"Hey, Marco, welcome back, Pal," Johnny greeted extending his hand to him.
"Thanks, Johnny. I'm glad to be back." Marco shook his Johnny's hand eagerly.
"Well, the prodigal son returns," Chet greeted him.
"How you feeling, Lopez?" the cap asked.
"I feel fine, Cap. Now that they've put this new cast on that doesn't go over my elbow, I can work. My arm doesn't bother me at all -- except for the itching. I can do everything, well almost everything," he added reluctantly.
"What can't you do?" Johnny asked while he got changed. He thought it odd that Marco came to work in his uniform.
"Well I find I can't quite get the right grip to open jars."
"Lopez, until further notice, you're not in charge of opening any jars," the cap told him.
"Is that all?" Mike also found that limitation pretty trivial.
"Well," Marco added miserably. "I also can't tie my shoes."
They all laughed, just as he expected them to.
"Roy, you just taught Chris to tie his own shoes, maybe you can help Marco," Johnny laughed.
"It's not that I don't know how! I just can't get my figures in the right position with this damn cast on!!"
"Well, don't you worry about a thing, Marcolito, Uncle Roy will help you," Chet laughed.
Marco wished the guys had not spent so much time around his mother when he was in the hospital. Mothers were definitely not good for a macho image. Since he was dressed he headed for the kitchen. And since they were now ready they all came along.
"You've picked a good day to come back, Marco," the cap said."They are delivering the new engine today."
"Not a minute too soon either. It's been really rough here, Marco. Stoker crying himself to sleep every night over the loaners we got," Chet taunted as he poured everyone a cup of coffee.
"I was not. It's allergy season, you know!"
"Right, Mike. Just be glad you missed it, Marco."
"Well, I'm looking forward to seeing the new engine too. I - I ah saw some pictures of the other one." Marco said taking a sip of coffee.
"I still remember seeing it disappear into the fog that day. It was like something out of the Twilight Zone," Johnny said with an involuntary shudder.
"No, Gage, it was like Never Land -- the cap said so," Chet laughed.
"Here we go again," the cap muttered. "Look, Chet, I was a little confused after the wreck. Weren't you?"
"Not him, Cap. He landed right in his natural element," Johnny laughed.
They had not discussed the accident too much with Marco because they had not wanted to upset his mother who never left his side.
"You guys all promised to tell me about it later," Marco prompted.
"Sure thing, Marco. See Johnny here -- he wasn't confused," Chet began."He was sacred."
"Johnny wasn't in the wreck," Marco pointed out.
"No, I wasn't, Marco, but Chet's right. I was scared. I mean here I was in all this weird fog. You couldn't see your hand in front of your face but I'm stumbling along and all of a sudden this bloody arm just drops down in front of my face."
"You should have heard him scream," Chet laughed. "He was scared shitless."
"Oh not quite then but a few minutes later I was. The arm was attached to Chet. Talk about a terrifying thing."
"Har har, Gage."
"Well I was scared too," Mike smiled quietly. "The first thing I was aware of were dogs. I flat out ran up that mountain."
"He did. Damn near knocked me down," Johnny vowed.
"Dogs? I don't remember any dogs."
"Search and rescue dogs. Captain Hook hustled you out of there before they let them go," Chet told him.
"Captain Hook?"
"Yeah, that's why the cap thought he was in Never Never Land," Chet went on.
"Careful, Kelly," the cap warned.
"Cap, we promised him we'd tell him all about it. He did miss all the good parts," Chet argued, "I mean you singing and Stoker flying up the side of that mountain."
"You enjoyed all that, did you, Chet?"
"Cap, he was so busy flirting with that nurse I doubt he really paid much attention to anything else," Johnny put in.
"He had a nurse right there on the scene?" Roy asked innocently, "Marco had to go in to Rampart to meet one. Busy as they were and one nurse found time to come over and "comfort" Marco. I swear I thought I was with Johnny for a minute there."
"Wait a darn minute here. They both ended up with nurses?!" Johnny was miffed.
"Life just isn't fair, is it, Gage?" Chet laughed. "Maybe you should take a header out of an engine. It might improve even your social life."
"You know, Kelly, next time I find you stuck up a tree I'm gonna just leave you there."
"I didn't need your help. The dogs would have found me eventually."
"They wouldn't have found me," Mike smiled.
