BAND OF BROTHERS
by
Dreamweaver and Talefeathers
Chapter 4
The Chapters
For long moments none of the three stirred. Dirt and debris sifted down over the larger pieces of wallboard and chunks of concrete. The wires which had supplied lighting to the basement were severed; everything had gone dark.
“Blair? Blair? Frank? You guys okay?” Daryl raised his head and spat out a mouthful of grit and dust. He could hear the plash and gurgle of running water, and a great deal of thumping and outcries, seemingly far above his head. To his consternation, he couldn’t see a thing in the near-total darkness. He was extremely uncomfortable, lying on his stomach on something very hard and lumpy, but he didn’t seem to be in much pain. Cautiously, he scrambled to his hands and knees. “Blair? Frank?”
A soft groan sounded off to the left. “Daryl? Where are you? Can’t...see you.”
“Frank?” Daryl patted gingerly at the surface in front of him, and started to slowly crawl in the direction of Frank Hardy’s voice, testing each inch before he put weight on it. “You okay?”
“Huh-uh...my leg’s...it really hurts.” The Hardy boy’s voice was tight with pain. “Figure it’s broken....And...there’s something...really heavy – on top of me.” He paused, panting slightly. “What happened, anyway?”
Daryl could tell he was getting close to his new friend. “I think the building fell in on top of us,” he quavered. He reached out and felt something softer and warmer than wallboard or concrete. It felt like an arm, covered by a jacket sleeve. “Frank?”
A strained chuckle was his reply. “Yeah, you found me. Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
“That’s good,” Frank murmured. Daryl felt him shift minutely, and then heard him grunt with pain.
“Is there anything I can do to help you?”
“No...don’t think so. Wish we had a...hey, didn’t Detective Ellison give you his little flashlight?”
Daryl smacked his forehead. “Duh, I am such a moron!” He felt in his pocket, hoping against hope that he hadn’t lost the valuable little toy. “Here it is!”
The beam was small, but in the total darkness which surrounded them, its glow was comfortingly bright. The boys stared at their surroundings – and shivered.
“The ceiling caved in,” Daryl breathed. It was like they’d been shut into a box, with a tightly-fitting lid just a few feet above their heads!
“Only it didn’t come all the way down,” Frank agreed. “The stairs stopped it – jeez, Daryl, if it wasn’t for the stairs, we’d have been smashed flat as pancakes!”
“Looks like you were kinda smashed flat anyway,” Daryl observed, noting that Frank appeared to be pinned beneath a large sheet of wallboard covered with pieces of wood and chunks of concrete wall. His head was in the clear, and his left arm, but the rest of his body was hidden. Daryl felt somewhat guilty. How had he been so lucky, to have come through unscathed?
“Other than my leg, I don’t think I’m much hurt,” Frank reassured him. “But I can’t get out! Where’s Detective Sandburg?” he asked then, and Daryl was hit with another spasm of guilt. Where was Blair?
He flashed his tiny light around their prison, and then gasped and scrambled down the ruins of the staircase as quickly as he could. Blair was lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, almost buried in rubble, and there were dark rivulets of blood streaming across his forehead. His eyes were closed.
“Blair? Blair!” Daryl hovered over the young detective worriedly.
“Don’t...don’t shake him around, if he’s hurt,” Frank mumbled, raising his head slightly. He craned his neck, but was unable to see the other two. “He’s...alive, isn’t he?” he added.
“Yeah...he’s breathing.” Daryl said uncertainly. “But his head’s bleeding pretty bad, Frank – and he’s kinda...squashed!”
“SQUASHED?” Frank echoed in horror. Hopefully Daryl was exaggerating. “Head wounds bleed a lot,” Frank encouraged the other boy. “He had the little light, and the first-aid kit, and water,” he reminded Daryl. “Can you get ‘em?”
“Maybe....” There was tense silence for awhile, as Daryl worked to remove some of the rubble covering Blair. “Should I try to turn him over, you think?” he asked Frank. “He’s sort of on his face...”
“Does it look like he’s hurt anywhere else? More blood – broken bones, anything like that?”
“Um...no, don’t think so.” From the sounds Frank could pick up, Daryl was endeavoring to move the detective. “His leg was hurt, though...remember? He couldn’t walk on it, right before....”
“He might have broken ribs or something like that.” Frank was frustrated; he had a feeling that he knew more first aid than Daryl Banks did, and he yearned to be able to help the injured Detective Sandburg, but he was pinned down as surely as if he’d been a butterfly on a display board. Daryl meant well, but.... “Keep talking to him,” he suggested. “Try to get him to wake up. And if you can get any more of the junk off him, do that, too.”
“I think I can get the first aid kit and the light – and the water – now....Got ‘em,” Daryl muttered, after a moment, and then there was another small light source illuminating their burrow. “Blair...” he said softly. “Blair, can you hear me? C’mon, man, wake up – please?”
