by Anthology
I connected the rope just like he showed me and tested it a few times. It was holding my weight and the handbrake was working, so I moved to the periphery. I turned my back and slowly leaned over, just like he did.
My feet were on level ground, on the edge, and then on the wall. The rope was holding my weight just fine. I released the brake ever so slightly and slowly sank down into the darkness.
Chapter 11
Crossing The Line
“I’m proud of you.”
“I’m amazed I did that.”
He laughed. I was on solid ground, down at the bottom of the cleft. A couple feet behind me was the ocean, rushing into a cave. In front of me was Langdon, and beyond him was a cavernous hallway leading around a corner.
“What’s down here?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Nobody has actually come down here before.”
“We’re going into this blind?”
“We are,” he confirmed.
“Shit.”
He laughed. “Relax. We’ll be fine.”
Langdon helped get my harness off but left the ropes where they were. I figured we’d need them to get back up when all of this was over. Once the harnesses were packed, he suddenly took a revolver from the pack and slipped it into the front of his jeans.[I thought he was wearing a gun holster though? Is this in addition to the gun he's got strapped to his side? Anna mentions it during the drive out here.]
“Uh,” I said. “What’s that for?”
“Just in case.”
“In case of what? Pirates?”
He laughed. “Syndicate.”
“Shit. They know about this?”
He shook his head. “I can’t be sure. Come on, let’s go.”
He started down the path deeper into the cave system, and I paused. I didn’t really want to follow a guy that thought we might need a gun, but then again, I had already rappelled down into a cave.[But she's already mentioned him having a gun earlier in the story – see my previous note.] I wasn’t sure how I was going to get back up. I looked into the sky and up to the lip of the cavern and knew that I couldn’t just climb up.
I hurried to follow him, staying close. The path we took looked like it had been smoothed out, though I couldn’t tell by what. There didn’t seem to be any indication of water getting in here, but it could have been created by the ocean thousands of years ago. As we moved farther in, the light began to get weaker and weaker until eventually Langdon took out two flashlights and handed me one.
We turned them on.
“Are you sure there’s enough air down here?”
“Positive,” he said. “We’re not deep enough to worry about that.”
“What if we don’t find it before we have to worry?”
“We’ll turn back long before that. Promise.”
With our lights on, we moved deeper into the caves. I felt like I was crossing some line that couldn’t be uncrossed, but I couldn’t help myself. There was just no turning back at this point, even if I wanted to.
About twenty feet into the path, Langdon stopped. “Look,” he said, holding his light to the wall.
Shoved into what looked like a makeshift sconce was a torch. “Shit,” I said.
“We’re on the right track.”
“How old is that?”
“Who knows? Old.”
It looked maybe hundreds of years old, though it was really hard to say. The brittle salt air could probably preserve something like that for a pretty long time if nobody disturbed it.
We continued on past the torch. For a second I considered bringing it with us, but I figured flashlights were a little safer and more dependable than an ancient torch. Still, it seemed almost significant.
Deeper into the caves, I started to notice strange symbols in the walls. Langdon would stop and look at them every few feet but shake his head, unable to tell what they were.
“Not a language I know,” he said.
“Do you know many?”
“A few.”
“I thought you were the CEO of a candy company.”
“I am. By day.”
“Apparently you’re Indiana Jones by night.”
“That joke again?”
“It’s the best description.”
“I’m way cooler than Indiana Jones. Whips are for pussies.”
I laughed, and we moved forward. The path was getting narrower and narrower, and I began to feel a little claustrophobic. Twenty more feet, and we were walking sideways, barely fitting through. Langdon had to take off his backpack, and the walls were almost crushing us.
“Langdon,” I said, ready to turn back. We had clearly hit a dead end.
“Holy shit,” he said.
And then he disappeared.
Chapter 12
Rocket Man Burning Out His Fuse Down Here Alone
“Langdon?”
I paused and didn’t hear a thing. I took a deep breath, trying not to lose it. I shone my flashlight ahead but the beam ended in total darkness. The path clearly ended in a larger chamber, but I couldn’t see what was in there or where Langdon had gone.
“Langdon!”
“Come here.”
I nearly jumped. He suddenly appeared in my flashlight beam, beckoning me.
“Come on, it’s up ahead.”
I slipped through the path and stepped into the room. The cavern was huge, absolutely massive. I shone my light straight up but couldn’t see the ceiling, nor could I see the other side of the chamber. Langdon took my hand, leading the way across the enormous space, and I suddenly felt like I was in the middle of outer space.
There was nothing on either side of us but inky blackness. Anything could be hiding out there, but it didn’t matter. It was just us, me and Langdon, floating in space.
