Black Oil, Red Blood

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Black Oil, Red Blood Page 26

by Diane Castle


  “We don’t even know where we are!” I glanced around in desperation, trying to spot some exits. “Can you see us?”

  “No!” Cameron said. “I told you, my connection’s down. You’re flying blind!”

  I peered through the Plexiglass windows on the double doors we’d just backed through. There was a trail of blood leading down the hallway. Fitz was long gone.

  I motioned for Nash to stand back and fired at the windows.

  “Save your bullets,” Nash said. “That’s safety glass. You won’t be able to shoot it out.”

  “Cameron,” I said. “I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here. You’ve got to think of something.”

  “Okay, I’m thinking!” he said.

  I waited a beat. “What have you got?”

  “Nothing yet! Let me let you go and see what I can come up with. Try to get out!”

  The line went dead.

  I was sweating. I felt claustrophobic. I shoved my gun back in my belt and stripped off the yellow plastic suit, which helped to clear my head some.

  I stretched my arm around Nash’s back, inviting him to lean on my shoulder for support. He did so.

  “Forward, ho!” I said, trying to be brave.

  We limped slowly but urgently forward, eyeing the pipes all around us. Some were skinny, some were thick. Some had bolts the size of tomatoes.

  A nagging question tugged at the edges of my mind. Maybe it was inappropriate under the circumstances, but I wouldn’t be able to fully concentrate unless I got it out of my head.

  “Did you mean it earlier when you said I had you?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he said. “I meant it.”

  “Okay, but what does that mean, exactly. Like I have you as a friend?”

  “More than that,” he said. “When we get out of here, I’m going to take you out for a fajita dinner and some really big, really strong margaritas.”

  “With Patron?” I asked.

  “With Patron. And a sangria swirl. And this time, it really will be a date.”

  I smiled. The only thing dampening my mood was the thought that getting out of here was a big, big If. With a capital I. And maybe even a capital F.

  We had hobbled our way from one end of the chamber to another. We found another set of double doors and leaned against them, expecting them to budge.

  They were locked.

  “I think they’re sealing off the unit to try to control any potential explosion,” I said. “We can’t get out down here. The only way out is up.”

  We headed toward a nearby spiral staircase. I prayed that it would be the right one—that it would actually lead us to a path that might go up and out, not to another dead end.

  We began the long journey upward, with Nash practically hopping up each stair on one foot, leaning on me for support the whole time.

  Above us, a bolt blew off a pipe and hot steam shot out into the space above us. The condensation dripped onto the stair railing.

  “If that’s gasoline, we’re cooked.” Nash bent down and trailed his finger through some droplets, then brought it to his nose.

  “Is this. . . water?” he touched his finger to his tongue gingerly, tasting the fluid. “I think it’s water!”

  “It could be,” I said. “Refineries run on steam.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope, I’m serious,” I said. “Big Oil uses steam to produce the fabulous toxic chemicals that power our world every day.”

  “That is an unbelievable irony,” Nash said.

  Above us, more steam jets popped one by one.

  And then the flames roared to life with a deafening noise.

  Nash jumped.

  I peered high above us.

  The flames were isolated and appeared to be controlled.

  “I think it’s only the safety flares,” I said loudly so that Nash could hear me. I could barely hear my own voice over the roar in the room.

  “What?”

  “Flares!” I yelled. “These are miniature versions of the ones on the roof. When the pressure gets high and there’s danger of chemical leaks, they turn on the flares to burn the excess chemicals before they can reach the air.”

  Nash held his nose. “It doesn’t smell like they’re burning them all!”

  “The flares don’t get them all,” I said.

  We were working our way steadily upwards.

  Beside us, another pipe blew, sending a bolt the size of a quarter flying straight in my direction. It hit me in the back.

  I doubled over in pain.

  “Are you all right?”

  I took a moment to catch my breath, which wasn’t easy, considering the extent to which this room stunk. I smelled gasoline. Tar. Smoke.

