by Nick Thacker
“I…” she started again.
Ben’s nostrils flared as he tried to control his emotions. He looked at Julie, a few inches shorter, standing in front of him. “What?” he said. His voice wavered slightly.
She didn’t speak.
Ben grabbed her by the arms and pulled her toward him. He leaned down and kissed her, not letting go. She stood dead still for a few seconds, taken by surprise, then gently fell into him.
She tried to say something, but he pressed his lips harder to hers. She felt warmth crawling up her spine, taking over the steel resolve she’d felt moments ago. He released her arms, and she quickly entangled them around his waist, hugging him tightly.
Finally, he pulled back and looked into her eyes. She saw tears forming in his, and he blinked them back.
“You’re not going with me,” he said softly.
She nodded, biting her lip. “I know. But you’re coming back, Ben. Understand? You’re coming back.”
He swallowed, taking one last look at Julie, then turned to the truck and got inside. He revved the engine and drove away, leaving Julie standing in the road.
In the rearview mirror, he saw a police cruiser pull up beside her and wait for her to open the passenger door. As she got into the vehicle, she looked once more at the trail of dust behind her truck as it disappeared over the small hill.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Ben reached the first cave on his list in record time. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever driven that fast over the weathered roads crisscrossing the park. He sure hadn’t. It was all he could do to keep the truck on the center of the road, hoping that no wildlife jumped in front of the moving battering ram.
The cave was off to his left, and he could easily see the markers from the road. A few stakes in the ground with brightly colored plastic strands marked the location as one of the park’s future tourist attractions. It hadn’t been fully excavated yet, nor had it been assessed by the park’s surveying crews.
But Ben didn’t care about any of that. He needed to find the actual cave, get inside, and find that bomb.
What would it even look like? He wasn’t sure he’d ever even seen a bomb in real life. And it certainly wouldn’t look anything like they did in the movies. Would it? As he exited the vehicle, he grabbed a heavy flashlight he’d borrowed from one of the cops and tested it.
He found the entrance behind a large bush, and he pushed the prickly strands away from his face as he crouched to the low hole below the rocks. It was a tight fit. His large frame was going to have a difficult time navigating the cramped space, not to mention the sharp protrusions of rock he could see breaking out of the otherwise smooth walls.
He sighed. Julie would fit.
He forced the thought out of his mind and slid through the entrance.
It was much tighter than he’d initially thought. His shoulders scraped against the rocks as he sucked in his gut and slid farther. He breathed in slowly, noticing the space grow even smaller, then exhaled. As he did, he slid once more, gaining another six inches.
This could take a while.
He repeated the inhale-exhale-slide process another twenty times and suddenly found himself in a larger hole. Still small, but he now had room to maneuver through the cavern. Still, he found it hard to believe someone could cram a body and a bomb through this tunnel, but it didn’t matter. He had to find it. If it could even possibly be in this cave, he would search the entire thing.
A few more feet and the space opened up again, this time large enough for him to crouch. He crawled forward on his hands and knees, careful to dodge the small rocks and sticks that had collected on the cave floor, ready to stab his knees as he slid past.
For twenty solid minutes, he slid, crawled, and hunched his way through the tunnel, and for twenty solid minutes his only concern was finding that bomb and hoping there were more than twenty minutes on its countdown clock.
“Har— nett.” The radio he’d clipped to the back of his belt crackled to life. “—Ennett. Do — read, over.”
He stopped, grabbed the radio and tried to send a response. “This is Bennett. Harvey Bennett. You’re breaking up, but I read you, over.”
He waited for a response, but none came. Ben checked the radio for battery — less than a quarter remaining, but enough to receive and send a signal — and the antenna. Everything seemed to be in working order, so he clipped it back onto his belt and continued on down the gently sloping decline of the cave.
If it’s important enough, I’ll hear it when I get back to the surface. We have to find this bomb.
But another ten minutes of slowly moving downward proved to be useless. Eventually, the cave narrowed down to a funnel shape, and he found forward motion growing more and more impossible.
Shit, he thought. This can’t be it.
He’d wasted thirty minutes, at least, searching for this cave and diving down it head-first. There was nothing in front of him suggesting that the roof had fallen in, nor was there any sign of prior human contact with the rocks and walls of the cavern. For all he knew, he was the first person to ever set foot in the place.
He shimmied backward, painstakingly moving uphill feet-first, waiting until the cave widened enough for him to turn around and exit.
It had been a massive waste of time, but Ben realized there was something more devastating about it.
There would not be enough time to spend thirty minutes in each of the caves.
He couldn’t hail the rest of the team and pull any of them off their search, either. If the bomb detonated, he had to hope the contagion would be close enough to the lake to be incinerated by one of the blasts.
Chapter Fifty
It took him longer to go back up the tunnel, even after he’d turned around, than it did for him to descend. He was tired, frustrated, and — a new feeling that had just recently begun to wash over him — afraid.
Afraid of not getting to the bomb in time.
