Deep Down (Sam Stone Book 1) (2 page)

The lift was surprisingly fast, and Jenny felt the metal compartment descend the full 640 feet underground in a blindingly fast blur.  Her ears popped once on the way down, but the complete darkness hid the features of the other visitors, so she could not tell if any of them experienced the same feeling of fleeting discomfort.

In moments, they were escaping the double-decker lift, and Jenny exited the iron compartment gratefully, stepping out into a softly glimmering world of caverns and tunnels sparkling with salt.   The mines looked nothing like she’d thought they would.  Everywhere, the chiseled walls and carved out ceiling of the tunnels glittered with billions of sparkling crystals, glittering in the dim light cast by rows of lights mounted onto the ceiling. Motes of sparkling salt dust, stirred up by the motion of the lift, danced in the air, contributing to the otherworldly beauty even as it clogged the airways and nasal passages of the visitors.  Even the air was different in the caverns, brackish and odd smelling, having a thick quality that immediately made Jenny’s asthmatic lungs tighten in reaction.  The air seemed strange and slightly abnormal, redolent with the smell of dirt and salt, with an odd undertone that wasn’t particularly pleasant. The undertone scent was acidic, with a slight chemical edge.  No one else seemed to notice the odd quality to the air, or if they did notice, they didn’t seem to be bothered by it.  Jenny thought that perhaps, once again, she was just being too sensitive to her environment. 

Despite her apprehension of being so far underground, and the strange quality of the air, Jenny found the softly glimmering, shimmering space oddly beautiful.

“Welcome to the Strata underground museum,” another perky, cheerful female tour guide announced as the remaining visitors exited the lift, pushing out behind Jenny and Stone like a small stampede, blinking like owls suddenly thrust into the light.  “You have about thirty minutes before the dinner theater portion of tonight’s entertainment begins, so please, if you wish, take that time to look at the museum’s exhibits and gift shop before you find your assigned table.  There will also be an intermission later, at which time you’re welcome to resume your exploration of the museum portion of the mines.  Please, do
not
wander away from the museum area for any reason during the evening’s festivities. And, always remember to wear your hard hat.”

The blonde tour guide gave them all a megawatt smile, full of skillfully whitened, precisely straight teeth, and then gestured for them to begin their exploration of the museum.

Jenny looked off down the excavated tunnels that bisected the main area of the museum, and wondered why anyone would even contemplate wandering off from the group into the dark recesses of the mine.  She shuddered at the thought of missing her ride back to the surface.  Surely only a certifiably
insane
person would wander off and chance being stuck down in the mines for an extended period of time?

Stone felt her shiver and smiled at her reassuringly.  “Come on, let’s go see the exhibits.”

“Debbie and I have seen the exhibits several times on our previous visits here, so I’ll go find our table while you two look around.  We’ll meet you in the dining area in twenty,” Gilbert said, taking Debbie’s hand and leading her off down the wide tunnel.  They strode past the antique mining equipment and huge salt boulders that were on display, lining the sides of the tunnel, and headed off toward the dining area where the dinner theater would be performed.

Debbie’s twenty-something niece, Alice, and Debbie’s elderly mother and father, Paul and Cheryl, who had joined their small group for the evening’s entertainment, followed after the couple, leaving Jenny alone with Stone in the dimly sparkling entry cavern.

Jenny tried not to cough as their departing footsteps stirred up tiny puffs of salt-laden dust from the floor of the mine, knowing that coughing would only exacerbate the feeling of tightness in her lungs.  She hoped that the next few hours passed quickly, because she was already anticipating taking a huge breath of fresh air when they returned to the surface again. 

“Here, would you carry this for a bit? It’s getting heavy,” Jenny said as she slid her heavy backpack-style purse off of her shoulder and handed it to Stone.

Stone took the bag from her and effortlessly slung the strap over his shoulder.  “What have you got in this thing, Jenny?  It is more than a little heavy, especially for you to be carrying around down here for hours.”

“Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that.  Healthy snacks in case I don’t like dinner, a couple of extra bottles of water for us in case we get thirsty, aspirin, lip balm.  That kind of thing.  You know I like to be prepared.”

