Tom Simpson - Sink

“It’s Kathy and I think I will go with one of the girls to try to find their brothers. They might need whatever help I can offer. I’m sure they are really frightened and an adult may calm them down a little easier.”

“Well, we all have our jobs. We better get moving. There is no telling when the official rescue people will arrive but, I have a feeling time is running short.”

“Steve, I hate to alarm you but my partner Kevin and I did sound testing on this area and it is honeycombed with caves and I think this is only the beginning of our problems. The ground could cave in anywhere and fall a lot further in the areas it already has.”

“What idiot would have built a resort on a potentially dangerous piece of ground anyway?” These words from Steve Sidel were lost in the air as he grabbed one of the ropes and started sliding down toward the still exposed roof of the lobby.

Kevin Backlin and Bill Forham were right behind him each sliding down a rope of their own. When they reached the roof of the lobby one story down in the hole a new surge in the ground dropped all three men to their feet but, they all managed to hold on to their respective ropes and maintained their balance on top of the collapsed building. They could see a jagged hole in the barrel tiles of the roof and they all climbed precariously over to the opening and peered down into the darkness.

The twins in the meantime ran in the direction of the maintenance shed to grab the ladders and any nails and hammers they could find. Sally decided to look for the boys and Kathy ran toward the lake directly behind her praying silently that they would find them safe. Beverly in the meantime shook Connie Littlefield’s shoulder and asked her if she was able to help carry any boards back to the hole. Connie nodded her head in agreement and stood up and followed Beverly in the wake of the twins.

The high branches of the slash pines swayed rythmatically in the brisk summer breeze like pale green pom-poms applauding the latest touchdown of the local high school team. The parasitic Spanish moss hung tightly to the rough bark limbs not unlike baby opossums not wanting to lose their life support systems. The rustling of oak leaves and paper type clatter of the abundant palmetto bushes created a forest symphony but the muted screams of human agony spoiled the naturalistic melody for many hours to come.

Otis Sherman was knocked unconscious when the marina office first dropped into the sink hole. He was still unconscious when it fell another twenty feet and was just regaining his senses when the building sank a third time. The first initial drop had dislodged one of the rough sawn cypress beams from the roof. This beam grazed the back of Otis’s head and sent him into slumber land. The second drop tilted the building at a sixty-degree angle and the upright beer cooler came crashing down on his prone legs crushing both mercifully while he was still unconscious. As he awoke, he felt a tremendous pain in both legs and was trying to familiarize himself to his newly arranged surroundings when he heard a large cracking noise. The part of the building facing the lake plunged completely away from the part Otis was trapped in and that’s when he heard the deafening sound of water roaring into the space where the building had been. Daylight was visible above the hole where the water started rushing in and he realized that a large crack had formed between where the marina office was and the lake. With horror he saw the hole rapidly filling with lake water and he would soon be completely submerged. He began praying forgiveness for all the sins he had committed even though he couldn’t really thing of anything he had done to wrong anyone in his complete life. Still, he didn’t want to go to heaven being a sinful person and he prayed for his dog Bart and anyone else who might be trapped like he was.

“Hey dad!” Yelled Todd Finley. “What’s happening on shore? The resort just disappeared. I don’t see the marina either. What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know son.” Jeff Finley answered as he turned his head toward shore. “Whatever it is, it looks very spooky. I don’t see how the whole place could vanish. Wait, the second floor is still there but, it looks a lot lower than it was. You know I bet it was a sinkhole. I heard a lot of rumors in town about how this place was honeycombed with caverns before they started building and they had just ignored the warnings of two engineers who had predicted something like this was going to happen. I guess those two environmental guys were right. Something certainly is happening now.”

“What should we do dad? We need to go see if we can help those poor people. Oh dad, this is terrible and I wonder if my dog friend Bart is all right. He is such a neat dog. Isn’t he dad?”

“You’re right son. We need to see if we can help. I’ll start the motor and we’ll head right in.”

Rebecca McClellan stared intently out the porthole on the top of the manmade mountain, at the carnage that lay below. The porthole wasn’t round like in a cruise ship but, was actually rectangular in shape and was constructed of heavy one way glass. The outside was disguised by an overshadowing of lush plant life and its reflective surface was made to look like mica in the mountain wall. The image that Becky was seeing through the glass looked like a bomb riddled village after a vicious aircraft attack. She could see large holes where buildings once stood and as she continued looking around some of her fear abated when she spotted her boyfriend Paul Zangallio standing near the edge of the lake where the marina used to be. There were two other people standing next to him and she recognized them as the people from the television station here to do a special interest story on the resort. She had earlier told Marcia Meadows how much she enjoyed watching her Monday night show because it was always about something very interesting to the average person. Becky told her how beautiful she looked on the show but she was even better looking in person because the TV didn’t do justice to her vivid violet eyes. Marcia Meadows thanked her before she had left the corporate office and said that she thought Becky was a very attractive young lady, very business like, and she was more than welcome to visit her at the TV station anytime, for a very special guided tour of how the station worked. Becky had been very pleased at the invitation and told her she would be overjoyed to do that but, she would call before she came to make sure Marcia would be there. She suddenly noticed and a look of sheer terror came to her face, the place where the marina had stood was slowing filling up with lake water from a large crack that had formed from the lake to the hole the marina was now in. She knew that Bart’s owner Otis was probably still in the marina office and then she saw Paul and the other two looking down in the hole and waving their arms. It looked like they were yelling even though it was silent inside the mountain. Becky loved Otis like a grandfather, he was always so nice whenever he came into the corporate office with his weekly reports and supply requisition forms and he never failed to bring her a little gift from the snack or soda machine. She prayed that nothing had happened to him and she quickly decided on a course of action in case it had. Her young mind was very sharp and her retention capabilities very strong. Working in the corporate office as long as she had, she was very knowledgeable about the workings of the lake recovery system. That really nice guy from Datafuture, Steve Sidel, had even shown her the actual workings of the system and how the computer software handled everything automatically. Knowing that the system was not manned in the control room because an alarm system was set up to flash on the corporate computer screens if a malfunction occurred she hurried away from the observation port with Bart right on her heels and took the spiral staircase steps two at a time. She was out of breath by the time she reached the ground floor but, went ahead at a full run to the door of the control room and twisted the knob with sweat slippery hands. She finally managed to turn the knob and pushed the door open and ran over to the central keyboard of the lake equalizing computer system. She didn’t bother to sit in the leather executive chair but, pushed it out of the way and logged onto the computer with her own code number. The system allowed her in without any delay and she used the mouse to select the icon for the pumps that would lower the water level. She activated the normal pumps for lowering the surface of the lake and kicked on the two auxiliary pumps, She deactivated the sensors that would turn on the pumps to bring water back out of the aquifer to replenish the diminishing level and pressed a manual hold button to prevent the system from kicking back to automatic. She breathed a sigh of relief and as she ran back out the door to head for the lake she kept praying that she was in time to stop the flow of the lake into the marina office.