Bone

by George C. Chesbro

  As Bone had predicted, he suddenly found his heart beating very fast, his mind filled with fear of being buried alive. He turned his head to the side and concentrated on breathing regularly and deeply in an effort to calm himself.

  Don't panic, Zulu kept reminding himself as he kept flexing his ankles, digging in with his heels and pushing. The passageway seemed to be getting even tighter. Or perhaps, he thought, it was only his imagination.

  Don't panic; panic would make him swell.

  If you think you're stuck, you probably are.

  Zulu stopped when he realized that he was gasping for breath.

  Take it easy!

  He had once read somewhere that a man's shoulders could almost always go through a space big enough to admit his head; he'd read it, but he'd never believed it.

  If you get stuck, don't try to force it. You'll only wedge yourself in.

  Well, Zulu thought as he resumed digging in and pushing with his hands and heels, he wasn't stuck yet. And his fear must certainly be insignificant compared to the woman's. He had to make it to the river channel; he was needed.

  Suddenly Zulu felt something soft and fine brush across the top of his head. At first he thought it was a spider's web, but then it moved. A rat was sniffing at his scalp, Zulu thought, and he screamed.

  "Zulu?!" Bone's voice sounded oddly distant to Zulu, muffled as it was by his own body filling the passageway. "Zulu, are you all right?! What's the matter?!"

  The matter, Zulu thought, was that he was chickenshit. Indeed, the rat had probably been more frightened of him than he had been of it, for the whiskers were gone.

  "I'm all right!" he shouted, his voice echoing in the stone and earth tube that reminded him very much—too much—of a coffin.

  "Do you want us to pull you out?!"

  "No!" Zulu shouted, and resumed digging and pushing with his heels.

  He wondered how far he had gone, wondered how long he had been in this tunnel, sandwiched in earth. Then, suddenly, he felt rock press against both shoulders.

  If you think you're stuck, you probably are. Don't try to force it.

  Then this was it, Zulu thought. He was finished. He had crawled all this way for nothing. He would have to be pulled back out, and he suspected that could take an hour or longer He was needed, but he would have to stay behind.

  He should try to wriggle further ahead.

  But if he really got stuck . . .

  If he really got stuck, Zulu thought, he would die. And his corpse would block the passageway.

  But he was needed.

  He slowly exhaled, then stretched his arms down along the sides of his body, sloping his shoulders until pain shot up into the muscles of his back and neck.

  Then he flexed his ankles, dug his heels into the earth and shoved with all his strength.

  He felt the stone pinch his arms even more, and lot one terrifying moment he was certain he had made a foolish, deadly mistake that was now going to cost him his life. Then lie realized that his head was free of the tunnel; he was able to move his head around, and there was a faint, dry aroma that was startlingly different from the rich, damp odor of the tunnel. He—or his head, at least—had reached the underground river channel.

  Now he had to get the rest of himself there.

  Adrenaline surged through him, momentarily dulling the fierce pain in his shoulders, wrists, ankles and heels. He wriggled furiously, at the same time digging in and pushing with his heels. In a few moments he had worked his way back far enough so that his arms were free. He planted his hands against the smooth stone of the river channel, on either side of the tunnel from which his body protruded, and pushed with all his might. Finally his hips slipped free. He did a half twist, rolled over on his left shoulder and tumbled down a concave incline, finally coming to rest in a heap on a hard, pebble-strewn surface. Howling with triumph and joy, he leaped to his feet in the darkness, removed the rope from around his ankles and followed its length until he felt the edges of the mouth of the tunnel he had emerged from.

  "I made it!" he shouted into the opening, amazed at how his voice boomed and echoed in the cavern. "Tie up the equipment, and I'll pull it through! And don't worry about a thing, Lieutenant! It's a piece of cake!"

  (ii)

  She was cold—colder than she could ever remember being in her life. Wrapped in blankets, she was huddled beside a fire a few feet from the edge of the quicksand pit, her arms wrapped around herself. She should eat, she thought, but she was not hungry, and she was not sure she could keep food down. She wondered if she was sick.

