The series of rolls were an uncountable sequence of impacts and unimaginable jolts in which they were pelted by debris from the road, the forest floor, and the gravelly shoulder, not to mention pieces of windshield, mudguards, and whatever other items were loose in the Jeep, Kenia praying that each roll would be the last.
The Jeep finally stopped with a jolt that stunned them all. Kenia struggled through a haze of confusion and pain, desperate to reorient herself. She realized she was staring out at the forest floor though a shattered windshield before she understood that she was hanging upside-down, held in her seat by her seatbelt. She found it impossible to speak, but she was aware of other voices. One was Austin, but he had to keep repeating himself before she understood what he was saying.
“Is everyone OK?”
Blood and glass were glistening in the crown of his head, the bleeding profuse. The air was thick with the smell of gasoline, pine trees, burnt rubber, and freshly churned earth.
“Kenia. Kenia, are you all right?”
It was Stan, who had unbuckled himself, negotiating an awkward somersault and lowering his feet to the ground. He crouched on the roll bar, which had gouged itself into the leafy forest floor, plowing up ferns and saplings.
“I think so,” was all Kenia could croak out.
Shane was cursing from where he hung, suspended by his own belts—taller and longer than Stan, he had a more difficult time freeing himself. Hailey was holding her head, blood dripping from cuts on her hairline, above her lip, and a gash splitting her left eyebrow into two.
“Hailey, you look bad,” Shane said.
“I feel bad.”
Stan picked up one of their phones, which had landed on the ground under Kenia’s head.
“Shane, what is your security key?”
“3142.”
“Call 911,” Austin said, working his own buckle free and looking over his shoulder at the feet of the approaching men unloading themselves from the SUV. Stan’s thumb danced across the screen but he cursed when he realized there was no reception. Austin climbed out of the Jeep. He gasped and let out a grunt of pain as the men outside seized him, threw him lengthwise along the Jeep, and started to kick and stomp him.
“Austin!” Hailey cried out. But they were powerless; stunned, injured, and trapped as they were. Stan hurried to unbuckle each of them but even when he had, it was too late: Austin was motionless in a pool of his own blood.
“Get out,” a voice said.
What choice did they have? Kenia went first, followed by Stan and Shane, who helped Hailey. All four of them stood with their backs against the wrecked Jeep, prisoners before a firing squad. Kenia recognized the men by their black knit shirts as the bodyguards from the Bridgewater’s.
“Radio in that we got them,” said a man with his hair shaved short, as if he were still in the military.
The reply came back in one of their earpieces, the recipient sharing the orders, “Alpha Hotel says to take them to the icehouse entrance and put them in a detention cell.”
“Right. Big one in the first truck, the other four in the second.”
The bodyguards, mostly indistinguishable from one another in build and brute strength, picked up the lot of them and carried them to the waiting SUVs. The first SUV’s fender was dented from where it had collided with Austin’s Jeep. They opened the tailgate, spread out a blue tarp to catch his blood, and threw the eldest Pennel down over it. Kenia and the younger Pennels could offer little meaningful resistance as the men rammed them into the back of the second SUV, slamming the door behind them.
Hailey’s pupils were dilated asymmetrically.
“Don’t fall asleep,” Kenia told her.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” one of the men said, climbing into the back seat.
“She has a concussion,” Kenia said.
The man turned, his head rotating on a small stump of a neck over his beefy shoulders. “So will you, in a second.”
The bodyguards drove them back up the hill they had come down, taking the curves at reckless speeds that made Austin seem like a Sunday driver. Kenia felt no surprise when they turned right back into the Bridgewater driveway. This time they cut left instead of right, moving in convoy away from the mansion and partygoers. The branch of dirt road terminated in a clearing that was thickly wooded on all sides, but still had a tall chain-link fence and a perimeter where the forest growth had been cleared. An old brick building built partly into the hill waited. It looked to be colonial by the weathering of the bricks and the rusty iron door. But the debilitated exterior was only a façade. The inside had a floor of freshly poured and polished concrete. Security cameras hidden in orbs of darkened tempered glass tracked them from the corners. The space inside the structure was enormous, tunneled deep into the hill. At the far end, a massive blast door stood open. Its profile was at least six feet thick and looked to be made entirely of tempered steel. The bolts and tumblers of the locking mechanism were as wide across as bowling balls. Beyond the door was another anteroom where one of the bodyguards punched a code into a keypad and a second, hydraulic door hissed open.
