by Greig Beck
“No-ooo!” Harry stopped dead, making Jamison crash into him from behind. “Maggie!” he yelled, and the woman stopped.
Faithful Bruno also slid to a stop, but Marcus was too far out in front to hear over the scream of the rock maelstrom.
The roar and grind was like a titan’s millstone as the cave walls began to knit shut. There could have been a scream, but it was impossible to really tell with the cacophony of roaring stone. The group backed up, but in a few seconds the noise died, and the shaking stopped.
The group all stood breathing hard, not speaking, but waiting, ready to sprint one way or the other depending on what happened next.
“Is it over?” Maggie finally asked.
Wenton looked up and down the chasm. “I think so.”
“Where is young man Marcus?” Bruno asked.
“He was ahead of us,” Wenton said. “Come on, let’s find him.”
He moved quickly back down the narrow crack between the two cliff faces and the first thing he noticed was that it was a lot narrower than it had been before. And it began to get even more narrow.
After another few minutes, they were edging sideways, and Wenton was the first to drop his pack so he could slide through.
“Marcus!” Maggie yelled.
“Marcus, make a sound if you can hear us.” Wenton held up a hand and the group quietened. After a moment, Wenton shook his head and pushed on.
Bruno, the stockiest, was left behind, and Wenton, Maggie, and Jamison slowly forced their way onward. Wenton was about to let Maggie slither past him to continue the search on her own, as it was getting too tight for him to move forward. Then his light revealed the final closure.
The wall had perfectly knitted together and all that was left was a line in the stone running from floor to ceiling to show where the narrow cave had once been.
“Oh God.” That wasn’t all that the line showed.
Maggie blew air through pressed lips and turned away, vomiting up some bile and water she had drunk a few minutes back.
Wenton grimaced, feeling like he had been gut-punched. He knew that what the Earth gave, it sometimes took back. And the cave they had chosen had now become just another rock face, making Marcus part of it.
But about two feet up from the ground, there were two fingers sticking from the crack. A line of blood ran down to the ground and the digits were swollen blue from blood pressure, and rod straight.
“Sorry, Jazz,” Wenton whispered.
In a way, a small part of him was relieved that the young man wasn’t missing, as they would have spent hours, days maybe, looking for him. At least now they had immediate closure.
Bad, sure, but it could have been worse, Wenton thought. It could have been me.
“We go back,” Maggie said.
“How?” Jamison gave a mirthless laugh. “Our bridge has collapsed. And there’s no ceiling to crawl across. Plus, we’ve lost most of our gear, supplies, and the only water we have is in our canteens we’re carrying—a few days at best,” he whined.
“Then we backtrack to the entrance and choose another. We have no choice but to press on.” Wenton shared his most confident smile with them.
“Until when?” Maggie asked. “More of us get squashed. Or we run out of food, water, and batteries?”
“Krubera Cave has only one entrance to the surface, but it has hundreds of tributary caves leading to that. We’ll find another path up, don’t worry.” He smiled. “Trust me. And if not, I volunteer to leap across that divide and rig a rope bridge, okay?”
“Yeah, right.” She chuckled softly. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“We best press on,” he said and went to turn away.
“Wait. That’s it?” Jamison frowned. “Are we going to say any words over Marcus? He was our buddy, remember.”
Wenton groaned inwardly, but then nodded. “Of course.” He lowered his head and shut his eyes. “Farewell, Marcus, a good friend and a great professional. Thank you for your skill, courage, and friendship. We won’t forget you.”
Jamison nodded. “He died doing what he loved most.”
Oh yeah, Wenton thought. Being crushed like a freaking grape in a press—what’s not to love? He finally turned away. “Come on, everyone, let’s do this, for Marcus.”
They followed him out, no one speaking.
EPISODE 02
“What is darkness to you is light to me” ― Jules Verne
CHAPTER 10
“This is it?” Andy looked up slowly. “This is what is supposed to lead to the center of the Earth?”
David exhaled. “I was expecting something better, or at least bigger.”
The chamber they were in was around 80 feet wide and had multiple caves leading into it. The group stood around a hole 30 feet across and in its throat nothing but impenetrable darkness.
Ronnie looked around as he scratched and rolled his shoulders, and then peered back into the hole. “A void within a void,” he said and grimaced. He continued to scratch his neck and under his arm.
“I think it’s the gravity well.” Michael continued to stare. “According to Katya’s notes, yes, this is how they traveled to the center.”
“I don’t like it,” David pronounced. “Doesn’t make sense. The mantle is 6,000 miles thick. You want us to climb into a hole and keep descending until we drop down to a molten hell. Any wonder they said the woman was insane?”
“You see adversity, I see adventure.” Michael smiled back at his friend. “You see an end of things, and I see the beginning.”
“How did they do it?” Jane put her hands on her hips. “You know, a horrible thought just jumped into my head. What if Katya really was mad and she killed all her friends and simply left them down here? We have no way of knowing what she told you or wrote in her book was true.”
“Some things can only be proven when we see them with our own eyes.” Michael quickly looked around and spotted some loose stones. He picked up a few walnut-sized samples and returned to the hole.
