by Seth Fishman
“We held a secret meeting,” my dad says, “and decided to give him one dropperful of water to go save his mother. We thought maybe that would help. But we were too late. She had died a week earlier, and he hadn’t told us. He was just obsessed.”
“So you kicked him out?” I ask.
“We kicked him out,” he confirms. There’s a sadness to his voice. The weight of that decision still haunts him, especially with the current outbreak. The bags under his eyes, the sheen of sweat on his skin, his broken posture, must all have to do with letting Sutton go.
“He doesn’t need a hazmat suit. He’s never sick. He must have some water with him,” Brayden says, bringing us into the present, and suddenly it feels very cramped in that corridor.
“I wouldn’t put it past him, if he stole the virus,” Veronica says, her face severe. “Blake’s old money and brilliant to boot—even without the water. It wouldn’t have been hard to hire those soldiers. Now that a few of them are sick, they are probably even more hell-bent on getting in here.”
“Maybe,” Dad says, “but we can’t let him in. We have no leverage and no water. We can’t save anyone without it.”
“Sometimes I wonder whether this really is the Fountain of Youth,” Chuck speculates, staring at the empty monkey cage.
“The Fountain of Youth?” Jo repeats.
“Well,” he replies, his lips curling defensively, “they didn’t find it in Florida, did they?”
“More like the Fountain of Life and Death,” I say, the thought rolling off my mind. It’s true—who ever thought that you could find life-healing water and then manipulate it to create an unstoppable virus, a pathogen designed to rush your body to death? Only humans could come up with such an awful way to turn a gift to a curse. I’m having a hard time not being disgusted, even resentful of this whole group of alums. With my dad leading them, they let the worst scenario come true.
“Whatever you want to call it,” says Veronica, “we have water pumps this time, ready to extract as much as possible, and we can’t miss the ten-day span. Even if Blake’s just going to try to take the water. We’ve worked too hard to just open the doors because he’s back in town.”
Brayden snorts. Something Veronica said really bothers him. His skin’s pulled so tight, his scar looks like white paint on his chin. “Right, forget about the virus. And after the ten days of pumping, are you going to keep yourself locked up here for another seventeen years, hoarding the stuff?” The adults stare at him. “What?” he replies, defiant. “You’re trying to tell me it’s okay that you sat on this for seventeen years? You couldn’t have spared a dropperful? If you had just gone public, you might have been able to stop Sutton and share the secret of the water.”
“Brayden . . .” I admonish, feeling embarrassed despite what feels like truth in his words.
“Go ahead, Mia. Ask him why they kept the secret. I want to know.”
My dad speaks softly, his lips barely moving, so that we all have to quiet down to hear him. “We had two hundred gallons of water the first time around. Can you imagine the repercussions of going public with our discovery on two hundred gallons of water alone? If I knew where the map led, if it took us to the source, maybe I’d be willing to open this up. But we haven’t figured that out yet, and without it, this place is just a stepping stone. I mean—” He pauses, flicking his hand toward the lab. “Not everything is answered yet. We can’t let someone as misdirected as Blake have access to this place.”
“A bit too late for that,” Brayden mutters, unwilling to cede. “Or did the virus not come from Sutton’s time working here?”
“I thought Sutton wanted to stop the virus,” Odessa says, her eyes going involuntarily to her leg.
“Of course,” Dad says, his gaze pensive. “But he released the virus. He’s forcing his way in here. He couldn’t have caused all this death solely to use the water to heal the people who are still alive.”
“He wants the Cave,” Veronica says grimly. “He wants us, he wants this place, and he wants to control the water.”
“For what?” asks Rob. “Money? Fame? Is his pride hurt enough to do something like this?”
“I wish I knew,” replies Veronica. I can’t help thinking that, of all of us, she’d have the best chance of knowing Sutton’s motivations.
“Well,” Dad says, “if we don’t get the water, we don’t help anyone. We can’t. There’s only one vial left.”