"What's with you and dogs?" Johnny thought to ask.
"He was attached ----"
"Let him tell it, Kelly" the cap commanded.
"Well," Mike said quietly, "When I was about five or six I was riding my bike when all of a sudden these dogs came out of nowhere and started chasing me. I panicked but I couldn't get away from them. They knocked me down and pounced on me," Mike shuddered involuntarily.
"That'd be enough to give anybody a thing about dogs," Johnny put in sympathetically.
"I'm not even too fond of bicycles any more," Mike smiled.
Later that morning they delivered the new engine. Once they got the paperwork all signed they spent a few minute admiring it. But Stoker became oblivious to the others as he really started to check it out.
"Let's leave them alone for awhile. They're bonding," Chet giggled.
"You know, I'm pretty sure I could think of something for you to do that you would hate, Kelly," the cap commented.
Before the cap could make good on his threat the alarm sounded.
"Station 51, construction accident and possible fire Hacienda Estates, 4275 Hacienda Blvd. Cross street Fontana. Time out 10:42"
"Station 51 KMG 365." Captain Stanley acknowledged then ran around and hopped into the new engine. "Let's Christen her, Mike."
During the ride Chet noticed that Marco was whiteknuckling it a bit. He'd felt the same way the first time he'd ridden in an engine after the accident. "Don't worry, Lopez. What are the odds of ending up in Never Land again?"
Marco shot him a dirty look.
They pulled up at the construction site. It was a new phase of an established subdivision. A man ran up to the cap as soon as he got out of the engine.
"I'm Jake Radisson, the foreman. I really hate to bother you guys but I figure better be safe than sorry."
"I'm Captain Stanley. We had a report of a fire."
"No we got that out. Jeez, what is this Friday the 13th or something? I'm two weeks behind on this job because of the weather and delivery foul-ups then this morning this jerk in a dump truck clips the hot tar trailer the pavers were using and hot tar spills all over. That's what started the fire. It was just a little one we got it out by throwing tarps over it but hot tar spilled down into the ditch where my guys were laying pipe. The idiot kid panics and knocks Pete down. He hit his head on the concrete culvert and he was out cold. I figured you guys should take a look at him."
While they were talking the firemen followed the foreman over to the ditch. There was a middle aged, heavyset man laying on a large concrete culvert. Two other construction workers were in there with him.
"You two guys get out of there. Give the firemen some room," Jake hollered down to them.
Roy and Johnny climbed into the ditch as soon as the other two men were clear. Pete was conscious and holding an ice pack to his head.
"Hi there," Roy greeted, "How are you feeling?"
"Like I should have had a whole lot more fun than I did last night," the man grumbled.
While the paramedics assessed the man Captain Stanley told Chet and Marco to get the reel line and soak the canvas tarp as a precaution against a flare up of the earlier fire.
"He's just giving Stoker a chance to play with his new engine," Chet smirked to Marco as they ran for the hose.
The amount of sizzle they got when the water hit the tarp indicated there was still quite a bit of heat in the tar.
"That's why he's the captain," Marco grinned at Chet.
"Yeah, yeah," Chet grumbled, pretending to be put out about this seemingly useless added chore. He was actually watching Marco closely to see if he was experiencing any difficulty or impairment. Firemen tended to think they had completely recovered when sometimes they had not recovered enough to handle the physical strain of the job. Marco seemed to having no trouble performing his job.
By the time they got the task done and reeled the hose back up the ambulance arrived. Rampart had wanted to see the construction worker. Roy was going to ride in with him.
"Suppose you guys help Gage pack up the rest of his gear. I don't know about you, but my stomach tells me it's time for lunch."
"Mine too, Cap," Marco agreed eagerly. He and Chet climbed into the ditch to help Johnny. They had just reached the culvert when suddenly they heard a low rumble. Before they had time to react in any way the ground seemed to open up and swallow them. They didn't even have time to yell.
Someone yelled, "Earthquake!"
People tried to scramble for cover but as they were not inside a building no one was exactly sure where to run or what to do.
Captain Stanley instinctively threw himself to the ground far away from anything that could fall on him.
Stoker jumped up onto the running board of the engine and held on tight. Chet's teasing about his obsession with the engine came to his mind. He glanced over at the ditch Chet and the others were in just in time to see the large pile of dirt that had been next to the ditch slide into it. Then there was a huge cloud of dust in that spot and he could see nothing.
