Pandora's Curse

by Du Brul, Jack

  “More like a brand mark,” she countered. “But there’s nothing to it except scar tissue, no symbols or words.”

  When she tugged his sleeves down again, a piece of paper that had been clutched in Delaney’s hands came loose, a small corner showing from under one long finger.

  “What’s that?” Mercer asked.

  “Good eyes. I would have missed it.” She used a pair of surgical forceps to slide out the folded piece of paper, careful not to dislodge the original position of Delaney’s hands.

  The smoke hit them as she handed it to Mercer. It came in a solid black wave sweeping through the underground base, dense and impenetrable. In moments the beams from their Maglites were nothing more than feeble spots of light unable to cut more than a foot into the roiling haze.

  “What the . . . ?” Anika started coughing before she could finish the question.

  Mercer pushed her to the floor, where the air was marginally cleaner. Anika’s eyes were red rimmed and weeping. Her lungs convulsed for a few more seconds until she could purge the worst of the smoke.

  “What happened?” she gasped, fighting not to throw up.

  “Fire. I don’t know. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “How?”

  Mercer crawled to the door. Even through the pall of smoke he could see the dancing glow of a fire at the exit of the officers’ quarters. The fire appeared to grow in ferocity in the few seconds he stared transfixed. On the other side of the advancing wall of flames was the only way out of Camp Decade.

  Anika joined him at the door. “We’re trapped!”

  Mercer didn’t need to voice his agreement.

  Everything was happening too fast for panic to be a problem. His mind was sharp and ready to figure a way out, but as he watched the growing flames, inspiration remained beyond his grasp.

  You’re trapped underground by fire. There’s one way out and it’s blocked. The flames have plenty of fuel considering this whole place is made of wood and it won’t starve for oxygen before you’re cooked. Like a natural chimney, smoke would be billowing up the access shaft at the same time the fire sucked down more air to keep itself going.

  “Mercer!”

  You’ve been here before, he reminded himself. At different times and at different places. How did you get out?

  He knew the answer to that was an unlikely solution. The underground fires he’d faced before had been in coal mines where teams of trained experts battled the inferno to save him.

  You know how to get out of this. You’ve done it before. How?

  It came to him. “Air shaft,” he shouted over the noise of Camp Decade being consumed from within.

  “It’s in the middle of the fire.” Anika choked. “We won’t make it.”

  “Not the main shaft we came down. With this much smoke, we’ll never find it. We have to go all the way through the fire to reach the garage on the other side.”

  “How?”

  “Run like hell.”

  “Why not try to find the exit doors?”

  “Anika, there’s nothing down here that could have started this fire. It was intentionally set by whoever killed Igor to stop us from proving his murder.” A paroxysm of coughing racked her when she gasped. “We can’t risk stopping in the middle of the blaze to search for the doors because they are most likely blocked. We have to reach the far side. There will be air shafts in the garage used to vent engine exhaust when the military stored Sno-Cats there. It’s our only chance.”

  Mercer shuffled to the bed holding Delaney’s body and unceremoniously shoved the corpse aside to strip away the blankets he’d been lying on. The encroaching fire had melted a tremendous amount of ice and snow, so water rippled down the hallway and past the bedroom door. Mercer dumped the blankets in the stream, soaking them through. The water was near freezing and burned his exposed hands like acid. “Take off your snowsuit,” he ordered.

  “Are you nuts?”

  He turned to face her. “Yes. Take off your snowsuit.”

  As she did what he asked, Mercer took off his own parka, sloshing it in the torrent of meltwater. Before he put it back on, he dropped onto his back, gasping when he came in contact with the icy river. Even as he splashed more water on his legs, he could feel crusts of ice forming and breaking with each movement.

  “We’ll freeze to death.”

  He splashed handfuls of water on his face and hair. “I’d rather freeze than burn.” He took Anika’s red suit and soaked it, motioning her to douse herself in the water as he worked.

