by David Cline
Amara’s light reappeared as she looked back toward them. “It’s still tight, but this is the narrowest part.” She moved off again. “At least as far as I can see for now.” Her voice faded as she explored ahead.
“You don’t happen to have another light?” Wood called before she got too far.
There was a pause and then the red light appeared again. “Sorry,” she said, as she stretched her arm forward and passed them a headlamp. “I learned it from you Adam. Always have backups of everything.” She moved off again.
For a moment Wood and Wilkins knelt in silence staring at the tiny gap. “I don’t know how this light is going to help me get under there,” Wilkins said. “I’m not frightened of too many things in life, but I’ll admit right now in full disclosure that tight spaces and I don’t have a pleasant history together.” He looked back at Wood. “Did you see how Amara struggled wiggling through there? She is petite. I am at least 4 times her girth.”
“Sicko,” Wood said, as he studied the gap and wiped some cold sweat from his forehead before it had a chance to run into his eyes. He gave Wilkins a once over like he was one of the women on the bachelor. “I don’t think you have a chance going on your stomach.” He paused estimating size and distance. “However, if I go first and then drag you forward while you lay on your back, I think you’ll make it.” He grinned. “Just suck in like you are at Lake Havasu for spring break.”
Wilkins looked back at him and shook his head. “We can try it,” he said, with a voice full of skepticism. He waggled a finger. “But if I get wedged in there forever…”
“We’d figure something out,” Wood said. He moved forward on his stomach and extended an arm where he hoped the rest of his body would soon follow. He rotated his head sideways and wiggled forward like a fish out of water. Wood successfully got his head and neck through but when his feet no longer could help, all progress halted. “Can I press off against you? There isn’t much to grip with my hands up here.” He gasped through clenched teeth.
Wilkins moved forward and sat with his back facing Wood. By planting his flailing feet against Wilkin’s back, Wood pushed off and squirmed until he was through. On the other side, Wood laid prone on the cold rock and closed his eyes as his chest heaved up and down. Wood had never been overly wary of tight spaces, but there was something about having millions of tons of rock above you that triggered a unique sense of panic.
Amara’s red light appeared behind him and he sat up. “Anything crazy to report?” he asked when she crouched down next to him.
“Just a complex labyrinth of tunnels.” She adjusted the headlamp to direct the harsh light away from Wood’s face. “We are going to have to check the map again, but I have a feeling we are going to have quite the time navigating through here successfully.”
“Assuming we can get Wilkins through.” Wood said. “The silver lining is we will be relatively safe down here.” He motioned backward with a quick gesture. “That cavern is quite the place to locate a couple fugitives. We could be hiding in one of tens of thousands of crates.”
Amara grinned. Her clothes and face were smeared with dirt but her smile warmed Wood’s spirits. “After this whole debacle, we will have to return and play an epic game of hide and seek.”
“It’s a date,” Wood agreed.
“You two better not be making plans to press on without me,” Wilkins’ faded voice came. “I would come back to haunt both of you.”
Wood winked at Amara. “We can’t have that.” He pressed his face against the ground and looked back through the gap. “Get on your back and see how much of your body you can get through on your own. We will do the rest.”
“Very reassuring,” Wilkins said.
Soon, two boots appeared followed by stocky legs. Wilkins’ hips got through as he wiggled back and forth.
“That’s it,” Wilkins wheezed both from dread and effort. “I am officially stuck. As predicted.” He laid still. “I feel like Atlas condemned by Zeus to hold the world up on my shoulders.”
“Take it easy,” Wood said. He placed a foot under each of Wilkins’ armpit and braced his own legs against the rocky wall of the cave. He leaned backward and felt Wilkin’s move forward slightly.
“Wait Nick,” Wilkins said, with a genuine fear in his voice. Panic was a rarity for Wilkins who prided himself on stoicism. “This is the point of no return. Another inch or two and I am either going to join you two or be stuck here forever.”
Wood paused and breathed heavily. Amara shined the light over him, and he saw his perspiration under the red glow. The deeper they got, the colder the temperature became. He wondered if the giant storage cavern was climate controlled. “What do you want to do?”
Wilkins shuffled. “Give me a second.”
They heard some scraping sounds intermixed with a string of obscenities.
Wood could not help but chuckle softly to himself. When Amara glanced at him, he shrugged. “The situations we find ourselves in.”
Amara crouched down beside Wood and listened. “I don’t think I have ever heard all those words strung together so cleverly.”
“He only swears like that when he is either genuinely afraid or in excruciating pain.” He nodded toward the bottom half of Wilkin’s exposed body. “I think this qualifies as both.”
“You don’t think it’s a good idea to take a boot off and tickle his feet?”
Wood looked at her. “Not if you want to live long enough to see tomorrow. There are some things even I wouldn’t dare do.”
“Okay,” Wilkins said. “Let’s do this thing.”
“Let the air out of your lungs and I’ll pull.” A moment later, Wood’s face shook with effort as he pushed off the wall with all his strength. He felt like he was at the gym in the leg machine trying to lift a metric ton. He felt Wilkins move forward a few inches and then let up for a moment.
