Submerged (20 page)

“Perhaps.” Henry wasn’t convinced. He climbed
the steps, and the others followed.

Sanders pushed the door open, and light
washed out the opening. “It looks like they left the light on for
us.”

“They who?” Zeisler asked.

“Ah, that’s the rub.” Sanders walked into the
home as if he lived there. Henry followed.

The same stunning emotions that had left
Henry speechless when he first crossed the threshold from the
tunnel to the desert hit him again. His mind tried to make sense of
nonsense. Outside the house appeared to be a lovely Victorian, but
the inside was unexpected. There should have been rooms, hardwood
floors, drapes on the windows, and furniture. There was none of
that. Instead, there was a large open space, two or three times
larger than the structure could hold.

“Okay, this is just plain nuts,” Grant said.
“I’m dreaming, or maybe I’ve lost my mind. That’s it. I’m sitting
in some loony ward, snuggled down in a straitjacket, waiting for my
prefrontal lobotomy.”

“Easy, Monte,” Henry cautioned. “There’s an
explanation.”

“I’d like to hear it,” Grant shot back.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind hearing that myself,”
Zeisler said.

As the group spread out in the space, Henry
tried to understand what he was seeing.

“Where are the stairs?” Cynthia asked. “This
is a two-story, isn’t it?”

“On the outside, yes,” Sanders said, “but not
on the inside. When I first stepped in here, the building looked
like a barn on the outside. Inside, I expected to find a hayloft, a
workbench, some compartment to keep equipment or animals. What you
see here is what I saw then.”

Henry looked around. Curved walls with gentle
slopes that reached a pinnacle defined the room. The space was
large enough to serve as a ballroom dance floor. The curved walls
amplified every sound and word like a parabolic dish.

The floor was hard underfoot, like concrete.
He reached down and touched it. It was warm on his fingertips. The
surface was as smooth as glass and reminded Henry of the long
corridor they had descended.

In the center of the ceiling was a shaft.
Henry had the impression that he was standing in an inverted,
opaque wineglass, looking up a hollow stem.

There were no decorations that Henry could
see: no paintings, no artwork, and no windows. He had seen black
windows outside, but there were none on the inside. Henry scratched
his head as if the act would make everything come clear. It
didn’t.

As far as Henry could see, the room was empty
except for one structure. The others had already been drawn to it.
Henry stepped closer. A four-foot-high, one-foot-thick ring
dominated the center of the room. He estimated that the ring was
twelve feet in diameter. It reminded him of a concrete fire ring on
the beach, a place to build a bonfire and roast marshmallows.

The image was further enhanced when he looked
over the edge of the ring and saw sand. “Wait a second.” Henry
examined the floor, the walls, and the surface of the ring.
“Everything is clean?”

“So the builders were neat,” Zeisler said.
“So what?”

Henry spun and started for the door, the sole
opening in the room, and opened it. He crossed the threshold and
scrutinized the exterior siding. He ran his right hand along the
surface. Powder. He stepped back inside and ran his left hand on
the smooth surface of the curved wall. Clean.

“What are you up to, Henry?” Cynthia
asked.

“The sand. It’s everywhere except inside this
room. Except it’s not sand. It just clumps together in little
grains to look like sand.”

“So what is it?”

“I don’t have a clue, but we can’t overlook
the fact that the substance is all over the ground, the Joshua tree
we examined, and the exterior of this house . . . structure . . .
whatever it is.”

“He has a point,” Zeisler admitted. “Hey
Sanders, did you say the first time you saw green rolling hills,
but the grass wasn’t grass?”

“That’s right,” Sanders said. “It was similar
to the sand.”

“But not identical,” Henry said.

“No, of course not.”

Henry looked at the others, then down at his
feet. “Gone.”

“What’s gone?” Sanders asked.

“Look at my feet. My boots and pants legs
were covered with the sand, but now they’re as clean as the day I
bought them. The same goes for you.”

Everyone looked down.

Henry scanned their surroundings again.
“Sanders, didn’t you say there were supplies in here?”

“Yes. We carried several packs of food,
water, and the like, but I don’t see them.”

