by Cari Cole
The real crack of doom mocked her from three feet away.
"We're going to have to go in," Mae said.
The crack exhaled a dank breath filled with a ripe moist smell onto Lucy's face. Irrational as it was, it seemed to her the smell you'd expect coming up from a grave after a storm. She couldn't get past the idea that she'd be buried alive if she went in there.
She didn't fear a cave-in as much as she feared somehow just getting stuck, unable to move forward or back--uninjured, fully awake and aware and able to anticipate with every breath her long, slow death in the dark.
"Lucy? Are you okay?"
Mae's voice penetrated Lucy's morbid daydream.
Lucy shivered, took Mae's hand and stood up.
"Lucy?" Mae said again.
"I think I'm about to lose it," Lucy said.
"Lose it? You have to get it together. If I managed to rappel down that hole, you can manage to navigate a little tunnel."
A slightly hysterical giggle bubbled up out of Lucy's mouth. "Little is right."
Mae propped her hands on her hips and cocked her head. "Now look here, your Aunt Belle is counting on us to get to that Declaration."
Yes, Belle was counting on her, but fear this big tended to overwhelm everything in its path. "Two words--cave in."
"Two more--kid-napper." Mae punctuated the last with a clap for each syllable.
"That's one word," Lucy pointed out.
Mae sighed in exasperation. "Fine, if we're not going forward let's go back. We have to get Jane out of here too."
"I didn't say I wasn't going," Lucy said. "I just need a little time to work up the nerve."
"Good. That's good," Mae said.
Lucy thought she sounded like she was talking to one of her teenagers after they'd told her they planned to save sex for the wedding night. She wasn't ready to throw in the towel yet. Jane had broken an arm and refused to let them quit. The only thing stopping Lucy was fear and that wouldn't change in the next few minutes or even the next few hours.
She pictured Gary telling her she'd become a boring drudge. That did it.
"I can't quit. We have to get the Declaration today. Let's see if we can make it through," Lucy said.
"I'm not sure we'll be able to get through wearing our packs," Mae said as she made a test foray into the opening. Sure enough, her pack snagged on the top of the opening even when she flopped on her belly.
"We can't leave them behind," Lucy said. "We don't know what equipment we might need. Not to mention the water and batteries."
"Why don't we use some carabineers and attach them to a piece of rope. We can pull them behind us," Mae said.
"Sounds like a plan." Maybe not the best plan but at least Mae was still capable of logic. "You can pull them and I'll be able to push if necessary," Lucy said.
Mae cut a piece of rope from one of the bundles dangling from her climbing harness and started to rig her pack to it. Lucy shrugged out of hers so Mae could rig them together.
"I hope this mess doesn't get caught on anything. I'm probably not going to have a lot of room to maneuver in there," Mae said as she locked the final carabineer onto Mae's pack.
"If we can get through the packs can get through," Lucy said. She clipped the carabineer Mae had attached to the other end of the rope to a loop on her harness. "Let's get this over with."
"Ready?" Mae said.
Lucy rolled her eyes. "Of course I'm not ready. I'm about to present myself to that hideous hole like some kind of human sacrifice."
"Not too late to go back."
"Just go before I lose my nerve."
Mae dropped and crawled into the crack.
Lucy shuddered and held a last second debate with herself. In the end, she decided she couldn't live with wimping out now.
She dropped and followed Mae into the hole.
###
Lucy tried to conjure an image of a magical underground world as she crawled into the crack of doom behind Mae.
She tried to channel Lara Croft--brave, adventurous and more than capable of saving Belle from one scholarly kidnapper.
It didn't help. She still knew she was a soon to be divorced, (nearly) middle-aged woman with bad hair and no sense of style who on a good day could achieve a true meditative state for ten minutes max.
Her heart pounded, she was breathing way too fast, and she was seeing spots. She was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. At least that's what she thought it would be called since she'd never had a panic attack before now.
"Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to die we go. We're idiots in over our heads. Hi ho, hi ho, hi ho."
Jane's singing brought Lucy up short. It was only in her head. A bubble of hysterical laughter popped out of her mouth. That is exactly what Jane would be doing, making some sick joke about this nightmare.
The imagined off-key version of the dwarves' song did the trick--a happy, animated vision of the cave popped into her head. Walls gleaming with polished gems, nice smooth passages and her fellow dwarves in fine voice.
Lucy shuffled on and held on to the vision. "Find your happy place," she said to herself. This was all about choosing how to feel. She could choose not to be afraid. She could choose to enjoy the adventure. She could choose to succeed in saving Belle.
She started humming "Hi Ho" under her breath.
"What's going on back there?" Mae called from some distance ahead.
"Coming," Lucy said. "How is it up there?"
"I don't see the end but it hasn't gotten any smaller."
After ten minutes more minutes of crawling, Lucy was pretty sure ninety-nine percent of the muscles in her body were either cramped or thinking about it. The going was slow.
"Uh oh," Mae said.
"Uh oh? No uh oh. I don't want to hear uh oh."
"Hold on," Mae said. "I think it might be a dead end."
For a few seconds Lucy's mind warred between relief that she wouldn't have to keep going in the narrow dark and disappointment at not finding the Declaration. "It can't be a dead end. The map shows some sort of formation in this passage could that be what you're seeing?"
"Maybe. Let me check something," Mae said.
Lucy caught up to Mae. She couldn't see much with Mae between her and the obstruction, but it did look like something was blocking the passage. Or maybe the tunnel took a turn.
"It's tight but we can get through," Mae said and her upper body disappeared.
"Get through where?" Somehow Lucy didn't think Mae's top half disappearing was a good thing.
"The top and bottom sort of overlap." Mae lifted her head and chest to look back at Lucy. "It looks like we're going to be crawling some more. I think the ceiling is a little lower on this side."
Lucy watched in horror as Mae pushed forward, and disappeared completely and tried to pull the packs after her.
"Hang on," Lucy called. "The packs are hung up."
Lucy moved up, pushed the packs over the hump and got her first look at the shrinking tunnel.
"Come on," Mae called back.
No. No. No. No. Lucy tried every trick she could think of to make herself move forward. Nothing worked. Her mind wasn't letting her body go. "Don't think I can. I seem to be um, stuck."
"Stuck?" Mae sounded confused.
"Well, not literally. I just . . . Nothing seems to be working."
"I can't turn around in here so you'll have to wait til I get to the end and come back."
Now this was a problem too. Waiting alone here? That wasn't going to work. Forward was the way out. "I'm coming."
Lucy crawled over the obstruction, and stared at the sliver of darkness that had swallowed Mae. The already low ceiling dropped another foot, leaving about two feet of space between the floor and the ceiling.
This wasn't going to be and hands and knees crawl. This was going to be a belly crawl.
Lucy shuddered from head to toe. Was Mae kidding?
Lucy knew without a doubt if she pushed into that black mouth, she would be
in the dark forever.
Lucy added shivering to her list of physical signs of stress and fear. Of course the cold wasn't helping either. Her coveralls were wet from her skid through the puddle.
"Hello? Anybody back there?" Mae called from inside the black hole.
"I'm here," Lucy said.
"Well how about getting up here," Mae said.
Lucy could see a little glimmer of light deep in the passage. "Is it bigger again?" she asked.
"Not yet," Mae said. "Are you okay?"
Lucy wasn't okay at all, but she nodded her head yes, forgetting that Mae couldn't see her. "I just need a few more seconds. I'm okay." Since she was probably going to die down here anyway she might as well die going forward. Forward is the way out, Lucy repeated the words to herself.
Mae's light flashed across Lucy's face. "Then why are you crying?"