He held one up. “Here’s to science…being turned on its head.” He tossed one of the stones into the center of the pit.
It floated.
“What…in the…hell?” Ronnie walked forward and held a hand out, waving it over the pit. “There’s nothing there. No breeze, no anything.”
“Not even gravity in there?” Angela picked up a stone and tossed it. Just like before, it hung in the air over the dark void.
“No, there’s gravity, but it’s in flux. I’m betting we can move with it and it can be traveled along.” Michael smiled at the floating stones.
He grabbed up another stone and this time threw it downward. It traveled into the dark until it vanished. “I believe these are the Earth’s arteries, and we can travel along them like a blood cell.”
David shook his head. “We still don’t have the time to float down 6,000 miles.”
Michael removed Katya’s book from his pocket and held it like an old-time preacher held the Bible. He opened it to find the page he was looking for. “We traveled along the gravity well downward and reached speeds of what Georgy estimated were 200 miles per hour. It took us two days, with one stop for resting.”
Ronnie chuckled. “Come on, Michael—200 miles per hour? Even if it’s true, you shoot along a narrow pipe for that long, sooner or later you hit a wall, and at that speed, you’d be obliterated.” He scratched himself some more.
Michael shook his head. “They said the stream was strongest at the center but was like a cushion at the outer edges. If you got close to the wall, the gravity slowed and stopped you. You needed to be at the center to generate the vast speeds.”
Michael studied the man for a moment, noticing he looked flushed and continued to worry his skin. “Ronnie, are you alright?”
Ronnie nodded. “Yeah, yeah, just itchy as all hell and got a damn rash. From not washing, I guess.”
“Put some iodine on it and stop scratching it. You’ll abrade your skin. You don’t want to get
an infection down here,” David advised.
“Sure.” Ronnie’s jaw set.
“What now?” Angela asked.
Michael stared down into the impossible darkness. “Like I said, some things can only be proven when we see them with our own eyes.” He lifted his head to smile at Jane.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“It can be done. It has been done.” He took a deep breath as he kept his eyes on hers.
Michael’s eyes seemed to blaze as he sucked in another huge breath.
“No.” Jane lunged at him.
Michael stepped out over the dark hole.
And he floated.
Michael held his arms wide, threw his head back, and laughed.
“Holy shit.” Andy clapped.
He swam to the other side and stepped down. He turned and held up a finger. “One more test.”
He held his wrist light out before him, and this time he dove head-first into the pit. And vanished from sight.
Jane lunged forward to kneel on the edge and saw his tiny light grow faint and then disappear.
Ronnie leaned out. “Now what?”
“Now?” Jane folded her arms. “I guess we wait.”
Sure enough, in five minutes, the dot of light appeared, and then Michael literally swam out of the pit and eased to one side to step down.
He rested his hands on his hips. “It can be done.”
“What did you see?” David asked. “What was down there?”
“Nothing.” Michel shrugged. “And I’m assuming there’ll be nothing for hundreds or thousands of miles except for a featureless cave. But it proves that the gravity well can be traveled both ways without harm to us.”
Jane exhaled. “I don’t know.”
Andy stepped out. “Haha, check this out.” He held his arms out, hanging in the air over the hole. “Whoa…this is cool. Angela, try it.”
Michael came and put his arm around Jane’s shoulders. “This is it, Jane. This is where we make history.”
She stared down into the hole. “And what if we travel down and find nothing but temperatures of three thousand degrees? We’ll be incinerated before we can even turn around.”
Michael smiled. “Katya and her team did it—we can too.”
Jane’s smile was lopsided. “No, Katya said she did it. We have no real proof other than her word.”
“She said the gravity well existed. It does,” Michael countered.
“I can’t help feeling there’s nothing but danger waiting for us.” Jane grimaced up at him. “Sorry, I’m not usually the dark cloud on these things.”
“I know. But it’s time to let some light shine through those dark clouds.” He squeezed her shoulders tighter. “We’ve come this far, and this step requires us to do nothing more than float.”
David put his toes on the edge and then stepped out. He levitated. He held his hands out, fingers wiggling. “I can feel the force working on me. Interesting.”
“I nearly fell asleep driving on the 65, between Montgomery and Hoover. Was lulled into a road trance. If I’m floating in this, I bet I’ll do it again.” Andy chuckled.
“Hmm, you bring up a good point.” Michael nodded. “We should lash ourselves together to ensure no one gets too far ahead or behind. Katya never mentioned any side caves or branches in the tunnel, but we need to stay as a group.”
Ronnie and Angela still hadn’t stepped out to try it. Ronnie folded his arms, staring down into the darkness.
“Maybe a few of us should go first to reconnoiter.”
“Sure.” Michael rubbed his stubbled chin. “But I won’t be traveling for 30 or so hours, to a potential world of wonders, and then coming back to get you.” He shrugged. “But I’m okay with anyone wanting to wait here for us.”
“I’m going.” Andy swam out into the pit again.
“Yep,” David said.
“Oh well, I guess someone has got to keep you out of trouble, you big kid.” Jane’s mouth was still quirked up in a smile.
Angela also agreed and gave the pit a quick test by floating across it.
