The Watery Grave

The water had already been up to his knees when they'd brought him here. It was up to his waist now and getting deeper. Of all the ways he could die, he'd never figured on this. His father had died of pneumonia, but while sleeping and – as the watching family members had hoped – peacefully. But Jimmy Gordon could remember the time he had gotten pneumonia, and that memory of the struggle to breathe had been anything but peaceful. Then there was the different, terrible kind of struggle for breath in the two explosions he'd endured recently. But drowning, he had heard, was one of the worst ways of all to go, and barring a miracle, that was what he was going to experience – soon.

Jimmy tugged at his wrist shackles as hard as he could, hoping against hope that the brickwork they were attached to might be crumbly enough to give way. It was no use. Even if he'd been as strong as Tem, he might not have been able to make the bricks give way. And he could never be that strong ever.

The thought of his deceased brother-in-law made Jimmy's eyes sting and blur up with tears again. He closed them tight, wishing that everything he'd heard back in the tunnels of the enemy hideout had all just been a nightmare, knowing it wasn't. It was a bitter irony. His vision was blurry again anyway, with his replacement glasses lost in the destruction of the generator. But the only reason he still had eyes at all was because that nasty man Ratch wanted Jimmy to see his death coming. Ratch had been given a blank check to dispose of Jimmy any way he wanted after the younger man's defiant act of sabotage. Ratch chose this. Jimmy had been carried down by ladder into the deep old cistern where he was to meet his doom. He'd tried to struggle then with all his might before being clamped into these shackles, but he'd been hurting and exhausted and had no might left. Then, for one terrifying moment, Ratch had placed his dirty thumbs right below Jimmy's eye sockets and pressed them into Jimmy's cheeks hard enough to hurt. Jimmy held his breath, thinking that the vengeful man was going to poke out his sockets to repay Jimmy for blinding him in one eye. Probably that had been one of Ratch's intentions, but seeing the teenager's terror, had chosen an alternate punishment.

"I want you to watch it coming," the older man had hissed at him, and pointed to the still-shackled skeleton of one of the cistern's previous victims. "I want you to watch an' know what's gonna happen to you." With that, Ratch and the guardsmen he'd brought to do his dirty work had climbed back out of the watery pit and drawn the ladder up after them, leaving behind one young, frightened prisoner who wanted very much to live but now wasn't going to.

So this was it. This was the end.

Jimmy tilted his head and squinted to look up above as best he could at the sunlight streaming through the bars of the cistern cover. Would his body ever even be found in this place to be given a proper burial? Would his poor, widowed sister ever know what had happened to him and Tem, and be able to carry out the rest of their vital mission without them? Or would Jimmy rot down here like his unspeaking companion, never to be found by anyone except the new victims that the smugglers brought to this place to meet a similar fate? As the runoff water of a previous night's storm continued to trickle in and raise the deadly level up toward his chest, Jimmy tried to pry his mind off the subject of his coming demise. Who had the other victim here with him been in life? Another member of the gang who'd angered them somehow? Or a poor, lost, local soul who'd wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time and that someone, some loved one, might still be searching for? Jimmy would never know. Just like he'd never get to do all of those other things he'd wanted to do someday too . . . and right when he'd finally started to figure out how to act like a real, honest-to-gosh secret agent . . . .

Sorry, Dad. Guess I'm not good at this stuff like you were . . . . You and Uncle Jim . . . .

He'd tried. He really had given it his best shot. Jimmy didn't know what he could have done to try harder. Maybe if he'd been older and understood stuff better. He had succeeded in destroying the gang's electricity source, and their communications cables. That was one happy thought he could take to his grave. But the fact that he was in this present situation wasn't something he could truly take his mind off of. It was impossible. He shivered, and not just from fear. The water that was slowly filling the cistern felt ice cold in spite of the summer heat. There was no comfort to be had down here except the comfort of death.

Buck up, Gordon! he yelled at himself. It was going to be horrible, but the least he could do was face his final struggle like a man. He was tired, yes, and hurt, yes, but he tried to stand up just a little straighter as the water continued to rise. In spite of not wanting to give Ratch any satisfaction, even at a distance, Jimmy found himself doing exactly as Ratch had wanted – watching his own death approach and fearing it. The water was getting deeper, coming closer, closing in. Buck up! he told himself one more time, taking deep breaths of air while he still could. At least you'll get to see Mom and Dad again . . . .