“Here,” he said. “Look.”
He shone his flashlight and finally it hit the other wall.
Actually, “wall” wasn’t quite the right idea.
It was actually a huge door.
“Holy shit,” I said.
He laughed. “That’s what I said, too.”
We got closer and looked at the door. It was made of iron and it was huge, absolutely colossal. There were rings on either side, probably meant to be handles, but nothing happened when Langdon pulled as hard as he could on them.
“Locked,” he said. “Or rusted shut or just stuck.”
“There might be a way around?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What do we do? Go back for help?”
“No,” he said, grinning at me. “I have a solution.” He dropped his pack and began to root through it before pulling out a long, thin object which he held up to me.
“What is that?” I asked and then groaned at his huge smile. “No. No way, Langdon.”
“It’s just a tiny charge,” he said. “It won’t cause a cave in, but it might jar this door open.”
“Langdon. We’re not blowing up the door.”
But he wasn’t listening. He was too busy placing the charge on the door, just underneath the handles.
“Langdon!”
“We’d better back up.” He began to walk away from the door, and I hurried after him. We went all the way across the chamber to the other side and stood against the wall where the opening to the first path was.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No. Don’t do this.”
“Three, two, one!”
Chapter 13
It’s A Trap!
“I hear something!”
Langdon paused, staring at me, his thumb hovering over the trigger, a frown on his face.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Shhh,” I said, waving my hands at him. “Just listen.”
We stood there at the thin entrance to the long path from the ocean, straining to hear. We stood there in the near total darkness in the near total silence, when suddenly I heard it again.
“There!” I said. “Listen.”
> The noise was drifting from farther down the path, toward the ocean. It didn’t sound like water or anything like that. In fact, it sounded like voices.
“Dutch,” Langdon said. “Fuck.”
“Dutch?”
“It’s the Syndicate.”
“They’re Dutch?”
“Shit,” he said again, shaking his head. “This is bad.”
“How did they find us?”
“They must have been following from the start.”
“They followed us here? I thought you said you were careful?”
He glared at me. “I was careful. But the Syndicate is good, very good. There’s a reason this war has gone on for so long.”
“What do we do?”
“Come on. We have to remove that charge. The voices sound close.”
“Remove it?”
“We can’t blow it. They’ll be better armed, and they’ll definitely outnumber us. We can’t fight them for the manuscript.”
“So we let them get it before we do?”
“No,” he said, his face screwed up in thought. “I’ll figure something out. I’ll improvise. But hurry, we have to move fast. They’re not far.”
We began to run across the chamber then, moving as fast as we could. We kept one flashlight on the ground and the other out ahead, waiting for the door to come into view. Finally, it loomed up in the darkness.
Langdon ran forward and carefully removed the charge from the door. He gently placed it back into his backpack, sighing as he tossed his pack back onto his shoulders.
“Come on,” he said, and we started back toward the entrance.
But suddenly, we saw dim lights in the distance.
“Shit!”
Langdon grabbed my hand and yanked me to the side. We ran as fast as we could away from the lights until we made it to the wall on the far side of the chamber.
“We have to turn these off,” he said. “So they can’t see us.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Ready?”
I sighed. “Ready.”
We turned off the flashlights, plunging us unto darkness, just as the dim lights suddenly got brighter down at the other end of the hall.
“Be very still,” he said softly. “Remember, they won’t be able to see us since we’re so deep into the chamber.”
“What if they explore the edges?”
“I’ll handle that.”
I kept close to Langdon, my hands on his body, and he kept one arm wrapped around my waist. We huddled together against the wall, watching as the lights got brighter. Two flashlights became four, became six, and slowly the group began to move into the chamber.
Their voices echoed through the space, reaching us in dim waves. I couldn’t understand them, since they were speaking Dutch, and Langdon wasn’t translating.
“Be still and quiet,” he whispered in my ear, his voice warm and close.
I nodded, watching as the six men moved farther into the wide open space. We were closer to the door than to them, and so it took them a few minutes before they finally passed where we were hidden. We were at least thirty yards away, which meant that the chamber itself was absolutely gargantuan. The wall we were near was smooth rock, like it had been perfectly carved out by someone in the past with machinery.
But I didn’t have time to consider the implications of that, because the group of men reached the door.
“Come on,” Langdon whispered. “We have to get back.”
We began to move back along the wall toward the other side.
“Keep one hand in mine and the other hand on the wall,” he whispered.
We moved in total darkness away from the only source of light. I did as he instructed, keeping one hand on the wall and the other firmly in his big, warm hand. He led the way, heading toward the other end of the chamber. Slowly but surely, we put distance between us and the Syndicate men.
