by Finn Bell
“Listen,” he says quietly. In blind panic I realise my body is already aiming my pistol and fumbling for the light long before my eyes are even open. When I actually do open them the imagined sight of Remu creeping up from below that my mind’s eye threw up is immediately replaced by the real-world view of James hovering over me. A flood of nausea hits me and I know I’m finally, fully consciousness, because there’s no way I could feel this sick in a dream. My imagination isn’t that much of a bastard.
But as my heart stops pounding I hear it too. It’s not the sound of someone creeping up the dark tunnel but the faint, eerie strands of a melody, slow and lilting. Someone’s singing. The muffled sound is trickling from the earth all around us. It’s a slow song and the notes trace a sad, haunting harmony. Something is familiar about it but I can’t put my finger on it. I know I know it though.
“Help! We’re here! Help!” James suddenly yells, moving past me to the slip. For a moment I’m actually annoyed at him. How am I supposed to figure out what song this is with him yelling like that? We’ll never get out of here. Then I realise how seriously out of it I am. It must be the fever. I’m not thinking straight anymore, I realise as I slowly get myself oriented and half-crawl half-stagger after him to the slip. When James stops yelling the expected silence is immediately broken by a faint but clearer voice.
“Nick?” it says and I sag with relief. Tension releases itself inside me as I let go of a thought I’ve been too scared to think. Because I know that song. It’s Ave Maria, being sung in Latin. Like he often does when he’s alone in his office. Tobe is alive.
“Hey old man,” I yell out.
“Who’ve you got with you?” Tobe asks. Even though his voice seems quiet I can tell from the tone that he is also yelling.
“It’s just me and James Chen. We’re ok. Remu’s gone,” I yell back, involuntarily glancing back down the dark tunnel. Although even just hearing Tobe makes me feel so much safer. Like it’s not just me and James against Remu anymore.
“You remember how many screws I’ve got in my leg?” Tobe asks. It takes me a moment to realise what he’s saying. It’s code. Something we came up with when we were running an undercover case as a signal when we think the other person might be held against their will and we want them to tell us the truth in a way someone listening won’t realise.
“That’s seven,” I yell back, giving the right answer. “We’re good. Remu got hit. We followed his blood trail as far down into the tunnel as we could but it’s flooded. He’s beyond that somewhere but we have his weapons. I think he’s gone.”
“Are you injured?” Tobe yells.
“Here and there,” I yell back. “But James is in good shape. We’d really like to go now though. Maybe take a nice, relaxing helicopter ride to hospital. How about you?”
“Ah, hold on a moment, I think I have it now,” Tobe yells before a rumbling sound and a sudden hissing rivulet of dirt has both me and James quickly shifting back from the slip in the shared fear of a further cave-in. When nothing else happens we edge forward again. We lift up the light and illuminate the extremely uplifting sight of a gap in the soil and rock, no bigger than my palm, through which we can just make out Tobe’s dirty peering eyes about a pace away.
“You do look bad,” Tobe says through the hole, now in his normal tone of voice.
“True, but I feel worse so that’s encouraging to hear,” I answer. Taking turns between us, James and I quickly fill Tobe in on events here in the dark, then inevitably turn to questions of rescue.
“Sorry Nick. I’m afraid I’m as trapped as you. Remu didn’t hit me with that shotgun blast but he destroyed my phone and I fell badly. I think my leg is broken. But I wasn’t caught in the slip at all. I think it mostly settled downward, to your side. It’s been too dark for me to do anything here until now.”
“Until now?” I ask.
“The snow has stopped and the sky is clear outside. The moon is out and it’s allowed me enough light to start shifting out some smaller rocks on this side. There’s a few big ones, which are perhaps better called boulders, that have blocked the way from this side. I don’t think we’ll be strong enough to shift them and they seem to be holding everything else up in any case. I’ve been removing the smaller ones from in between to make a gap,” Tobe says. It sounds like good news except for Tobe’s tone.
“What’s the bad news?” I ask.
“The snow. I think it’s much heavier than anyone expected. The drift is higher than the mine entrance. I can’t do much with my leg but I dug it open and got a few steps outside before it stopped me. It comes up as high as my waist. I had intended to make my way back up to the car to radio for help, but even without the leg injury I don’t think it’s passable. At least not for now,” Tobe answers.
“Well, it’s the thought that counts. They’ll come for us soon enough. We can make it till morning,” I say, still too relieved to see Tobe and have this small opening to the outside world to be disappointed. Fever, cold, darkness, it’s all tolerable now. People are willing to put up with anything as long as they have the certainty that there’s good things to come.
“Nick,” James says quietly behind me, something in his tone making me turn.
But then, I add to myself, those same things can also immediately feel fucking completely intolerable when you’re faced with the certainty of bad things to come. Because caught clearly in the light, already past the rocks we strew in the path and only a few paces away, is the unwelcome sight of the water’s edge.
The flood is rising. Fast.
