Jesse climbed onto the floor above, fighting against the onslaught of the fast-flowing water, and then offered his hand to Sandi.
She gripped it in an instant, and he pulled her out.
He ducked down under the blast site and together they made their way to the main shaft. He turned left, and followed the tunnel another twenty feet up and stopped.
There, in front of him, the roof had collapsed.
It could take a week for someone to dig them out. It would take less than an hour for the flooding water to rise high enough to lethally greet them. All they had done was delay their deaths. It was a case of too little, too late.
They were both as good as dead.
Jesse waited in silence for Death to come for him.
To his surprise, Sandi stayed fixated on the mask, as though somehow by breaking its hidden purpose she might get to escape from her mortal prison.
But the water continued to rise.
It was soon up to their necks once more. Jesse swam to the side, where a small upward shaft had been dug out. It didn’t go anywhere, but it allowed them another few minutes of precious air to breathe.
Flooded, their helmet lights began to flicker.
Jesse’s failed first, followed by Sandi’s a minute later.
Left alone in the cold and dark they both prepared themselves for Death.
Jesse McKenzie wasn’t a very religious man. Instead, he grounded himself with a set of moral codes. He tried to do what was right and had succeeded in doing whatever he thought was right by Betty, but right now, he just wished he’d listened to her when she told him that the mask would do nothing but cause their family harm.
“I’m sorry, Sandi. This is all my fault.”
“No, you couldn’t have known someone would kill to protect this damned mask. It’s not your fault. I’m just worried that the stranger was telling the truth.”
In the dark, Jesse’s lips managed to form a slight grin. “What difference does it make, now?”
“All the difference,” she replied. “That man looked genuinely sorry he had to kill us, but said the world needed the mask to be buried. Now, after we drown, your wife will come here and when she does, someone will discover the cave-in. A day, a week, who knows how long after that, but somewhere, they’ll get through. Then, when they find the mask — then what happens?”
Jesse laughed. “My goodness, Sandi. You are one of a kind! We’re about to drown, and still, you’re more worried about the rest of the world.”
Sandi gave a strangled laugh of her own. “I suppose you’re right. It’s crazy. But after all, our value is in how we leave the world behind — better or worse. Our lives are finite compared to the human race. I have to believe that we have a purpose, more important than ourselves.”
“That,” Jesse said, “I can believe in.”
He closed his eyes again, wishing the water didn’t rise so fast, so that he could spend longer talking to this extraordinary woman. As it was, the water rose at speed. Already their heads were less than a foot off the ceiling.
He opened his eyes and imagined a bright light coming up from the murky depths below.
Jesse tried to blink the haze out of his befuddled mind.
He was certain he was becoming delirious when Sandi said, “What’s that light doing?”
“What light?”
“The one below us. Down there! Can’t you see it?”
Jesse blinked again. The dim light was still there. Only it was brighter now. It was growing. Racing to meet them.
Maybe this was how the whole Death thing worked…
Suddenly, a hand reached out from the light, followed by a mask.
A SCUBA diver surfaced.
Sandi’s eyes widened. “Sam Reilly!”
The man nodded, “At your service.”
Jesse asked, “Where the hell did you come from?”
“The Queen Charlotte Mine… I’ll tell you all about it, but if it’s all the same to the two of you, I’d like to start moving you both to the next cavern, before we all drown. Who’s first?”
Without hesitation, Jesse said, “You go first Sandi, I’ll wait here.”
Sam nodded. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Jesse nodded. He was thankful that the man could save Sandi’s life, but knew it was too late for him. The water was rising so fast it would be over his head within minutes.
He watched the light disappear.
The shaft between the Queen Maggie and the Charlotte mine had been flooded years ago. It must be more than a hundred feet long. Far too long to swim, and even longer with a second person sharing the same regulator and dive tank.
No. It was kind of Sam to give him hope, but both men knew all along that it wasn’t possible. He was going to drown here.
All alone.
But Sandi Larson would get to live — to make the world a better place.
And for that, he could die happy.
Alone and in the dark, he waited to die.
But Death wasn’t interested in him, yet.
The water continued to rise. He tilted his head back, treading water, and pushed his mouth toward the ceiling to take the last few breaths of his life.
On the fourth breath, he took in a small drop of water.
It made him cough violently, he needed air, but the fact was the mine shaft was all out. Only water remained.
Deprived of oxygen, his mind panicked. I don’t want to die. Not like this! Not like this!
He opened his mouth to scream…
But instead, someone shoved a regulator’s mouthpiece between his lips.
He took a deep breath. He never imagined air could taste so divine. Like Lazarus before him, his mind embraced the euphoria of those raised from the dead.
Chapter Eleven
Sam surfaced out of the water into the dark confines of the Queen Charlotte Mine.
It was a horizontal tunnel that had once joined the Queen Maggie Mine until its gold rich reefs ran dry, making it unprofitable to run. Betty, Jesse’s wife, had explained to Sam that her husband had let it flood, after realizing that the reef was barren and that it would cost him more than he had to maintain the series of pumps to keep it dry. He’d tried for a while, but soon gave up, having realized the process was impossible.
Next to him, Sam had to coax Jesse to stand in the shallow water. Without a dive mask, all the poor man had been able to do was keep his eyes shut and entrust Sam to keep passing him the mouthpiece for the regulator as they had made their way through the dark confines of the flooded tunnel.
Upon realizing that his feet were touching the ground, Jesse stood up, wiped his face, and made a silent prayer of thanks.
Sam stepped out of the water and shined his flashlight down the horizontal tunnel. Leaning with her back against the edge of the wall was a woman shivering in the cold. It was the first time he took any notice of her, having originally concentrated all his effort onto swimming through the flooded tunnel to save Jesse.
Now, he took notice of her.
She was shorter than average, with long red hair, blue eyes, and a steely gaze of defiance. She had dried herself with the towel he’d left with the rest of his dive equipment and wrapped a blanket around herself. Her white-skin was covered in goosebumps as she shivered slightly, but despite her apparent cold, she appeared unharmed by her near-death experience.
“I’m Sam Reilly,” he said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite have the time to catch your name earlier.”
She stood up and offered her hand. “I’m Sandi Larson.”
Sam cocked an eyebrow in recognition. “Professor Larson, the anthropologist from Oxford University?”
“Yes, that’s me.” She smiled. “But please, call me Sandi.”
“I read your dissertation on the evidence of Homo erectus within North America 130,000 years ago after the analysis of the Cerutti Mastodon Site, near San Diego in 2017. It was fascinating…”