CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TESSA

  “Do you trust Pat?” She turned to Champ as the water continued to gurgle on the other side of the rescue room. If anyone could confirm or dispel the dread in her gut, it was a guy who lived in this mining town all his life.

  An hour had passed since they handed their oxygen tanks over to the miners and watched Pat operate the flow and the gauges. She tried to calm her racing heartbeat as she thought of the toxic mixture of gases just outside in the tunnel, and the long way to the half-collapsed cave-in and the safe air beyond.

  “He’s been the sheriff here all his life, and he’s always been super nice to the kids.” Champ paced around the rescue room along the lockers, and the lantern cast his shadow on them. “He only retired two years ago, and he still shows up at the police station all the time.”

  “Do you trust him?” Alex eyed him. At least he got what she implied, and she was glad to have him on her side.

  Champ sat on the bench and looked between them before eyeing the lockers for a moment. “What do you mean?”

  Tessa hated herself for coming down here, even though they’d saved the trapped miners. A massive elephant stood in the room, and it was the dwindling fuel problem, and by extension, the supply problem this town had. If the helpers who left didn’t get back soon, or at all due to dwindling fuel everywhere, then the people of Brandstand would have to make some tough decisions.

  Hadn’t her father warned her that kindness might get punished? His voice, barely audible, flowed in an undercurrent that cut through her chest, making it hard to breathe. Maybe some of the toxic gases had leaked into the room despite them being careful to let very little of the tunnel air inside.

  Tessa and Alex might not be worth saving.

  She’d say it directly, as she was jacking up the tension by not answering right away. “I know food’s going to get low in this town, and he’s going to want to preserve it, now that we have no good way to get to the fuel down here. That means he will not want to feed outsiders.”

  Champ’s eyes widened as if he couldn’t believe it, and he shot off the wall and stared at her with panic-filled eyes. “You’re saying he wants to leave us down here?”

  “We don’t know what he’ll do.” Tessa stood in the center of the rescue room, and she watched the tiny stream flow down the wall before continuing. “He’s not a bad guy, but he might reach the point where he has to weigh the lives of the town’s kids before ours. There’s probably enough oxygen left in those tanks to access the fuel, and nothing more. If you were him, what would you pick?”

  Alex’s gaze begged her to consider other possibilities. “Tessa, we don’t know that yet.”

  She’d seen enough of humanity to know her explanation was most likely right. Even if decisions weren’t tough, people usually got hurt or cast aside, and that applied not only to disasters. Her own mother chose Larry over her to survive after the divorce.

  She let out a breath. “Okay, so we don’t, but they’ll be back down here, regardless. I’d say we make a run for it if they’re not back in a day or so, but I doubt we’d make it past that cave-in and up that other tunnel before we suffocate.”

  It might be better than starvation. They had water and a few protein bars, and air seemed to come from the surface through the vent. Starving was probably the worst way to go, and she didn’t know how long it would take for the gas to clear out on its own.

  Maybe rescue would come, and she just had to sit tight and hang on, as Alex said. He was realistic, like her.

  “They’re going to come back down here.” Denial filled Champ’s words, and panic filled his eyes so much she feared he’d drown in it. Despite his phobia, he’d also agreed to let the tired miners go back up to the surface with the oxygen and agreed to wait for someone to bring the tanks back down for them. Tessa admired the guy. He was tougher than he believed.

  A bit of cold air blew down from the ceiling. Tessa eyed the vent and wondered if they could get the cage off and squeeze through it, at least to another part of the mine. Alex and Champ did the same in the bluish-white light.

  “If you could climb up that, the miners would have left already,” Alex said. “I bet that just leads to another part of the mine.”

  Champ approached the vent as if he’d seen it for the first time. “A ventilated part, maybe. Otherwise, those guys would have died days ago.”

  Tessa paced, trying to pull her thoughts away from the pit. She had to get over her own trauma and help, or they’d never reach Maine. “I’m sure there are tools in here, and we can at least look, but I doubt it goes anywhere useful if the miners stayed in here the whole time. I’m sure the wind on the surface is driving air in through a series of tunnels.”

  Champ wasn’t giving up. “Then this probably goes to another part of the mine, and that beats staying here. This might even go straight to that ventilation system on the surface. You remember that thing that looked like a pair of blue cones? I’m sure there are some wicked fans in there.”

  Tessa gulped. “They’re not getting to it without fuel and turning it on.” Was this even worth trying, and so soon? They’d only waited an hour, though she knew time probably did some strange things when you were underground. Things felt weird enough back in that tornado shelter on campus.

  “Well, there’s fresh air coming through,” Alex said, eyeing the vent as if he were already making plans. “This is where Mikey’s abilities would have come in well.”

  She agreed, but he was on the surface, guarding their supplies and weapons right along with Brett. She didn’t want to stay down here and leave him alone any longer than necessary. “If we check that out, we might have a plan of getting out of here, even if we have to crawl past fan blades.” What would Alex say? “Maybe the miners didn’t try because they thought someone would turn on the system, so they played it safe. I wish we’d had more time to talk to them. Let’s take a lantern and explore.”