“Almost there,” Langdon whispered.
Suddenly, my feet ran into something. I nearly tripped over whatever it was, stumbling forward into Langdon. He grabbed me, catching me before I could fall. There was a clattering sound and we froze, absolutely still, as the lights near the door shifted in our direction.
“What was that?” Langdon asked.
I reached down and felt something long and smooth. It was hard, but not as hard as rock. I moved my hand down its length until I felt something else. It was rounder, with some dents and holes in it.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
Langdon followed my arm until he found the thing. He grabbed it and then we started moving again, back toward the other end.
Finally, we reached the end, and began to head back toward the center where the entrance was. It took a few minutes, but finally we made it to the crack.
“Go first,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”
I squeezed back through, shuffling back between the impossibly close rock walls until it slowly began to open up again. I slipped through back into the walkway where I could stand and breathe comfortably. A second later, Langdon appeared next to me.
“Let’s see what we have here,” he whispered. He crouched down away from the opening into the chamber and turned on his flashlight.
“Holy shit,” he hissed.
“What?”
I looked over his shoulder and stared at the human skull he held in his hand.
“Oh my god,” I said, horrified, and stumbled backward.
“Don’t panic,” he said. “We’re not in danger back here.”
“That’s a dead person's skull. Someone died in there.”
“I’m guessing this isn’t the only one.”
“Langdon. That’s a human skull. What the hell?”
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “Unless . . . “
Just then, the world felt like it exploded.
Chapter 14
Always Be Careful When Blowing Up A Cave
I clutched at Langdon, my eyes wide open, staring around. The ground had shaken like we'd experienced an earthquake, and there was an incredibly loud noise.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“An explosion?”
“No. There was no light.”
“Did the cave just collapse?”
“Listen,” he said softly.
I strained to hear, and suddenly the sound came to me, drifting and echoing through the cavern.
It was the sound of humans groaning.
“Fuck,” I said. “Holy shit.”
Because it was echoing and they were so far away, the groans sounded inhuman, supernatural and impossible. At first I thought it was ghosts, but it quickly became obvious what the noise really was.
“I think I know what happened to this guy,” Langdon said.
“What’s going on?”
“A booby trap.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No,” he said softly. “I’m not. Did you feel the holes in the walls when we were heading back?”
“No,” I admitted.
“I did. They were perfectly round and every few feet.”
“So what were they?”
“I think there’s a trap that activates when someone tries to open the door. I think it fires arrows or darts or maybe stone pellets into the chamber, killing whatever is in there. I’m guessing if we could see better, there would be skeletons all around that door.”
I stared at him, horrified. “We almost died,” I said softly. “If we had set off that charge . . . “
He nodded gravely. “We would have still been in the chamber.”
“But we weren’t. They were.”
“Well, I don’t know what they did to set it off.”
“What do we do?”
“We set the charge again.”
“Langdon,” I said. “That’s insane.”
“We’ll detonate it from out here. Clearly the booby trap won’t effect us if we’re not i
n there, otherwise we’d be hurt right now.”
I sighed, shaking my head. I knew he was right and that we were safe, but I still could hardly believe what was happening. There were six men in that chamber, six dead men or at least dying men, and here we were talking about setting off the booby trap again.
“What about them?” I asked him.
“They’re finished,” he said. “Believe me. They’re not good people, Anna.”
“They’re still people.”
“No. They’re Syndicate members. They want to destroy the world and to destroy Christmas.” He took out his revolver. “I’ll put them out of their misery. Other than that, we have to keep going.”
I stared at him for a second before finally nodding. I knew maybe I was making the wrong decision, but he was right. We’d come this far, and I knew that there was danger. I believed him when he said that the Syndicate men were evil, and they definitely knew what they were getting into.
Besides, I couldn’t let Christmas get destroyed. That would go against everything my mother believed in. She clearly had been working against the Syndicate, and if she believed that they were bad, then I was going to have to trust her on that. Maybe I hadn't seen it firsthand yet, but I couldn’t imagine my mother would devote her life to something if it weren’t true.
The same went for Langdon. I couldn’t help but marvel at him. He had taken us so far already, and figured out so many incredible things. At first I thought he was just some spoiled rich guy that wanted to get me into bed, but he was so much more than that. I was coming to see that he had depths well beyond anything I could have guessed.
“Let’s go,” he said finally. “We should get moving.”
“Are you sure it’s safe in there?”
“Not at all. I’ll go first, though. You wait a minute until you see my flashlight go on and off twice, then you follow. Okay?”