“Where is it?” I ask.
“The vial?” Dad asks.
“No, the well,” I reply. He frowns at me. “We want to see the well.”
“I’m sorry, Mia.” He shakes his head. “Can’t let that happen. We actually are going to need to end this tour now and put you guys in our break room. We have lots to do before the well refills.”
“No,” Jo blurts out, surprising everyone. She’s standing very tall, her blond hair dark with sweat and stuck to her forehead and neck. But she looks fierce, her blue eyes blazing and her lips open just enough to see her teeth. “You are going to show us the well. You are going to take me to the place where this all began. My father is dead because of it. Because of him. You owe us everything.”
Dad stares at her, his lips tight. He glances at Chuck, who shakes his head, and then at Veronica, who crosses her arms and nods.
Dad puts a hand on Jo’s shoulder and her jaw clenches. Dad’s face quivers, his forehead so notched with wrinkles and worry that I feel sorry for him. The last time I saw that face was when Mom died. “Jo, I’m sorry about your father. I’m so sorry. He was a good friend; I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now. If you want to see the well, I’ll take you. But please understand we have to be quick.”
She nods, her eyes tearing up, and Dad, not really used to this type of emotion—he certainly doesn’t get it from me—turns abruptly to start down the hall. His shoulders sag, and I guess I didn’t realize how much he lost in all of this. His friend died too. Kids are dying, and he clearly feels responsible. I put an arm around Jo’s shoulders, and she leans against me. Then she sniffs once and steps away, wiping tears from her cheeks. I’m fine, she mouths. And smiles, her eyes glistening.
“You shouldn’t, Greg,” Chuck warns. “These kids aren’t here to replace the others.” I assume he’s talking about Brenda and Alex.
“They’re here, Chuck,” he replies through gritted teeth, “because that psycho we used to be friends with built a personal army and loosed the plague upon our town. Their school, Chuck. Their families. They have every right to this place. As much right as you and I.”
Chuck grimaces, his thin face etched with annoyance, but stays quiet, and we follow Dad into the tunnels. Brayden’s ahead of me and I watch him as we walk. I haven’t really been able to get a moment alone with him since last night. He’s mad, in a way I have never seen before. I realize just how little I know about him.
As we walk, I rub Jo’s back, and she looks at me, her chin still quivering. She speaks with a voice thick with tears. “Happy birthday, Mia.”
“You always give me the best presents,” I say, smiling.
We laugh, and she puts her head on my shoulder. For a moment, everything feels like it’s going to be okay.
• • •
I’m surprised at how we get to the well. It seems that the part of the Cave we’ve seen so far was built into the upper level of the mountain, probably near the entrance the alumni found with Avery all that time ago. And, maybe to keep it safer, they never dug deeper into the cavern that my dad fell into. We’re taken to a dead end, another door, though this one is large and commanding, filling the entire wall in front of us. Dad uses his key card again and enters the code, and the door hisses and swings open, revealing an entrance to a large elevator.
“That’s big enough to hold a truck,” Rob muses.
“We have to be able to move efficiently,” my dad explains.<
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“How much did this cost?”
“I’m not going to share our tax forms, son.”
Rob’s not chastened at all and pushes his glasses back on his face eagerly. “But, wow. This place is incredible. How did you even get workers in here to build?”
Dad tosses a meaningful glance at Veronica. “Took a lot of work and a lot of time to get this place ready. We needed a self-contained environment, storage capacities, and defense. All underground, all in secret. My construction company outfitted crews from across the country, in shifts, so that they wouldn’t know what they were working on. Come on, guys, step inside.”
The space in the elevator is so huge that there’s no need to squish together, but we do anyway. Even my dad and Veronica and Chuck. Like we’re so trained by elevators for narrow spaces that we can’t help but pack in near the door.
“Only one stop?” Jo asks, pointing at the two buttons on the wall. No one answers.