Stone chuckled, but said nothing, reaching over to take her hand again. 

Pulling her Droid from her pocket one-handed as Stone held her other hand, Jenny snapped a few photos of the enormous, deeply veined and marbled salt boulder directly in front of them, intending to send them out via Snapchat.  She groaned softly when she remembered that there would be no cellular service so far underground.   Since she normally spent so much time on her phone, texting and making calls, this lack of service disturbed her greatly, and she felt even more cut off from world than she had just a moment before as they’d stepped off of the lift.  No calls, no texting, no Instagram or Snapchat, no Facebook or Twitter – no sort of outside connection for the next four hours. 

This dinner theater had better be spectacular,
she thought.

With a small sigh, she crammed her now almost useless cell phone into her pocket and followed Stone’s tug on her hand as he led them further into the mines.  She’d be glad when this ‘fun’ was over and she could leave behind the mildly panicky feeling of being underground, where, to her logical writer’s mind, it made absolutely no sense for any intelligent human to be willing to venture.

Jenny allowed herself to be distracted from her internal feelings of anxiety by viewing the plethora of interesting exhibits in the museum.  In the museum’s caverns, clustered into exhibits, were original costumes worn by famous actors in several major motion pictures, several original sketches of famous cartoon characters, historical artifacts, such as incredibly old newspapers and old film reels, and a diverse collection of mining equipment and information.  There was even an exhibit containing an incredibly old bacteria that had been unearthed in the mine and then resuscitated.

She and Stone meandered through the museum, hand in hand, until it was time to join the others in the dining cavern for the performance.  They easily found their groups’ table in the dining cavern, situated in a choice spot near the entrance, and joined them there, just in time for the beginning of the dinner theater.

It was early December, so the evening’s theater performance was comprised of an oddly mixed Santa murder mystery. Purposefully focusing on the performance of the actor and actress took her mind off of the encroaching feeling of claustrophobia, brought on both by the thought of being under 640 feet of solid earth and compressed salt and by the worsening symptoms of asthma instigated by the dusty, strangely scented air. Jenny was pleasantly surprised to notice how much time had passed when the first act of the hilarious performance was finished and the museum’s events announcer announced a brief intermission, to be followed immediately by a catered buffet-style dinner.

Lively conversation broke out amongst the scattered tables surrounding them, and the large cavern grew loud with laughter and animated talk.

Stone rose easily from his seat, and gestured to the exit, “Do you want to go see the gift shop?”

Jenny nodded gratefully and got to her feet, happy to stretch her legs, knowing that the movement would help with her lingering feelings of claustrophobia.   Silently congratulating herself for facing her fears and managing to pull off mostly normal behavior for the first half of the evening, Jenny followed Stone out from under the remarkably high nine-foot ‘ceiling’ of the dining cavern, past a brightly lit Christmas tree made entirely of twinkling lights which made the walls and ceiling glitter even more as the tiny lights reflected back from the millions of salt crystals embedded within them.  Under other circumstances, Jenny would have found the display positively captivating, but her lingering feelings of anxiety about the strange quality of the air and the knowledge of just exactly how deep underground they all had travelled were like tiny niggling worms of worry in her thoughts, eating away at small enjoyments.

“So, how do you like it so far?” Stone asked as they walked, hand-in-hand, out of the exit near their table to the small gift shop just adjacent to the dining cavern.  

“It’s…” Jenny paused, not wanting to dampen his enjoyment of the evening by telling him how she really felt.  “…interesting.”

Stone’s deep laugh echoed off of the curved salt walls.  “You hate it!”

“Well, no, I don’t
hate
it,” Jenny mumbled quietly, still trying to be nice.

“Yes, you do, I can see it on your face.  You’re not enjoying yourself very much at all, although I did catch you laughing at the hairy guy in the tights during the dinner theater performance,” Stone said as they wandered into the gift shop.

Jenny chuckled at the reminder.  That part of the performance
had
been absolutely hilarious.  In her mind’s eye, she could still picture the thin, excessively hairy man, dressed in a pink full-body leotard and tutu, capering about the room pretending to be the Sugarplum fairy.

“He
was
very entertaining,” she said.

