by Kim Liggett
I want to get up. I want to keep moving, but my body won’t let me. It feels like I’m welded to the stone.
“What’s wrong?” She wedges in next to me, lying down flat so she can look me in my eyes.
I try to answer, but nothing comes out. Not even air.
“Breathe,” she whispers. “Breathe with me. You’re fine. You’re just having a panic attack. My grandma has these all the time. Inhale nice and slow and then exhale.”
Locking in on her deep brown eyes, I breathe in time with her. And I get the strangest feeling we’ve been here before. Just like this. Maybe in another life. Or maybe I really am losing it.
I’m moving my mouth, but no sound is coming out.
“Listen to me. Whatever you’re hiding, whatever you came down here for … that’s your business. But you said you’d get us out of here and I’m not going to let you give up. On us. On yourself. You have to keep moving. For better or worse, we’re stuck with each other. The only way we can get through this is if we work together.”
“You’re not making out, are you?” Kit calls from behind.
“What’s the holdup?” Darryl asks.
“I don’t like it in here,” Maria chimes in.
“It’s like we’re in a rock sandwich,” Kit says.
Darryl sighs. “Will you please stop talking about food.”
“I’m sorry. I’m starving. I could eat a rock sandwich right about now. As long as it had ketchup. Ketchup is the king of all condiments.”
I hear a stomach growl. “Now look what you’ve done,” Darryl yells.
With tears streaming down my face, I let out an exhausted laugh.
“Ready?” Shy asks.
I nod.
Prying myself off the floor, I move. One step at a time.
I can feel her with me. All of them, pushing me forward.
And for the first time in a very long while, I’m grateful.
15
THE crawl gradually opens up, leading us to yet another empty cavern, but it’s not empty at all. There are mammoth columns of calcite deposits and strange ribbon formations dangling from the ceiling. When you shine your light on them, you can see right through them. It reminds me of being under water, exploring a coral reef in the Bahamas. Even the air feels wrong, like breathing through a respirator. But unlike the ocean, there’s no sign of sunlight beaming from above. No hope of kicking to the surface, coming up for air.
I may not deserve to crawl out of this cave, but they do.
As I grasp onto a pillar of rock to pull my aching body to a standing position, a strange breeze circles around my head, the faintest whisper. I turn, shining my light down the narrow chute from where we just came. There are footprints. But none of us could walk in there. Stepping closer, I’m shocked to find the prints are deep red. The unmistakable color of blood.
Shy steps next to me.
“Do you see that?” I whisper, my skin prickling up in goose bumps. “Someone’s following us.”
“It’s just your knees,” she says with a raised brow, before walking off.
I look down and, sure enough, there’s blood seeping through my pants. I must’ve been grinding my knees into the stone harder than I thought. Pulling the synthetic cloth away from the wounds, I shake it off and join the others, but I can’t stop looking behind me.
“How do we even know we’re going the right way?” Maria asks as we trudge forward.
“Do you see another way?” Kit asks.
“I don’t even care as long as we can walk upright, like humans,” Darryl says as he tries to stretch out his back.
“But what if we’re just going deeper?”
“Grant, what was that you were saying about the water marks?” Darryl asks.
“Earth to Grant.” Kit covers his mouth, making it sound like it’s coming from an old radio.
“Sorry.” I turn back around, forcing myself to stay grounded in the present. “These tunnels were formed by water,” I say, running my hand over the scallop-shaped indentations in the stone. “Millions of years of water needling its way through limestone. Think of it like a giant block of Jarlsberg.”
“Jarlsberg?” Kit asks.
“It’s a fancy name for cheese,” Shy answers, clearly annoyed by my analogy. “Swiss cheese. The one with holes in it.”
“Man, I wish this place really was made out of cheese.” Kit sighs. “We could eat our way out of here. Right, Darryl?”
“What are you getting at?” Darryl snaps. “For your info, I don’t even like swiss cheese.”
“You need to chill out on that. Stop being so sensitive. We’ve all been teased before,” Kit says. “I’m trash. You’re fat. Maria’s hoochie. Shy’s manly.”
“Manly?”
“And what do you mean, ‘hoochie’?”
“So you do think I’m fat.”
“Hey … whoa,” Kit raises his hands in the air. “I’m just saying. I bet even Grant the fifth here has taken some shade.”
They all look back at me, and I know I have to give them something. I don’t need Shy to be any more suspicious of me than she already is.
“Neat freak,” I say.
“What, like your clothes folded a certain way?”
“No. Like my toothbrush … it has to be facing west.”
“Why?”
I take in a steeling breath. “To catch the sunlight so it can kill the bacteria.”
They all stare at me for a second, like I just spoke an entirely different language, and then start cracking up.
“That’s not a real problem,” Shy says. “That’s just somebody with way too much time on their hands.”
“You shouldn’t make fun of him,” Maria says. “It’s OCD. It’s a real thing.”