“Who could have taken them out?” Cynthia
asked.

“Good question,” Grant said.

Henry’s mind was spinning. “I have an idea.”
He started for the door, quick-stepped through the opening, and
plunged down the steps. He studied the sand beneath his feet for a
second, then stooped and scooped up a fistful of the beige material
and trotted back up the steps and through the door. Without a word,
he poured the sand on the floor.

“Didn’t your momma raise you better than to
track in dirt from the outside?” Zeisler said. It was meant to be
light banter, but Henry could hear the tension in the man’s
voice.

Henry let the sand fall into a small mound,
then dusted off his hands. He took a step back. Seconds rolled into
a minute, then the sand began to move.

First it shed its color, becoming milky
white, then the mound flattened and recomposed itself. In less than
thirty seconds, a six-legged creature with a body the size of a
bite-sized Tootsie Roll formed from the material and walked toward
the door. Henry followed. He heard footsteps behind him.

The creature crossed the threshold, scampered
across the veranda, tumbled down the steps, and onto the sand,
where it dissolved back into grains of sand.

“O–o–o–k–aaa–y,” Zeisler said. “I don’t know
about you folks, but I find that a little disturbing.”

“How is that possible—” Grant began.

“—fainted!”

Henry turned, expecting to see Cynthia
unconscious on the floor. It wasn’t Cynthia on the floor—it was
McDermott.

The journey through the metal duct was
arduous. Perry couldn’t wear his pack, and if he couldn’t, then
Jack couldn’t. Thanks to Gleason’s obsessive packing, they had rope
to use to lower the packs down the shaft. Perry pushed all three
packs in front of him. The work was hard, and sweat dripped from
his face and nose. Fortunately, the horizontal duct wasn’t
long.

The process was slow. Perry pushed the packs
through the shaft, one end of the rope tied through the arm straps.
He straddled the rope and shouted, “Lower away!” At the other end
of the rope, still in the concrete room, Gleason and Jack let the
rope ease, bit by bit, through their hands.

Foot by foot the rope passed beneath Perry
and the packs disappeared into the darkness. At last the rope went
slack. “That’s it,” Perry said. “I’m starting down.”

Perry fixed his flashlight to his belt and
let it hang at his side, casting its white beam down the dark
throat of the shaft. Just before he was fully in the shaft, he
heard a noise behind him. The beam of a flashlight made him turn
away.

“Hang on.” Carl crawled toward Perry. “Jack
thought you could use some overhead lighting. That man is always
thinking.”

“That he is. Thanks.”

Carl pointed the light down the rebar ladder.
“I’ll keep it close to the wall so you can see the rungs.”

“Good. It was going to be hard finding my
footholds in the dark.”

“Be careful, Perry. I owe you one for what
you did to help Janet.”

Perry smiled. “I was in the
neighborhood.”

He started down. He counted every rung. It
was nice to have something to do when descending into the
unknown.

Two hundred and twelve rungs later, Perry
felt his foot land on something soft and familiar: the packs.
Careful not to trip—a broken leg here might turn the shaft into his
tomb—he probed downward until he found solid footing. He was
relieved to be off the ladder.

With the aid of his light, Perry scanned his
surroundings. He was at the cul-de-sac of a six-foot-wide
passageway. He cast the beam down the tunnel but couldn’t see the
end. The air was thick and stale. A breeze moved up the passageway.
He had first felt it when he opened the hatch in the ceiling of the
spillway.

He squinted up the shaft he had descended and
could see the distant glow of the flashlight Carl held. “Next,”
Perry called and flashed his light three times. Carl returned the
signal.

With a little time to kill, Perry removed the
rope from the packs and moved them into the tunnel; as he did, a
light came on, weak and more ivory than white. Perry jumped and
looked for the person who might have flipped the switch but saw no
one. The light extended about ten feet in front of him. Not far,
but it was something. The light flickered, dimmed, and then
returned a little brighter.

Perry stepped back to the foot of the ladder,
and the light went out. “Gleason is going to love this,” he said to
himself.

