Trapped (8 page)

“Just a few seconds before the cave-in,
” he says, “I was getting ready to switch lanes, and I had my eyes on the rearview mirror. And I could see this giant burst of flames – I could feel the explosion. It was like a bomb went off. I pressed hard on the gas, barely knowing what I was doing. Rocks and concrete were tumbling down all around me, and I…I was able to pass a few cars, speeding as fast as I could before my car was trapped. Rocks surrounded me, not from above, but from the sides and behind. That’s why my car survived, I think, under part of the ventilation system. Because the rocks couldn’t come straight down on top of it.” His fingers tighten on mine as he meets my eyes again. “And after you pulled me out, after I saw how this section had survived…I couldn’t stop thinking that it had been a bomb. Everyone in this section thought it was a landslide, some kind of freak natural disaster…but I know what I saw, Emily. It wasn’t an accident.”

We breathe in tandem for a few seconds, letting the weight of his words settle over us. I look past him,
my eyes falling on the thin piece of mirror. “That’s how that got up here. In the explosion, it was…it was blown up here.”

He nods silently. “They didn’t just take out the eastern side. They took out the western side, too. Trapping us in the middle.”

I look down at our joined hands, watch his thumb trace the soft skin on the back of mine.

“Ask me who ‘they’ are, Emily,” he says quietly, staring at our hands as well.

“I think that you know…you know I don’t have to.”

He studies my face in the dark. He’s always studying.
“How did you know? How could you tell it was them?”

I hesitate, studying him as well. Could this be a trick? Is he trying to gain my trust, to learn what I know – to protect all of them?

But no. His blue eyes are deep, pleading. His voice begging me to trust him, as he had trusted me. And I take the leap.

“Because right before the cave-in,” I whisper,
pausing to wet my lips, “I saw something too.”

He closes his eyes briefly, recognizing my confession for what it is – a willingness to trust him. And
I realize why neither of us had said anything before, why we’d both been keeping our secrets – not only from each other, but from everyone. If any of the other survivors find out what we’d seen...if the workmen find out what we know about them…

T
hey blew up an entire tunnel, almost. Two more deaths would be nothing to them.

With a gentle hand, Chris raises my chin, meeting my eyes again. “Tell me, Emily. We’ll figure this out…and we’ll get through it, somehow.”

“Those workmen…they weren’t all riding together. Three of them had been on the side of the road, bent down, doing something. I don’t know what, I just know…”

I feel a single tear trickle down my cheek, and my throat closes up.
I wipe at it quickly, surprised by the sudden emotion. I never cry. I hadn’t cried when the tunnel collapsed. I hadn’t shrieked in hysterics. I hadn’t despaired that we would never get out again.

But now, now that I’m finally admitting what I saw, it doesn’t seem like I can keep my
emotions inside any longer.

“They lied about riding together
.” I look back up at Chris, another tear escaping slowly down my cheek. “They timed it perfectly, so that when those other three…when they…when they set the bombs off, the truck was here to offer them shelter, food, and water. They told everyone else they’d all come in together, but I must have been the only one who saw differently. We were at the far end of the tunnel…maybe we weren’t supposed to make it through the explosion alive, either.”

Tears
spill over as I think of my sisters, so relatively healthy and happy in the car below us. I don’t know what I would do, if anything had happened to them. I wipe quickly at my eyes, and Chris pulls me against him, letting me lean my head into his shoulder.

“It’s okay, Champ.” His soft voice makes me cry harder, and my tears seem to release all the tension of the past two days.
Of the workmen, of their secrets. Of our mom, trading the last of the water. Of thirst and hunger and sleeplessness. Of fear.

And after a long time, I calm down,
resting in Chris’s arms. His broad, strong chest is so comforting, and his hands feel so good as they rub up and down my back.

“What are we going to do?” I ask when I at last find my voice again.

“Emily…I don’t think we can do anything.”

“Don’t you think we need to tell someone? The
Governor, maybe?”

I feel him shake his head above me. “Food and drinks might not be all they have in that truck, Champ.”

I swallow a sudden lump in my throat. “Guns?”

He shrugs. “They’ve come this far. I would be surprised if they didn’t have a backup plan.”