Was she? Lucy reached up to touch her face. Yep, those were tears leaking out of her eyes and trailing down her cheeks. "Guess I'm more afraid than I thought." That was a lie. She knew exactly how afraid she was.
"This cave has probably been here since before the first people set foot on the continent," Mae said. "It's not going to suddenly collapse now."
Lucy's body felt like a block of wood. All sensation deadened and movement impossible. "I don't think I can do this." She couldn't wrap her mind around even the possibility of slithering into that shallow crack. Every time she danced close to the thought her body locked up.
"Sure you can. Just like me. Close your eyes and don't think about it."
Clearly Mae didn't have claustrophobia she was crazy. "What about the packs? What if they get caught on something and I get stuck in there?"
"If you can fit the packs can fit. This is the last bit before we get to the hiding place. Remember?"
No. Lucy couldn't remember her own name at the moment.
In the end this was her quest. She couldn't give up and leave Belle's fate in someone else's hands. Besides she didn't want to think about trying to crawl backwards and she didn't think she had room to turn around. Forward is the way out.
She dropped down on her belly, slithered into the crack and closed her eyes against the fear. It didn't help. Her breath wheezed like a patient with advanced emphysema and she became absolutely certain her heart was going to stop.
She could hear Mae's voice but couldn't make sense of the words.
Lucy's entire world shrank to a space two feet by two feet and she shut out everything except the need to propel herself forward. The floor under her was smooth, which meant no scrapes or scratches. But it also meant finding ways to push and pull herself along was hard.
The ceiling was mere inches above her head and she kept bumping it in a vain attempt to catch her breath, like a drowning victim trying to break the surface for air. Each time she bumped her head, each time she failed to surface, her breath got shorter and she got more lightheaded. But she kept moving forward, trying to outrun the panic.
Lucy had no idea how long she'd been crawling when the panic caught up. She needed to stand, or sit, or at least lift herself to her hands and knees. For the umpteenth time, she tried to rise up, to lift her head free, to get a big breath of fresh air.
For the umpteenth time she cracked her head on the ceiling and saw stars. A cold clammy sweat broke out over her body.
A scream built in her throat and she knew if she let it loose, she'd go insane and hurt herself or worse, Mae. The sound she allowed out was a keening wail in the back of her throat.
She started to flail and thrash in a vain attempt to get free of the tons of rock encasing her. She was no longer a thinking human but a trapped animal incapable of rational thought.
###
Lucy didn't know how long she was in the grip of the madness.
What brought her back was the sharp, queasy pain of striking her funny bone on a knob of rock protruding from the wall of the crack. She collapsed, sobbing and became aware of her surroundings again.
"Wah wah wah, wah wah."
Mae's voice penetrated the black fog of Lucy's mind but the voice sounded like an adult in a Peanuts cartoon. "What?"
"Are you okay?"
"No."
"You have to keep moving," Mae said.
Lucy did her best to ignore the fact that she still couldn't lift her head or catch her breath. If she thought about it she would start screaming and would probably still be screaming when she went into shock and died. "I can't."
"You have to."
Mae was right, forward is the way out.
Lucy started belly crawling again. The next panic attack would have to wait until she got some energy back.
"I can stand up again," Mae's voice came back down the passage. "Oh my God!" Mae said. "This is amazing. Lucy, I promise it's worth the trip."
Wonderland
Lucy couldn't do the dance of joy. She couldn't even manage a deep breath. But she squirmed forward with renewed effort. "God, if I survive this nightmare with my body and my sanity intact I will . . .Wow." She emerged from the crack of doom into a fantasy.
"Told you it was worth it." Mae smiled but didn't take her eyes off the view.
Lucy was still having a little trouble catching her breath and her heart was racing but the horror of the crack was starting to fade. Maybe it would be like childbirth and the bad part would be hard to remember. Nah, she was going to have nightmares about that crawl for a long time. Maybe forever. But. . . "I guess the whole caving thing is starting to be a little more understandable," Lucy said.
