Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [22]
There, where his tight arm lay shattered and compressed into the shape of the drain, a fissure opened in the floor, swallowing the drain’s metal grate, dismembering the tiles, uncoupling the titanium bars as shriveling compression took over trod the planet opened up.
Stiles felt himself fall, deadweight, strong-armed through a cracking floor, and saw in his last glance the mangled building unravel itself and cleave down upon him.
Beneath the grind and roar of utter demolition, he listened as if disconnected to the echo of his own cries.
Chapter Five
“CAN YOU HEAR ME?” “You don’t have to yell, Eric.” “We’re doing whatever you say.” “Stiles?”
“The Federation will negotiate for your freedom. I’ll see to it personally.” “Wasn’t so hard.” “This is hardly routine for you. You needn’t cheat yourself” “Eric Stiles! Can you hear me?” “Relax.”
Voices pumped through a haze of agony. Had to answer them. How else would they find him?
Cold stuffy air lay against tons of crushed stone and the sharktoothed edges of cracked and disrupted floor tile that now formed more of a wall, bracing one side of a deep fissure.
Faint light swam above, dusty shafts of light, offering no comfort but instead flaming the ugliness of what lay above and around. Water dripped somewhere nearby. Hear it, smell it. Feel it-his left thigh was soaked. At least I’ve still got a leg.
Eric Stiles tried to raise the leg he’d just rediscovered. The knee came up a few inches, which forced him to balance by raising his head and shoulders-agony seating through his right arm, shoulders, and right side. He threw his head back and gritted his teeth. The effort drove him all the way to consciousness, suddenly, like hitting a rock, and his eyes shot open. The light he had seen as a blur now focused far overhead. It must be… forty feet up. Had that been the ceil, up there? Was that the same light in the corridor outside his bars? “I hear you. I’m trying to reach you.” Who was that?
Until he heard the other voice, this one clear and not far away, Stiles hadn’t been aware that he was moaning, wincing out the sheeting pain in his right arm. Broken. He remembered now. It had been sucked into the shape of the tile drain, broken in at least two places.
Were the bones popping through the skin? Would he bleed to death from a broken arm? “Eric Stiles, speak if you can.”
No, leave me alone. I’m almost dead. Let me finish. Complete one thing. Follow through on this one thing.
Slowly, more slowly than the trickling of thought or water, his body adjusted to the constant pain. As he stopped straggling, stopped trying to lift himself, gradually his arm settled from searing mind-numbing agony to an acceptable throb with his fingers numb. The numbness itself hurt, but after a time he was able to concentrate on the hazy light far overhead and play mental games with it. He endured its mockery, accused it of fickleness, fielded its insults, and claimed it was impotent. Surging in and out of awareness, he conducted a conversation with the faint light and imagined that it was singing to him.
At that point, the fleeting thought that he might be delirious finally settled home and he cleared his throat just to hear his own voice. Just as he began to drowse again, something crashed-the sound of brick and tile falling. Stiles flinched bodily and raised his head. “Who’s there?” “Zevon.” “Where are you?” “Making my way to you. Can you come toward me?”
“My leg” Stiles gasped roughly, “it’s pinned under something.”
Only now did he comprehend that his leg was caught, only when he actually heard the words, even though he’d spoken them himself. Was the leg cut off?. Just an imagined sensation? He could feel his toes. Was that important?
“Did the building collapse?” he asked. His words echoed slightly, enough to offer a sensation of cave dwelling.
Zevon’s response filtered uneasily from far away. “A sinkhole has opened beneath the jail building. We fell into it. It may have saved