. . . 24 Hours and Counting . . .

 At the bottom of a shallow ravine, a great white mechanical whale lay upside down in a patch of crushed sagebrush. The tires were flat and the roof had sunken as if a giant had sat upon it. Silent and unmoving, Nog’s body stretched out from beneath the driver’s side. His black hair fluttered in the breeze that ran down the canal.

 Locked inside the trunk of the car, Ray wondered how hot it would get by noon the next day. It was broiling hot now, and he could tell by the dimming light that leaked through the cracks into his metal tomb that it was evening outside. Soon, it would be dark, and the odds of anyone spotting the wreck would drop to almost nil.

 His chances of getting out by himself he calculated at precisely zero. The car was a new model Lincoln, but still made with real steel, not the flimsy aluminum of most econoboxes that dented when you kneed the door shut. Not only was he locked upside down in a steel box that could have withstood a determined attack with a crowbar, but he was mummified with duct tape. The bastards had taken no chances with him. He could hardly move. He knew he must have looked like a big silver slug, wrapped from head to foot in fresh tape. Parts of him were going numb and he knew he might never feel with those nerves again. Vaguely, he wondered how many rolls it had taken the pricks to cover him.

 Lying there in the darkness, breathing through the slits they had left over his nostrils and mouth, there was a lot of time for thinking. Vance wondered what would get him: would he suffocate first, or die of heatstroke, or possibly dehydration? He recalled the cadet some years back who had been getting a rough hazing and had died in the process, drowning in his own blood because his “buddies” had done a lousy job while gagging him. At least drowning would have been relatively quick.

 He snaked out his tongue to wet and push back the edges of the tape. They had softened and frayed a bit, but it might take a week to lick his way out. This thought made him chuckle, which kicked up dust that had sifted into the trunk. The dust made him sneeze, and he began to choke. He became alarmed, and alarm almost shifted into panic. Breath was life, however slim his odds were now. He fought for calm, and controlled his body by force of will. Two more desperate urges wracked him to sneeze, one after the other, but he resisted. He simply refused to die from such an absurd cause.

 When he had regained his composure he relaxed somewhat. He tried to sleep, figuring he would last longer that way, should he later get lucky enough to be rescued.

 It was there, at the very edge of sleep, that he remembered Justin. He had to make it for his son’s sake. At this point, however, he wondered if his son might have fared better than he had. He hoped so. He held back a sob. His welling tears wet the inside of the tape over his eyes and he passed into a hazy form of sleep.

#

Only two miles away from his trapped father, Justin was hard at work. He had the coffee can in both his grimy hands. He tossed another load of soft sandy earth onto the growing pile as he continued working. The start had been easy, all he had needed to do was roll down the passenger side window. Dirt had flooded in, all but burying Justin and the window handle in the first few seconds. Yelping, he had managed to push enough away to keep lowering the window. The gears and glass squeaked and scraped against the rocks and loose earth. More earth flooded in, but finally he thought he had it open far enough to climb out.

Then he had begun the digging. At first, the shaft held. The walls, although only loosely packed, kept their place against his small, filthy hands. Justin’s seven-year-old mind had no more experience with tunneling than any kid who had dug in the neighborhood sandbox at the park. He knew enough to watch out for cat lumps, and he knew that the further down you dug the wetter and harder the dirt became. But Justin knew nothing of cave-ins. He had no experience with deep holes, ones that require bracing and careful progress.

Already, he was thinking of which toys he would play with first when he got home. Probably his Micro Machines, he figured. He missed them the most. He could have really used a few of them down here to keep him company.

Each coffee-can load of dirt that he scooped up raised his spirits. At first he counted them, but soon he lost track. The mound of earth on the floor of the van just grew and grew. Dirt now filled the front cab area of the van and just kept going.

Soon, he had to climb right out of the window and into the dark space he had created beyond it to get another scoopful of earth.

It was as he was climbing out the window that the ground gave way. From above, it appeared that a giant gopher had undermined a spot in the orchard. A sudden sinkhole appeared and a great wad of earth sloughed down into the van. Justin was swept with it, a helpless swimmer on a wave of wet sand and rocks.

His head struck the dash and he lost consciousness. The dirt didn’t cover his head, but it did cover his pitiful supply of food and water, and the bottom of the PVC pipe.

Far from freedom, Justin had plunged himself into utter blackness.