by Brian Toal
“A long time. Since the industrial revolution, in the eighteen hundreds.”
“But not machines like this.” Chris scraped some of the dirt and rubble back from the surface. Below, the metal was a smooth sheen. Covered in an ageless grime, but as perfect as the hood on his father’s truck. He had seen steam-engines and other ancient machinery at museums and fall fairs. The metal had been different. Pitted and rough, not like this at all. “Look at all these tubes and how smooth it is. It’s like something we’d build today, except it’s all covered in dirt.”
“Maybe it hasn’t been here all that long.”
“But Todd, it’s got to have been. Look at the building it’s in. It’s made of big stone blocks and buried under a hill. It’s got to have been here a long time.
For a moment Todd said nothing, then his eyes went wide. “Ho-ly! I think I know what this place is. A few weeks ago, my Dad was telling me that, during the second world war, the Canadians built air bases up here. They were afraid the Germans might beat the Russians and then attack Canada from over the pole.”
“The North Pole?”
“It’s the shortest way to get to Canada from Russia, unless you want to attack Alaska first. Dad was saying a couple hundred miles north of here, on the Missinaibi River, there is an abandoned air force base with intact buildings and old jeeps and trucks still parked along the runway. Dad said there were trees growing right through the bodies of the trucks. This place might be from the second world war.”
“An old Air Force base?” Chris looked around. It didn’t look like any air force base he had ever seen.
“Well not an Air Force base, but maybe a communications center, or something. I mean there could be all kinds of stuff buried back under the hill we haven’t found yet.”
“And that’s why the walls are so thick.”
“Exactly, in case they got bombed.”
“Really?” Chris looked around at the grey walls that rose around him, featureless except for the cracks between each block of stone. “It doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen in a second world war movie. And where are all the other rooms?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there are hidden doors or something.”
Chris shook his head. “I don’t think so Todd. If this was from World War Two it’d look different. More like an office building or something.” He had no idea of what an abandoned World War Two communication bunker would look like, but this wasn’t it. There were no interior walls, no doorways to other offices, nothing but the grey stone slabs. “I think this is old. Like real old, not from the second world war.”
Todd shrugged. “Well, I’m sure my Dad will call someone when he sees this thing and they’ll figure it out.”
“If your Dad ever gets to see it. How’s he going to get in here? You and I can barely get in.”
“Maybe through here.” Todd walked over to the rock wall, squinting as he got closer to the shafts of sunlight. “Look how the blocks are staggered above each other. If he ran a steel cable through a couple of these gaps, he could just pull one of the blocks right out of the wall.”
Chris looked up at the rock wall on either side of Todd. With the heavy equipment Todd’s dad had available, he supposed it was possible to do almost anything. “You know what would be cool? We should get a camera and take some pictures to show the guys back at school. Can you imagine what they would say?” Chris pictured the group standing around him in awe, as he told them how they had found the opening, squeezed through the long corridor with the hard rock pressed all around. Then show them the pictures of the machine, not seen by human eyes in thousands of years.
“They’d think it was pretty wild.”
“Especially if we had pictures.”
Todd nodded, crossing the room towards him. “I’ve got a camera back at camp. But I’m not sure my Dad will let us back in here again.”
“He can’t get in here himself, because he’s too big. So maybe he’ll want some pictures for his company.” Chris turned and as quickly as he could, began to brush off the rock chips and other debris that had accumulated across the top. “Come on, let’s clean it up a bit. We should try to polish it too, so the gold color shows up better.”
“It might not be just gold color.” Todd joined Chris, clearing off the debris from the opposite side of the lid. “It might be gold.”
“You think? Wow! How much do you think it’d be worth?”
“I don’t know. Millions maybe, but we won’t get any.”
“Why not, we found it?”
“It not ours to have. This is NorthCan’s property, but they just rent the land off the government for mining. I’m pretty sure the Canadian government would claim it.”
“Buggers!” Chris leaned further over the center pushing with his forearm as hard as possible against the recessed surface. “Maybe we shouldn’t tell them.”
