Hidden (Final Dawn) (11 page)

     “Pretty impressive. How far do you get in a day?”

     “Well, when we first started, we were lucky to advance four inches a day. But like a lot of other things, this is something you get better at the more you do it. Now we have it down to a science, and we’re moving at twelve to sixteen inches a day.”

     “Wow! Good for you!”

     Sami piped in, “But hey, wait a minute. You’re all covered in salt. But you don’t look that way when you come back to join the rest of us every day. What’s up with that?”

     Hannah suddenly realized why the pair had so many secrets.

     “You guys are showering every day after you finish, aren’t you?”

    
Bryan held a finger up to his lips and said, “Shhhhh.”

     Mark explained.

     “Back at the end of Bay 24, about two hundred feet or so, we’ve set up some portable showers. Every day, we have an alarm set to go off at exactly five o’clock. That tells us it’s time to knock off. We hit the portable showers to get all the salt off us, change into clean clothes, and then sit around planning for the next day while we wait for our hair to dry. Then we rejoin everybody else at the other end of the mine.”

    
Bryan noticed the cold stare he was getting from Sarah.

     “Hey, I promise, it’s not a luxury type of shower. It’s just to get clean. And the only reason we kept it a secret was so nobody would complain that we were getting more showers than anybody else.”

     Mark added, “And the showers are set up over kiddie pools that catch all the water. It’s recycled with all the other gray water, so it’s not like we’re wasting it.”

     He looked at Hannah and said, “Of course, if you want, we can skip the shower, and come back looking like this every evening.”

     “Oh, no, I don’t think I’d like that.”

     Mark gave Hannah a salty kiss.
Bryan leaned over for a kiss from Sarah, but she backed away. “Na-uh, not me!” She reached for his hand and shook it instead.

    
Bryan looked at Mark and said, “We’d better get back to work if we want to make it to the two hundred yard mark today.”

     The two put their respirators back on, and Mark pointed to his heart and then to Hannah. Then the pair waved and disappeared back into the white haze.

     Hannah picked her bucket back up and the others looked at her. She said, “Hey, we’re heading that way anyway, right? Might as well help.”

     Sarah rolled her eyes and Sami grunted, but both followed their friend’s lead and picked up their buckets.

     After struggling with them to the top of the stairs, they encountered Brad, who had finished his bathroom break and was headed back into the tunnel.

     Sami asked, “Hey, Brad, where do we empty these things?”

     “Head toward the back of the bay about fifty yards or so. There’s a forklift parked back there, and just past the forklift you’ll see a big pile of salt powder and chunks. Just dump them and leave the buckets there. I’ll get them later. And thanks for your help, ladies.”

     The girls followed his directions and dumped the buckets on a huge pile of tunnel waste.

     “There’s their shower,” Hannah noted, pointing toward the back of the bay about fifty yards past the salt pile. They went over to check it out.

     The shower was no more than a string of three shower heads, mounted onto a two by four about eight feet apart. The two by four was mounted on the wall and fed by a water hose coming from the front of the bay. A small electric water heater was placed between a water valve and the wall.

     The last light bulb in the bay was directly over their heads. The bay stretched another hundred yards into the mountain, but this was where the light stopped.

     They looked into the dark abyss, and could barely make out, thirty yards in, several stacks of fence posts and arches. Supplies for the rest of the tunnel.

     Sarah looked at Hannah and giggled. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

     They looked at Sami, who smiled a wicked smile and said, “Let’s do it!”

     The boys had told them their alarm went off at exactly five p.m., at which time they wrapped things up and quite literally hit the showers.

     At precisely 4:45, in stealthy movements that would have impressed the most proficient of ninjas, the girls snuck past the entrance to the tunnel. Dressed in dark clothing and carrying binoculars, they disappeared into the darkness at the end of the bay. They hid behind the pallets of fence posts, and because they were in the darkness, they could see without being seen.

     Sure enough, at five after five, a trio of walking, talking snowmen came ambling through the bay toward them, each carrying two buckets of waste. They emptied the buckets, stacked them on the stack of three empties the girls had left there earlier, and turned on the water to their showers.

     The girls watched through binoculars as the three men took off their clothes and stepped into the kiddie pools beneath the showers.

     Hannah, of course, focused mainly on her husband. And his brother, but only out of curiosity. Sarah, conversely, admired her boyfriend Bryan’s glistening body. And also his brother Mark.

     Brad started out with his back to the girls. When he turned around, Hannah said to no one in particular, “Oh, my gosh! How is he even able to walk?”

     Sarah’s jaw simply dropped.

     Sami smiled and said, “Ladies, I think I’ve found the man of my dreams.”

     The men finished quickly, redressed, and hung around talking of football and the tunnel, and a dozen other things, while they waited for their hair to dry. Then they disappeared, headed back to the main part of the mine.

     The girls followed not far behind them. They giggled like little school girls caught up in a silly schoolyard conspiracy, swearing each other to secrecy.

     Hannah whispered, “We must never tell anyone of this.”

     Her friends agreed, almost as if they were ashamed of what they’d done.

     But they weren’t. After a few seconds all three of them erupted in laughter and gave each other a round of high fives.

Chapter 17

     When dinner was served that night, Sarah and Hannah sat at their usual table, with Mark and Bryan at their sides. Normally Sami sat at the table next to theirs and joined in the conversation of the day.

