“Sarah,” the man nodded at the huge bun at his side. “My wife. She is a nurse.”
Stella studied the back of the soiled dress with new interest. The style seemed outdated, but somewhere beneath the grime she noticed the haunting semblance of a nurse’s uniform.
“I am Etienne,” the man continued, although now he faced forward and his words were distorted by the volleying acoustics. “Etienne Fournier.”
“How long have you been down here?” Stella probed. “Did the storm capsize your boat too?”
Cool gray eyes turned back to stare at her. He reminded her of a raccoon with the heavy black shadows etched around those dissecting orbs.
“The storm?” he echoed wryly.
The woman, Sarah, turned her head to look at him. Under the glow of the lantern it was a meaningful exchange.
“Yes, the storm sent us down here,” he affirmed in a hollow tone.
Stella stared at the back of Sarah’s head. The bun dipped low, but not low enough to conceal the painfully thin neck. The stitching where her shoulders should be hung low on her arms. The woman had lost significant weight, and the belt around the waist was cinched with a knot rather than the holes it originally came with.
Etienne bore signs of malnourishment as well, but his frame was large enough to distract from it. He was nowhere near as tall as Colin who now ducked his head as they travelled through the narrow tunnel. She tried to make eye contact with him–to give him a, What the hell is going on? look. He averted his gaze before she could connect.
They followed, like bugs attracted to a light bulb. The lantern was an entreating temptress. Stella peered through the tarnished glass noticing that it was fueled by viscous oil.
The tunnel emerged into a vaulted chamber, the vast space apparent by the shift in resonation. She could no longer hear the echo of her own breath. Still, the scope of the lantern cloistered them in a tight glowing sphere, keeping the unknown at bay.
Stella felt perspiration bead up on her forehead. The cave walls were recessed enough that all six of them could walk abreast if they wanted, but they stuck to their two-person tandem. Etienne and Sarah in the lead, followed by Colin with Stella a step behind. In the rear, Don and Jill stumbled as their chins tipped up in inspection.
“It’s so warm in here,” Stella observed.
She wore only the navy drawstring shorts and red tank top that she had fallen asleep in. The outfit had dried mostly, but she expected to be freezing. There was no sunlight. No source of heat. The ocean had steadily grown glacial as she descended. So why was she sweating? Was she ill?
Etienne’s arm stretched out, the tattered wool hanging loosely from it. A contorted finger pointed to the right.
“There is a chute over there that leads into an antechamber. At the far end of that antechamber is another cavern. Stay clear of that area. It is dotted with hydrothermal vents. Temperatures can reach 200 degrees,” he paused and clarified, “Celsius.”
“Hydrothermal vents?” Don echoed from behind.
Stella wasn’t sure if he sounded shocked, or just had no clue what Etienne was talking about.
Doing a quick calculation in her head of 1 degree Celsius to 32 degrees Fahrenheit, she thought it was no wonder she was in such a sweat.
“Yes, the thermal vents are what sustain us down here,” Etienne continued with a slight accent Stella couldn’t place. The name was French, but the inflection didn’t quite match it.
“There is an intricate tunnel system that allows us to exist at a safe distance from the heat. These chimneys are providing us with oxygen.”
“How?” Colin beat her to the question.
The silhouette of a grin appeared over Etienne’s shoulder. With the lantern behind his face it looked more like a jaw x-ray.
“There will be time to answer your questions. Let’s get you settled and reunite you with your mother.”
Stella felt a rush at her side. Jill stormed by, sidling up alongside the man.
“Where is she?” she demanded.
“Not far.” He was tolerant. Patient. “There is another grotto near here. That is where your mother surfaced. Most come up in the pool you did, but it depends on the tug of the current and whether a nearby vent is spouting.”
“How is she?” Jill nearly latched onto his arm. It looked as if she wanted to yank the wiry limb until she got the answers she desired.
Etienne turned to look at Sarah. Did the woman speak? Only a tight nod of her angular chin served as communication.