Afraid for the officers and volunteers racing throughout the park to find the virus caches.
And most of all, afraid for Julie.
He felt responsible, at least in part, for her involvement. Sure, she’d been near Yellowstone anyway, working on a CDC-sanctioned project, but she might have been called off it if it hadn’t been for his bright idea to get his mother involved.
Now she was every bit in danger as he was, and it was worse that they weren’t together.
The thought struck him as it rattled through his mind.
There was something between them, but he wasn’t quite sure what to call it.
And did she feel the same way? How could he ask her if he ever got the chance?
He crawled along, the ridiculous thoughts spinning through his head. He was a mess. Ben had had a few flings here and there, mostly with other park staff, many of whom were seasonal and changed every summer. None were serious, and none made him feel the same way Julie did.
And what way is that? he asked himself.
He could see the opening of the cave now, just barely. It was every bit as covered by brush and trees as when he’d entered, but thanks to a sliver of light shining through, he knew he was close. He pushed off the rock floor and crouched, trying to move faster.
“—Bennett, report. — Hear me?”
The words were stuttered, but he figured out what they’d asked. He pulled the radio from its clip and answered. “Hey, I’m here — just finished exploring the first cave, and nothing.” He waited, then added, “Over.”
“You’re cut— out…” then, “We’ve — three caches in about — sites.” Ben listened, interpreting the broken chatter. Three virus caches in some number of sites they’ve searched, he thought. It wasn’t great, but it was a start. More importantly, he was right about there being more of them in single-camper sites. No one was on a wild goose chase — they were on track.
Now, to find that bomb and clean up this mess.
He slowly rocked himself forward on his shaky feet and looked up
at the hole. Just a few more yards.
“Ben, do you copy?” It was Julie’s voice.
He immediately brought the walkie-talkie back up to his mouth. “Julie — that you?”
“Yeah. Hey, I have an idea.”
“I’m all ears,” he replied. They’d quickly abandoned the radio protocol of saying ‘over’ every time, and Ben didn’t miss it.
“Listen — I need to get with Randy to figure it out. Randy, if you’re on this frequency, let me know…”
“Right here, Julie. What’s up?” Randy’s voice sounded hollow on the police radio, and Ben wasn’t sure if he was farther away from them or if the police officer was holding it up to him in the car.
“Guys, I need to get out of this hole. My battery’s going down on this radio, too.” To be sure, he checked it. There was a light next to the battery charge symbol, and it was now flashing. That can’t be good, he thought. “I’m going offline for a few, but I’ll jump back on when I’m out. Try calling me on my cell if you can’t reach me.”
“Roger that, Ben. Stand by.”
Ben spent the last few yards painstakingly scraping his head and back against the ceiling of the low roof inside the cave. He didn’t want to slow down, but the cramped space had been taking its toll on his body, and he was forced to tread carefully. A few of the same jutting rocks he’d tried to dodge on the way into the cave seemed determined to not let him escape.
A few minutes later, however, and he’d navigated around or beneath the rocks, and his head soon popped back out of the hole he’d entered long before. Too long.
He looked down at the radio, only to find the battery low indicator light still blinking at him. No telling how long he had left. He should have checked it before he left. He clicked it on, just in time to hear a broadcast from Julie.
“—Back on? Ben, can you hear me?”
“I’m here,” he said. He stood, stretching to his full height for the first time in over an hour. He could feel the deep muscle pain in his lower back already beginning to creep over the area, and he made a mental note to himself to work out more often.
“Okay, great. I’ve got something for you. Check out the cave on the northeastern side of the lake. There are a few, but the one farthest north should be right.”
Ben had reached the truck and was simultaneously fumbling with the ignition as he grabbed the maps spread on the passenger seat. He took the first one, which was a close up of the western side of the lake, with a few caves — including the one he’d just emerged from — labeled and highlighted. He threw it back and grabbed the second map.
This was the correct one, showing a detailed blown-up view of the northern and northeastern sides of the lake, a dozen or so winding caves traced over. One of the larger lines was drawn on top of the body of water itself, signifying that at least a portion of the cave traveled below the lake.
“Got it,” he said as he put the truck into gear and sped up onto the road. He could already see the lake glistening back at him, catching light and bouncing it back into his eyes. He took a quick look back down at the map to confirm. “I’m looking at it. Seems to be one of the only ones that goes under the actual lake, and not just stop before it gets there.” He waited for a response, but none came. “How’d you find this one?” he asked.
Still nothing.
He held up the radio to examine it and found that it was completely dead. No lights blinked.
Crap.
He hoped Julie was right.
Chapter Fifty-One
This cave was significantly larger than the first, a fact he was more than a little excited about. Hopefully he wouldn’t need to crawl or slide down the cave shaft like before, and he could no doubt move much more quickly through it.
He parked the truck again, left the keys on the seat, and jumped down. He’d unclipped the radio as well and left it on the stack of maps on the passenger seat — no use letting it weigh him down.
