Chapter 11
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Jake and Frederic walked down the long wooden stairs to the platform. It was so dark that they couldn't see anything. But both could feel that the valve had to be here. With the flashlight, Frederic searched for anything he could touch. But there was nothing. Than Jake could feel that something was on the ground. He step on a thing and immediately after that, the light switched on and showed a gigantic tunnel.
"WOW!" both shouted as they saw the tunnel, as wide as a plane-hangar, and around 10 miles long. Maybe more.
"That's unbelivable! Jake, your world is unbelivable!" Frederic said.
"My 'world'. Yo, I live in the same world like you. And all other magical-creatures, too. I will ignore your last sentence." Jake moaned. But he was happy that they where at thier finish.
Under the platform was a 500 feet deep area, the walls where massive concrete with some lamps and ladders to the ground. And maybe 100 feets behind them was a control-panel in front of a great view to a gigant-steel-door. The air was hot and stuffy.
"That have to be the gate to the volcano." Jake said. "And this stuff have to be open it." Jake pointed at the control desk with 3 handles, 2 buttons, a instruction-guide-book as large as a big catalog and a gage which showed the falling volcano intensity.
"Wow, is that easy, hehehe!" Frederic said funny and leafed threw the book. "Oh, here is a short version. At the last page."
"And! How we can open this gate? It's around half past 9." Jake said worried.
"Okay, okay..." Frederic read the manual during Jake followed his instructions. "...first: switch on the green button... than open the middel handle slowly." Both could hear a loud noise and something what sound like hydraulic-mashines. "...than open the left handle and wait 20 seconds before you switch on the red button..." after Jake did that the gage started to shine white.
Jake could see that someone wrote words on it, with a marker: 'Hiroshima'; 'Mt. St. Helens'; 'The destruction of Pompej' and 'a disaster the world never saw'.
"Hmmm... sounds like this would be..." Frederic said but Jake interrupted him.
"Frederic, later please! How we can open this gate?"
"Ohh... well, now press down the right handle, slowly and carefully." Frederic explained and directly after that the big steel-gate start to move up with a loud noise. The hot magma shooted out threw the little opening at the floor and streamed above the ground threw the tunnel.
Frederic looked fascinated at the scene. But than he heared a hard noise and could see Jake standing thier with the brocken handle in his hands.
"I've said slowly and carefully!!" Frederic yells threw the hotnes.
"I did it slowly and carefully!!!" Jake shouted. "But this stuff is more that 100 years old, what do you think: that this is well maintained."
But the mainthing was that the valve now opened. The gate still moved up and than stoped after the half way. The magma-river got bigger and higher. Jake looked at the handle in his hands and than at the desk. Unfortunately he opened it only to the half. Than he looked at the gage and saw how the pressure not sinked.
"Jake here is more!" Frederic yelled. "After the opening, adjust the time to the possible erruption-time at the backside of the gage!"
"Where?" Jake shouted because he couldn't hear anything.
"AT THE BACKSIDE!!!" Frederic shouted and walk to the gage to do it himself.
After he finished, the indicator started to move. Jake remembered that his father said, 50% if it's fully opened three hours ago. But now it's less than half opened, but 5 hours ago. The gage stoped at 38%.
"No! All the throuble and for what?" Jake moaned.
"It's better than nothing!" Frederic said and looked down at the magma. Than he realized that his feet became hot. "Ahhhh... Jake...!" he said to him and pointed at thier feets.
The heat was so big that thier shoe soles began to melt on the ground.
"Let's get out of here!" both said and ran out.
In the laundy above the tunnel, the air also got hoter and hoter. Frederic hit the tile at the wall and the gate on the floor disappeared.
"Wow! If we alive that all: You replaced me that pair of shoes." Frederic said.
"But it was your idea to come with me. Don't blame me!" Jake anserwed. "But now we have to go to that bar. Is there a map in the reception area?"
"Maybe. Let's go."
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Far away, the magma arrived the ocean. Miles away from the island, the water was so deep that not even the people on board of a ship could see what happen directly under them.
