Shaken (29 page)

When Vicki finished her broadcast, Mark unhooked the cable from the truck and asked Darrion to carry it down the hill. “Throw the other end of it in the river. Maybe the GC will follow the cable.”

“What about Conrad?” Darrion said.

Mark pursed his lips. “If he doesn't come back soon with Vicki and Charlie, we'll have to leave without them.”

Vicki watched the light draw nearer, shining on the walls of the tunnel. Could it be a Morale Monitor?

Someone whispered, “Vicki? Charlie?”

“Conrad,” Charlie said, “we're here!”

Before they could move, the ground rumbled above them. Dirt and rocks tumbled. Vicki grabbed a tree root to brace herself.

“Another earthquake?” Charlie said.

“I don't know,” Vicki shouted over the noise.

Suddenly, the roof of the tunnel gave way, and mud and grass flooded in. Charlie pushed Vicki and fell under the earth and rock. Vicki crawled a few feet away, coughing and sputtering. She covered her mouth with her sleeve and tried to breathe.

“You all right?” Vicki said.

No answer.

She felt her way back on her hands and knees, frantically feeling for any sign of Charlie. She stood and reached up and felt metal and rubber near her head. And she heard voices above.

“Sunk,” a man said. “All the way up to the axle. Gonna be murder getting that thing out of there.”

Another called for quiet. “We'll get the truck out later. Get to the house! We don't want them to escape.”

Something moved behind Vicki. “Charlie?”

She knelt and felt along the wall. A hand. Vicki clawed at the mud like an animal.

“Charlie!”

Carl and the others in GC satellite control sat with their heads in their hands. Carl's boss had left shortly after Vicki's final words. Carl ran his fingers through his hair. “Sorry, guys. I went over this console and the signal routing a hundred times.”

A young techie picked up the remains of the console and tried to fit some pieces together.

Carl waved. “Don't worry about it. It's wrecked, and so's my career.”

“You go down, we go with you, sir,” another said.

Carl asked everyone to leave the room. Only the young techie was left when Carl's boss called and asked him to come to his office.

“Be right there, sir.”

“Think I found something,” the techie said, crouching under the console.

Carl stopped and turned. “What is it?”

“Something under here looks new. Could be how they got that girl on the air.”

26

MARK
inspected the satellite truck and noticed the fuel gauge showed a quarter of a tank. He grabbed their cash box and quickly counted their supply of Nicks. “Everybody get in! We're pulling out.”

Shelly and Darrion stood outside the truck. Mark rolled down his window. “We have to go while their vehicles are still running.”

“I'm not leaving without them,” Shelly said.

Melinda joined them. “Vicki stuck with me through everything. I'm not ditching her now.”

A GC diesel engine sputtered and stopped. As Mark opened his door, there was a huge thump and the whistle of air brakes.

“They're at the schoolhouse. The GC will be all over this hillside in a few minutes.”

“Listen!” Darrion said.

Footsteps approached along the hillside. Seconds later, Conrad ran to them and fell to his knees. “They drove that big truck over the tunnel and it collapsed,” he gasped. “Vicki and Charlie are trapped.”

“Could you hear them?” Mark said.

Conrad shook his head. “The cave-in was too deep. I tried digging, but it'll take hours for one person to tunnel through.”

Darrion and Shelly started down the hill, but Mark stopped them. “What are you doing?”

“We've got to save them,” Darrion said.

“Wait. If they're on the other side of the cave-in, they'll be okay. We need to get this truck out of here and come back for them.”

“What if they're under all that dirt?” Shelly said.

Mark stared at the ground. “There's probably no hope if it fell on them.”

“Whatever,” Darrion said, and the two girls ran down the hill.

Conrad grabbed Mark's arm and pulled himself up. “Drive the sat truck out of here. I've got a rowboat tied to a clump of bushes not far away. There's a bridge about three miles down. As soon as we get Vicki and Charlie out, we'll meet you there.”

“We'll wait as long as we can,” Mark said.

“Let us help,” Janie and Melinda said.

Conrad waved them off. “There's not enough room in the boat. Go with Mark.”

Conrad ran into the darkness. Mark asked Melinda and Janie to ride in front with him. He started the truck and pulled deeper into the woods.

Vicki clawed a hole big enough for Charlie to breathe. He coughed and gasped for air. “What happened?”

Vicki told him. “Can you move your legs?”

“I can but not very much.”

