“Get ready to drop to the floor,” she said quietly, as she came to a stop.
Malin nodded.
“We…may not survive this,” she added, choking suddenly on the words.
“It’s okay,” Malin replied. He smiled at her and nodded. “Hey, you’ve been a great leader for these islanders. If we go out, we go out trying to save them, right?”
“That’s right,” she said.
He started to say something, seemed to struggle for a second, then blurted it out all at once. “I love you, Elna Pasqualee.”
It shocked her and brought tears to her eyes—the last thing she needed right now—and she fought them back with all her might. “I love you, too,” she replied.
They were separated from the soldiers by about thirty yards. The final charge was now right above the group, and as far as Elna could tell, they hadn’t noticed it. Maybe they were too fixated on their prey. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to them that the Marines would risk destroying the bunker to keep them out. Maybe they were just too drunk.
“We surrender,” Elna said. “Don’t shoot.”
“Good,” the cinder-block soldier in the front said. “Put your guns down slowly. Very slowly. No sudden moves. We just want to ask you a few questions. None of this concerns you people anyway.”
“Okay, we’re out of ammo anyway,” Elna said, slowly removing the handgun from its holster. “Look, I’m dropping.”
“Slowly,” the soldier replied. “Very slowly.”
She bent over and tossed the Beretta on the floor.
“Okay, Malin,” she said. “Now.”
As soon as she said it, she hit the detonator button with her thumb and dropped flat onto the floor. There was one horrible second where nothing happened. Just stillness and confusion.
Fish wired them wrong, she thought. Or maybe we don’t have a signal for the detonator down here for some reason.
Then the first explosion went off, and it felt like the whole world shook with the force of it. The charges started at the far end of the corridor, down by the stairs, but quickly came toward them, each one going off a fraction of a second after the other. Elna didn’t dare look. She wrapped her arms over her head and covered her ears. However, she heard the soldiers shrieking and cursing in those last terrible moments.
The ground beneath her bounced like a drum, and impact of the explosions became a violent force moving through her body. Pain, so much pain. Was she being hit? Was she dying? She couldn’t tell. It was all just noise, pain, shock, and the dreamlike realization that she was probably about to be crushed to death or blown to bits.
And then she heard the roof panels give way above her and felt a massive amount of dirt crashing down on top of her. It seemed to fill every space, forcing its way under her arms, against her face, into her mouth. She pressed her nose against the floor, clamped her eyes shut, and pressed her lips together. Still, she tasted dirt on her tongue. More than that, pressure was building against her back. It became harder to breath, harder to move.
And then, in a moment, everything went still. All noise ceased. The whole world seemed to come to a sudden stop. No shouts or screaming. No running or cursing. Nothing. Just absolute stillness, and Elna entombed in the bottom of the world.
I can’t move anything, she realized. I can’t breathe. Oh, God, I can’t breathe!
27
The dirt was pressing against her on all sides so strongly that she felt like she’d been encased in concrete. When she tried to thrash, the only part of her body that seemed to move were the lower halves of her legs. She could feel her heels moving up and down, but the rest of her had been entombed. This induced a terrible panic, even as she squeezed her eyes and mouth shut in an attempt to keep the dirt out.
Why can’t I move? Why can’t I get out of this? her panicked mind screamed. Did the whole island fall on top of me?
The irony that this should be the manner of her death did not escape her. She felt a kind of buzzing in her head. Her hands had wound up folded beneath her, but she began moving her fingers back and forth. She could only move them half an inch or so, but it created a little bit of clear space around her chin. She tried to tilt her head down to reach the gap, but couldn’t move enough to get there.
It can’t end like this, she thought, feeling the panic surging through her body. Every muscle twitched, trying to move something, anything, but she was stuck fast, sealed in. No, this is worse than drowning. Worse than anything. Oh God, no!
Her mind was screaming. In her desperation, it seemed that she was able to move her legs a bit more. She thought maybe she was free up to her knees now, so she tried to push herself backward. Maybe she could eject herself from the crushing dirt and debris like a botfly from a carcass. It was futile. Her arms were in the wrong position. She had no leverage.
As the buzzing began to fill every thought, she felt a strange sensation scraping against her skin, against her whole body. Suddenly, she sensed the dirt shifting around her face, as if it were loosening. Still, she didn’t dare take a breath. Everything seemed to be collapsing around her yet again, as if the hallway were crumbling into some deeper chasm.
Just give me a breath, she thought. Just one breath.
As if in answer to this request, the pressure eased, the dirt continued to spill away in front of her. And then she realized someone was pulling