  We had reached a platform about four stories up. At the end of it was a door.

  “Look!” I said.

  We limped towards the door. Below us, three more pipes split open, spewing steam upward. I felt the dewy moisture coat my face. Very steam bath-like, except for the smell. The roar of the safety flares was so loud I could barely hear myself think.

  Nash leaned on the door and it opened into another chamber just as large as the first one.

  Enormous towers connected by a maze of pipes stretched above, below, and ahead. The platform continued on to another staircase. We hobbled toward it as fast as we could.

  In this room, large vapor clouds were forming over containment drums. I smelled a sickly sweet odor and felt a burning in my eyes. Benzene. Gasoline.

  I hurriedly pulled my paper mask back over my face, realizing that would provide only minimal protection.

  “Take off your shirt and tie it over your face!” I told Nash.

  He did, and for a moment, I was momentarily distracted by his bare chest. It was so chiseled and perfect that it looked like he had stepped right out of a Renaissance painting. Hoo weee! I hated to think of all that hotness coming to a bad end.

  “We can’t stay in here!” I squinted through the vapors, still scanning for possible exits.

  “We can’t go back,” he said. “The only way out is forward.”

  “Okay, but we have to hurry!”

  I tried to take short breaths. The fumes were burning my eyes, and tears began streaming down my face.

  Nash was making an effort to move faster, although he winced with every step.

  I felt dizzy. Disoriented. Nauseated. My head was pounding, and for a moment, I forgot where I was.

  Nash had stopped, seized by a coughing fit. I waited a moment for him. When it was over, he looked like he was about to pass out. “My head is killing me.”

  “It’s the benzene,” I said. “This is high level exposure. Take short breaths and keep moving.”

  There was a door at the top of a staircase ahead. It was padlocked.

  I pulled out my gun, tempted to shoot it off, but one spark could ignite the vapor clouds around us, and we’d be crispy toast in no time.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Nash said.

  “I’m not.”

  Nash took the gun by the barrel and bashed the handle down on the lock, being very careful to hit it with the rubber gun grip instead of any of the steel parts.

  I shut my eyes tight. One spark of metal-on-metal friction could ignite this whole place. I didn’t see how we had any other option, though.

  Nothing happened.

  He tried again, and this time the lock came loose.

  He yanked the broken lock off and we hobbled through the door into a smaller room. Closing the door behind us, we took a few moments to breathe some relatively fresher air. This room was full of horizontal tanks and enough pipes to give a plumber nightmares. I estimated that the floor of this room started at about the third story and stretched to the sixth.

  We spotted another staircase and headed towards it. Immediately below us, underneath the metal grate of the platform on which we were walking, the seal on a pipe broke and droplets of liquid spewed out.

  We hurr
ied forward. This time it wasn’t water. The smell gave it away. Gasoline.

  “Chloe, you have to get out of here,” Nash said. “Leave me. Run.”

  “No!” I said.

  “This isn’t right. You have a chance to escape.”

  Before I could respond, a steam pipe burst and a section of it went crashing down through the mesh of pipes below it. The metal on metal friction threw out a spark, and the gasoline ignited in a small explosion.

  The force of it knocked me off my feet and I fell off the edge of the platform.

  Nash’s reflexes were as quick as ever. His hand shot out and grabbed my arm.

  I dangled over a mess of spewing pipes below. The heat from the flames scorched my feet.

  “I’ve got you!” Nash yelled.

  I twisted and dangled in the air, like a yo-yo on a dead string. He slowly pulled me upwards, struggling to get leverage with his bad foot. My stomach lurched, and I felt dizzy, but Nash had a strong grip on me.

  I grabbed onto the railing when I was high enough to reach it and pulled myself up and back onto the platform.

  “You all right?” Nash asked.

  I nodded, pressing forward.

  The heat was getting intense. The gasoline leak burned with a steady flame, but I didn’t know how long it would stay that way.

