by Nick Thacker
On top of it was a tablet computer, like an iPad, but slightly smaller. This was somehow hardwired onto the top of the barrel, a mess of cabling that Ben wasn’t about to try and fiddle with.
He stared at the cold metal object, wondering what to do next.
I don’t really have a plan for this part, he realized. He’d just assumed he’d find the bomb, take it back up with him, and throw it in the lake.
Or, he had secretly hoped it would be like an old western — a single fuse, lit and burning its way down the cable until it reached the payload. A simple snip with a knife or a deadeye shot with a six-shooter would have taken care of that.
But it wasn’t the wild west, and Ben stood motionless for another few seconds. What now, genius?
He stepped closer to examine the cables. All of them were black — no guessing “blue” or “red” and pulling one of them out. They were wrapped in a thick bundle with electrical tape after protruding from two sides of the tablet, and spread out again at the other end, before heading into the large metal canister.
As he examined the device, a plan began to form. It was primitive, but it was something.
The bomb is cylindrical. Which means it can be rolled.
He had no idea how heavy it was, or how delicate. But he was beyond waiting around for something else to happen — it was just him, a bomb, and not much time left.
He gently grasped the top lip of the barrel-like container and rocked it back and forth. It seemed heavy, which made sense, but not completely stationary. This might work.
He rocked a little harder, testing both for weight and, as he suddenly realized, to simply see if it would explode.
If I get out of this, there’s no way anyone’s ever hiring me to be part of a bomb squad.
Trial and error didn’t seem to be a factor in examining an explosive device, but then again, there was nothing else he could do.
Thankfully, he didn’t explode. No fiery balls of fire ripped him to shreds as he played with the bomb-keg, so he continued with the plan.
Rock gently. Rock a little harder. A little harder… harder —
He lost his grip on the barrel, and the whole mess crashed to the floor. It clanged as it bumped on the hard rock and began to roll down the slightly sloping cavern until it smashed into the wall at the bottom of the chamber.
Ben was irritated that he’d cowered away from it when it fell, as if hiding a few inches back would have saved him from a deadly explosion.
But it hadn’t exploded, and though he wouldn’t purposefully repeat the experiment, he now knew that a little tumbling around wouldn’t be enough to detonate it.
He breathed in and out a few times and stepped up to the bomb, noticing a dim bluish light emanating from the barrel’s top. He pointed the flashlight away and saw that the dim light remained.
What the —
The top of the barrel, now on its side, faced away from him. The light was casting shadows in the room, fighting with the beam of his flashlight. He walked around the device and saw the cause of the blue glow.
The screen.
The tablet computer was on, with nothing but a blue screen and white text scrolling around. It was code, no doubt some sort of computer program that the creators of this device had installed on it.
But at the top right of the little screen appeared a few strings of numbers as well, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what they represented.
A countdown.
Ben read the numbers, almost scared to finally learn the truth. There were four two-digit spaces, and he assumed what each meant. Days, hours, minutes, seconds.
He felt a chill run down his spine as he saw that the first two places held only zeroes.
00:00:52:37.
52 minutes, 37 seconds.
55
If he was tired crawling out of the first cave he’d traveled down that day, he was now utterly exhausted.
Rolling the device up the shallow parts of the cave floor had been hard enough, but the steep sections were nearly impossible. Ben was sweating, the slipperiness of his hands only adding to the challenge.
He’d made it up and out of the manmade portion of the tunnel and back into the natural cave section. Each slight bend or change in grade was exacerbated by his companion, the hundred-plus-pound explosive device. Ben couldn’t help but wish that he’d taken someone — anyone — with him.
Why was I trying to be such a hero?
He knew it had been the smart thing to do at the time. Mitigate risk, spread out, stretch their resources to their capacity, and get as many people away from ground zero as possible.
But now, struggling to roll a metal can up a cave floor with wet hands, all while running out of energy and time, he was having second thoughts.
Maybe I can leave it here, call for help, and then wait for someone to come by.
He shook his head, reminding himself of his dead radio. Even his cellphone was worthless. He’d never had great service in the park, and certainly not in this area. The closest tower was near the ranger station and base areas, a small pocket of civilization in an otherwise vast — and remote — wilderness.
So he kept pushing, rolling the device up and over sticks and rocks. Many of them were small enough that he could push the object over them without hesitating. Larger rocks forced him to hold the bomb still with a knee while he grabbed the obstacle and threw it to the side.
In this way, he’d covered most of the ascent. It was slow going, but he was making decent time.
Until he reached the step.
He’d forgotten about the step — the rock stair that jutted out from the cave floor that he’d almost tripped over when he first entered the cave.
The first thought he had was that he was close to the exit. But that wasn’t what mattered to him right now.
The cylinder bumped into the rock, and Ben crouched behind it, stuck, both supporting himself and trying to hold the weight of the rolling explosive device from plummeting back down the cavern.
So far he’d been able to work in the dark, keeping the flashlight in his back pocket. But now he needed a better plan. He reached around and grabbed the light, flicking it on and examining his predicament.
