Trapped (3 page)

The mini-van children are crying, the large woman’s children are wailing, and the twins have their faces buried in my side, the small fists clutching the cloth of my skirt.

And the boy...he’s just standin
g to the side, watching it all.

“Enough!” a voice yells, but gets drowned out. And then—
“ENOUGH!”
The tunnel grows quiet again. Quiet enough for us to hear the steady buzz of electricity overhead.

“Governor Rosings has something to say,” says the town car driver, his stern voice booming over our group.

“Thank you, Bernard.” The man in the suit unbuttons his jacket, sitting back against the edge of the railing. “We can’t afford to dissolve into tears or fits of anger. We were granted the gift of life in this tunnel, and we’re going to make sure we get out of it alive. Now, I haven’t been able to find any cell-phone reception down here, but the radio in our car is working, and local stations are already broadcasting about the cave-in. And,” he takes a moment, looking at each of us in turn, “they believe in the possibility of survivors. Standard protocol in any natural disaster such as this is to search for survivors first, so they’ll be using every tool they have to find us. And they will.”

He pauses, and my mom and a few others seem to relax a little. I give the girls an encouraging squeeze.

“In the meantime, we’re going to maintain order in this tunnel,” he continues. “I think it would be a good idea to start with introductions. Some of you may have recognized my name – I’m Governor
Rosings, from Utah. This man here is my driver, and faithful friend, Bernard. We’re of the black town car toward the eastern entrance.”

The man in the cap gives our group a short nod, and the Governor turns to look at the man standing beside him.

“I’m Kevin,” says one of the guys in hiking boots, “and this here is my brother Jason. We came here on vacation, and we’re going to...we
were
going to hike the Great Divide. We have that brown car with the shattered windshield, with all the luggage strapped to the top.”

Everyone’s eyes shift, and I’m next. I look down, though, and let my mom handle the introductions. “I’m Mary, and these are my daughters Emily, Suzanne, and Michelle,” she says, pointing. “We
had
to go to Denver today, and we were finally on our way home. I drive the car furthest toward the west entrance.”

I keep my face a steady blank as I stare at the ground, squeezing my sisters again.

“I’m Mrs. Amelia Potts,” says the large lady, with an emphasis on the
Mrs.
“These are my two precious babies, Alexander and Alexa – five and three years old. We were...we were on our way home from Alexander’s admittance party to a prestigious private school in Denver. We have the green Expedition over there.”

We turn next to the small younger woman in broken glasses. She looks up only long enough to establish that it’s her turn. “My name is Hannah Avery,” she says quietly, flicking her eyes up again. “I-I work in a library a little west of the tunnel and was headed b-back there. I drive the g-green sedan toward the western entrance.”

The old man is next in the circle. He spits. “Name’s Simon Tara. Drivin’ that red pick- up.”

Next up is the boy I saved, hovering toward the outside of our circle. “I’m Chris,” he says, his voice devoid of any pain he might be feeling in his legs. “I was on my way to Grand Junction. My car got...destroyed...somehow in the cave-in on the eastern side.” I meet his eyes and feel my cheeks flush. His blue eyes seem almost to be laughing, a small smile playing on his lips.

Destroyed somehow?
My pulse picks up just the tiniest amount. Is he
teasing
me?

“I’m Miguel Rodriguez,” says the dad from the family of five, and I shift my eyes quickly. The older man has
jet black hair, one arm around his wife, the other stretching to encompass his three small children. They’re all younger than the twins, but their matching brown eyes show a sense of maturity and patience. “This is my wife Angela, and our three
niños
, Javier, Teresa, and Rosa. We have the mini-van back there.”

The Governor smiles at the family, then turns at last to the workmen. I can’t read his
expression as he nods at one of them – the boss, it seems. “I’m Phil, and this is Doug, Terry, Bob, and Henry,” he says, pointing first to a man I recognized from the driver’s seat of the work truck, and then to the three in gray coveralls. Terry and Bob have their hands shoved deep into their coverall pockets, hanging back a bit from the crowd. Henry, the third man in coveralls, has a long ponytail pulled tight to the back of his head.

Phil, in khakis and
a polo, sweeps his hand around the three men in coveralls and the other guy in khakis. “We all work for a plumbing business, Pete’s Plumbing. We were driving to a job a little further west when the cave-in happened.”