  Her lips were blue by the time she was done, her jaws chattering uncontrollably. Mercer imagined he looked as bad. If they made it through the fire, they would have only a few minutes before hypothermia overcame them. He handed her the one-piece and worked his arms back into his dripping parka. The garment weighed at least ten pounds more than it had. He could only hope it retained enough water to insulate him.

  The fire roared only fifteen yards away by the time they were dressed again, their delay caused by numb fingers that refused to work properly. Assuming that it spread evenly, they would need to run through a sixty-yard gauntlet before reaching open air again.

  He pulled his hood around his face, covering his eyes with his goggles and making sure that Anika was similarly protected. “Be careful when we reach the middle of the fire. I don’t know if all that snow has melted completely, so there could still be piles of it.”

  “What happens if the fire’s bigger than you think?”

  Mercer’s gallows humor didn’t fail him. “Then all those people who’ve told me to go to hell will get their wish. Are you ready?”

  “No.”

  Mercer gave her a reassuring smile and draped a few wet blankets over her. “We’ll make it.”

  “Okay, AK, let’s do it,” Anika said softly and watched Mercer launch himself down the hallway like a javelin. She waited for a heartbeat and went after him.

  Mercer kept his eyes open for as long as he dared. When the heat hit him full blast, he pulled his own blanket over his head, hunched his shoulders, and ran as fast as he’d ever run in his life. Behind his closed lids and through the now-steaming blankets, light still danced against his vision, ragged swirls of flame that licked upward from the floor. Over the raging inferno, he could hear the blankets sizzling as the water boiled away. Ten yards into the blaze the heat intensified. He hadn’t considered that parts of the roof would be collapsing at any moment, creating obstacles that could trap them in the middle of the fire.

  Twenty yards and he knew he was approaching the avalanche that had buried Igor Bulgarin. His boots sloshed through a thick slurry of snow and water that pulled at each step. It was like wading through liquid mud. Yet he started to drag his feet, pushing aside the slush to clear a path for Anika. Somewhere behind him he heard a rumbling crash. A portion of ceiling had succumbed to the flames and given way. If Anika was on the other side of the blockage, he would never be able to reach her. He continued to run. The blanket felt like it was starting to smolder.

  Mercer’s foot hit a snow pile at full stride, pitching him forward. Had he not been prepared for it, he would have sprawled headlong. As his center of balance shifted, he tucked his shoulder, still clutching the blanket around him. He hit hard, shoulder rolled, and heaved himself back to his feet. His momentum was too much, and he was about to go down again when a steadying hand grabbed his arm.

  Miraculously, Anika had been running even faster than he had. She saw what happened and was ready to keep him on his feet. Mercer chanced opening his eyes. It was like standing at the very bottom of hell. Flames encircled them, racing up the paneled walls to meet at the roof in shimmering sheets. The heat seared his breath. He managed to regain his orientation before a veil of smoke closed off his vision, saving him from seeing that they had covered barely a third of the distance.

  Side by side, they ran onward, spurred by the primal fear of fire. The water saturating Mercer’s clothes began steaming. He could sense Anika Kle
in at his shoulder, running hard.

  In the few seconds they’d been in the conflagration, Mercer had become accustomed to its consuming roar, so when the sound receded behind him he knew they had cleared the fire. He didn’t dare stop, but he let the blanket fall from his shoulders and opened his eyes. He saw nothing but blackness. Smoke.

  “Anika, get down,” he shouted, diving like an All Star for home plate.

  She followed his slide and at the floor they found fresher air. Although her blanket was smoldering, her snowsuit seemed untouched. Together they crawled onward, finally reaching a set of heavy doors at the end of the corridor. Once through, they slammed them closed.

  Even without light they could tell by the way their coughs echoed that the garage they stumbled into was huge. The air, mercifully, hadn’t yet been fouled by smoke.

  “Are you all right?” Anika wheezed when she regained her breath. She snapped on her light.

  Mercer nodded, his head down, tarry smoke coming from his mouth with each cough. “I have a friend,” he panted. “He smokes two packs a day. I bet he would have gone through that and had a nicotine craving afterward.”

