by Otto Schafer
“Dammit, this is stupid! It’s impossible!” he shouted, looking at Breanne.
Breanne calmed herself as best she could. “Listen to me, Paul. You can move it, but you have to stop thinking.”
“Stop what! What are you even talking about, Bre? We’re going to drown!” Paul pleaded, losing whatever remained of his characteristic calm. “Edward is about pass out! Pops won’t wake up, and now I don’t even think I could get us to the dry chamber even if I wanted!” he said, his own eyes beginning to well with frustration. “What the hell is ‘stop thinking’ supposed to mean?” he shouted.
The water was three-quarters of the way to the top of the small tunnel, leaving them only about a foot of space. She pushed her father’s head up, and he slipped off the wall. She gasped, grabbed his collar, and wedged her foot across the tunnel. “Paul! We are not going to die here, okay?”
“But we are, Bre! Jesus, don’t you get it! We are!”
“I have already seen you move it. I know you will. But you have to forget the water, forget us, and just focus on the crane.” She shoved her shoulder against her father’s chest as she pressed her feet into the opposite wall of the tunnel.
He stared at her for a long beat, confusion pasted across his face. “You’ve seen it?”
“Yes. I’ve seen it.”
“You’re sure?” he asked, a hint of hope in his voice.
“Yes, now please, I can’t hold Daddy here forever. Move the crane!”
He positioned himself again, took a deep breath, and pushed and pushed and pushed.
Breanne could see nothing was happening. “Stop thinking about the water, just think about the crane. See it moving. Visualize it moving in your mind.”
Closing his eyes, he tried to do as she said.
Edward’s eyes fluttered closed and he slumped over.
With the collar of her father’s shirt balled into her fist, she reached out with her other hand, snatching ahold of the cuff of Edward’s pants. “Forget all about the water and us. Just focus on the crane and pushing it out of the way. Push with your muscles and mind at the same time. Picture it moving, Paul.”
He shook out his hands, reached up, and pushed.
The crane began to creak.
Suddenly, he dropped down several inches through the wooden floor of the tunnel, the sheer weight pressing him down. He relaxed a little more as he pushed again, his feet sinking even deeper as the crane groaned louder.
“That’s it, Paul, you’re doing it!” Breanne gasped. The water was up to her neck now, with less than a foot between the water and the ceiling of the tunnel. She was afraid to move – afraid the slightest twitch would lift her away and send the three of them plummeting down the tunnel.
Slowly, the crane started to yield to him. Its giant boom inched ever so slowly across the opening as he extended his arms and forced it to shift until an opening appeared. It was small, but it was enough.
Collapsing, Paul slumped back against the wall of the tunnel.
“Paul, help me!” Breanne begged. Pushing himself back up, he tore his feet from the floor of the tunnel and grabbed his unconscious father from Breanne’s white-knuckled grasp. After heaving the large man through the hole, he pulled Edward up and out, followed by Breanne. Once they were all free of the tunnel, Edward slipped into full-on unconsciousness.
Breanne checked her father’s pulse and assessed his breathing. “Daddy’s barely breathing and his pulse… I can’t find it! Why won’t he wake up? Why?” she shouted. “Is it because he was closer to the stones than we were?”
“I don’t know.” Paul knelt at her side to try and find a pulse. “There! He has a pulse. It’s weak, but it’s there. His breathing is shallow. We need to get him out of this pit, and we need to get him help.”
Her head buzzed with questions. Maybe it was because he was older and maybe not as physically capable of taking the strain? Or her worst fear, he hit his head so hard when he was thrown into the wall of the pit that he suffered brain damage and was now in a… coma. God, please don’t let him be in a coma. Please wake him up, God! Please!
“Breanne,” Paul said, pulling her back to the moment.
She turned to face him.
“You knew? You knew I could move it? You said you saw me doing it. You can see the future?” he asked in wonder.
Her hands shook uncontrollably as she turned to assess Edward. “No. I mean, yes. Sorta… yes,” she said, her forehead creased with worry.