He returned his attention to Jill.
“She is not conscious yet.”
“What?”
This time Don jerked forward only to be stopped by Colin’s grasp.
“Dad, wait until you see her.”
Anger, confrontation, demands–they would yield nothing down here.
“Dammit, if I had just grabbed onto the first aid kit–” Don’s voice faded.
“We have medical supplies here.” Etienne assured.
Right, Stella mused. Maybe they had internet too.
The likelihood that these two bedraggled individuals possessed anything of value, including their cognizance was rapidly decreasing. Any further questions would likely be deflected so they trudged in silent tandem, still lured by the light.
Above all else, keep to the light.
A breeze brushed Stella’s hair from her face. In front of them, a natural archway came into view.
Etienne hesitated. He turned away from this portal and scanned their faces.
“You’ll be safe here.”
With no need for the lantern anymore, he dropped his arm and stepped out of their way.
As Stella moved past him she clutched her heart.
“No freaking way.”
CHAPTER 5
Jill gasped. Don let loose an expletive. Colin remained impassive, but Stella thought she caught a tremor in his hand.
The enormity of the chamber stole her breath. Stella felt like a tiny spec in a grand theatre. Torches and lanterns dotted the walls, some so distant they seemed like a chain of fluttering fireflies. Even the fireflies could not reach the great heights of the vaulted ceiling. The natural dome crested over multiple pinnacles. It was the closest peak of bedrock that arrested her attention–or rather, what lay at the foot of it.
Buildings. Crudely formed from wreckage. Some dwellings were crafted from wooden ship carcasses, while others were more abstract configurations. The door from a yacht nestled into the fuselage of a war plane. A cargo container was capped with the skeletal remains of a ship’s bridge, forming a multi-story edifice.
These diverse habitats wrapped around the base of the lofty rock pinnacle and continued down a man-made avenue carved through the gritty cave floor. Aluminum railings scaled the rock peaks leading to even more dwellings. Stella noticed a wooden crow’s nest jutting out of the crag, a vantage point to survey this freakish city.
Dizzy, she grabbed onto the hemp rope railing that flanked the path, and then yanked her hand away, finding the accent just another bizarre touch to this subterranean realm.
“We call it the Underworld,” Etienne murmured with reverence. “I’m a bit of a Greek mythology buff. In fact, the stream you see over there, we’ve named it the Styx.”
Don stepped forward. A crease scored a forehead that was normally concealed beneath a baseball cap. For the first time Stella noticed how much gray had overtaken his dark hair.
“How quaint,” he spat. “Now let me see my wife. Then–” he hesitated, “–then maybe I can start to absorb all of this.”
Sarah turned around. In this enhanced lighting Stella could finally see her face. It was thin, triangular, with the wide-eyed appearance of someone with a thyroid problem.
“I’ll show you to the infirmary,” she spoke softly, her head bowing under the heightened agitation.
“The infirmary,” he jibed. “Of course.”
Stella couldn’t blame his sarcasm. What was next, a movie theater? She stared
around the ramshackle maritime village and wondered who the makeshift houses were for. She didn’t see anybody, but something Etienne had said made it sound as if there were others.
Recalling one of the Greek mythology books she had read, she tried to remember what it said about the Underworld. Wasn’t it the kingdom of the dead?
“This way,” Sarah beckoned with a thin finger.
She led them to an airplane torso. The wings were sheared from the aluminum body and wood paneling closed off both open ends. A tarnished red cross plaque hung inside one of the square windows. Etienne tugged on the handle of a doorway marked Emergency Exit in red letters. The hatch swung open and he managed a brisk step up into the fuselage, beckoning them to follow.
Sarah stood below the hatch like some ghoulish stewardess in her soiled uniform, smiling and offering Don a hand. He looked at it and then up into her eyes and shook his head.
“Thanks, I’m good,” Stella heard him say.