     Tonight, though, Sami had asked Brad if she could join him at a table at the edge of the dining room. She caught the eyes of the other girls and winked, causing Sarah and Hannah to erupt in laughter.

     Bryan asked, “What’s so funny?”

     “Oh, nothing. Just an inside joke.”

     Sarah asked, “So, what’s new with you guys?”

    
Bryan said, “Nothing new with me. Just another day in the salt mines.”

     Mark groaned at the bad joke.

     “I’m putting the finishing touches on Channel 22. I’m going to roll it out tomorrow.”

     “What’s gonna be on it?”

     “Can’t tell you. It’s a big surprise. I’ll announce it at the meeting in a little bit.”

     Hannah looked at Sarah and rolled her eyes.

     “That’s my husband. An international man of mystery.”

     Sarah giggled, and resisted the urge to remind Hannah that Mark no longer had any secrets.

     Twenty minutes later Mark stepped to the front of the dining room and cleared his throat.

     “Can I have everyone’s attention, please? I think everyone who hasn’t already finished eating is close to it, so I’d like to get our Tuesday meeting underway. As usual, those of you who are not eighteen and are therefore unable to debate or vote are free to go if you wish. But you’re also free to stay if you want.”

     “Old business first. Last week we announced that we were doing our annual food inventory. It’s completed, thanks to a lot of hard work by Sami and Sarah. Would one of you girls care to come up and tell everyone what the results were?”

     Sarah looked at Sami, who gave her a “go ahead” sign.

     Sarah stepped to the front beside Mark and began.

     “As Mark said, this inventory is performed once a year and is done just to keep an accurate track of what our food stores are and to make sure we’ll have enough to last until the breakout.

     “We decided to do something different this year and factor in the calorie counts of our Meals Ready to Eat, or MRE stocks. You might recall that was never done before, because we considered them a last ditch emergency type of provisions. This year, though, we went ahead and counted them, using the logic that they are food, whether they’re considered last ditch or not. And that therefore they should be counted.

     “We also included sixteen pallets of pasta, Ramen noodles and soups that David recently found in the back of Bay 21. It’s not lighted back there, and somehow these sixteen pallets got mixed in with all of the truck and vehicle parts that are stored there. David was back there poking around with a flashlight, stumbling around for a specific type of fuel filter, when he came across them.

     “After we’ve done all the math and crunched all the numbers, we have determined that we have enough additional food to last eight years and seven months.”

     Smiles went up around the room. Everyone knew where this was heading.

     Someone stood up and asked, “And according to our latest estimates, how long before we get out of here?”

     Hannah, who had been tracking outside temperature trends since the beginning, stood up and said, “Between three and five years.”

     The smiles went around again.

     Mark took back the floor.

     “I can tell by everyone’s faces that we’re all thinking the same thing. To keep things orderly, I’d like to do this in two different steps. If someone will make a motion to increase our daily calorie intake, we can discuss and vote. If that motion passes, we can start debating how much.”

     Someone in the back of the room stood up and said, “I’d like to make a motion to increase our daily calories.”

     No less than five other people shouted almost simultaneously, “Second!”

     “Very well. All in favor of increasing our daily calorie intake, raise your hands.”

    Every adult’s hand in the room went up.

     Mark chuckled and said, “Well, that was easy. The motion carries. We will increase the calorie count. Who would like to suggest an amount for the increase?”

     Mark’s Uncle Marty said, “How about two hundred calories a day?”

     Joe Kenny was a bit more conservative. “How about a hundred? I mean, we’re already used to what we’re getting now. If we increase it too much, we might have to cut back again next year. I think it would be smarter to do it in incremental steps.”

     Several heads around the room nodded in agreement.

     Mark said, “Okay, we have a suggestion of two hundred additional calories per day and another suggestion of one hundred per day. Are there any other numbers anyone wants us to consider?”

     There were none.

     “Very well, we’ll put it to a vote. All in favor of two hundred additional calories per day, please raise your hands.”

     Mark’s mother Phyllis was the official vote counter.

     She announced “Twelve.”

     “Very well. All those in favor of one hundred additional calories per day?”

     Again, hands went up. Phyllis’ head bobbed slightly as she looked around and tallied the hands.

     “Seventeen.”

     “Very well, the motion carries. Effective tomorrow, the kitchen will start giving us an additional one hundred calories a day.”

     Phyllis, who was also in charge of the kitchen, said, “Looks like we’ll be baking a couple of trays of cookies tomorrow,” generating cheers across the room.

     Mark went on.

     “Okay, back to old business. Last week we discussed our plans for the tunnel we’re digging in the back of the mine, to connect with our compound next door. We just wanted to give you a status update. Bryan, would you do the honors?”

     “Sure,”
Bryan said and walked up to the front.

     “We hit the two hundred yard mark this afternoon. That means we have a little over a hundred yards to go. It should take another five months or so, and then we will seal it until the breakout. Before we seal it, though, we will give a tour to anyone who wants to see it. In fact, we’ll have the capability to actually go through the tunnel and into the compound for those who are interested in checking the compound out. Right now it’s covered in three feet of snow, so there’s not much to see. But at least anyone who is interested can get some fresh air and play in the snow for a bit.”

     Bryan returned to his seat next to Sarah and Mark continued.

     “Last week I told all of you that we’d be adding a new channel to our closed circuit TV station. I didn’t tell anybody what it was last week because I wanted to wait until I finished transferring all the Dallas Cowboys games onto digital files.