  Alex stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Had she really said that?

  He motioned to Champ. “Then hand me a screwdriver. We’re the tallest, and I’m glad we’re all skinny and didn’t spend that much time at the gym.”

  Tessa forced a laugh, and she felt strange for a moment. Almost… like a normal person.

  Alex and Champ dug through toolboxes, of which there were several scattered around the combined break room and safe room. Plenty of screwdrivers emerged and rolled on the floor, and Tessa recognized levelers, socket wrenches, and other various things she’d seen her father use around his Maine property. He collected tools the way he collected doom.

  “That one.” Tessa pointed to a socket wrench Champ held.

  “This thing?” He looked at her, clueless what the device was, and Tessa realized he had zero experience using tools. She pulled up a bench to the vent and took the wrench from him, undoing the screws that kept the plate to the metal.

  It came off after a few minutes, revealing about three feet of metal vent, and after that, nothing but a narrow tunnel of stone.

  “Hey. I’m impressed,” Champ said.

  Tessa swallowed, peering into the darkness. “It wasn’t difficult.” She tossed down the socket wrench, reaching for a lantern instead, which Alex handed to her.

  The blue-white light shone down the passage, which must be only two feet high at the most, and clearly a drill had bored it out in the stone. A bit of cold air blew over her face, making that hope rise again. Tessa slid her hands along the metal vent, hating how enclosed the whole thing felt, and she knew Champ would have trouble navigating this. “I’ll go first and see what this leads to. I doubt solid rock is going to fall out from under me, and with the air coming down from the surface, I shouldn’t suffocate.”

  She didn’t miss the sigh of relief Champ gave when she said that.

  “You sure?” Alex tapped her sneaker as she hoisted herself into the tunnel. “There might be a reason the miners didn’t take that way out if it’s safe. I wouldn’t want to stay down here any longer than necessary, even if I had food and water.”

  Sweat broke out under Tessa’s clothes, and she wanted to sit under that flowing water. She hadn’t had the chance to shower or bathe in anything over the past few days, and she feared other people were going to notice. That alone propelled her forward on her stomach, though she and Brett had dealt with that issue before.

  The metal venting gave way to stone, and clearly it was just there to give the workers something to anchor the vent to, which probably just kept bats and other critters out. The cold air wrapped around her, leaving her amazed the rescue room stayed warm at all, and she crawled, taking the tunnel a foot at a time as it brushed against her head in places. As she moved, she slid the lantern ahead of her, lighting more of the passage’s length.

  “See anything?” Alex’s voice echoed at her, stretching into something alien.

  Tessa was sure she sounded the same as she pushed the lantern ahead of her. “Not yet. It’s slow going since I have little room to move here.”

  The tunnel curved, and she quickened her pace through the featureless mess, startling a bat that broke into leathery wings and flew away towards the surface. Bat droppings littered the floor, and she slid them out of the way with the lantern.

  This went to the surface if animals lived down here.

  She would need to wash off in that underground stream when she got back, whether she found the exit usable.

  At last, after another curve and after her limbs shook with the effort, Tessa stopped.

  Light filtered downward up ahead, illuminating gray stone.

  She blinked, as if the image were a mirage, and crawled faster, keeping the lantern behind her face.

  The small oval of light brightened the closer she got, though the light level itself still had that tan, dead look as the rest of the surface world. But Tessa didn’t care. Her eyes ached as they adjusted. She turned the lantern off, allowing the full details to reach her, and then she stopped at the edge of the light, dizziness sweeping over her.

  She was now lying on the edge of a shaft that went straight to the surface, with her head poking over a narrow abyss.

  Gasping, she looked up and down, and the reason the miners hadn’t used this way out became obvious. The shaft was vertical, with no angles to grab onto, and far above, it ended in a ribbed pattern of light that marked a metal air vent.

  They were hundreds of feet down, and this opening would provide nothing but air and a means to starve to death.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  BRETT

  Ignoring Zeke, Brett stared at the oxygen tanks as he got into the back of the truck with Roni. He held her tight, dreading the idea of going underground with her. She’d succumb to any toxic gases first, being lower to the ground and smaller. Didn’t carbon dioxide sink and hug the ground? He remembered one of his teachers back in Huntsville saying some countries used it to slaughter pigs.

  He was expendable, being an outsider, but Mikey and Louie didn’t seem to think so. They climbed into the back with him. Louie gave him the most serious look she ever had, as Emily urged the kids back into the library.

  “You shouldn’t have to go on this. Send me.”

  Brett swallowed, since he had the feeling Pat hadn’t been lying about the cave-in. They needed someone small and skinny, someone with a nerd’s body, to get through that opening while hauling these tanks. Pat had already given him a rundown of which gauges to turn once he delivered them, and he hoped he remembered once he was in the thick of it.

  How did Tessa always do so well under this amount of pressure?

  Pat drove them through town, where three men—the rescued miners—stood in front of that restaurant he’d last seen from a distance. All three turned to look at them, and Brett didn’t like the look on the oldest man’s face. He frowned in a way that made this feel final, and Brett knew the man would go in his place if he could.