The elevator hums, and I guess it’s moving, but you can’t tell. Before we realize it, the doors are opening. Heck, we could have gone up, for all I know.
Despite the construction the Westbrook alums inflicted on the Cave, they clearly tried to maintain the integrity of the well’s cavern. Aside from the massive water tanks hulking on the edge of the clearing and the multitude of well-positioned spotlights, the cavern that spreads before us is enormous and apparently untouched. Stalactites hang from the ceiling and stalagmites jut forth from the ground in crazy shapes. Already my mind is trying to find images and animals among them.
But that’s nothing compared to the broken wood and petrified forest that stands before us rimming a basin. It’s as if everything froze in time, with the stumps of dead trees scattered. The remains remind me of a cemetery—we’re only missing the fog.
Apparently Jo has the same thoughts, because she whispers, “Ghost town.”
We follow Veronica down a well-lit walkway of grated metal and railings, our shoes clanking loudly, and into the dead woods and toward the well. The walkway is a few feet off the ground, and looking down, I can see how the water would have formed a small pond. In the center of the dead forest, jutting from the earth, is a hunk of rock, and I can see a man-made incision in its face that has left a white, empty space. This must be where the map was taken from. But I barely give this more than a glance; something else has my attention.
Next to the rock face, on the ground, is the well. It’s smaller than I thought it would be. About three feet in diameter, with sloping sides, a mini volcano. I grip the handrails tight, my knuckles going white. I’m surprised at the nostalgia I’m feeling. I glance at the others spread out along the walkway, peering in, and I’m not sure I want them to feel what I’m feeling. This is my memory; it’s a place I’ve been before, owned before, although I was stuck at the time. And here I can’t help but find myself leaning toward the well, curious, wondering if the memory of my childhood fall is accurate. I close my eyes and can see the same nothing I saw when I was stuck in the well. I wonder if my shoulders would be a tight fit. I wonder if they’d bring me sandwiches in a lunch pail.
“Come on, Mia,” Brayden whispers, pushing me ahead gently.
I break out of my trance. The others are all walking back up the ramp. How long have we been standing here? I glance back at the well and feel a burn along my stomach, which at first confuses me, but then I realize it’s where the metal railing was pressing against my skin, holding me.
No one is looking, and Brayden uses the moment to kiss my neck, an act that shocks blood through my body again, as if my heart had slowed and I wasn’t breathing. I pull my gaze from the well and smile, brushing his hair out of his eyes and letting my fingers linger on his earlobe. We head toward the elevator, and up ahead I see my dad, who’s staring, frowning, looking from me to Brayden.
• • •
The return walk is unpleasant. Dad moves us at a quick clip, and everyone feels the urgency building. Stuck in the Cave for a while, we began to let our guard relax, but Sutton’s still out there, as is the virus. We don’t have much time. I keep my head down, trudging along, trying to quench the equal dose of embarrassment and indignation that’s coursing through me. Why that look, Dad? I want to scream. I know he’s just being protective, but why in the midst of all that’s going on does he have to care about who’s kissing my neck? I clomp after Brayden, my eyes on his shoulders rising and falling, and yes, maybe I take in his form and his body and maybe his ass, but it’s only to keep me distracted.
They drop us off at the rec room, complete with a couple comfy couches and chairs, a big flat-screen TV, a wall of books, a few tables and, of course, foosball. That would be Dad; he loves foosball.
“But what about the lights?” Rob asks.
“What do you mean?” replies Veronica with a tilt of her head.
“The lights you have in there. How can you see the glowing stuff you mentioned in the story?”
“Oh, that,” she says. “We’ve been studying the nocturnal luminances for years. We’re actually making pretty good progress on that front, replication-wise. They are bright, but won’t occur until the vegetation has returned, and we’re not sure how long that’ll take. We have to be able to see what we’re doing there, so we have the lights.”
“Will that hurt the plant life?” Odessa asks.
