Sink: Old Man's Tale (10 page)

“Do you reckon that’s how he’s doing it in there?” Guard 668 said.

“How long does it usually take you when you stand on one leg?” Guard 896 said.

“Not long,” Guard 668 said. “About the same as usual.”

“That can’t be it then, can it?” Guard 896 said.

“All this talk has made me need to go now,” Guard 668 said, squirming.

The door opened.

“At ease, gentlemen,” Graham said, walking down the corridor.

“Are you going to ask him, or shall I?” Guard 896 said.

Jeremiah put
the final few pieces together and slid them into the back of the digger. It was finished. He smiled to himself and dusted off his hands. A job well done.

The doors opened and Graham entered.

“Don’t tell me you’ve finished it?” Graham said.

“Incredible what you can do when you don’t let yourself get distracted,” Jeremiah said.

“Believe me, now isn’t the time to be boasting about efficiency,” Graham said.

“So, you finally decided to come back,” Jeremiah said. “Just in time to hog the glory.”

Graham blinked.

“Sorry?” he said.

“You should be,” Jeremiah said. “Leaving an old man like that. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“How did you know…” Graham shook his head. “I came back, didn’t I?”

“Not before you had your fun,” Jeremiah said. “Well, if you think I’m going to share the glory, you can think again.”

“What are you talking about?” Graham said.

“What are
you
talking about?” Jeremiah said.

“We don’t have time for this,” Graham said. “Jeremiah, there’s something I need to tell you…”

“Ah! I see you’re done!” Leader said, entering the room. “She looks marvelous.”

“What, this?” Graham said. “She’s not done, not by a long shot.”

“Actually, she’s just about-” Jeremiah said.

Graham wrapped his arm around Jeremiah’s shoulders.

“Listen to him, getting your hopes up,” Graham said. “He’s a cheeky sod. If you’ll excuse us, we need to get back to work.”

“Graham,” Jeremiah said. “What are you-?”

“Jeremiah, can I have a private word for a moment?” Graham said.

Leader, curious, cocked his head to one side.

“I think I just found a problem with the machine,” Graham said. “It would be very embarrassing if we were to turn it on and it doesn’t work.”

Leader nodded.

“Take all the time you need,” he said.

Graham took Jeremiah aside.

“What problem?” Jeremiah said. “You don’t know the difference between a screw and a bolt.”

“How close are you to finishing?” Graham said.

“I’m done,” Jeremiah said. “I just need to press the power button and it’s a go.”

“I wish you hadn’t said that,” Graham said.

“What?” Jeremiah said. “Why?”

“I don’t have time to explain now, but I need you to pretend like you need more time to finish it. Can you do that?”

Jeremiah looked askance at Graham.

“Please,” Graham said. “This is really important. I swear I’ll explain as soon as Leader’s gone.”

“All right,” Jeremiah said.

They turned and approached Leader, who was pressing and probing the machine.

“You’ve done a wonderful job,” Leader said as Jeremiah approached.

“Alas, not as wonderful as I’d hoped,” Jeremiah said.

“What do you mean?” Leader said. “You’re finished.”

“I thought I was,” Jeremiah said. “But young Graham here has pointed out something that I hadn’t noticed. I need a little more time to work on it.”

“What’s the problem?” Leader said. “Is it anything my engineers can help you with?”

“No,” Jeremiah said. “I just need a little more time, that’s all. Engineering isn’t just about nuts and bolts, it’s about gut feeling, and my gut isn’t feeling one hundred percent on this machine yet. A little more tinkering and it’ll be done.”

“What do you need to tinker with?” Leader said.

“Just, uh, a few bits and pieces,” Jeremiah said.

Leader placed his hand on the machine, his thumb resting on the big red power button.

“You know, we had another engineer down here once, working on this machine,” he said. “He told us what materials he needed, when he needed help. He was close to finishing and going home for good. But then he turned out to be a… disappointment. It turned out he’d been taking late night walks through town. He met some… unfavorable types, and they told him things that made him stop working on the digger.

“The engineer tried to run, escape, and when we caught him he refused to build the last part of the machine. Despite not being able to go home, he refused. And no matter how hard we tried, we just couldn’t get the machine to work. We never did find out who told him these things, but we maintained a tighter grip on the townsfolk after that. Should the need to know where one of our star engineers was, we could follow them with ease.”

“I wouldn’t turn it on,” Jeremiah said. “You risk breaking the whole machine and it’ll never get working again.”

Leader pursed his lips.

“I’ll take the risk,” he said.

He pressed the power button. The engine chugged. The huge drill bits spun in circles.

“You were saying?” Leader said.

“Yes,” Graham said. “We were saying. We were saying that the digger might work fine right now but there’s no way of telling if it will work for very long. Isn’t that right, Jeremiah?”

“Yes,” Jeremiah said. “That’s right.”

“And how long would this digger last, do you think?” Leader said with a flat expression.

“Anywhere from ten minutes to… one hour,” Jeremiah said.

“We’d best test it out and see how it does, hadn’t we?” Leader said.

Leader clapped his hands and the doors opened. A flood of guards and other little men in purple uniforms surrounded the digger. The guards seized Graham and Jeremiah.

“What are you doing?” Jeremiah said. “I built this so we can all go home.”

“You will go home the moment we return to the surface,” Leader said. “But we won’t be returning in quite the manner you expected.”

