FRIEND SURNAME finished his beer and put the empty bottle down beside him onto the wooden stool that served as an end-table to his couch.
“I’m going to get another one. You want?” he asked his friend, Alice LASTNAME.
She raised hers to the light to check the level. “No, NICKNAME, I’m good,” she replied from her side of the worn couch.
FRIEND disappeared around the corner to the kitchen. “Hey, is your brother showing up tonight?” he called from the other room.
Alice glanced at the empty la-Z-boy in the corner. “No. I think he told his wife he was staying home with her and the kids for this one. He didn’t want to miss their first TRADITIONAL TV EVENT.”
FRIEND returned. “That’s understandable, I guess. Shame he’s not around, though.”
“Adam’ll be here, but he can’t make it till ‘HALFTIME’. He had to work late,” she told him.
“Working on New Year’s. That’s a shitty draw. How’d that happen?”
“Everyone else has family stuff going on. Besides, I don’t mind. Overtime paid for this,” she said, flashing the ring on the third finger of her left hand.
“So long as he’s coming by later,” laughed FRIEND.
“They’ll both be there, tonight. Don’t worry. There’ll still be some tradition,” Alice laughed.
“Are you sure you don’t want to watch the TRADITIONAL TV EVENT with Alice and FRIEND?” asked Scott LASTNAME’s wife as she wrangled his child into its jumper.
“No, I told you before. I want this to be special for the girls. I can stay here,” he answered.
“How long have you guy’s been watching that show together on New Year’s?” she asked him.
He paused as he pulled a sweater onto the other little girl. “Probably about twenty years,” he replied. “Since we were kids.”
“So why don’t you go? I can’t stay here. I’ll be here tonight when you go out, anyways. Another couple of hours won’t hurt,” she told him.
Scott finished dressing the baby and went to the TV to turn on the EVENT. “I’m fine. I promise. Besides, Alice has Adam around this year. They probably won’t miss me.”
Adam MCBLANKBLANK wiped his brow and checked his watch. Another thirty minutes and triple-time would kick in. He picked up his tool bag and resolved to make that target.
He pulled out his phone to call his fiancée and let her know when he’d be done.
“Hey, babe,” he said when she answered. “Where are ya?”
“Just got to FRIEND’s place,” she told him. “Are you still going to make it?”
Adam considered his options. “No,” he said. “But I’ll go by the house and shower before I see you guys tonight. We’re meeting at seven, right?”
“No. Eight, now. Scott wants to make sure WIFE is set to take care of the girls before he runs out on her.”
“Ok, but we shouldn’t be much later than that. We’ll miss out on getting a good spot.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get a good spot. Same place we were at last year, remember? Relax. The rest of us have done this before.”
“Right. I gotta go for now. I’ve still got a lot to do.”
“Alright, honey, see you later,” she said.
BRIDGE FROM HOUSE TO DOWNTOWN HERE.
Alice and FRIEND stood out of the main flow of foot traffic on the busy street. They kept their eyes open for Adam and Scott, as well as the patrolling crowd-control police who were making rounds discouraging pedestrians from loitering and interrupting the mass of people all moving further into the city center for the midnight countdown.
“They should both be here shortly, right Al?” asked FRIEND.
“Yes. For the hundredth time, I talked to them. You saw me, it was right at the end of the TV EVENT,” Alice answered him.
“More people here this year,” said FRIEND, in an abrupt change of subject.
“Yeah, I wonder if the square on the Island is as packed?” said Alice.
Before FRIEND had a chance to reply, the pair spotted their friends exiting the subway tunnel together.
“Glad you could make it,” joked FRIEND.
“Just had to get the girls to bed,” Scott answered.
Alice gave Adam a quick kiss on the cheek. “What’s your excuse?” she asked him lightheartedly.
“I had to wait for this guy,” he said, motioning to Scott. “I wasn’t a hundred percent sure where you wanted to meet up, so I stopped by at his place first.”
She punched Adam’s arm playfully. “You just don’t listen, do you?”
“Hey Sis,” said Scott. “We’d better get moving if we want to get close enough to be worthwhile. Come on.”