Dad shakes his head. “The water is Miracle-Gro, inside and outside. We can grow a seed on a drop of it in the desert.”
“Cool,” she replies, taking it all in, imagining the possibilities. I wonder if she’ll ever be able to go back to high school botany. She looks the part of a PhD student now, what with her jumpsuit and eager thirty-year-old face. I bet if we survive all this, she’ll ask for a job.
It’s clear that the adults are ready to get to work, whatever that really means. They stand sort of inside and outside the door. Chuck’s completely lost all signs of patience with us, and his initial pleasant veneer has long since faded. He turns abruptly and disappears down the hall, more important things to do.
“I’ve got a question,” Brayden pipes in. “Where’s the vial?”
“They aren’t going to tell us that.” Jo sniffs, dismissive. She’s back in form, playing with her necklace, all traces of her earlier crying gone.
Veronica surprises us, though, with a semi-answer. “In a vault, next door to the Map Room. Safest place in the Cave.”
Dad opens his mouth to add something, but before he does, I blurt out the question that’s been harrowing me since a drop hit Odessa’s lips.
“Does it make you immortal?”
I can feel everyone lean forward. I can feel their pulses quicken. Dad and Veronica share uncomfortable eyes.
“We don’t know . . . we haven’t experimented that far. Not on humans, that is.”
“So you’ve tested it on animals?” I ask.
“Immortality?”
I nod. And find myself holding my breath.
“On mice, rabbits, and one dog, yes. And also yes, they died, some of old age.”
“You killed a dog?” Jo gasps.
Dad looks sheepish. “Well, we had to test everything. That’s the point of all this, isn’t it? The thing is, the life-preserving effects fade in direct proportion to the water dilution. Odessa will heal, Mia’s foot healed, Jimmy won’t have the virus anymore, but you need a lot more water to effect any permanent change. If a person had it pure, and drank it in larger quantities, her eyesight would get better, any blemishes would clear up, memory would improve, and for a limited time, she’d be immune to further exposure of pathogens and quick to heal from any superficial wounds.”
“So you’ve drunk the water . . . you must have felt all this, right? You’re sort of like Wolverine?” Rob asks. I roll my eyes. We all do. But only I remember that Dad dressed like the superhero for Halloween three years ago.
“Not anymore,” D
ad sighs. Veronica has the same look of longing, and I notice more than ever the sparks of gray in her hair. “When we had more water, we all partook. Used to be I’d prick my finger to see how fast it would heal. Not anymore. We don’t have that much left, so we started to drink some diluted, using ourselves as the guinea pigs. I even got my first flu in thirty-three years a few months back.” Dad’s face sags, and he shakes his head. “It’s hard to say how long the pure water lasts. We just didn’t have enough of it.”
“Blake used to say that if we fed a mouse water and then cut a leg,” Veronica adds, “it would heal. But if we cut the leg off, it wouldn’t grow back. Maybe that was when he started thinking negatively.”
“Wait,” Jimmy speaks up. It has been a while since he’s said anything, but he’s paying attention now. “You’re saying that I’m not immortal?” Jimmy asks, looking crestfallen, but he’s clearly joking. Odessa punches him in the arm and he squeezes her into a headlock. The two of them are distractible, somehow not connected to the reality of the situation. It’s bizarre watching them push and shove against each other, their adult bodies a poor fit for their personalities. We all watch for the briefest of moments, lost in the strangeness.
“So they’re going to be like this forever, right?” Rob asks quietly.
“I believe so,” Dad admits.
“Lucky for them that’s all they lost,” I say with a note of urgency. There’s still our school out there, and the infection surely has spread. Todd Silver could be fifty, Rory could be dead. I might think he’s a douche, but I don’t want him dead.
“All right, all right,” Dad says, bringing us back. “We have to go. We have to keep prepping for the water. I hope you’re comfortable here. We’ll be by with food soon enough—but for now, there are loads of DVDs in the box over there, and feel free to play whatever game you find.”