Chapter 9 - The Abyss Below
The emergency sirens blared inside the pitch-black elevator shaft, their high-pitched wails echoing like screeching metal.
Red emergency LED strips flickered to life along the elevator roof, casting a blood-red glow over Marcus, Julian, and Arthur's limp body.
Julian pressed his back against the cold steel wall, his chest heaving violently as claustrophobia clawed at his chest.
"Marcus, what did she do?" Julian demanded, his voice cracking through the wailing siren.
"She cut the primary power grid and locked the hydraulic brakes," Marcus growled, pulling a heavy tactical flashlight from his utility belt.
"She's going to flood the shaft," Marcus added, clicking the powerful beam of light directly toward the elevator ceiling.
Through the heavy steel mesh above, thick gray smoke began pouring into the cabin with a horrifying hiss.
Arthur lay on the floor, his pupils dilated in horror as the pungent smell of burning rubber and chemical gas filled his nostrils.
He tried desperately to lift a finger to warn Julian, but his body remained completely paralyzed, a helpless spectator to his own execution.
"Hold your breath! It's sulfur dioxide!" Marcus yelled, pulling two emergency respirators from his vest.
Marcus slapped one mask over Julian's face and strapped the second securely onto Arthur.
Julian knelt beside his father, gripping Arthur's icy, unresponsive hand as tight as he could.
"I'm not leaving you, Dad," Julian choked out behind the plastic mask, his eyes burning with tears.
Above them, high up in the central security control room, Maria sat back in a leather armchair, sipping chilled champagne.
Her cold eyes reflected the dozen surveillance monitors displaying every angle of the trapped elevator.
"They have roughly six minutes before the oxygen levels inside that shaft drop to absolute zero," Maria said softly to her lead henchman, Viktor.
"Make sure the local fire department receives a delayed response call due to 'technical server glitches'," she ordered with a sinister smile.
"Understood, Mrs. Vance," Viktor replied, pressing a button on his console to lock down the estate's external gates.
"When they asphyxiate, release the cables and let the cabin drop into the sub-basement sumps," Maria instructed calmly.
"We will report it as a tragic electrical fire caused by Julian's illegal break-in," she added, swirling the champagne in her glass.
Down inside the suffocating elevator, Marcus wedged his crowbar between the heavy steel elevator doors.
He gritted his teeth, his arm muscles bulging against his tactical jacket as he put his entire weight into the iron lever.
The heavy steel doors groaned, moving an inch apart with a sharp metallic screech.
Beyond the tiny gap was not an exit floor, but a solid concrete wall marked with dark yellow pipe conduits.
They were trapped directly between the sub-basement and the main chapel floor with zero foothold.
"We aren't getting out through the doors!" Marcus shouted over the roaring smoke.
Suddenly, a heavy metallic snap echoed from above their heads, followed by a terrifying drop of three feet.
The emergency cable snapped, sending sparks flying across the dark shaft.
Arthur let out a muffled groan through his mask as his body rattled violently against the steel floor.
Julian grabbed his father's collar to stop him from sliding into the narrow door gap.
"The secondary cable isn't going to hold our weight for more than two minutes!" Julian screamed through his respirator.
Marcus looked up at the escape hatch on the roof of the elevator cabin, his eyes narrowing with reckless desperation.
"Julian, grab my belt!" Marcus roars, standing on the handrails to push the roof hatch open.
With a heavy thud, the heavy steel roof hatch swung upward, exposing the open elevator shaft above them.
The shaft was a towering chimney of black smoke and climbing flames, but twenty feet above them sat a service maintenance ladder.
"I can climb up and hook a manual winch to Arthur's harness," Marcus shouted down over the crackling fire.
"You have to stay down here and secure his line when I drop it!" Marcus instructed.
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Before Julian could answer, another loud SNAP echoed through the darkness above.
The secondary steel cable frayed violently, dropping the elevator cabin another terrifying five feet into the darkness.
