Chapter 23 #2
Matt’s heart had skipped a beat or three when the catwalk partly collapsed, but now he had his breathing under control as he looked down at Kara standing knee-deep in the dark water.
She was alive, that’s all that mattered.
She had made it. He wished she would leave, find a way out, but if their positions were reversed, he’d never leave without her.
“Give me a minute,” he called down.
She put two thumbs up, then climbed onto the conveyor belt and sat down.
Kara was alive, but that didn’t mean the danger was over. He looked at the catwalk she’d crossed; it was still shaking and
ready to completely give way, plus it was swinging too far for him to reach. He couldn’t take the same path as she had—even
if he could leap and grab onto the metal, he had at least seventy pounds on her. The catwalk would likely collapse as soon
as he put his weight on it.
They’d mapped out the entire area last night, before it got dark. There were several catwalks, none that looked stable, and
only one left that was close enough to access, if he jumped. And by jumping, he might force the entire structure to collapse.
But there was no other choice.
The catwalk was five feet away, attached to the wall, but with no railings to help him balance. He stared at the support bolts.
They looked intact, but the catwalk Kara crossed had held until she was nearly to the middle.
This was the only way.
He swallowed hard, and headed to the far side of the control room.
“Matt?” Kara called up to him, her voice echoing in the cavernous room. “I told you last night that was too narrow.”
“No other option,” he shouted.
He pushed the desk up against the half wall, and brushed the broken safety glass away. He climbed up into the opening and
heard Kara curse.
He wasn’t going to die today.
Careful but determined, he balanced on the thin ledge and used the last of his strength to leap over to the narrow catwalk.
He hit it hard. It creaked and groaned beneath him, but stayed attached to the wall. His legs dangled over, but his hands were curled around the rough, rusting metal.
He breathed deeply, held on tight.
“I’m okay,” he called down to Kara when he’d caught his breath.
“Go to the right about twenty feet,” Kara shouted. “There’s a ladder mounted to the wall. It’ll get you most of the way down,
then you’ll drop about five feet.”
As she spoke, Matt felt the walkway sag. It was the only warning before the metal snapped and he fell. In the distance, he
heard Kara scream, and for a split second Matt thought he was a dead man.
He hit the water hard, the impact sending ripples across the flooded factory floor, then he hit the concrete bottom and the
air was knocked out of him.
Kara watched Matt fall and she heard his body hit with a sickening thud. She screamed and may have shouted his name; she didn’t
know. She ran as fast as she could toward him, water splashing. She fell, got up, then her shin hit something hard and sharp
and she stumbled and fell again. She forced herself to get up, get going, find Matt. What if he was unconscious? What if he
drowned? What if he broke his back?
Damn damn damn! He could not be dead. Not dead. Not dead. Not dead.
He didn’t surface.
Her heart pounded, her body felt numb, her head was spinning as she navigated as fast as possible across the factory floor.
He hadn’t surfaced.
“No no no no no,” she repeated as she reached down to where he had fallen, feeling for his body, touching his arm, pulling
him up.
He sat, coughing water out of his lungs, his face pale and drawn but alive.
He was alive.
She sat in the stagnant water with him, wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
He held her.
“Is anything broken?”
“No,” he said, his voice raw. “I think I’m okay.”
“You scared the hell out of me.”
“Ditto.”
They helped each other up and Kara winced. Yeah, she had really done a number on her leg. She didn’t know what she’d hit,
but it hurt like hell. She didn’t say anything.
She scanned the factory floor, desperate for any sign of an exit. There, at the far end of the room, was a door. It was a
faint silhouette against the gloom, but it was a door.
A way out.
They started toward it and her left leg gave out.
“What’s wrong?” Matt asked.
“I cut my leg. It’s fine.”
He steered her to one of the many conveyor belts that traversed the floor. They supported each other until they both sat heavily
on one of the belts, their feet still submersed in the standing water.
She looked down and saw blood seeping through her sweatpants at the same time Matt said, “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. It’s deep.”
He leaned over and pulled her sweatpants up to her knee. Blood poured steadily from the deep gash.
