"John?" Scott said tentatively.
"Yeah?"
He sounded so close. Scott felt relief flood his body.
"Hey, you're here," John said.
"Yeah," Scott said. Clinging to the walls of the tunnel with all his might, trying to spare Virgil his full weight. Now he completely understood why John was afraid to move.
"Please tell me you're tied to Virgil," John said.
"I'm tied to Virgil." Scott said. "What are you holding onto?"
"Nothing," John said. "Can you come down farther? Where are you?"
"I can't see you." Scott said. John laughed curtly.
"Listen, I'm going to move my leg out. See if you can grab it."
"Okay…just do it real slow, okay?"
"Check." Scott began to slowly extend his leg, although the angle was throwing him off balance. He moved one hand to above his head.
"You're too far away," John said. "I can hear you…you're about ten feet away. I think."
Scott pulled his leg back. "I'm out of rope." He felt better in a more secure position.
John didn't say anything. He just let out a tired breath. "I wish Dad was here."
"So do I." Scott said fervently.
"You should go up and get him. Get help."
Scott squinted, trying futilely to see his younger brother in the darkness. "Can you hold on that long?"
"I don't have a choice, do I?" John said. "But the longer we sit here…"
"Hey, calm down," Scott said softly.
John was quiet for a moment. "Scott, please get me out of here," he said. He sounded defeated. Scott felt a sickening dread bloom in his stomach.
"Virgil!" he yelled.
"Jesus, you're loud," John muttered to himself.
"Yeah?"
he could hear Virgil's voice sounding very far away.
"I need more line."
There was a pause. Scott felt the rope around his waist stop tugging as more slack was created. He inched down about a foot.
"He had more line?" John wondered aloud.
"He probably just moved closer to the opening," Scott said. He slowly stretched out his leg again, immediately feeling off balance. "Hang on a sec. Virgil! Get ready!"
Virgil called down something, Scott couldn't really tell what. He slowly moved until he was lying on his back, and then turned so he was sideways in the tunnel. His chin was pressed into his chest, but he could carefully untie the rope from around his waist and retie it around his ankle, above the top of his hiking boot. He had no idea if this was the right thing to do, but he just wanted to get as close to his brother as possible. His head was spinning slightly, and he was getting out of breath. John was right – there wasn't a lot of air down here. They didn't have too much time.
Satisfied that the knot around his ankle was secure, he slowly maneuvered until he was lying face down on his stomach. He began crawling forward, his right arm extended in front of him.
"What are you doing?" John said, right as Scott's fingertips brushed his face. He jumped and sucked his breath in sharply.
"Is that you?" Scott asked.
"No, it's one of the fifteen other people stuck down here with me."
Scott began waving his arm around until he found John's shoulder and then his arm. He gripped it tightly. "Okay?"
"Yeah," John said. Having Scott down here, something solid and real in the darkness, made him feel immeasurably better. Sometimes, at school, John felt invisible beside his brother, who was simply and miraculously at complete ease with himself and anyone who came in contact with him. It was a personality trait so lacking in John that sometimes he shared in the common surprise of the other students when they found that the reason he and Scott had the same last name was because they were related. Usually, John didn't care too much about that – anonymity had its own subversive rewards – but he had been thinking it would be relatively easy for him to slip further down, to swallowed up by this oppressive blackness. The problem with being an observer, he realized, is that nothing changes if you're not there to watch. Unless you were a subatomic particle. But, with Scott here, he felt almost safe. Scott was just too invested in his own life to disappear.
The two of them hung there for a moment, not saying anything.
"So…" John said. "How's it going?"
Scott started to chuckle. "I'm having a blast. You?"
"You know, Dad's going to crucify me. First the roof, and now this? I'm not going to see the light of day until I'm twenty."
"Maybe he won't find out."
"Like you can lie to him. Can you grab my other arm?"
Scott stretched out his other arm and hit John in the face, judging by the yelp. "Sorry."
John just growled.
Scott got a hold of his shoulder. "You're not having a very good day, are you."
John started laughing again. "Don't make me laugh! I can't hold on if I laugh!"
"Shh…I got you. Take a deep breath."
"Of what?" John asked, but Scott had managed to calm him down.
"John, do you think you can climb over me?" he asked.
"What?"
"Just…climb over me up to the rope. I've got to get turned around before I get up and I don't think Virgil can pull us up."
"Yeah…I can try." John sounded doubtful, and Scott raised his head and stared impatiently into the darkness.
"Or we could just hang out here for a while," Scott said. "Come on! Get up here."
"It's not that…it's just I don't have anything to push off of. The pipe drops down here, and I'm half off it."
Scott stared uncomprehending ahead of him. The darkness was playing tricks on his eyes, making him see odd amorphous blurs of dark red and purple. "What…what are you saying?"
"Remember that vertical drop you warned me about? Well, I found it."
Scott just lay there with his mouth half open for a moment. "When were you going to tell me?"
"When we got up there," John said.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"What would the point of it be?" John asked calmly. "Either way, you knew I couldn't get out myself. You wouldn't have done anything different, would you?"
"You should have told me," Scott said. "It's just…you should have told me! That's what you do in a situation like this."
"You know, just because you think something is the right thing to do doesn't mean it is." John told him.
Scott put his head down on the cold floor of the tunnel and groaned in exasperation.