Seven’s hands gripped the table top in front of where he was standing. With the power station gone, the remaining hours and few days left to them would be agonizing and painful. Without the main power station, they had no hope at all of survival, and their deaths would be all that the skipper of the 421 would have desired for them, and perhaps even worse.
68
Warren, Wattenbarger , Charles and Mel made it back to their cave just as the disk of the sun peeked over Oklahoma’s eastern horizon. The borrowed pickup truck rapidly made the trek over an empty US Highway 64 that snaked around the conjoined lumps of Leonard and Concharty mountains. They were forced to drive around more than a few crash sites with bodies strewn randomly across the highway, but at no time was their forward progress entirely blocked. Fortunately for them, they were able to race their transportation right up to the foot of the mountain beneath their cave and rush injured Mel inside just before the quantum storms bathed them in its lethal rays. Inside they found little Alex sound asleep in Marble’s cage with his black, furry friend lying faithfully beside him.
In the intervening days, Mel’s mid-leg turned deep blue, then black. Warren pumped her with all the antibiotics he had remaining. Yet, he knew it was only a matter of time until they were forced to amputate. But the fever never came and the black tissue began to fade back to a blue-green as the swelling started to subside. Between the antibiotics and much sincere prayer on everyone’s part, her leg was miraculously saved.
Not so fortunately, however, the bones of her knee and mid-leg were also crushed. Repair would require the attention of a skilled orthopedic surgeon. For that, it would be a matter of even more prayer and yet another miracle. Until that time, they would have to completely immobilize her leg so that she could walk. Initially they did so by binding it in a sandwiched pair of boards wrapped in several rolls of elastic leg bracing material. Warren and Wattenbarger worked the better part of an entire day on the arrangement so that it enabled Mel to hobble about without the means of a crutch.
In the ensuing days, Wattenbarger channeled his intellectual and physical energies into designing, procuring and constructing a much more high tech, light weight and comfortable model from aluminum parts off of the destroyed TV tower. He had obviously fallen deeply in love with Mel and attended to her every want and need. Mel did not resist his affections and indeed they acted very much like a married couple as Wattenbarger began to take on the full responsibility of caring for young Alex.
Their relationship did not instigate a calamitous fight to the finish between the men as Charles had predicted. As for Charles himself, he had never seemed to have any affection for Mel from the moment that she had brained him with the stone. And Warren accepted it stoically, generally treating Mel as if she were his sister.
“I think it’s shower time,” Mel said to Wattenbarger as they reclined on a wide blanket laid out on the sand of the cave floor after dinner. “Believe it or not, I haven’t had a shower for two weeks – not since the accident.”
Wattenbarger just smiled in return.
“What?” she asked, then wrinkled her nose. “Oh my God, no! Do I smell like I think I smell to everyone else, too?”
“Smelly Mellie.”
“What?”
“Smelly Mellie – it’s what we’ve been calling you lately,” he responded with the smirk of a troublemaker.
Mel’s face turned a crimson red. “Oh Lord, I’m so sorry,” she cried in humiliation.
“What?” Wattenbarger said, obviously forgetting he was talking to a woman and not one of the guys.
Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I’m so sorry,” she said with the tiny whine of a little girl, then she burst into tears. “But I can’t take a shower at all! I can’t take a shower with this leg brace and I can’t wash up in the creek like I always did. Oh, Dale, I don’t know how to do this! How can you even stand to be around me like this?” she sobbed.
“Mel,” Wattenbarger said solemnly with is eyes downcast. “No one called you Smellie Mellie. I just made that up, right now. I’m sorry, I was just kidding. And I’ll help you take a shower, it’ll be easy. We’ll take your cast off - I’ll get in with you and hold you up and even wash your back or somethin’,” he said with a satisfied smile.
“Like hell you will!” Mel responded hotly. “What do you think, we’re married or somethin’? I’ll bet you’d like to take a shower with me, just like every other man in northeastern Oklahoma . Forget it! I guess you have no respect for me at all.” She looked at him with a hurt expression, then burst into tears again.