More surprises were in store for them. On the other side was a reception area, expansive as an airport departure hall, complete with desks and counters with charging stations in a waiting lounge. Large bronze letters bolted to the walls read: “Welcome to Arc Haven Luxury Living.” As the bodyguards clicked on the lights—which gave a soft, calming blue-pink glow—a number of large wall screens also came up displaying images of scenic vistas, the horizon distant, creating a convincing illusion that they were not underground.
The lounge was not for them. Instead the bodyguards marched them through a series of doors and hallways into a section designed as a jail. Rows of detention cells greeted them, as well as a quarantine enclosed in thick glass, and a waiting area where each chair had a D-ring set in the floor for fastening body shackles. The place smelled of fresh paint and stale air. After bringing them through a gate and into a hallway of cells, their captors herded them through the door, slammed it after them and the gate after that, leaving them alone in a dim, sleepy light.
While they all were bewildered and battered, Austin was their highest priority. He was breathing but still unconscious. They picked the largest pieces of glass out of his scalp, his brothers tearing off the sleeves of their shirts to use as bandages. Hailey was next. Kenia sat her against the wall and told her to try to stay alert, despite her drowsiness.
“Just stay with us, all right?” she said.
This left her, Shane, and Stan to huddle in the center of the room and try to understand what was happening or where they were.
“What is this place?” Kenia said.
“Beats me,” Shane said. “It’s like they are preparing for the apocalypse.”
“In a way, they are. It’s a backup bunker living for the one percent. It’s all the rage among hedge fund managers, dot com billionaires, and the like who feel like the US is headed for a complete disintegration. It’s like buying up real estate in New Zealand; a backup plan for when things fall apart,” Stan said. “I read about it in the New Yorker.”
“So all those investment bankers who made dough with deregulation cash out and get out,” Kenia said.
“That’s about right.”
“Bridgewater has done a good job keeping this secret,” Shane said.
“Discretion is part of the draw. But we wouldn’t know about it anyway. We’re not exactly the folks he would advertise to.”
“I don’t imagine we are,” Kenia said.
It was undeniable that their prison was secret and that they were not escaping. Their captors did not bother to turn on the heat either, so they were all forced to huddle for warmth in the corner. What felt like hours passed, with nothing happening except for the sound of footsteps outside the locked gate as their sentries rotated through shifts.
Kenia tried to think through all that had transpired. Clearly they had done something to shake up Bridgewater—beyond spoiling his summer lawn party—otherwise he would not have risked the crimes of assault and kidnapping. He had other tools to ruin them, as he had demonstrated with the FBI raid. This had to do with the Selah Station Coal Plant and the 1953 disaster. It was a cover up, but she felt that they were far from proving it. Everything they had was still circumstantial.
She said as much aloud, looking back and forth from Shane to Stan.
“Maybe we got too close for comfort,” Shane said.
“I think that is a foregone conclusion,” Kenia said.
Stan was quiet, tending carefully to his sister who rested her head on his shoulder. “I don’t like that they have shown their faces.”
“Why not?” Shane asked.
“Means they are not worried about being identified. Meaning we might not be around to identify them.”
“Don’t scare me,” Shane said.
The lock in the gate to the outer hallway banged. The gate opened without a sound, the hinges still new and well oiled. A row of bodyguards entered in a line, Harold Bridgewater in the center of them, walking with all the self-assured panache of a rock star taking the stage. He stopped before the door to the cell, took a moment to stare at the lot of them, then ordered, “Open it.”
One of the bodyguards snapped the lock up and the door slid aside on rollers. The bodyguards entered, lining up to flank Bridgewater on either side, and he took his place in the center of them, crouching down and scanning his prisoners over, his head slightly cocked, his lip curling, and his nose wrinkled as if he were taking in a scent of meat that might have been rotting in a sewer. Then, as if suddenly aware that they were staring back at him, he clasped his hands and rubbed his palms together.
