Bumstead's Well Read online

  Roger didn't reply right away. He pointed his thumb up over his shoulder at the window behind him. "I'm not sure we should really leave him down there all night, Aaron." His discomfort leaving his best friend down in the well was clear. "We really should go back in a bit to check on him."

  "It's one night, that's all. He was the one trying to act like a big man last Friday."

  "Still," Roger replied and looked back over his shoulder at the trees behind him.

  "What could possibly happen in one night? We'll come back and check on him in the morning, first thing," Aaron chortled and ignored Roger's sudden concern for his friend's wellbeing. "But, I did tell you he'd do it, didn't I?"

  Roger forced a discomforted smile. "Yeah, you did. It's just..."

  "We live on the edge, you and I. Not curled up on some couch in granddaddy's big mansion, studying and playing it safe all of the time."

  Roger frowned. He lived in the same affluent neighbourhood as Vincent, just across the street in what most would consider another mansion, and he was enrolled at University like Vincent. “I guess so," he replied.

  They reached the end of the dirt road, and Aaron looked to his left and right down the deserted highway. "Which way?" Aaron asked.

  "Huh?" Roger replied confused. He pointed to his right. "Town's that way, Aaron."

  A roguish grin erupted across Aaron's face. The outer edges of his eyebrows tipped upwards, and his eyes twitched about with a strange anxiety that Roger had seen before. His grin widened even more. "We can go back to town like we promised, or… we could go for a quick spin into Calgary. What do you say?”

  “Naw… I don't think so, Aaron," Roger replied. He was dismayed that Aaron would even suggest such a thing. "Vincent's really protective about this truck. I'm surprised he even let us drive it back to town. We really shouldn't."

  "C'mon. It'll be fun. He'll never know, and no one from town will even see us."

  Roger rolled his eyes as he thought it over. He knew it was wrong, but he liked Aaron for his thirst to dance upon the edges of unspoken boundaries.

  Aaron pushed. "What harm could it do? It would just be for an hour or two, and no one will ever know. Vincent certainly won’t. I’ll even buy you a burger up at Five Guys.”

  Roger smiled at the thought of a Five Guys burger. “Okay, but I really want to be home before midnight. You may not have to work in the morning, but I do." He looked at his watch. It was already very late in the evening, and he knew there was no chance they would actually be home before midnight. He sighed heavily and glanced out the back window to where Vincent was deep below the ground somewhere beyond the trees.

  "Wicked!" Aaron shouted. He slammed hard on the gas and the tires spun out, lurching the small truck out onto the highway. The beam from the headlights danced crazily upon the trees opposite the road as Aaron turned out onto the highway and headed towards Calgary.

  Roger grabbed onto the armrest to steady himself as the truck rocked to the side. "Jesus, Aaron! Slow down!"

  Aaron continued to laugh. "Let's see how fast this baby of Vincent's will go."

  CHAPTER 6 Day One - Friday 9:27 PM

  Another twenty minutes passed after the sun settled behind the mountains to the west directly in front of Amy Gardwinder. She knew every dip, turn, rise, and fall of this road she had driven hundreds of times. She could think only of the single short section of straight roadway between here and Bluffington, and the anticipation of making it home for her son burned deep in her belly. It was probably just long enough to pass this asinine white car if she was fortunate enough to avoid any oncoming traffic.

  The two machines turned one behind the other around a corner. First up slowly to the right and then back down to the left.

  Amy shifted anxiously in her seat as the straight section of highway slowly came into view. Her heart pounded, and she could feel her blood pressure climb when she saw there was no oncoming traffic. Amy pushed in the clutch, dropped down two gears, and slammed hard on the pedal. The engine screamed in response, and the big rig lurched forward. The truck, with its twenty-two tons of cargo, crawled up rapidly behind the small, white Sentra. The safe, but potentially explosive, CNG fuel powered the truck forward easily. In seconds, Amy had her signal turned on and began to overtake the small car.

