Concrete Toxic

The ground hummed before we even saw the concrete. It wasn't the music. Not yet. It was a low, ugly vibration in the dirt, like a freight train passing right under the soles of my boots. I stopped walking. The mud, thick and wet with the early spring thaw, sucked at my sneakers. It smelled like dead leaves and worms. Like things rotting so other things could grow.

"You feel that?" I asked.

Marty was two steps ahead, his phone flashlight cutting a erratic white circle through the dark woods. He didn't turn around. "It's the bass, man. They're testing the rig."

"No," I said. "It's under the bass. It's in the rock."

Marty finally stopped and looked back. His jacket was already soaked from the mist. The air was heavy, sitting on my chest like a wet towel. "You're overthinking it. Again. Just keep moving. We're almost there."

I wiped rain out of my eyes. My chest felt tight. It had felt tight for six months. Ever since the panic attacks started, my default state was a low-grade physical brace, like I was waiting for someone to punch me in the stomach. My therapist called it hyper-vigilance. A trauma response. She said I was trying to control my environment by isolating myself, building walls so nobody could surprise me. I called it common sense. If you don't rely on anyone, nobody can drop you.

But tonight, I let Marty drag me out. Spring Equinox. A fresh start. That was the pitch.

We pushed through the last line of skeletal trees, and the hydro plant appeared. It didn't look like a place for a party. It looked like a tomb. A massive, brutalist block of 1970s concrete shoved into the side of the gorge. Half of it was swallowed by the earth, the other half hung out over the river. The river itself was black and violent, swollen with spring rain, roaring over the spillway in a continuous, deafening rush.

Cars were parked haphazardly along the service road. Jeeps in ditches. Sedans scraping bottom on rocks. People were piling out, carrying backpacks and cases of cheap beer, their voices swallowed by the sound of the water.

"This is a terrible idea," I said.

Marty slapped my shoulder. Hard. "It's a great idea. You need to get out of your own head. You need a reset. Drink something. Yell. Jump around. Stop acting like an eighty-year-old man waiting to die."

I didn't say anything. I just pulled my hood up.

We followed the crowd toward a rusted chain-link fence that had been peeled back like the lid of a tin can. A guy with a shaved head and a neon yellow safety vest was collecting cash at a heavy steel door propped open with a cinderblock. We paid, and we went inside.

The smell hit me first. Ozone. Stale beer. Damp concrete. And something else—something organic and sweet, like cut grass left in a garbage bag. The air was instantly ten degrees colder than outside, but thick with the body heat of a few hundred people.

We walked down a long, sloping access tunnel. The walls were weeping. Actual water running down the concrete in thin, steady streams. Graffiti covered every dry inch. Tag over tag over tag.

The bass hit us physically as we turned the corner into the main turbine hall. It wasn't sound anymore; it was pressure. It rattled my teeth. It shook the fluid in my eyes.

The hall was massive. Four giant circular pits in the floor marked where the turbines used to be. Three of them were covered with heavy steel grating. The fourth was just an open black hole, cordoned off by a single line of yellow caution tape.

Red and green lasers sliced through thick clouds of fog machine smoke. The DJ was set up on a raised concrete platform that looked like an old control station. The crowd was a single, writhing organism. Gen Z kids, mostly. Desperate for a distraction. Sweaty, shouting, moving in rhythm.

Marty pushed his way into the crowd. I stayed on the edge, my back against the damp wall.

I hated this. I hated the noise. I hated the lack of exits. I looked up. The ceiling was a mess of rusted pipes and exposed rebar. Water dripped down on us in heavy, cold drops. Every time the bass dropped, dust shook loose from the concrete above.

This place wasn't stable. The vibration I felt outside was worse in here. The floor beneath my feet felt spongy. Concrete shouldn't feel spongy.

I caught up to Marty. I grabbed the back of his jacket and pulled him out of the crush of bodies. He spun around, annoyed.

"What?" he yelled over the music.