As they strolled into the shop, her eye was immediately drawn to a small display of jewelry made from marbled chunks of salt.  She hadn’t known that jewelry could be made of salt, so the display fascinated her writer’s mind, particularly interesting to her because she’d just completed the first in a series of books about handcrafted jewelry.  Perhaps here was a subject for her next book?

“Ah, something has captured your attention, I see,” Stone said, a tone of amusement in his voice.

She smiled up into Stone’s face as they reached the display case, loving the way his delicious chocolate brown eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled back at her.

Stone was quite a catch, and even amidst surroundings that she wasn’t particularly fond of, she felt her love for him catch at her heart.  She’d known for a year now that he was ‘the one’, the man that she was meant to spend her life with.  When he’d proposed early that year, she’d been delighted, and had accepted immediately.  They’d quickly decided on an autumn wedding, in early September, and she anxiously anticipated becoming his wife, imagining blissfully spending the rest of her life with him.

“I’m proud of you for coming down here,” Stone said.  “I know how much this must be bothering you, but you’ve faced your fears, and I doubt that anyone but me can tell that you’re claustrophobic.”

Jenny smiled up at him, glad she’d managed to hide her anxiety so well, but another thought stole her momentary relief.

“I’m not wheezing, am I?” she asked suddenly, finding the thought of wheezing asthmatically in front of his friends mildly embarrassing.  She’d always felt that her asthma was a flaw, one that she tried to hide from others when possible. 

Stone laughed again. 

“Only a little.  But, it’s a cute little wheeze, so don’t worry about my friends noticing,” he teased. 

Jenny laughed too.  Stone had a way of putting things in perspective.  Who ever heard of a “cute little wheeze”?

“They seem really nice,” Jenny said.  “Gilbert is such a joker! He’s almost as much of a comedian as you are.”

Stone only grinned at her as he pulled her away from the display of jewelry to move on to table full of large chunks of colored salt crystals in warm shades of orange, bronze and burnished brass. 

The hardened floor under their feet, which a museum display card had said was made of salt pilings – the small particles left behind when the salt was mined and cut – mixed with concrete and water to form saltcrete, was mostly flat, with a few bulges here and there. The footing was only slightly uneven, but Jenny’s toe struck a slightly raised spot and she stumbled after him, relying on the strength of Stone’s grip on her hand to keep her balance.

“You like my joking, come on, admit it!” Stone said, easily keeping her upright as he drew her closer and slung an arm around her shoulder.

“I like your strength and compassion, your sense of humor and your good judgment, your good looks and great bod too – the joking just comes with the package,” Jenny said, teasing him.

Stone laughed so loudly at this that the gift shop clerk cast them both an irritated glance. Jenny poked Stone in the side with her elbow gently and he moved them further away from the annoyed clerk, over to a display of t-shirts with clever phrases screen printed on the front. 

Jenny could understand why the clerk might be so easily irritated that she’d glare at a good-looking hunk like Stone just for laughing too loudly.  If it had been her job to stand around underground day after day, she’d have been easily irritated too.

Jenny browsed the t-shirts, then held up a dark brown one with her free hand, emblazoned upon the front in large white letters was the message: “I’m an explosives expert.  If you see me running, try to keep up!”

Stone chuckled again, although much quieter this time. “That’s great. Very funny.  They do use explosives quite a lot in the mines, I’m told.”

Jenny nodded, tucking the shirt under her arm to buy for Stone.  “One of the placards said that Mike Rowe, from
Dirty Jobs
, visited the mines and his crew filmed a controlled explosion.”

Stone opened his mouth to reply, but a loud shout cut him off.

He turned away to find the source of the shout, and Jenny went with him, setting down the t-shirt on the rack as they wandered out of the gift shop.

The shouting became louder, coming from a museum exhibit that Jenny had seen earlier, but had not yet explored.  The exhibit housed a million-year-old ‘live bacteria’ named “Ed” that had been found in the mines and resuscitated by a scientist.  Jenny had been skeptical of the claim, wondering how it was possible to bring something, even a simple organism like a bacteria, back to life after it had been dormant for millions of years. She and Stone had passed by that exhibit in favor of seeing the other exhibits.  Now, the live bacteria exhibit area, set off toward the back of the museum, was garnering a lot of attention.  A few other visitors drifted toward the area as the noise from the shouting echoed through the cavern and off into the darkened tunnels that connected them to the mines.

