by Ike Hamill
Justin and Carlos rushed to obey. They pinned down Travis’s arms, but he still kicked and thrashed. Kristin and Miguel moved to secure his legs. Joy went for his head.
“Hold still. Shit, this is pretty bad. Hold him still,” Joy said. She dug in her bag and pulled out a different bottle. This one had a brown liquid. When she poured it on Travis’s forehead, he screamed and bucked. The four of them barely managed to keep him down.
Joy blotted at his skin with her rag and moved his helmet to the side. Travis settled down and moaned.
“Are you okay? Does it still hurt?” Joy asked.
Kristin and Miguel let up their death-grip on his legs. Carlos and Justin hauled him up to a sitting position. When they let go, Travis took the rag from Joy and pressed it to his forehead.
“What was it?”
Joy glanced back at the hole and then took Travis’s hand. She pointed her light at his fingers and then back up to his head. Travis squinted against the light.
“Let me see,” Kristin said. “Carlos, you look.”
“That’s a chemical burn,” Carlos said. Travis had a red spot on his forehead where the skin had been burned. The spot was about the size of a dime.
“Yeah,” Joy said. “I think so too. I think that powder is like lye or something. I think it burned your face when it touched the water.”
Travis coughed and then sneezed before he could speak again. “So why did you pour more water on then?”
“Oh,” Joy said. She was still holding the bottle. She showed it to Travis. “It’s soda. I figured the acid might neutralize.”
“Maybe it just washed the powder away,” Justin said. He took the bottle of soda from Joy and walked back towards the hole.
“How does it feel?” Kristin asked.
“It’s okay now,” Travis said. “It still hurts, but it’s not terrible.” He dabbed again with the rag.
“Didn’t it hurt your finger too?” Kristin asked.
“No,” Travis said, holding out his hand. “Why didn’t it hurt my… Fuck!” He scooted forward on his butt.
“What?” Joy asked.
Travis looked down and smiled. “Nothing. I burned myself on the lamp.” The headlamp on his helmet was still burning. Travis had grazed it. He picked up the helmet and set it gingerly down on his head, careful to wear it at an angle where it didn’t get close to his forehead.
“We’re going to have to be really careful,” Justin said from over at the hole.
They looked over to him. He had used a chunk of rock to scrape away the compressed powder from the perimeter of the hole. There was a spot of it on the back of his hand. Justin wiped it carefully on his shirt.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Joy said. “I’m not going through there.”
“Then this is where we split up,” Miguel said. He hunched over and ducked through the hole.
Chapter Nine — Lost
“DO YOU SEE THIS?” she asked. Florida jabbed her finger at the wall.
“All I’m saying is that we can’t be sure we took the right path.”
Roger looked down each of the tunnels. They were at a four-way intersection of identical tunnels.
“Do you see this?”
“I mean, think about it,” Roger said.
“Is there any chance you’re going to answer me?” She thrust her finger at the wall again.
“Yes. Yes. I see it. Big deal. Why is that the point?”
“These holes were made by you with that tool. There used to be a drop-stamp here on the wall. That means that we came through here.”
Roger tried to diffuse her frustration by staying slow and calm. “Hear me out, would you? Can I just finish a thought before you jump in? All I’m saying is this—when we came down the shaft, there was no flag to point us in the return direction. Because there was no flag, we could have gotten turned around and gone the wrong direction.”
She was equally as slow, but her voice didn’t sound calm. “If we had gone the wrong direction, then we wouldn’t have found this spot where a drop-stamp used to be.”
“Maybe those holes are from something else. Maybe a team from a previous year made them,” he offered.
“This is the first year Dr. Grossman has used drop-stamps affixed to walls, and this rock oxidizes quickly. See this color difference when I chip away part of the wall?” she asked. She illustrated by jamming their tool into the side of the tunnel. “That color will change over time. From what Dr. Grossman said, it only takes a month for this color to fade to that color. And you would know this if you had paid even the slightest amount of attention.”
Roger didn’t reply right away. He wanted to master his anger first. “Please don’t try to lay blame for us being lost at my feet. It wasn’t my idea to climb up to see that noose.”
“Stop changing the subject. We’re talking about how to get un-fucked and out of this mine.”
“Easy,” Roger said. “Clearly, we don’t know which direction to go here. So we go back that way, try the other tunnel, and continue until we get to a junction. If there’s no flag there either, then we know you were right. If there is a flag, then problem solved. Can we at least try that?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s not procedure. The procedure says that if we get lost, we wait. We’re supposed to camp out and simply wait. Radio checks every fifteen. We’ll just relax here.”
“Why didn’t you say that before?” Roger asked. He unshouldered his pack and flopped it against the wall. Roger made his way carefully down to his butt. He was already starting to feel the exertion of the day down in his bones. He wasn’t old, or particularly infirmed, but he wasn’t accustomed to so much climbing and contorting.
Florida paced.
“That’s how you relax?” Roger asked.
Florida mumbled something.
“Pardon?” Roger asked.
