Submerged (18 page)

The air was thin, and Perry was sucking
deeply to keep enough oxygen in his blood to feed his demanding
muscles. He had no idea how Zeisler was doing it. He listened to
his heartbeat, to the sound of boots on dirt, gravel, and pine
needles, to the songs of birds in distant trees, of wind dancing
around boughs. Focus was the key. Focus kept him going, kept him on
the trail, and kept him from worrying about the father he had left
in MICU.

Perry was relieved when they reached the top
of the trail. He stopped behind a tree. Before him was the mirror
smooth surface of Lake Lloyd, blue and cool, and dressed in
reflected rays of the setting sun. Above, the cyan sky had
darkened, signaling the approaching blanket of night.

“Why are you stopping?” Zeisler demanded.

“In case you’ve forgotten, there are men out
there with guns and poor attitudes. I want to be sure they’re not
hovering around.”

“They’ll be on the north side of the lake,”
Zeisler said.

“How do you know that?”

“Because, as far as they know, that’s the
only way in.”

“In to what?” Carl asked. “I’m getting sick
of this I’ve-got-a-secret game.”

“You know the way back down, Deputy,” Zeisler
said.

“Can you believe this guy?” Carl told
Perry.

“I have to.”

“We gonna yak or are we going to go? Or do
you want GI Joe to get there before us?” Zeisler argued.

“We’re not going anywhere until you tell me
what your plan is.” Perry sat on the ground. The others followed
suit, except Zeisler who mumbled something Perry was certain he
didn’t want to hear.

Zeisler gave in. “Okay. I’ll tell you this
much. We have the dam to our left and the lake in front of us,
right?”

“That’s pretty obvious,” Jack said.

“Yes, but what isn’t obvious is where we’re
going. We’re going down into the dam.”

There was silence.

“Into the dam?” Perry asked.

“You know, for engineers, you guys are pretty
dense. What have you noticed about this dam?”

“What’s to notice?” Gleason said. “It’s a
standard concrete dam.”

Zeisler rubbed his eyes. “I’m not a patient
man, so let me just school you a little. How much water do you see
pouring down the spillway?”

“Almost none,” Perry said.

“That’s right. This dam doesn’t provide
hydroelectric power. All it does is hold water back.”

“But dams are also built to prevent flooding
or to create a reservoir for water needs. Some were built to power
saw-mills,” Jack said.

“True enough, but do you see a sawmill?”

“Not now, but that doesn’t mean that there
never was one,” Jack said.

Perry interrupted. “What’s your point, Dr.
Zeisler?”

“There is no water running to feed farmland,
or a power plant, or a sawmill, or to control flooding. You did the
research. Did this lake show up on any maps?”

“Just an old privately commissioned map,”
Gleason said.

“This dam and this lake are meant to be a
subtle secret. Over the years, security has become nonexistent. As
long

as trespassers are limited to a few intrepid
fishermen, there was nothing to worry about. But something has
happened. That’s why there are armed men around.”

“If this place is such a big secret, then why
isn’t it crawling with military?” Janet asked.

“Because that would bring about the opposite
effect,” Zeisler explained. “If scores of military vehicles were
rumbling around, it would attract attention and the media. No,
fewer is better.”

“Get back to the dam,” Carl said. “If it’s
not here for all the usual reasons, then why is it here at
all?”

“It’s here not because of the water it holds,
but because of the secret it hides, the secret that killed my
friends and is killing your father, Perry.”

“I don’t want to be rude,” Jack said, “but
I’ve been sitting on this question for some time. Why haven’t you
been affected?”

“I’m not sure,” Zeisler answered. “But I
think it wants me alive.”

“It?” Perry said.

“Yeah. It.” Zeisler looked at the dam. “We
need to go. Wasting time is not an option.”

“How do we get into the dam?” Perry
asked.

Zeisler seemed to grow more impatient with
each tick of the clock. “We go to the edge of the dam. On either
side are overflow basins that lead to culverts. Most dams have
them. If the lake rises too high, water pours into the basins and
is directed by culverts to the base of the dam, where it is
released. It keeps water from pouring over the top of the dam
risking structural damage, and it prevents the accumulation of
water that could over stress the structure.”