A young teenager, Jenny estimated him to be about
thirteen, had moved behind the cordon that sectioned off the small case that held ”Ed”, and was now holding the case in his hand.  A glass slide, one meant to be viewed under a microscope, was held stationary inside the case by the small spike of a plastic pedestal which had been anchored inside the case. This slide was Ed’s resting place.

“I said to put that down and step back behind the cordon,” a security guard told the boy very loudly in a no-nonsense voice.

In typical teenager fashion, the boy did not do as instructed.  He held the case up with one hand and pointed to glass slide inside the sealed Plexiglas box. “There’s nothing in there.  Nothing at all.  It’s just a made-up story and this cube is just a prop.  There’s no bacteria that’s been brought back to life after millions of years.”

“The sample is real.  Put the exhibit back on the table and then step away,” the security guard insisted, his voice cracking once with stress.

“And if I don’t?” the boy asked, giving the guard a cheeky, defiant grin.

The guard glowered, looking harried and almost scared, then slowly drew his gun from his holster and pointed it at the kid.

“I’ll have to make you,” the guard replied.

Several people gasped behind Jenny, and the kid’s face drained of color, his eyes growing so wide that he looked almost like a caricature of himself. 

The guard’s eyes were focused angrily upon the teenager, his face set in harsh lines of extreme irritation, and his arm trembled slightly as he held his weapon extended straight out and ready to fire. 

Jenny stared at the guard’s face intently, trying to determine if the man might actually fire his weapon, or if he was just using it as a means of intimidation.  Looking closely at the man’s eyes, she could not determine his intentions, but she thought she could detect a faint odd patina to the whites of his eyes.  His oddly large pupils, large even for the dimness of the caverns, seemed to almost swallow up the all of the color in his irises. 

Jenny thought that she could detect a faint sheen of sweat shining across the guard’s slightly yellow complexion, no doubt the sweat was due to stress, not temperature, since the ambient temperature down in the mines was a constant 67 degrees Fahrenheit.

After staring in horror at the drawn gun for several tense seconds, the teenager put the Plexiglas box down so quickly that he dropped it.

The crowd gasped again as the case skidded across the table and spun on a corner, nearly toppling off the edge before the kid caught it with now-shaking hands and carefully steadied it.  When the case was completely stationary, the kid released the box quickly, as if the Plexiglas box was now burning his fingertips, and then ducked under the cordon and stood up.

“There, man.  No harm done!  I was just looking.  And I’m pretty sure its not real anyway,” the kid added, one last touch of defiance in his tone as he shuffled carefully away from the cordon, eyeing the still-drawn weapon.

The guard glared at the kid, seconds longer than he should have, his pupils still huge as a large drop of sweat rolled down from his hairline.  The guard seemed to need to take a moment to gather his thoughts, as if searching his mind for words that should have been immediately available to him, then, obviously coming to a slow decision, the man holstered his weapon and stepped over to the kid. 

“Where are your parents?” he asked gruffly, grabbing the kids arm in a firm grip.  “We need to have a talk with them.”

The kid pointed with his free hand, gesturing to the cavern reserved for the dinner theater performance, and the guard hustled him off in that direction after throwing one last anxious look at the Plexiglas case over his shoulder.

Jenny hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath while watching the altercation until her already strained lungs began to ache.  She let her breath out in an explosive wheeze, realizing belatedly that she hadn’t done her asthma any good by holding it, and glanced over her shoulder at Stone’s face.

As she’d known it would be, his face was set in harsh lines, and Jenny could practically feel the righteous anger blazing off of him. 

“That was uncalled for.  The guard should never have pulled his sidearm,” Stone muttered close to her ear, so only she would hear, his eyes gleaming with suppressed wrath.  As a former military police officer, Stone knew the right and wrong of all things law enforcement, and she often relied upon his judgment in such matters, but even without his expertise, she could tell that the guard had overreacted.