Fate Prevails

A weak bulb on the stairway ceiling still responded to the old wall switch and provided faint illumination. As the men descended, they flicked on their flashlights and probed the darkness with dust-stippled beams, revealing walls made of thin, flat limestone layers with crumbling mortar. When they reached the floor, they were standing on dirt. The small windows—two feet by three feet—at ceiling level (ground level outside) were a paltry source of light, virtually opaque from more than a century's accumulation of grime—except one, which provided a clear view to the outside because the glass was broken out. Drapes of spider webs glimmered in the glow of their lights—hanging from rafters, pipes…every dank surface. Newman spoke in a sober tone, "All these webs hang like Spanish moss down here." The walls and most other vertical surfaces were black with mold, and the space had a putrid smell. As the men shuffled forward, a scratching noise drew their attention. They both swung their lights towards a pile of debris in time to see a rat scamper down a hole in the dirt floor. "What do you supposed they live on?" Scott asked. As he advanced into the grim basement, seeing more shadow than substance in the limited glow of his flashlight, Scott felt familiar twinges of anxiety flicker in his mind. He felt trapped in the darkness, wrapped in fear. There was too much he couldn't see. His imagination whirled rampantly, fabricating nameless hazards lurking just beyond the beam of his light. He thought—things you can't see are the most dangerous, just like in Afghanistan—the improvised explosive devises hidden in the roadside debris. Terror slithered up Scott’s spine, feeding his dread: the dread of the forbidding darkness, the dread of his imaginings. He struggled to retain his composure as PTSD was renewing its old intimacy. Scott was weakening, feeling indecisive and apprehensive. His head began pounding just behind his eyes—a pain he hadn't experienced in so freaking long he thought it was permanently behind him. The swarm of old symptoms held him in its grip; the past was present, and fear and impotence were swallowing him. He called to mind, as he always did in tense situations like this, the quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet— "…this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory." He felt sick to his stomach. The sounds of more rats scratching and squeaking in shrouded proximity sent quivers through his body. Burning sweat ran into his eyes. He tripped over something unseen and barely kept from falling--falling onto the foul dirt floor, falling among the vermin. Scott was struggling. The supernovae in the cosmos of his mind kept flaring. He could smell blood, blood and cordite. He could taste them--their thickness was in the air. He hollered, "Adam, wait up; I'm not feeling so well. I’ve gotta get out of here?" "What's the problem, guy?" "I'm losing it…can't hold it together—haven't felt like this in I don't know how many freakin' years. “PTSD?" "Yeah," Scott answered in a raspy voice strangled by weakness. "It's bad. I don't understand why." With that, his flashlight died. Scott fought panic. “Let's get out of here while we still have your light." "Follow me!" Newman led the way, Scott, followed, stumbling over an unseen obstruction, dropping to one knee in the filth he imagined without seeing, while Newman, unaware, kept moving. Scott was left kneeling in grim, total darkness on sticky dampness that seeped through his pants. Indefinite, repellent thoughts flooded his mind. "Adam, Adam," hollered the overwrought detective. "Hold up. Wait. I can't see you. Wait a minute." Newman spun around, couldn't see his partner, and began retracing his steps. "I can't see you either. Where the hell are you?" "Over here, follow my voice." Having regained his feet, Scott waited, bent over at the waist, hands on his knees. He felt something tick his hair and he shuddered. After the second tick, he slapped at the back of his head—his hand came away wet. He was under a leaking pipe. He cringed and took one tentative step forward. At last, Newman's beam revealed him in its glow. "Let's get going, Man," Newman urged, and he guided their way to the stairs and out of the catacomb and its fetid atmosphere. Back upstairs, passing through the kitchen, Scott began retching, and left a puddle of vomit on the floor. Newman said the forensic crew would clean it up.