Jack shook his head. “Are you sure you’re an
electrical engineer?”

“That’s right, but for a short time I hung
out with the best civil and structural engineers alive. One is
dead, and the other is dying. If you girls are done resting, maybe
we can get on with this.”

“Girls?” Jack said. “Did he just call us
girls
?”

“I’m sure he meant it in the kindest possible
way,” Gleason replied.

“I’ll go first,” Perry said. “If I make it
without trouble, then Jack and Gleason will follow. Then the rest
of you.”

Zeisler started to object, but Perry didn’t
wait to hear it. He rose and hurried from the cover of the trees,
across the open area along the lake to the top of the dam. It was
there he realized his mistake. He needed to go to the distant end
of the catch basin, which ran one hundred feet along the shore.
There the concrete base of the channel was closest to the surface
of the shore. Jumping into the channel from the top of the dam
would be risking a broken leg or a wrenched back. That would dampen
the day.

Perry jogged along the shore until he reached
the far end of the spillway. The floor of the channel was a mere
three feet lower than the lakeshore. Perry dropped in. A few
minutes later, the concrete channel was filled with people.

“This way.” Zeisler started down the incline.
Perry followed as the walls of the channel seemed to grow beside
them. The channel became a covered culvert. A chain-link grate
covered the opening.

“What now?” Carl asked. “We didn’t bring any
tools.”

“Sure we did,” Gleason said. “Jack’s pack is
full of them.”

“What? That explains it. I thought I was
toting around a Volkswagen.” Jack lowered his pack and opened it.
“Looks like a hardware store in here.” He eyed Gleason. “What are
you carrying?”

“Why, food of course. And my laptop. I never
go anywhere without it.”

“Probably all marshmallows.” Jack riffled
through the pack and took out a battery-powered rotary tool.

“There are a couple of small grinding disks,
as well as other attachments.”

“Cut the fencing,” Perry said. “The bolts
that secure it to the concrete must be hardened steel. The
galvanized material will cut easier.”

The device came to life, and fifteen minutes
later, Perry was standing over a concrete hole. “I need a
flashlight.”

“Jack’s carrying that, too,” Gleason
said.

“Figures.” Jack returned to his pack and
removed an L-shaped plastic flashlight, which he handed to Perry.
The lightweight flashlight clipped to the belt of a safari vest for
hands-free use.

Perry directed the beam down the shaft.
“There’s a ladder made from rebar.”

“That was your dad’s doing,” Zeisler said.
“Ostensibly it was for inspectors, but he had an idea that someone
would be returning here. He was always thinking ahead.”

“That’s Dad, all right.” Perry clipped the
light to his vest so it hung down at his side, its beam directed
down. “Let’s see what else Dad thought of.”

Perry began his descent.

Chapter18

1974

Henry struggled for
breath.
His heart beat wildly and his mind seized like an
oil-starved engine. He had plunged through “the wall,” feeling
nothing in the process, but the moment he emerged on the other side
his skin tingled, his spine shivered, and his stomach turned. Not
from the air but from the image relayed through his eyes.

Zeisler had followed and made some innocuous,
unintelligible statement. Cynthia gasped. Grant swore. Only Sanders
and Nash seemed unperplexed. Henry turned in time to see McDermott
appear out of the “wall.” The man’s mouth opened, but nothing came
out. It must have been his first time, too.

“Okay, um,” Zeisler stammered, “someone
correct me here. Aren’t we underground? I mean, didn’t we just walk
two miles into a mountain, downhill all the way?”

“That’s right,” Henry said.

“Then why . . . why is there a full moon and
sky full of stars?”

“We must have walked all the way through the
mountain and come out the other side,” Grant suggested. “Yeah,
that’s it.”

“Not with this terrain,” Cynthia said. “This
looks more like the desert we left behind than the mountain.” She
pointed at

a tall, gnarled tree with leaves like spikes.
“Isn’t that a Joshua tree?” She aimed her finger again. “Isn’t that
juniper bush?”

“Well, we were going downhill; maybe we
dropped below the tree line,” Grant suggested.

“We didn’t walk that far,” Zeisler said. “It
may have seemed like it, but in no way did we make it all the way
to the desert floor.”