"Bro, I am not vibing with this sketchy ass hydro plant," I yelled back, leaning close to his ear. "Look at the ceiling. Look at the floor. This place is falling apart."

Marty rolled his eyes. He leaned in. "It's fine! It's been abandoned for thirty years. It's not going anywhere tonight."

"The floor is vibrating."

"It's the subs! They brought in eight massive subs!"

"I'm leaving," I said, stepping back. "You can stay. I'm calling an Uber to the top of the access road."

Marty grabbed my arm. His grip was surprisingly tight. "Stop running away. Just stop for one second." He pointed toward the far wall, past the open turbine pit. "Look at the walls. Seriously, just look."

I followed his finger.

The far wall of the plant was cracked, a massive fissure running from the ceiling to the floor. Water was pouring out of it, but it wasn't just water. The moisture on the wall was glowing. A sick, toxic, brilliant green. It looked like someone had cracked a hundred glow sticks and painted the concrete.

"Bioluminescent spring algae," Marty shouted, grinning. "The runoff from the gorge. It blooms for like, three days a year when the temperature shifts. That's why they threw the party here tonight. It's sick, right?"

I stared at it. It was hypnotic. The green light pulsed slightly, shifting with the water flow. It didn't look natural. It looked alien. It looked completely wrong.

And then, I heard the sound.

It cut through the heavy bass. A sharp, violent crack. Like a gunshot inside a tin can.

I looked down. A spiderweb of fractures shot across the concrete floor, starting from the edge of the open turbine pit and rushing toward my feet.

"Marty," I said. I don't know if I actually made a sound.

The DJ hit the drop. The bass slammed into us.

The floor simply vanished.

There was no slow motion. There was no time to scream. One second I was standing on solid ground, and the next, the world was just falling.

Screams. The sound of tearing metal. The awful grinding of concrete on concrete.

I hit the water.

The cold was absolute. It felt like being smashed with a hammer. All the air was forced out of my lungs in a single, violent rush. My vision went black. The shock of the freezing temperature paralyzed my chest.

I was underwater. Deep. The current grabbed me instantly. This wasn't a pool. This was the underground river feeding the hydro plant. It was moving fast, violently fast, dragging me sideways.

Panic. Primal, electric panic.

I thrashed. My heavy sneakers felt like concrete blocks pulling me down. My wet jacket wrapped around my arms, restricting my movement. I couldn't tell which way was up. The water was a chaotic washing machine of bubbles, debris, and freezing darkness.

Fight. The word flashed in my brain. Fight.

I kicked hard, my lungs screaming for oxygen. My head broke the surface.

I gasped, choking on water and air. It was pitch black, except for scattered, frantic flashes of green light from the algae on the tunnel walls. The floor of the turbine hall had collapsed into the runoff tunnel. Chunks of concrete, steel grating, and people were being swept down the dark, roaring chute.

I swallowed half a gallon of freezing water as a wave hit me. I smashed my knee against something hard—a submerged rock or a piece of rebar. Pain shot up my leg, sharp and sickening.

"Help!" someone screamed in the dark.

I didn't look. I couldn't. Survival mode kicked in. The hyper-independence my therapist talked about. The wall. Save yourself. Nobody else is going to do it. Just keep your head up. Just swim.

I fought the current, aiming for the right wall of the tunnel. The water was tearing at my clothes. The noise was unbearable—the roar of the rapids echoing off the enclosed concrete walls.

I reached out, my fingers scraping against the rough, freezing wall. I found a lip. A narrow ledge of concrete running along the side of the tunnel. I grabbed it with both hands. The current ripped at my legs, trying to pull me back into the center, but I held on. My fingernails broke against the stone.

I hauled my chest up onto the ledge. I was safe. I was out of the main pull.

I lay there, coughing violently, throwing up river water. My whole body was shaking uncontrollably. The adrenaline was burning out, leaving nothing but cold and terror.

I'm alive. I'm okay. I did it.