He grabbed her hands in his. “It’s going to be alright, Bre. We will get out of this. Tell me, how did you know, please?”
“I knew you could do it because I saw the way you pulled Ed and Dad down the tunnel at the same time. I knew something happened to me when the Ark was opened. After watching you move them so easily, I knew something happened to you too.”
“So, you didn’t see me doing it before I actually did it?”
“No… I didn’t. I’m sorry I lied to you but—”
“Breanne! Look!” Paul interrupted, pointing at the hole they had just climbed through. Water burst from the hole in a turbulent gush that covered the pit floor within seconds.
“The lower chambers must be full! What do we do?” she asked, holding her father’s head up to keep him from breathing in the water while Edward leaned against the crane, safe from downing for the moment.
“It’s filling fast! Really fast! God, we can’t get a break!” Paul said, wading in the already knee-deep water around to the opposite side of the crane, beyond Breanne’s sight.
“Wait! Help me, Paul, it’s getting too deep – I won’t be able to keep both their heads above the water!” She pulled her now-floating father closer to her brother.
A few seconds later, Paul returned with a coil of rope slung over his shoulder, pushing several four-by fours through the water. “Give me a few more seconds,” he said as he lashed the boards together.
“Please hurry!”
“Here,” he said, pushing the makeshift raft close to her. The water had reached her waist and already consumed Edward’s shoulders in his seated position. “Hold the raft still for me,” Paul said.
Breanne held the raft in place as she watched her brother pick up their father and sling him onto the raft, positioning his torso on the boards while allowing his legs to hang off. Then he positioned his head to the side so he wouldn’t suck in any water. Quickly he repeated the process with Edward, placing him chest down over the boards and turning his head to protect him from inhaling water.
After only two minutes, the water level had climbed to over five feet. Both Breanne and Paul held tight to the ends of the raft.
“Is this your plan – we just float to the top?” Breanne asked, already shivering from her time in the cold water.
“It’s all I got,” he said, peering at her from around the edge of the raft. “It will be okay – at this rate, we should be at the top in less than an hour,” he smiled assuredly.
“It’s a good plan, but there’s a problem,” Breanne said, teeth chattering.
Paul’s teeth began to chatter too.
“It’s not going to fill all the way up. It’s going to stop about thirty feet short of the top.”
“Crap! Did you see that or something?” he asked.
“No, I just know the history of this place, and I know that in the past, attempts to dig out the Money Pit always ended up the same. The hole doesn’t fill to the top. It stops about thirty feet short.”
Breanne gazed up to the sky far above the pit. A sea hawk circled silently and patiently against a backdrop of blue. Waiting, she knew. Waiting for the inevitable. Waiting for them to die. Breanne’s whole body shuddered uncontrollable. “We… need… another plan… Paul.”
37
Focus
Wednesday, April 6th, 5:05 p.m.
Day One
Petersburg, Illinois
Garrett fired a volley of kicks and strikes with perfect technique. This was no longer sparring. This was an all-ou
t assault on Mr. B at a level Garrett never imagined himself capable of. He held nothing back. Every kick and punch was meant to cause real damage. Still, he couldn’t hit the master. Mostly, he was only hitting air, which he actually preferred to Mr. B blocking his strikes. His wrists and ankles were bruised and stinging from the forceful blocks.
He knew Lenny’s mind must have been struggling to process his accusations towards their longtime teacher. He only wished he had told him before this happened. Lenny had to know the Mr. B they knew would not act like this, would not treat them like this, would not hurt them like this, didn’t he? He had to know their Mr. B would never threaten to ban them from the dojo, their second home. Lenny had to know something was wrong. Seriously wrong. He wanted so bad to glance towards Lenny, but to take his eyes off Mr. B during an assault was to ask to be kicked in the face.
By the end of Garrett’s volley, not a single strike had landed. Once again, he had failed to hit Mr. B, and once again Mr. B had waited for his attack to finish before counterattacking with a single strike.
Mr. B stepped in with his right leg and went into a spin.
