CHAPTER 21
"Easy." Cade's breath was warm against my ear as he whispered the word. His reassuring presence gave me a small measure of comfort. I was at least able to keep myself from screaming or running away as I ripped my hair out. Then, to my dismay and relief, illumination flooded the room. Abby was standing by the door, her hand on the switch.
"Abby..."
"It's ok; there are no windows in this room," Cade assured me.
I glanced rapidly around the room, not feeling at all relived as I took in the cramped, dreary space. It was a small bathroom with a urinal and a toilet. The yellowed sink and toilet didn't look as if they had been cleaned since the seventies. I was certain our stench was the only thing blocking the stench of this room. For some reason, I didn't even want to begin to fathom, there was a large drain in the center of the room.
"It's like we're stuck in an unending dirty, stinky hell," Jenna muttered.
I silently agreed.
"We can't stay in here. It's a dead end," Cade said.
Cade was grabbing for the knob when the ground beneath our feet began to shake. My breath froze, a scream strangled in my throat as sweat beaded my forehead. Cade pushed Abby's hand down on the switch. It didn't matter if there were no windows in this room; it was a relief to be plunged into darkness again. At least for them it was, it gave them a false sense of security. It gave me almost instantaneous heart palpitations. With the lights out, it felt as if the walls were creeping steadily closer to me once more. No matter how irrational the thought was, I couldn't shake it.
The water in the toilet began to splash against the sides as the ground shook with a forceful, wrenching motion. A scream would have erupted from me if Cade hadn't slammed his hand over my mouth to stifle it. "Stay calm Bethy. It's only going to get worse, and you are going to have to handle it if you are going to survive, if your sister is going to survive."
I managed a small nod. I thought he was going to release me right away but his arms remained strong and secure around me. It was the first time I sensed his uncertainty as to whether or not we would make it out of this alive. If we were going to die, he was going to hug me one more time, and I was going to return it. I didn't feel guilt as I took solace in his strong embrace.
He reluctantly released me as a loud crash rebounded through the building and shook it on its foundation. It sounded as if something had just smashed into the large garage door. "They know we're in here," Abby whispered.
"Maybe, maybe not," Cade responded. "They may have picked up our scent recently, but they would have caught up to us already if they'd been tracking us since yesterday. Either way, we can't stay here."
"What are we going to do?" Jenna squeaked.
I was thinking the same exact thing as a small light flared into the tiny room. Cade was kneeling down, a penlight in his hand as he examined the drain. My heart plummeted, my head spun, and for a frightening moment I actually thought I might pass out. Instead, I remained standing, my legs trembling as I struggled not to vomit.
Cade placed the penlight between his teeth as he started to feel around the edges of the drain. "Are you out of your mind?" Jenna inquired shakily. "We don't even know where it goes. I'm not crawling through sewage."
Cade lifted the beam to something I hadn't noticed before. There was a showerhead sticking out of the wall with two knobs beneath it. I forgot all about the danger we faced as my fingers itched to turn on the water and plunge beneath the refreshing spray. I didn't care if it was freezing cold, it would be heaven. There was a dwindling bar of blue soap settled onto a metal dish. I craved it as badly as an alcoholic craved alcohol.
"It's a water drain. It's not sewage," Cade stated.
"You don't know that," Jenna breathed.
"I know that if we stay here, we're dead." As if to reinforce his words, the sound of twisting metal echoed through the air. I was sure the garage doors were starting to give out. "This is a town facility, there's a possibility it might lead straight to the water treatment center."
"You don't know if it leads anywhere at all. You don't know if it just dead-ends. You don't know if it doesn't become so narrow somewhere we can't fit through it." Jenna was becoming somewhat hysterical and her rushed words were doing nothing to ease my rising panic.
"No, I don't, but I do know we have to try."
I agreed we had to try, or at least they did, but I didn’t think I could go in that awful thing. Cade grabbed hold of the grate and pulled it free with surprising ease. It rattled as he placed it on the ground. Cade shone the beam into the hole as he leaned forward to peer into it. I wrapped my arms around myself, but I failed to ease the shaking overtaking me.
A wrenching screech echoed throughout the building. I half expected something to come barging through the door as I glanced behind me nervously. I didn't have to see them to know the bay doors had just given way. Those things were now in the building, and it wouldn't take them long to make their way here. "It goes straight down about ten feet before making a turn. Jenna..."
"No," she whispered.
Cade lifted his head to stare at her. The lack of empathy in his gaze left me rattled and numb. "Then you will stay here and die. The choice is yours, but we will not stay here with you."
