Wallace didn’t even like riding in an elevator. It had been a long elevator ride to get down here and now they were fleeing. The tunnel they started in had been big enough to walk upright. The five men waded through and noted after a time that the ceiling was gradually getting lower. This was not a problem at first — the problem was behind them. The water was rising and there was no way out that way anymore. The only way out was through. Jenkins had studied the blueprints and if there was a way out it had to be this way.
They reached a much smaller exchange and loaded themselves one by one into the pipe, crawling on their hands and knees. “This should go outside the mountain. The runoff should go down that way,” Jenkins said, pointing toward a grate and much smaller openings that were more apt for a rodent. No one knew they were down here, and the flooding was planned. It was a damned unfortunate circumstance. They trusted Jenkins, he knew this place better than any of them, and they had, in fact, seen some rats running this way, a good sign indeed.
Baker went first, he was the smallest of all of them. Then they all went in one at a time — followed by Jenkins, Wallace, Kwali, and Martinez.
“At least we won’t drown,” Wallace said, taking his place in line and crouching in that hole. They all postured, afraid to be afraid, pushed on by the need to be unflappable in each other’s eyes. Crying would have been perfectly acceptable had they given themselves a moment to talk about it.
What started on his hands and knees gradually shifted to knees and elbows, then eventually elbows, dragging legs behind. Wallace’s sleeves had holes in them and the elbows were getting raw in the wet, the metal and sediment deposits at the bottom of the pipe were chafing. He was probably bleeding but had no way of checking. There was no room to examine himself, his light was fading, and anything on his arms would be mixed in with the dark muddy mess that covered him.
At this point they were probably four thousand feet in, maybe a mile, in a journey that had taken eight hours from the start of the pipe. Crawling was slow going. Wallace eventually elected to keep his head down, his neck was exhausted from craning up and pointlessly looking at the feet in front of him. There was nothing to see anyway. His fading headlamp barely touched Jenkin’s feet, and beyond that there was the notion that the others could see the same thing, namely, the next few feet of pipe and then dark nothing.
The good news is that there were no surprises in the middle. They called back the information to him and it was comforting to not be alone. Thank God he wasn’t alone. He couldn’t do this alone.
“Downslope!”
Then he’d pass back the info behind him.
The bad news, aside from the general predicament, was that the already small space was getting smaller still. The transition from his elbows down to his stomach had nearly finished him. It took several minutes of deep breathing to move again. If he could just keep moving an inch at a time, it was going to be okay, he told himself. He was not sure he believed it.
Then there was the transition to the point where he had to move one arm completely to his side and extend the other out in front, trying to be as narrow as possible — reduced to a squirming motion. There was no turning around. No looking back, barely looking up and forward, an inchworm in the dark. He could feel the pipe wall pressing in on the arm by his side and his shoulders and his heart started to race. He inched forward one more time as the top of his hand hit the bottom of Jenkins shoes. A silty mix splashed in his face and across his lips. He tasted it and revolted, instinctively tried to move his arms to wipe it but there was no room.
“Jenkins!, I don’t know if I can go any farther man,” he could feel his heart race and felt like the whole thing was closing in on him. His vision started to white out, an ironic thing to happen in a space so black.
He started to wiggle to no avail and the more he wiggled the tighter the enclosure felt around him. He was desperately trying to take a deep breath but the pipe kept cutting it off before gaining satisfaction — the walls were too close.
“I can’t breathe!” he half yelled.
“Wallace, shut up and calm down!” he heard Jenkins say. “This is as small as it gets. This kind of pipe doesn’t get any smaller. Breath man.”
“Well I’m bigger than this man.”
“You’re gonna pass out if you keep freaking out. You gotta have small thoughts.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Close your eyes and breath. Just stop for a second.”
Jenkins took his own deep breath and spoke again. “Wallace! Stay with me man. You can fit. I need you to slow down, I mean your breathing and think fucking paper thin.”