Todd laughed. “I think they’ll find out, especially after we take our pictures and tell everybody back in Detroit.”
“At least we were the ones that found it. That’s the best.”
“Yeah, we might even get our names in the...Ho-ly! Did you feel that.”
“What?” Chris looked up. Todd stood across from him. Rigid. Both his hands pressed flat onto the metal lid below him.
“I can feel something moving.”
“Moving?”
“Yeah! Like something is ticking against the metal.”
“Let me feel.” Chris slid his hands across the metal surface until they rested beside Todd’s. Spreading his fingers wide, he felt a slight vibration under his hands. Like a motor winding down. A slowly diminishing pulse. Impossible to hear even though the chamber was dead quiet. After a few seconds it ended, the metal cool under his hands. “Weird... Do you think it was doing that before?”
“I don’t know, I never touched this part of it before.”
Chris ran his hands along the center portion of the lid. “See if you can feel anything else. Maybe this thing still works.”
The two of them, standing across from each other, silently moved their hands along the length and breadth of the lid, scraping the debris back and onto the floor as they went. Minutes passed, the metal cool and lifeless under their hands. Chris dropped to his knees and awkwardly pressed his ear against the side. Nothing. Stone cold and dead silent. From the opposite side he heard Todd’s shoes scrape against the stone floor and Chris knew he was doing the same He crawled forward a few more feet. Stopped. Pressed his ear against the side once again. Nothing. He moved forward a few more feet and repeated the process. Two, three seconds passed, then slowly he rose to his feet, the covered end of the box directly in front of his eyes. For a moment it didn’t register. His mind focused solely on detecting the slightest auditory signal. Then he noticed the dim red light illuminating the interior of the hood, reflected off the maze of pipes and rounded metal within. “Todd...” He began, leaning closer to ensure it truly was a light and not just a reflection. “Todd!” He said again, much louder. “There’s a light on under the top piece.”
It was hard to see under the curved hood. A multitude of pipes joined and twisted along each side all meeting in the center, although the unions where hidden under a wide, round metal plate. Chris pushed himself up onto the metal lid, laying back on his shoulder to get a better look inside.
“Ho-ly!” Todd’s face was beside his own. “That wasn’t on before.”
“I know! Maybe it still works.” He couldn’t yet see the actual source of the light. Only its luminance. Radiating from behind the only smooth portion underneath - a round metal plate located at the very center of the hood. But even that was difficult to see as it was surrounded by a series of peculiar metal rods, jointed in several places along their lengths. Laying on his back he pulled himself slightly under the metal covering, broken stone chips digging into his back.
“Be careful Chris. I wouldn’t go too far under there. It looks pretty tight.”
“I just want to see where this
light comes from. Maybe there’s a control panel or something.”
He reached up above his head, feeling the pipes on either side, but with only millimeters of space between them, they were impossible to grab. He pushed with his feet, sliding further under the covering, his hands still searching for a hand hold - when he found exactly that. Two handles, one on either side, perfectly sculpted for human hands. With a grunt, Chris pulled himself forward and under the round plate mounted above.
He never had time to scream. Certainly never a chance to push himself out from under the metal hood. In fact, he was still pulling himself forward when, with a shuddering thump, the machine above and below him came to life. The light above him turned a brilliant white. Beneath his shoulder blades the machine whined and vibrated as above him and to either side of his face the metal rods moved. Opening like fingers they slammed into both sides of his head, crushing his ears to his skull. Still others slid around his neck, pausing as they seemed to feel for an appropriate location and he managed to get the fingers of his right hand between two of them just before they tightened, crushing his windpipe and digging into the soft skin under his jaw.
He felt Todd’s hands pulling at his T-shirt as the pressure on his head and face increased. Metal fingers sliding in his mouth, cutting into his cheeks as he felt his upper body hoisted into the air, his forehead slamming into the metal plate above.
“Chris! Oh God! Chris!” Todd’s hands were pulling at his shoulders. Blood in his mouth and his throat as the metal bands around his neck dug deep into the cartilage of his windpipe.
