by JJ Lamb
“What’s so funny,” Ethan asked, but kept nudging him forward.
“Sweating like a pig.” Rocky kept laughing, laughing so hard he could barely get the words out. “Don’t you hear it? Sweating like…” Then he couldn’t remember why that was so funny.
Ethan was shoving him hard, and Rocky was having trouble getting his legs to move. He couldn’t see real well in the dim light and the mine floor seemed to be changing like the rippling waves at the beach. He kept stumbling over rocks as he tried to squeeze through the narrowing walls of the mine.
He needed to sit down, rest a while.
“Come on, Rocky. We’re almost there.”
“Goddam, my chest hurts … there ain’t enough air in here.”
“Look ahead, see, there’s the Y. See it? And there’s the mine gate.” Ethan slipped a hand in Rocky’s pants pocket and took out the key.
“I’m gonna just sit for a while. You go ahead and let Petey out.”
“Are you sure he didn’t go back to the units?”
“No! Not without me. Not Petey. We were going to meet here after takin’ care of those stupid nurses. He wouldn’t go back without me. Not Petey.” Did he say that before? His words trailed off … not without …”
Ethan grabbed him under his arms and dragged him to the Y.
“Hey, whadda … you...” Rocky didn’t think that sounded right, but his mouth didn’t want to move like it should.
He was sprawled in the dirt; he watched Ethan open the iron gate part way on the left side. The loud, rasping sound echoed in Rocky’s head. His brain was on fire, flashes of red burned behind his eyes.
“Are you sure this is the mine he went into?”
“Yazz.”
Ethan came back for him, pulled him into the mine shaft. Silt clogged his nose until he could barely grab a breath.
Rocky wanted to lift his arms, wanted to stop Ethan.
Gonna beat the mothafuckin’ bastard.
But every part of him felt like lead—heavy and dead.
“Like I said, you and Pete have helped me a lot, but at the same time the two of you have been nothing but … as you would say, fuckups. And you’re both very stupid not to see this coming. Someone with the brains of a snake could see you’d need to be taken care of at some point. And by the way, Rocky, that amount of morphine and liquor you had, would probably have brought down a Clydesdale … you know, those giant horses? Consider the booze a farewell gift.”
“Hey, whadda … you—”
Ethan leaned over him. “Don’t bother, Rocky. It’s all too difficult for you. Just close your eyes and it’ll all be over in a few minutes.”
Ethan started to lock the huge gate, and as it almost clanked shut, he said, “Thanks for saving me the job of having to take care of your buddy Pete.”
Flashes of red fireworks attacked Rocky’s burning brain. It was like the fires of hell, whipping at him in the near darkness. He could barely hear, or even understand Ethan’s last words.
“Rocky, my boy, you’re a scholar and a gentleman.”
But the laugh that followed was loud and clear.
* * *
Getting the gate in position again almost did Ethan in. It was very heavy; Ethan’s grunts were loud as he shoved it closed, sealing Rocky inside—alone in the dark for the last moments of his life.
He wasn’t a bit sorry for the fool. Given the chance, Rocky would have snuffed Ethan out without a moment’s hesitation. Ethan's only regret was the lost opportunity to examine the Neanderthal’s brain tissue under the electronic microscope. He might have been good for something.
The thought amused him.
He was still panting hard. Exhaustion was starting to seep into every part of his body; he could barely move his legs. He leaned on the wall and inched back down the passageway to the laboratory.
He would have to get his computer—it held all of his personal research notes, plus each and every step of the AZ-1166 drug study, both the unofficial record for the FDA, and the actual data.
His mind drifted; it was difficult to concentrate.
Where on earth could the two travel nurses have hidden his flash drive?
Forget it. What difference does it make? Both of them are dead, along with everyone else that knew the truth.
Truth?
The truth was, he needed to move faster. Even with all of his machinations, he knew there was only a small window of time for escape. Sooner or later it would all come out. He was betting he had at least enough time to get out of the country.
* * *
When Ethan finally walked into the lab, he cringed at the sight of the mess he’d left while cleaning Rocky’s hand. Dirty 4x4s, broken tongue depressors, the empty glass that had held the killing dose of morphine.
He carefully put everything back in its place—unused dressings into the small cabinet, the few pills left of morphine in the medicine cabinet. He couldn’t seem to help himself—he even compulsively cleaned the table where Rocky had rested his hands to have his fingers fixed.
Why was he doing all of this?
He sat down again, too weak to move on.
He thought about the two orderlies.
Both men had been psychotic and every one of the nurses knew it—none of them ever stayed more than three months. Every last one of them, except Delores, left after complaining about Rocky and Peter.
Especially Rocky.
The man was violent to women from the day Ethan hired him. He’d had to pay large sums of money to squash rape charges that otherwise would have been brought against not only Rocky, but Comstock; maybe even Zelint.
When he once asked Rocky why he couldn’t stop hurting women, the orderly looked at Ethan like he was an idiot.
“I don’t like ‘em … don’t trust ‘em, and the only thing they’re good for is fuckin’.”