“Mel, I’m sorry…” Wattenbarger said evenly, looking her in the eyes. “But I do have one question for you…”
“What?” she spat.
“Is it that time… I mean, are you, like…” he stammered, ineffectively trying to ask the question about the monthly hormonal curse of mankind.
“Forget it! Don’t ever even think that! And how dare you ask me that question!”
“I figured as much,” he murmured, sliding six inches away from her. “Okay, here’s how we’re gonna do it. Right now, Lew and I are gonna build a shower insert so all you have to do is go in, sit down, take off your leg brace and hang on. Then we’ll load up the tank with warm water and you can go at it while we stand outside to help, lookin’ the other way, of course. How does that sound? Hey, I’ll even light a few candles for ya and you can relax and take as long as you’d like. And I promise, Mel, we’ll take a solemn pledge not to look!”
Mel looked into his eyes for a full minute without speaking, and then burst into another round of tears before sobbing, “Dale, you’re so sweet!”
Wattenbarger wisely just nodded with a small, carefully controlled smile, and then replied, “I’ll get on it right now.” He sat up onto his knees, leaned over and kissed her forehead, then turned and left as she was wiping the tears from her face. His daddy had been right about these acutely sensitive times, he thought to himself. Good old dad, he always knew so much all along.
Warren and Wattenbarger leapt to the task of building the shower insert. In his typical style, Warren poured as much energy and perfection into the job as if he were building a fusion reactor. Finally, it was finished and they walked over to where Mel was combing out her hair in preparation for the shower.
“It’s done,” Warren said officiously. “Now let me explain how it works so you can have your shower in comfort and complete safety.”
“Warren , it’s a freakin’ shower seat and a handle,” Wattenbarger sighed in exasperation. “How hard can this be?” Then he turned and looked at Mel whose bottom lip was already trembling.
“Wait,” he said, recovering quickly. Putting his arm around Warren , he flashed a charming smile at Mel and continued, “You won’t believe what we’ve created just for you!”
In just a few minutes, Mel was sitting under a stream of hot water from the shower head and moaning in delight in the lower, private part of the cave near the stream.
“Can you handle this?” Warren asked Wattenbarger. “I’ve got to go back up topside. I’m still tryin’ to contact the observatory transponder.”
“I got it,” Wattenbarger said, watching the water level in the tank diminish little by little. “You’ve got quite a bit more water, so keep on enjoying your shower,” Wattenbarger called to Mel proudly.
“Thanks,” she replied sincerely. “I’m gonna pull myself up now so I can wash my back. Are you sure you guys built this thing strong enough?”
“I’ll bet my next paycheck on it!” Wattenbarger replied, looking at her muted form through the translucent curtain as she began to pull her body up from her seat onto her good leg. “Be careful!” he warned.
“You’re not peeking, are ya?” she asked sternly.
“Of course not,” he replied guiltily, quickly looking away.
One second later there was a loud pop and Mel’s body fell away from her seat, through the plastic wall of the shower and onto Wattenbarger. She was wrapped in the sh
ower curtain with her head poking out the top, as well as her right hand still holding the brace. The unexpected weight of her body shoved Wattenbarger to the ground and he fell clutching her as he impacted the sand.
“Holy crap! What happened?” Wattenbarger cried directly into her face that was now only inches away, as her body lay atop him in the sand.
“This happened,” she said in smiling half-anger, waving the brace over his head. “I ought to beat you to a pulp with it!”
The water ran in tiny, sweet smelling streams off of her black hair and dripped onto his face. As he looked into her eyes, Wattenbarger could see small laces of shampoo lining her scalp. His hands gripped her lithe frame and held her tightly atop him, more of a reflex than anything else. But in just a moment in time, his fingers began to actually feel her warm body as they grasped her flesh through the curtain.