The four friends entered the human river and allowed it to lead them several blocks further into the core of the city. They were getting close to their final objecting, the Library Clock Tower, when Alice cut to the right, under a crowd-control barrier, and down an alley and away from the crowd. The others followed her down the trail they made every year.
The sparsely trafficked alley led directly to the edge of Clock Tower Square, the main focal point for New Year’s festivities.
“How come nobody else comes through here?” asked Adam.
“Because if you get caught, you get a ticket,” said FRIEND.
“Hey, nobody told me about that,” Adam protested.
“Lighten up, buddy, it’s a party,” Scott added.
“Still,” Adam trailed off.
“So what do we do now? We’ve still got like three hours until midnight?” he asked after a brief pause.
“We try to get closer to the Library steps,” said Alice.
She grabbed Adam’s arm, and they began to thread their way through the masses of people. Alice was very good at negotiating the narrowest gaps between bodies, although every foot forwards required intimate contact with more than two other humans. Scott and FRIEND could not keep up as efficiently, and were slowly left behind.
Still, it took more than an hour to make it barely halfway across the square. The remaining distance was increasingly choked.
“I don’t think we’re going to make it,” Adam told his fiancée. “I’m only touching the ground when the person next to me breathes in.”
Alice threw her chin at the massive clock in front of them. “We’ve still got loads of time. Just suck in your gut and put your elbows into it.”
Eventually Alice reached the steps of the library, with Adam in the crowd a few yards distant.
She managed to free an arm from the crush to call her brother.
Scott’s phone rang, he couldn’t hear it, but he felt it buzzing in his pocket. He couldn’t reach it, either, having now made it to three-quarter’s distance to the goal. He yelled at FRIEND, just over his left shoulder.
“NICKNAME, can you reach my phone?”
FRIEND called back across several strangers. “I’m a little penned in, here. If it’s important, they’ll call back.”
“Can you see Al?” Scott asked.
FRIEND, who was fractionally taller, craned his head around, searching for Alice’s distinctive blonde hair.
“I think she’s up by the steps. I can’t quite tell.”
“Ha! At least one of us made it this year,” laughed Scott.
“Yeah, man. Last year sucked.”
“Quarter to,” said Scott.
The energy in the in the crowd began to swell as the important hour approached, waiting for release when the clock struck midnight.
The vibration, at first, was masked by the energy of the crowd. The seconds ticket away on the year, and the gathered throngs worked themselves to a frenzy.
The countdown had reached six when the first cracks appeared.
Four by the time anyone noticed.
The observant few who did realize what had begun had no time or space to escape, penned in by the crush of humanity in the square.
At two, the earth gave a mighty heave and dropped away. Thousands fell away into the gaping scar.
The fortunate few on the edge made it to one, but nobody counted zero.
Scott and FRIEND found themselves shaken, but alive, now looking up towards street level.
“Are you ok?” FRIEND called to his friend.
“Where’s Al?” Scott said instead of an answer.
Both men strained to see through the dusty haze and the jumbled mass of people now occupying the massive sinkhole. Some were standing and some were lying down. Some were very obviously not moving.
“I don’t even know where the clock tower is from here,” said FRIEND with a horrible awe.
Scott had made it to his feet. He began to call his sister’s name, his voice immediately blending with those of everyone around him.
“Come on,” said FRIEND. “We can’t help her from here. We need to get out of this hole if we can.”
FRIEND took Scott’s arm around him and they chose a direction and began to walk. They made it to the steep earthen wall, and slowly climbed their way up it.
They were met at the top by the first emergency crews to arrive. Before they could explain that they needed to go back, they were hurried to a line of waiting ambulances.
As they were taken away they could see the true scale of what had happened.
The entire square had subsided deep into the ground. It was a uniform hole spanning two blocks in every direction. Small fires spread from broken pipes, and a dirty pall hung over the city. The responders were just beginning to set up ladders to reach those still trapped at the bottom.
Scott realized what was happening to him. “My sister is down there. I need to help her,” he told the medic who was working on him.
“Sir, if she is, we’ll help her. You’re bleeding internally. I need to get you to the hospital.”
“Where’s my friend? Can you tell him to find her?”
“I don’t know where your friend is, sir. He must be with somebody else.”