The ledge wasn’t large, just as he remembered it, but it presented an extremely frustrating problem — the bomb would need to be lifted completely up and over the ledge, then set back down on the cave floor above it, all without losing control of it.
There was no way around it, literally or figuratively.
Ben stuck his knee behind the bomb and flashed the light in a full circle around him just in case he’d missed something, his heavy breathing calming slightly as his body took advantage of the short break.
As he brought the flashlight back to his right hand and prepared to put it away, he felt his knee sliding sideways.
“Nononono—”
He began yelling at the metal cylinder, but it was still coming backwards. He fell on his rear, then on his side, panic suddenly setting in. His hands were no use, covered in sweat and sliding as easily on the smooth cave floor as they did on the metal surface of the bomb’s casing.
This is not good.
The bomb began to roll faster, and Ben knew it was going to roll right past him.
It gained speed, and he did the only thing he could think of.
He stuck his left leg out and shoved it in front of the runaway cylinder. As it approached, Ben slid his upper body around quickly so that it was downhill, right in the path of the bomb’s getaway.
The heavy object rolled over his foot, and he felt its weight slam down on his shin. He roared in pain and instinctively tried to pull his foot back, but the bomb was already up to his knee. He could feel the pressure exerted by the weight, crushing as it sailed over him.
It slowed, the angle of Ben’s leg stalling it, and it rolled backwards. It bounced a little and then came to rest on his left foot, a crunching sound in his ankle causing Ben to gasp and almost pass out.
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br /> The initial impact of the device and the final crushing blow as it bounced and stopped on his foot rendered Ben completely immobile. He was laying upside down, his head farther down the path and lower than his feet, one of which was pinned beneath the metal cylinder.
He groaned, pain lancing up his leg, as he tried to wriggle his foot free. He sat forward, resting on his elbows, so he could examine the situation. Every time he even thought about moving his foot, his brain seemed determined to disobey the order. Still, he struggled against it and tried to force the foot free.
It was no use. The pain was too much to bear, and the device wouldn’t budge. He sighed, falling back.
56
This is it. It’s over. I’m going to die in a hole in the ground, waiting to blow up.
Ben’s foot was on fire. The pain had grown worse, surprisingly, and he was now nearly hyperventilating as he tried to breathe in and out, focusing his mind on other thoughts.
But the thoughts that came weren’t helpful.
I failed. I let everyone down, and I let Julie down.
I lost her.
He tried again to force his mind to other thoughts, but the only other thing that came to mind was to check the time on the bomb. The screen hadn’t turned off again, and he slid sideways a bit to catch a glimpse of the countdown clock.
36 minutes…
He watched every second tick down, the display mesmerizing him, calming him.
35 minutes…
This really is it, he thought. The seconds ticked by, and all he could think about was the bomb, the countdown timer, and Julie.
Julie, I’m sorry.
He wished he had the radio and that it had a little battery left. Not to call for help, but to hear her voice again.
Just one more time.
“Ben!”
He sprang up, momentarily forgetting his helplessness, and almost screamed as his leg reminded him. He fell back to the floor, but managed a weak response. “Hello? Julie, is that you?”
It had definitely been her voice, but she wasn’t in the cave yet — it sounded quieter than it should have been, as if she were standing at the mouth of the cave.
“Oh my God, Ben, are you really in there?” she called again.
“Y — yeah, I’m here,” he said. “Might be here for a while, though.”
He could now see a flickering light dancing above him, casting slight shadows on the walls around him.
“I’m coming down — are you hurt?”
He didn’t answer, instead waiting for her face to appear. How do you explain an idiot move like this?
“Ben! What happened?”
He frowned, wanting to yell at her to shut up and help, but stopped himself. “I got attacked by this barrel. Came out of nowhere. Like an ambush.”
Julie did not look amused. “You think you’re funny?”
“Funnier than you,” he replied, the sarcastic twinge of his voice downplayed by the obvious pain he was feeling.
“Let’s get this thing off of you. That sound good?” She examined the bomb, noticing the countdown timer, but not saying anything about it. “Hang on a minute.”
Ben’s eyes grew wide as Julie turned and ran back up the cave, leaving him and the bomb in complete darkness. “Hey!”
No response. Ben waited impatiently. A minute ticked by, then another. He wished he didn’t have a way to tell exactly how much time had passed, but he did.
Three minutes, on the dot.
“I’m here,” he heard her say. He saw the light again, and she raced around the corner and over the step, this time holding a large stick.
“It’s not going to be strong enough to lift it all the way over —”
“It doesn’t need to be,” she responded, cutting him off. “Shut up and hold that thing steady.”
He did as he was told, and Julie propped the end of the stick underneath its bulk, careful to keep it away from Ben’s foot. She wiggled it deeper, pushing it around until it cracked a little. She met Ben’s eyes. “Let’s hope that was just the very end of it,” she said. “Ready?” She reached behind her and grabbed a round stone lying next to the cave wall. She stuck the stone beneath the stick, right in front of the bomb, forming a lever.