He felt nauseous and he convulsed, dry heaving stuck in place. Nothing came out. They’d all lost everything in their stomachs long before they got here. When they first realized that thing was coming after them.
He was starting to think that maybe Kwali got the better end of the deal. He was at the back. He could move backwards if he chose to. He could go back to the beginning maybe. Maybe it would be better to be stuck here forever but at least in a place where he could move. Whither away and be in the dark. But be able to breathe.
Dammit he just wanted to breathe.
He regretted not staying back further and drowning like the others. Drowning was scary, but at least you could flail to your heart’s content and then it was over.
“Wallace! Close your eyes, slow your breathing and just keep going forward. You ain’t stuck. And if you ain’t stuck we can keep going.”
Kwali spoke up from behind him, “Come on Wallace, I can’t go if you don’t go. An inch at a time if we gotta man. I’m at your feet. I need you to move.”
Wallace closed his eyes, “Just give me a second!”
He thought about his wife. He thought about his three kids. Just an inch at a time. It doesn’t get smaller than this.
Okay. Okay.
“I can do it.” he slowed down. He breathed in counting to four. Held his breath, counting to five. Breathed out counting to six. Then he repeated. His oldest daughter, Mollie, called it box breathing. It seemed silly at the time but it was all he could think to do.
It was working.
“Okay, I got it,” Wallace said. “I’m cool. Let’s keep going.”
And so they did, into the dark, inch by inch. All of their lamps died, but there was nothing to see. No sense of time, only countless small movements. The hours passed and they moved on.
“Fellas just keep going. We’re gonna be rich after this. I want you to think about that. OSHA is gonna have a field day with these bastards and every lawyer in the country is gonna have us riding high on the hog,” Jenkins said.
“What are you fellas buying with your money?” Martinez called up from the back.
“I’m going to buy a brand new Harley first off, speaking of hogs. And I’m never going underground ever again, Kwali said.”
“Man, I got a kid about to go through college, so it better be a lot,” Wallace said. “I still got two more to go, too.” He smiled to himself thinking of his wife. He pictured his kids, how little they used to be. Each man thought of their own families. Baker thought of his husband and child.
Martinez thought of his dogs. He wasn’t a family man per say, but it was arguable that Martinez actually loved them just as much as Wallace loved his children.
“I hear that,” Jenkins said. “I’m still paying for my own loans twenty years later.”
“Guys, I see daylight!” Baker yelled.
A mixture of jubilant whoops ensued. Relief washed over the men.
“Yeah boys. We got this!” Jenkins called. “Easy does it! Let’s go.”
They continued on for another twenty minutes until Wallace hit Jenkin’s feet once again. They remained for a few minutes before Martinez spoke up from the rear.
“What’s goin on?” Martinez called up.
Wallace could hear Baker grunting. “What’s going on with Baker?” he asked.
Jenkins tapped Baker’s feet, “What’s happening man? Are you good? Talk to me.”
Baker was exasperated.
“The pipe,” He strained and then started to weep. “It’s got a kink in it.I got my head through it, but I’m stuck. Really friggin stuck man. Whole fuckin mountain moved.”
Jenkins pushed on his feet as much as he could, not that it would make a difference but Baker was stuck tight.
“Can you back out?”
“I don’t think so.” Baker said.
“Okay okay. Just let me think.”
It was then that Martinez heard a rushing noise.
“I can hear water!” he shouted.
“It won’t make it this far,” Jenkins said. “Now let me think!”
But then underneath the low roar of water Martinez could hear something else. It started off as a small high pitched whine, a small noise. But it crystalized. It was not one noise but many small ones. Squeaking. A lot of squeaking. They could all hear it now, and it was getting closer along with thousands of little tapping, scurrying, and scratching noises transmitted perfectly in the pipe — the sound of hundreds of rats forced in one direction. They couldn’t chew their way out of the pipe. They could chew through other things though. And like the five men forced into the pipe, the only way out was through.