Within the Dead Space

by Hutchens, Gary

  It had been four days since he had entered the small tunnel in the face of the cliff. Chaco opened his eyes and only saw darkness ahead. He tried to move his body for the umpteenth time since he had been in there and to his surprise he didn’t seem to be stuck anymore.

  Am I dreaming? Am I dead?

  A few minutes passed and he tried to move again. He was free. He lay there trying to grasp what was going on and then a flash of reality struck him like a bolt of lightning. He started inching backwards.

  Don’t panic. I can get out of here. Go slow. There’s plenty of time, he kept telling himself. He had moved a couple feet backwards when he stopped for a second to regain his strength.

  Wait a minute. There is no escape if I go back, but I can’t stay in here any longer. I have to get out. Panic almost overtook him again. For another moment he lay there not moving, trying to clear his mind.

  I have been in here for days and I still have air to breath and it doesn’t seem very stale. There must be some hope for escape if I go forward. There has to be…..and he began inching forward.

  It was only blackness ahead and the tunnel didn’t seem to be getting any larger as Chaco moved forward. He would not stop until the tunnel ended or he was dead.

  Time lost all meaning and exhaustion was slowly overtaking him when he reached forward for the millionth time and his hand went out into space. There was nothing to grab onto. It took a few moments for the dullness that had permeated his mind to grasp what was happening.

  He was shocked, exhilarated, and terrified all in the same breath. He pushed with his toes and slowly slid forward until his head and shoulders were extended beyond the tunnel and he was hanging out into a dark void. Complete blackness was all that was there. His hands went down the side of a wall as he continued pushing and pulling himself from the tunnel. Suddenly, he abruptly fell into space, striking with a thud the bottom of the cave and knocking himself unconscious.

  Hours later something startled him but his mind wouldn’t respond. Finally, he opened his eyes. The cave was engulfed in light.

  “I must be dead,” he muttered to himself as he looked around the cave and then passed out.

  Chapter 5

  When Chaco awakened later the cave was dark again. He wasn’t sure if he had seen the light before or not. Many questions entered his mind until light began filtering into the room again.

  There were a couple of stone tables on one side of the room and several five foot walls separating one area from another. Chaco climbed to his feet and weakly explored every inch of the room.

  “Oh, I have seen those before,” he picked up the panpipe and blew into it. At first dust came out and then flute type notes.

  There was a large stone structure in the middle of the room where a light beam was currently resting. On one of the stone tables were a bunch of strings tied to one large string.

  “I’ll bet that’s a quipus,’ Chaco said in an excited voice. “I’ve read about these. This is from the Inca civilization. I wonder if this stuff is old or somebody just copied it.”

  He picked up the quipus and inspected it.

  Chaco hurried to another side of the room and examined a stone structure with foot high walls and about a foot wide that ran from one wall to a center point in the room where it expanded to about three feet wide.

  I know what this is, it’s a water trough and I’ll bet it was used for bathing.

  Then it dawned on Chaco that there might be a way out. He swiftly climbed into the water trough near the wall where it entered the room. He quickly determined how the water flowed into the trough through a narrow stone pipe. Chaco was disappointed that he couldn’t escape from the room this way.

  He searched the room a few more minutes and suddenly became dizzy and was lucky to catch himself before he crashed to the floor. He reached up and touched his mouth and felt sores on his lips.

  What’sss happppennning. My tongue…..it’s swollen. I’m dying of thirst. I’ll just rest a minute and then I’ll get up. I’m so tired and he closed his eyes.

  The loud squawk of a bird jolted Chaco’s sensibilities and awakened him again.

  I’ve got to get up. He sat at the table and examined one of the walls nearby that seemed odd somehow. There, on the edge of the wall…..something about the light. It seems so different. Chaco slowly rose from the table and walked to the wall. It’s just a wall. What is going on? Am I losing my mind?

  He accidentally stumbled forward and reached out to the wall to catch his balance. There wasn’t a wall and he fell out of the cave into the sunshine. He sat on the ground with several paya plants encircling him. Chaco squeezed between one of the paya plants and the stone wall.

  “I’m free,” he called out in an excited voice.

  Chapter 6

  The first thing he noticed was the sound of running water and he ran toward it. It was the most beautiful little stream he had ever seen. He dropped to the ground and drank. He could see a thousand foot waterfall cascading from the cliff above creating a misty breeze in the air. In the distance he could hear the splashing of water crashing onto the rocks.

  Chaco’s energy was coming back fast and he was able to climb to his feet. He was in a small oasis between two sets of cliffs. He went to the base of the waterfall first and waded into the small pond at the bottom and let the wondrous water cleanse him. He followed the small creek across the land for several hundred yards and then it disappeared over the ledge. He inched out onto a small precipice of land in the middle of the creek to get a better viewing angle. He could see the water far below.

  I’m starving. I’ve got to find something to eat. He could see a second tier of land that hadn’t been visible before.

  “Could that be guavas?”