  She grinned with delight as she eased the truck into the oncoming lane and hammered even harder onto the gas.

  "Gotcha you bastard!" she said to the small white car.

  Slowly the big truck moved up alongside the white Sentra. The frail-looking elderly man hunched forward over his steering wheel and seemed unaware that Amy's truck was even beside him. She gave her horn a quick blast, and the old man jolted upright and turned towards her. His weathered eyes gawked wide in an obvious fright. Amy thrust her middle finger up in the air at the old man and followed up with a sneer. The old man frowned and turned away quickly, hunching back forward over his own steering wheel.

  The straight section of road ended abruptly ahead and Amy knew she'd have to be quick if she was going to make it past the small car safely. She watched eagerly in her mirror as the white car slowly fell back and soon appeared tiny and distorted. Amy was sure it was far enough back and pulled her rig carefully back into the right lane just as the straight section ended and the road began its sharp, right, downward turn.

  Amy grimaced and clutched tightly to the wheel. She knew immediately as she started the turn that she was going much faster than she would have on any other trip home. She felt the uncomfortable and sudden shift and tug of the trailer behind her. She hoped she was wrong, but she had felt that same shift and tug only once before, shortly after she had first obtained her trucker's license. It did not end well that time.

  The wheels on the right side of the trailer slowly lifted into the air behind her as the corner tightened. Amy fought hard to control the big rig, and for a moment, she thought she was going to make it. But she felt another heavy lurch and the cab bounced from side to side as the water-filled resin tanks in the trailer shifted to the opposite side. Amy knew there was no stopping the shifting trailer from toppling over. She hoped that it would just lie down softly onto its side, but the trailer slammed down hard and pulled the cab with it into an immediate full roll. The trailer seemed to disintegrate on the first tumble. The cages inside broke apart, and the fibreglass water purification tanks flew through the air like mini torpedoes. The tanks tumbled and crashed, and many of them burst apart as they hit the pavement and spilled their contents of water and resin beads across the road.

  When it was over, Amy's new truck lay stretched across both lanes of the highway with many of its wheels still spinning. The cab lay goosenecked on its side with its underbelly exposed in the direction from which she came, and the trailer lay fractured. It was an awful mess. The trailer was destroyed, and the road was now covered with millions of tiny, orange beads of water purification resin. Many were carried as far as four hundred feet down the steep incline to the dip in the road. Most of the cracked tanks bounced or rolled off into the ditches on both sides of the highway.

  Amy staggered about in a daze over to the side of the road and stared in disbelief at her new truck. She wondered how she managed to escape from the carnage. The cab was badly busted and crumpled. Its windshield lay off to the side in shards. Amy thought she must have unbuckled herself and crawled out through the front after the windshield fell away, but she didn’t remember any of it.

  She wobbled a few steps until she finally collapsed onto her knees in the tall, dry grass at the side of the road. The sound of her heart pounding in her chest blocked out every other sound. Her chin hurt, and she touched it. She pulled her hand away with a puddle of blood painted across it.

  She looked back up the hill in the direction from which she came and saw that the little white car had already pulled off to the side of the road. The old man stood on the edge of the highway, rubbed his wiry hands through his thinning grey hair, and stared down at the scene. He began to amble h
is way slowly down the steep hill towards her and the wreckage.

  Amy was deep in shock. She turned her gaze the other direction up ahead to where the dip in the road ended, rose steeply up, and disappeared around another corner. She could hear a vehicle coming towards her.

  A small Toyota pickup truck emerged around the corner towards the crash site. Amy continued to stare in awe as the small, blue, 4x4 truck, with its oversized steel winch protruding from the front bumper, came speeding around the corner and down the hill. Though the sun was settling itself behind the mountains, she could still make out the faces of the two boys inside. She saw how their laughing faces changed to looks of sudden shock and horror the moment they spotted the crashed semi-trailer that lay stretched across their path.