“In case they get caught, you mean.”

“Or
even if someone gets suspicious.”

I pull back to look into his eyes.

“We have to keep this between us, Emily. We can’t tell a soul. We can’t even talk about it, when we get back down there. I didn’t mean to tell you what I knew, and I know you didn’t want to either. It’s too dangerous, for both of us.  But now we can help each other through it, to survive – and to keep our secrets. And in six days, when we make it out of this hell hole, when we’re safe from them…that’s when we’ll tell. That’s when justice will be done. But for now… we just can’t risk it.”

He drops his lips to my forehead, kissing me gently before pulling me back into his arms.

I don’t know how long we stayed there, cuddled up against the rock wall. Eventually we stand, Chris leading us to the opening to the tunnel below. He drops down, landing softly on the concrete slab, and I drop down to his arms.

“Just act
normal, Emily,” he whispers, before kissing me on the forehead again. “Like none of this happened. Like everything is exactly the same.”

I stare up at him,
feeling his heart beat against mine, and wonder how things could ever be the same again.

Chapter 6
– Normal

“What could possibly be taking them so long?” my mom groans, embarking on another round of radio broadcast hunts. For the past day she’s been leading our car battery closer and closer to certain death, searching for news about the rescue effort.

“They’re still predicting a full
five days, Mom. Less than that, now. They’ve started the drilling bores, so it’s only a matter of time. We just have to hold out.”

“I can’t hold out, Emily,” she snaps, turning off the car again. “I’m starving. You girls seem to be handling it fine – you’re smaller, and your metabolism is better. I’m older, and this is a lot harder for me.”

I rub a weary hand on my forehead. ‘Hunger headaches,’ everyone’s calling them. We’re on the end of our third day here, and we’re struggling. But I wonder if this particular headache is caused by frustration.

“I know Mom. We’re going to be okay, though. You’ll see.”

“I wish you’d stop saying that,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re too old for this ‘optimism’ bit you have going.”

I rub my forehead just a little bit harder, keeping a tight rein on my patience. “I’m sorry, Mom. It’s just what the radio broadcasters are saying, you know?”

She harrumphs at that, leaning back on her headrest and closing her eyes. It’s true, though – the radio broadcasters had said that if the air pocket hasn’t collapsed thus far, there’s a good chance it’s not going to. They’ve brought in some of the biggest drilling bores in the country, moving through the eastern entrance to get to us. The rescuers should arrive in less than five days, so if we can just make it till then, we’ll be okay.

And although we’re hungry – starving, actually – we’re doing better at this point than I would have expected.
The water that Chris helped us get from the car has lasted us till now, and we still have the bottle hidden down by Chris’s car. The girls have been happy and energetic, and surprisingly content to wait out the rescue team. And I’ve been…well, patient, I guess. And quiet. Since my talk with Chris in the ventilation system last night, I’ve felt too nervous to say much of anything today.

“Why don’t you
go check on your sisters, Emily? I need to rest now,” my mom says. I get out of the car immediately, only too happy to oblige.

I walk past Hannah Avery
resting in her car, and we wave quietly at each other. She’s still happily reading from her new library books, but I’m glad to get away from mine.

Mrs. Potts is standing outside the hikers’ tent, arguing with them. Again. “My poor little babies are just so hungry. They’re little bodies are shrinking!
You have something to spare, I know it. It’s positively indecent of you not to share with us!” I watch in astonishment as Mrs. Potts stomps her large foot against the ground, staring down the hiker angrily.

“Sorry,” Kevin says, looking much less than apologetic. “We don’t have anything to spare.”

Jason just shrugs his shoulders at her, and then he goes back to arranging things within their small tent.

I walk quickly past, afraid of getting harassed by Mrs. Potts as well. Though she knows by my mom’s actions that we have no food, her temper seems limitless.

The children are playing in the middle again, but I don’t see the girls. The Rodriguez kids are laughing and shrieking in their game, and Mrs. Potts’s children, though at first reserved, are joining in the fun with equal exuberance. They don’t seem to be ‘shrinking,’ I’m glad to see.