I stare at the five of them, pulling my eyes away only when the Governor starts speaking again. “Now, we have survived a terrible ordeal,” he says, nodding along with others in the circle. “Although the next few days may be difficult, we will get through them. For now, I think, we should all try to rest through the night. It shouldn’t be long until we’re discovered by search teams, but in the mean time, we’ll maintain order here.”

He straightens his suit jacket and turns to walk back to his car, Bernard following closely behind him. The rest of the group quickly disperses – Simon Tara trudges off, mumbling under his breath, and the Rodriguez’s follow his path to their van. My mom immediately starts whispering with Mrs. Amelia Potts, while Hannah Avery listens closely to every word of their fear. Kevin and Jason turn and walk back to their car, deciding to try to roll it away from where it crashed into Hannah’s to give them a little space. Chris, after one last secret smile, goes back to the wreck of his car – the small corner of the tunnel he’ll have to call home for the time being. And the five workmen all start a hand-on-shoulder kind of talking, laughing as they load into the tall cargo space in the back of the plumbing truck.

And I...I can’t move, frozen as my mind spins around a single image.

I
saw
those three men in gray coveralls on the side of the road before the cave-in. We passed them well before the plumbing truck had been there. The three men were bent down on the sidewalk, safely on the other side of the railing, doing something. There’s no way they could have been riding with the other two when the tunnel collapsed.

My mind struggles against what this image might mean. Why were those three men there, on the side of the tunnel before the cave-in? What could they have been doing?
And perhaps most concerning of all... why would they
lie
?

Chapter 2 – Speed, Acceleration, and Abrupt Stops

“You can do this, Emily,” I say quietly, scratching out the equation on a salvaged piece of notebook paper. I hadn’t brought much with me for the math competition – my friend
Becca’s mom had picked us up just after lunch, and we’d shoved our backpacks in our lockers before racing out of school. Math competitions can last all afternoon if your team keeps advancing, and Becca had regretted not bringing any homework to keep her occupied in between rounds. But I hadn’t minded just sitting there empty-handed. I’d been too anxious for the finals to even contemplate homework.

Now I’m regretting my lack of resources. “Okay, so if the speed limit of the tunnel is 55 miles per hour...” Focused on keeping my handwriting steady, I carefully draw a short stretch of road on the scrap of paper. I use a small box to represent the plumbing truck’s position near the curve in the tunnel, then think of a simple speed-distance equation to estimate how far away it must be from our small box of a car.

“Mom was definitely going at least 60, though. So 60 miles per hour, that means 60 miles per 60 minutes, so that’s one mile per minute. After we passed those guys on the side of the road, we switched lanes, probably driving about five or six more seconds before the cave-in. One-tenth of a minute, so one-tenth of a mile...”

How long is a mile?
‘
5280 feet’ pops into my head, and I divide it by ten. “528 feet. A good deal less than 200 yards. So about the length of one-and-a-half football fields.” I raise my eyes to look out the passenger side window, gazing back down the tunnel. Despite how late in the day it must be, the tunnel lights are relentlessly bright, and most of us are unable to fall asleep. My mom is still deep in conversation with Mrs. Potts, gesturing wildly to accent her hushed tones. Mrs. Potts seems to agree with everything, only more vehemently, unconcerned about keeping her voice down. They’re busy predicting how long it will be until we all die down here while Hannah Avery stands to the side, her small face growing paler with each word.

The twins, thankfully, have fallen asleep in the backseat. I don’t know how Mrs. Potts’s children are reacting to their anxious conversation.

I look past the group, further down the curve of the tunnel. I can just see the plumbing truck, tucked safely against the railing, before the rest of the tunnel dips out of sight. Yes, that could definitely be a football field and a half away.

This equation confirms at least one thing: the plumbing truck stopped where I’d seen the three men in coveralls before the collapse. They’d been in nearly that precise spot, just on the other side of the railing.

So the next question is – how far back did we pass the plumbing truck? Could it have been slowing down? Could it have planned to meet those three men on the side of the road, to stop to pick them up on the way to their job west of the tunnel? How could I calculate its acceleration, or deceleration? Are there skid marks behind it? Is there any way to know what that plumbing truck had been doing just before the cave-in?