  She would remember forever the fear she saw etched into their youthful faces. The small truck came down the hill and slammed on its brakes much too late. The truck crossed on top of the millions of tiny beads of resin that were strewn across the road. Although the brakes locked up the wheels, the vehicle flowed across the orange, wet surface as if it was skating on a million tiny ball bearings. It bounced a number of the empty fibreglass tanks off its bumper into the ditch on the way as it headed towards the overturned semi truck.

  The small truck crashed directly between the rear of the cab and the front of the overturned trailer, striking directly into the exposed double array of Compressed Natural Gas cylinders mounted in two columns behind the overturned cab.

  These CNG tanks are normally indestructible, but in an effort to win the contract for outfitting this fleet of trucks, the small company purchased refurbished CNG tanks from India to cut costs. The supplier guaranteed that these Class 2 tanks met all of the required US safety specifications, but it maliciously substituted, unknowingly to the purchaser, used previously damaged CNG tanks that were destined for disposal. The damaged tanks were reclaimed, repainted, and made to look like brand new, certified tanks.

  The Toyota's steel winch punctured deep into the already compromised top tank. A massive explosive eruption climbed high into the air in a mushroom-shaped fireball that immediately consumed both trucks.

  Amy felt the hot blast of the explosion from where she knelt in the grass at the side of the road. The hot, flaming air rushed across her body as it incinerated everything within twenty feet of the ruptured tank. Her hair whipped across her face, and the incredulous heat from the short blast stole away all of the tender moisture on her exposed face and hands. It left her skin scorched dry as if she had touched the sun. At first, she was confused; diesel fuel rarely explodes. She forgot she was running on a new, unfamiliar fuel.

  The CNG fireball erupted into the air and fully encompassed the crushed Toyota in its fury for a few seconds before settling to a localized fire between the entangled vehicles. Amy saw the air bags deploy and burst when the small truck first crashed into her rig, and for a moment she was sure one of the boys was still alive. She saw an arm reach up and out of the firestorm through the shattered driver's side window. She refused to believe it was the arm of one of the occupants; it quickly resembled a charred stick with pieces of burnt flesh and clothing falling to the ground below the window. She turned away and buried her face in her hands.

  CHAPTER 7 Day One - Friday 9:41 PM

  The shimmering, soft blue light that caressed the edges of the stones near the top of the well told Vincent that the sun had just disappeared behind the Rockies to the west. The moon had eked itself out from behind the clouds. Just enough light bounced to the bottom of the well to allow him to make out the shape of his hands, feet, and backpack.

  Vincent lifted one thumb up above his head at arm’s length toward the opening above him and closed one eye. One thumb didn't quite cover the opening. He lifted his other thumb and placed it next to the first and the two thumbs just blocked the well opening from view. He really was a long way down.

  The near silence was the most un-nerving part of being alone in the bottom of a well. He shortened his breathing and listened eagerly for any sound from up above.

  A short dull boom he heard off in the distance grabbed his attention. He didn’t recognize the sound. It seemed unnatural and caused him to suddenly turn his ear upwards. He heard the occasional bird calls, then the crickets, and finally some bullfrogs out on some pond nearby. But as he tuned his ears beyond the local sounds and really listened, he began to hear a subtle, distant hum that he recognized instantly. The continuous sound of rubber tires travelling down the multiple roads and highways in the valley far in the distance overlapped with the occasional barking dog. He could even hear the engines of the big rigs as they geared up and down, climbing and descending the many hills out on the highway. He probably could have heard the same sounds on any night from anywhere in the valley, but he never had a reason to listen before tonight.

  Vincent then heard the distinctive sound of a single siren somewhere far away in the distance. It started low at first and increased in volume only slightly as the minutes passed. A second siren followed a few seconds later, then a third, and then a fourth.

  His heart suddenly began to race away. "No way," he said. "Aaron, you didn't! You didn't really post those photos!" He stood up and felt the blood drain away from his face as his anxiety rocketed.

