They had reached the chemistry lab, but Andy wasn’t nearly ready to let Kerri join them at this point of the conversation.
NATE: Okay, maybe it’s a little too drastic, but…In any case, we should stay as far from Debo?n as possible. We should leave Blyton Hills tonight. And definitely never go back to the house.
(Door opens, Kerri steps out.)
KERRI: We have to go back to the house.
(All three stare admiringly at her timing. Andy shyly offers her the Coke.)
ANDY: Captain’s gone for the pH test.
KERRI: I don’t need it; there was one in there. I just had to give you something to do; you were driving me crazy.
(She takes the Coke and the lead, back down the hallway.)
JOEY: Nate just said we can’t go back to the house.
ANDY: He said we can’t go back.
KERRI: We have to. We gotta stop that guy.
NATE: You know who he is?
KERRI: It’s irrelevant.
NATE: It’s Debo?n, Kerri!
KERRI: Irrelevant. We’ve got to stop him before he tries to raise Thookatoo again.
JOEY: Raise who?
NATE: Thtaggoa. A primeval entity that—
KERRI: Whatever, he’s not the threat either.
NATE: Not a threat?!
ANDY: The creatures are the threat.
KERRI: No, they’re not.
JOEY: Guys!
(They stop.)
JOEY: What the fuck is the threat?!
As an answer, Kerri shook the can of Coke, then opened it right under his nose. Nate and Andy barely dodged the soda explosion that hit Joey straight in the face.
Tim ran to drink from the magic pool of caffeine forming at their feet while a drenched Joey swept the foam from his brow. Kerri stood glaring at him, unfazed.
“Why did that happen?” she pop-quizzed.
Joey considered the question, face dripping. “Because you’re an asshole.”
“No,” Andy tried. “Because…uh…soda. Carbonated water. CO2.”
“There,” Kerri pinpointed. “Coke is carbonated by injecting CO2 into syrup and water, but CO2 is a gas and water is liquid; in order for the gas to bind with the liquid it needs to be pressurized. When you open the can, you’re depressurizing it: that’s the psst it makes; then the gas molecules start slowly unbinding and floating to the surface. But if you shake the can before you open it, the bonds break and the gas separates from the liquid. If you depressurize the can right after, all the loose gas blows out.” She pointed at Joey’s perplexed face as evidence.
“Right,” Andy digested. “So what does this have to do—”
“The water in the lake,” Nate guessed. “It contains CO2.”
“It’s carbonated,” Kerri explained, “because it sits on a volcano. We saw the CO2 leaking into the mines. Similar leaks at the bottom of the lake are injecting CO2 into the water. I just analyzed it from the wheezer samples—the acidity is off the chart.”
“So…Sleepy Lake is made of soda?” Joey speculated, puzzled.
“But the lake isn’t pressurized,” Nate argued.
“Yes, it is at the bottom, because of the weight of all that water above. In normal conditions, convection would make the water at the bottom come up and depressurize slowly, releasing the gas at safe levels, but if you shake it first…”
“How do you shake a lake?” Joey insisted.
“Earthquakes,” Andy guessed.
“Which are somehow caused every time someone reads a spell out loud,” Kerri concluded. “We’ve seen the effects already. We’re on volcanic soil; small tremors are frequent. When it happens under the lake, it brings an unusually large volume of carbonated water up, releasing CO2.”
“CO2 brings the wheezers up,” Nate appended.
“CO2 causes poisoning, makes you feel weaker,” Andy added.
“It’s probably why the Indians called it Sleepy Lake in the first place,” Kerri went on. “It’s what kills the animals on the shore and makes the birds scram. But if the quake is big enough, the whole lake will blow up like a can of Coke.” She paused for air. “This is an astoundingly rare natural phenomenon called limnic eruption. Four years ago, it happened in Lake Nyos, Cameroon, and the resulting gas cloud drifted toward populated areas and killed seventeen hundred.”
“And if it happens here…” Andy began.
“Provided there’s no wind to blow away the cloud, which would be far greater than the one in Cameroon, it would naturally flow downhill, because it’s denser than air, down the only logical path: the Zoinx River Valley, until it reached…”
“Blyton Hills,” Andy finished. “That’s almost a thousand casualties.”
“Then it would continue past us until the Zoinx flows into the Willamette in Belden…”
“Three thousand casualties.”
“And, if the wind’s still forsaking us by that time and the cloud is large enough, I guess it could potentially follow down the Willamette into Portland.” She cut off Andy. “I don’t care how many people live there; there’s a few of them I really like.”
At the end of the hall, the main doors clacked open; Captain Al and Copperseed marched up to them, bearing news.
“Your Jaffa is the same Jaffa,” Copperseed announced. “But his ID is fake—RH denies ever employing him. State police declared him missing in nineteen eighty; his car was found in the parking lot of the Saginaw Motel with a dead engine. Clerk says the driver was a mine inspector—used to flash his ID to anyone who cared. Last day he checked out, paid in cash, hitchhiked off saying he’d come back for the car, was never heard of again.” He noticed his audience’s sallow faces and the bubbling brown pool on the floor. “What?”
The Blyton Summer Detective Club rubbed their eyes, shifted on their feet, licked Coke off their noses.
“State also says they can send men to help in a hunting party,” Captain Al appended. “All they need is a formal request.”
“That issue has been…outprioritized,” Nate said, diplomatically.
“Okay,” the captain followed. “What do you want to do?”
Kerri faced Deputy Copperseed first. “We should evacuate the town. Something big is going to happen, and we may be able to prevent it, but if we fail…Is there an evacuation plan?”
“There is,” the policeman confirmed, in a tone that clearly implied that was the end of the good news, “but it was drafted when we were three to five stationed in Blyton Hills; now it’s just me and a volunteer.” He chin-pointed at Joey. “I can call the sheriff in Belden, but we’d still be undermanned.”
“Quickest way would be to bring in the army,” Kerri suggested, turning to Captain Al. “Maybe your friends at Umatilla?”
“I can’t bring in the army, Kerri,” the captain replied, overwhelmed. He seemed truly devastated to disappoint her. “I have friends at the airbase, but not that many friends.”
“Look, there are people we can call in case of emergency,” Copperseed assisted, “but they won’t rush in unless the emergency is already happening, or we have staggering evidence it will happen. The dead thing in the freezer is not gonna cut it.”
“It’s not about the creatures anymore,” Nate told him. “We’re talking natural disaster.” He underscored the word “natural.”