I scribble uselessly for a few more minutes and then heave a long sigh, letting the air out in a loud rush since my mom is so far away. I know I’m stumped. I could calculate the plumbers’ deceleration if I had the proper data, but there’s just none to work with. I can only work with what I saw, what I remember from just before the cave-in, and I don’t remember much. But even if I had all the facts, if I could work out the equation...it doesn’t
add up to the bigger picture.

Phil had said that the five of them were on their way to a job, that they were all in the truck
driving
when the cave-in happened. His words had indicated that three of the five could not have been doing anything else when the tunnel collapsed. I must have...been wrong?

No. I know what I saw. Those three men in gray coveralls had been bent down on the sidewalk in the tunnel, about 150 yards away. The other two had been driving the truck, and they’d arrived at that same spot no more than a few seconds before the tunnel caved in.

Maybe they’d been fortunate enough to have perfect timing– to have arrived to pick up the other three just when either side of the tunnel collapsed around them.

But if that’s the case, why lie and say they’d
all
been driving?
And if they were lying, if they’re hiding something...what would that mean?
I push the thought aside. If Phil didn’t give us a play-by-play of how he stopped to pick up his co-workers, that doesn’t mean he was necessarily lying. My mom didn’t give much explanation of what we were doing before the cave-in, either. Of course, that was partially because she didn’t like what we’d been doing.

I don’t see why you had to go to a competition so far away, Emily
. Her words from earlier echo in my head. She’d reiterated the sentiment multiple times to Mrs. Potts already this evening, and with all the windows rolled down in our gray sedan I can’t help but overhear her.

Most of our competitions are closer to home in Fresco, and my mom would usually come by for the final round and give me a ride home. Since I’m just
a few short weeks away from my sixteenth birthday – and my own driver’s license – she considered the added driving for Math League competitions digestible, if not palatable. And although my mom would have preferred I choose just about any other extracurricular, she supported the opportunity for college scholarships.

The Denver Regional Math League competition was my biggest chance yet, and when the Fresco High team landed a spot in the finals, my mom decided to make the trip. I was thrilled. The other parents had been
there for a couple of hours, and my mom knew I could easily get a ride back to Fresco. But she had come, leaving work early to pick up the twins along the way. I’d gotten her text just before we’d walked into the auditorium for the final round.
Good luck, Emily. Cheering for you
.

I’d felt strong and encouraged for a moment, before the hard rush of nerves had obliterated any other feelings. When the announcer called the Fresco High team into the auditorium, the bright, steady lights had nearly overwhelmed me. My eyes had rapidly scanned the faces in the crowd, but I couldn’t find my mom.

“Take a deep breath, Emily,” Tim had whispered, giving my shoulders a long squeeze before leading the five of us onto the stage. As our team captain, Tim was a seasoned veteran at calming nerves – but Becca would swear it was much more than platonic nerve-calming. I hadn’t really thought about Tim like that. Aside from not being allowed to date – the threat of having to drive me anywhere extra was enough for my mom to clamp down on that rule – I had my sisters to look after. My mom spent a lot of time working, making the girls my responsibility. And I loved it, usually. But my days outside of school and Math League were generally full to the brim – fixing dinner, helping the girls with homework, and getting them ready in the morning for school and ready at night for bed.

So, dating hadn’t really been an option, even if I’d wanted it to be.

I was grateful for Tim’s friendship and guidance, but only as our team captain. He was a math whiz, and since I’d joined the Fresco High team I’d certainly learned a lot from him and the others. We all had different strengths. Tim’s strength was calculus, and he spent plenty of time teaching the younger ones on our time. Becca was excellent with anything geometry related, while our two other team members, Will and Heather, excelled at algebra and finite math. But my strength was different – mine was manipulating raw numbers. And I was fantastic at it.

I could do anything – take squares and roots of large numbers, find patterns
in complex arithmetic, develop solutions. Long-division, dense multiplication, prime number sequencing – I could handle any basic computations with integers, no matter how large. So when the question came up for the bonus round – one dealing with pure number crunching – I was the natural choice.

Except...except I shouldn’t have been. While I felt safe enough behind the table discussing problems with my team, the bonus round requires students to stand alone, at a single podium, to tackle a question. I’m shy, risk-averse, and nerve-ridden, and putting me alone on the podium was not a good idea.

And when I told my teammates this, they only shook their heads.
You have to do this, Emily,
they’d said.
For us. For all of us. It has to be you.