* * *
THE FOUR MEN IN THE DARK
“How much time do you think we’ll have?” Tobe asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. Not enough, I think. Not enough to wait for morning. It’s a simple estimate to make. The floor of the tunnel at the mine entrance is only slightly higher than the roof of the tunnel where we are now. But slightly is more than enough unless James and I can learn to breathe water or rock before time runs out. And there’s not a lot of it left. Maybe a few hours if the flood level keeps rising at this rate. It may have stopped snowing but all that water still has to go somewhere, and most of it seems to have decided to come join us down here.
The encroaching water line has already backed us up against the slip to stay dry. It’s visibly rising. As I look up I see that the highest point along the undulating tunnel roof is at the slip. It means that if we survive the cold water long enough, this will be where we take our last breath.
As I look over at James I wonder what he’ll think about. Not everyone gets a chance like this. The opportunity to choose the very last thing to hold in your mind one last time. Probably his kids, I decide. He already gave up everything to save William. Margaret would have liked him. One of her real parents.
“Nick, put it down. Nick? Please. You have to stop and rest,” James says. His question jolts me out of my wandering thoughts. I realise I’m crouched here next to James, not moving, still holding the rock he passed me several seconds ago as my muscles tremble with the effort. It’s the fever, I realise, it’s getting harder to keep my head clear. My thoughts keep straying into odd things and then I jerk guiltily back to the here and now like I’ve just nodded off behind the wheel. I realise this has already happened before. James takes the rock from my unresisting hands and throws it beyond us, splashing loudly in the water. Then he helps me to sit down next to him and this time I don’t argue, I’m literally only getting in his way now. Too sick to be useful.
“I’m sorry James,” I say in helpless frustration. My whole body aches and I’m somehow managing to feel too hot and too cold at the same time. James takes a moment to look down at me, covered in mud, blood and dirt, and manages to pull a kind smile from somewhere inside himself.
“It’s ok Nick. I’m going to get you out of here,” he says, and turns back to digging. He’s been going non-stop and I’m amazed at his determination. Fever aside, he must still be exhausted but he hasn’t stopped onc
e since we made the decision.
After we realised how fast the water was rising we decided to take the risk and try to dig ourselves out. Possible rockfall beats certain drowning. We again debated using the explosive but again the risk seems too great.
At first we made progress with our digging but it didn’t take long for our efforts from both sides to stall. Tobe was right. Several large rocks form the bulk of the slip, top to bottom. Simply too heavy and wedged in for us to shift. Next we tried emptying the small cavities in between but none turned out to be bigger than the first hole Tobe made. Nothing big enough for us to get through. We’ve already had more soil and rock suddenly loosen and spill down on us. Tobe’s head and hands, occasionally visible in one or another of the gaps, are covered in dirt and blood.
We’ve also tried digging in on the sides of the tunnel. First with our bare hands, then with pieces of wood and broken rock, but it’s not working. We can’t get through. But James and Tobe are still trying. The lamp died a while ago. James didn’t even pause, just broke it apart and started using the plastic cover to dig with.
At some point I must have drifted off. In my troubled dreams I somehow confuse the shaking of the fever with the trembling in my hands and end up trying to fix it by imagining myself righting the wrongs in my past again, but of course this time it doesn’t work. In the end all I feel is hungry frustration, feeding on itself. I have no sense of time passing but when James wakes me the water line is right next to us so I guess I’ve been asleep for an hour, maybe more. It won’t be long now, maybe two or three hours, and we’ll be standing in it long before then.
“Good news. We may have a way out but it needs all three of us,” James says as he helps me up. While I’m still waiting for my dizziness to subside James points to the slip and says, “We think this could work like a fulcrum.”
“Fulcrum?” I say, still trying to get my numb brain working as I stare uncomprehendingly where he points.
“This big rock right here,” James says. “It could work like a lever because of how it is perched on the one below. Because of its shape we can’t move it out but if we put our weight on the long edge we may be able to make this gap here big enough to escape.”
“Are you ok Nick?” Tobe asks, peering at me through the hole.
“Ask me later,” I say. “Ok, let’s do it.”
It takes several attempts and shifting of positions for James and me to find a way where we can both put our full weight on the rock in question. It’s grindingly slow, back-breaking work that has us straining every muscle to the point where I feel light headed, but we do make progress. Then I lose my grip on the rock’s edge and it immediately thuds back into its original position. It takes several more attempts and discussions of how to shift positions, along with what Tobe does from the other side, before we start making real progress. Every time, just before we fail, the gap seems tantalisingly bigger.
Then, tired, straining and gasping, finally we have it. And once we do it’s still difficult but just easy enough that we can hold it in position.
We’ve got it, I think in tired triumph. The right set of choreographed steps and movements that gets the gap just big enough to slip through. A tight fit that you’d have to squirm through while exhaling, but an escape none the less.
The sight of the opening in the dim light from my cell phone perched in the dirt has all of us spontaneously cheering in ragged unison. Relief floods through me as I sag down against the rock, feeling like I’m right at the edge of my reserves, my limbs shaking, head spinning.
Then James shifts his position next to me, bracing himself so that I can feel he’s taking the full weight of the rock.
His big white smile is the only thing visible in the gloom as he says, “See, I told you we’re getting out of this. I got this. Go. Now. You first.” For a moment I consider resisting, suggesting that he goes first instead, but the mixture of exhaustion and relief is so strong that I just nod gratefully as I lean down.