I looked back at the river. The green glow from the algae illuminated the water in sick, flashing strobes.

Then I saw him.

Marty.

He was ten yards upstream, caught in the center of the current. He wasn't swimming. He was thrashing weakly. His head dipped under the water, then came up, his mouth open in a silent scream. He was drowning. The cold had gotten him.

He was being swept straight toward me. But he was too far out in the center. He was going to drift past me and get sucked deeper into the plant.

Stay on the ledge, my brain screamed. If you reach for him, he'll pull you in. Drowning people panic. They drag you down. You're safe. Stay safe.

The wall in my head. The isolation. It was so easy to just watch. To protect myself.

Marty went under again.

I saw his face right before he sank. Terrified. Looking right at me.

The wall broke.

I didn't think about it. If I thought about it, I wouldn't have done it. I shoved myself off the ledge and threw my body back into the freezing water.

The cold hit me again, seizing my muscles. I pushed through it. I swam out, fighting the drag of my heavy clothes. The current caught me, spinning me around.

Marty surfaced right next to me. He was completely panicked. His eyes were wide, white in the dark. He flailed, his hand striking me hard in the face.

"Marty!" I screamed, spitting water.

He didn't hear me. He grabbed my shoulders, pushing me down to keep himself up.

The water rushed over my head. I was sinking. He was drowning me. The exact thing I was afraid of. The exact reason I pushed everyone away. Rely on someone, and they'll kill you.

I fought him under the water. I brought my knee up, catching him in the ribs. He let go.

I surfaced, gasping. I grabbed the collar of his jacket and twisted it tight in my fist.

"Stop fighting!" I roared right in his face. "Stop!"

He blinked. For a split second, clarity broke through his panic. He saw me.

"Jay," he choked out.

"Grab my arm. Not my neck. My arm!"

He reached out and locked his hand around my forearm. His grip was like a vice. I grabbed his arm in return.

"Kick!" I yelled.

We fought the water together. It was a brutal, ugly struggle. The current was relentless. But with two of us, the weight shifted. I wasn't just fighting for myself anymore. The isolation was gone. Replaced by the heavy, terrifying burden of keeping someone else alive. It gave me focus.

We hit the wall hard. My shoulder took the impact, grinding against the concrete. I screamed, but I didn't let go of Marty.

I reached up with my free hand and found the ledge.

"Pull!" I grunted.

Marty scrambled, his boots finding a slight indentation in the wall. He hauled himself up onto the ledge, falling flat onto the concrete.

He immediately turned around, reached down, and grabbed my jacket. He hauled me up next to him.

We collapsed onto the narrow strip of stone.

For a long time, neither of us spoke. We just lay there in the dark, breathing in ragged, violent gasps. The sound of the river roared past us, inches from our boots. The cold was setting into my bones, a deep, painful ache.

Marty rolled onto his back. He coughed, a wet, hacking sound.

"Holy shit," he whispered.

"Yeah," I said. My voice was raspy, destroyed by the cold water.

"You came back in for me."

"You're an idiot," I said. I was shaking so hard my teeth were clicking together.

"I owe you," Marty said.

"Don't ever make me go to a rave again."

Marty let out a weak, coughing laugh. "Deal."

I sat up slowly. My whole body hurt. My knee was throbbing. My shoulder felt out of place. But the tight, crushing feeling in my chest—the anxiety that had been choking me for six months—was gone. Burned away by the freezing water and the sheer reality of surviving.

I looked at Marty. He looked terrible. Pale, soaked, shivering. But he was there.

"We need to move," I said. "We're gonna freeze to death if we stay here."

"Where do we go?" Marty asked, sitting up.

I looked down the tunnel. The ledge continued into the dark. The walls were slick with the glowing green algae. It was our only light source.

But the water was rising. Slowly, steadily, creeping up the side of the concrete lip.

The green light pulsed in time with the water, and somewhere further down the tunnel, something massive breached the surface.