by Toby Neal
“Make a filter from your shirt,” Sophie said. “Tie it over your nose and mouth like I did.” She’d finally reached the roughly circular wall of the cavern and begun curving back around when she encountered another opening. This was roughly six feet in diameter and led away from their cavern. “I found a hole. Looks like it might lead somewhere, and the air’s slightly fresher here,” she called to Jake.
“Yeah? Well I found some old crap they pitched in here that might be useful,” Jake said. “Work your way over to my side and let’s take a little inventory.”
Sophie’s eyes were gritty from the haze, which seemed to be dissipating at last. She continued on, looking for any further openings or cracks in the walls or ceiling, and seeing none. Nothing but rock, dirt, and fallen piles of ashy soil that had detached from the ceiling. She eventually made her way back to her partner, who was squatting outside of a circle of dim sunlight that looked bright in contrast to the thick darkness. “What did you find?”
“A body,” Jake said, and held up a human skull.
Chapter Seven
Jake
Sophie’s short hair was gray and thick with the ashy sediment from overhead; her honey-brown eyes gleamed in the filth that coated her face. “We landed in a crime scene.”
“Who knows? The guy might have died of natural causes and they didn’t bother to bury him.” Jake waggled the skull back and forth, and the bits of hair clinging to the scalp swayed in a macabre way. “If only these bones could talk.”
Sophie tightened her jaw, clearly not interested in the body. “You said you found something useful.”
“Yeah. They didn’t clear the body. I found some very old smokes in his pocket, and this.” Jake flicked a good quality stainless steel lighter triumphantly. “He was also wearing a belt with a knife on it.” He held up the item in question, a wicked looking combat blade. “We’re armed. We have a source of light. It’s all good now.”
As if to mock them, the ground shuddered again, a feeling like being on an animal shaking its coat. Jake threw himself on Sophie instinctively as more debris rained down on them from around the opening above.
The quake was short this time and ended almost as soon as it started. Sophie cursed in Thai, and wriggled beneath him. “I appreciate you trying to protect me, Jake, but right now you smell like the devil’s armpit. Get off!”
Everything still hurt. Every breath stabbed like a thousand ice picks. Jake groaned as he rolled off Sophie onto the rough stone floor of the cavern. “Why did I have to land in a pile of crap after getting the shit beat out of me?”
“I don’t know. Life’s not fair?” Sophie pointed to the litter of bones that marked the body. “I’m sure that guy agrees.” She put her hands on her hips and looked toward their light source, the crumbling hole far above. “I worry that the ceiling will collapse further. I think we should figure out a way to use your lighter. We could make a torch and explore the tunnel I found. At least the air and stink are better there, and if it’s a dead end, we can always come back. Eventually, Bix will be looking for us at the coordinates I sent.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Even though breathing hurt, Jake would rather be on the move than trying to keep his mind off their circumstances and waiting for help. “Let’s find some kind of stick. We need something that can burn—ideally, a fuel source.”
“Ugh. I guess we have to get back into the trash.” Sophie pulled her shirt back up over her nose and mouth again, and approached the foul-smelling heap that had mercifully broken their twenty-foot fall.
Jake breathed shallowly through his mouth and focused on the fact that, once they were able to make some torches, they’d be able to get away from the stench—at least for a little while.
He pulled aside several branches and a palm frond or two. With the knife, he’d be able to fashion them into some kind of handle—but nothing would last long if they didn’t find something that could fuel the torch. Perhaps the clothing on the corpse could be useful. Technically, they should have left the body undisturbed, but the necessity of survival outweighed corruption of a possible crime scene.
“Eureka!” Sophie shouted.
Jake spun to see her, halfway up the refuse pile, brandishing several spherical items. The light was too dim to see exactly what they were, but he turned eagerly away from the grisly prospect of stripping the clothing from a corpse whose body had rotted inside of the garments.
“Eureka? That’s a new one for you. What you got there?”