The quake seemed to last for minutes but it was more than likely just seconds. When the shaking stopped the sound of many car alarms and house alarms assaulted their ears. Captain Stanley jumped to his feet. "Any one injured?" he asked with authority as he forced his mind to comprehend what had happened. People were beginning to mill around nervously and he could see where panic would take hold if no one took charge.
Suddenly Mike Stoker crashed into him. He was not his usual calm self. He was pale and shaky. He pointed to what had been the ditch. "C-Cap! They're gone!"
Stanley stared at the settling cloud of dust trying to force himself to understand what had happened. He took his handie talkie out of his pocket. "LA, this is Station 51. Request an additional squad be dispatched to our location. There has been a cave-in. I have men trapped."
Dispatch promised to send help as soon as it was available but, the dispatcher claimed his board had just lit up like a Christmas tree due to the quake.
"10-4, LA," Stanley said stonily. Well this was a construction site. Surely there were people and equipment here to do the digging. They could get started on that part of the rescue and hope a squad got there by the time they were needed. Better yet, he hoped they would not be needed.
***
Roy heard the transmission on his handie talkie. "Engine 51, this is Squad 51."
"Engine 51," the cap answered.
"Cap, what the heck happened?"
"Looks like we got hit by a quake."
"Should I come back?"
"No, Roy. You get your patient to Rampart. I have another squad on the way. Don't worry."
"But, Cap, LA said it'd be a while."
"Well, Roy we have all this equipment and people that know how to use it so we'll start digging and by the time we get to them a squad will probably be here."
"Who needs to be dug out. Cap? Johnny and who else?" Roy knew full well why Stanley was sending him on to Rampart.
Stanley took a deep breath. "Johnny and Chet and Marco," he admitted.
"I ain't hurt that bad," Pete said. "Sounds like they need us back at the site. Let's go back."
"You are - uh - refusing treatment?" Roy asked hopefully.
"You bet your sweet ass I am," Pete grinned.
"Cap, I'm on my way back. The patient is refusing further treatment and I'm not getting stuck at Rampart again. Squad 51 out!" Roy switched his handie talkie off. He knew that they could probably use him at Rampart this time too but there was no way he was leaving when Johnny, Chet and Marco could all need medical help and there was some unknown time on the arrival of another squad. If the cap wanted to write him up for this, let him! "I need you to sign this release saying you refuse treatment."
"Sure thing. Got a pen?"
Roy handed him a pen and then took back the form when the man had signed it. He stared at the signature for a minute. "Peter Pann?"
"Don't try to think of a smart remark. There ain't one I haven't heard."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Roy assured him. He suddenly had a very weird feeling of deja vu. Was this going to be another trip to Never Land?
***
The first thing Johnny became aware of is the fact that he couldn't breathe. He tired to cough but it didn't seem to help much. The urge to panic got stronger and stronger. In a way he felt like he was drowning and all his instincts urged him to go up. To get to the surface. The water seemed heavier and harder to go through than any he could remember. His lungs were on fire, threatening to burst. Finally he broke through but he was not at the surface of a body of water. He had just gotten out from under a huge pile of loose dirt. He brushed it out of his eyes and off his face and head. This time coughing did help and he rid his mouth and throat of the stuff. He also cleared his nose. When he could breathe once more he struggled to figure out where the heck he was and how he had gotten here.
The last thing he remembered he was in a ditch. They were gathering up their equipment. He was going to follow Roy into Rampart. But then what? And how did he get here and where was here? He looked around. The light was very dim. He pulled the penlight out of his pocket and cleaned it off. Even his pockets were full of dirt. He switched on the light, praying that it had not been damaged by whatever had landed him wherever he was.
The tiny light flicked on and he shined it around. After a few minutes he determined he was in some sort of underground cavern. It looked very much like a cave. He could pick out stalagmites and stalactites and other weird-looking rock formations that had been formed by centuries of dripping water. Everything had a reddish brown cast to it. Strangely, it was not completely dark. This led him to believe that if light was getting in somehow, he should be able to find a way out.