Garrett knew what would come next, and he simply couldn’t stop it. Pain. His body went tense. The universe expanded a little more, as inevitable as the passing of the moment itself.
Then something happened to Garrett. He let go.
In that moment he surrendered to himself and accepted it all. He closed his eyes and drew in a single breath. Then he smelled it… the forest floor, damp leaves, crisp air.
He frowned. He opened his eyes. Mr. B’s foot slowly pivoted, his knee bending slightly. Everything around Garrett suddenly slowed. Somehow, the moment itself slowed. He watched Mr. B’s foot sliding into place.
A bird sang and leaves crunched under his feet. He was no longer in the dojo. He was out on the trails at New Salem. He was bombing down his favorite section, a devilish piece of single-track trail. He could feel the cool spring air on his face and smell the forest all around him as dirt churned under his feet. The uneven terrain, tree roots, and large rocks jutted out everywhere, refusing to be called anything less than perilous. He was running as hard as he could, his mind instinctively processing everything around him. Foot placement wasn’t even a thought, but rather an involuntary action, like breathing or blinking, and he didn’t need to watch for low-hanging branches, he just dodged them impulsively. This feeling was more than familiar—it was home. He had been here before, on this very stretch of trail, shredding it, owning it, everything happening instinctually.
Was this the focus?
Garrett pulled himself back from the trail and wondered, how long was I there? It felt like a long time to be distracted – too long. But he knew this was more than a distraction. He felt as though he had physically gone there.
Yet, as his vision refocused, Mr. B’s foot had only now completed its pivot motion, locking into place. He must have run the whole stretch of trail in his mind in a nanosecond. He read Mr. B’s foot placement and body position like a seasoned defensive lineman. He’s going to spin into a back fist and strike me in the face. He waited, easily, patiently, as everything around him continued to slow. Time still stretched on, like a long piece of taffy being slowly pulled.
Mr. B completed the slow-motion spin before striking out with the back fist. Why was he moving so slowly? Finally, the fist reached him. Garrett ducked, slipping easily under the strike. Then, unbelievably, Mr. B made a gross error, the first Garrett had ever seen him make. Mr. B tried to recover the miss by slapping his open palm into the back of Garrett’s head in an attempt to grab for his ponytail, but there was no ponytail to grab. He’s human after all. He can make a mistake! Smiling, he ducked again, easily, then he countered with a knuckle punch to the back of Mr. B’s upper arm. His own movements were at normal speed. The strike forced the sensei off-balance and placed Garrett slightly behind him. For a split second his master’s back was exposed. It might as well have been an eternity as Garrett struck again, fast and hard. But this time he aimed his fistful of knuckles at Mr. B’s right kidney.
Mr. B yelped in pain, spinning around to meet Garrett at normal speed.
Lenny blinked disbelievingly. “Hooolllyyy shit!”
“That’s one!” Garrett said, holding up a finger triumphantly.
Mr. B nodded, the tight line of his lips curling into a devious smile. Then, for the first time, Mr. B hurled himself forward into an offensive attack.
Lenny leapt to his feet.
With overwhelming force, Mr. B. threw strike after strike in forward combinations of complex movements.
Garrett half ran, half stumbled backward across the dojo with Mr. B’s assault ending in a sidekick that he somehow managed to block, for whatever good it did. The force of the kick sent him bouncing off the mirrored wall, fracturing the glass panel with a loud Pop! of splintering glass. Shards of mirror fell from the webbed fractures, raining down on Garrett from above, as he slowly got to his feet. This time he managed to keep his breath.
Lenny stepped onto the mat, but Garrett waved him off.
Garrett attacked again, and again failed to make contact. Desperately he tried to focus his mind, trying to find his way back to the trails, trying to slow the moment. The harder he tried, the more it seemed to elude him. Stop trying, he told himself.
He drew in a deep breath, and smells of the forest filled his lungs.
Mr. B countered with a front snap kick, but before the kick extended Garrett matched it, blocking the kick with his own, then, instead of setting the foot back down, he kicked upward and struck Mr. B in the face.