“Coconuts.” Sophie tossed one of them down to him. “The husks are great fuel, and these are old coconuts. Hopefully the meat inside the nut is nice and dried out—coconut is very oily. We can put the coconut meat in something and burn it.”
Jake eyed the gray, roughly football-sized coconut. He’d seen local men open them in a matter of minutes with a machete or an axe, but they had nothing down here but a knife. The dense husk covering the outside was hard to get through, not to mention the tremendously hard inner nut. “Could take us hours to deal with this thing.”
Sophie frowned and put her hands on her hips. Silhouetted on top of the pile, even covered with grime she was a magnificent sight. “What, are you in a hurry to go into a completely dark lava tube with a torch that’ll go out in minutes?”
Jake stepped up, handed her back the coconut, and presented the knife in its scabbard. “You go, girl. I’m off to look for something easier to deal with.”
Sophie snorted. “Good luck.”
She squished down off the pile and sat on the rocky ground. She took off her shoes, gripped the coconut with her feet, and jabbed the knife into the tough fibrous exterior.
Jake twitched in reaction. Watching her do that was too nerve-wracking; she could so easily slip with that knife and cut herself. But he couldn’t offer to help after making a fuss, so he bit his tongue, turned away, and went back to searching the refuse pile.
An hour or so later of digging and sifting, Jake found a can filled with used Crisco frying oil. “Eureka!” he yelled, holding the lidded tin aloft.
He was rewarded by hearing Sophie laugh.
Down here in the cesspit with a dead body, trapped, literally covered with shit, she was laughing.
He loved her so freakin’ much.
Jake made his way back to her, his eyes widening to see that she’d stripped the tough, fibrous husk off the coconut, and had begun smashing the fist-sized nut itself between two rocks. “We can still use this meat inside. For fuel, or to eat if we get hungry enough.”
“I’d have to be pretty damn hungry.” Jake squatted beside her and held up his prize. “Exhibit A. Fuel oil.”
The coconut gave way to Sophie’s pounding with a crunch. She held up one of its large brown shards, lined with shriveled white coconut gone translucent with age. “Exhibit B. Even more fuel.”
“Excellent. Now we need something that can hold the flame and wick the fuel.” Jake pointed to the corpse. “I was going to pull that guy’s clothes off him. He doesn’t need them anymore.”
“But the smell. Burning, it will be even worse.” Sophie shuddered. “Plus, it’s a crime scene. They might be able to tell something about his death from the clothes.”
“I’m pretty grossed out by the body fluids and fats that are soaked into the cloth,” Jake said. “And you’re right. But maybe we could cut off the lower legs of his jeans . . .”
“Ugh. Why don’t we just dip some of this coconut husk in the oil and try that?”
Jake cocked his head, considering. “Okay. We can give that a go.”
Sophie dipped a finger-wide shred of coconut husk into the oil in the tin. It had thickened up, so it adhered to the fibrous husk like a blob of mayonnaise. “If the husk can hold the fuel without burning up, we could plant a few pieces in the oil as wicks, and carry your whole tin.”
Jake flicked the lighter. “The moment of truth.” He held the flame to the coconut husk.
It promptly flared high, emitting black smoke, and burned do
wn until Sophie had to drop it. She swore.
“I wish you’d tell me what you’re saying in English.”
“Rat guts vomited from the mouth of a cat. It doesn’t translate well.”
Jake chuckled. “Fair enough. I don’t like the idea of carrying a sloshing can of hot oil with a flaming wick through uncertain terrain, anyway. Here’s what I think we should do. Let’s use the knife to cut the edge of the dead guy’s jeans off, just that rolled bit of fabric at the bottom. We can dip it into the oil and use it as a wick. I think the jeans material will hold the flame better. We can experiment first, but my idea is to soak that in the oil, wrap it around a stick, and light it. When the flame starts to go out, we can dip it in the oil again. Keep one torch going all the time, but have two to work with.”
“Sounds good to me.”