The ceiling of the cave was high enough that he had multiple inches above his head as he followed its twisting curves. It descended much slower than the first, but he was able to almost jog through it, making up for lost time.
He kept the beam of the flashlight in front of him, finding few obstacles such as rocks or sticks to watch out for.
This could almost not be easier.
As soon as the thought ran through his mind, he almost tripped over a deep step-like formation. He caught himself on the wall and immediately slowed to a walk. He saw that this step was only the beginning — while the cave’s main artery remained large enough to run through side-by-side with another person and tall enough to stand inside, it now took a steep drop and began the real descent.
He calculated that this shelf must be the point where the cave twisted beneath the lake’s bottom, a cavity carved from millions of years of water dripping through cracks and fissures in the ground.
The precarious drop shallowed a bit as he descended, and he was able to pick up the pace once again. After a minute he came to a fork, but barely slowed as he chose the left passage.
The right side was larger and seemed to continue beneath the surface of the lake, while the left was a bit smaller and had a shallower decline. But it was the way the tunnel had been cut that made it the obvious choice.
Instead of being smooth from years of water and weather, the left tunnel had an unnatural sheen to it, along with a rugged, scratchy look.
As if it had been created by a series of explosions.
Ben slowed to a walk as he examined the walls more closely. He could now see the slightest hint of depressions in the rock, small half-cylinder horizontal pathways, dead-straight and spaced out about two feet from each other up the wall and over his head.
Dynamite.
It would have been a low-grade explosive, with enough in each channel to blow the rock to bits and allow it to be cleared, but weak enough that it wouldn’t cave in on itself.
Still, it was a massive amount of work, and Ben grew livid as he walked. They did this right under our noses.
Whoever “they” were, they had done a fantastic job, too. The lines were straight, and the tunnel was well-defined and seemed extremely stable. No support beams framed the arced cave, either.
They brought in their tools, dug this place out, cleared the mess, and no one knew about it.
He couldn’t remember the specifics of the numerous park restoration and construction contracts he’d heard about over the years, but this one had to have been one of them. Most likely this one had been part of a larger one, masked as a standard safety excavation and then piled with paperwork to become lost in a bureaucratic mess.
Still, it had been done, and it had taken a long time — perhaps started before Ben was even hired on.
He stifled his anger, focusing instead on reaching the end of this manmade tunnel and finding whatever it was they’d hidden down here.
The tunnel bent to the right and down, and suddenly came to a stop. There, in the dim light of the flashlight’s glow, Ben saw it.
The bomb.
It was… different than he’d expected, but then again, he had no idea what it would look like. He remembered the newscasters explaining that the first bomb had been a… hyperbaric bomb? Something like that. Is this the same kind?
The bomb looked strangely like a beer keg, the kind he’d seen at a few of the park’s staff parties at the end of their summer seasons. It was silver, and stood in the middle of the room. The sides bulged out, rounded, but the top and bottom were flat, perfect circles. It wasn’t huge, maybe rising to his waist.
On top of it was a tablet computer, like an iPad, but slightly smaller. This was somehow hardwired onto the top of the barrel, a mess of cabling that Ben wasn’t about to try and fiddle with.
He stared at the cold metal object, wondering what to do next.
I don’t really have a plan for this part, he realized. He’d just assumed he’d find the bomb, take it back up with him, and throw it in the lake.
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br /> Or, he had secretly hoped it would be like an old western — a single fuse, lit and burning its way down the cable until it reached the payload. A simple snip with a knife or a deadeye shot with a six-shooter would have taken care of that.
But it wasn’t the wild west, and Ben stood motionless for another few seconds. What now, genius?
He stepped closer to examine the cables. All of them were black — no guessing “blue” or “red” and pulling one of them out. They were wrapped in a thick bundle with electrical tape after protruding from two sides of the tablet, and spread out again at the other end, before heading into the large metal canister.
As he examined the device, a plan began to form. It was primitive, but it was something.
The bomb is cylindrical. Which means it can be rolled.
He had no idea how heavy it was, or how delicate. But he was beyond waiting around for something else to happen — it was just him, a bomb, and not much time left.
He gently grasped the top lip of the barrel-like container and rocked it back and forth. It seemed heavy, which made sense, but not completely stationary. This might work.
He rocked a little harder, testing both for weight and, as he suddenly realized, to simply see if it would explode.
If I get out of this, there’s no way anyone’s ever hiring me to be part of a bomb squad.
Trial and error didn’t seem to be a factor in examining an explosive device, but then again, there was nothing else he could do.
Thankfully, he didn’t explode. No fiery balls of fire ripped him to shreds as he played with the bomb-keg, so he continued with the plan.
Rock gently. Rock a little harder. A little harder… harder —
He lost his grip on the barrel, and the whole mess crashed to the floor. It clanged as it bumped on the hard rock and began to roll down the slightly sloping cavern until it smashed into the wall at the bottom of the chamber.
Ben was irritated that he’d cowered away from it when it fell, as if hiding a few inches back would have saved him from a deadly explosion.