“Can you bandage his head? Is he bleeding anywhere else?” Frank asked anxiously, once again trying to see Daryl and the detective – without success
“Yes...and no, not that I can see.” Daryl spent a few minutes verbally pestering Sandburg as he cleaned and bandaged the head wound, and was finally rewarded by a muted groan from the detective, followed by mumbled words:
“J’m? Jiiiiiiim?”
“Blair? It’s Daryl. Jim’s not here, man; Frank and I are.”
“Jim...wh’re’s Jim...? Hurts....” Sandburg’s voice was very faint.
“What hurts? Blair, can you open your eyes? Tell me what hurts, man.”
“Head...and...it hurts...to breathe.... Dar’l?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Wh’re’s...Jim? I need...Jim.”
“Blair, man, Jim’s...” But before he could frame an answer to the question, he realized that Blair had lapsed into unconsciousness again. Daryl sighed. “Ah, damn. Jim...Jim’ll find us,” he whispered reassuringly, even though he knew Sandburg was no longer aware of his words. “Don’t worry, Blair, Jim’ll find us.” After a moment he turned towards Frank. “He will, too,” he asserted. “If anyone can find us, Jim can. He and Blair found my dad and me when we were captured by a drug lord in Peru.”
“You were what?” Frank sounded incredulous. “Are you kidding?”
“No, not kidding. Jim and Blair parachuted into the jungle and rescued us – and a whole lotta other people, too! So – Jim will find us,” he finished confidently, and bent over Sandburg again, wiping at the dried blood on the man’s face with a dampened piece of gauze.
“Daryl? What’s that funny noise?” Frank asked, after a moment.
“What funny – oh! It’s water – remember, water came through the walls? It’s still leaking in....” Daryl stopped speaking abruptly, and aimed his little flashlight at the rubble-strewn floor. Uh-oh! “Frank? I think we may be in trouble, here. Not us, so much...you’re up pretty high, and I can get up the stairs. But...Blair. Blair’s on the floor...and man, the water’s getting higher!”
There was a period of silence as the two boys pondered their predicament.
“Can you move him up higher?” Frank asked at last.
“Maybe...but what if I hurt him worse, moving him?”
“Can’t be helped. We can’t let him drown—” Frank broke off as Daryl gasped audibly. “What is it?”
“What you said – about him drowning. He...he already did, Frank! Back a year or so ago...before he was a cop, when he was still an observer. This woman – she stole some nerve gas, and she hit him over the head and dumped him into a fountain on Rainier University’s campus. It wasn’t just because of the nerve gas,” he added in a doubtful tone. “It was...something personal, I think.”
‘No way....” Frank breathed. “But – but he’s—”
“My dad and Jim and some of the other detectives from Major Crimes got there and did CPR – the medics said it was too late...that he was gone.” Daryl’s voice quivered at the memory. “Jim wouldn’t give up...he just wouldn’t quit. Somehow, he managed to bring him back.”
Frank absorbed this in silence for a few moments. “Well, then we sure aren’t going to let him drown again!” he said at last. “Be as careful as you can, Daryl, but get him as far away from that water as possible!”
Daryl brought the second light and the first aid kit and set them close to Frank. He offered the Hardy boy a drink of water from Blair’s little bottle, which Frank gratefully accepted. He then returned to the unconscious Sandburg’s side and once more began scraping and shoving at the wreckage still keeping him trapped.
“Frank? I don’t think I can move him much...but I can push some of this stuff into a pile – sort of like building a dam. It might keep the water back a while longer – whaddya think?”
“I think that’s a really good idea...and we could use some more light. And I can’t reach it, but maybe you can get my little light from my pocket....We’ve got to do whatever we can to keep him safe until someone gets here to get us out.” IF someone gets here, that is....
*****
“Okay.” Ellison pulled Joe to a stop. “We can’t go any further yet.” He stared around them at the dark maze of tunnels which Joe had led him to and through. Although he could see perfectly well with his enhanced sight, he couldn’t exactly go plunging through seeking Blair and the others without giving away secrets. Joe, after all, wouldn’t be able to see! “It’s too dark.”
“You gave your little flashlight to Daryl,” Joe said, sounding slightly amused, “but you know what, Detective Ellison, Frank and I usually carry them ourselves.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small, cylindrical object. He thumbed the top, and a brilliant, bluish-white halogen beam shot out, lighting their area with startling intensity. Jim flinched back, instinctively shielding his eyes as he hastily dialed sight down to a tolerable level.
“You come prepared, kid.” There was grudging respect in the ex-Ranger’s voice. “Let’s go.”
On they went, They didn’t talk much; they were both concentrating on the task at hand: getting as close as they possibly could to the destroyed area of the Sports Complex, in the hope that they might find Frank, Daryl and Blair. They had no idea whether or not the rescue crews might think to come this way – so far, Jim hadn’t noticed any sounds or signs that anyone besides him and Joe had even considered it.