Perry waited until the others had descended
before doing any exploring. It was a hard decision. His first
inclination was to don his pack and start down the round, stone
corridor, but separating from the group was not only bad form, it
was bad thinking. Traveling together was the rule, and he would
force himself to live with it.

Jack was the last man down and none too soon
for Perry. The stale air was made lighter by the constant breeze,
but the additional bodies raised the temperature and humidity.

As Gleason and Jack slipped on their
backpacks, Perry rolled up the rope. Jack had released the end
before his descent.

“I hate to be the dense one of this group,”
Janet said, “but why is there a breeze? I mean, we’re underground,
right?”

“The dam is breathing,” Perry explained. “The
air pressure inside is different than that outside. Caves do the
same thing.”

“I want to know where the light is coming
from,” Jack said. “I don’t see any fixtures or switches. Got an
answer for that one, Zeisler?”

“Nope. I don’t even have a guess.”

“You’ve been awful quiet,” Jack said. “Having
second thoughts?”

“You wish, big man,” Zeisler said. “I’m in
for the duration. As far as my being quiet, well, some things
should be experienced rather than discussed.”

Perry looked around. Gleason was standing in
the tunnel, staring at the wall. “Anyone need to rest before we
move on?” He got a round of “no.”

“Hey, Perry, look at this.”

Perry stepped to Gleason.

“Initials.”

Perry looked closely and saw “A.S.—H/S.”

“The H/S is my dad. That’s how he wrote his
initials. He always used a slash.”

“Who or what is A.S.?” Carl asked.

“I don’t . . .” Perry stopped, and then
smiled. “Arne Saknussemm.”

“Arnie who?” Janet asked.

“Arne Saknussemm.” Perry spelled the name.
“He’s a character in a Jules Verne novel.
Journey
to the Cent
er of the Earth
. It was
my favorite book when I was a kid.”

“I thought you were enjoying this hike a
little too much,” Jack said.

“Verne was a Frenchman. In many ways, he was
the father of science fiction. He wrote
Journey
to the Center of the Earth
in 1864.”

“Why would your dad add this Arne guy’s
initials next to his own?” Carl asked.

Perry felt a sadness rise in him. “I remember
when my father made this trip. I was ten at the time. I wanted to
go with him, but he refused. Of course, he had to say no.” He
paused and gathered his thoughts. “When I was young, we used to
choose a book to read together. We had a book for every month. He
would choose on the even months and I on the odd. Dad would always
buy two copies. That way he could keep up the reading when he was
away on jobs. He’d call, and we’d talk about what we had read. I
chose
Journey to the Center of the
Earth
.”

Perry felt a big hand on his shoulder.

It was Jack. “I guess he was thinking of
you.”

Perry nodded.

“What a minute,” Gleason said. “I’ve read
that book a couple of times. Arne Saknussemm isn’t the main
character. He’s the missing explorer the professor and his protégé
try to find, right?”

“That’s right,” Perry said. “They follow
clues and find . . .”

“Find what?” Janet asked.

“They find Saknussemm’s initials chiseled in
the rock face. It was a clue they were on the right track.” Perry
touched the rough engraving. “Dad is telling us that we’re on the
right track.”

“How would your dad know that we would be
here thirty years later?” Carl wondered.

“He didn’t,” Gleason explained. “Maybe it’s
just as Jack said. Mr. Sachs was thinking of his son, or maybe he
thought he might return here himself someday.”

“Dad always hedged his bets,” Perry said. “He
never settled on one solution to a problem. He would concoct as
many as he could in case his first choice failed.”

“I have to meet this man,” Carl said.

Perry touched the chiseled initials again and
prayed that Carl would have his wish. “Let’s go.” As Perry started
down the ramping corridor, the dim, sometimes flickering light
moved before him. How the light worked, he didn’t know, and he
would have loved the opportunity to figure it out, but he had more
urgent matters before him.

Chapter20

1974

He fainted,” Cynthia
said.

“Guys like McDermott don’t faint,” Nash shot
back.

“I’m no doctor,” Zeisler said, “but he was
standing a moment ago, and now he’s out cold on the floor. It looks
like he fainted to me.”