"You could say that."
This final chamber in their quest was the magical cavern they'd stopped expecting.
There was a forest of stalagmites growing from the floor and a whole ballroom's worth of chandeliers dropping down from the ceiling. And they were shades of white instead of muddy brown. Moisture glistened in the light from their headlamps and honest to God flecks of fool's gold glittered in the walls.
Lucy could have spent hours exploring and touching.
But Jane was forty-five minutes back, alone and in pain. And Belle was being held by a crazy person.
"So, where do we look?" Mae asked.
"The map only shows a vague outline of the ceiling formations with an X on the backside of the longest one."
They both stared up at the stalactites trying to decide which was the longest.
"That one," Lucy said pointing to one near the wall on the right.
At the same time, Mae said, "That one," and pointed to one in the middle.
"You check yours and I'll check mine," Lucy said.
They both came up empty. The stalactites were smooth with no place to hide anything.
They met in the middle.
"Now what?" Mae asked.
Lucy pulled the map back out. "Can you see anything I could be missing?"
Mae studied the map, with a lot of back and forth to the ceiling. "No. But there must be something. Unless someone got here before us."
"I can't imagine who," Lucy said.
"True. Do you suppose he came down here alone?"
"Who? Paul?"
"Yes. I can't believe anyone would come all this way alone."
"You're right but it seems he was pretty serious about keeping his secret. Who would he trust?"
"A friend."
"Maybe so. But we're getting off task." Lucy stared at the map some more. "We have to be missing something simple."
Mae started to wander around dodging stalagmites and scoping out the ceiling.
Lucy looked at the map. The problem as she saw it was that the stalactites sprouting from the ceiling all seemed to be too smooth and regular to provide a good hiding place. It would have made more sense to mark a spot on the floor where there were lots of nooks and crannies.
Inspired, Lucy looked around with new eyes.
It didn't take long to find the match to the sketch growing out of the floor instead of the ceiling.
"Mae! I think I figured it out."
&
nbsp; Mae scurried over and Lucy pointed to the formation.
"Imagine it upside down," Lucy said and held up the map.
"You're right. That has to be the answer."
Lucy was reluctant to check her theory. Time was ticking away and if she was wrong they couldn't afford much more time to come up with another idea. There was too much riding on their success for her to be wrong.
Lucy made her way to the formation on the far side of the room against the back wall. The stalagmites and stalactites reached toward each other forming a loose screen for a small alcove.
The perfect hiding place.
Mae had come over and was dancing in place making her light bob crazily around the walls. "This has to be it," she said. "It's perfect."
Lucy squeezed through the biggest gap in the formation and into the alcove. Turning so her back was against the wall, she swept her light over the formations looking for the most likely hiding spot.
Lucy focused on the tallest of the stalagmites and had her choice of two that nearly touched their stalactite counterparts. The first one she took a closer look at didn't appear to have any sort of depression or crack but she ran her hands over it anyway to be sure she didn't miss anything.
She moved on to the second part of the formation. This looked much more promising. The tall stalagmite and several smaller ones formed a nearly closed circle. Lucy leaned in and shone her light down into the stalagmite Stonehenge.
Something different from the surrounding rock reflected the light back to her.
"I think I found it," Lucy said as she reached down to retrieve the object.
"What is it?" Mae asked.
"Just a second." The top of the object was too large for her small hand-span. Too heavy to pick up one-handed with her fingers stretched to the limit.
Lucy wriggled her way as far down between two of the stalagmites as she could, reached down with both hands, grasped the object, and pulled it free.
An old pottery jar shone dully under her light. She looked back into the space to make sure she hadn't missed anything and found it empty.
"It's an old jar," Lucy said. She wriggled back out of the alcove and held up her prize for Mae's inspection.
"It's an old canning jar," Mae said. "Get it open, let's see what we've got."