  Chaco tried to run but his balance was impaired. In an isolated area of the oasis against one of the cliffs appeared to be several guava trees and as he got closer he could see there was fruit. It was noticeable that this was the warmest place in the small valley.

  He reached up to the first piece of fruit and it was still hard. He rapidly went from tree to tree until he was at the base of the cliff and grasped a piece of fruit that had more color than the other guavas he had tried. It was soft and delicious. Chaco sat on the ground and ate the best piece of fruit he had ever eaten in his life and then ate a couple more. At least I’m not going to starve anytime soon. There’s enough fruit here to last me several weeks.

  For the rest of the day Chaco surveyed the small valley that somehow had remained in isolation for who knows how long. He spent considerable time examining how the water system for the cave worked. It was ingenious. There would always be a fresh flow of water if he could somehow figure out how to move a stone that must weigh many hundreds of pounds just a couple of inches and the water would begin flowing again.

  Time had just about gotten away from him when he realized that the sun was almost on the horizon. He ran to the paya plants where he had originally exited from the cave and squeezed between the plants and the stone wall. He wanted to look inside the cave for a few minutes while there was still light. There wasn’t any way that he was going to spend the night confined inside. Under the stars was where he wanted to be.

  He reached the point where he had come out of the cave but there was no entrance. Chaco stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Wait a minute. This is where I came from. I know it.”

  He ran his hands all over the stone face but there was no entrance. He tried again and still nothing.

  Am I in the wrong place?

  He quickly ran to several other paya plants looking for the entrance to the cave.

  “I’m positive it’s right here. I was right the first time.”

  He squeezed behind the plants and tried again. The entrance was gone. Chaco was at a loss to explain it. With the sun setting he decided that he would sleep near the guava trees. It was warmer there and he would be able to see the moon and stars.

  He lay back against a rock face and
the warmth of the stone felt great. Chaco watched the moon cross the sky that night with all the twinkling of the stars on a bed of mist with the heavens beyond. His eyes slowly closed and the last thought that entered his mind was…..I belong here.

  Chapter 7

  The warmth of the sun awakened Chaco. He wandered over to the pool of water at the base of the falls to get a drink and noticed his reflection in the water. He was all skin and bones.

  If I hadn’t lost all of that weight in the tunnel I would still be there and would have starved to death by now. Wow, I was sure lucky.

  While bending down to get a drink of water he noticed the birthmark on his arm. It definitely resembled the sun.

  During the next few days Chaco explored his newfound valley from one end to the other. He discovered some quinoa growing and remembered that it was high in protein. He tried some of the grain but it was very bitter tasting and he spit it out. Let’s see, some way you prepare this to make it edible. I’ll have to think on it for a while. He thought back to all those hours spent learning to read from the books he had found at the mission that had been destroyed by fire. Some might think I stole those books, but they were just there, so I took them.

  He became a prolific reader and discovered he had a great memory. There were books about history, engineering and agriculture and many of the sciences but his favorites were about the planets and the stars. For some reason he had an innate sense about the universe beyond.

  “Ah ha, I’ve got it. The coating on the quinoa is called saponins which makes it unpalatable. You have to soak the grain in water for several hours, change the water and then soak some more. The rinsing and soaking removes the saponins. I’ll work on preparing it later.”

  As he walked around the valley it became clear that this must have been an Inca village.

  “Right there,” he pointed to a stone altar that stood above everything else, “is the highest point in the village. That was the closest point to the sun which represented their major god, Inti, the Sun God.”

  The gigantic stones lay next to each other without a wisp of space between them. Over there is where they obviously cut the stones from the rock face. How could they have moved them and built the drainage system and the water canal? I wonder what that is over there.

  It was its own separate stone structure that surrounded a vacant piece of ground. There was a partial hole in one area that was about a foot deep. Chaco began digging with his hands. A few more inches deeper he touched something hard in the soft dirt.

  What could this be, he wondered?

  He kept digging a couple more minutes and then jumped back suddenly.

  “It’s a grave! This is a burial ground!”

  Chaco remembered reading about Inca burials and how they were buried in a sitting position facing toward the rising sun. They would sometimes have food and tools for their journey and if they were wealthy, they were buried with their servants and their gold.

  If only I could get inside the cave and explore. The secret to all of this has to be there. I remember reading that they didn’t have a written language, but any society this advanced has to have some way of recording history. Boy, I’m sure lucky that one of those history books I read talked about the Inca civilization.

  Next he climbed onto the altar and noticed patches of darkened stone. I wonder what this is, and then it came to him…..blood. Only god knows what went on here.

  While eating a guava he surveyed the cliff above trying to see if there was any way to climb out. He walked along the base of the cliff for the entire length of the small valley. In one area he could see slight indentations in the rock face. It appeared that someone might have used these as hand and foot holds to climb out of there. The notches in the cliff face were less than an inch deep. Chaco tried several times but could only get about four feet off the ground before he fell off the face. He stepped back from the wall and followed the small chisel marks with his eyes up the wall for about thirty feet until they ended.

