Chapter 7: Mud and Madness
Then. 7:48 p.m.
Harold sat in darkness as the world revolved around him. The train was no longer on its rails and a horrendous scraping shook and shattered any hopes Harold had that this journey would end soon.
A terrific crash and brief blast of light ahead suggested that all was not well on either end of the train. Harold grasped the seat in front of him white-knuckled, but to no avail. He was tossed onto the floor as the train made a ripping sound that shook the carriage violently. Then, just as quickly, the car slowed and stopped, gently rocking from side-to-side.
Harold got up and looked around, but he couldn’t see anything. He felt around for one of the wooden benches to reorient himself. Some distance ahead, he could hear the locomotive straining and coughing. Little orange blasts of light reflected off the tunnel walls, illuminating the right side of the car. It was gone. The derailed train must have hit the side of the tunnel and ripped the entire side of the car clean off.
The locomotive’s whistle cried out again, but it was different this time, as if all the steam in the boiler was trying to escape. It wailed a disharmonious tune that continued to rise in pitch. A chorus of loud screeching joined in, with an accompaniment by metal scraping across solid granite. The ground began to shake as the locomotive, still moving, began bouncing between opposite walls of the tunnel, ripping redwood timber beams and posts with it along the way.
The car shifted again as the locomotive pulled the rails from underneath the carriage and tossed them aside like matchsticks. Harold was thrown back onto his back, and this time he felt blood. Glass and splinters lay everywhere on the floor and seats. The light was gone again, but the smell of smoke and oil permeated his nostrils. Behind him, he heard a scuffling and then a small flashlight shone in his direction. It was the conductor. He had somehow pried the door to the baggage car open and was waving for him to follow.
Harold turned around and forced himself up, but no sooner had he risen than he was on the ground again. A massive explosion sent shards of wood flying in every direction. The locomotive had blown. It had to have. There was simply no other explanation. Everything smelled of soot and brimstone. The twisting of the locomotive in the solid granite bore pushed the locomotive to the extreme. Fortunately for Harold, an entire passenger and tender car were between him and the explosion.
The bleeding cement worker tried to push himself up again, but this time it took a greater effort. He leg was bleeding badly and he had knocked his head on a chair in the explosion. The flashlight was still visible ahead, but it was on the floor now, and the conductor lay sprawled, a piece of glass from the connecting door visible in his head. Harold forced himself to move into the baggage car, seizing the flashlight along the way while carefully working his way around the body.
As he gazed through the baggage car and out the window at the read, he could just make out the rain falling heavily outside the portal entrance. It was only about one hundred feet away. Harold eagerly but slowly limped through the car, dodging a suitcase and some sacks of mail and other debris that was littered everywhere. Just as he reached for the back door to open it, the car began to vibrate. This was unlike anything he had felt before on this ride. It was like the ground itself was moving. Was this an earthquake?
The world around him began to shake with increased ferocity, knocking Harold once more to the ground. Something dropped onto the roof of the car. Then another. And another. Rocks. The car was being pummeled by rocks! The explosion must have liquified some of the granite and exposed a sandstone vein, or, worse, an entire cave’s worth of debris. Harold scrambled toward the door, frantic now to get out of this death trap.
But it was too late. Rocks continued to fall, larger ones. Windows shattered. The roof began to bow and then break from the weight. Harold finally crawled to the door and reached up toward the handle, twisting it slightly. Outside, he no longer could see the rain, only a steady downpour of soil. The air smelled of fresh earth being shoveled into a new garden in the spring. It was a pleasant smell, one that reminded him of the little garden he kept outside his tiny hovel in Felton.
Overhead, a boulder, shifted from all the moving debris, found a path down into the tunnel that had for so long kept it aloft. It fell through the ceiling of the baggage car like scissors through paper and flattened the aging car and everything inside.
Now. 7:48 p.m.