  She was almost certain now that she was going to die, for something had died in Barry Prindle. Hope. He had tried two more times to have intercourse with her, but each time his penis had remained limp. From the few things he had muttered during his feverish attempts to become hard, she gathered that he had counted on her to make him what he considered to be a whole man. But she had failed, Anne thought, and now he avoided her, sitting by himself in the cold and dim light on the opposite side of the quicksand bog, brooding.

  His impotence could kill her, Anne thought. If she was to remain alive, her only chance was to somehow find a way to please the man sexually, convince him that she was still his best hope for a normal life.

  "Barry," she called out softly in what she hoped was a seductive voice. "Come over here. I'm cold, and I want you next to me. Let's try it again."

  She waited for some response, but there was none. She opened her mouth to call again, but stopped when she suddenly heard Prindle begin to breathe heavily. The rasping breathing grew even heavier, and when she heard the sound of flesh slapping against flesh it dawned on Anne that the man was masturbating. She wondered what it was he was fantasizing in order to arouse himself, then decided that she didn't really want to know. Suddenly she felt even colder.

  (iii)

  Much to his chagrin, Lieutenant Perry Lightning was discovering that he was physically odd man out in this rescue and hunting party. He was very tired, although he did his best not to show it.

  In the first hour or two after his terrifying transit through the narrow cave into the river channel, he had been awestruck that he was only the third man—or fourth, if Prindle had been here—ever to see the underground labyrinth of stone; even with his companions, he felt isolated and lonely. Above him, he knew, was a city filled with millions of people; indeed, at this hour of the day the streets and sidewalks would be crowded with people hurrying on their way, drivers cursing and honking their horns in anger at the traffic congestion. But down here in this underground world there was nothing but awe some silence broken only by their heavy breathing and their rubber-soled footfalls on the stone.

  But now he was no longer awestruck, only exhausted.

  John Granger had been right, he thought. Without him acting as guide, nobody else would have found this way; indeed, he would not even have been able to work up the nerve to crawl through the tomb-like access tunnel. He was still amazed that Zulu had made it.

  But Lightning was glad that Zulu had come, for the man was more than carrying his own weight. The seven-foot giant was showing himself to be not only strong, but surprisingly lithe and agile. Indeed, although he was sweating profusely, it seemed to Lightning that the street poet was enjoying the physical challenge of tiptoeing along ledges, climbing up and down, listening intently to John Granger's precise instructions on how to walk, climb and squeeze through narrow openings.

  Mountain climbing and cave exploring, Lightning thought with a wry smile as he hefted his cotton-padded rifle into a more comfortable position, were not for sissies.

  Granger, he thought, was absolutely remarkable in terms of the strength and stamina packed into his wiry body. Lightning knew that the man had to be in considerable pain, and yet he gave no indication of it as he stoically, steadily, led them through the maze of caverns. Lightning frequently glanced at the front of their guide's shirt, but there were no signs of bleeding; not yet. Only the pallor of Bone's face and
the tightness of the muscles in his neck and jaws indicated his exhaustion and pain.

  He was in the company of two of the most remarkable men he had ever known, Perry Lightning thought—and he would never have known it except for the bizarre chain of circumstances that had led to John Granger's recovering his consciousness in his precinct. He was proud to be with these men, ashamed of what he considered his own weakness at having all he could do to carry himself and the rifle. But he knew that his time would come, and that he had to pace himself, save his resources. Finally, in the end, he would require the nerve and strength to aim, and then to shoot straight.

  "Rest break," Bone said curtly as he paused, sat down wearily on a boulder in the middle of the riverbed, which was quite wide at this point.

  "It's about time," Zulu said wryly.

  "Drink some water and eat some food, gentlemen. And we'll wait until you both feel well rested. The next leg is going to take about two hours, and you're not going to be able to eat or drink anything; if you have to piss, it's going to be down your leg."

