Well Tunnel dug: Part 5

Darryl turned at the wall where he was digging. He was 152.6 yards into the mountainside. He might hit the mine at any point.

‘I need more water. That's what I need,’ he said aloud to himself.

He wondered whether Sandra could hear him all the way outside the tunnel, if it had a megaphone effect or not. Self-control keeps us human, he thought. He wondered for an instant where he'd picked up that tripe.

As he shuffled along, pushing the shop-light, and cord in front of him, he checked each cross strut as he passed. It looked like the 16-pennies were holding. It didn't help his mind in the slightest.

At the 17th cross brace, most of the way out, he notice three of the nails had worked their way out, about half way. Plate tectonics and earth shifting images flashed through his mind. He put one hand up on the brace, released the hammer from under his belt, and attempted to drive the first one in.

His giant safety glasses landed on the ground beside him. He cursed. Dirt cascaded into his eyes. He shifted backwards, from were the dirt was falling. His foot shifted the post behind him with the pressure, pinning his foot to the wall.

Lizzie, Cory's wife, and her children, who survived the depopulation, were blowing bubbles in front of the trailer when the tunnel collapsed. She was wiping bubble slime from her black hair. She turned and looked.

Juan burst from underneath the trailer, where he'd been excavating a third cellar for future crop storage.

‘What the fuck was that? Did you feel that?’ he yelled at Sandra, who was tying a sickly cow to a post that was eventually going to be a barn.

Juan saw where the dust was rising from the collapse.

‘Holy Christ! It collapsed, man! Sandra, it collapsed. Grab a shovel! Shit!’ He pelted down the lawn, and across the creek to the tunnel entrance, spade in hand.

Sandra grabbed a shovel and sprinted behind Juan.

‘Where's Darryl, Juan?’

‘He was in there, in the hole.’

Sandra stood in front of the narrow cleft, like a stream gulley with a ragged edge, open to the sky for 32 yards. Juan pushed passed her and ran down into the defile.

‘Hope that sonofabitch is dead,’ Cory said, walking up to her.

‘Yeah, you got any hospitals still open, Cory?’ asked Sandra.

‘If you like civil war era healthcare, then yeah, we do,’ said Cory. He smiled at her and walked passed her up the hillside, ‘Think we should organize this excavation a little better?’

She followed him up the side of the hill, looking down into where it collapsed.

‘How was Darryl moving all the fill?’ asked Juan when they got to where he was digging.

‘Wheelbarrow. Betcha can't guess where that shit is now, huh?’ said Cory.

‘How was he even pushing it in here?’ muttered Juan, his shoulders were nearly touching the walls. The sod was just above head level.

‘Dunno, but I do know that you still got all them buckets, Juan. Go get 'em. We can get the kids and Lizzie out here, get 'em moving factory style.’

‘Look, man, I don't know... we got a limited time span here,’ said Juan.

The gallows grin dropped from Cory's face. He pulled a Smith & Wesson SW990L Pistol from
The back of his belt loop. All the sunlight that was left in the holler attached to the gun.

‘Get the fucking buckets,’ he said.

Juan's gaze tracked from the barrel to Cory's eyes.

‘Whoa, man. What the... okay, man,’ he said.

He backed down the declivity slowly, palms facing Cory, until Cory turned around, towards Sandra and let Juan see him put the black thing back under his jean shirt.

Sandra swallowed; she turned the shovel point in the ground.

There was a long silence.

‘What would you like me to do for now?’ said Sandra.

‘We could jump down in there and start digging,’ he said. He eased himself in, and then helped her down.

‘Wider than it needed to be,’ he said.

They heard Carl running up the gravel driveway. They kept digging. They didn't even turn around when he started yelling inquiries across the yard.

‘We don't got time,’ Cory said to no one.

‘Dude, did you guys feel that?’ said Carl.

‘Darryl's dying in this tunnel,’ Sandra said.

‘What??’

‘Care to help Juan bring the buckets from the cellars over here? And would you get my wife to bring the kids out while you're down there?’

Carl nodded, turned, and jogged back to the trailer.

They found the top of a camouflaged helmet fifteen buckets later. Sandra hit it with her shovel. The sun was setting. The helmet was pinned to the dirt by one of the crossbeams.

‘Holy shit, it's him,’ said Carl, grabbing the fifteenth bucket from Juan, ‘told him this would happen.’

‘Shut the fuck up, Carl,’ said Juan.

Juan got on his knees, and wrapped his hands under the beam. He pulled up. Dirt shifted.

‘You sure you want to do that?’ said Cory, standing with arms akimbo, from where he switched to supervisor mode after the Hispanic got back.

Juan froze. Then he tore the beam upwards out of the ground. Dirt cascaded backward, down the slope of the beam.

Darryl was mostly freed from the soil. He lay there motionlessly, like a plaster cast.

‘You check if he's breathing now,’ said Cory, looking at Carl.

‘Kay.’ He shifted past Juan, who was hoisting the beam onto of the sod, and bent over Darryl's face.

‘He's breathing. He's got a lot of blood coming out of this cut, man, but he ain't dead’ Carl said.

Sandra exhaled audibly.

‘Well then dig his ass out quick,’ said Cory, ‘Let's get his fat ass out of there. Juan, you grab him under the arms, pull him out. Can't do too much more damage now, and if his neck is broken, this'll be worthless anyway. Carl, jump out. Run down to the store at the end of the holler with one of the kids. Buy medical supplies, needle, thread, alcohol. You two get down to the fortress and clear a table for this fucking lug,’ he was looking at Sandra and Lizzie.

Carl nodded, and ran off, dirt smeared across his face. He turned halfway across the yard. ‘What are we paying with?’

‘You got four packs of ramen noodles in there. That'll buy you everything you need. Now fucking go, you're gonna kill him. Run your ass off,’ yelled Cory.

Cory watched Sandra as she ran towards the trailer, Cory's 'fortress'. He cocked his head to the side. The last of the sun light colored his goatee.

‘Hey Juan?’ he asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘She pregnant already?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You?’ asked Cory.

Juan just laughed.

>>Well tunnel dug: Part 6