While the chamber had broken the surface at the crater, it was generally horizontal, stretching away on either side. And below? She took another floodlight, carefully leaned over in the wobbly basket and flicked it on, shining it down. The house roof was there, lodged at the bottom. Now they were suspended, swaying slightly, fifty feet above it.
As they settled down upon it, with some scraping and creaking, she motioned for quiet. Amidst the immense, shadowy silence, she could hear the faint sound of trickling water. That, together with the damp earthy smell told her that water might somehow be involved in this cavern’s formation. They clamped the two floodlights to the basket, and the lights swayed and shook with each movement of the people, casting shifting shadows on the walls.
Dacey attached herself to a rope via a climbing harness and heaved herself over the swaying basket’s rail and onto the roof, which had been collapsed by its plunge into a flat expanse of splintered rafters. The rescue chief, now more respectful, had instructed rescue workers to do whatever she said, and they were happy to comply. They realized that these depths were her domain, not theirs.
Shining a large flashlight across the crumpled roof, she carefully let out the rope, gingerly walking on the shingles, which shifted and crackled under even her light weight. She looked back at the other three in the basket, shrugged and proceeded to stomp and finally jump up and down on the roof. In places it was springy, but it held.
“Feels solid,” she said. “It’ll hold me anyway. Probably okay. Stay harnessed, though.” Her voice was attenuated by the vastness of the chamber, absorbed by the craggy earthen walls.
The lead rescue worker, a wiry middle-aged man named Lonnie, spoke into his two-way radio to the crane operator, hooked himself up and hopped over the railing, letting out his rope and walking across the roof, also carrying a large flashlight. They both played their lights about the gray-brown cavern walls, checking for possible sources of collapse. It looked like they were safe for now, she concluded. She shined the light down the chamber lengthwise in either direction, noticing that the gloomy ends of the passage seemed to narrow significantly. Frustrated, she wrinkled her brow and adjusted her helmet. There might be answers there, if only she knew what geological questions to ask. The others followed, one proceeding to rip a larger hole in the roof with a crowbar.
“Dacey? We got a real problem here,” said Lonnie, peering into the hole.
Dacey carefully walked over beside them. “What’s that?”
“We got no house.” Lonnie rubbed the gray stubble on his face. Meanwhile, a worker carrying a large prybar had stepped to the edge of the roof and probed the solid earth that surrounded it. He nodded in agreement. He took up the rescue group’s video camera and began taping the results of their explorations.
“None?” Dacey crouched onto her knees and explored the hole in the roof. Sure enough, there was almost no debris beneath the roof, at least not enough to constitute anything resembling a full-sized suburban house. Just dirt and rock. Loose dirt and rock, but solid, she judged by the dull chunking sound it made when the men poked at it with a crowbar.
“Looks like all that’s down here is this roof. Could something like quicksand have swallowed up the house?”
Dacey squinted her puzzled squint and sat down on the roof, her forearms on her knees. A distant rumble emanated from one end of the chamber. “Well, there’s a phenomenon known as liquefaction. In earthquakes, the shaking can make water-soaked soil act like quicksand. It’ll sink houses a little ways, but I don’t think it’ll suck one down all the way. I’m still waiting for the seismic records for this area from the earthquake center in Golden, but I’m sure this was no earthquake.” She was silent for a moment, then stood up resolutely, breathing in the cool, dank air.
“Down there,” she said, pointing in the direction of the rumble. “I bet there’s something down there that might tell us something.” The rescue workers hesitated and she understood their reluctance. “Look, there’s no need for you guys to go down there. I’m the geologist—”
“Yeah, but you’re a—”
“You were gonna say ‘a damned good geologist,’ right?”
Lonnie chuckled. “Yeah, sure. What do you want us to do?”
“Let’s tie together a couple of ropes. I’m gonna walk out over the bottom of this cavern to that narrow part and go in. I’ll holler if I’m in trouble. Haul me in quick.”