  Lightning, sprawled out on the stone, aimed his flashlight around, frowned slightly. "What's the problem, Granger? You could drive a train through here."

  "But it's a dead end." He paused, aimed his flashlight against the opposite wall where there was a narrow crevice Lightning hadn't even seen. "That's where we have to go—straight down, on the rope. It's about seventy feet, and you'll be scraping rock against belly and ass all the way down."

  "Shit," Perry Lightning mumbled, and reached for his canteen.

  (iv)

  Once again they lay together, sweating and exhausted after Prindle's failed attempt at lovemaking, in the flickering light from the Coleman lamp above their heads.

  "Barry, you shouldn't try so hard," Anne breathed against the wet flesh of the man's chest. "Maybe if you hadn't tried so hard right after masturbating—"

  "I wasn't masturbating!" Prindle snapped, and abruptly rose to his feet.

  "You don't have to be ashamed of it, Barry. You need sexual release, just like everyone else. Maybe . . . you should let me do it to you."

  "Don't say that! Don't talk like that, Anne! I wasn't masturbating!"

  "All right, you weren't masturbating," Anne said with a sigh as she sat up.

  Prindle picked up his clothes and stalked away, returning to the shadows on the opposite side of the quicksand pool. Anne dressed slowly, found that she was both hungry and thirsty. Earlier, Prindle had gone to the surface to replenish their supply of drinking water, and Anne had estimated that it had taken him less than an hour. It meant, she thought, that the route to the surface was relatively close by; but then, it might as well be a million miles away, for she knew she could never find it without Prindle's help. And there was nowhere to run, except to her death in a darkness which was even more fearful than the nightmares that had terrified her all her life.

  She opened a can of tuna fish, ate that and drank some water. She would have liked a cup of tea, but she could not get up the energy to light the camp stove.

  She lay back on the blanket, stared up at the ceiling, then let her gaze wander around the chamber, across the pool of quicksand to the mouths of the three smaller caves and Untangle of bones protruding from the walls and ceiling of tin cave to her right. That was where Bone must have entered, she thought. Would he come again? Had he finally regained his memory? If so, would he realize that Barry Prindle had brought her here? What could he do against Barry's razor?

  What could she do against Barry's razor?

  What kinds of traps had Barry set?

  She heard a sound somewhere off to her left, close by, and it startled her. She glanced around, and was surprised to find Barry there, dressed in his priest's vestments. She had not heard him approach.

  "Barry, what is it? What are you doing?"

  "It doesn't work, Anne," Prindle said in a strained, hollow voice. "It won't work. I'm closing the church. I have to put . . . everything . . . into my past. And you will, at last, please me."

  He brought his right hand out from behind his back, and the razor he was holding glinted in the flickering light.

  Now Anne knew what Prindle fantasized about when he masturbated—and she also knew that she had run out of time. If she was to live, she had to act; she had to run. But where? Prindle would simply chase her down.

  Unless he, too, had to move in total darkness. To risk her own death in terrifying darkness, she thought, was her only chance to live.

  Having made her decision, she moved with deliberateness and speed. She darted off to her right, to where all the supplies were stacked, and began throwing them out into the quicksand; flashlights and batteries, and all of the canteens—except for the one she had slipped by its strap around her neck—were thrown into the mire, and immediately began to sink. Then she grabbed the Coleman lamp closest to her, threw that out into the center of the deadly pool of mud.

  "What are you doing?!" Prindle shouted. "Stop!"

  Prindle's shock, and his shouting, gave Anne the time she needed to throw in the last of the flashlights and batteries. Then she moved around the narrow perimeter of the quicksand pool toward the second lamp.

  "You'll kill us both!"

  "You're going to kill me anyway!"

  Then Prindle recovered from his shock and came running after her—only to stumble when he came to the section of the ancient graveyard, then slip and sprawl in the tangle of bones.