Garrett gasped.
Mr. B wiped his fingers across his mouth and looked at the blood, rubbing it between his fingers. Glancing back up at Garrett, he wiped the blood on his dobok, smiled, and nodded.
“That’s two!” Lenny shouted with excitement. “One more, Garrett! One more!”
With incredible speed, impossible for a man his size, Mr. B attacked again. Though Garrett managed to block most of the assault, he could not match the speed of the determined master, as the last three strikes found purchase. Two punches to the gut and a jarring open-palm strike to the right ear, followed by a wrist throw that ended in Garrett landing hard on his back. The pain was disorienting, blurring his mind, filling it with a fuzzy spinning sensation. He scrambled again for the trail of his mind, but it was lost to him. He closed his eyes and took in a breath, but he could not smell the forest or see the trees. Instead, his mind filled with the color of agony.
Mr. B did not wait for him recover. Before Garrett could find his bearings, Mr. B flung his foot high above his own head, only to drive it back down, heel first. This was a kick of absolute destruction, used to break blocks… or bones. The kick was known as the axe kick, and both boys had seen Mr. B use the devastating kick to crush stacked slabs of concrete with ease.
Garrett never saw the axe kick coming.
Lenny did.
As Mr. B’s foot extended upward, Lenny leapt from his sitting position, hurling himself towards his teacher. “No! You’ll kill him!” Lenny screamed as Mr. B’s powerful leg drove the heel of his foot downward like the head of a sledgehammer. Lenny dove at Mr. B’s opposite leg, knocking it out from underneath him.
The large man landed hard on his back.
With almost supernatural fluidity, Mr. B rolled onto the palms of his hands and launched himself back to his feet.
Garrett also rose to his feet, but there was nothing fluid or magical about it. The world still spun slightly as he fought back the nausea.
“You have made your choice, Lenny. You understood the consequences and still you chose to disobey me.” Facing the two boys, he bowed. “We are finished here.”
“No!” Lenny shouted. The word escaped his mouth more forcefully than he meant it to. He turned to his friend. “We’re not finished here.”
“No, we… sure aren’t,” Garrett said, smiling through the pain. He didn’t have to force the smile. Lenny brought it
out of him. His best friend in the world would not let him down. They would not let each other down. Not ever.
“There is no need to continue the test. You have both failed. Garrett, my hopes were high and I thought… I thought you were ready,” Mr. B said, clearly disappointed.
But it was too late, an unseen signal had been given. Perhaps a look or maybe a hand gesture. Or perhaps no signal at all. Maybe the two friends just knew each other that well. Whatever the catalyst, they were not about to let it end like this. This wasn’t about the test, not anymore.
Both boys stepped back comfortably into attack positions.
Mr. B straightened, raised an eyebrow, and bowed. “Have it your way.”
They leapt at Mr. B in unison, attacking from both his right and left.
Mr. B didn’t respond the same as he had one-on-one with Garrett. He spun in and out of their attacks, utilizing hapkido joint manipulation to toss the boys to and fro. He would grab one by the wrist, pulling him close, using him as a shield, causing the other to hesitate for fear of striking the wrong person. In a few instances, one of the boys did actually strike the other. Their confusion and hesitation led to swift and vicious counter attacks, and in that cool evening hour, both boys learned of pain.
Garrett noticed Mr. B turning most of his attention to Lenny. Seemingly, the teacher felt the need to help the boy catch up on all the beating he had missed out on while sitting lineside. The combination executed on the disobeying student was almost spiteful. The final kick combination ended in a powerful spinning back kick to the center of Lenny’s chest, lifting him off his feet, sending him airborne, slamming him into the wall of the dojo. Upon impact, every ounce of air evacuated from Lenny’s chest. The young man’s body shattered a section of mirrored glass, just as Garrett’s had, but with much more force. His body was driven so hard into the wall, the drywall itself collapsed under the force, leaving a large impression. Lenny crumpled to the floor. His eyes were wide with panic as he strained to breathe.