  Getting to his feet, Mercer began to undress, retrieving his flashlight before discarding the parka. Next went his sweaters and shirts. “You know we have to,” he said when Anika hadn’t started doing the same. “It can’t be below freezing in here because the snow covering the base acts like insulation. We can stand that for a while as long as we minimize heat loss. Wet clothes will draw heat away from us many times faster than the air.”

  “I know.” Anika started to strip. “I was just wondering about the bullet scar on your shoulder.”

  “Oh, that. Ancient history.” The furrow cut into the top of Mercer’s shoulder was from an assassin’s bullet years earlier. “Thanks for what you did back there. If I had gone down, I wouldn’t have gotten back up.”

  “We’re even.” A trace of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Do you think we’ll be okay until they get the fire out?”

  “Not unless we let them know we’re here. Remember, we didn’t tell anyone we were headed for Camp Decade.”

  Wearing nothing but boxer shorts, with his breath condensing around his head, Mercer tried to organize his thoughts, fighting not to let the cold sap his energy. He couldn’t help but feel vulnerable and he imagined Anika felt even more so in her cotton panties and sports bra. She didn’t appear to be self-conscious about her lack of attire.

  “First things first.” Mercer hadn’t spent much time in this section of the base, but he recalled that there were a few lockers located next to a small washroom.

  Snapping open the doors, he found what he wanted. Because so much equipment had been left behind in the 1950s there were still some mechanics’ overalls in a couple of the lockers. He grabbed four of them and tossed two to Anika.

  “You knew about this?” she asked, gratefully pulling on the stained garments.

  “Other than the reactor that powered the facility, the Sno-Cats, and the men’s personal gear, everything was abandoned here. I wasn’t sure we’d find these but I knew there’d be something we could use.”

  A minute later he found some boots. He started to feel like they had a chance. He handed Anika a cigarette lighter.

  “Don’t tell me you smoke.” She scowled with disgust.

  “Never, but I carry a few when I’m on an expedition like this. Boy Scout training. Can you make us a fire?”

  While she got to work, he wandered around the garage. He noted that in one corner of the room sat a large fuel cylinder for the military’s Sno-Cats. He rapped it with a hammer left on a workbench. The dull thud indicated it was at least half full. A long coil of rubber hose with a standard nozzle hung from a bracket welded to the tank’s support cradle. At the far end of the workshop was a series of wide doors that had once led to snow ramps to the surface. Next he played his light on the trussed ceiling fifteen feet over his head, discovering several large air vents. They were more than big enough for what he had in mind. All he needed now was a ladder and a long pole, like the center post for an army tent. He found both items in a utility closet.

  The smell of burning wood was becoming distracting. It would take a while to reach a dangerous level but it was a constant reminder that on the other side of the fireproof doors was an out-of-control blaze.

  Anika huddled next to the fire she’d built from packing crates, cupping her hands as if receiving a gift from the flames. “Strange to think this would feel good after the run through the hallway,” she joked.

  “We’re not done yet. It’s time to put an old adage to work.” She shot him a questioning glance. “Fight fire with fire.”

  After he explained what he had in mind, she had only one question. “How do you know the diesel will still burn?”

  “Fuels don’t lose their combustibility over time, just their efficiency. Once we drain the sediment and water from the bottom of the tank, we’d be able to fill our own vehicles with it and suffer just bad mileage and burned piston rings.” That was an exaggeration, he knew, but it was close enough.

  “Let’s do it.” Anika got to her feet, convinced because Mercer seemed so certain. He’d said earlier that he trusted her. For now, she had no choice but to reciprocate.

  Mercer set his ladder near the largest of the air shafts, climbing up to remove the circular grate protecting it. The vertical tube was more than large enough to accommodate him and Anika. Flashing his light upward, he could see the vent had been battered and dented by glacial movement, but it was still clear for a good fifteen feet before becoming clogged with ice. He estimated that there would be ten additional feet of snow above it before he could see daylight.

