Authors: Vernon William Baumann
The dull crack
of a distant explosion interrupted his words.
The three of
them whirled around. ‘Oh my God, what was that?’ Lindiwe’s hand was clasped to
her breast. Her eyes huge and her voice uncertain. From their vantage point,
Bishop was no longer visible, obscured by scores of pine trees and the steep
incline of the mountain. Lindiwe turned to Duggan. The confusion on her face,
her question.
‘I don’t know.’
Duggan tried to pierce the darkness of the tree cover with his eyes. From
within the canvas bag around his shoulders he pulled out a pair of binoculars.
He put these to his eyes, adjusting the magnification with the dial at its
centre. ‘It sounded like an explosion.’ Duggan dropped the binoculars and took
a step towards the line of trees in the distance. He peered again through its
lenses. But it was to little avail. The tree cover was simply too dense. He
shook his head. ‘I can’t see anything.’ Duggan scanned the trees for any gaps. ‘It
didn’t sound that big, though ...’ He looked at Joshua for corroboration.
‘No,’ Joshua
confirmed. ‘Nothing like this,’ he said, pointing at the jagged hole behind
them.’
‘What if ...’
Lindiwe grabbed Joshua’s hand. ‘We have to go back. What if something happened
to them?’ She stared at him with big pleading eyes. ‘We have to go back.’
Joshua stared
at Lindiwe uncertain and confused. ‘I ... uh ...’
‘We’ve come
this far, Lindiwe,’ Duggan said trying his best to be firm. ‘It would be
pointless to turn back now. Let’s do what we came here to do ... then we can
head back.’
‘He’s right, Lindi.’
Joshua took both of Lindiwe’s hands and clasped it in his. ‘If we go back now,
we’ve let everybody down. Let’s do this thing.’ Lindiwe looked from Joshua to
Duggan and back again, anxious and terrified.
Duggan peered
into the darkness. ‘All the more reason for us to move our asses. Let’s rock
and roll.’ He turned and walked over to Joshua and Lindiwe. ‘Let’s maximise our
resources. I’ll head downstairs to the basement. The two of you check the rest
of the building. The office space is on the first floor. That’s the best place
to start.’ Duggan looked at Lindiwe. ‘The sooner we get going, the sooner we
can go back down again.’
Joshua nodded.
‘Okay. Let’s do it.’
The three of
them ran towards the huge tinted glass doors that marked the Obsidian entrance.
Lindiwe’s hand was still clasped tightly in Joshua’s. Duggan reached the doors
first. ‘Damn, let’s hope for the best.’ He pushed open the nearest of the two
massive glass doors ... and it gave way. They were inside. A huge immaculate
foyer with a towering ceiling and central reception desk. All of it now swathed
in darkness. From within his bag, Duggan extracted a mammoth old aluminium
flashlight and gave it to Joshua. ‘Sorry, dude. Old school.’
‘Thanks,’
Joshua said switching it on and swinging the beam across the large space.
Duggan
switched on his more compact LED flashlight and used its beam to indicate a
door at the back of the foyer. ‘The stairwell. Let’s get over there.’ In no
time at all, they crossed the foyer, their steps ringing out in cold echo on
the marble floor. Duggan pulled the door open. He stepped onto the landing of
the stairwell, followed closely by Joshua and Lindiwe. ‘Okay, I’m heading down
south,’ he said pointing at the descending stairway, ‘you guys go up there and
see what you can find. Just be careful.’
‘What are we
looking for?’ Joshua asked.
‘Dude,
anything that can help us get out of here. For all I know the keys to the fleet
cars aren’t down there. So, look for anything like a door marked
office
or
building
manager
. Also look out for anything that looks like
car keys, gate remotes ... key cards, anything. It doesn’t matter whose they
are.’ He grinned at Joshua. ‘The rest I leave up to you.’
Joshua nodded.
‘Cool.’
Duggan lifted
his one eyebrow in crooked parody. ‘
Bon chance, mon ami.
’ He lifted a
hand into the air. ‘
Vive, la résistance!
’ He gave Joshua a mock salute
and jumped down the stairway disappearing into the darkness below, whooping.