The men rigged the ropes and tied her harness firmly to the end. They braced themselves against the rafters in the largest undamaged part of the roof. Dacey checked her helmet camera to make sure it was transmitting, and stepped off the roof. She stumbled slightly in the spongy uneven earth, but recovered and began to slog forward.
Her heart beat faster as it always did when she descended into the depths of the earth. And more generally, she was always jazzed when there was an adventure to be had, and this one was a doozy. A healthy fear squirmed in her gut, and she found herself trembling slightly, but she was spurred by the prospect of some new geological discovery. The people in the department called her Rockhound for good reason.
For the first two hundred feet, the floodlights from the basket were sufficient light, but the gloom farther on made her switch on her helmet lamp. The trickling sound was louder here, and the passageway did begin to narrow. She made sure to aim her helmet camera at the sides, to record their structure. The passageway became distinctly cylindrical and the sides smoother, angling slightly downward. As she walked, she noticed that the passage had shrunk to about six feet in diameter. Smaller and smoother. What did it mean?
“You okay?” she heard faintly behind her.
“Yeah, peachy,” she shouted back. The passage grew still smaller. The trickling was louder. Now the passage was about the size of a storm culvert, like a tunnel. She sat down and peered into the tunnel, slowly scanning her head left to right so the camera could capture the scene. She stopped, noticing that farther down the tunnel a chunk of granite lodged in the wall that looked like it had been worn away or chipped. She sat down, tightened her helmet strap, and scooted down into the narrowing tunnel feet first on her bottom. She was just able to sit up in the small tunnel.
She reached the rock and examined it closer. It was glass-smooth, like the polished granite on the side of a building. She screwed up her face in puzzlement. This was a strange rock she had to have. She pulled out her geologist’s pick and chopped carefully around the rock. It was bigger than she had thought, about the size of a shoebox and wedged hard in the wall. She continued to chop the hard earth, reaching around the rock with her fingers to pry it out. She yanked hard at the same time that she realized her fingers were wet.
“DAMN!” she yelled. The rock had plugged a hole into an underground stream bed! The slippery rock fell heavily into her lap, and she was inundated by a gush of cold muddy water. She kicked back with her feet, but the downsloping bottom of the tunnel had immediately become a water slide and she skittered down into the flow. She tried to dig in her heels, but the mud wasn’t deep enough and she began to slip. She fell onto her back, the cold muddy water gushing into her nose and mouth. She slid farther downward, the wet suffocating muck collapsing in on her. The rope remained slack as she slid. The men were still feeding rope as she went. They thought she was still okay. The meaning of the distant rush of water hadn’t registered with them yet. She shouted, but the sound was a stifled wet gurgle in the rushing mud and water, which was filling the little tunnel.
She slid downward, coughing and gasping for air, faster and faster, realizing that the camera was now out of range of the iPad. She had to do something! She could let go of the rock, but using her arms wouldn’t help. They weren’t strong enough. She spread her legs and tried to jam them against the tunnel sides. But they continued to slither along. The tunnel was so slick! She couldn’t get a breath in the thickening, foaming mud. It rose over her head. She was drowning. She was gathering speed. Still the rope trailed slackly. Soon she would be buried. They
could never pull her out.
The toe of her left boot caught on a rock wedged in the tunnel wall and she skewed sideways and jammed herself in the tunnel, the mud and water rushing over her, oozing over her. She held herself there with all the muscle she could muster, tightened her stomach muscles and with a deep grunt forced her body upward. If only there was air above. She felt her face break the surface. She spat the mud from her mouth and shouted. It was not articulate, just a hoarse bellow, but she hoped it conveyed her danger.
The rope jerked taut! She felt herself being hauled against the slimy pitch-black current upstream. The cold sludge flowed and gurgled around her and she struggled to breathe and hold tight onto the rock and reach up to grasp the helmet camera.
Abruptly she was pulled beyond where the stream had broken through. She allowed herself to be dragged over the damp earth and into the floodlights.