  We were almost to the top of the room. I could see a door labeled ‘emergency Exit Only’ at the top of the next spiral staircase. I figured this qualified as an emergency. We were almost there. Just a few more yards, and we’d be out!

  We hurried toward the staircase.

  Another explosion rocked the room. It knocked out the supports for one end of our platform, and we plummeted. Nash grabbed the railing, and I grabbed Nash. I was holding onto him by the waistband of his pants.

  The platform swung downwards like a pendulum, taking out pipes and crashing to a stop at a seventy degree angle. The bottom edge of the platform perched precariously on a thin pipe with a large, round valve wheel.

  Steam jets buffeted us from both sides, and I cringed against the scalding heat.

  The steam on the railing was making it hard for Nash to maintain a grip.

  “I can’t hold on!” His hands slipped down, and down some more.

  I desperately tried to gain some leverage with my feet, but the platform was slick with steam and the angle was too steep.

  He slid ever further backwards, until my feet finally slipped off the platform and dangled over the flames below.

  A few more inches, and he’d lose his grip on the railing altogether.

  I eyed the Exit sign, which had once seemed so close, and now seemed so far away.

  Our only hope now was to grab onto the jungle-gym of pipes and monkey our way up and out. But which ones were hot steam, and which ones were cold chemicals?

  It would be a process of trial and error.

  I felt Nash slip another inch. I had to get my body weight off him immediately.

  I kept one hand on his pants and stretched the other one out, reaching for a nearby pipe, only to jerk it back again quickly. Too hot.

  There wasn’t another one within reach.

  Our combined body weight on the end of the platform was too much for the thin pipe holding it up. It gave way, and the platform crashed down. The screech of steel on steel nearly deafened me. I closed my eyes against the sparks, certain that any second they would ignite some unseen vapor cloud and toast us both to bits.

  Down and down we went, until finally the platform hit a ninety-degree angle and bashed into the wall. The impact was too much for Nash. His grip slipped off the railing and we fell.

  My stomach did the upward flip associated with free-falling. Panicking, I kicked my feet beneath me, hoping they would catch something other than air before it was too late.

  Abruptly, the falling motion stopped. Pain seared through my shoulder blades as I held on to Nash through the jolt. Nash had grabbed hold of a pipe on the way down and halted the fall. He was able to maintain a grip, so it must not have been a steam pipe.

  I held onto his pants for dear life, praying they would stay on. They slipped some, revealing a peek of nicely toned cheeks underneath. That was all I wanted to see. For now.

  “Can you hang on?” Nash called down to me.

  “I think so!”

  Nash started doing a hand-over-hand, inching us down the horizontal length of the pipe. If he could make it another fifty feet, he could get us to a vertical pipe that wasn’t slick with steam.

  One hand in front of the other, Nash swung forward. I swayed over the fires beneath us precariously.

  Five feet. Ten feet. I swung in small circles beneath him, the motion creating an additional drag on his grip.

  Twenty feet.

  Thirty.

  Nash’s arms and back were slick with sweat, his muscles straining with every movement.

  Forty feet.

  My own strength was giving way. The muscles in my arms burned, and my shoulder sockets seared with pain.

  Fifty feet. We made it.

  Now began the climb.

  “How are you doing?” I wrenched my chin upward, trying to get a look at his face and gauge his progress for myself.

  “I’m fine! Can you climb a vertical pipe?”

  “I don’t think so!” I said truthfully. I had never had a lot of upper body strength.

  “It’s okay!” he said. “Hang on!”

  Hand over hand, he pulled us slowly up.

  I was dizzy with the possibility that neither of us might make it. I felt guilty for being nothing but a weight holding him back, dragging him down. If he wasn’t strong enough—if he couldn’t hold on—what would we do? He was right. I should have run on ahead. Now I was only holding him back, endangering both of us. As of right now, he would have had a better chance without me.

  I worried about the amount of blood he’d lost this morning. I knew he was in pain, but if he felt weakened, he didn’t show it.