Wilkin’s legs began to thrash erratically. Beside him, Amara’s eyes widened. “What’s wrong?” She asked.
“I don’t think he can breathe. You don’t happen to have some kind of lubricant with you?”
She cocked her head sideways and looked at him. “Sorry, I was saving that for later.”
“Don’t tease me.” Wood repositioned Wilkin’s flailing feet under both arms and gritted his teeth. He pulled with all his strength. For a moment, he thought Wilkins was done for and then like a cork out of a bottle, Wilkins popped through the gap and Wood went sprawling backwards in a heap.
For a full minute, they laid on their backs and watched their breath curl upward in Amara’s light. Wood felt a drop of sweat run down his face and get lodged somewhere in his facial scruff.
Wilkins sat up slowly. “I haven’t felt like that since middle school when I thought it would be funny to step inside a random locker and Sean locked the door without either of us knowing the combination.”
“I remember that,” Wood said. “It took 15 minutes to find someone who could open it.”
“Scariest damn moment of my life up to that point.” He breathed in through his nose and out through is mouth. “I would rather take bullets than be stuck like that ever again.” He lifted his shirt and revealed a deep scrape on his chest. Black and blue marks dotted his torso as testament to the beating he had endured a few days earlier.
“At least we’re through,” Wood said. He thought about mentioning the possibility of similar gaps ahead, but decided it was not quite the right moment. “At least our position would be easy to defend.” He pointed. “It would be like that arcade game. Every time a head appears, you whack it.”
“If I was them,” Wilkins said, still visibly shaken, “I would just leave us to get lost or die of deprivation. Wait until we can no longer hide and try to escape out either end.”
“I don’t think there are only two exits out of here,” Amara said. She pulled the map back out of her pack and examined it closely. She switched on the powerful bright light. “No need for light precaution anymore.”
They
huddled around her and squinted down at the confusing mess of shapes and symbols.
Amara pointed. “You recognize this symbol? I believe this is our current location.”
Wood stared down at the old document. Whoever had designed the map had packed so much information in such a finite space, Wood had to shake his head to concentrate and not allow his eyes to gloss over. “I don’t know how I know this,” Wood said, “but that symbol is used in number theory. It looks like two greater than signs put together. In layman’s terms, I believe it simply means many.”
“That makes sense,” Amara said. “All these tunnels aren’t mapped. There is just a symbol that means there are a lot of them.”
Wilkins grimaced. “No more tight squeezes and perhaps I will enjoy the exploration.” He looked at Wood. “Just like the old mines out in the west desert.”
Wood stood up and then extended a hand to Amara. “There was this one time back in the day, Wilkins and I were exploring the desert west of Salt Lake City looking for old abandoned mines. In a clearing surrounded by junipers, we discovered a shaft descending deep into the earth. We poked our heads over the edge, and dropped rocks, but couldn’t get any satisfactory estimation of how deep it plunged.” They started forward again single file with Amara in front.
“Anyway, Wilkins had a moment of inspiration and the next day we returned to the location with a 100-pound bale of hay.”
“My shoulders still hurt from hauling that all the way up there,” Wilkins grunted from behind them.
“Why would a hay bale help?” Amara asked.
“Along with the hay bale,” Wood said, dodging a low hanging bit of rock aiming for his head. “We brought a 5-gallon tank of gasoline and doused the entire bale until it was thoroughly soaked through.”
“Then what?” she asked.
“We lit it on fire and pushed it over the edge.”
“What followed was one of the most epic and glorious spectacles these eyes have ever witnessed,” Wilkins said, with great solemnity.
When Amara glanced back at the two of them with a raised eyebrow, Wood elaborated. “Watching such a large mass completely ablaze plummet into the earth was more than satisfying. Every time the hay bale hit cross beams that crisscrossed the shaft, an enormous explosion shook the ground. It probably took a full minute for that bale to reach the bottom.”
Wood sighed longingly. “A great day in our history together.”
They reached a vertical gap which required them to finagle and contort their bodies, but everyone managed to get through. On the other side, a cavern about the size of a studio apartment greeted them. Multiple tunnels branched out in various directions.
“You don’t happen to have a compass in that pack?” Wilkins asked.
Amara reached into the pack and withdrew a cheap looking compass mounted on a plastic plate lined with red numbers. “I think I bought this at the dollar store.”
Wilkins took it into his hands and gave it a once over. “We used to use this exact same model in scouting.”
“You two were in scouting together?” she asked.
“Back when scouting was real,” Wood said. “Providence gave us the most incredible leader anyone could ask for.”
Wilkins nodded slowly. “We owe that man so much. He taught us… everything.”
“Time goes by so fast. I wonder if he is still alive,” Wood said.
Wilkins frowned. “I would never forgive myself if we never were able to properly thank him.”
“If we ever get out of here,” Wood said, “remind me to return to Utah and pay that man some proper respect.”
“The greatest generation.”
“Indeed.”
“We need to go north-east,” Wilkins said. He held the compass out in front of him and compared their desired direction to the multiple tunnels. Only one really qualified.
Wood stacked a few rocks at the entrance of the tunnel they had just came from and then the one they were about to enter.