Shakily he got to his feet. He felt suddenly light-headed. He reached up to his forehead. His hand came away with as much blood as dirt on it. "Well, that's just great! Fine and dandy," he muttered. Then he remembered that he had the trauma box in the ditch with him. If he could find it he could make quick work of this cut. He began digging around in the dirt. The large dirt pile was very unstable, he discovered. Twice he almost reburied himself. Part of him wanted to give up on it. The other part wanted the blood to stop running in his eye. He got up and walked around the mound. He was hoping to find his equipment that way.
The penlight didn't really shed very much light. It was designed to check the ability of a patient's pupils to react to light not to illuminate an underground cavern. He stumbled over something in the deeply shadowed light around his feet. The something groaned. He squatted next to it. It was Marco. He was laying face down on the cavern floor.
"Marco, you okay, Pal?" Johnny asked gently as he checked him over for broken bones. He started taking vitals from force of habit.
"Ohhh, Johnny," Marco groaned weakly. "My arm...."
"Just lay still. Let me check you out," Johnny said calmly. Looking at Marco's position it was easy to see that he had probably landed on his arms. The arm that was already weakened may have been re-broken. He wished that Roy did not have the bio-phone with him.
He wanted to roll him over and get the pressure off his arm. Marco had been moving his head and he could feel nothing wrong when he checked it. "You just relax and let me roll you over, Pal."
Marco gasped but gritted his teeth when he was moved.
"Here, let me see," Johnny said pleasantly. He gently palpated what he could of Marco's arm with the cast on.
"Johnny," Marco said sadly. His voice was shaky and there were tears in his eyes. "Not that one. I think I broke the other one."
Johnny shined his light on Marco's right arm. There was already quite a bit of swelling around hs wrist and it was a telltale purplish color. "You may be right. I have to find something to immobilize this with."
"No, Johnny. I can't have two broken arms. This is my right arm. Johnny! What am I going to do?"
"You're going to calm down and relax."
"You don't know what it's like. It'll be even worse this time! They'll be all over me. Waiting on me hand and foot. I won't get a minute's peace."
"That's a terrible burden, Marco!" Johnny snapped, "Having a family that loves you and wants to take care of you. No, I sure can't think of anything worse!"
"I'm sorry, Johnny. I was just feeling sorry for myself. Now I feel like a perfect idiot."
"Nonsense, Marco. Nobody's perfect."
A grin played at Marco's lips. "You're getting more and more like Chet everyday."
"There's no damn need to be insulting. I wish I knew where that trauma box was."
"Chet had it -- where the hell is Chet?"
Johnny flashed the little light around. "CHET!" he called but his voice just echoed back to him. He tried again.
"Oh, God," a weak voice moaned, "Quit yelling. Oh, my head."
"Chet?" Johnny strained to listen to Chet's voice. He was having trouble deciding which direction it had come from when suddenly a large mud-covered shape stepped into the small circle of light.
Marco yelped in fright.
Chet just groaned. Johnny got up and helped Chet to the ground. He had to brush a lot of dirt away before Chet looked like a human being instead of a mole man. He shined the light on him. Chet looked pale. Very pale. "Man, I gotta lay down or I'm gonna hurl," he admitted. Johnny helped him lie down and Chet handed him the trauma box which he had not let go of during the whole event.
Johnny went to work. He immobilized Marco's arm and found he had some injured ribs. Chet was experiencing extreme vertigo and nausea. He got his own head wound to stop bleeding. Finally when he ran out of things he could do he leaned back against the stone wall of the cavern and tried to figure out exactly what had happened to them and what he could do about it.
***
By the time Roy arrived back on the scene the cap already had some of the construction workers working on digging out the ditch. They had to move very carefully but they also knew that time was of the essence if the firemen were to survive. The cap got Roy busy treating some of the minor injuries that had occurred.
They were in the newest section of an established subdivision. People from the older areas were starting to mill about. Everyone was afraid to go back inside their houses. They were waiting for some sort of official word from someone in authority. This job seemed to fall to the fire dept. The cap's patience was stretched very thin at this point. He was worried about his men and in no mood to put up with a lot of stupid questions he had no answers for.
He was delighted to see Sgt Vince Howard arrive on the scene.
"Whatd'ya have, Hank? Our dispatch is out. How about yours?"
"Seems okay but they are swamped with calls."
"I'm communicating with my desk via a confiscated cell phone that I hadn't dropped off in the evidence locker yet. They tell me you have some injuries here."