The days immediately following the collapse were tense.
Reports from the site were grim. Despite the investigation of several agencies, nobody could give a conclusive cause for the hole.
The list of the missing dwindled as bodies were recovered and identified, and people thought to have been in the area, or had somehow escaped the event, made themselves known.
Eventually the list contained only one name. Alice LASTNAME.
It was late December when FRIEND pulled into a parking garage near the hole in the center of the city. He pulled up his collar as he made his way to the site where crews were still working to clear rubble and prepare the area for construction.
As he rounded the last corner to the place he’d been careful to avoid for the past year, he saw a familiar silhouette standing over the empty pit.
“Hey, Scott,” he said softly. “It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”
Scott nodded. “She’s somewhere down there,” he said. “The kids still think their aunt is coming home sometime.”
FRIEND sighed. “We did what we could. You were in the hospital.”
“I know.”
There was a buzz, and Scott checked his phone.
“Adam’ll be here in a couple minutes. He’s running late,” he relayed to FRIEND.
“I just heard from his yesterday. I didn’t think he’d had my number,” said FRIEND.
“Adam’s been—,” Scott paused, searching for the right word. “Busy.”
The two men were silent after that. They stood and looked over the dark shadow of the hole. Work had shut down for Christmas, and there was nothing but small yellow lights flashing on the perimeter fence to illuminate the depths.
Then something moved just at the edge of the darkness.
Adam strode out of the pit, wearing his hard hat and reflective safety vest.
“Adam,” Scott greeted him.
“Scott,” replied Adam.
“Hi, FRIEND,” he continued awkwardly.
FRIEND noticed a sheen of sweat on Adam’s brow. His eyes seemed different. Lost, somehow. He’d lost some weight and there was a strange nervous energy about him. FRIEND flashed a thin smile, and replied. “Hey.”
“Sorry I didn’t call before,” said Adam. “It’s just that after—,” he trailed off.
“We know,” said Scott. “So what did you want to talk about?”
Adam’s demeanor changed in an instant. He raised his head and looked the others in the eye. “I think we can save Alice.”
Scott looked at FRIEND, then back at Adam. “What do you mean ‘save Alice’?” he said. “My sister’s gone. You know better than anyone. You were right beside her.”
There was something approaching anger in Scott’s voice. FRIEND stepped forward to cut him off, but he continued on instead.
“We haven’t seen or heard from you in a year. Then we get a call, at Christmas time, no less, to come out here to quite possibly the last place we want to be because you’ve finally come crawling out of the woodwork and that’s what you have to tell us? Alice is dead. Don’t waste our time.”
“Missing,” Adam corrected firmly. “My fiancée is missing.”
“What do you mean?” asked FRIEND, partly out of interest, and partly to distract Scott.
“I got on with the crew down here six months ago. That was my ‘in’. I’ve been all over the site. Evenings. Weekends. Any chance I got. I’m practically living down here. And I’ve found something,” said Adam.
Scott didn’t say anything and turned to leave.
“Please,” begged Adam. “Let me show you. Five minutes, and if you’re not satisfied you can go.”
“Where?” said Scott.
“In the pit,” Adam told him.
“You have five minutes.”
FRIEND was unsure about going back into the hole. The nightmares had trailed off, but they hadn’t stopped. Adam seemed so sure, though.
The three men clambered down a ladder. At this end of the of the site the bare mud had been compacted and covered once again with concrete foundations for whatever structure was to be built above.
“This way,” Adam hurried them on without looking back. He threaded his way through the equipment and half-built walls in the dark with a speed born of intimacy. The others struggled to keep up and to avoid injury.
The soon found themselves at the undeveloped end of the hole. Here, the rubble had been cleared and only dirt and rock remained.
Adam now produced a flashlight, and with a carefully shielded beam of light, illuminated a gash in the earth.
“There,” he pointed at the crevasse.
FRIEND peered into it, there was barely enough room for a man to work his way inside. There seemed to be an open space below.
“A cavern?” he asked Adam. “How come nobody’s heard of this?”
Adam rubbed his empty hand on the one holding the light. “They don’t know.”
Scott leaned over it. “Alice is meant to be down there?”
