The Depths
Page 29
“No, I don’t much care for talking,” he said to Carlos. Carlos looked over at Drew and frowned. “I guess I always feel like I don’t know what to say. You’re a decent kid, Los. Thanks for helping out today.”
Carlos nodded, stunned, as they pulled up to the thick tree line. The section of woods in front of them stretched around the base the mountain, ending about halfway up and turning into a scraggly patch of saplings and bushes. Drew maneuvered the truck backwards into a gap between two trees and jumped out. He unhitched the tie-downs on the side of his truck and waited for Carlos to do the same on his side.
Drew moved to the rear of the truck and started to pull the tailgate down.
“Did you feel that?”
Drew looked up at Carlos. Out of nowhere, a heavy bass note rocked the ground at their feet and Drew felt a pressure of sound burst through his head. The deep sound grew to a deafening tremor then quickly died, reverberating through the trees.
“What the —“ Carlos backed away from the truck, looking to the east and squinting through a strand of trees. His eyes grew wide. “Drew. Look.”
Drew followed the younger man’s gaze and saw a smoking mass growing from the horizon upward. The cloud billowed outward, growing wide and lifting from the ground.
Neither man spoke, but both stood silently staring at the mushroom cloud floating into the sky. Suddenly an earthquake tore through the trees, ripping roots and stumps from the ground and lifting the truck into the air. Drew’s body was thrown thirty feet head over heels, and the earthquake’s intensity grew. The ground seemed to be coming alive, and Drew felt his insides churning as the force of the impact coupled with the earth’s vibrations shook every muscle in his body.
He forced himself to sit up, trying to get his bearings. The truck lay on its side close to where he’d parked it, but now a widening gap was opening in the earth directly in front of him. The line grew and inched forward, cracking the dry soil and rocks as it approached the vehicle.
Drew waited for the massive wave to die down, and he stood and walked toward the truck. The bear’s cage had toppled over the edge of the truck and now lay upside down nearby. He broke into a run and came up to the animal’s pen.
Working frantically, he unlocked the padlock on the door and unlatched the two enclosures. He swung the door open and reached in. The great beast was still unconscious as Drew felt for a pulse. He waited a moment, then heard a sniff from the grizzly’s snout. Satisfied, Drew backed away from the pen and turned to the upended truck and the large crack in the ground.
Can I turn it over? He thought to himself. Maybe both of us…
Drew whipped around. Where is Rivera?
He spun a full circle, at once looking for his fellow ranger and also taking in the devastation surrounding him. A mere thirty seconds, and the ground had lifted, been pushed together with cataclysmic forces, and fallen back down again. Trees had fallen in front of one another, trunks battered and smashed in half. Boulders that had rested in place for millennia now sat disturbed, some cracked and broken.
“Drew! Help!” Drew heard Carlos’ voice from somewhere on the other side of the truck, and he ran toward it. Coming near the edge of the new crevasse, Drew could see that the earth actually sloped downward for about twenty feet before it dropped straight down into a fissure.
It was this fissure that Carlos was holding onto. Drew saw the man’s hands gripped, white-knuckled, on a tree root that was jutting up and over the open space above the cliff, and as he stepped to the edge he could see Carlos dangling below.
“Give me a hand, I can’t hold on,” Carlos said. Drew dropped to his stomach and reach downward, grasping the other man’s left hand. He gritted his teeth, summoning all his strength, and began to pull.
The edge of the fissure wasn’t solid rock, and as Drew pulled Carlos upward, the sides of the cliff eroded and fell away. Drew struggled with the angle for a half minute then stopped.
“Give me your other arm,” Drew shouted down to Rivera, “and try to hang on to this stump as I get you high enough over the edge.”
The young man’s eyes burned with a fear so intense Drew couldn’t look at them. He focused on the job, working to pull the man up and onto flat ground. Rivera’s arms began to shake, and Drew willed himself to pull harder, grasping at a strength he wasn’t sure was there.
Just then an aftershock trembled through the woods. Drew lost his grip for a moment, but found that Rivera had indeed held onto the root. He reset his position on the ground, using his tall frame as leverage to pull up the other man.
As he reached out to Carlos once again, the tree root broke loose and snapped away from the dirt. Carlos Rivera looked up into Drew’s face as he realized in that instant what had happened.
The tree root fell, Rivera with it. Drew lunged downward, reacting to the freak accident, but it wasn’t enough. He missed Rivera’s collar by inches and his hand slammed back into the wall of the cliff.
Rivera fell out of sight within seconds, and Drew called down to him. There was no answer. He lay on the edge of the cleft, stunned, for a full minute before rising and walking back to the truck.
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Nick Thacker is an author from Texas who lives in a cabin on a mountain in Colorado, because Colorado has mountains, microbreweries, and fantastic weather. In his free time, he enjoys reading, tasting new whiskies, skiing, golfing, and hanging out with his beautiful wife, tortoise, and two dogs. He is currently working on his third fiction thriller, The Enigma Strain.
In addition to The Golden Crystal and The Depths, Nick is the author of several nonfiction books on marketing, publishing, writing, and building online platforms.
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Acknowledgements
Wow. Book two. I never really thought the day would come! It’s been quite a journey, and it’s been a heck of a ride! Since publishing The Golden Crystal, we’ve lived in three different cities, two different states, and taken and left multiple jobs. Our family has grown to include two dogs and a tortoise, and my experience as a writer has increased to include “struggling self-published author.”
Through it all, God has been great and life has been good. My business (Turtleshell Press and Livehacked.com) has expanded and I’m now loving my time spent helping other writers get their work into print almost as much as I’m loving the time I spend writing.
There have been people who have been there for me through it all, and I am greatly indebted to you. In no particular order: Mom, Dad, and Brett, Grandpa Mac, Ron and Beth, and of course their daughter (my loving wife) Emily. A special thanks to Michelle for her amazing job editing through The Depths and urging me forward with promises that the book won’t be as bad as I thought. For The Golden Crystal, my editor Mike and all of the beta readers, and of course the countless people who have struggled through that first published effort of mine. To the readers of my blog and website, thank you just won’t cut it. Without you there would be no book; there would be no desire to work! The good folks at Amazon.com (Kindle) and the printers I’ve worked with to get a high-quality product created.
To everyone I’ve missed, though there’s not enough space to write the names, know that you were a part of this. Thank you, and enjoy The Depths!
The Depths
Turtleshell Press (www.turtleshellpress.com)
Copyright © 2014 by Nick Thacker, Turtleshell Press
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013922337
First Printing, 2014
ISBN 978-1490353135
Nick Thacker
Colorado Springs, CO
www.LiveHacked.com