Stella felt someone watching her. She turned to see Jill hesitating on her approach to the gutted plane. For the first time down here she witnessed a flash of clarity in her best friend’s gaze. Golden eyebrows lifted in silent inquiry. Is this really happening?
Shrugging, Stella reached for her friend’s arm.
“Let’s go in together,” she offered.
Jill’s lips curled up gratefully. Using Stella’s shoulder for support, she climbed the steep step as Stella quickly followed. The whole chassis shifted slightly when Colin climbed up behind her. Once he was inside, the floor stabilized. A quick survey of the surprisingly wide belly of the old aircraft determined that the ceiling was high enough for Colin to stand upright, and wide enough to house side by side cots. Two sets of them. One of these cots held a figure wrapped in a blanket. Stella noticed blonde hair spilling off the back end of the short cot.
“Mom!” Jill bolted and dropped to her knees before the inert woman on the gurney.
Don crouched down beside her, his palm cupping Anne Wexler’s forehead. “Annie, can you hear me?”
There was no response. Stella peeked over Jill’s shoulder to check the rise and fall of the blanket. Anne was still alive.
Desolation dimmed Don Wexler’s hazel eyes.
Sarah, the nurse, spared his unvoiced question.
“Only time will tell,” she offered gently.
Don’s glance flicked around the gutted plane in disgust.
“This isn’t an infirmary,” he fumed. “This is a rusted plane carcass with–with–” he searched the contents of a three-legged metal table supported by a wooden wheelchair, “–with a few glass bottles of God knows what and a bunch of other rubbish.”
His eyes volleyed frenetically between Etienne and Sarah. “You can’t take care of my wife. Are you playing some sort of game down here? Have you all lost your minds? This is some sort of mass hallucination.”
Sarah cringed and rushed over to the metal table, snatching up one of the tarnished bottles.
“These are antiseptics. They are unopened and one even has an expiration date of 1996.”
Stella flinched. She sensed the roar of the lion before it even sounded.
“Well, isn’t that just swell!” Don barked. “Maybe you have some Frankincense and Myrrh down here too.”
“Dad.” Colin placed a hand on his father’s shoulder. “We should all be dead already. There’s no sense in getting angry.”
Don shot him a contemptuous look. “Aren’t you just the festive one.”
His profile bore similarities to Colin’s. Both possessed dark features, but Colin’s eyes were a deep evergreen, like the depths of a forest, unlike his father’s more tepid shade.
Stella sensed an animosity between the two men that must have been established long before they went out to sea. Their silent face-off made for an awkward stillness. It was disturbed by a faint rattle from Anne’s chest. Don quickly stooped over her.
“Is there anything in this infirmary that can help her?”
Sarah looked sympathetic, but with that gaunt visage, she seemed like she belonged on the gurney as well.
“We’ve got her breathing and her blood pressure has stabilized. Her body temperature is too low at the moment. It’s warm in here and I have her wrapped in several blankets, but if you really want to help her,” she paused, “I suggest you hold your wife.”
The brevity left Don’s face. He slipped his arm beneath Anne’s shoulders and dipped his forehead against her throat as her head lolled to the side.
“Momma,” Jill whimpered.
Colin clutched his sister’s shoulder. “Stay with her,” he whispered. “Let me see if I can find out anything more.”
Jill met his eyes. “Okay. But, don’t go far.”
Her warning was sobering. Colin’s jaw muscle clenched as he nodded and squeezed her shoulder. He looked down at his mother and Stella could see the pain on his face. He cast a quick glimpse at his father, but the man was oblivious.
Colin turned to confront Etienne.
“Can we talk?” he demanded in a husky voice.
Etienne dipped his head in assent and pivoted to step down through the hatch. Colin started to follow and then paused to glance at Stella. She held her breath.
“Do you want to stay here?”
“No,” she muttered.
If Colin was going to grill this disheveled mariner, she wanted to be there.
He climbed down out of the plane–oh, excuse me, infirmary–and turned to offer her a hand. She took it, grounded by the strength in that grip.