He had been preparing for damp and dank; for possible sewage, for the presence of rats. To his surprise, the tunnels were dry, although the years’ worth of dust layers made him sneeze himself nearly breathless. There didn’t seem to be an enormity of rodent life; although he did occasionally hear the nervous skittering of tiny feet, it sounded like mice, rather than the terrier-sized creatures which had occupied Sandburg’s old warehouse abode.
The Sentinel began to cautiously expand his senses. It was quiet down here, except for their footfalls and the distant thump and clatter and turmoil of searchers working far above their heads. If there was any time tailor-made for him, this was it.
“Hold up, Joe.” Ellison stopped, standing near the end of a long corridor; he could see it dead-ended a short distance away. Doors opened on both sides, but they already had discovered that these doors led into single rooms, not other hallways. Once they reached the end of this one, it was retrace to the starting point and try again. “I want to try something.”
“What is it?”
DAMN, I don’t want to do this....I have to do this; I don’t have a choice. I have to trust this kid, otherwise Blair and Daryl and Frank....I have to trust him. “I’ve got pretty good hearing,” he said carefully. “We’re gonna yell for Sandburg and Daryl and your brother, and then I’m going to listen for any response. And I need you to...to...” How do I put this so it’s believable? “I need something to hang onto, to help me concentrate. Okay?”
“Okay, Detective Ellison.” Joe gulped nervously; he’d never encountered anyone quite like Jim Ellison before, and the man was sort of terrifying. Reassuring, but terrifying. “Whatever....”
Jim took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, trying to pull into that ‘centering’ mode Blair was always yapping about. He reached out and set a hand on Joe Hardy’s arm – and involuntarily sucked in another breath – this one in astonishment!
Hey! What’s this? For instead of the ‘no change’ he’d expected, there was a definite sharpening of his senses when he touched Joe’s arm. Nothing like the effortless ease of his connections with Blair, of course – but infinitely better than he’d ever experienced with Simon Banks or Megan Connor, who’d both made attempts to ‘ground’ him in the past. He lifted his hand, and the sharpness faded; he once more rested his hand on the younger Hardy’s arm – and again, felt the effort of using his senses smoothed. Well, I’ll be damned! Another natural Guide? Sheesh, Sandburg’d have a field day with this!
Joe was watching him curiously. “Detective? You okay?”
“Yeah.” Jim nodded, his brow puckering into a frown. “Kid? Anybody ever tell you, ask you, if you might have, uh...empathetic abilities?”
Joe chuckled. “Um...no, I don’t think so – although Frank and I tend to sorta think alike, sometimes. Think things at the same time – know what the other one’s got in mind. But just him – no one else. Why?”
“Never mind.” Ellison shook his head dismissively. “Look, if you think I’m starting to drift, shake me or say something to me, okay? Tap me. Hell, slap me, if you have to.”
“Uh...okay, I guess,” Joe said uncertainly.
“Okay – first, we yell for Sandburg and Daryl and Frank. Go ahead, you first.”
Joe took a deep breath and screamed at the top of his lungs: “FRANK! FRANK! DARYL! Detective Sandburg!”
Jim’s bellow followed close, sounding almost like he ought to be barking across a parade ground: “Frank!? Daryl? DARYL! SANDBURG?! CHIEF? BLAIR!” He paused for breath. “Try again,” he urged, and Joe repeated his pleas for his brother and the others. “Now,” Ellison said in a much quieter tone, “we wait. And hope they’re somewhere close....and able to respond.”
He laid his hand on Joe’s arm again, and half-closed his eyes, extending his hearing carefully, It wasn’t nearly as easy as it would have been with Blair, but slowly he managed to narrow his focus down....
‘...tive Ellison? Joe?’ ‘Jim? We’re....Blair’s uncon...Frank’s....trapped!’ Two distinct voices – neither of them his Guide’s. Both of them frightened.
Ellison opened his eyes fully and stared into Joe’s anxious ones. “They’re alive.”
*****
It was early afternoon in Cascade. Simon Banks leaned back in his desk chair and wondered how his son was getting along back east. He hoped he was having a good time at the basketball games, and had found some congenial people to hang with. Ellison and Sandburg were his heroes, of course, but they wouldn’t be attending the games with him....
“Captain?” A nervous-looking Detective Brown popped his head into Banks’ office. “Something came up on the Internet – breaking news. A building collapsed in Bayport, New York; the one where they were holding the basketball games – isn’t that where Daryl went? And Jim and Hairboy?”
“WHAT?” The police captain catapulted out of his chair and, not bothering to activate his own computer, followed Henri Brown out into the bullpen, where several of the Major Crimes squad were huddled around a desk, staring at a computer monitor.
Banks joined them, staring as well – and his heart began to pound furiously as he skimmed through the fateful words: “Portion of Sports Complex collapsed – unknown number of casualties, many feared injured...broken water pipes...severe electrical storm....”
“Oh, dear Lord....” Daryl! Ellison and Sandburg – they can survive almost anything, but...DARYL!
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Disclaimer
The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The authors have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.