For a moment
longer, Lindiwe and Joshua stood on the upper landing, looking after him. Then
Joshua took her hand again. ‘Shall we?’ Lindiwe smiled wanly in the dark and
nodded. With the golden glow of the flashlight illuminating their way, they
slowly climbed the stairs to the floor above. On the first floor landing Joshua
pushed open the door. They were standing at the end of a long corridor. The
darkness barely yielded to the beam of light. What was clearly visible however
was the gaping hole at the end of the corridor where the explosion had ripped
into the masonry. ‘Wow, look at that,’ Joshua said. Lindiwe said nothing but he
sensed her nodding next to him in the darkness. He pointed the flashlight at
the nearest door. ‘Shit, where do we begin?’ The doors appeared to be without
signs of any kind. Joshua held Lindiwe back while he stepped into the corridor.
‘Damn, I hope this holds.’ Joshua motioned for Lindiwe to wait at the stairwell
door. He took another few steps and tested the floor with his legs. He walked a
few more paces and did the same. Then he jumped up and down several times. Arms
held out like wings and slamming his feet into the floor for maximum effect.
Lindiwe giggled in the dark as she watched his gyrating silhouette against the
night sky. Feeling satisfied Joshua illuminated the floor at Lindiwe’s feet. ‘Okay,
baby, you can come.’ Ensuring the flashlight cast the maximum amount of light,
Joshua instructed Lindiwe to test the doors on the right side of the corridor
while he tried the opposite ones. They were all locked. They moved down the
hallway, trying several more but they all yielded the same result. And all the
while they were moving closer to the chasm at the end. Joshua was about to suggest
they try the upper floor when Lindiwe found an open door. She pushed it open
and they both entered. It was a huge rectangular room. A lab of some kind.
Three work benches ran the entire length of the room. Glass beakers, pipettes,
tubes, canisters, flasks and items of equipment like microscopes, measuring scales
and stands crammed the surfaces of the work benches. There were also strange
little devices that resembled miniature microwaves and other more sophisticated
and enigmatic items that looked like nothing either of them had ever seen. Amidst
all this clutter, stationed at regular intervals, were at least two dozen
computer workstations.
Joshua swept
the flashlight over the surfaces of the work benches to see if something
grabbed his attention. The light from the beam bounced off a thousand glass
facets, sides and curves but revealed nothing of value. Then Joshua cast the
flashlight on the periphery of the lab, along its perimeter. A tinted strip of
window that ran along the length of the large room offered a generous view of
the night sky outside. Inside, the room was quiet. And dead.
Joshua took a
step forward. Glass exploded under the soles of his sneakers. Lindiwe gasped
aloud. He pointed the flashlight at the floor. And found the ground was covered
in a virtual carpet of broken glass. ‘The explosion,’ Joshua said aloud. ‘It
must have thrown these items on the floor.’ In confirmation he pointed the beam
to his immediate left and found that the tinted window strip was severely
cracked in the area closest to the blast. ‘Okay, let’s see what we can find.’
Joshua reached for Lindiwe’s hand and slowly – side by side – they walked down
the aisle formed by two work benches. Broken glass crunched under their feet. ‘Damn,
I wish it wasn’t so dark.’
In the meagre illumination
of the flashlight, they slowly ambled down the aisle, carefully scanning the
work bench surfaces. Eventually Joshua paused. ‘Shit, this feels pointless. I
don’t know if we’re going to find anything.’
‘Why don’t I
look over there while you continue searching over here,’ Lindiwe said pointing
at the wall. Underneath the length of the tinted windows ran a bench attached
to the wall. It was even more littered than the work benches themselves. More
importantly, the moonlight washing through the windows provided enough light by
which to conduct a basic search.
‘Are you sure?’
‘What could
possibly happen, Josh?’ Without the benefit of light Joshua could only guess
that Lindiwe was giving him a withering look. ‘Besides, I want to get back to Bishop
as soon as possible. That explosion we heard bothers me.’
‘Yeah, okay.’
Joshua reached for her in the dark and kissed her mightily. ‘Watch for broken
glass and shit like that, okay?’ His hand still clasping the back of her neck,
he felt her nod. He waited, lighting her way towards the windows. Then
continued.
Keys. Keys.
Keys.
Anything that looks like keys. Joshua understood that Duggan wanted
to maximise their efforts. And to find an escape from this hellhole. But he
seriously doubted if they would find anything. Wasn’t the place basically
deserted when the explosion happened? And would anyone seriously leave the keys
to their car in a lab. Or even an office. Joshua doubted it. He reached the end
of the aisle. He only had one work bench to search. This was pointless. ‘Listen,
I –’
Something fell
to the floor and shattered.