  Anika spent her time unfurling the fuel hose, using some rope she’d found to secure the end of the flexible pipe to the tip of the ten-foot tent pole. Her knots were tight and professional. While Mercer checked the spigot attached to the tank, she used his pocketknife to cut the gas nozzle from the hose. The rubber was brittle but remarkably resilient, demanding all her strength.

  With the tank resting four feet above the polished concrete floor, Mercer knew it was gravity driven rather than relying on a mechanical pump to fill the vehicles that were once stored here. Without the restricting nozzle, an arcing jet of diesel would spew from the hose once he opened the tap.

  “Are you ready for a test?” Mercer asked Anika, who was fifteen yards away, silhouetted by her flashlight.

  “Okay.” She pointed the open end of the tube away from her, not knowing how powerful the stream would be.

  “Here we go.” Mercer needed both hands and the considerable power of his shoulders to crack the initial seal on the spigot. Once the wheel began to turn, it spun freely.

  “Jesus!” Anika screamed in surprise, prompting Mercer to close the tap quickly.

  He raced to her side. “Well?”

  She raised the focus of her flashlight, following the shimmering wet streak staining the floor. The trail led for fifty feet before it vanished beyond the light’s range. “Powerful enough for what you had in mind?”

  “Overkill.” Mercer laughed, delighted that his idea might just work.

  He sobered quickly when a thick wave of smoke reached them. The temperature in the garage was starting to climb. The doors segregating the garage from the rest of the base weren’t nearly as fireproof as Mercer had hoped.

  “Get on the ladder,” Anika said, already in motion. “I’ll operate the valve.”

  Mercer moved the ladder away so he could hold the hose under the air vent while staying away from the fuel that would be pouring back down. High above the floor, the air was fouled with smoke. He pulled the collar of his coveralls over his mouth, but the musty cloth was ranker than the air.

  “Just give me the word and I’ll start the fuel flowing,” Anika yelled, her voice echoing.

  Mercer heaved the pole into position, resting the tip into the vent shaft to balance it, the hose tied to it dangling t
o the floor and away toward the storage tank. Bracing himself against the sturdy ladder, he could maintain a firm grip without the pole’s weight becoming too much to hold steady. By pressing the end of the pole into his stomach, he managed to free one hand. Once Anika turned the tap, he would need that hand for only a moment.

  “Open her up.”

  Through the pole he could feel the attached hose pulsate as diesel fuel surged toward the outlet, forced across the garage and upward into the vent shaft by the tremendous impetus of its own weight. His makeshift flamethrower shuddered, nearly dislodging him from his perch before he got a better grip. In a rush, diesel climbed the hose and exploded up the shaft, splattering the underside of the ice plug like it had exploded from a fire hydrant. As soon as the fuel started falling back to the floor, Mercer snicked open the Zippo lighter and tossed it into the incendiary liquid raining from the roof.

  The fuel ignited in a concussive whoosh, an explosion of orange and red and black that blinded him before he could turn away. It looked like the exhaust from a rocket motor. Even from ten feet away the heat was intense, and Mercer felt sweat begin to pour into his eyes. Beneath him, the widening lake of fire found the gutters cut into the concrete and began to run in rivers to underground waste tanks.

  Amid the flaming fuel draining from the vent, water too began to flow, ice that had melted under the brutal thermal onslaught. Mercer had no way to judge how quickly the ice plug was being dissolved, but each second brought an acceleration to the amount of water diluting the fiery pool.

  “It’s working,” he heard Anika shout over the noise of the fire.

  “Did you have any doubts?” Mercer grinned down at her. He looked like a demon backlit against the pillar of flames.

  Swept up in the euphoria of the moment, Anika returned his cocky smile. “Not for a second.”

  With the burning fuel ducted into the drainage hollows under the floor, Mercer’s fear of starting a fire worse than the one they had just escaped were unfounded. He let the flaming jet of diesel bore into the ice for five minutes before shouting to Anika to kill the flow. They didn’t need to wait for him to move the ladder under the vent to see they had been successful. Shining into the puddle of flames on the floor was a perfect circle of daylight.