Her parent’s lawyer hadn’t wasted any time getting her out of their house to sell off what little they had. Dallas a marble-sized crystal ball with a few interesting runes etched into its surface.
Other than that, Dallas wanted none of it. She had the lawyer arrange for an estate sale, everything must go, no reasonable offer refused. It had cleared enough for her to buy a decent loft near the university and get a crappy old Land Rover that she affectionately referred to as Betty.
And then the lawyer had given her the key. It had been in a white envelope. No note. No explanation. Only orders to give it to Dallas if both her parents died. The key that would change her life. It was to the safety deposit box at the bank.
Inside the box, she’d found a small leather notebook. It was a couple of inches larger than a paperback novel and nothing else. She picked it up and flipped a few pages. Nothing special, just a journal. But on the way home, a couple of loose pages came out of the notebook.
When she pored through the pages later, she discovered it had belonged to her father. Most of the entries were pre-9/11 and had nothing earth shattering to say. Some of the later notes were about his own father’s death and that was about it. Several sections of the journal seemed to have large jumps in time. Examining the book closer, Dallas could see that there were missing sections. The spine was coming apart and the journal was shedding pages. One small piece of paper fluttered out. Unlike the other pages, this was a small slip with a phone number on it. Dallas recognized it as a Minnesota area code. But that wasn’t what was interesting, what was interesting is that unlike the journal pages her father had filled out, this piece of paper had different handwriting, writing that she immediately recognized as her mother’s curling script.
She’d never called the phone number on it.
But something about the memory of her parents sent a surge of energy through her. She refused to simply give up and die.
The voice came from the blackness. Calm down. Swim. Kick your feet and arms. Back float. You know how to do this. It was her own voice.
As if a button was pushed, the fear subsided and her body went into automatic motion.
Another memory came. This time of the cute lifeguard coaching her through those horrid afternoons at camp came back to her. She knew what to do. The biggest challenge was to overcome her irrational fear of the water. It was a mental game. Physically she could do it, she told herself.
With the lifeguard’s instructions playing in her mind like a movie, Dallas propelled herself down the tunnel, kicking her feet, pumping her arms, keeping her face out of the water until her breathing became regular again.
Survival seemed possible. She was shivering so bad her teeth were chattering, but there was still air in the tunnel and she was still moving. Soon, she had to reach the spot where the others had entered the maze of tunnels. Luckily there hadn’t been any turns to make choices about. At least not that she was aware of.
The black was so dark she couldn’t tell whether her eyes were open or not.
But she would’ve felt the gaping holes if there had been other tunnels. As it was now, her fingertips brushed the sides of the tunnel as she did the backstroke.
She was starting to believe that she would survive and escape the claustrophobic tunnel when her head smacked forcibly into the wall. Frantic, she turned. The tunnel had ended? It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.
Think Dallas. Think. She remembered the entry way to the tomb was arched so it dipped down from the ceiling slightly. With her fingertips, she felt the wall she had struck. As her hand probed lower, it ran out of wall. Tracing the edge, she felt the round swoop of an arch. She’d been right. But she’d have to dip her head underwater to figure out if the tunnel continued after the arch and if the other side had the same pocket of air.
You can turn back around if it doesn’t, she told herself. Yet fear swarmed over her, making her gut clench. But what if I can’t find it again in the dark? Nonsense.
The argument inside continued but she ignored it and dipped her head, kicking her feet, keeping one arm up to feel the ceiling. Within a foot, her fist thrust up and out of the water into the air and her head followed. She gasped breathing deeply even though it had only been a few seconds she’d been underwater.
And that’s when she realized that the air space above her was more than a few inches. Reaching up, she couldn’t feel the ceiling. She heard the sound of water falling and realized it was draining somewhere. The question was whether she wanted to go where it was headed.
The sonar footage had showed underground aquifers that led to the sea. That was NOT where she wanted to go. Pushing against the flow of the water, she decided to explore the walls of the room she was in. Because it was a room. It was larger than the tunnel and the ceiling was taller. As she made her way around, feeling the edges, she figured out she was in another circular room. That meant it was likely there was at least one other doorway to another tunnel, but she wasn’t sure that was the way to go. As she moved, something bumped into her and she screamed, but then quickly realized the water was bobbing with metal objects. Some type of debris from the earthquake? She continued feeling her way around the circular walls.
Her fingers touched smooth stone and then she felt something different. A dip. Keeping her head above water, she reached down. It felt
