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(40 votes) Published: May 05, 2000 12:00 a.m. Viewed 403 times
just tied on with baling wire. That’s why! The stairs just ended? How can that be?"
"Yes" said James" No warning at all. If we had better lighting I would have seen it." Slowly we began to gather our wits, and stop hyperventalating .
Alan said "I’m going to go down a little ways and look. " Slowly he headed down the stairs. When he got to where the stairs were tied to the steel he stopped. "How
much further can I go?"
"About six more steps." replied James. "Be careful !"
" I can see the end of the steps now. I’m just above about two steps. I still can’t see the bottom. "
" Come on back up. I want to go back down." said James.
" Come on guys let’s just get out of here. OK. " I said. James said he had to go and see it.
" Let me have your candle. " James headed down. A few minutes later he came back up. " Ok let’s go home." So we all stood up (I hadn’t even realized we were
sitting) and headed back up the stairs.
We had not found the bottom, but we now knew it was very deep. Too deep. Unbelievably deep. We were also working with only two candles instead of three. It
made the whole thing much darker. Our spirit of exploration was now gone. Only a feeling of dread, we all knew that we had to go back up the conduit ladder. When
we got back to the "ladder" we stopped again and rested.
"How long do you think we’ve been down here. " Alan asked.
"I don’t know but the candles are getting pretty small. Do you have anymore?" I asked.
" Yeah, In the car."
"Ok ,What about matches?"
"I dropped mine with the candle." said James.
" I have a book of paper matches, but I’ve use some." I said. Alan said" I have four. but my candle is getting very low. "
"Ok we have to do some thing fast. I don’t know about you guys but I’m scared to climb back up that thing." I said.
" Me too," offered James, " but what else can we do?"
" We could look around for another way up. " said Alan hopefully.
" No" said James "no good were running out of time."
" Well could you go up and get help?" Asked Alan.
"And leave us here in the dark? No way! and we can’t wait for help. no one knows we are here." I said.
" Look" said James " we came down it no problem. The silo isn’t any deeper now . Just don’t think about it, and we will all get out OK....... Ok, who goes first."
"James you’ve been leading the way." I said.
" I don’t want to be last." said Alan.
So it was decided James would go first, Squirt second and me last. James blew out his candle, swung around the beam onto the conduit rack and started up. Our one
candle barely providing any light, none to the level above. About half way up James said "Hey look. If you get tired you can lean against the wall." We looked up to
see him let go of the rack, with his back pressed against the wall, his feet pressed into the rack. Up he went again, making it look easy. Once he got on the floor above,
he lit his candle, the flickering light was welcome.
Alan was next, I thought he might fall, he was shaking so badly. He too stopped about half way up, resting against the silo wall. Once he reached the top. the moment
of truth had come. I blew out my candle and was thrust violently into the darkness. I placed the candle in my pocket, felt for the conduit rack, climbed around the steel
beam, and started up. Like Alan I was now shaking terribly, so I stopped, afraid my shaking would make me fall. As the shaking subsided I climbed up determined to
get to the light and out of this enormous hole.
About halfway I stopped again, leaning against the wall like the others, I was surprised that I needed the rest, more than I needed to get out. James and Alan were
calling me telling me to hurry their candle was burning out. A few more feet and I was at the point where I had to climb around the beam onto the I beam, three steps
later I joined my friends. Down to one candle we had to hurry. Through the blast doors to the launch control, up the stairs.
The candle went out because we were running. I struck a match, James held the candle so I could light it. Moving more slowly, but as fast as we could James holding
his hand in front of the candle to keep it from blowing out, we went up, Up, Up and out. Once again we were in our familiar world of light. The moonless night now
seemed very bright. The candle was gone now but it didn’t matter. We were OUT.
Breathing hard we were euphoric. We were alive, and I think that surprised us. We laughed and talked out loud, not caring if we got caught. We had overcome our
fear, we had beaten it back. We had done what had to be done, without help. As the fear left us we began talking of our bravery and how we had Conquered the
Missile silo. We got back to the car checked the time and found our little adventure had taken a mere forty five minutes.
It stunned us.
It had been a lifetime ago hadn’t it !!
For me it had been. In many ways, I left my childhood on level 3 of Site 11, on that moonless, desert night.
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