  "I am going to look so stupid sitting here at the bottom of this well!"

  Vincent imagined photos of him down in the well were plastered all across the net, and word of his plight finally reached the authorities who were on their way to rescue him. The strange mix of duelling sirens slowly increased until it was the only sound he could hear.

  "Shit no! No, no, no! Please, don't come here. Please no, please no."

  Just as quickly as the sirens started, they suddenly stopped one by one. He waited and listened hard for footfalls and shouts from up above, but as the minutes passed he soon realized they weren't coming for him after all. The relief was overwhelming.

  Where did all of those sirens rush to? They sounded awfully close. He soon attached the sirens to some accident somewhere out on the winding highway not far from where he was sequestered. He waited for a siren to scream one more time as it raced victims back to the hospital, but the final siren never came.

  Vincent sighed and leaned back against the stones. He looked up at the small opening and slipped back into restlessness as the prickles on the back of his neck returned.

  "Why the hell did I ever agree to do this?" he whispered aloud.

  CHAPTER 8 Day One - Friday 10:11 PM

  Detective Dean Daly, along with his new partner, Officer Jet Wu, arrived shortly after the fire truck. He immediately hoped he was wrong when he recognized the blue Toyota with its front end buried deep into the backside of the cab. A white cloud of steam ascended high into the air from where they continued to spray down the fire that raged between the two vehicles. The CNG fuel tank burned off rapidly and left a smaller localized fire in the engine compartment that was quickly extinguished. Bobby Stamos had already begun to wash down the resin off the road.

  Dean stepped out from his vehicle and nearly fell as his feet slipped on many of the tiny beads of resin that still coated the area where he parked. Jet came out the other side and couldn't help but snicker as Dean got back on his feet. Dean ignored him and looked over towards the wreckage.

  Bobby turned off his hose when he noticed Dean and Jet's arrival.

  "It's a bad one," Bobby yelled.

  "Ayuh," Dean shouted back. He hiked up the slacks that had slipped down his thick waist as he stared at the scene in front of him. Bad was not the word he would have chosen. "Horrific" was a more fitting word. Even from where he stood, he could see the blackened, almost skeletal, remains of the two bodies inside the truck. It was obvious the fire was intense; the sudden, intense heat blackened everything within twenty feet of the impact zone. The two victims died a horrible death: first trapped and then burnt to death. It was almost instantaneous; they breathed in searing fumes that torched their lungs in one single breath
as the intense heat from the fire immediately seared and ignited their skin and clothing for a few short seconds. Dean approached slowly. He didn’t really want to look at the victims, but it was a necessary part of his job.

  “Whoa. I've never seen anything like this before," Jet said.

  The two of them ignored the woman on the side of the road being interrogated by one of the many officers. Dean focused his attention on the pickup. Both occupants were dead.

  "Those are CNG fuel tanks. I've never heard of them exploding like that before."

  “It looks like only one of them ruptured," Jet added.

  “One was enough."

  He had to wait until the fire was cold enough before he and Jet were allowed to approach the vehicle. The engine and dash of the small truck was pushed backwards and trapped both occupants. The blast of the fire itself stayed mostly on top the small truck, but with the windshield destroyed, the two occupants suffered the wrath of the fireball to their torso, arms, and head. The deflated airbags and demolished windshield left them exposed to the tremendous heat and fumes.

  The skin on the victims’ faces and arms were blackened and shrivelled, and their hair was scorched back to the scalp. From the chest up, the two bodies were unrecognizable. Dean turned away and swallowed hard.

  His supper didn't want to stay down when he ate it two hours ago, and Dean fought hard to ignore the burrito's request to fight its way back up a second time.

  "Shit," he said to Bobby. Bobby nodded.

  "This looks like that boy, uh… Chris Pattison's boy. His Grandson, Vincent. This looks like his truck."