“Yes,” said Adam. “I found it a week ago. I had a theory. I’ve been searching for something like this since I started on here. When the others left for vacation, I came back to open it up.”
Scott sighed. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m sorry about before. But if Alice is—,” he caught himself. “—was down there then we can let the police know, or the fire rescue, or whoever is trained to recover bodies.”
FRIEND said nothing, but put his hands on both the others’ shoulders. Perhaps this was what he needed for closure.
But Adam shook his head. “I’ve already been down there. I’ve got some gear ready. We’ll need to hurry though. We shouldn’t make her wait very much longer. I need more than one person.”
“You found her? She’s ok?” said Scott. “Where’s your stuff?”
Adam bit his lip. “I haven’t found her. I’ve found evidence.”
FRIEND spoke for the first time in awhile. “Why can’t we call someone who knows what they’re doing in a cave?”
“Come with me. I think you’ll see,” said Adam strangely.
Without speaking, Scott crossed his arms and shook his head, when he raised it again, it was clear he’d given in to Adam’s argument.
FRIEND was surprised by the move. He did not want to enter the crevasse, but if the others were going down then he would, too. “So where’s the stuff?” he asked Adam.
“Right over here,” Adam said as he scurried several feet away to collect a large duffel bag from behind some stacks of lumber. He passed out climbing harnesses and flashlights, then water bottles and multi-tools clipped to belts.
“You’ve thought this through, then?” FRIEND questioned.
“Absolutely,” Adam replied firmly.
They lashed their ropes to a metal scaffold, and gathered at the lip of the drop.
“I’ll go first,” said Adam.
And without further fanfare, he stepped back dropped away into the hole.
Scott turned to FRIEND. “After you,” he said.
FRIEND inched over the edge and let himself down slowly. He remembered fuzzy lessons on rappelling from a summer camp he’d attended. It seemed to take an eternity to get to the bottom, but when he looked up he was surprised to see that the cave wasn’t as deep as he’d initially assumed. “I’m OK,” he called up to Scott. “Come on down.”
Scott was more awkward in his descent than FRIEND. FRIEND took the time to look around this strange environment. The walls were smoothed by the natural process that had carved the cave. Stalactites and Stalagmites dotted the ceiling and floor. FRIEND tried to spot signs that people had been here before, but could see none.
Eventually all three men were on the ground and out of their harnesses, ready to continue on.
Adam seemed to have more energy now than he’d had on the surface and FRIEND could tell by the way he was stepping casually around various obstacles on the ground that he’d spent a significant amount of time down here.
“This way,” he called eagerly. “Watch your heads.”
He led them down a side passage. FRIEND guessed that they were still within the boundaries of the ruined square, but the angle of the tunnel and the constant direction changes appeared to be funneling them down, away from the surface.
“Should we be trailing a guide rope?” asked Scott.
“Don’t worry,” said Adam. “I’ve memorized this part. It’s a single route to the second chamber. We can’t get lost here. Later on, if we go deeper, then we’ll set one up.”
Scott was apparently satisfied with the explanation as he did not press the matter further.
FRIEND was almost about to question the length of time they’d been travelling, they must be beneath any of the city infrastructure by now, when they emerged into another vault. He played his light back and forth but could not make out the ceiling or the far walls. He bent to touch the ground. The consistency of the rock had changed. Instead of being hard and dark, the floor was now sandy and a dull red.
Adam did not pause, but veered left. He’d walked to just about the edge of FRIEND and Scott’s flashlight beams when he stopped and called back. “It’s here. Come here.”
They followed him over and were astonished at what they saw. Scratched into the floor was a message.
“Alice LASTNAME. Alive Feb 26. April 15. August 25. Oct 26.”
“That’s not possible,” whispered Scott. He collapsed to a seated position. “Not possible,” he repeated.
FRIEND swallowed hard but found his mouth dry. He felt a sudden urge to vomit. “Where is she?” he managed.
“I don’t know,” said Adam. “But I’m guessing she went that way.”
He pointed his light further on in the direction they were headed. There was another shaft, but this one, unlike the one they’d arrive from, was supported by crude wooden beams.
“How in the hell did those get there?” whispered FRIEND.