"Three of my guys were in that ditch -- or what used to be a ditch when the quake hit. How bad is this thing?"
"It's not that bad a quake. It seems to be very localized. The epi-center is right about here, though."
"That figures."
"You sure this isn't Friday the 13th?" Jake Raddison asked again as he approached the captain and Vince.
"I'm not so sure about anything any more," the cap admitted.
"Look, ah we reached the bottom of what used to be the ditch but -- ah the concrete culvert is gone."
"Gone? Where the hell could it have gone?" Hank's frustrations were mounting.
"Well, ah there were rumors of an ancient sink hole around here somewhere. It never showed up on any of the geological survey my boss had but -- well there's a lot of investor capital tied up in this project and well let's say - the guy who pays for the survey often gets the results he's looking for. I suppose it's not impossible that there could still be a depression of some sort that has been overgrown over all these years."
"You're building houses on the site of a sinkhole?!!!"
"Ancient sinkhole. There's been no sign of anything like that in the recorded history of the area. Look, what I'm trying to say is -- if the ground opened up like it does in the movies the culvert and your guys may have fallen into the re-opened sinkhole and all that loose dirt filled it all it back in. It's possible that they are in a subterranean cavern of some sort. If so, that could be a real good sign."
"If that's so -- how the hell do we get them out?"
"We dig, Captain. The entire ditch checks out clean. I think we should quit going by hand and bring in the power drilling equipment."
***
It was over an hour later. Johnny had shut off his light to conserve the batteries. They were mostly resting. Chet and Marco were feeling a little better.
"Hey, Chet," Marco began, "I thought you said we wouldn't end up in Never Land again."
"Oh, we haven't, Pal. This time we're in Wonderland."
"Where?"
"We took a tumble down a hole. Gotta be Wonderland. Watch out for little blond haired girls, grinning cats and hookah smoking caterpillars."
"Chet, are you sure you didn't hit your head on something?" Johnny asked with great concern switching his pen light back on to check Chet's pupils.
"I'm sure. Don't tell me that great literary mind of yours has never read Alice in Wonderland?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. Do you, Marco?"
"Well, I wasn't much for reading books about little girls but I have seen the movie," Marco said.
"Chet reads books about little girls?" Johnny laughed.
"I used to read it to my sister when she was little. Grow up, Gage!"
"Awwww, isn't that sweet, Marco?"
"Yeah well, if you see anything with a sign on it that says EAT ME you just go ahead and do it!" Chet grouched at Johnny.
"I still think it sounds like your concussed."
"You'll be concussed if ----"
"Shhhh, quiet. I hear something?" Marco interrupted.
"What?"
"I don't know. Maybe it was my stomach growling. If I see anything that looks like food I'm gonna eat it. Sign or no sign."
"You know, Gage, I think Marco got spoiled while he was out on I. His mother and all his sisters just spoiled him rotten. Probably fed him anything he had a whim for. Good thing he came back when he did or he might have been too pudgy to get into his uniform."
"You should talk, Chet ! Pudgy you're way past pudgy ----"
"Shhh. This time I heard it," Johnny interrupted them.
"Heard what?" Chet demanded.
"It sounds like some kind of big machine."
"It a drill!" Chet agreed. "Someone's coming to get us!"
"Good thing, Chet. I was beginning to think you were going to have to click your ruby slippers together and say ‘There's no place like home' three times."
"No, Johnny that's Oz," Marco told him "And I've had my fill of rescues turning into books about weird places."
"Besides," Chet teased, "You're running out of arms to break."
"Chet!" they both threatened.
They couldn't really be angry though, because soon a small circle of daylight appeared above their heads.
"Johnneeeee," Roy called.
"We're here, Roy," he hollered back.
"Everybody okay?"
"Well Chet and I are just a little battered but it looks like Marco has broken his other arm."
"Well sit tight. We'll have you out of there in a few minutes. We have a real expert running this digging equipment -- a guy named -- Peter Pann!"
If they had had enough energy they would have tried to throw something at Roy.
"Ever notice that DeSoto almost always comes out of everything completely unscathed?" Chet offered.
"He must live right," Marco added mournfully.
"Maybe," Johnny giggled, "Joanne sprinkles him with Pixie dust before he leaves the house and it keeps him safe from harm."
Chet grabbed the pen light to check Gage's pupils.
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