  Anne reached the second lamp, threw that into the quicksand pool.

  "Don't be a fool!"

  Anne threw in the third lamp, and came to the fourth and last a split second before Prindle reached her. She ducked away as he slashed at her face, then shoved the flaming end of the lamp into his face. Prindle screamed with pain and stumbled backward as Anne threw the lamp out into the quicksand.

  Suddenly she found herself shrouded in a darkness more absolute than any she could have thought existed.

  And there was complete silence. Prindle, she knew, could be no more than a few feet away, and yet she heard no sounds of breathing or movement. Moving very slowly, holding her breath, she crouched slightly and backed away toward the network of tunnels behind her.

  She had gone perhaps ten yards when she heard Prindle's voice, barely a whisper, in the darkness.

  "Now we're both dead, Anne. You've killed us both."

  Anne took a series of measured, deep breaths, squatted down and felt the ground beneath her feet; it was still smooth stone. Knowing that she had to get as far away from Prindle as possible, she continued to move backward.

  "Anne? Where are you? We're both dead anyway, so at least let's die together. Even I can't get back without light. I guess I don't know any more than you do about what it's like to die of thirst, but it can't be very pleasant. Anne, where are you? Please talk to me. I don't want to die alone; not like this. I'm . . . afraid. Please be with me. I know how afraid of tin-dark you are, and I can make things easier for you. I'm not going to die of thirst, so I'm going to kill myself. I'll kill you so that you won't suffer. It won't hurt, I promise you. Please don't leave me alone like this, Anne."

  Prindle was still talking when Anne, who had continued to move backward, reached back and touched the craggy edge of one of the smaller, tributary caves behind her.

  "Anne? Are you there?"

  Anne almost cried out. She had not heard the man move, but Prindle's voice was suddenly much closer to her. She turned, ducked and moved into the smaller cave.

  Chapter Nineteen

  (i)

  Bone held up his hand, indicating that Zulu and Perry Lightning should stop and remain silent. Then he squatted and stared intently at the rock formation just ahead of him in the narrow passageway. The configuration of rock was not as he remembered it.

  Something was wrong.

  Bone closed his eyes and took deep breaths, trying to restore strength to his burning limbs and banish the searing pain from his stomach wound. He glanced down, saw that the front of
his heavy canvas shirt was stained with blood. However, the doctors had done a good job; as far as he could tell, the majority of the stitches still held, and the wound had not torn open completely. He only needed to hold himself together a short time longer—and hope against hope that he would find Anne in the great stone chamber, and that she would be alive. He opened his eyes, again studied the stone formation in their path—and then he knew what it was.

  He turned to look at the two men behind him, and was shocked by what he saw; both Zulu and Perry Lightning seemed to be on the verge of collapse. Both were bleeding from multiple cuts, bruised on their hands and faces, obviously near exhaustion.

  "He's done something to the rocks up ahead," Bone said, surprised at the rawness of his voice. He had not spoken for hours.

  "What?" Lightning asked.

  "Take some water; both of you."

  Zulu said, "There's not much left, Bone-man."

  "Drink some anyway," Bone said in a low voice. "And eat some of the jerky. Keep your voices down. The chamber is about seventy yards ahead, but it's a tough seventy yards. You rest. I have to find out what Prindle's done here—it's either a warning system or some kind of death trap."

  The men opened their canteens and drank, and Zulu produced some foil-wrapped packets of food from the packs. Bone took a swallow of water, then crawled forward. He was certain he remembered a crevasse in the center of this passageway, and to get past it one had to balance on one's toes and inch along a narrow ledge while bracing one's hands on the opposite wall. Now the crevasse was covered with a slab of stone that was in turn covered with pebbles. But the pebbles were not the same color as the surrounding rock; they had been placed there, like the slab over the crevasse. Anyone stepping on the delicately balanced slab would plummet to his death, or at the least send the rocks crashing into the abyss as a warning of his presence.