“Miss?”

I look up, startled to see Bernard, the Governor’s driver, standing just outside my rolled- down window.

“Oh.” It’s too late for me to hide my drawing, but my hands automatically rush to shove it down between the seats. If Bernard hadn’t noticed the paper before, he definitely does now, his forehead crinkling slightly as he studies me.

“Just passing the time,” I mumble, looking down. My hands flutter over my hair, tucking loose strands tightly into my braid.

Bernard shifts his feet for a moment, taking a breath as if he’s going to ask me about it. He doesn’t, though, instead pulling a bottle of water out of a bag under his arm.

“Here. Governor Rosings always keeps a case of water bottles in the car with him, for speaking engagements, you know. He wanted to make sure each family got a bottle.”

I take the plastic bottle from him, still not meeting his eyes. “That’s very kind.”

He nods and walks off, and I shove my scrap of paper more firmly into the crack beside my seat.

This large bottle of water is quite the gift. We had been fortunate enough to have a couple of half-filled bottles in the car, along with some snacks for the twins, but our supply wasn’t going to last very long. My mom had already downed one of the bottles, and I had had the girls drink some of the others. This bottle from the Governor will have to last us a while, I know. Taking a small, careful sip, I screw the lid back on, looking for a place to keep it out of sight. I open the glove compartment in front of me and slide the large bottle in, closing the compartment with a soft click.

I heave a loud sigh as I slouch back in my seat, adjusting my black pencil skirt to get comfortable for the long night ahead. The lights in the tunnel are constant and bright, but my body is exhausted, hinting at what time it must be outside of this tunnel. I never wear a watch, and it doesn’t seem like many others down here thought to wear one, either. People are checking cell phones, car clocks, even laptops to track the slow progression of time.

I close my eyes, but the lights are too bright for sleep to come – and the voices too loud. My mom and Mrs. Potts are still going strong, with Hannah Avery chiming in every so often. They’ve moved on from the inevitable collapse of the whole mountain to the instability of the ceiling overhead, not noticing their exposure as they stand out in the middle of the roadway. They’re right to worry – although most of the ceiling is still in tact, there are gaping holes ranging from baseball to hula hoop size, with small pebbles and dust still falling down. After maybe another hour of near-hysterics, my mom returns to the car, climbing past me to rest in the driver’s seat. She’s not talking to me. Instead, she alternately checks her cell phone for service
and checks the radio for new reports. Without cell phone coverage, the radio is our only source of information from the outside – with the cars on battery-only mode, since the Governor decreed that we should probably not let the cars run in the closed-off space. The speakers blast out a few strains from a new pop song, but I hurriedly turn the volume down low. My mom turns the volume back up a few notches, leaning in as she rotates between stations.

“
Our hearts go out to the victims of the Eisenhower Tunnel cave-in
,” one announcer says between songs. “
Volunteers, fire fighters, and the police are eagerly searching for any survivors
.”

“
Geologists are saying a massive landslide along the Continental Divide caused the tunnel to completely cave-in. Rescue workers are hopeful that small air pockets between steel support beams might be sheltering survivors, but the chances seem slim
.”

“
Estimates of the death toll from the Eisenhower Tunnel cave-in are running remarkably high. More than a hundred cars were estimated to be traveling through the tunnel when it completely collapsed, with a number of political candidates from the Denver Convention presumed dead
.”

My mom spends a long time flipping through different stations, but finally she turns off the car, slamming her keys onto the floorboard. She checks her cell phone coverage again,
then tosses the phone after her keys. I cringe at her actions, glancing back again at the twins. Fortunately, they’re sleeping through all of it. They’re sprawled out across the backseat, using jackets as blankets, sleeping as peacefully as I could hope.

My mom soon follows suit, her gentle breathing matching the rhythm of the twins’. I have a harder time,
though, as thoughts about who else got trapped in this horrible tunnel keep me awake. The radio said more than a hundred cars were in the tunnel, and a large part of me is worried about those I know could have been in here. Did my teammates from the math competition make it out alright? Are any of them stuck, like I am, in a thin pocket of air surrounded my mountain? If they’re out...are they worried right now about me as well?

I can’t help but wonder if the answer is no. After how bad I’d let everyone down earlier... well, I would
n’t be surprised if they said “good riddance.”