Without light, it was difficult to clear away dirt without it falling on Charlie. But Vicki kept at it, and soon Charlie could move his arms enough to help.

“What do we do now?”

Vicki shook her head. “We get you out.”

“Do you think the others are gone?”

Vicki stopped digging and sighed. “Conrad saw the cave-in. He'll get help.”

The two kept digging, but it seemed that once they got a section of dirt cleared away, another slid on top of them. Vicki grabbed the laptop and used it to help shovel more dirt.

“I've been meaning to ask you something,” Charlie said. “Do you remember when I first met you in that hospital?”

Vicki smiled. “You loved to scare people and nearly gave me a heart attack. You've changed a lot since then.”

Charlie lifted a stone and threw it to the other side of the tunnel. “I've learned a lot about God, but I don't understand why I wasn't taken in the Rapture.”

“You know why, Charlie. You didn't believe in Jesus back then.”

“I know. But God took little babies who didn't know about Jesus, and he took lots of other people who …”

Charlie's voice trailed off, and Vicki remembered when she first saw him. His speech was weird, he walked with a limp, and his body seemed out of control. He looked like a different person now. “Are you asking because you think God should have taken you?”

Charlie wiped dirt from his eyes. “People used to say I was slow. A few of them laughed and called me sick in the head. Nobody expected much from me, so I stopped trying. Then you guys came along and treated me different. I didn't think anybody could love me, but you guys said God did, and he even died for me. That blew me away.”

“One of the happiest days of my life was when I saw you had the mark of the true believer.”

“Me too. But I still don't understand. If I'm, you know, damaged in the head, wouldn't God have taken me with the other people?”

Vicki kept digging. “God knows everybody's heart. You knew right from wrong. You were able to make choices just like everybody else.”

“So that must mean I'm not as messed up as those people thought.”

“Right.”

“Okay, then here's another question. Why didn't those locusts sting me when they had the chance?”

“You ask hard questions.”

Someone moved near the GC truck, and for the first time a little light shone through a hand-sized hole above them. Vicki spotted the underside of the truck through the opening. The man cursed. “There's no way we're hauling those kids back in this.”

When the man was gone, Vicki whispered, “Remember what Tsion Ben-Judah said about you?”

Charlie nodded. “He said God's love must be at work in my life. But that doesn't answer it for me.”

“Maybe when the locusts attacked, God knew you were real close to believing. He showed you mercy.”

“But if that's true, why were Melinda and Janie stung? They're believers now.”

“One thing's for sure. There's nothing wrong with your mind.” Vicki sat back, exhausted. “What do
you
think?”

“Well, I wonder if it didn't take those stings to kind of jar Melinda and Janie. Maybe it helped convince them of the truth.”

“Remind me to ask those questions when we get to heaven. Right now, we have to get you out.”

The two kept working until Charlie pulled his legs free. He collapsed, covered with dirt and mud.

A rock fell through the hole above them. Vicki saw someone's face peering into the darkness.

“It's me,” Conrad whispered. “We tried digging through from the other side, but it's no use.”

“We?” Vicki said. “You guys should be gone.”

“Don't worry. We're meeting Mark and the others downriver as soon as we get you out.”

“Can't the GC see you?” Charlie said.

“I'm under the truck. They're all over the schoolhouse and the woods. Help me widen this hole and we'll head for the boat. I sent Darrion and Shelly to get it ready.”

Conrad looked up. A dog barked in the distance.

“Is that Phoenix?” Vicki said.

Conrad put a finger to his lips. Vicki stood on a pile of dirt and tried to see but couldn't.

After a few agonizing seconds, Conrad said, “One of the Morale Monitors has Phoenix by the collar. He's barking and trying to get over here.”

“Good thing they didn't let him go or he'd have come straight for you.”

“She's taking him inside the schoolhouse. Now help me!”

Carl tried to think as he knelt to inspect the secret button. “You're right,” he said to the techie. “It's new. I'm not sure what it does, but it can't put the girl on the air. I was sitting right in front of it.”

“Why don't we push it and see what—”

“And get our fingerprints all over it? That wouldn't be smart, would it?”

“I guess not.”

Carl looked at the boy's name badge. “Kostek?”

He nodded. “Dave.”

Carl shook his hand. “I appreciate your hard work, Dave. I'll have one of the engineers trace the wires. I'm sure it'll turn out to be nothing.” The techie frowned. Before he could speak again, Carl said, “If that button put the girl on the air, I'd be the one to blame.”