They both turned to eye the dead man. Decomp had come and gone, leaving darkly-stained garments surrounding bones that still held remnants of skin and hair that hadn’t been eaten by the bugs that flew freely around the trash pile.
“I bet he was a lot worse a few months ago,” Jake said. “The bugs and maggots have had time to clean up a lot of it.”
Sophie grimaced. “Good thing I have a strong stomach. I’ll cut the jeans off at the knees. That should be enough.” She was still holding the knife, and she pulled her shirt mask up over her nose and mouth, and advanced to kneel next to the corpse.
Sophie never hesitated to wade right in and do what needed to be done—another reason Jake loved her. Kneeling beside her and helping her free the cloth from the clinging remnants of skin and bone, he glimpsed the empowering tattoos on her inner arms—the ones on the outsides of her thighs were hidden by her pants. But she had other ones he’d seen in their private times together, a mandala of Thai writing around her navel that spelled out love, joy, bliss.
He’d see that tattoo again. Trace it with kisses. But when they were out of danger, out of this foul and filthy environment, and a whole lot cleaner.
They cut the jeans material into narrow strips and carefully soaked it in the oil. Sophie lit a test strip on a twig. The oil smelled of fried chicken, a macabre twist to the whole bizarre and disgusting experience. “Colonel Sanders is here with us in this cave,” Jake said, waving the test torch carefully. “Who knew we’d have him for company. The good news is, the jeans material is holding the flame. It’s not burning up.”
“No idea who Colonel Sanders is, but this oil smell is making me hungry,” Sophie said, wrapping another soaked strip carefully around one of the sticks whose leaves and branches he’d already stripped. “I wish that weren’t true, but all I ate today was a protein bar.”
“Thanks for saying that, because I was thinking the same thing. Maybe we’ll end up eating that old coconut before we get out of here.”
“I already packed it in one of my pockets,” Sophie said, patting it.
“I think water might be more of a problem before this adventure is over.” Jake finished making his torch, tucking the ends of the fabric carefully into a tightly wrapped bundle at one end of the stick. He put the plastic lid back on the oil tin. “I have a cargo pocket big enough to carry this.” He slid it into the pocket and snapped the flap closed. “The moment of truth, take two.”
Jake flicked the lighter and lit his torch. It flared bright, and the smell of fried chicken masked the other reeks around them momentarily. “I believe we’re ready to venture into the lava tube, Sophie. Lead on.”
The earth trembled, just a tiny shudder—but enough to make more dirt and debris fall in from the fragile opening. Sophie took one last look at the bit of open sky above the hole, prompting Jake to look at it too.
“I guess we better go,” Sophie grimaced. “We’ll never be stronger than right now.”
“Depressing thought.” Jake elbowed her, trying for a smile. “We can always come back if it’s a dead end.”
“I don’t like the sound of dead end. I prefer blocked tunnel,” Sophie said with dignity.
“I have to agree with you on that one.” Jake held the torch high to light their way as they moved away from the cave’s overhead opening, saying goodbye to the light one last time.
Chapter Eight
Sophie
She was falling in love with Jake again.
Who else could make her laugh by bouncing her own words back to her? Who else could get up from a beating like he’d taken and, with nothing more than a moan and groan or two, get on with solving the problems they found themselves in? Who else did she have confidence in, as they tried to cheat death yet another time?
Only Jake.
Okay, maybe Connor, too. And Raveaux was amazingly capable.
But only Jake could deal with a situation like this with real attitude.
Sophie had taken the lit torch to lead them to the exit she’d found. She stopped at the opening into the lava tube that led away from the central cavern, hesitating as she stared into the narrow black tunnel. It looked so black, so impossibly small. “I don’t know. Maybe we should wait in here for Bix to send help.”
“It could take days for them to find us, and I don’t think this cavern is that stable.” Jake moved up beside her. She held the flickering torch aloft and they peered into the much narrower tunnel ahead. “Hard to tell how far this tube goes. We don’t have to commit to it. We’re just checking out our options.”
