by Cari Cole
Lucy was up for anything that would take her mind off the fact that several rocks large enough to squish her were magically suspended over her head.
She crouched down and laced her fingers together. "Make it quick. I won't be able to hold you up long."
"No problem. Ready?"
Lucy nodded and Mae stepped up on her hands. Lucy thought she could lift Mae at least a little but her hands came apart as soon as Mae tested her weight. "Dammit. Let's try something else."
"Let her step up on your thigh," Jane suggested.
Lucy eyeballed Mae's brand new Vibram soled hiking boots and winced. Good thing she wasn't planning on appearing in public with bare legs any time soon. Then again as long as she lived to appear in public again she shouldn't complain about a few bruises.
"Think about Belle," Lucy reminded herself. She shifted so she was on one knee. "Would you do me the honor of walking all over me?" she asked, more than a little surprised she could manage a joke when she was still having to work on slowing her breathing.
Mae laughed. "Absolutely." She braced her hands on top of the boulder again and put her foot on Lucy's thigh.
One quick sharp pain for Lucy resulted in Mae managing to flop onto the boulder, legs dangling over the edge.
"I think I see something," she said.
"What?" Lucy asked.
"With our luck it's probably something life-threatening," Jane said.
"Hang on." Mae wriggled the rest of herself up and slid across the boulder. "Ouch."
"What?"
"The top of this rock isn't exactly polished marble," Mae said.
"I mean what do you see?"
"There's definitely an opening in the wall."
Something in her voice alerted them to the fact that this might not be all good news.
"And?" Lucy asked.
"And things are about to get a whole lot more interesting." She reversed her position and looked back at Lucy and Jane. "You two should come see for yourselves."
The Crack Of Doom
Lucy let Jane use her for a step stool. Then Mae and Jane pulled her up onto the rock with them.
"See?" Mae said.
Lucy and Jane looked in the direction Mae's light was pointed.
Jane stared and shook her head. "That can't be right."
"Do you see any other openings?"
Lucy swept her light across the wall, praying, silently screaming to the gods or God or the universe or anyone or anything that might be listening, please let there be another way. She didn't see anything except the tiny dark crack mocking her in the combined light of their three lamps.
"Maybe it's not as small as it looks," Mae said.
"Only one way to find out," Jane said in a shaky voice.
Lucy had no words. Well, none that would be remotely helpful. Somehow, she didn't think predicting their deaths was a good idea.
They scrambled around and over the few minor obstacles between them and the ominous crack in the wall.
The crack looked even smaller close up. Lucy wasn't even sure they could squeeze into the three foot wide opening that started at the floor and rose about two feet.
"There really must be a better way," Jane said.
Mae shook her head. "I don't think so." She played her light around the room. Nothing obvious popped up.
"Let's look anyway." Anything to delay thinking about going into that crack. Because Lucy was afraid thinking about it was all she'd be able to do.
Lucy stepped to the right of the crack, deliberately looking away from it. There would be plenty of time to face it if they didn't find another way out.
They searched the entire perimeter of the room taking turns boosting each other up over the taller boulders, slogging through small puddles of water and cursing every turned ankle and rock marble that slid underfoot.
For Lucy, the cherry on that particular cake came when yet another rock took her right foot for a ride and instead of turning an ankle she wound up on her butt in one of those cold puddles.
She sat there for a few seconds while the cold crept into her bones, trying to fight off another bout of dizziness caused by the fact that her light was now pointing toward the ceiling at a crazy angle. She reached up, righted the light, and wished she hadn't.
They made their way back to the crack of doom.
"Great whatever Paul must have been a small guy," Mae said. She stepped up to the crack since Lucy and Jane were both standing frozen in place staring. She dropped her pack, stooped down, and aimed her light into the opening. Before Lucy or Jane could ask what she saw, she dropped to the floor and slid in.
"Wait!" Lucy jumped toward the crack.
Mae slid back out of the hole. "It's okay," she said. "This is sort of like a thick wall. A few feet in it gets higher."
"How much higher?" Lucy asked. "Are we talking inches or feet?"
"Feet. I don't think we can stand up straight but we can stand up."
"Swear?"
"Cross my heart," Mae said.
"Is there something we should know?" Jane asked looking Lucy over.
"I don't like small spaces. I'm not sure I can--" she cut herself off with an impatient shake of her head. "No. I'll just have to suck it up. Belle could be . . ."
"Belle will be just fine," Mae said. "We're going to get the Declaration and then we're going to get her."
"And you are going to be fine too," Jane said. "You're actually a pretty tough broad."
Lucy managed a half-hearted chuckle at that. "Fine but if I die down here I'll never forgive you."
"You can haunt me forever," Jane said.
"We're gonna have to push our packs in ahead of us," Mae said. "I'll go first. We should be able to get the packs back on as soon as we get to the taller part of the tunnel."
Lucy watched, still a little horrified, as Mae pulled her pack in front of her, shoved it into the hole and slid in after it.
"I'll go next," Jane said.
"No," Lucy said as she peeled the straps of her pack off her shoulders. "I'm afraid I'll chicken out if I go last."
