but rather had washed into it from the basin.
BOOM. Crack.
A stone just above him split free and fell. He twisted sideways in time to dodge it by a fraction of an inch. Watched it sink and nestle beside the others.
How in the hell is that happening?
He turned back to the hatch, grasped the frame of rock again, and leaned farther in, pushing his head and shoulders through the hatch, into the tunnel. Nothing. Just dark water and stone and—
A woman’s face appeared directly in front of his own.
She came out of nowhere and suddenly was an inch away from his mask. She was gaunt and pale, with her bloodless lips pressed into a thin line and her eyes locked on his. Aaron tried to scream but instead bit hard on the mouthpiece as he jerked backward. Something bright and silvery flickered above him, and he looked up to see the steel head of a pick wickering down through the water in a streamer of bubbles, coming for his skull.
As he lunged sideways he knew it was too late, and braced himself for the blow.
&nbs
p; There was no contact. The pick pounded rock instead, the water shuddered, swaying him in its grasp, and the stone in his hand tore free from the wall and sank, pulling him down with it. As he dropped, his face swung back around to where the woman had stood.
She was gone. Nothing but dark water remained.
He opened his fingers and released the stone, then kicked hard for the surface. Broke through, gasping in a breath. Gillian was shouting questions from above and behind him, but they didn’t register right away. He was still seeing the woman’s grim, gaunt face, and then the sparkle of that sharpened steel pick slicing toward him.
He swam to the side of the wall, grasped a ledge with one hand, and hung there, breathing hard. Now he could hear their questions: “What happened? What did you see?” “Do you need to get out of the water? Are you hurt?” The questions swirled around him like a snow flurry. He didn’t bother to address each one individually.
“They’ve broken through,” he said. “They’re knocking the wall down now. There’s a tunnel on the other side. I’m not sure how far it goes.”
For a moment, absolute silence.
Then Gillian, softly: “Who?”
“The ghosts,” he said simply. He looked up at Deshawn. “I saw one. She was there and then she was gone. Is that normal? Is that how you’ve seen them?”
Gillian turned to her father, and Deshawn seemed to shrink from her gaze.
“That’s how it started, yeah,” he said. “They’d kind of flicker in and out. Corner of the eye, you know? Then they’d be there longer. Finally I could look at them directly. And now they… well, now they take their time. For the past few days they’ve just sort of… lingered. Most don’t speak. I’m not sure if they can’t or don’t want to.”
“You’re the only one who sees them?”
Deshawn nodded again. “Feels that way. Every now and then I think some of the others might see one of the flickers at the edges, the way I used to at the beginning. But they deny it, of course. Their brains do that for them, I think. It’s not a lie so much as a refusal.”
Deshawn was gripping the fence so tightly that the muscles in his thick forearms pressed against the skin.