“So, here we are,” he said.
The men fanned out to his sides then remained still and impervious. Even more waited outside. Kenia jumped as one of the men nearest to her slipped a telescoped baton from a holder on his belt and snapped it out, extending it to its full length.
“Not as much to say now, I see,” Harold Bridgewater said. “Not that it matters. You all are a waste-disposal problem at this point. It didn’t have to be this way, but you forced my hand, so to speak. Whatever possessed you to go snooping around the plant? Couldn’t leave history alone?” He turned to Kenia, pointing a manicured finger her way. “Was it you? Did you want to bring back some interracial utopia you thought existed there?”
Kenia didn’t owe him an answer and knew it was better if she said nothing at all. His words “waste disposal” echoed in her head. He did not wait for a reply from her.
“Let me tell you something; even Selah Station was built on betrayal, a lie. Reginald and Leonard loved the same woman, Selah Branch, that legendary negress,” he said, drawing out the syllables of “le-gen-da-ry” with a roll of his eyes towards the ceiling. “It was in her interest to lead them both on and, if you ask me, I’m certain she did. It’s what women do.” He chuckled to himself and looked to his men and their nods of consent before continuing. “But Reginald couldn’t have her. When he realized this, he played along with Reconstruction. But all the time, he was sowing the seeds of malice and revenge in his own children and grandchildren, down to my grandfather, Crowley Bridgewater.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t care less about revenge or the other Bridgewaters, even if my grandfather Crowley had not killed them off in the blast. But you see, secrets beget secrets, and my father Sterling, and in turn, I, was left quite a fortune because of Grandpa Crowley’s machinations. And we can’t have you bringing that to light. Some things are better left . . . in the past.” He looked around, gesturing at the space around them. “And I clearly have other things to attend to, things concerning the future.”
“You are a dick,” Shane said.
Bridgewater chuckled. “Maybe, but tomorrow I’ll be alive, and you won’t be.”
“You’ll still be a dick.”
One of the bodyguards with a baton raised it, but Bridgewater lifted his hand to restrain him.
“Not yet,” he said. He inched closer to Hailey. Kenia could smell his cologne, hair gel, cigars, and a faint scent of body odor. “You showed some real feistiness out there,” he said to Hailey. “Too bad we met under these circumstances.” He reached out to touch her chin, but Austin let out a cough and interrupted
“Don’t you touch her.” Austin was still prone on the tarp they had carried him in on, his blood congealed in sticky pools.
“Oh, I see our American hero has awoken,” Bridgewater said, his slacks straightening, the creases making a neat, tailored break just at the calf and above his oxblood loafers as he stood. “You know, I think you imagine yourself a patriot. All of you likely do, I’m willing to bet. But let me tell you something. We, the people never included all the people. From the beginning, it was we-and-not-them. Back then, the not-them were blacks, the browns, the yellows, women, natives, the poor, whatever. We’ve seen that we expand over time, but things that expand also can contract. It’s natural. And we’re in a contraction right now, if you have not noticed. It’s not a matter of republican or democrat, red state or blue state, or even urban or rural. It’s a matter of those who are willing to go with that contraction, to draw a line and say ‘this is we now,’ and those who think we can keep the doors opened and continue to add more and more. But the truth is, there isn’t enough to go around to keep adding to the we. Some of you just don’t get that. But you’ll be culled. Society will see to that. It won’t be pretty, but that’s life.”
He stopped himself, as if just remembering something. “What am I talking about, you all won’t even make it until then. You have a date with a deep freezer.”
“You are going to freeze us to death?” Stan asked.
“It’s slow but painless. I hear it’s peaceful even, like falling asleep. Makes for better clean up when we drop you into the wood chipper and fire your remains out into the river. Keeps the bodily fluids from gumming up the gears. But don’t worry, we’ll rinse it out with bleach first. Don’t want any DNA evidence remaining. Wouldn’t want to have to buy off any more federal agents than I already have. Enough of my money already goes to the government in taxes.”