Ben nodded, and Julie heaved downwards with all of her bodyweight. A strained noise escaped her mouth, and Ben couldn’t help but notice how cute it sounded. He quickly returned to the situation at hand and placed his hands on the bomb’s exterior. He held it steady as Julie pushed again. The metal canister moved slightly forward, and Ben felt the immediate sensation of freedom. He ripped his leg back, the terror of having his foot crushed greater than the pain of moving it that quickly.
He put more weight on the bomb, then nodded. Julie let out the air she’d been holding and released the lever. The bomb slid back a little but stopped as it hit the rock and the force from Ben’s hands.
“Okay, now what?” she asked.
Ben looked up at her. “You didn’t think to bring any of those cops down with you?”
She shook her head unapologetically. “I didn’t tell them I was leaving. A few of us met up, and I, uh, sort of borrowed one of the cars.”
“You stole a police car?” Ben asked incredulously.
“You stole mine,” she responded.
He almost smiled. “Whatever. I guess you get to help me with this. Here —” He moved his hands over to the side of the bomb, and she crouched down to help him, placing her hands on the right side. “My bum leg is going force me to move a little slower, since I’ll pretty much have to balance on the other one, but I think both of us can —”
Before he could finish, Julie had started lifting. Ben felt the bomb move a few inches up toward the shelf, and he struggled to keep up. He added his strength, and together the pair lifted the metal tube up the side of the short rock step, using the vertical section of rock as support.
With a final push, they lifted the bomb over the edge and onto the flat, gently sloping section of cave above.
“Whew, that’s not the lightest thing I’ve ever lifted,” Julie said.
“Yeah, try getting it all the way up here,” Ben said. He realized they hadn’t stopped yet — they were moving it along, hand over hand, inch by inch, working together.
“Oh, right, macho man. You’re quite the stud. Maybe next time don’t drop it on your foot?”
“Maybe next time don’t start without me?” Ben shot back.
“I know why you don’t talk much,” she said, a smirk forming at the side of her mouth.
“Why’s that, genius?”
“Because all you do is whine,” she said.
Ben laughed, glad that the ordeal was over, but also glad Julie had joined him. The pain in his foot was still significant, but he thought it might be a hairline fracture rather than a full broken ankle. It was difficult to walk, but he knew he’d be fine.
They reached the end of the cave and rolled the device over the grassy land between the cave and the truck. They stopped when they reached the road, letting the bomb come to a rest in front of the truck’s high tailgate. Ben sat down on the grass, letting his leg relax.
“Hey,” he said. He wasn’t looking at Julie, but instead up at the sky, which was growing darker as the sun prepared to set.
“What’s up?”
“Thanks for coming back for me.” He finally looked back down, turning his head to catch Julie’s eye.
“You knew I would,” she said, smiling, as she stood up. “Now let’s get this thing out to the lake.”
57
Ben was shocked that Julie was actually driving. Unfortunately, she’d volunteered to drive the Dodge Charger police cruiser that she’d “borrowed” from the officer earlier, leaving Ben to drive her own truck. He tested his leg, finding it in pain but not broken, and he walked in a few circles outside of the cave before continuing.
They’d lifted the bomb up and over the tailgate of the truck and slid it against the cab, opting to stand it up on its
base rather than leave it to roll around. Julie didn’t have any tie-downs or rope in the truck, so Ben asked her to follow behind and make sure the bomb didn’t fall over. If it did, and Ben couldn’t hear or feel it himself, she’d agreed to flash her headlights a few times to let him know.
But it was overkill. The road they’d turned onto curved around the lake, for the most part following the shoreline. Ben knew the road was paved almost entirely and was free of potholes, bumps, and irregular surfaces like the dirt back roads they’d been on.
The plan was to find a spot to dump the bomb into the lake, trying to get it as far out onto the water as possible, and that meant they’d get to higher ground and find a hill or raised location from which they’d roll the bomb down and out over the lake.
It was a pretty meager plan, Ben admitted to himself, but it was still a plan. He’d been at a loss for what to do after he found the explosive device, and only after they’d secured the bomb in the back of the truck had he realized why.
He hadn’t expected to even find it in the first place.
Ben thought it was a miracle they’d stumbled across the bomb’s resting place, and even more of a miracle that it hadn’t yet detonated, but he wasn’t holding out hope that this next phase of their hacked together plan was going to work.
Still, he pressed on. What good is a plan if it isn’t tried? he thought to himself. He wasn’t sure if that was a real quote or just something that seemed to make sense, but he held on to it.
He now knew what it felt like to truly hope. To long for something to happen; to wish with all he had to accomplish something.
He’d felt pangs of it when his father had been in the ER, and then later as they stabilized him, but he’d forgotten the feelings of hope, longing, and even true despair.
This, he knew, was desperate.
They were racing at a breakneck pace, carrying a who-knew-how-massive explosive device that was guaranteed to blow in less than half an hour, trying to find a place to dump it in a lake.