The walls of the cave felt like high-grade sandpaper. Lines of moisture dripped and meandered from ceiling to floor.
The three of them fell silent, lost in their own thoughts as they pushed onward. Wood tried to guess the type of rock surrounding them. Sometimes it looked like granite but caves, especially of this size, rarely formed in such a hard rock. He let his hand run along the wall beside him. Perhaps a variation of limestone or dolomite.
They twisted and turned. Every few minutes Wilkins would check the compass. The tunnel they followed ambled but continued for the most part in the desired direction.
How much time passed was anyone’s guess as they continued onward. Soon, Wood could have sworn they were beginning to descend. He was just about to vocalize his thoughts when Amara abruptly stopped. They carefully came up beside her and looked straight down into a bottomless abyss. She shined her light downward, but the lumens only penetrated so far before being absorbed by blackness.
“Too bad we don’t have a haybale and gasoline,” she said.
“Too bad,” Wilkins agreed. “Although, smoke in a cave with no escape or chimney is a bad idea. I can say that from experience.”
“There is a narrow ledge on the left side,” Wood said, pointing with an index finger. “Looks like there are some solid holds to steady yourself as well. Just remember to always have at least three limbs securely fixed before moving the fourth.”
“After you,” Amara said.
Wood took the light and examined the rocky floor. The ledge was about 5 inches wide. Large enough for about half of his foot to maintain a secure purchase. He picked his holds on the wall and began to shimmy across.
“Don’t look down,” Wilkins said.
Wood was careful and tested each handhold before using it. The pit was about 10 feet long. The last foot or two, the ledge narrowed, and the holds seemed to disappear from the wall. Behind him, Amara held her breath. He took his time and concentrated keeping his heartbeat normal. He felt like he was solving a high stakes boulder problem.
He found a sturdy position and allowed his right hand to explore the face of the wall. His left cheek rested against the cold surface. After some probing, his right hand wrapped around a perfect hold that had been hidden from the light due to the shadows. With another careful shuffle of his feet, he was across.
Wood looked across the void. “I know there is some orange tubular webbing in the pack because I put it there. Do you remember how long it was?”
“50 feet or so,” Amara replied.
“Let’s tie you up, just in case.”
She flashed a nervous grin. “Don’t tease me.”
Wilkins laughed. “Not the time or place folks.”
It turned out that the webbing was superfluous because everyone made it across without incident. One of Wilkins’ feet had slipped where water had dampened a section of ledge. Wood had braced himself as well as possible, but Wilkins had managed to hang on with a couple fingers.
The tunnel steepened and narrowed. They squeezed through every gap with increasing difficulty until the tunnel dead ended abruptly.
Amara groaned. “I had a feeling this was going to happen. No one is lucky enough to follow the right path through a maze on the first try. Even with the help of a compass.”
Wood studied the cave wall. “Turn your headlamp off.”
Amara obliged and darkness enshrouded them. As their eyes adjusted, a small hint of light from beyond the end of the tunnel peeked through a penny size opening. It was not bright, but enough to penetrate the darkness.
Wood put an eye to the hole like he was looking through a telescope. “Some people are that lucky,” he said, without looking back. “I can see more train tracks about 50 feet away. This cave must intersect the main tunnel in a section where it widens somewhere on the other side of the main Nazi hub.”
Wilkins poked a finger through and wiggled it around. “The wall isn’t very thick here. I bet with a couple swift kicks we get enough space to pass through.”
“Should we wait and watch?” Amara asked. “Get an idea of patrols or even the schedule of the train, if it has one.”
“I don’t know if we have the luxury of time,” Wood said.
“Besides,” Wilkins observed, “any available personnel are likely looking for us back in crate land.” He motioned them to take a few steps back and then braced himself against opposite walls. His raised boot came down against the thin layer of rock and passed completely through. A couple more kicks and there was ample space for them to shimmy through.
Wilkins dusted himself off and pulled back the toggle-lock action on one of the lugers. “It’s about time I get to use one of these.”
Wood poked his head through and listened. “I think the coast is clear, let’s just make sure to not trigger an alarm so easily avoidable this time.”
The three of them climbed through the opening and descended a string of boulders until they were on the ground below. They crept toward the dimly lit tunnel.
Wilkins knelt to examine the train track’s construction.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Wood asked.
“If sabotage and the desire to live is on your mind, then yes.” He looked back at Amara. “You don’t happen to have a hammer or crowbar in that pack of yours?”
Amara shrugged. “Sorry. Forgot to add that to the list.”
Wood knelt beside Wilkins and pointed. “Classic construction. You have the mound of ballast. Looks like they improvised gravel for crushed up limestone. Then wooden crossbars for the ties. By their age, I would wager the train was a more recent addition to the cave network.” He stood and walked down the tracks. “20-meter steel rails, which is standard in Europe. Connected by joint bars.” He wrapped a hand around the nearest one and tried to pull. “Unless we find something to pry these up with, forget about sabotaging the train. I don’t think your lugers will do much damage.”
Wilkins tried to pull up a bolt and frowned. “We are derailing this train one way or another.”
They consulted the compass and began cautiously walking up the tracks. They all remained silent with trained ears.