“Not Smelly Mellie any more,” Wattenbarger whispered, as the sweet, delicious water dripped from her face and covered his. “I’m not looking,” he rasped hoarsely, his eyes locked onto hers, but his fingers were looking, slowly tracing the outline of her form though the shower curtain. The soap had made her skin slick so that the curtain easily slid back and forth as his fingers followed the beautiful shape of her body, its curves and its lines, as though the curtain were not even there at all.
Mel unexpectedly kissed him, deeply and ardently. It was one of those kisses that comprise the warm up to the next phase of passion that the shower curtain prevented.
Wattenbarger kissed her in return, probingly, hotly, passionately until he could not control himself any longer. With his right hand, he ripped the shower curtain away from her body, exposing her naked skin. Then his hands made another sweep of her warm flesh, his fingers beginning to outline the real thing.
Mel’s hand reached around and pulled his away.
“What?” he asked in frustration, pulling his head back.
“I’m not done with my shower yet,” she said kindly.
“So?” he asked, wondering what on earth that little useless fact had to do with anything at all.
“When my shower’s done…” she began.
“Okay, I can wait,” he said with a sigh.
“When my shower’s done,” she continued firmly, “and when you give me a ring, and the preacher says forever and forever, over and out, then we can continue.”
“Well, how long is all that gonna take?” Wattenbarger asked in frustration, his face lined with the totally unique expression that most men know well as the ‘mask of unrequited passion.’
She laughed, pulled the shower curtain over herself and kissed his nose. “That’s entirely up to you. But no one gets the milk for free.”
“Huh…?”
“Oh stop,” she replied. “You know exactly what I’m talkin’ about.”
“Come back over here; let me show you something,” he said mischievously.
She leaned away from him and sat upright in the sand. “Save it for later.”
“Come here,” he insisted. “I want to show you something.”
“Stop it and help me get this shower fixed. Now I’m half covered with sand.”
Wattenbarger reached into the watch pocket of his jeans and pulled something out, cupped in his hand.
“What is it?” Mel asked, looking at his fist then back into his eyes.
“You have to come here to see it,” he replied impishly.
“I’m warning you, Dale Wattenbarger, if you try anythin’, you’re gonna’ be singing with a high voice,” Mel stated firmly as she inched cautiously closer to him, her eyes focused on his balled fist.
Wattenbarger opened his hand and said, “I made it for you.”
Mel’s eyes widened as she looked from his palm to his eyes. “Oh my dear, sweet man! Is that what I think it is?”
“Yes. Mel, will you marry me?” he replied, proudly holding out a ring he had crafted himself. It was a delicate, intricately woven creation of copper and stainless wire.
Mel responded by throwing the full weight of her body onto his and picking up where they had left off. The shower curtain, however, stayed in place. She had told him that the milk was not free and she meant it, as he found out.
gh
Both Warren and Charles accepted the news of the engagement with a stoic matter-of-factness. Knowing the male species as he did, Wattenbarger sought to downplay the announcement, but Mel could not hide her permanently pasted on smile and eyes constantly shifting to her ring.
Everyone except little Alex stood together as Warren steamed and stewed over his equipment.
“Damnit!” Warren spat to Wattenbarger. “Will you stop playin’ around and give me some ideas here?”
“Still no juice?” Wattenbarger asked.
“Nothin’. The line’s still dead. Not even a hint of any remote activity,” Warren said with profound, unhidden frustration at not being able to contact the equipment they had installed at the Observatory. The ELF transmitter was designed to be operated remotely from the cave twenty four hours a day without interruption. But the last piece installed was on the Seismic Telemetry Receiving Tower at the observatory. It was designed to receive signals from the cave, transmit them to the ELF array deep under Leonard Mountain and to communicate evidence of a successful transmission back to them. But since assembling the arrangement, the Observatory equipment would not acknowledge even a single one of their transmissions.
