Kathy Reichs - Seizure

Six hands shot out and seized Ben’s arms, hair, shirt, and neck. As one, we pulled him to safety.

“Thanks,” he wheezed. “I was a little short.”

“Anytime.” Shelton. Doubled over.

“I still owe you one,” Hi panted. “And that’s just tonight.”

Crack! Crack!

Bullets smashed the rocks above our heads.

“Move!” I shouted.

We charged into yet another black passage.

WE TUMBLED DOWN a ramp and landed in a tangle of arms and legs.

Everyone lay still, too overwhelmed to move. My thoughts were firing in short jagged clips.

We’re alive. Unharmed. The shooter can’t follow .

Slowly, my panting subsided and my pulse decelerated. Disengaging myself from the others, I rose and looked around.

The current chamber was circular, the size of a classroom. A waterfall poured from a hole in the roof to a pool in the center of the floor. I guessed the pool’s diameter and depth at about ten feet each. The water swirled, eventually draining through a chute at the bottom.

The effect was beautiful, like a graceful garden fountain. The rest of the room was empty.

“This must be ‘the dark chamber’s sluice,’” I said. “We made it!”

My gaze scoured the walls, snagged on a platform jutting from the rock. Roughly a yard square, the platform held nothing. Deep gouges marred its otherwise smooth stone surface.

My shoulders slumped in dismay.

Something heavy had once rested there.

Like a chest.

No .

“What’s that gibberish?” Shelton pointed to black letters chiseled into the wall directly above the platform.

“Another riddle?” I said. “But that’s definitely not English.”

The characters were recognizable, but I couldn’t place the language. Beside the lettering was the now-familiar symbol. Bonny’s signature bent cross.

My heart sank into my socks.

She took it. The treasure isn’t here .

“No!” Hi slapped his forehead. “Tell me this isn’t where the treasure’s supposed to be. Please.”

I couldn’t meet his eye.

“It’s gone ?” Shelton wailed. “How? Nobody’s been in here before us! Those tunnels would’ve been front-page news. And the skybridge! That never came down until tonight!”

I shook my head. I couldn’t agree more.

Then the pieces fell together. I’d been a fool.

Hi must’ve read my expression.

“What?”

“They moved it.”

“Who?”

“Anne Bonny. Her people.” I punched the air in frustration. “ Why didn’t I think of this before?”

Shelton waved his arms. “Explain! Right now!”

“Bonny’s crew busted her out of the dungeon, right?”

“Yep,” Shelton said. “We crawled down that god-awful hole ourselves.”

“She must’ve worried the Brits would discover her escape route.”

“But they didn’t,” Hi argued. “If they had, everyone would know about these tunnels. Her crew must have resealed the dungeon like we found it.”

“But Bonny couldn’t be sure that would work,” I said. “She had to worry that the tunnels could be compromised.”

Hi and Shelton groaned.

“So she and her crew removed the treasure themselves,” Hi said, “reset the booby traps, and took off. Mother—”

“Come on !” Ben’s bellow echoed loudly in the small space. “Why can’t we catch one stinking break!”

My eyebrows rocketed up in surprise. “What?”

“What do you mean, what ?” Ben spread his hands. “Look around, Victoria! There’s no way out of here!”

I spun a three-sixty. Ben was right.

No doors, no tunnels, no cracks, no fissures. We were stuck in a subterranean aerie with no outlet.

“So no treasure?” Hi whined. “I thought we had it!”

“It’s gone,” I said. “Bonny moved it somewhere else.”

Hi sat and dropped his head between his knees. Shelton slumped beside him and grabbed one ear.

Ben started tapping the walls, searching for an exit. Clueless what else to do, I removed the treasure map and my pen. As Ben circled the room, I copied the foreign words from the wall onto the back of the map.

Ben and I finished at the same time.

“Nothing,” he said. “The only way out is how we came in.”

“That won’t work,” I said.

“Maybe the waterfall?” Ben levered himself up on the empty platform and stepped toward the wall.

Click .

Ben froze. Pulled his foot back. Looked down at the platform. Swore.

Rumble. Pop! Pop!

Shelton and Hi sprang to their feet.

“It’s a pressure switch!” Ben shouted. “I tripped it!”

Somewhere close, water gurgled, like a giant flushing toilet.

The chamber shook, then went deathly still.

“I think we might—”

“Look!” Hi pointed frantically at the ramp we’d tumbled down moments before.

An enormous boulder now blocked the opening.

“Oh no!” Ben gestured at the roof.

A sluice gate opened overhead. The waterfall surged.

The room began to flood.

Fast.

WATER STARTED OVERFLOWING the basin.

My eyes darted, searching for escape. Found nothing but solid stone walls.

“What should we do!?” Shelton yelled.

“Stay together!” I said. “We may have to swim out!”

“How!?” Hi shouted. “Where!?”

I tried to concentrate. There had to be a way!

Ben leaped from the platform, hands outstretched, and caught the waterfall’s edge. Incredibly, though pummeled by the flow, he held and tried to pull himself up.

No good. The deluge loosened his grip and washed him to the floor. Ben popped to his feet and yelled in frustration.

We weren’t getting out that way.

“I don’t wanna drown!” Shelton wailed.

I looked down. Water swirled like a vortex inside the pool. If the roof was impossible, that left the floor.

Maybe .

I jumped into the pool and fought my way to the bottom. Water was draining through an opening no wider than a Hula-Hoop. Just not fast enough.

We could squeeze through, but there’s no turning around .

I kicked to the surface and crawled out of the basin.

“What are you doing!?” Shelton screamed.

“I have a plan.” As calm as possible.

The boys gathered close, eager for something, anything.

“We swim out through the bottom of the pool,” I said.

“What!?” Shelton was nearing full-blown panic.

Hi looked at me as if I’d proposed we grow wings and fly.

Ben stood motionless, dripping, neck veins bulging.

“It’s our only chance. The drain must lead somewhere.”

“What if there’s no air?” Hi yelped. “We could drown!”

“The pool might empty into the chasm,” Ben warned. “Straight shot, right into the abyss.”

I blinked back tears. “I don’t have another idea.”

The group stood, paralyzed by indecision. The water was up to our shins, heading for our knees.

“We can’t just wait here to die,” I said.

“Fine,” Ben said. “Let’s go for it.”

“Just like a waterslide.” Hi. Shaky.

“Don’t put me last.” Shelton’s voice cracked. “I won’t be able to do it.”

Ben tapped us, one by one, then himself. “Tory. Shelton. Hi. Then me.”

“I took skin-diving lessons,” Hi said. “Well, one. To maximize oxygen intake you take two deep breaths, then hold the third and go.”