“I was just thinking out loud.”
“Well think a tiny bit louder so we can both hear.”
“I was thinking that they don’t collect the stamps until the mission is complete. What if another team crossed trails with us and picked up our stamps? What if Dr. Grossman already crossed us off the attendance list?”
“That’s crazy.”
Florida gestured towards him. “I mean, you were late. Like really late. She might have already crossed us out on her sheet because the bus was about to pull out.”
Roger sighed and let his head rest back against the rock. He tried to tune out her voice.
“We have a radio though. You would think that they would miss us because we didn’t turn in our radio or our packs. It has to be too early for everyone to have left. I should have gotten a new battery for my watch. What was I thinking?”
“What indeed,” Roger mumbled.
Roger looked down the tunnel, back towards the shaft to the hangman’s room. He reached up and turned off his headlamp.
“Or maybe our drop-stamp and flag weren’t picked up erroneously. What if someone did it on purpose? Maybe the point isn’t about studying the mine at all. What if there is…”
“Do you see a glow down there?” he asked.
“What?”
Roger pointed, but she didn’t see. She was looking the other direction and he wasn’t wearing a headlamp.
“Look,” he said. “Do you see a glow.”
She turned and her light washed out the tunnel.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Of course you don’t,” he said. “Turn off your lamp.”
“We’re lost in a mine. I’m not turning off my lamp,” she said.
“Then turn it away. Put your helmet on backwards. I don’t care. Just tell me if you see a glow.”
Florida didn’t do it. Instead, he felt her light encircle him.
“What do you do for a living, Roger?”
“Pardon me?”
“Who do you work for?”
“At the moment, I work for Dr. Deb. Being lost in a mine is my sole source of
income.”
“Well, then what did you do before? How did you come to know about this experiment?” Florida asked.
“I answered an ad in the paper. Same as anyone else,” Roger said.
“And what did they say was the purpose of the experiment?”
“What are you getting at, exactly? Aren’t we both here doing the same work?” Roger asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” she said.
Roger shook his head. “I don’t think I’m following you.”
Florida turned away and started pacing again. “This wouldn’t be the first time. But what would they be trying to measure? Do they think I’ll panic? Are they watching me right now? No. They can’t be. This place is too big.” Florida turned her light back to Roger. “But he’s watching me.”
“I get the sense that you’re starting to go a little crazy,” Roger said. He turned his light back on and stood up. “Here’s what I’m going to do—fuck those flags. I’m just going to use my tool to carve arrows in the walls. Let’s see someone move those.”
He reached down for his bag.
“You’re not leaving me,” Florida said. “If anything, I’m leaving you. I’m going to decide which direction I’m going.”
“What did you do with my bag?” Roger asked. Florida narrowed her eyes when he looked up at her.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Shut up for a minute,” Roger said. He spun and pointed his light each direction. “This isn’t funny anymore. I’m responsible for that bag. Dr. Deb made that abundantly clear. I can’t afford to lose any pay to missing equipment. What did you do with it?”
When Roger approached Florida, she held out her own drop-stamp mounting tool like it was a weapon.
“I’m not doing this experiment anymore,” Florida said. “Tell your boss that I drop out. If I don’t get out of this damn mine in the next hour, I’m going to sue her and the university. She can count on it.”
Florida picked one of the tunnels and ran.
Roger threw up his arms.
“Great.”
Chapter Ten — Gold
SHE OBJECTED VEHEMENTLY, RIGHT until she ducked down and crawled through the hole. By the time Joy went through, she’d seen the mistakes of the others and she passed through without getting an atom of the caustic dust on herself. She stood up on the other side to see Carlos brushing some from Kristin’s back.
“It’s really not so bad,” Travis said. “I was just freaked out.”
Justin was holding his arm across his face, breathing in through his shirt sleeve.
“Which way?” Justin asked. His voice was muffled by fabric.
Miguel pointed.
Justin led the way, followed closely by Miguel with the map. The cave was different on this side of the hole. Instead of jagged edges and sharp corners, everything looked rounded. Sweeping curves defined the bowl-shaped room. There were no cracks to fall into. A big arch led to the next room. They walked through a dusting of fine sand.
“Hey,” Kristin said. Her light was pointed to the wall on the right. “There’s another one.”
She was looking at another circle of white powder, compressed to the wall.
“It looks like a spider cocoon,” Travis said.
“That’s caterpillars,” Carlos said. “Spiders have webs.”
Travis climbed the sloped wall to get a closer look. “Haven’t you seen when a spider will make a cocoon against the wall or something? It’s the way some of them leave their eggs, I think.”
“Gross,” Kristin said. “Get away from it then.”
“I think it’s just another cave,” Justin said. “Something about the air or whatever makes that powder collect at the exits.”
“You think there’s something wrong with the air?” Carlos asked.
Justin shrugged.
“People have been in here before,” Miguel said. He pointed down at the sand in front of Justin. There were footprints leading off in the same direction they were walking. “Can’t be too bad unless we find a bunch of skeletons, right?”
