Trapped (2 page)

Just out of view of the plumbing truck is a black town car. It has two flags above the rear windows, like the ones we saw earlier, although they’re now hanging lifelessly in the still tunnel air. Behind the town car, there’s the mini-van we’d passed on our way in, parked at an angle, with one headlight slammed into the railing. In the inner lane, there’s a red pick-up truck with a single old man inside. His hands are still on the steering wheel, his eyes tracing my progress. A small rock tumbles onto the hood of his truck, but he doesn’t even flinch. It makes a dent in the rusty red paint I think, but the truck looks like it’s been through more fender-benders than even my mom
’s.

I look away and keep walking. The metal railing blocking off the sidewalk is bent in places, the ceiling above patched with fewer holes on this side of the tunnel. But there are no more cars down here. There’s only...

“Nothing.”

I run the last few feet, reaching out to the wall of tumbled rocks. The debris slopes upward, and I calculate quickly. If it’s sloping like this, maybe the entire tunnel didn’t collapse –other parts may still be in tact. There might be some way through, maybe an opening near the ceiling. I climb a low boulder, scraping my hands against the steel of broken
cross-beams and heavy, immovable concrete. Some of the wreckage must be from the tunnel itself, but most seems to be raw pieces ripped from the core of the mountain.

“Oh no.” There’s no way through that I can see, but I move down the width of the tunnel, searching frantically. I climb up as much as I can, testing the immovable wall, leaning my weight into the sloping rocks. But nothing’s going to budge. Not from the force of a hundred pounds of girl.

Still, I walk the width of the blocked tunnel, starting with the railing, searching for any gaps in the wreckage. If there’s some way, some possible way to get through...

There! I feel a medium-sized rock shift under my hands, and I yank at it hurriedly. It tumbles to the pavement at my feet, creating a small air pocket. I pull at another rock,
then another, making a few more tumble down.

“Easy there,” a quiet voice says from the wreckage
.
I jump back at least a yard, studying the rocks.

“I-Is someone...is someone in there?”


I hear a chuckle. “You got it, Champ. My car made it through this damn landslide, but it might not survive what you’re doing to it.”


I walk back carefully, trying to see into the dark pocket surrounded by debris. My eyes register the dim glow of black metal, the glossy shine of leather seats. I’m looking through someone’s windshield, I realize.

Stepping back, I recognize a few chunks of the car hood, although most of the front has been smashed and replaced by boulders. The rocks must have completely surrounded his car as they’d filled in the eastern half of the tunnel, rushing to the middle. But somehow, in all of that, the frame of his car had held.

“I can’t see you,” I say, peering into the hole as far as the overhead lights will let me. A face appears
when he leans forward from the back seat, mouth pulled into a grimace as he pulls himself into the front of the car.

“I had to move to the back,” he grunts. “With the windshield smashed, granite was flooding my driver seat fast.”

Another rock tumbles in as if to prove his point, but he brushes it aside, making room for his long legs as he crouches in the passenger seat.

I look skeptically at the hole I’d created, then at the breadth of his shoulders. “Can you get out from here?”

“A guy’s gotta try.” He looks up, smiling a little.

The light from the tunnel hits him, giving me my first full glimpse of his face. He’s tan, with high cheekbones and a strong jaw. The smooth lines of his face tell me he can’t be more than a year or two older than me, but the hint of dark stubble makes him seem much more... mature. His hair is dark and matted against his forehead, a small trickle of blood flowing downward over his cheek. And his blue eyes are large under the dark slashes of his eyebrows
.

He
seems to notice me now, too, and his grin fades into something more subtle, more serious. I wonder what he sees in my frizzy blond hair, my light brown eyes, my delicate features. But before I have the chance to even breathe, the back windshield of his car explodes, shattering glass and rocks into the seat he’d just vacated.

His eyes widen, and he lunges forward to the hole I’d created above the hood of his car. “No time like the present, eh?”

But his shoulders are far too wide, and he can barely get to the hole I created. The dark material of his long-sleeved shirt catches as he struggles to slide through. I push and pull at the rocks blocking his way, but they won’t budge.

With a sickening crunch, I hear another part of his car cave in.

“Ah.” His teeth clench in pain, and I can see him trying harder now, sense his urgency as he tries to pull himself out.

“Grab my hand.” I reach in and pull him, hard, moving him a little. His fingers clench my wrist, and I bra
ce my feet against the rocks.

“Come on!” He’s moving, just barely, through the opening I created. Rocks are tumbling down the slope around us, pelting him in the face, landing hard on my arms.

“Not...going...to work...” he says through clenched teeth. I pull harder. His shirt tears on the debris, and more rocks tumble down around us. We get one of his shoulders free, then the other, and he uses his free arm to help push.

“Come on!” My voice cracks as I strain to pull him free. He’s sliding out, his torso all the way through, when I hear the roof of his car cave in. He launches himself out and we tumble to the pavement, landing hard at the bottom of the sloped wall. Glass shatters and pebbles tumble down around us, pelting the skin on my arms and legs. We duck our heads together under our arms, breathing heavily as more rocks tumble down. I pull my legs in, saving them from the crash of a large slab of concrete. After a few
long moments, the mountain seems to settle again.

“Thanks, Champ,” he whispers, pulling away from me slowly.
He gingerly rolls over to look back at what used to be his car.

“Yeah,” I turn as well, staring at the solid wall of rock before lowering my eyes. My chest is tight as I try to catch my breath – it’s hard to believe he made it.

He uses the back of his hand to wipe the trickle of blood from his forehead, taking a long moment before turning to look at me. “Of course,” he says, raising his eyebrows, “it probably wouldn’t have collapsed like that if you hadn’t moved all those rocks around in the first place.”

My mouth pops open. “You’re saying that was
my
fault?”