“That’s not all.” Henry looked up at the
amber moon. He could see the dark “seas” and the light mountain
ranges that gave the moon its mottled appearance. He even
recognized a few of the larger craters. “I saw the moon last night,
and it was a waxing quarter moon. Unless we’ve been walking for a
week, something is wrong.”

Zeisler turned on Sanders. “All right, buddy,
what’s the deal? Is this a joke or some kind of mind game? What did
you do—slip something in our coffee? This feels like a bad trip,
man.”

“No drugs, Dr. Zeisler. No tricks. I felt the
same way when I first walked in.”

“In.” Henry paused in thought. “So we’re
still inside the mountain, even though there is a moon and stars
overhead?”

“That’s right, Mr. Sachs.”

“Takes your breath away, doesn’t it?” Nash
admitted.

Henry took a few steps forward, then turned.
The space they had walked through appeared to be a stone wall,
complete with cracks and moss. He rubbed his eyes. He felt lost.
One moment his senses were trustworthy, dependable sensors of the
world around him. Now he couldn’t trust them. He turned again and
looked toward the horizon. It was there, and that was more
disturbing than the things he had already seen. How could there be
a horizon when they were in a chamber inside a mountain?

“You’re a very perceptive man, Mr. Sachs.”
Sanders stepped to Henry’s side. “I must confess that the illusion
of size was lost on me. Even in the moonlight it looks like you can
see miles, doesn’t it?”

“Has anyone tried to walk to the edge?”

“Nash and I did. We walked for three hours in
a straight line and never found the end. That means that at three
miles per hour, we walked nine miles, then followed our trail
back.”

“Trail?”

“Look down, Mr. Sachs.”

Henry did and saw sand. Light tan sand. It
was clinging to his boots and the cuffs of his jeans. Looking back
he could see his footprints and those of the others. He returned
his attention to Sanders. “The trail you left was straight?”

“Do you mean, did Nash and I walk in
circles?” Sanders chuckled. “It was as straight as two men walking
could make it.”

Grant stepped forward. “None of this can be
real.” Henry could almost smell the man’s anxiety. “It’s just not
possible. A desert in the middle of a mountain? Stars above when we
know we’re underground? Nonsense. Nothing but unadulterated
nonsense.”

“Yet, Mr. Grant, here we are.” Nash raised
his voice to be heard by the others. “You should know something
else. When I first stepped into this place, it wasn’t a desert, and
it wasn’t night.”

“What was it?” Cynthia asked.

“Green, Ms. Wagner. Green rolling hills,
crystal blue skies. I would have bet money I was standing in an
open field of Tennessee in mid-spring. I was ready to move in.”

“How long ago was that?” Henry asked.

“Three days ago.”

“There was grass and hills here three days
ago?” Henry said, startled.

“Yes . . . well, no. Not exactly,” Sanders
admitted. “I said it was green. I didn’t say it was green with
grass. At a distance, it looked like a finely manicured lawn, but
the ground cover was the same sand we’re standing on now. Only the
color was different.”

Henry looked down again. The bright moon cast
a shadow along the ground. “Do we still have a working
flashlight?”

“You’re not going to start throwing batteries
again, are you?” Nash asked.

“I didn’t throw it, I rolled it. We had two
lights, right?”

“Right,” Nash said. “Here.”

Henry took the flashlight, pushed the switch,
and directed the beam to the ground. Small grains of beige sand
covered the ground. Henry picked up a handful. It felt like sand.
He let it pour from his palm, then rubbed a few grains between his
thumb and index finger. The grains fell apart. He stood. “It’s not
sand. It feels more like talcum powder clumped together. It breaks
down.”

“Okay, so it’s not sand in the usual sense,”
Grant said. “That doesn’t explain what we’re seeing.”

“Should I tell them?” Nash asked Sanders.
Sanders nodded. “I was here two days ago. We brought supplies and
some equipment so you wouldn’t have to carry anything. When we came
through the portal, or gate or door or whatever that thing we just
walked through is, the scene was different. We see desert, Mr.
Sanders and I saw rolling green hills, but just two days ago it was
snowing.”