The bodyguards let out a chorus of laughter that echoed the sycophants that had been seated at the table with Bridgewater at his party above ground. He waved his men out after him, but they left the door open. A fresh cadre of men swept in, four for each of them. These men wore aprons, rubber gloves, hairnets, and surgical masks, like butchers or autopsy examiners. These men bound Kenia and the Pennels with zip-ties, then lifted them to their shoulders and carried them out of the detention center, back through reception, and to a set of elevators where they waited as the doors slid open. These elevators were also new, the off-gasses from the carpeting, epoxy, and fiber paneling still strong. Kenia’s sense of claustrophobia grew, not as much from the sense of being in a small space—if anything the elevators and the halls they opened up to were spacious—but rather from the growing awareness of how deep they were underground and moving deeper.
Their captors brought them to a dining hall modeled after a rustic mountain cabin, complete with roughhewn logs set into the walls and pine timbers stretching across the ceiling as rafters. The LCD display screens placed where windows would have been were blank. Hundreds of empty chairs waited in the dim light at long tables. The men did not stop, but instead continued through a swinging door, into a modern kitchen of stainless steel countertops. They came to a large meat-locker door with a spring-action lever handle. The seals hissed as they opened. A blast of frigid air wafted out, Kenia suddenly able to see clouds of her breath. The men carrying her dropped her to the floor inside, where she landed, the air knocked out of her chest. They deposited the rest of the Pennels next to her then shut the door behind them, the seals and insulation squeezing shut as the locks clamped into place.
All five of them lay still, the clouds of their breath lit by the light coming in from the double-paned window set high in the refrigerator door.
“We are so fucked,” Shane said.
“Come on, let’s move closer together to retain heat,” Stan said, trying to wiggle, despite his limbs being zip-tied.
“What does it matter at this point?” Shane said.
“We can’t give up. Come on Hailey, get closer to me.” Stan nudged Hailey. “Hailey. Hailey, you awake?”
“She passed out,” Austin said, from the other side of her, his voice cracking.
“Let us out of here!” Shane screamed.
“God damn it, Shane, as if my head didn’t hurt bad enough,” Austin said.
“Someone has got to hear us.”
“And do what? Have pity on us, turn on Bridgewater, and let us out?” Austin said.
No one said anything for a long while. Kenia kept her thoughts to herself, reluctant to comment on the pain building behind her eyes until she was certain what was taking place.
“Uh, guys, I think we have another problem,” she said, her body already beginning to shiver.
“What is that?” Stan asked, his teeth chattering.
“I think I’m about to jump.”
“What?” Shane turned himself using his elbows to look in her direction.
“It’s the pain behind my eyes. I can feel it coming. I recognize it now.”
“Well, then at least one of us is getting out of here,” Shane said, despondent.
“No, no, I’m not leaving you. Maybe you can come with me.”
“Say again?”
“All of us, maybe if were all close enough, if we all hold hands or something.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Austin said, struggling to sit up. “Kenia, how long do we have.”
“Not long.”
They each grunted, shuffled, and strained, leaning against one another to sit upright, and rolling Hailey’s unconscious form onto their laps. Already, Kenia could see Hailey’s lips had turned blue.
“Come on, Hailey, hang in there,” Shane said.
“I hope this works,” Stan said.
“It has to work. God, please make it work,” Kenia said.
“Please, please, please . . .” Shane droned on, rocking forward, his hands clasped with Austin on one side, Shane on the other, breath surrounding them in clouds.
Kenia put all her strength of will towards bringing the Pennels along with her. She would make it work. Her hands were out of her control now, as were her chattering teeth and the rest of her trembling body. Each inward breath was painful, the cold stinging her lungs. She pressed her head against Hailey’s as Stan put his on Kenia’s shoulder. The pain behind her eyes was excruciating.
Then it was gone. So was the cold. Warm, moist air closed in around her, along with the sound of crickets, tree frogs, leaves crunching beneath her, and all the scents of the nighttime forest. The sudden change of temperature and air made Kenia cough. She swallowed and opened her eyes to the darkness of night. But she already knew from the emptiness of her hands that she was alone.