Through the escape hole I can already see Tobe waiting on the other side, hands held out towards me. It’s amazing how quickly things inside you can change. I’m ill and tired beyond belief but the prospect of freedom seems to dissolve all the pain away in seconds. I’m still weak, dizzy and shaking all over but it somehow doesn’t feel so bad now. We made it, I think as I take Tobe’s hand. Everything’s going to be ok.
That’s when I look up into Tobe’s eyes. There are tears in them. He’s holding them back but they’ve pearled heavy and glittering in the corners of his trembling eyes.
I’ve never seen Tobe cry.
And it’s wrong.
It’s a small, inconsequential thing, like one false note in a symphony, but it’s there. It’s wrong, all wrong.
That’s when my fever-addled, over-tired, stupidly-grateful brain finally puts the glaringly obvious together.
Everything isn’t going to be ok.
Because this isn’t an escape.
Only one person can go through. The other has to stay, keeping their weight on the rock to keep the gap open.
For someone to go, someone has to stay.
James is going to die in here.
For me.
When I let Tobe’s hands go he reaches and grasps them again.
“Nick, please,” he whispers as the pearling tears flow down the lines of his face.
“Not like this Tobe. Not like this,” I say as I move back.
“Nick, no!” James yells when he sees me pull out and stand up next to him.
“Please!” he yells, still stubbornly holding the rock in place, limbs shaking under the strain.
“No James,” I say as I put my hand on his shoulder. At last his arms give way and he releases the rock to thud back down. Collapses on top of it, his breathing ragged.
“It’s ok” I say, sitting down next to him. Several moments of silence pass before I say, “You both thought I’d be too out of it from this fever to notice.”
“Nick, please listen. There’s no other way. You’ve been asleep for hours. We’ve tried everything – wedging it with rocks from underneath, trying to brace it, weigh it down. We broke Remu’s shotgun trying to use it as a brace. Tobe’s gone outside in the snow to try and find a branch thick enough but there’s nothing close, all the vegetation down here is too small. He actually crawled all the way back to the hut and used his gun to try and break apart something bigger but nothing’s worked. We’ve even tried tying knots in our clothes and filling them up with dirt like sandbags. With what we have to work with there is simply no other way,” James says, still trying to convince me.
“I should be the one to stay,” I say, then turn to the slip. “Why did you agree to this Tobe?”
“Because we are out of options,” he replies. “This mine will flood long before help arrives. You’re too weak from illness to hold up that rock on your own. We discussed it at length and I agree with James. If you tried to hold up the rock and your strength fails you’ll trap James, killing both of you. If James does it you get to survive. I know it sounds harsh but one life saved is better than none.”
One life saved, while James dies drowning down here. Him and Remu Black together again. And sooner or later I’d have to go back into that hospital room and look his wife and daughters in the eye. We’d use big words, official and euphemistic, and they’d be polite and understanding and none of it would matter because we’d all know the truth.
“I’m not leaving you and that’s that,” I say, then add heatedly, “And fuck both of you for thinking of it!”
A moment later James makes a sudden choking snort then bursts out laughing. It’s such an incongruous, infectious sound that immediately Tobe and I are laughing as well, in that uncontrollable way that verges on hysteria. Fuelled by desperation, exhaustion and frustrated irony.
When the bout finally peters out of us and the echoes die down I say to James, “You’re a good man James, thank you.”
“What do we do now?” Tobe says.
“We wait. We keep trying to find other ways to escape. We’ve still got time; the flooding might ease, help might arrive in time. We’re not done until we’re done ok,” I say, trying to convey confidence I don’t feel.
And right then, the sound mocking my words, my phone’s battery alarm starts to beep. We’re about to run out of light.
* * *
After a brief discussion we decide to turn off the light. Save the last five percent of battery life for later. For when we find a way out of here. Or for when help comes.
There’s still some very faint natural light spilling in from the moon and stars up above, the upward angle of the tunnel and the reflections on the white snow cruelly conspiring to give us just enough light to see the holes in the slip that we can’t get through.
The water keeps rising. Both James and I are perched up high against the spill now but even so it already laps at our feet. Tobe and James are still talking, trying to find solutions, but after a while they fall silent too. We won’t see dawn, I think. I still feel the same constant level of horrible but I’m forcing myself to stay awake.
My thoughts stray beyond the mine. To Maria.
I realise now that there’s a harsh kind of honesty that can come with getting yourself this exhausted, this sick. Push yourself hard enough, get worn down, broken, bone weary, brain drunk on your own tiredness to the point where you’re hanging on to that last fraying thread, and sometimes the simple truth of things will come to you unbidden, without your choosing. Nothing left inside you to get in the way, no more distractions. Clarity effortlessly rising through all the bullshit you usually tell yourself.
What I realise is that I’m never going to stop. Even now, knowing where it’s got me. We’re not getting out of here, I know that, but if we did I wouldn’t hand in my gun tomorrow. I’d be straight out there on the next case as soon as I could stand. I honestly don’t know why. It’s an ugly job where you have to do bad things to mean people but I can’t walk away.