Jane made a go ahead gesture. "Be my guest. I'm in no hurry."
"You all coming?" Mae called from the tunnel.
"Keep your pants on," Jane called back.
Lucy dropped her pack in front of the crack, took a deep breath and went down after it. She pushed the pack into the hole and looked back at Jane.
"Go," Jane said. "I'll be right behind you."
Lucy gave her pack another shove and low-crawled into the hole. Head, shoulders, torso. Another shove of the pack. Hips. Spots danced across her line of sight. She reached out and pushed at her pack again. It disappeared as Mae pulled it out of the tiny tunnel. More light bloomed once the pack was free and Lucy could see the end. She crawled toward the opening and her head popped out before her feet were all the way in the tunnel. Yess!
The section of the tunnel she emerged into was wide enough for her to move up next to Mae and out of the way of Jane coming in behind her. She had to hunch over but at least she was on her feet and she didn't feel like she was being smothered, at least not right away.
Jane popped out behind her pack. "Okay that was a little scary."
Lucy looked ahead at what she could see of the tunnel as she put her pack back on. It narrowed back down a little but maintained its height as it curved away to the left.
"Ready?" Mae said once Jane had her pack back on.
"No, but let's go anyway," Lucy said. "You first." Now that they weren't faced with vertical challenges, Mae seemed to be comfortable. Lucy wished she felt the same and kept telling herself the walls weren't actually closing in around her. That first bit had been tricky but it was over almost before it started. She refused to think about having to crawl on her belly for any distance more than five feet.
Jane didn't look too happy either but she didn't look like she was going to scream any time soon.
They trudged along for what seemed like hours but when Lucy checked her watch w
as actually more like ten minutes. Her neck, shoulders and back were screaming at the hunched over shuffle they had to do to keep from banging their heads on the ceiling.
Lucy saw Mae duck her head to go under a ceiling that suddenly dropped two feet.
"Oh." Mae said as her backpack brought her up short. She backed up a step and dropped to her hands and knees looking ahead into the smaller tunnel.
"Tell me it's only a couple feet," Lucy said.
"Longer than that but I can't tell how much." She crawled in a few feet then backed out and stood up. "I don't think it gets any smaller and I don't think it goes like this for very long."
"Do we have to crawl?" Jane asked looking at the smaller opening.
Mae leaned down again. "Maybe not but it would be a lot easier." She looked a Lucy. "What do you think?"
"That I'd really like to go home. But, we don't have a choice. I think I'll be okay if it doesn't get smaller." She wasn't even a little sure she'd be okay but as long as she kept telling herself Belle was in danger she could at least try.
"Okay then." Mae dropped back down to her knees and crawled into the lower tunnel.
Lucy closed her eyes and took several deep breaths before following. She kept her thoughts focused on the pain in her knees and off the tons of rock over head. The extra layer of the coveralls added a little padding but the rock was still as hard as . . . a rock. She repeated "ouch" in her head like a mantra every time a knee came down. How far had they crawled? Twenty-five yards? Fifty? It felt like a mile. Even though the tunnel was smaller, there was room above and to both sides so that she didn't feel like she was being squeezed. Still . . . "How much farther?" She was starting to feel like it was harder to breathe.
"I think we're close. The light is doing something different up ahead."
Jane groaned behind Lucy. "Please. I think my kneecaps are about done."
They shuffled on few more yards. "I see it. We're almost there. It opens up again. I think it's another room."
Skinny Dipping In The Dark
The ceiling rose abruptly to what seemed cathedral height after the Wes Craven horror show of the crack. In reality the ceiling rose to ten feet above the floor.
Lucy scrambled to her feet, gulping in huge draughts of air, and giving her whole body a shivering shake like a dog waking from a nap.
"I've already scouted ahead," Mae said. "The next part looks pretty easy. We have to climb down over there." She pointed to the far right corner. "I don't think we'll have to use the ropes. Lot's of easy holds."
Jane went off to check out the next hole in the floor and Mae turned her attention back to Lucy. "Why don't you sit down, catch your breath and have some water," she suggested.
Lucy found a convenient rock and sat down to pull herself back together. The good new was she hadn't completely lost it. The bad news was she had no idea what was still waiting in this awful place.
Jane came back before she could conjure up much of a mental horror show.
"What about that next hole?" she asked.
"You're right," Jane said. "We probably don't need the gear but I'm going to rig a rope anyway to be safe." She unclipped her pack from the rope, unclipped the rope from Lucy's harness and started to coil it back up.
"By all means let's be safe," Lucy said. At this point she didn't think anything about this adventure was safe but pretending to believe seemed the best course of action. At least it was better than imagining her way into another panic attack.
Jane rigged a rope and each of them in turn clipped on and made the climb down a corkscrew passage. It was a fairly easy climb with foot and handholds in easy reach all the way down but it was nice to know the rope was there in case any of them did something stupid.
Lucy stepped down into the next room and unclipped from the rope trying not to think about the fact that the two climbs had taken them some fifty feet deeper under the mountain. Another fifty feet must translate into many tons of additional rock and dirt overhead.