I find the girls on the other side of the tunnel, walking back toward the middle.
Though definitely rumpled from wearing their three-day-old outfits, they are doing as well as the other children – giggling and talking cheerfully as they walk back toward the middle of the tunnel. When they see me, however, their expressions change, exchanging a guilty glance before meeting my eyes.

“Alright, girls, what’s up?” I bend down to look at each of them
, adding just a little more dust to my skirt.

“We’re not supposed to tell nobody,” Michelle says, looking at her feet.

“But Emily’s not nobody,” Suzie says, her eyes hopeful.

“It’s alright, girls,” a deep voice says from behind them.
Chris winks at me, creating an odd stirring the vicinity of my chest, before saying to them, “She’s good.”

“Then Emily can have some, too?” Suzanne asks
him.

“
Shh!” Chris says, a finger over his lips. “Not so loud. Emily’s the only other person who can know. Now go back to your game! I think Rosa is about to capture your team’s flag again.”

With a high giggle the girls run past me, and I slowly stand back up. I don’t know how they still have so much energy.

“Come on,” Chris smiles at me, leading me back to his corner of the cave. For a moment I think he’s about to take my hand, like he had before, but his hands move instead to his pockets.

We walk past the other vehicles, stopping beside the rocks covering his car.
His eyes quickly scan the rest of the tunnel before he moves a familiar rock, pulling out a wrapped package and handing it to me.

I pull the plastic back. “A Twinkie?”

He smiles. “It’s the most durable food known to man. Go on. That one’s all yours.”

“Half it with me?” I ask, though my stomach growls in protest.

“No need,” he says as he pulls another one out for himself.

We relish the calories as we eat in silence, protected more or less from the sight of the rest of the cave. Chris stuffs the empty wrappers back into hiding after we lick them clean, and I can’t help but to laugh at the situation.

“Usually the girls aren’t allowed to have junk food,” I tell him, listening to the shrieks of laughter back down the cave.

“Boundless energy?” he asks, smiling.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

Our eyes meet for a moment, before mine travel down to his lips. He’d kissed my forehead last night. The touch feels like a sweet imprint even now.

“You grumpy old man! You have to have something in there!” We hear the voice shouting just a little bit away, and we turn to see Mrs. Potts banging on Simon Tara’s truck.

The old man says something, but neither of us can make it out. Mrs. Potts bangs again on the side of the truck, obviously displeased with his response.

Chris raises his eyebrows at me.

“You’re next,” I tell him.

Sure enough, Mrs. Potts soon gives up on Simon Tara and marches up to Chris, her feet heavy on the pavement. Chris is tall, but Mrs. Potts is almost his height, and twice as thick in the midsection. “You there. Boy. How do you still have so much energy. Where are you getting your food from.”

I cringe at her tone. Though she’s technically asking questions, her voice is too demanding for me to make out a question mark.

“Sorry, ma’am, my car got completely buried. All I had left was what was in my pockets.”

“Which was?” she demands.

“Umm…” he looks at her, trying to determine if she’s serious or not. He decides not, making something up for her. “Fortunately, I’d had a bottle of water in each of my back pockets, and a few packs of crackers in the front. But I already shared them with the other families.”

“You just gave them away? When I have
children
to worry about?”

Chris’s face is almost comical as he tries to figure her out again. “Umm…yes?”

“You selfish boy. How is a mother supposed to provide for her children, with people like you around.”

We watch as she storms off, and Chris shakes in silent laughter. “Emily, I’m sorry I’m so…so…selfish,” he bursts out, leaning back against the rocks.

“You’re just lucky you’re on this side of the cave,” I tell him quietly, making him laugh even harder. He calms down enough to watch Mrs. Potts berate the Rodriguez’s next.

“Should we step in, do y
ou think?” I ask him.

“Nah,” he says
, enjoying the show. Mrs. Potts moves on to Governor’s car next, issuing a few loud raps on the back door. I wait anxiously to see if I can catch a glimpse inside – another day of trying to read
Pervasive Persuasion
has made me curious. But though Governor Rosings steps out of the car to speak with Mrs. Potts, I can’t see much in the back seat. Certainly not a Jacuzzi.