Above him the light changed, the center of the round plate above him swiveling to one side, revealing a maze of tubes with wires attached to their ends. From his half-sitting position, he could see Todd’s panic-stricken face mouthing words, but his skull was actually being compressed and the roaring in his ears was constant, drowning out any auditory input. Above him, things were moving, a metal arm with a glass vial attached to its side angled down out of the opening, stopping by his chin. Another centered itself over his left eye. Then dropped again, its rounded end pressing against his lower eyelid.
His legs thrashed on the table outside, as the pressure increased, forcing his eyeball up against the bone of skull like a gigantic boil, but the metal tongs around his head held his forehead tight against the metal plate above.
The vial attached to the metal arm by his chin slowly filled with a clear liquid as he ripped his fingers out from under the metal claws around his neck. Fighting the arm now with both hands. Tearing, pulling, twisting on the metal probe that pushed its way deeper and deeper under his left eye.
Then the arm by his chin moved and with a cold sting the vial emptied into his neck.
Moments later, there was only darkness.
ONE - FOUR
“Alright, so let’s get to it!” Charlie stepped back from the impromptu meeting, motioning for Frank to stay behind, then waited as the men gathered up their lunch pails and turned back to their machinery.
“Okay, so you’re clear on what I want done here?” He asked, as the last of the men moved away. “I don’t want this phase to slow us up. We need the gravel for the rail-bed and this is as good a place as any to get it. And I want that cut to proceed, too.” He turned looking up at the rock face rising beside him. “I don’t know what this thing is and there’s a good chance it will interfere with the final right-of-way of the rail-line, but that’s immaterial right now. Leave it alone and just continue with the rest of the excavation.”
“I hear ya.”
Charlie looked over the big man standing beside him. He hardly knew Frank from among the hundred men and women working on the project, but in the last hour he had come to appreciate Frank’s leadership among the men he supervised.
“I’ll get in touch with NorthCan in Detroit Monday morning and we’ll get an archeologist or somebody like that to come in and take a look. But in the meantime, we’ve got an entire weekend to get as much work accomplished as we can, before somebody with a fancy University degree slaps us with a stop-work order or something similar.”
“Think they’ll shut us down?”
Charlie shrugged. “It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen and I’ve done some work in South America too. But who’d have thought we’d come across something like this up here in Canada? Damned thing!” Charlie again looked down its length. “This area has got to have been part of an old river valley, with all the gravel we’re digging up, but to think this thing has been here under its own hillside for God knows how long. It’s got to be older than...well, older than the hills, as the saying goes.”
“So, you want the men to stay back from it?”
“Yeah, we better not damage it. NorthCan could be up to its eyeballs in lawsuits if one of your dozer operators breaks off a gargoyle or something.”
“Haven’t seen none of those,” Frank laughed, “but one of the guys says there might be a way in around the side.”
Charlie raised both of his hands in front of him. “Stay away. We’re likely to have enough problems and I don’t want to be accused of robbing any graves. Right now, all I want is the gravel. Leave the structure alone.”
“But go on with the cut?”
“Might as well. Who knows, we might be building a rail-line for NorthCan’s first venture into the tourist business and before long we’ll be building hotels instead of mining camps and rail-lines.”
“Tha’d be a change. Might even apply for a fancy hotel job.”
“There you go.” Charlie replied. “You might even get it too. This would be a good place for a new tourist spot. Take the city-folk out hunting and fishing and then go exploring whatever this is - could be a good job.” Charlie scanned the torn landscape surrounding them. “I wonder where my kid is?”
“Don’t know.” Frank turned following Charlie’s gaze. “Can’t be far, unless they went down to the lake over beyond the tree-line.”
“I doubt if they’d do that. Their fishing poles are still in the pick-up.”
“Want I go take a look for them?”
“No, that’s alright. They’re probably along here someplace. My nephew has a thing for heavy equipment. He’s probably scored a ride on a bulldozer or track-hoe, if I know him.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for them.” Frank said, as he bent to grab his own lunch box.
“Do that and I’ll check back with you later this afternoon to see how your men are progressing.”
“Right.” Frank turned to go as Charlie began to walk along the rock wall.