  Whoever tried this must have given up. Chaco knew that at some point he would have to find a way out of the valley to go get his brother.

  Chapter 8

  Splat, splat, splat.

  Chaco was awakened early in the morning by the sound of the rain. He was under a rock overhang across from the entrance to the cave where he was staying dry. The rain intensified during the next few minutes and before long the little creek was filling its banks. The sound of water falling from the cliff above was getting louder.

  He looked over to the paya plants near the entrance of the cave and noticed that the rain falling on the rock face above the cave entrance was odd somehow. It’s like the water wasn’t touching the rock. He ran across to the paya plants and crawled behind them. Up close he couldn’t see anything odd at all.

  This is so strange. What’s going on? Wait a minute…..and then he remembered stumbling toward the wall in the cave that wasn’t there and then finding his way out. Maybe it’s the same way to get back in. There must be a false wall somewhere and it isn’t the same place as where I exited earlier.

  The rain was coming down even harder now and Chaco ran for the rock overhang where he had been sleeping. The rain lasted for another hour before the sun came out and the valley quickly warmed. The creek ran hard for several more hours and then began to recede.

  Chaco continued his search for the entrance to the cave throughout the day. Very slowly and with meticulous care he started where he had exited from the cave and ran his hand across the wall. After two hours he was still at a loss.

  Now, think like an Inca. Obviously they went to great effort to allow only a select few to gain admittance. He sat on the steep ground above where he thought the entrance must be and tried to think back to exactly what happened in the cave when he found his way out.

  “I’ve got it,” he cried out, and hurried to the paya plants below.

  He stood exactly where he thought the entrance was. He placed his hand on the rock wall and it felt like stone. There wasn’t much room between the paya plants and the rock wall. Chaco backed into the bushes as far as he could from the stone wall.

  “This is going to hurt,” and he threw himself at the wall as hard as he could. Nothing stopped his fall and he went tumbling into the cave entrance.

  Sprawled on the floor, he rolled over and screamed out, “This is soooo cool! Wow!”

  Chaco had figured out that the cave door was nothing more than compressed air. Force had to be applied to break the molecular strength of the air.

  How did I figure this out? This place is so weird. I know I have never been here before and yet when I was trying to climb the cliff wall the other day it seemed like I had done it before. Oh well, I’m in and god only knows what I’ll find.

  Chaco slowly entered the cave, taking notice of exactly where the passageway was and the precise point on the wall to enter. He went in the main room and was excited beyond belief. There was plenty of light but he couldn’t see where the source was coming from. He walked around and around the room but there were no windows or other sources of light, and yet, the room was bright. It was like the light was trapped in the room. He could see no objects or shelves. Other than the panpipe and the quipus there wasn’t anything else to be found. One thing he noticed was that the light was brighter at the top of the tall stone structure in the center of the room. He walked around the structure feeling every square inch looking for a secret hiding place.

  Nothing is as it seems in here. I’ve got a lot of work to do. The light in the room began to fade. I’ll bet the sun is setting. I’ve got to get out of here.

  He went to the fake wall and touched it. It felt so firm. Taking a step back he jumped toward the wall. It repelled him.

  Damn, I thought I wouldn’t have to hit the wall very hard.

  Chaco backed away from the wall and this time rushed with greater force and went right on through without falling. He squeezed out from behind the paya plants.

  The sun was set
ting in the distance. The arrays of colors of light from the setting sun were displayed against the cliff face. Then he saw it, the petroglyph on the cliff face was of the sun. He pulled up his sleeve…..the exact sun design was on his arm.

  Chapter 9

  It was the endless question that couldn’t be answered…..who am I?

  With every passing minute Chaco searched the cave and the valley looking for answers. He did find some answers to other questions.

  There had to be a way to enter or exit the cave without slamming yourself into the wall. With a lot of experimenting he found that tapping in the exact spot on the invisible door would release the pressure and you could walk through. He sort of missed his old way of doing it but it did save time.

  The stone structure in the cave seemed to absorb light from the outside sunlight, which then generated light into the cave. He found a sun carved on the structure and a slight tap on it turned the light on and off, even at night.

  Now the water system was another story. Chaco just about broke his back trying to move the carved stone that was preventing the water from flowing into the cave. He discovered a hole in the stone that had filled with debris over the years. The hole was about two feet deep and three inches wide. Searching the nearby area he found a stone pole he could barely lift that fit exactly into the opening. The result was amazing. The stone moved several inches. From the outside you could tell that the water had started to flow into the stone pipe. He rushed back inside the cave to see if the water had begun to flow after all. There wasn’t any water.

  Where’s the water?

  Chaco climbed down and looked inside the narrow chamber where he was sure the water would flow in from and couldn’t see anything. He finally found another stone pole lodged near where the water entered the room. By pushing gently on the pole the water began to flow. He could increase or decrease the flow of water as much as he wanted. These people were ingenious. There must be some sort of a reservoir that the water is flowing into somewhere in the cave.