Chapter 12 - The Iron Leverage
"MARTHA! NOW!" Frank roared.
With a primal scream that tore from her chest, Martha swung the heavy iron pickaxe with every ounce of strength remaining in her sixty-year-old body. The sharp steel tip of the pickaxe embedded itself deep into the rotted timber of the main support post with a sickening CRACK.
The ancient wood shattered like dry bone under the force of the blow.
The gantry platform above groaned violently. The rusted iron brackets tore free from the granite wall with a screech of shearing metal.
"What—" Vance gasped, his refined composure shattering as the floor beneath his feet tilted violently at a forty-five-degree angle.
He lost his footing, his sleek carbine slipping from his gloved hands and plunging twenty feet down into the dark, smashing against the iron ore cart below. Vance clawed frantically at the wooden railing, but the entire gantry structure collapsed under its own weight, bringing down two tons of rotted timber, iron, and loose shale in a deafening landslide.
Vance plummeted into the debris field, screaming as a massive timber beam pinned his legs against the stone floor of the cavern.
Dust filled the central junction once again, blinding and thick.
Frank didn't wait for the dust to settle. He grabbed Lily with his good arm, scooping her up against his chest, and grabbed Martha by the shoulder.
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"THE RIGHT TUNNEL!" Frank yelled over the groans of the collapsing mine ceiling. "RUN!"
They bolted into the narrow drainage shaft as the roof of the central chamber began a catastrophic chain-reaction collapse behind them. Rocks the size of boulder dropped from the darkness above, crushing the old ore cart, burying the gantry, and sealing Dr. Vance and his madness beneath fifty feet of solid Nevada granite.