“Okay, okay,” she waved weakly, staggering to her feet, still clutching her cargo, covered with mud. She spat again and tried to clear her eyes with the back of her wrist. She felt strong hands under her shoulders bearing her toward the basket. She shivered as the cold air of the cavern washed over her wet body.
“You alright?” It was Lonnie.
She nodded and coughed hoarsely, bringing up an earthen taste.
“Let’s get her out of here,” he said to the men. They crawled into the basket and Lonnie instructed the crane operator over the radio. The basket jerked upward swinging back and forth across the floor of the cave. After switching off the camera and stowing the rock, Dacey untied herself and leaned panting and coughing on the rail, watching the vast, dark chamber fall away beneath her. She shook her head. She still couldn’t figure the damned thing out.
The crowd standing at a safe distance around the crater saw the disconcerting sight of the basket rising into the sunlight carrying three relatively clean rescue workers and one thoroughly mud-covered, bedraggled woman geologist. The crane’s gears ground slightly as it swung the basket clear of the hole and set it down on what was once a quiet suburban lawn. Dacey waved away any help, as well as requests for television interviews, crawling laboriously out of the basket, still clutching almost obsessively the rock and the helmet camera. Anita stood before her, face drawn, eyes wide with fear. Dacey shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely. “I’m truly sorry. He just wasn’t down there.” Anita slumped and a friend took her around the waist.
“Thank you for what you’ve done. Thanks so much.” She touched Dacey’s muddy shoulder.
“Well, it wasn’t enough. I’m going to figure this thing out, I promise you.”
Anita thanked Dacey again, mumbling something about hoping she was all right, and was helped away. Dacey found a garden hose, turned it on and washed down the rock, oblivious to the mud covering her and the crowd of reporters shouting questions at her. The rock had been sliced smooth on one side. As smooth as if eons of water had worn it away. But the edges were as sharp as if cut by a saw. She detached the helmet video camera and gently washed it, finding it battered but intact. She’d pull the memory card out under more pristine conditions.
Then she stood and took off her helmet, leaving an incongruous dome of relatively clean hair crowning her mud-covered face and body. She turned the hose on herself, scrubbing off the mud from her face, arms and body. She flooded her shirt and shorts with water, squeezing as much as possible from their fabric. Then she squirted and scrubbed off her legs, until the tan emerged from beneath the mud. She removed her boots and socks and washed her feet. She picked up the boots, socks, rock and camera and carried them to her Range Rover parked at the curb, stowing them inside, removing dry clothes and locking it.
Among the crowd, watching her steadily, was a slim man with long curly hair and a scraggly beard and moustache, who wore a white t-shirt and faded jeans.
She gratefully accepted an offer from a kindly neighbor woman to shower at her house. As she took her shower and washed her hair in the bathroom with flowered wallpaper and a tasseled shower curtain and fancy soaps, she decided that it was better than the stock tanks or mountain rivers she usually bathed in on field trips. She emerged from the house in cutoff jeans and white t-shirt, still barefoot because she hadn’t brought extra shoes. She was ready to give a few television interviews:
No, she told the interviewers, she still wasn’t sure what had caused the cave-in, but she’d be working with engineers from the state to figure it out. Yes, it was scary down there. Yes, it was a terrible tragedy. She excused herself as quickly as she could.
After a debriefing with the rescue workers and the rescue chief, who now called her Dr. Livingstone, she climbed tiredly into the Range Rover and drove it slowly through the police line and the crowd of tourists. She pulled out onto the boulevard that led into the well-tended middle-class housing development whose streets were now clogged with sightseeing traffic. It was forty-five minutes to her townhouse in Norman and she relished the time to relax. She accelerated onto Route 40, which would take her across the flat prairie landscape into Oklahoma City, and from there south to Norman. Traffic was light. Maybe everybody was still back at the crater. She smiled tiredly, wriggled her bare feet and thought about the crater and the cavern beneath. She glanced in the rear view mirror. A blue van was following her.