Chris had stopped moving, his legs laying limp on the recessed portion of the lid. He had lost one shoe as well, although Todd had no idea how that had happened. It lay on the floor the laces still tied across the top. He sat beside his cousin, ready to push himself away at a moment’s notice, but unsure of what he should do next. Below him the machine pulsed with the whine of small pumps and other machinery invisible within. For a while, after Chris had stopped his struggle, Todd had continued to fight with the mechanical forces that held him within. Keeping his head outside the cowling he had fought with the metal fingers locked around Chris’ neck, pulling at each of them individually, trying to bend them away from his jaw. Then in the harsh light within, he had seen what was happening and in a moment of panicked breathing almost vomited. Chris’ left eye lay upon his cheek, blood-vessels and tendons attached to its rear, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. A thin metal tube, controlled from above, had entered his eye socket and as Todd watched, it moved slightly as if searching for a specific spot deep in Chris’ brain. Instantly he had stopped his fight with the metal claws knowing he could not and must not move Chris, even if he did manage to free his neck and head. Now he sat beside Chris’ limp body, as the machine whined and motors turned. Chris’ right arm lay by his knee, blood dripping from his fingers onto the dirty metal below. Todd supposed it was a good sign. It meant he was still alive. Gently he raised the arm inspecting the damage to Chris’ hand. The skin on
all four fingers had been torn from the knuckles back to the first joint, the skin crumpled and ripped, blood oozing from under the mangled flesh. Todd swallowed another knot of vomit, and then pulling his T-shirt over his head, he wrapped Chris’ hand in the cleanest portion he could find. It was the least he could do - but he knew he had to leave. He couldn’t free his cousin. He had no way of turning the machine off and there was nothing more he could do to protect Chris’ life. He had to get help. With that decision made Todd pushed himself off the long box, turning to place Chris’ bandaged hand onto the soft protection of his stomach. The harsh white light under the hood was in stark contrast to the gloom beyond, and in the severe shadows, Chris’ body, clad in a white T-shirt and denim jeans, seemed to float above a golden pool, like a modern sacrifice to the Gods.
With a shiver Todd turned to go.
ONE - FIVE
Charlie followed almost the same route his son had travelled an hour previously, the partially cleared rock wall rising to his left, with the broken and torn railroad cut dropping off to his right. He waved down a track-hoe operator he knew and chatted with him for a few minutes, standing on the broad treads outside the cab, as the operator had the door pinned back against the body. After a few minutes, Charlie jumped down, bent under the large, clawed bucket hanging in the air above him and continued on his way. He was concerned, not so much with what they had found - somebody else would make that their problem - but at how it would affect the schedule he and NorthCan had so carefully planned. By law, he could only keep the men working in the bush for a specific period of time, even though many of them had their families with them. He had less than a week, before the team here would have to ship out for a two-week break, and he wanted to complete all of the major excavation work previous to that time. This project’s budget could easily absorb the continued rental of the dump trucks and smaller bulldozers, but he wanted to ship out the track-hoes, the big D-9 cats and other expensive earth-moving equipment with the train that came in to pick up the crew. However, with this new development, he wasn’t sure if they could finish this last but important spur-line - and if they didn’t - there would be board-meetings in Detroit, where he would have to explain why NorthCan was still paying thousands of dollars a day for equipment that wasn’t productive. He gazed up at the rock wall that rose above his head. Frank believed it continued on an angle back into the hillside above him and Charlie was determined to get a small back-hoe up onto the hill to dig a few test holes. It couldn’t go down much further. The gravel deposits from the old riverbed were directly beneath his feet, but below that was the Canadian Shield. The oldest rock on the planet. Billions of years old, and impenetrable to anything but mining equipment and explosives. He came to the exposed corner and paused for a minute inspecting that. The blocks were cut perfectly straight, and stacked upon each other they fitted flawlessly, except where the corners met, sometimes they were slightly out of place and those places had been filled with a crumbling type of mortar. Although who could have done this and why, Charlie had no idea - and although interested - he didn’t give it a lot of thought. It would be somebody else’s job to figure it out.