He took his shirt off over her protests and tied it tightly around her calf. “This water is probably filled with thousands
of bacteria and—”
“Your leg is cut up and you just fell from nearly two stories, so I don’t want to hear it,” she said.
“My cut has clotted. Sore, but not bleeding.”
“Let’s just get out of here and then I won’t even fight you about going to the hospital.”
He smiled at her. It was small, but it was there, and that made her feel like they just might get out of this alive.
“Five minutes,” he said.
“Tell me the truth—is anything broken? The water isn’t deep.” She inspected him, looking for blood or protruding bones. She
squinted, examined his eyes, looking for signs of a concussion.
“What are you doing?”
“You hit hard.” She felt the back of his head, searching for bumps or blood.
He leaned into her and rested his head on her shoulder. “Five minutes,” he said and held her.
She forced herself to relax, tried to ignore the throbbing in her leg. For five minutes they sat there until their breathing
evened out.
“Okay,” Matt said. “We go to the doors, but approach carefully.”
“I hear you,” Kara said.
They headed toward the double doors, but she started to get that bad feeling she always had when her instincts told her something
was wrong. Her stomach clenched—she felt like a million tiny bugs crawled over her skin. She stopped.
“Kara?” Matt said, his arm around her waist, supporting her.
“I don’t like this.”
“We can’t stay here, you need medical attention, and we don’t know when she’s going to return.”
“The door—it’s too easy.”
He looked down at her and frowned. “It was not easy getting down here.”
“Booby traps. This is the only door we can see, you think they wouldn’t have done something to it? Like the elevator? The staircase?”
“We’re on the ground floor. We can’t fall any further. With all this standing water, I don’t think there’s a sub-basement,
or if there is it’s not accessible from here or it’s completely filled with water.”
“There was a charge on the elevator. Something that sparked and sent the elevator down. If something sparks and we’re standing
in water? We know there’s electricity—the cameras had to have something charging them, and they can’t all be run on batteries,
right?”
“There wouldn’t be enough electricity to electrocute us—it would take a real strong jolt.”
“Do you want to take that chance?” She sounded panicked, and she didn’t want to panic, she just wanted to get out. Though
the factory floor was huge, she felt as if the walls were closing in on her. “I feel like I’m in the damn Zoo of Death,” she
muttered. “We go through that door and a deadly spider is waiting for us. Or worse, a snake. I hate snakes.”
Matt squeezed her hand. “So does Indiana Jones, and everything turned out okay for him.”
“You’re not funny,” she said, but she smiled anyway.
“Let’s think this through logically.” Matt’s voice was calm and confident. “The killers set up this factory like a giant escape
room. We were directed down halls and paths simply because that was the only way we could go. Now we have this door that’s
so obviously a way out—you’re right, it could be sabotaged. There could be something dangerous on the other side, something
we can’t see. So we don’t just open the door and take our chances.”
“Okay,” Kara said, beginning to feel better as her mind worked through the situation as Matt laid it out. “Logically, would
this be the only exit?”
“No,” Matt said. “When we were looking last night, remember the exit on the far wall?” He gestured across the factory floor to the exit she couldn’t see because rotting equipment stood in the way. “It was blocked by fallen equipment. We could try to move it, but . . .”
“But that could also be a trap.”
“I’m more concerned that the door is locked or bolted and moving the heavy equipment will sap the little energy we have left.
But yeah, it could also be a trap.”
“If everything’s a trap we’re stuck here.”
“No. We’re going through those doors,” Matt said.
“But—”
“We’re going to be smart about it. We’ll find a way to push them open, with a long pole or something like that.”
There had once been handles; they had been removed, Kara noted.
“Let’s start looking,” Kara said. “How far do you think we need to be?”
“As far away as we can get,” Matt said. “Maybe ten, twelve feet?”
Kara was pretty good at identifying danger, but she couldn’t imagine what was on the other side. Hell, she couldn’t have imagined
half of what they’d already faced in the last forty-eight hours.
“But you’re staying put,” Matt said. “I don’t want you walking on that leg any more than necessary. I’ll look around for something
long enough to give us distance from the doors, but strong enough to push them open, okay?”
Reluctantly, she agreed. It was easier to agree than argue.