Abby's mouth dropped. Jenna's bottom lip trembled; tears brimmed in her eyes. She turned toward me but I couldn't meet her gaze. Instead, I remained focused upon the hole, that thing that I was dreading crawling into too. I thought I might fracture like broken glass and go crazy if I did.
"I'll go first."
Cade and Abby's eyebrows shot into their hairlines as they turned to me. I was also shocked those words had just popped out of my mouth. But I knew if I didn't jump into there and get it over and done with, I never would. If I was in between two people, I would feel even more trapped, and I couldn't handle that. Not right now anyway. If I didn't get in there right now I'd be dead, and so would Abby as she wouldn't leave me here.
Cade might though. I shuddered at the thought, but I'd seen the ferociousness in his gaze, the callousness he'd directed at Jenna. I didn't want that turned on me; I couldn't deal with his scorn right now. I had to do this; it was the only way. I had to stop being a coward, even if it drove me mad.
"Bethany..."
"It's ok Abby, I'll be fine, but I have to go first. I have to."
I stepped up to the hole. It had a three foot diameter, but it looked about the same as three inches would to me right now. I didn't realize I was shaking uncontrollably until my teeth began to chatter. I clenched my jaw as I tried to make them stop, but a trembling was working its way through every bone in my body. I didn’t think it was going to stop until I made it to the end of the pipe, or simply went bonkers. I didn’t which one would happen first.
"Can I take the light?" I inquired tremulously.
Another loud crash resounded from outside of the room. They were getting closer. Cade's raven colored eyes were caring and warm as he handed the light over. I wondered if he would have left me behind if I'd refused to do this. For some reason I didn't think he would have, but I wasn't going to ask.
Taking a deep breath, I dropped to my knees. Cade seized hold of my arm, I blinked as I tried to bring him into focus. His eyes blazed into mine, I could feel the determination he was trying to instill in me. His thumb stroked over my skin before he finally released me.
"You can do this."
I shuddered as I tore my attention away from him, put my hands out, and squirmed into the hole before I couldn't. I instantly wanted to start screaming, instantly balked against the horrendous sensation immediately encompassing me. There was about six inches above me as I squirmed, crawled, and slithered down the pipe but it felt as if it were crushing my back and squeezing the air from my lungs.
The air within the pipe was cool and musty like an old stone cellar on a humid day. The small beam revealed a glistening layer of gunk, mold, and something I couldn't identify coating the walls. I fought against screaming and squirming my way backwards
when I felt someone enter the pipe behind me. The crushing sensation of being buried alive encompassed me; it was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. I was going to die, not from being trapped in the pipe but because I felt as if my lungs were starting to shut down.
I reached a turn, and after a little bit of maneuvering, managed to twist my way into the curve. It didn't feel as if the pipe was getting smaller, but I was certain it was. I couldn't let myself think about being trapped in here, couldn't let myself think there might be no way out. I would become useless if I did, and everyone else would be trapped behind me.
"Bethany?"
"I'm fine," I managed to choke out to Abby though we both knew I was lying.
I'd made it another twenty feet when a rocking bang from above caused the pipe to shudder. A creaking, groaning noise echoed throughout the system. A low whimper escaped me as I froze. If there had been enough room in the pipe I might have curled into a ball and screamed like a baby.
"Faster Bethy, faster."
Cade didn't have to say it twice. I was suddenly frantic to be free of this world of unending torture and madness within these crushing confines. I wasn't entirely against death as an option anymore, not if it meant escaping this convoluted pipe. I was either going to find the end of this tunnel, or I was going to die in it, and I didn't care anymore which one came first.
Using my elbows and feet, I squirmed my way forward like an earthworm at a more rapid pace. The beam bounced over the walls, flashing over the slime and sludge that had been there for longer than I'd probably been alive. The stink of the refuse had been bad; this forgotten mix of hair, dead skin, waste, and gunk was almost as bad. It coated me and permeated everything as it pressed against my lips, and slid up my nose.
I was tempted to vomit, but then I would also have to crawl through that too. Though, at this point, it might be cleaner than the mess I was already struggling through.
The pipe took a sharp turn down. I used the light to peer into it. The dim glow bounced off of the slush infested network that twisted somewhere out of sight about fifteen feet down. Where did the damn thing go, and would we be able to get through it?
"Bethany?" Abby asked.
"It drops again," I warned in a strangled voice I barely recognized and was more than a little ashamed of.
I pulled myself into the void.