The little men in purple uniforms began taking the machine apart.

“What are you doing?” Graham said. “That’s our way back home! Stop!”

“They are backward engineering it,” Leader said.

“Backward engineering?” Jeremiah said. “What for?”

“They’re not going to be able to build their own if they don’t know how this one was put together now, can they?” Leader said.

“Have I skipped a couple of chapters or something?” Jeremiah said. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“My men will backward engineer your power converter and add it to our other diggers,” Leader said.

Jeremiah turned pale.

“What other diggers?” he said.

“You didn’t think there was just one digger, did you?” Leader said, a grin spreading across his features.

“You have more?” Graham said. “How many more?”

“Oh, quite enough to do what we need,” Leader said.

“What are you going to do?” Graham said.

“Sometimes in order for some to rise, others must fall,” Leader said.

“You’re insane,” Graham said. “The world won’t sit back and let you do this. They will attack you.”

“They won’t be so quick to attack when they learn we have drills beneath their cities, ready to sink them all unless they meet our demands,” Leader said.

“The world has moved on,” Jeremiah said. “It’s no longer the world you remember. You and your people will die.”

“Perhaps,” Leader said. “But we will die fighting.”

He turned to the guards.

“Take them away,” he said.

The ground
rushed up and high-fived Graham on the cheek with a meaty slap. He got to his feet with a spryness capable only from a man powered by adrenaline. Graham threw himself at the cell door. He waved his arms through the bars and grasped for the guards but they had already moved away.

Jeremiah sat on the bottom bunk of one of two sets of bunkbeds. A pile of torn rags lay on the other. Dark shrouds were cast over the room by a single light in a sconce on the wall.

“This is great,” Graham said. “This is just perfect. Now we’re in a
prison
in a
hole
in the
ground
!”

“I claim the bottom bunk,” Jeremiah said.

“It’s all right for you,” Graham said.

“What do you mean it’s all right for me?” Jeremiah said.

“You’ll be underground soon anyway,” Graham said. “You might as well get comfortable.”

“You’re all heart,” Jeremiah said.

He lay down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Graham sighed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just… being in here. Locked away. I’m sure you’ll stay alive for ages yet. Old grouches always do.”

“Is that your idea of an apology?” Jeremiah said.

“Why didn’t you come up with something better when I winked at you?” Graham said.

“How was I supposed to know what that meant?” Jeremiah said.

“Everyone knows what a wink means!” Graham said.

“I thought you were coming onto me,” Jeremiah said.

“Do you think that’s likely?” Graham said.

Jeremiah shrugged.

“I don’t know what your type is,” he said.

Jeremiah looked into space. His lips trembled, like he wanted to say something. Then he sniffed, and before Graham knew it, the cantankerous old man was crying. He didn’t scream or shout. The tears just spilled down his cheeks.

“Hey,” Graham said, feeling awkward. “It’s okay.”

He placed his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Everything will be all right.”

Jeremiah shrugged Graham’s hand off. He wiped a hand over his face and sneered at Graham.

“This is your fault,” he said.

“What is?” Graham said.

“Us, being down here,” Jeremiah said.

“How did you figure that?” Graham said.

“If it wasn’t for you I’d still be tucked up in my bed, warm and cozy,” Jeremiah said.

“If you hadn’t let your house fall into disrepair we wouldn’t have sunk!” Graham said.

“Sinkholes can form anywhere, anytime,” Jeremiah said. “You know that.”

“Then it’s God’s fault,” Graham said.

Jeremiah scowled, the aged lines forming deep grooves in his face. Then they bent upwards, into a grin. Jeremiah laughed, a hoarse croak, like he was dying from lung disease. He thumbed the tears out of his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I suppose He is to blame for everything,” Jeremiah said. “If you believe such things. He’s the reason I’m down here on me and my wife’s anniversary.”

“Your wife?” Graham said. “But she’s gone.”

“Only physically,” Jeremiah said. “That’s something you’ll never understand until you love someone more than yourself. They never die, not really.”

“I’m sorry,” Graham said. “I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Jeremiah said. “How could you? To have someone in your heart and hold them there, forever. That’s why when the doctor said there were things they could do to help her, to relieve some of the pain, certain procedures, certain medicines, and she said she didn’t want any of it, you do your damnedest to make sure she gets what she wants. Even when you can’t sleep at night because she’s tossing and turning and saying horrible, dark things you never thought she knew, you say nothing, letting it wash over you because you love her. ‘If it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go,’ she’d always say.

“You know, there is some truth to the rumor. About me killing and burying her. I didn’t kill her, but I did bury her. Down at the bottom of the garden, beneath the eucalyptus tree.

“That’s where she wanted to be buried. The tree would be her headstone. She didn’t want it carved or damaged. She wanted no sad funeral, none of her friends or family to attend. She didn’t want to be a bother to our son, who lives far away. Those were her wishes. What can you do when the person who you most love in the whole world makes those demands of you?”

Graham nodded, for the first time really seeing the man behind Jeremiah’s surly demeanor.

“But no one believed your story,” he said.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Jeremiah said. “They might have tried to dig her up. No one would have listened. They’d made up their minds I was guilty before they spoke to me. I was just a lonely, angry old man living out in the sticks. They searched my house, every inch of it, but they didn’t find anything.