“There’s some air coming through here, so it must vent out somewhere.” Sophie pointed to the way the flame of the torch bent in a slight breeze. “I’ve studied the way lava moves underground since I got stuck in a tube like this the last time. Lava flows like water in its liquid state; it heads downhill, it pools around obstacles. A bigger cavern like the one we’re leaving was sort of like a puddle of lava at the time it was created. Since we didn’t find an exit point other than this one, and the terrain goes slightly downhill toward the coast, my guess is that the lava came up from below the cavern, pooled in that main chamber, and this is where it ran down toward the ocean. Hopefully, we will find an opening where it exited.”
“Unless it emptied out underwater in the ocean.” Jake shivered theatrically.
“We’ll know if it did. The water would have backfilled the tunnel until it found equilibrium once the lava cooled; we’d have to stop when we come to that point.”
Jake’s eyes were slate-colored in the gleam of the torch. “You’re so sexy when you talk geology to me.”
“You’re so sexy, period.” She couldn’t help what popped out of her mouth—and she wasn’t sorry when his gaze seemed to heat.
“I freakin’ love you so much. I’d kiss you if I wasn’t so filthy.”
“You can kiss me anyway. Our lips probably only have the usual trillions of bacteria,” she said primly.
He laughed.
Jake’s laugh still made her toes curl.
And then he kissed her.
What started out playful soon wasn’t.
“I’d give a million dollars for a shower and a bed right now,” Jake eventually said.
Sophie chuckled breathlessly. “Anticipation is the spice of life, to paraphrase the American saying.”
“You’re getting downright good at those truisms. Let’s move, so we can get out of this shithole and get busy.” Jake waggled his brows. “As they say.” He took the lead this time, taking the torch from her, and holding it high to light their way.
The makeshift light, which burned steadily, if smokily, wasn’t really adequate to illuminate Sophie’s footing. She stumbled over a rough protrusion on the floor. “Twin sons of a conjoined snake!”
“You’re sexy when you talk dirty, babe, but I don’t want you to keep stubbing your toes. Grab onto my belt.”
Sophie grasped Jake’s belt with both hands and focused on not catching her feet, mercifully covered with good quality hiking boots, on the rough, jagged floor. But even with the flickering flame, making their way through the lava tube reminded her of the case on Kaua`i where she’d gone into a
similar setting, without a light, to rescue a young boy who’d been trapped down there for days.
Sound was muffled by the porous stone without a large space to amplify it like the cavern they’d originally entered. The walls were smooth as jet in some areas, prickly and porous in others, with needle-like protrusions stabbing down from the ceiling, the remains of lava dripping.
The tube-like tunnel went steadily downward, curving to and fro. Sophie frowned. They weren’t moving that fast, but she felt warmer. Maybe she was getting her heart rate up . . .
She refused to think it was nearby lava, warming the walls.
“I think we should talk,” Jake said.
“About what?” Sophie carefully navigated a large rock blocking their path.
“About our future.”
“We don’t have a future unless we get out of here.”
“Let’s assume we will.”
“I think it’s better to focus on right now.”
“See, this is why we’re a good partnership.” Jake tugged on Sophie’s belt, bringing her to a halt. “Do you hear something?” he whispered.
Sophie shut her eyes. Touch, hearing, and smell were amplified, where vision was next to useless. “I do hear something. It’s water dripping.”
“Good. I’m thirsty. Wasn’t going to mention it since there was no point.”
“Maybe there’s an underground pool ahead. These tubes often fill with water from the soil above. The good news is, the water’s usually pure and drinkable, because it’s been naturally filtered through the stone.”
Jake’s torch chose that moment to begin to sputter. Sophie quickly lifted hers to catch the last of his flame, and she stepped forward. “Now you can hold onto my belt.”
“Sure I can’t hold onto . . . right here?” He patted the part in question.
“Jake. Focus. Think—if there’s a pool up ahead, we might be able to wash up.”