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"...and now when the night is coming, also the marauders start thier work here. In risk of thier life, they steal the furniture of foringers but will hear that they can't take every with them to the ships and planes who help with the evacuation..." the reporter told during a few miles away the mountain still spew fire and ash. The wood all over the moutain burned. And a little lava-flux flow down the backside directy to the northiest village.
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Spud still tried to get free. It was so hot. The sweat ran above his face. He was tired. His parents gave up hours ago.
On the screens: the totally disaster.
"That remembers me on a old movie I saw last week in TV." Trixie started to told.
"And? Give it a happy end?" Spud asked.
"Well, only around 10 people survived!" Trixie said worried.
After a few seconds they could feel how the earth started to quake again. At that time it wasn't a magic-spell from Pandarus, the whole hole trembled. The screens exploded, cabels and lamps falled down from the celling and the big sphere got a crack. Trixie and Spud shouted. The Spudinskis and Kyle wanted to do it.
After around 10 seconds it stopped. Trixie looked around and was relieved. The hole seemed still intact, it was a little darker now but a few lamps still shined. She turn to saw Kyle but he disappeared.
"Kyle?" she said worried and found him laying on the floor. One of the lamps hit his table and damaged it. He stood up slowly and everybody was happy: leastways he was free.
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On the way to the town, Pandarus was surprised by the new earthquake. A tree fall down on the road and Pandarus couldn't stop, he smashed directly into it. He leaved the car uninjured and took an umbrella. So he started to walk threw the ash-rain not far from the hideout.
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Jake and Frederic ran out of the hotel before it collapsed in the earthquake. At that moment they saw that the lava almost arrived the village.
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Kyle who was the once free, ran threw the hole panicly and looked for an exit. The door Pandarus used, dissapeared. And there wasn't any other gate, door or window.
"Kyle, Kyle... please calm down!" Trixie shouted and Kyle stopped. "It's all okay, look for a key!" she said and Kyle looked everywhere but didn't found something.
"It have to be a little silver one." Spud telled after he looked at the lock.
After a long while Kyle found a big bunch of keys.
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Everywhere the people looked at the mountain. The disaster could be hit every second. So it seemed. During the most people arrived a new group of helicopters, other people gave up and began to hide themself in cellars and bunkers.
The Longs saw everything of that in the TV. Instead of Sun, everybody couldn't see away from the screen. Than Sun began to shout: "Oh no!"
"What? What happend?"
"Here, we forgot this:" she start to read "...a negative effect of the valve is that the erruption could be happen earlier because... here are some scientologic-facts... and it could be that the mountain explode now around 2 hours earlier!!!" Sun said worried.
"What? That means that they have less time. Why?" Susan asked.
"The pressure sink, but the magma under the island got now more...."
"It does not matter why it will happen earlier!" Jonathan said. "We have to warn Jake!"
"And how?" Haley asked.
Everybody started to think about it when the phone rang again. Everbody took his hand on the earpiece. And everybody wanted to get it. Than during they fight who can talk a voice appeared.
"Hello! Is there anyone? Daughter's husband, is that you?"
Everybody got happy, it was LaoShi.
"I've heard what happend. The Romanian-Dragon told us everything. We are on the way to the island and we will arive it in... let me think... 4 hours!" LaoShi explained.
"What? 4 hours? That will be to late!" Sun said. "The volcano will errupt earlier. Now it's, " she looked at the clock "11:10pm. The mountain will explode in 2 hours and 50 minutes. At the latest."
"Okay, we try it earlier! When we arrive we send them directly back to New York. We have a special emergency-spell for that." LaoShi said and stop the call.
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Frederic looked terrified on the lava. The most buildings already burned. It was so hot and it still rained ash and little fireballs. Jake couldn't get the risk to fly threw that nightmare.
"FREDERIC RUN!!!" he shouted and both ran away. They looked everywhere for an other car, but nothing.
"Jake," Frederic said and cough "I found that bar on the map!!! It's here near the beach. When we walk along the coast in that way, we will arrive it in a couple of hours."
"That will be to late! I try to transform later again when we got away from that." Jake explained and pointed at the buring-inferno behind them. But Jake or Frederic didn't know that they will have less time than a couple of hours.
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End of Chapter 11
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