Casting a quick glimpse back, she saw that Sarah remained behind with the patient. It was minimal comfort, yet consolation nonetheless.
Outside, the view still stunned her. Torches handcrafted with cloth tips lined a crudely carved path in the cave floor. The path was flanked with jagged bedrock, and on these pitted slopes more heaps of wreckage were fashioned into small houses and lean-tos. Stella saw a pair of deck chairs seated before a cabin door latched onto an inverted hull, its white façade stripped down to raw wood.
“This cabin is free,” Etienne remarked as they passed the upside-down boat. “As is the one next-door. They’re yours now.”
Stella glanced at the cabin next-door. It looked like an orange cargo container had been sliced in half, and the circular turret of a fishing vessel attached to the open gap. Ragged shards of tarp represented crude curtains hanging from glassless window frames.
“Oh, I’ll take the one with the sunroom,” she muttered.
Colin heard her, but did not react.
“You, Jill–” he hesitated, “–and mom can have that one. Dad and I will take this one. We’ll need some rest.”
Stella studied his face and saw that he too found this all absurd. That gave her some comfort. But their host seemed keen on their approval so they offered him weary smiles.
“Good,” Etienne beamed.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Colin offered cautiously. “But you can understand that we’re eager to learn more about this place. It’s pretty unbelievable that you’ve been able to survive down here–that we’ve survived.”
Good ole’ Col. So level-headed, when all she wanted to do was grab this eccentric man by the collar and rattle him until answers tumbled out of his yellowed teeth.
What’s the matter, no dentists down here?
Even as she thought it, she took a quick glimpse, half expecting to see a DENTIST sign on an upturned airplane wing.
“Of course.” Etienne’s good spirits dimmed slightly. “We’re going up there.”
He pointed up a hill of packed rock that formed a plateau, the spot she had seen the crow’s nest.
Following him, they passed by a basketball pole and backboard, the ring void of any net. It stood askew, another tarnished slant on reality. Stella jolted when she saw a figure huddled in the deep shadows beneath it. She barely distinguished the form, but the dark eyes tracked her, shifting with her motion. Pinpricks of panic erupted on her arms.
>
“Col,” she whispered.
“I see,” he replied softly.
“You offered us this–” Colin searched for a word, “–lodging. How many others are here?”
As they climbed up the slope, Stella held the rope fence for support when the granular surface became slippery.
“A few,” Etienne hedged.
“Where are they?”
“Please,” Etienne held his hand out. “You will meet them in due time, but right now there is someone I’d like to introduce you to. Together we’ll be able to answer most of your questions.”
Finally. Stella’s steps accelerated.
At the top of the plateau the wooden crow’s nest perched above the ghostly village, its decaying pole penetrating deep into the red granular surface. Drawn towards it, Stella cautiously touched the wooden basket afraid of coming away with a splinter. From here she could see the top of the old airplane that now held most of the Wexler family. A light glowed from within, but there was no motion.
Who had been lurking in the shadows?
“Stel,” Colin called. “This way.”
Pivoting to follow, she noticed a slight waterfall trickling through the ceiling of the cave. It spilled into a black stream that fissured through to another chamber. The site of water leaking from above didn’t inspire confidence.
She was going to point it out to Colin, but she caught him eyeing the cascade. The telltale nudge of his chin upwards meant he harbored the same fears. There was an entire ocean above them. How long until this narrow torrent exploded and consumed them?
“Here we are,” Etienne interrupted their thoughts.
At first Stella couldn’t even recognize what was in front of her. A barnacle-encrusted wall nearly blended with the copper bedrock behind it. A window poked out of the barrier of shellfish, and it was the faint glow from inside that drew her attention. The light flickered as a shadow passed before it.
Etienne disappeared behind the wall and then poked his head out to summon them.
It was hard to read Colin’s eyes in the limited glow, but she could tell by his stiff stance that he was on high alert.
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