Joe, Jon, and I were in a dead sprint now. Why on earth did we hike so far into an abandoned tunnel without telling anyone where we were going? Why did we do it so late? What is my ridiculous obsession with doing things on important anniversaries?
Whatever was making the strange whistling sound in the tunnel, it appeared to be getting louder, not quieter, as we approached the hole we had dug only a few minutes earlier. There was still no sign of the entrance up ahead and our way was light solely by the light of the flashlight in my hand. Another strange noise gave us pause, forcing us to face the demon in the tunnel behind us.
There was nothing there and the noise had stopped. I pointed the flashlight into the infinite abyss and nothing worthwhile could be seen. I lowered it again and then everything suddenly went dark. I held up my flashlight and smacked it a few times, but it didn’t do anything. Joe pulled out his cell phone and switched on the flashlight mode. The light did nothing to light our way, but we were able to use it to swap the batteries around to try to milk a little extra juice from them. I switched it on and a little faint light shone and then winked out.
Okay. Cell phones only, then, I told myself. Let’s get out of here...
As we turned around to reorient ourselves toward the exit, a tiny flicker of light caught my eye. Just a sparkle, nothing more. It was in the wrong direction. The exit was to the south – Joe had his phone out with the compass turned on. The light was coming from the north. What the hell?
The light continued to blink in and out with varying intensities, like a campfire crackling on a windy night. It was both reassuring and unnerving, and we were having none of it. We began carefully walking back toward the entrance. We could no longer afford to run – there were numerous potholes and sand piles along the stretch closest to the entrance and we had no desire to trip now.
All of a sudden, that whistle noise sounded again, but this time it was different. It was a cry for help. A last desperate shout to the world that it was relevant and somebody needed to pay heed to it. It became louder and louder, its pitch rising to such a height that Joe’s glasses cracked on his face. A moment later, the noise stopped. We waited for something more, fearing to move or even breathe. Then we cautiously walked on, step-by-step.
It did not matter. Second later, everything became illuminated in red-yellow and all three of us were tossed onto our faces on the hard ballast ground. The air smelled of sulfur mixed with water vapor, and Jon’s sweatshirt was on fire. He got up and threw it on the ground, stomping it out with his boots. Joe and I both inspected our own coats to find them equally burned, although not burning. Our shoes were partially melted, too, and Joe had second-degree burn marks on his exposed legs.
We hobbled together toward the entrance again, hoping beyond hope that this phantom explosion with real consequences was the final act of this disastrous play, but we were not so lucky.
Jon was the first to hit the bottom of the rubble pile that marked our way out. He pulled out his own phone and started to climb, uncharacteristically ignoring both of us in a desperate desire to rid himself of this cavern of doom. I helped up Joe, whose leg injuries were making it painful for him to climb. Jon was about two-thirds up the rubble pile when we all felt a strange rumble around us.
It was distant at first, but grew in intensity. Jon started to scramble but lost his footing and slid back down to us. He grabbed Joe by an arm and I took him by the other and we started to climb again, but the shaking had only grown worse. Rocks were falling from the ceiling now, making progress slow. My partially-melted shoes made it more difficult to find traction on the rough rocks, and it was impossible for any of us to use our cameras’ flashlights to show the way. We were climbing blind.
At last, Jon shouted that he could see a tree branch. We were nearly there! But the Glenwood tunnel was not done with us yet. The shaking became more dramatic, the rocks larger in size. One hit Jon first, sending him sliding past Joe and me back into the darkness. A series of smaller stones caused me to lose my grip on Joe and topple over, hitting my head hard on a stone. Joe simply fell over, a large rock smashing into his shoulder unbalancing him.
The rocks continued to fall on us, and we were powerless to stop them. Thoughts of mountain railroads and lumberjacks and grouchy old station agents danced through my head. And in my last moment, it became clear to me that the Southern Pacific Railroad covered up this accident not to protect themselves, but to contain the terrible cosmic forces that they had unwittingly unleashed upon the world.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. While some elements may be based on historical fact, the events described are entirely the author's own creation.
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