Well, Gina Mazzio didn’t have big muscles like Rocky and Pete, but she did have a brain and knew how to use it. They were both done in because of a woman.
There’s some kind of poetic justice there, if I was willing to search for it. Too tired to care.
Ethan stood, grabbed the printed confirmation of his plane ticket and put it in his jacket pocket. The first leg would take him from Reno to San Francisco, then on to Buenos Aires. At least that city had a huge population. They would have many subjects for his future studies.
A whole new world of opportunity.
He’d hardly done any traveling. Becoming an MD and practicing his specialty had taken up a good chunk of his life. The rest of his time always seemed to be about his job and the fascination of research. Over the years all that hard work and no play, no wife to spend his money, had made him a very rich man. He had enough money to go anywhere in the world.
A sudden dizziness caused him to stumble to the desk. He held on until the room stopped spinning and he could ease himself into the chair again.
Done in.
He needed time to regain the strength he’d lost lugging Rocky into the mine. Ethan massaged his aching shoulders and at the same time forced himself to take deep, deep breaths. But he knew it wasn’t only the exertion of dealing with the orderly exhausting him. For weeks he’d been working double time getting ready to wrap up the Comstock facility for Zelint. They were right down to the wire, terminating patients at break-neck speed. He wanted every one of those subjects so he could study their brains. But it had been too much work and it was destroying him.
David Zelint had become a frantic reminder of how it was all closing down. The man had started plaguing Ethan, insisting that he tidy things up before the pending FDA hearing.
Yes, they’d finally gotten a real presentation date.
“No loose ends,” were the very words David had used. And the way he’d said it had rankled Ethan.
No loose ends? Tidying up? Cleaning up? All euphemisms that David used for killing off the rest of the patients on the units. David expected Ethan to dispose of them. That man didn’t care about the answers to
the burning questions that seared Ethan’s mind. No, he sat in his pristine office and expected Ethan to do all the dirty work, clean up the final mess at Comstock; clean up everything that could sink AX-1166 and the company that created it.
Did I tie up all the loose ends? Yes, David, I tied up the loose ends.
Gina Mazzio, Harry Lucke, Tuva Goldmich, the two orderlies. That part was tied up. All of them gone.
And they were lost opportunities; human material that might have provided answers to the burning questions about Alzheimer’s. Brains that Ethan would never get his hands on now.
He reached into the second desk drawer and lifted out two boxes of his prepared slides—all stained specimens from living tissue. Within these very cells, real answers might exist; solutions to uncovering the hidden secrets to the Alzheimer’s puzzle.
And all the others? The remaining participants here at Comstock?
Not my problem anymore.
That was one loose end Zelint Pharmaceuticals would have to deal with.
And as far as David Zelint was concerned?
Goodbye.
Chapter 42
Harry had always known his mine-hopping hobby would get him into trouble one day—who could imagine it would happen smack in the middle of a nursing assignment? If someone had even hinted at it, well, he would have laughed his head off. Yet, here he was on a new job, locked up in a mine with no way out.
He couldn’t help but think about all those stories of people lost in the abandoned hard-rock mines in Alaska, or in mines of the eleven other Western States. He’d heard just about every one of those tales. He believed them, because most unoccupied mines were open and untended—provocative invitations to adventurous thrill-seekers of the mysterious world of the underground.
Once he and his brother were in a huge old mine, could have driven a truck into it. They were on the way out when the mine’s ceiling gave way. It was the loudest noise Harry had ever heard. A roar and rumble of sound that blew out enough dust and bad air to keep them coughing for hours afterward. He could still remember the noise of dirt and rock dumping onto a floor that still held the recent imprint of their footsteps.
The four-cell flashlight he’d taken off of Pete was heavier than he was used to, but in the surrounding darkness, it was good to have the greater power. It helped make him feel better, less anxious about the mysterious sounds around him.
He was more than a little uneasy about stepping over the dying Pete. The man’s wide-open eyes burned holes in his flesh as they followed Harry’s every move. Worse, the whistling in the orderly’s throat, from his crushed larynx along with the struggle of his body trying to get a lung-full of air, really spooked Harry. As he moved along, he refused to look back at those eyes. He knew they would follow him while he hurried back to the Y where they’d come into the mine.
Back at the Y, instead of finding the exit he’d expected to find, the opening was blocked by an immovable prison-like iron gate.
Rocky must have locked it … would he do that to his buddy? Maybe Ethan…
He turned back and had to pass Pete again. This time, the man’s eyes were closed. Harry stopped and checked for a pulse even though the air-starved squeak had stopped. He knew Pete wasn’t breathing.
Why am I bothering?
Was he feeding a sadistic ogre that lived inside of him? Because, pulse or no pulse, Harry was never going to do a thing to save the bastard’s life.
He patted Pete’s pockets. There were no keys. Whoever did it probably wanted to keep him from getting out. But what was the rationale for locking in Pete, whether it was Rocky or Ethan?
How many times had he thought about things like that, knowing, accepting that even though he was a nurse who dealt with human beings day after day, he still didn’t really understand people? Maybe he never would.