  The truck stopped in front of the restaurant, which looked packed with elderly folks, and Pat got out, cutting the engine to save the precious fuel. “I need to go in and brief everyone before I take you to get your sister and her friend out. Champ, too.”

  “What about the fuel?” Louie asked.

  Pat hesitated, and Brett didn’t like that, either.

  “We will need to wait for the rest of our crew to return in order to reach the fuel, or trade with people passing through.”

  Brett had to say something. “There must be a way to get it out and start the ventilation. If we do that, then the gases clear from the mine long enough for us to get all the gas out of there.”

  Mikey grasped the side of the truck bed. “You’re saying we should do that before we get Tessa and Alex out of that rescue room?”

  Brett had to keep thinking, because he had the sense those people inside the restaurant were planning to have him risk his life and maybe not even make it to his companions. Maybe Champ was also expendable, and they were running some lie past his mother right now. Food was running low, and he remembered Tessa talking about how her father always used to go on about tough choices. If this wasn’t one, nothing qualified.

  What were their lives worth compared to the fuel that could guarantee these people found supplies before they starved?

  Pat waved the three miners inside, quickly and quietly. “I’ll come back out right after the briefing.”

  There were no kids inside that dark restaurant, sitting among the battery-powered lanterns and candles. Only older adults took up the tables, most of them older women. It was them, and the kids still sitting at home and in the library.

  Brett set Roni down on the truck bed, where she sniffed the tanks he’d have to haul underground. The Main Street of this town turned silent, with not even any birds chirping.

  He looked at Mikey and Louie, heart pounding.

  “They don’t care if I get my sister and Alex out of there alive.”

  Louie swallowed. “We’re just more mouths to feed, and they can use their gas to get themselves food from other places.”

  “Exactly.” Mikey slapped his hand over his mouth like he was going to vomit.

  “They will not give up the fuel so easily, even if they only need enough to vent the mine long enough to clear the cave-in,” Brett said, remembering the pictures. At least he knew Pat was telling the truth about that part.

  “You think they’ll just grab the fuel with the rest of the oxygen?” Mikey shifted and nearly stood, but Roni nuzzled him as if she sensed his distress. Her squeaks offered the only bit of sanity.

  “I don’t know how they’re going to get the gas out,” Brett said, thinking of the cave-in once again. “You’d need a vehicle to drive any tanks out.” Maybe he was wrong, and they really did just want to give Brett a chance to get the rescuers back to the surface.

  But the dread in his gut remained, and Tessa told him to always trust it. It saved him back when the disaster started, and he needed to rely on it now.

  He eyed the keys in the ignition as people ambled around inside, and the older miner, a gruff man, stood near the window, his back against the glass. Something told Brett to watch him, and he did as Louie and Mikey went silent.

  There must be a reason Pat didn’t invite them to this meeting. Brett’s stomach rumbled, and he spotted a plate of hash browns near the window.

  Roni sniffed and made a tiny squeak again.

  The older miner turned to face Brett. The look in his eyes carried terror, and as Brett locked his stare with the man’s, he knew for certain where he stood.

  It was a warning, and the miner shifted his gaze and stared hard at the front cabin of Pat’s old truck.

  Brett followed it.

  Pat’s massive key ring still hung from the ignition.

  “We’ve got to go,” Brett said.

  Louie’s eyes grew larger. “I think you’re right.”

  Mikey gulped. “We’re going to attract attention if we jump down from the truck bed.”

  “No, we won’t.” He didn’t know how to drive, but he could squeeze through the back window while staying low. Brett slid it open, and the man in the window nodded, encouraging him.

  The mine was two miles out of town, according to Pat. He’d overheard him talking to Emily at the library. It had to be up on the biggest mountain that overlooked the town, and there would be a main road going up to it.

  He’d have to figure it out and pray they had enough gas in this truck to get there.

  Brett climbed into the driver’s seat, and his heart thumped. Surely someone would see him, unless the older miner did a good job blocking the view until he was off.

  Starting the truck was the simple part.

  Mikey stuck his head in through the back window. “Put the gear on D. Now! And mash the accelerator.”

  He obeyed, throat going dry as he went back to that night he and Tessa ran away from The Compound. This felt the same, and he’d shoved it all behind a dam that was breaking.

  The truck clunked as the gear went into place, and he fumbled with the pedal, making the truck surge forward down Main Street and towards the fire station. Where was the mine road? Probably up that wooded hill that gently sloped away from the highway. If he found a road that went that way—

  What if other people in town had vehicles that still had gas?

  “Whoa,” Brett said, trying to focus. He found the brake, slowing them, and just then, a gunshot rang out behind them.

  It was probably to get the attention of the other meeting members, but the sound combined with his escape brought back a sharp image he hadn’t allowed into his mind since the night of the escape.

  His books strewn on the floor… Craig yelling and calling Tessa every name he could… Gunshots ringing in the distance… Tessa shouting at Brett that the front gate was open…

  Run, Brett!

  He blinked as the raid played out from behind him, and he ran from the tiny house they had to share with his father, her mother, and his older brother.

  And then—

 

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