“Good.” Michael took off his pack. “I suggest a small meal, and then anyone who needs to take a piss do it now.”
The group sat together and ate dried beef, some sultanas, and sipped water. A few pissed into their bottles and left them behind, and also spent a few minutes repacking their kits and securing anything on them that might be loose.
Jane went and looked down into the depths of the hole one last time. She knew that every time you entered a new cave, you stepped out into the unknown. But she felt this was on another level entirely.
An old quote seeped back into her mind: The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. Who said that? she wondered.
Michael stood beside her. “Penny for them.”
“Just nervous.” She turned and gave him a small smile.
“Your voice is the voice of reason in my head.” He smiled, his teeth showing white in the darkness. “It’s your counsel that stops me spinning off into space and doing the really dumb stuff.”
She nodded toward the dark hole before them. “You mean like this?”
He chuckled. “Risk verse return. There will never be another opportunity like this in our lives, ever.” He snorted softly. “I would die being consumed with curiosity if I didn’t go. Or if I didn’t and someone else did, then I would die with regret and envy.”
She looked up at his handsome face. “Do you think Katya is happy she went?”
After a moment, he shook his head, and then turned away. “Let’s line ‘em up.”
The group roped themselves together, about eight feet apart, with Michael out front, followed by Andy, Jane, Angela, David, and then Ronnie bringing up the rear.
Michael put his toes on the edge and stared down.
“Feet first or head first?” Andy asked.
“Head first,” Michael said. “I found I could navigate with small movements of my arms. We’ll be going at significant speed, so we should travel in a line like train carriages. But don’t worry if you get close to the wall as it will only slow you down, not crash you.” He smiled. “I think.”
They lined up. “Just like we’re getting ready to skydive.” Andy’s grin split his face. “I can’t wait.”
Michael took a deep breath. “Go.” He dove, and the team peeled off one after the other behind him.
CHAPTER 11
Harry Wenton squeezed through the cleft in the two jagged walls, feeling the dry stone chafe at his pack. The rift they followed was getting narrower, and though all cavers were exceptionally good at squeezing through the smallest of openings—with the maxim that, as long as your head and hips fit, you were through—he started to contemplate backtracking if it narrowed any more.
“Everyone okay back there?”
“All good,” Maggie said from behind him.
“No problem,” from Jamison.
There was a pause, and then, “Getting tight squeeze,” from Bruno.
Wenton grinned. He expected that. Bruno was the only one with excess muscle, and though he was as strong as an ox, the ideal caving body was long of limb and good upper body strength, all on a stringy, muscled frame.
He’d give it another few hundred feet and if it didn’t open out, they’d turn back.
Wenton had to start taking shallow breaths so his chest was less expanded, and for the first time, his helmet scraped. At the rear, he heard Bruno puffing and grunting as he literally muscled his way between the rift walls.
Then in the next few feet, his light didn’t illuminate any more wall. And he popped free.
“Thank God.” Wenton rolled his shoulders, shook out tight muscles, and walked a few paces forward as he sucked in deep breaths. Behind him, his team came out of the crack in the wall and he turned back. “Jamison, help Bruno out.”
The young man went, stuck an arm in, and took hold of Bruno’s hand. “Exhale on the count of 3, 2, 1, now.” He dragged
hard as the stocky man pushed forward, and then he was free. Bruno coughed and rubbed his chest.
“Don’t know how you did it.” Maggie chuckled. “That was getting tight for me, so it musta been hell for you guys.”
“Think thin,” Jamison said.
“What’s that smell?” Wenton looked about.
After days of inhaling nothing but rock dust, ancient mold spores, and the various chemical compounds that are brewed deep beneath the earth, anything out of the ordinary was easily detectable.
“Sweet, sort of.” Jamison sniffed deeply. He flicked on his wrist light and shone it around. A body scuttled out of his beam.
“Shit. What the hell was that?”
The thing had been about the size of a large dog and looked skinlessly translucent, but it moved too fast for them to follow.
Everyone’s light now whipped around the dark cavern.
“Something’s in here with us,” Wenton said.
“Impossible,” Maggie said. “The only things living down here at these depths are nematodes, and that’s a big maybe.”
“Little big for a nematode, wouldn’t you say?” Wenton shone his light into an alcove. There was a lump there that had steam curling from an open-gut cavity.
“And what the hell is that?” Jamison’s face contorted.
“Some sort of animal. Or was.” Wenton crouched. “Hairless, and totally without eyes. A true cave species.”
Maggie crouched beside him. She used her knife to prod at the creature. The thing was about two feet in length but had spindly legs that ended in sharp claws. The face had a long snout with a protuberant pink nose surrounded with bristles, and the open mouth displayed a row of flat, even teeth.
“No eyes, and not even any vestigial orbital sockets.” Maggie pointed her knife. “Look at that long nose. It must have a great sense of smell.”
“And I’d say how it found its food,” Jamison added.
“What food?” Maggie asked. “And for that matter, what attacked it?”
“Something else. Something bigger.” Wenton got to his feet. “This is a fresh kill.” He looked at Jamison. “What did you see?”