  Up and up he went. High above his head—it seemed like miles—was a small platform with a ladder leading up to a hatch. If he could just make it to the ladder. . .

  Smoke and fumes filled the chamber. It was as much of an effort to breathe as it was to hang on to the pipes. If anything else exploded—if there were any more fumes or smoke, I wasn’t certain we could remain conscious.

  I started to cough as a giant smoke plume wafted upwards and enveloped us. Each expellation of breath racked my body, taxing my ability to hang on.

  Nash was coughing too. He had to stop climbing every time he coughed just to hold on.

  “Only a little farther!” I called.

  He was under too much strain to reply.

  We continued slowly upward.

  I felt sleepy. All I wanted to do was close my eyes. To take a nap. To rest. To let go and feel a blissful nothingness. Waves of drowsiness swept over me, and it seemed like there was nothing. . . nothing. . . more important than just taking a little snooze right now. Just a little rest. Only for a second.

  My eyes drooped and my fingers loosened their grip.

  Feeling the change in me, Nash hollered down, “Chloe, no! Stay with me! Hang on! We’re almost there!”

  His exhortations ended in a virtual symphony of coughing. The jerking motions of his body shook me back to a fully conscious state.

  The platform was just above us. Maybe only four feet higher.

  I willed myself to concentrate on the motion of his hands as one by one they released, gripped, and pulled. Release, grip, pull. Release. Grip. Pull. Only a few more times.

  I was so sleepy. Just a little nap. That’s all I needed. Then I’d be refreshed and ready to resume our journey.

  My eyes drooped again.

  And the next thing I know, I must have actually fallen asleep, because I knew I was having a dream. It was one of those falling dreams—the kind that jerk you awake right after you’ve drifted off. There was a noise that accompanied this jerk. A big ka-boom!

 
; I opened my eyes to see the exit sign getting smaller and smaller as Nash and I slid down and down. No. I thought. No, no no!

  The pipe Nash had been climbing was now slicked with an oily substance that spewed from a nearby barrel. It might as well have been made of ice, it was so slippery.

  I tightened my grip around Nash’s chest, hoping the slide would eventually stop.

  To my horror, Nash actually let go of the pipe with both hands.

  I screamed.

  In one quick motion, Nash rubbed his hands on his jeans and then grabbed the pipe again. The oily substance hadn’t run down the pipe as fast as we were falling, and when his hands re-connected, he had a better grip.

  We still slid downward, but the fall slowed a bit, and continued to slow the lower we fell. I shut my eyes tight, not wanting to see the ground racing up at me.

  Slower and slower we slid, until finally we came to a stop.

  “Let go of me,” Nash said.

  Had I heard that right? He was abandoning me to die?

  “Let go!” Nash said again, more urgently this time. “I can’t hold on much longer, and if we both fall together, I’ll hurt you!”

  I hesitated.

  “Chloe, look down!”

  I did. We were a mere six or seven feet from the ground. All that work fighting to get to the top—and all for nothing. Now, we were surely dead. We didn’t have the time or energy to make another climb, and minor explosions continued to ignite above us.

  Feeling defeated, I let go, hit the ground in a roll, and moved away quickly. Nash dropped down, landed on one foot, and rolled a few times to soften the blow. Even so, his bad foot must have impacted somewhere, because I heard him groan in pain.

  The air was a bit more clear down here, since the smoke and vapors wafted upward away from us . . . and since there was a giant hole in the wall where one of the explosions had blown the doors right off their hinges, safety glass and all. I could feel a draft as fresh oxygen swept in through that door, fueling the fires above.

  Nash and I saw the door at the same time. I rushed to help him up, and he leaned on me for support as we hobbled out.

  We limped around corner after corner, looking for an exit.

  Behind us, we heard another loud ka-BOOM and the shrieking of metal on metal as the refinery infrastructure began to buckle in on itself. We didn’t stop to look back.

 

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