We watch as the
Governor listens patiently to Mrs. Potts, turning her to walk back down the tunnel. He places a hand on her arm, gently explaining how everyone is having to do without now, but that with patience and cooperation we’ll make it through. Chris and I meet eyes and exchange a look. His is a job that requires a lot of patience, I’m sure.

“I wonder if she’ll ask the plumbers for food at all,” Chris says, shaking his head. “I wonder if they’ll say they don’t have any.”

I let the comment pass as we stand away from the rock wall to walk back to the middle of the tunnel.

“We, ah, probably shouldn’t talk too much publicly,” Chris says
after a few steps, looking at me briefly. “Don’t want to give them any reason to get suspicious.”

I nod and he
veers away, going to sit down at his now assigned seat with the plumbers. He laughs loudly at a comment they say as I pass by, slapping one of the plumbers on the back. I try not to think about him sitting with them after everything we shared last night, instead taking a place on the concrete bench to watch the girls play. Hannah Avery comes over after a while, chatting quietly to pass the evening away.

It’s odd, living in this tunnel, where the light is constant, where the
lack of meals makes it impossible to predict the time of day. No one on the western side of the tunnel even has a watch except for the two hikers, and our car batteries can’t be wasted for time checks. My mom’s cell phone is dead already, and mine is almost as well, so I’ve stopped checking the time altogether. But without a clock it feels like we’re stuck in some kind of strange time warp, where the idea of five more days seems equivalent to five more years.

After a couple of hours, though, one of the
plumbers checks his watch, and they all decide to call it bedtime. Chris stands and says a few last words to the plumbers, promising retribution on them tomorrow. He turns to me and I think for a moment he’s going to come over. I hope, for a moment, that is. But instead he just gives me a small wave before going back to his end of the tunnel.

“He seems to like you,” Hannah says beside me, her voice nothing short
of astonished.

“I don’t think so,” I say quickly, feeling my cheeks go red.
It was too fast of a denial.

“Dating him would be like h
aving a new adventure every day,” she says, smiling.

My breath comes out on an uncomfortable
laugh. “I wear my hair the same way every day. I’ll say ‘no thank you’ to changes or adventures.”

She
stares at me for a while before moving her head in a slow nod, agreeing. “I like to have the same schedule every day, too. Wake up, eat breakfast and read the news, take care of my cat. Go to work, come home and watch the news, take care of my cat. It’s a good, full life. And every day is predictable.”

I nod. Substitute ‘twins’ for ‘cat’ and ‘homework’ for ‘news,’ and she’s just about described my life. It’s been this way pretty much since the twin
s were born six years ago, and it
has
been a good, full life. The girls were born slightly premature, but healthy. My mom, however, had had a difficult time with the delivery, and her recovery took much longer. I was ten at the time, and I’d stepped in to help take care of the twins. Although my dad had been there at the beginning, he had little interest in changing diapers or warming bottles. He was a college mathematics professor, and he spent his evenings working on his next great thesis. Having twins was not part of his plan, he’d said. He’d underscored that sentiment just few months later, when he filed for divorce.

After my dad left, I rarely saw him. It was up to
my mom and me to take care of the twins. But between the divorce, working as a single mom, and weekend- and evening-duties as a real estate agent, raising the twins had been largely left to only me. 

“Predictable is good,” I say on a sigh, smoothing my
hands over my braid. “Predictable days give you all the time you need to take care of your responsibilities, to prepare for the next day. It’s the adventures that cause the problems.”

I compete in Math League but don’t do bonus rounds.
I see boys at school but don’t date. I like the predictable, the steady, the stable activities well-known to me.

“I have to agree,” Hannah says, fixing her bun. “But then, I suppose every girl deserves at least one adventure.”

I look up at that, and Hannah smiles a little
. “Well, I think I’ll turn in, too. Long day tomorrow,” she laughs, pushing her glasses back up her nose.

At least one adventure?
Is that what Chris is?
I watch Hannah Avery retreat toward the western side of the tunnel, then turn to stare toward the east. I can’t see him but I know he’s down there, resting under the bright lights of the tunnel. After a long moment I look up at the ventilation area, at the steel support beams well overhead.
Being with him sure feels like an adventure.