“Not the tunnel caving in. That couldn’t have been
you
. But my car’s personal cave-in – yep.”

My mouth opens even more as I struggle to form a response. He just raises his eyebrows even further before turning away, reaching down to his ankles.

I snap my jaw closed. I
saved
him.
I saved his life
. How could he complain about it?
What a self-centered a—

“Ouch,” he mumbles, gently lifting up the torn jean material on his legs. I look down to the blood soaked cloth, the stark red against the tan of his
legs, the deep gashes the rocks and broken glass caused.

I gulp. That
I
caused.

“I’m so sorry.” I scoot forward, helping to lift his jeans from the torn skin around his knees and shins, rolling it carefully back as he clenches his teeth. I look down at his scrapes, turning his legs gently to inspect the cuts. They’re deep – I’ve seen my share of scrapes and bruises from the twins, and I can tell he’ll be in a lot of pain.

“Can’t be too bad,” he mutters. “I can still move all my toes, I think.”

Lifting his arms over his head, he takes off his long-sleeved shirt. I scoot
back, embarrassed as his thin white t-shirt rises up with the movement then falls back down. Using one of the sleeves, he dabs carefully at the wounds, picking away bits of rock and glass.

“Can I-I help?” I ask, meeting his eyes before turning away again. The wounds look painful, the gashes spilling blood freely. Guilt makes my cheeks flame...although I didn’t cause the cave-in, his injuries might not have happened if I hadn’t recklessly pulled and climbed over the rock wall. I should know better than to be so careless.

“I wish I had a first aid kit for you, or s-something,” I mutter, running my hands over my braid. “I usually keep one in the car, but my mom took it out before we came to Denver.”

He glances at me briefly, and then goes back to work on his shredded skin. “Don’t feel too bad, Champ. I think I’ll be much happier out here than hiding out in that car anyway.” We’re silent a moment as a few more rocks slide somewhere deep in the caved-in tunnel, and he meets my eyes again. “How’d your car make it?”

“Oh, umm. It’s my mom’s car, actually, and it survived fairly well. Just a few cracks in the windshield, and some dents on my mom’s side. I came down to check this way, while she’s up at the western end in the car with my sisters.”

He studies my face for a second,
and then sighs. “Where there’s a solid wall of rock a lot like this one, isn’t there.”

I nod. It’s not a question.

Taking a breath, he rips a length of cloth from the shirt in his hands, then another. He wraps them carefully around his lower legs, then rolls the jeans back down over them.

“Well, I guess I better see if these guys will hold,” he says. I’m not sure whether he’s talking about his impromptu bandages or his legs. He stands, testing his weight on each foot, his eyes cringing a little. After a moment, he reaches down for me as well. I hesitate before taking his hand...but I take it.

“I’m surprised your mom let you come this far. It’s pretty clear the rocks aren’t exactly stable.”

I shrug, keeping my eyes down.

We walk back toward the center of the tunnel, passing the mini-van as a family of five climbs out. Up ahead, a middle-aged man in a suit exits the rear seat of the town car, while a couple of workmen pile out of the plumbing truck – along with the three men in coveralls I’d seen on the sidewalk before the tunnel had collapsed.

I stare at them for a long moment. I’m glad they survived, at least.

The boy beside me seems to be taking everything in – the bright fluorescent lights overhead, the in-tact walls on this part of the tunnel, the different vehicles and groupings. He walks with only the slightest limp, though I can tell his legs must be hurting him. He’s much taller than me – well, I’m short to begin with. His height matches his broad shoulders, supported by narrow hips and long, lean...bloody legs.

I turn to look ahead. A man in a suit with a dark driver’s cap is leading the people I met from the western entrance
– the big woman, with a frown and two little children; the petite woman with the broken glasses; the two men from behind her car, wearing hiking boots; and my family.

My mom walks well ahead of my two sisters, whose hands are clutching tightly to each other as they follow the procession toward the center of the tunnel. Leaving the boy, I rush over to my sisters.

“You girls okay?” I ask quietly as I bend down. Their brown eyes are big and frightened – as identical as I’ve ever seen them.

“We’re going to be okay now. The cave-in is over. We’re safe here.” I try to make my voice firm, managing a small, reassuring smile for them.

They nod and relax enough to let me take their hands, one in each of mine, and we follow the rest of the group.

We all seem to meet a little ahead of the plumbing truck, forming a group close to the railing. The man I’d seen get out of the town car is standing in front of the railing, looking at all the faces with compassion.

“What’s going on here?” demands the large woman, her children clinging to her legs. “How could this have happened?”

The man in the suit answers her. “We don’t know ma’am. All we know is...we are fortunate to be alive.”

His eyes dart to either end of the cave, toward the piles of rock separating us from the outside world. “My guess would be, it was some kind of natural disaster. An earthquake, or a landslide. But somehow our little piece of the tunnel survived, and I’m grateful for that.”

“How could an earthquake have done this?” One of the men from the western side says loudly. “We’re caved in down here – no one knows where we are, no one could find us for weeks!”

One of the large lady’s children starts bawling, and the twins’ hands tremble in mine.

“He’s right!” the large woman lays a comforting hand on her son’s head, though her harsh voice belies the gesture. “How the hell are we going to survive? We’re trapped, completely and totally trapped!”

“I knew it,” my mom says, and Suzie starts crying. “I knew it. We’re going to die down here.”

The other guy wearing hiking boots starts shouting, and the woman in glasses collapses into sobs. The mom from the mini-van family gathers her children up close, while the dad approaches the hiker, speaking quickly in Spanish. The old man steps out of his truck, walking over to the group to spit tobacco juice in the middle. The workmen throw in their voices, telling everyone to stop over-reacting, while my mom joins in the shouting.