Joshua spun
around. ‘Lindiwe?’
‘Oh my God!’
Lindiwe’s voice was choked with fear. She turned to face him. ‘Something’s
happening down there.’
**
Duggan – for
the umpteenth
frikkin
time – fell over something and banged his shin
painfully. He bounced around on one leg in the dark, cursing mightily. ‘Fucking
satanic hellhole,’ he said hating, the compound; the darkness; the whole damn
planet.
After
descending to the basement level, Duggan had carefully made his way across the
parking lot. Down here in the very bowels of the earth the darkness was
complete and solid. The lot smelt of cold concrete and motor oil. Duggan moved
carefully forward, swinging the beam this way and that. In the darkness the beam
of the flashlight was a fulcrum of white light. Splotches of radiance in the
total darkness.
Duggan dreaded
finding nothing in the empty parking lot. And being stranded in a town that was
becoming more and more unpleasant as the day progressed. However, with his
flashlight opening up the darkness he soon hit pay dirt.
In a far
corner, parked alongside each other, were at least a dozen white fleet cars.
There were two large Volkswagen combi’s; several Toyota Corollas from the late
90’s; two Ford Bantam 1400
bakkies
; and the
piece de résistance
.
A Toyota Prado. Rising in beautiful butch splendour above the other cars. Duggan
whooped with delight. Now for the building manager’s office. And the keys.
Hopefully.
In the
darkness, Duggan plodded onwards. Scanning the outer darkness of the parking
lot with his LED flashlight yielded no results. Duggan walked this way and
that. But he couldn’t find anything that looked like it could be an office.
Frustration was mounting and almost boiled over into a fit of hysterics when he
saw it. Hidden in the darkness of an alcove. A door.
Duggan
approached it. And found it locked.
Shit
! He placed the canvas bag on
the cold cement floor of the lot, got into the right position and steeled
himself. Shoulder first, he ran at the door. And collided with the resolute
wood in a bone-jarring explosion of pain. ‘Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!’ He fell against
the wall groaning with pain wishing Joshua were there. Rubbing his aching
shoulder he studied the door again. It was solid. Unforgiving. And spiteful. There
was only one thing he could do. From within his trusty bag, Duggan extracted a
heavy set of bolt cutters. If he couldn’t bash his way through the door he
would cut his way through it. He inserted the lower beak of the cutters into
the keyhole. And clamped down on the handles with all his might. Which was not
a great deal. But slowly the metal of the door handle yielded. With a final
thump, the metal bolt cutters bit through the steel. Inserting the metal beak
of the cutters behind the mangled handle plate, he pried it from the wood
surface of the door. He pulled out the bolt of the locking mechanism, inserted
his finger into the hole and pulled the door open. And stepped inside.
It was a quick
job finding the keys in the small janitorial office. They were hanging from
pegs inserted into a board. Underneath each peg was the name of a vehicle. Duggan
took the keys for the two combi’s, the
bakkie
and of course the Prado. He
was busy making his way across the dark parking lot when he heard the frantic
voices. It was Lindiwe and Joshua. And they were shouting his name.
He found them
at the door that led to the ascending stairwell. ‘Hey, look what I found,’ he
shouted, ignoring the stressed insistence in their voices. He held up the keys
to the Prado and pressed the button de-activating the vehicle’s alarm system.
Behind them two orange indicator lights flashed twice in the darkness
accompanied by the familiar bleep bleep of an alarm system.
‘Duggan,
something’s happening in Bishop. I don’t think it’s good.’ Lindiwe’s face
attested to the naked fear she was feeling. Duggan dropped the hand holding the
keys, confused.
‘Dude, you
know more about this kind of thing than I do,’ Joshua said looking serious. ‘I
think you need to check this out. Quickly.’ Duggan simply nodded and followed
Joshua as he led the way back up the stairs.
‘What did you
see?’ Duggan asked as they hurried up the narrow stairwell.
‘Man, like a
hundred bright lights. But we’re not sure. It’s too far away. And it’s behind
the trees.’ At the top of the landing, Joshua held open the door for Duggan and
Lindiwe to enter.
‘Lights?’
Duggan asked as they resumed their brisk pace down the darkened corridor.