Why did they do such despicable things to each other?
In his job, he’d seen real generosity and sacrifice among family and friends, even strangers stepping forward to help someone they’d never met before. And in the next breath, they would commit hateful acts.
Most days, he tried to have a wait-and-see attitude, and to be the best kind of nurse he could be. The best kind of person. He’d even dared to think his motives were pure.
Yet, he’d just killed a man.
His mouth was bone dry; he tried not to think about dead Pete, tried not to think about Gina alone with Rocky. If he did, those thoughts would crush him quicker than the mine.
Picking up the pace, he walked with a steady stride, broken only by his own clumsiness.
He would get out.
Even if the flashlight died, he would crawl out on his hands and knees.
He would get out.
He directed the light at the shoring above him, which looked ready to collapse here, too.
An unexplainable chill jolted him. There was something ruffling the mine atmosphere. It was weird, like everything was squeezing, sucking in the air all around him.
He tried to ignore it and continued to walk as the tunnel turned 180-degrees, reversing on itself. Harry assumed he was now facing in the same direction as when they’d originally entered. At least, it felt that way.
His heart was racing and his breath was rapid. A sudden deadly panic drilled into his chest. Then he knew why. That sound—there it was! The sound he’d only heard once before—with his brother.
Not loud at first, more like the creaking or groaning of an old porch. With a shaking hand, he shone the light above, inspected overhead for as far as he could see. Above, the sagging timbers were drooping into a critical point of no return.
“Nooooo!”
He took a deep breath and ran.
He was still running when the roar and rumble of the collapse filled the mine.
The sound of tons of rock and dirt blew through his ears as it fell. A solid wall of debris was at his back, close at his heels, as it entombed the mine behind him and tried to drag him in.
And then it stopped.
Harry kept running, but the silence and his heaving chest finally made him stop. As he looked back, he couldn’t help feeling that any quick movements on his part could send some kind of vibration to the collapsed pile. And maybe next time the mine would claim him.
Dazed, he turned and pointed the flashlight down the tunnel at the fallen wall of dirt. As he clutched the Maglite, he saw the dirt shiver, start to move toward him. The rush of dirt was still coming for him.
The racket behind kept him running; the mine was shrinking over his head, pressing closer around him. He ran harder until the shoring was right on top of his head and he had to tuck his arms in close because the walls were squeezing into him. Finally, he was down on his knees, leading with only one shoulder, barely getting through an opening.
He finally stopped.
The silence behind him was deafening. The mine had stopped filling itself in. But he was trapped. There was no place for him to go.
Chapter 43
The deeper Gina moved into the mine, the more a sense of finality, a feeling of doom pressed down on her. She stopped, stood on shaking legs, wondered if she would ever escape from this endless nothingness.
The mine held her in its belly, and it was not silent. Creepy, eerie sounds surrounded her, and she jumped at every one. It was like being in a haunted house, where a suffering unseen entity was taunting her. The groaning, rasping creaks warned that Gina would suffer, would writhe in pain. It told that this is where she would die.
Gina had seen her patients die. For some it was a fight to the very end; for others, it was a strange, ethereal acceptance. But her own experiences of almost being murdered remained closeted in the depths of her soul, rarely examined. Had her pounding heart ever crashed in her ears like this? Had every step brought this sense of an unknown that could reach out with strangling tentacles; tighten its grip around her throat?
She tried not to listen as she shone the light on the beams above her head. They looked splintered and
weak, ready to let a load of heavy rocks rain down on her, pound her skull to a powdery white residue.
Harry had laughed when he told her that these ancient mines were held together by only a scattering of molecules, a mere thread of substance glued to the memory of once having been whole and strong. It had seemed colorful, even amusing at the time. But that was when they were above ground and he was with her. It wasn’t funny now. At any moment those threads could shred and all the dirt and rocks above would crush her, bury her alive.
She started hyperventilating, sure she would be smothered at any moment by her own strangling fears. But she forced herself to stare at the slash of light from the tiny flashlight—her only hope. Without it, she would wander aimlessly though underground passages that went on for miles and miles.
No, it couldn’t end that way.
She removed the purse from around her neck, felt inside for her Swiss army knife and was strangely reassured when her fingers touched the bulk of it. The folded knife might not be enough to stab herself to death, but it would sever her veins with very little pain.
Move! You have to keep moving.
She continued to trip, fall over chunks of ore that had dropped into the tunnel over the years; she knew she was breathing in massive amounts of dust that carried toxic elements. It was the purest of luck that she was wearing long pants—it would at least help her avoid open wounds that could further expose her to arsenic, lead, or mercury, or any other contaminants left behind in old deserted mines.
Gina’s legs were aching; she kept forcing herself to move through the heaviness. It felt like she’d been going for days, but her watch told her she’d only been in the mine for about two hours.
Two hours! An eternity!
When she couldn’t take one more step, her legs folded and she collapsed to the rocky floor.
She shone the flashlight everywhere so she could remember what was all around her. Then she turned off the light—she had to conserve the batteries. If there were ghosts in the mine, they would find her whether they could see her or not.
