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An hour in the darkness proved more than enough for Wiri. He used the torch to isolate the hairline cracks which threatened the integrity of the concrete tank before filling them with the quick drying cement. The sun cast a fortifying circle of yellow on the floor beneath the manhole, the rungs of the ladder stretching long shadows through it as though they battled for dominance. The hooves vibrated through the earth and bounced off the concrete walls with a dull thud as Leilah and Seline left for home.
“You okay?” Vaughan’s voice boomed through the structure, though he hadn’t shouted.
“Yeah.” The lie made Wiri clench his teeth behind the mask and force himself to focus on the task. “Can you pull the safety rope tighter? I keep tripping over it.”
Vaughan grunted, and the coil slithered away until it hung from Wiri’s waist and formed an arc towards the ceiling like a sagging washing line. Wiri sighed as he felt the tug. He wished he could go with it. But the sooner he filled each of the cracks Vaughan had marked, the sooner he could climb the ladder and escape to bask in the sun’s warmth. Grit ground beneath his boot soles as he walked around the wide space. Each step threw up the scent of mustiness and the choking concrete dust. The mask covered his nose and mouth to prevent it polluting his lungs, but it didn’t stop his nostrils becoming clogged with the smell of the awful darkness.
“You still okay?” Vaughan’s voice boomed again and Wiri sighed. He appreciated his employer’s care for his well-being, but wished he’d stop keep calling to him. The sound reverberated again around the concrete walls until fading into the packed earth beyond them.
“Yeah,” he replied, struggling to keep the annoyance from his voice.
He’d started at the furthest point from the manhole, knowing the longer the task took him, the harder he’d find it to remain inside the tank. He worked in a clockwise direction, and each step closer to the circle of daylight infused him with a mixture of hope and desperation.
“Need a break yet?” Vaughan asked. “You can come up for a breather if you want. Leilah texted. She has lunch for us back at the house.”
Wiri shook his head. He lifted the mask away from his mouth and damp air rushed between his lips like an invasion of fungus and bacteria, which made him choke. “No, thanks,” he called back, hearing the stress in his voice. “I brought my own. And if I come out, I ain’t getting back in again.”
“Okay.” Vaughan didn’t challenge him, and Wiri sensed he understood the dilemma.
He squeezed cement from the tube, balancing the grey mixture on the point of the trowel before pushing it inside another crack marked by Vaughan’s slanted hand. He’d denoted the start and end of the crevice with arrows in white spray paint. The cement dried within minutes, forcing Wiri to work fast. He pushed another blob inside the gap, leaning the elbow of his other arm against the wall to take the weight of the torch. A curse escaped his lips as the narrow beam picked out a bead of cement tumbling to the floor. Wiri edged the tube closer with the toe of his boot and dipped to squeeze another lump onto the trowel. The next lot went into the crevasse, sealing it against the water, which would rush in during the coming rainy season.
A flash flood or heavy rain had caused the cracks to widen over subsequent seasons, and Wiri flashed the torch over his line of repairs and hoped they held.
“Did you see the ones up near the ceiling?” Vaughan’s voice boomed again into the hole.
Wiri shone the torch over his head and groaned aloud as he noticed the white arrows dotted above his eyeline. “No!” he called back, his tone testy.
“You’ll need to use the ladder.” Scraping sounded against the narrow entrance as Vaughan hefted the rungs until the metal feet rose above Wiri’s head. His breath caught in his chest at the notion of being stuck in the hole without the ladder. Then Vaughan’s voice returned. “I’ll reduce the length so it can fit in the tank with you,” he called. “But you’ll need to catch it when I put it back in, or it’ll fall and crack the wall.”
“Okay.” Wiri took a deep breath and walked towards the circle of light on the floor. A cockroach skittered away in front of him and he sidestepped it. As soon as the rains came it would drown anyway, trapped in the concrete prison. It would move higher and higher up the walls, traversing Wiri’s repairs until it reached the ceiling. He swallowed and imagined the horror of such a death.
Laying the torch and trowel at his feet, he pushed the awful thought from his mind. Squinting into the darkness, he realised he’d left the tube of sealant on the floor and sighed. “I’ll get it in a minute,” he promised himself, closing his eyes and basking in the sun pouring through the hole.
Metal clanked as Vaughan fiddled with the connectors of the ladder, reducing the height so Wiri could lean it against the interior walls to reach the higher cracks. His head and shoulders removed the glow and cast Wiri back into darkness as he leaned over the tunnel. “You ready?” he demanded.
“Yeah.” Wiri’s shoulders slumped.
Vaughan disappeared and the sun which momentarily caressed Wiri’s cheeks seemed to farewell him. The ladder fitted back through the narrow gap and Wiri shielded his eyes to look up into the light. Vaughan grunted as he supported its weight and lowered it into the void. He leaned through the gap, his stomach balanced on the concrete lip as his muscles strained to keep hold of the ladder. Then he swore. “I’m gonna drop it!” he shouted. “Move!”
His cry caused Wiri to step back. The ladder shot through the hole and plummeted down, pivoting on its two feet like a ballerina before tipping. The torch and trowel shot in different directions. Wiri estimated its trajectory and dove out of the way before the top rung crashed into the wall above where his head had been seconds earlier. The force of the impact caused it to slide until the bottom feet jammed in the join between the floor and the wall, the top rung scraping down until it stopped just under two metres from the bottom.
Wiri’s throat ached with the pulsing of his heart and he pressed his palms against the wall on the other side of the tank from the ladder. He turned his body until his back slid down the rough concrete and his backside touched the heels of his boots. Controlling his next few breaths, he dragged off the mask and blew them out through pursed lips. Airborne dust pushed into his mouth and lungs until he coughed.
“I need to come out,” he called up to Vaughan, straining his ears for a reply.
Nothing.
“Vaughan. I need to get out now.” Wiri rose, his knees trembling enough to make him press his left hand against the wall. “Get me out!” he repeated.
A shape moved across the hole and cast a human shadow over the circle of light.
“Vaughan!” Wiri dropped to his hands and knees and crawled underneath the fallen ladder. He bumped his head on a rung and shifted towards the wider end of the triangle it created. He made it to the space beneath the hole and called up to the person looking down at him. Sunlight back-lit them, causing a blinding halo to surround their blurry shape. “Vaughan!” Hysteria entered Wiri’s tone. “This isn’t funny!”
A scraping sound reached Wiri’s ears as concrete moved across concrete. The figure disappeared, and the sunlight returned. But only for a moment.
A grunt echoed around the chamber as the person at the surface dragged the heavy lid over the aperture. Wiri held his breath and his strangled cry reverberated around his head, tinged with panic and disbelief. “No!” His voice rose to a scream. “NO! Don’t!”
The spot of light he knelt in winked out as though controlled by a switch. But not before the safety rope snaked down around him, the end slapping him in the groin. The inspection lid clanked as it completed the seal far above Wiri’s head.
The disbelief grew as a knot in his chest as Wiri bent double and clutched his stomach. His breaths puffed into the mask, soaking his lips and cheeks and fogging his brain. The darkness reached out for him with tentative fingers, enveloping him and burying him with the unlucky cockroach.