“Don’t even say that,” Kristin said.
“He’s got a point,” Justin said. When he started walking again, there was no hesitation from the others. They stayed clumped in a tight group and continued that way through the arch to the next room.
It was much like the first—a big round bubble in the rock.
“Hey!” Miguel said. He ducked around Justin and ran off to the side.
“Please be careful,” Kristin said.
Travis looked back at Joy. She was taking everything in and not saying a word. When everyone else went after Miguel, Joy held her ground. It was a smart idea, but Travis couldn’t help himself. He followed Carlos up the sloping rock.
They huddled around Miguel, who was tapping at the wall with a stray rock.
“Here,” Justin said. He pulled something from his bag and handed it forward. “Use this.”
Miguel glanced at the little hammer and then hit the wall again. His taps were focused on a quartz ribbon that ran through the wall. When he knocked off a piece they saw a brown vein through the white rock. Miguel increased his hammering. Little chips of quartz flew from the wall. Justin backed up and shielded his eyes from the debris.
“Here it is. Here it is!” Miguel said. He swung hard and flinched back when quartz flew. “I need a screwdriver or something. Anyone have something?”
“Here,” Carlos said. He handed forward a knife.
Miguel wormed it into a crack.
“Hey, careful with my knife,” Carlos said.
“I’ll buy you a new one,” Miguel said. He turned around with a triumphant grin. He held up a chunk of quartz lined with shiny gold highlights.
“Is it gold?” Carlos asked.
“What else would it be?” Miguel asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not a geologist. How do we know for sure?”
“Just take it. We’ll get it tested or something,” Miguel said. He handed the rock to Carlos and turned back to his excavation.
As Miguel worked, Justin was scanning his light along the wall. Travis joined him.
“I don’t see any other exposed quartz, do you?” Justin asked.
Travis’s light waggled back and forth as he shook his head.
“It almost looks like the real source of that might be in another room or something.”
“Or just underground,” Travis said.
“Like maybe there’s another passage behind that deposit of powder,” he said. He pointed to a spot that was several paces to Miguel’s left. Travis tried to imagine what Justin was envisioning. Did he expect that the line of quartz had to be exposed?
“Help me out, would you?” Justin asked. He was scanning the floor of the cave.
“What are you looking for?”
“Something to dig with.”
-o-o-o-o-o-
Justin couldn’t find a suitable rock. In this part of the cave, all the rocks were worn and rounded. Miguel was monopolizing Carlos’s knife, so Justin had to settle for using the back of a flashlight. With his shirt pulled up over his mouth, he scraped at the wall of powder with the rounded edge of the flashlight’s cylinder.
When his arms got tired, he handed-off the chore to Travis. They took turns, making very little progress before growing tired.
In Travis’s hands, the flashlight bumped over something hard embedded in the powder.
“Is it a rock? We’ll have to move more to the right maybe,” Justin said.
Travis coughed and then pulled his shirt up over his mouth, imitating Justin. He bashed at the hard spot and more powder flaked away.
“Let me see some of that water,” Travis said.
“Just a sec,” Justin said. He had to go to Kristin to find someone with water. Travis kept working, exposing more of the hard place, until Justin returned. “Careful with it. It makes that stuff burn, right.”
Travis got the mouth of the bottle very close to the
hard spot. He poured a small amount of water over it to clean it off. He nodded and poured a little more. The water made the powder erode quickly. In the depression left in the powder wall, they could see the end of the impediment they had uncovered. It was spherical on the end of a shaft.
“What is it?” Justin asked.
Travis reached out and touched it with his fingernail, just to be sure.
“It’s a leg bone. You know up near the top, where it goes into the hip?”
“Get out of here,” Justin said.
Travis carefully looped his finger around the end of the bone and pulled. The powdery wall crumbled away as he liberated the bone. Flakes of compressed powder fell away. One section that fell revealed the gentle curve of several ribs. In another place, they saw the entombed tips of finger bones.
Justin backed up a step and nearly stumbled back down the sloping wall.
“What the fuck,” Justin whispered.
“Didn’t someone just say that we’d be okay unless we found a bunch of skeletons? I think we might not be okay,” Travis said.
From back down the slope, Joy witnessed the discovery.
“Time to go,” she announced.
Chapter Eleven — Clarity
ROGER BACKED UP UNTIL he was leaning against the wall. He listened to Florida’s feet slapping down the tunnel. He reached up and turned off his light. In one direction, he could see her light getting more and more dim as she raced off in a panic. Down another passage, he saw the faint glow from the direction of the hangman’s cave.
He didn’t have a bag.
As her light dwindled, he reached up to turn his headlamp back on. His eyes raced back and forth as he tried to remember how long the battery in his headlamp was supposed to last. Normally, it wouldn’t matter. They had packed plenty of spare batteries in the pack.
“Shit,” he whispered. He started to run after Florida.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Roger stood at the intersection of tunnels and shut his light off. He had just seen her light a few seconds before. Now that he had to decide which way to go, her light was gone. Roger listened.