“I don’t wanna go back there,” Warren admitted. “We almost lost Mel and almost didn’t make it back last time. It’s just too dangerous and we’ve already pressed the limits of our good fortune way too far.”
“Okay,” Wattenbarger said, lapsing into a logical sequence of thought and working backward though the interlinked equipment in the cave. “Have you checked the power to each of the units individually?”
“Yes.”
“Have you unlinked the units and checked their individual outputs?”
“Yes.”
“Have you checked the reception of the main receiver using a dummy transceiver just outside the mouth of the cave?”
“No. And why would I do that?”
“Because that would verify the operation of each piece of equipment inside the cave and would rule out everything except the tower equipment.”
“Dale, you have, once again, proven that you possess an uncommon mind,” Warren said, his face now relaxing.
“Fine,” Wattenbarger said proudly. “I’ll rig the transceiver and just after sundown – which is in a little over an hour - we’ll go run the test. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”
“No, not, think again,” Charles protested.
“What?” Warren asked.
“You promised that after you installed this equipment we could go find out what’s inside that plane. Well, you never said anything about it having to work. Now it’s installed and we better go to that plane before the cowboy does. It may be too late already.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Warren shouted. “Do you actually think this is a game, that we have all the time we need to fritz around here and take fields trips while…”
“Stop,” Mel said loudly, interrupting Warren ’s tirade. “We check the gear then we go look at the plane. There’s plenty of time to do both.”
“Good idea,” Charles said, looking back at Warren with contempt.
Warren just shook his head and turned and walked away. “Dale, give me a hand with the transceiver rig, will ya?”
gh
Just after sunset, Wattenbarger, Charles and Mel departed the cave, leaving Warren inside to man the equipment for the test. In a few minutes, Wattenbarger gave a short countdown, and then pressed the equipment test button on the kludged together transceiver. A full minute passed with no response from the cave.
“Warren , what happened?” Wattenbarger finally asked into his walkie talkie.
No response.
“Warren !”
“I can’t tell. Did you push the butto
n and hold down on it?”
“Yes.”
“Are you still holding it?”
“Yes.”
“Forget it! I’m done with this stupid thing. I’m comin’ out.”
Minutes later Warren came walking to them over the ridge path. “It’s just hosed,” he admitted dejectedly. “I can’t figure it out. I received a transmission burst, then it just stopped and there was nothin’ else. I don’t know whether it’s here or there. I’m more confused than ever now.”
“Okay, fine,” Wattenbarger responded. “Your brain needs a rest. So why don’t we go to the plane, then return and try and go over it backward and forward until we figure it out?”
“I don’t wanna go back to the observatory,” Warren said, lifting his eyes to Wattenbarger’s. “That place gives me the willies. I never thought of ever goin’ back.”
Wattenbarger could see the fear in his eyes. “You won’t have to,” he said in a reassuring voice. “Charles and I’ll go back next time, if we have to. But I have a feeling the problem’s in the cave.”
A short while later, after leaving Alex happily manning his ‘fort’ with Marbles while watching a DVD, they all stood at the door of the aircraft that had lain undisturbed since their last visit. They were standing in the darkness on the mountain’s flat top under a clear and brilliantly starlit night. With their lights they could see the door had been popped out of its frame by the wrinkling of the front nose when it had been so precariously balanced on its end, but there was no evidence of any other visitors.
“You know those doors were never designed for easy entry to begin with,” Warren began as his eyes scanned the portal. “If it’s jammed in any way, we may never gain access to the fuselage.”
Wattenbarger nodded his agreement, stepped to the door, pulled down on the latch with his right hand and the door popped open immediately.
“So much for the jam theory,” Charles said. “Dale, you first.”
Without hesitation, Dale gripped Mel by the waist and inched trough the hatch, tugging her along by his side. They instinctively turned to the right as they entered the narrow aisle and looked into the pilot’s compartment. The door was latched open and the compartment was empty.
Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven Page 64