This room was about half the size of the one at the bottom of the first shaft. Lucy could only hope the exit wasn't similar. Most of the floor was covered by a spreading pool of water fed by a small underground stream flowing from the far side of the room.
Lucy hadn't thought much about the small water puddles they'd slogged through earlier, but now she couldn't help wondering where the water came from and what happened down here when it rained. Afternoon thunderstorms were a frequent occurrence this time of year.
Better not to think about it. Why add another layer to the fear?
"Is it deep?" Mae asked.
Jane was standing at the edge of the pool staring down into the perfectly clear water. "I don't think so. But I don't see a way around it and we're going to get our feet wet."
"Maybe we should think about going back and getting more supplies, warmer clothes," Mae said. "How long have we been down here?"
"Only about an hour and a half," Jane said. "It's barely noon."
Only an hour and a half, she says. It was an eternity to Lucy, but, "We don't have the luxury of going back and starting again. Not to mention, there's no way I'm ever coming back down here once I'm out. If I ever get out. Now I know why you can fit all the serious cavers in the U.S. into a high school football stadium."
"Well how much further do we have to go?" Mae asked.
Lucy took the map out and studied it. She wasn't sure why she bothered, she already had it memorized and that whole "not to scale" thing was more than true. "If Paul Morris drew this map according to time instead of distance we're about a third of the way through."
"Another three hours?" Mae said. "And then we have to get out. Another four hours. Even if we don't have any problems it'll be dark by the time we get back to the van."
"We don't have a choice," Jane said. "We have to have the Declaration tonight when Belle's kidnapper calls."
"Fine. I'm just glad we packed those extra protein bars and water bottles."
Jane started to edge around the pool.
Lucy could see they would indeed have to get wet but if they were careful it looked like they'd only have to cross through a small section on the left edge of the pool. Still, they'd have wet feet at the very least, more if the pool was deeper than it looked.
Lucy didn't think getting wet was a good idea. She was back to thinking about the hypothermia again. "Wait," she said.
Jane turned back to her with a questioning look.
"I think we should strip down, keep everything dry and then get dressed on the other side. Being down here for another seven or eight hours in wet boots or more . . ."
"Might kill us," Jane finished.
Lucy shrugged. "I don't know. I'm afraid I'm pretty ignorant about how easy or hard it is to freeze to death but we know it's somewhere around sixty degrees in here and if we're wet we might have trouble."
"Makes sense," Mae said. "Being cold for a few minutes instead of being wet and cold for hours."
Jane moved away from the edge of the pool and started to strip off her clothes and stuff them in her pack. Mae and Lucy did the same.
"Skinny dipping in a cave," Jane said. "This is definitely one for my list of things I never dreamed I'd do in my lifetime."
"I don't think we need to get completely naked," Mae said she stuffed a sock in her boot. "Bra and panties should do it."
"You sure know how to suck the fun out of things," Jane said.
Mae shot her a look. "Get naked if you want. I certainly don't care. I just don't think it's necessary."
"I bet you were one of those girls who kept a towel wrapped around you at all times in the locker room."
"So? What's wrong with being modest?"
Jane snorted. "Nothing if you're a nun."
Lucy scowled at the two of them. "Ladies, now is not the time for arguing."
"We're not arguing. We're sparring," Jane said.
"And now you're arguing with me," Lucy said. She stuffed her jeans into her pack. "Let's go."
&
nbsp; Jane shouldered her pack and took the lead with a lot of muttered "ouches" she edged around to the spot where the pool met the wall.
Lucy couldn't blame Jane for muttering, her feet weren't exactly happy to be tiptoeing over tiny pebbles and gritty, uneven rock without protection either.
"Here goes," Jane said and dipped a toe in the water. "Yow! That's cold."
"Just get it over with," Mae said from behind Lucy. "It's easier if you just plunge right in."
Jane took a deep breath and stepped into the pool. "There's a little pull," she said. "But it's not too bad."
"All that water is going somewhere," Lucy said. "There must be a hole in the bottom somewhere."
"I hope it's not big enough to suck one of us in," Mae said.
Jane continued to move through the water, steadying herself on the wall as she went. "Don't worry it isn't as strong as a good Gulf tide around your ankles. And I don't think it's going to get much deeper."
She made it across the eight feet or so of the pool, the water never rising above mid-calf.
When she stepped up on the other side, Lucy went next. She hadn't been kidding about the cold. The water was icy on her bare skin. Goosebumps rose over her entire body and she shivered her way across very glad she would have dry clothes and boots on the other side. Well, except for the still-damp seat of her coveralls.
Lucy slogged her way across and out. Mae followed behind and had a few shockingly graphic words for the cold water.
They used bandanas from their packs to dry off the best they could and hurried to get their clothes back on.
Dressed and relatively dry, Lucy looked around for the next passage in caving hell. This time it was easy to spot in the smooth wall of the room. She groaned. "I can't believe we went through all that and we're going to get wet any way."
Their path deeper into the cave was the passage carved by the water coming into the room and it was small, only about four feet by four feet. Lucy refused to consider the possibility it would shrink because the combination of water and confinement would surely send her over the edge.
"Let's see how bad it's going to be," Jane said.