She decided to pick up dinner at a Wendy’s drive-through and left the freeway when she saw a Wendy’s sign. She bought a double burger, fries, and some chili, and maneuvered the Range Rover back onto the freeway. As she neared the exit for Highway 35, she noticed a blue van behind her. The same blue van. She munched a fry reflectively and veered onto 35 south into Norman. She exited the freeway and wound through the city streets, taking a more circuitous route to her townhouse than usual. It was late, getting dark. She could barely see the blue van, but it was there, following her. She munched another fry, becoming a bit more concerned. A TV crew? A fan? Or maybe … She remembered the phone call that morning.
She turned into the short driveway of her townhouse and pulled herself out, looking around. She didn’t see the van. She took the Wendy’s bag and went around to the back of the Range Rover, opening the tailgate and reaching in to pull out the camera and the rock. She was aware of somebody behind her. She whirled to see a bearded man in a t-shirt. He stepped toward her, reaching out.
She stepped back, whirled and with an expert karate side-kick, plunged her bare foot deep into his abdomen, leaving a dirty footprint on his t-shirt. He grunted in surprise, his mouth flying open and his dark eyes wide. He bent over double and she stepped toward him, grabbing his hand bending it straight behind him, twisting his wrist and driving him to his knees. He yelped in pain, but she twisted harder and shoved her foot onto his back, slamming him down onto his stomach. The concrete knocked the breath out of him and he offered no resistance, but she didn’t take any chances. She wrenched his arm behind him, set down the Wendy’s bag and reached up to her head, yanking a long white plastic strap from her ponytail, letting her damp hair cascade around her face. She kneeled on his back, grabbing his other hand and twisting it around behind him, making him grunt in pain. She wrapped the plastic around his wrists and threaded it through a built-in fastener and yanked it tight. Another grunt.
She was tempted to jump up and throw up her hands like she’d seen rodeo calf ropers do. But instead, she sat hard on his back, picked up the Wendy’s bag and took out a fry, popping it into her mouth.
“Got a call yesterday from a cop in Tennessee,” she informed the man as she chewed. “Said he couldn’t do anything official, but told me they met this weird guy who had my picture. Guy had a beard and was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, just like you. Look, I’ve had enough crap today. The cops’ll take it from here. Just remember this the next time you pick on a defenseless woman!”
The man groaned.
“Dacey?” said the little-boy voice. “Why come you sittin’ on that man?” Little Sammy had pedalled up on his G.I. Joe camouflage-painted B
ig Wheel and sat there, his fine, blond baby hair askew, his cowboy boots planted solidly on the concrete.
“Because he’s a bad man, honey.”
“No I’m not,” wheezed the man, beginning to recover from the blow to the stomach.
Dacey ignored him. “Tell your mom to call the police. Go get your mom now, sweetie.” Sammy was three and had learned all about police on Sesame Street, so he clattered away toward his house, a boy on a mission.
“Calling the police isn’t a good idea.” The man’s voice was stronger, but it was muffled from being stuck flat on his stomach under a one hundred thirty-pound load.
“Why not?”
“Because I could charge you with assault and battery.”
Dacey stood up and looked down at him, his hands trussed behind his back, a faint footprint on his shirt. “You came at me.”
“I was going to help you carry your stuff.”
“Sure you were, pal. You didn’t say anything. You just came at me.” She finished the last French fry and set the bag in the back of her Range Rover.
He paused to breathe and to gather his words. “I’m sorry. I’m not very communicative sometimes. Can I get up?”
“Nope. You might be a smooth talker. I know about smooth talkers.” She spied a bulge in his back pocket and bent down to fish out his wallet. She flipped through the cards.
Sammy’s mother ran out of her townhouse holding a nine-millimeter pistol. Hurrying toward Dacey, she shouted, “Are you okay? I’ll call the police!”
Dacey looked up from the wallet. “Just hold a bit, Nance. Let me see what we’ve got here.” Nancy, a slim, dark-haired woman of thirty-two stood, feet wide in an expert marksman’s stance in flip-flops, baggy blue shorts, and a man’s shirt, holding the pistol with both hands, pointed in the general direction of the man.
Wormholes Page 3