“Okay.” Shy shakes her head. “Well, you can come over and organize my stuff anytime.”
“Maybe I will,” I say, which I immediately want to take back.
“You wish.” She gives me a look—a cross between disdain and disbelief—before pushing past everyone to take the lead.
“Don’t make me fight you,” Kit says over his shoulder.
“I didn’t mean anything. I swear, I think I have a fever,” I try to explain. “And I had no idea you and Shy were…”
“A thing?” He raises a brow. “Not my type. Not by a long shot. Wrong equipment.”
“Oh,” I say, way more surprised than I wanted to sound.
“It’s all right.” He slows down, so we can talk. “People used to think that all the time about me and Shy, and I let them. It was easier than the truth. Especially in our neighborhood. But rumors do what they do, and one day I just got sick of denying them.”
“That must’ve been tough,” I say, thinking of Bennett, of what his family would do if he told them the truth.
“The buildup was the worst part. Worrying all the time about what people would think, how they’d treat me. If I’d get beat up … or worse. But nothing really happened.” He ducks under a jagged piece of rock. “I’m the same person I’ve always been. Just gay.”
I look ahead at Shy and Maria, locked arm in arm, talking quietly. She’s probably telling Maria what a giant douche I am. And maybe she’s right.
“Wondering what Shy’s type is?” Kit asks with a knowing smile.
“No.” I jut my head back. “You’ve got me all wrong.”
“Well, I’m not even sure Shy has a type.”
“What do you mean?”
“So you are interested.” He grins up at me.
“I’m not interested or disinterested. Just making conversation.”
“Grant, Grant, Grant…” He shakes his head and places his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll give you the lowdown. Back in middle school, she liked the same things as me. Drake. Maybe a little Zac Efron on the side. Guys try all the time with her, but Shy’s got her hands full with training and taking care of her grandma.”
“What’s wrong with her grandma?”
“Alzheimer’s.”
I freeze in place, quieting my breath. That dark feeling seeps right back into my pores. The whisper. Can they hear it?
“It sounds like rushing water. A lot of it,” Kit says as he slips to the front. “Maybe it’s a way out.”
Before I can even tell him that we need to be cautious, that there might be someone else down here, Kit’s running ahead.
My pulse is pounding as I go after him, and my throat’s bone dry. If something happens to him …
But when he reaches the jagged opening where the sound’s coming from, he covers his mouth and staggers back in horror, sinking against the cave wall.
16
EVERYONE rushes forward, afraid to see what’s around the corner … afraid not to.
But it’s not the scenery that has Kit clasping his hand over his mouth, gasping for air. It’s the smell. It’s beyond foul. Ammonia and dirt and rot. The odor’s so intense that we’re all gagging on it. I try not to breathe too deeply, but the scent seems to cling to the inside of my nostrils. Despite the stench, I’m happy to see that it’s just us. If there really was someone else down here, I’m pretty sure I would’ve seen them by now. They would’ve made themselves known. I need to get that out of my head.
Shining my light over the basketball court–size cavern, there’s four huge plates of rock balanced above us at precarious angles. The ceiling must’ve shifted during the collapse. I see an opening on the far end, but in order to get there we’re going to have to navigate through a maze of strange-looking mounds of dirt.
“What are those?” Maria asks.
“Forget that.” Darryl squints into the dark. “What’s making that sound?”
Beyond the pungent odor, there’s a strange chittering sound, almost like something sizzling in a pan.
I focus my headlamp on one of the mysterious mounds of dirt. From the ground to the tip of the taper it’s got to be sixteen feet tall. In the glow of the LED light, the mound glistens like polished onyx. As I step forward, trying to figure out what makes it shine that way, I see that the mound is moving.
My stomach lurches. “Guano,” I whisper.
“Gua—what?” Kit asks.
“Didn’t you watch Scooby-Doo?” Darryl’s mouth gapes open. “It’s bat crap.”
“Crap doesn’t make that sound,” Kit says.
“Yeah … about that…” I let out a measured breath. “That’s the cockroaches … eating the bat crap.”
“Gua-no freaking way,” Kit says as he starts to back up. “We’ll find another tunnel.”
“Wait.” I shine my light on the partially collapsed ceiling and then to the craggy opening on the other side. “This is good. This is exactly where we want to be.”
“I don’t know what you’re into,” Kit says, “but if you think I’m eating that … you’re crazier than I thought.”
“No.” I shake my head. “If there’s guano … there’s bats.”
“Uh … yeah, I’m not eating bats, either. Do I look like Ozzy damn Osbourne to you?”
“Not to eat.” I can’t help but crack a smile. “Bats hang out near openings; they leave the caves at night to feed. Since this is collapsed, they must’ve gone off searching for a way out. If we find the bats…” I lock eyes with Shy. “We find the way out. They can lead us to the surface.”
Shy pans her flashlight over the cavern and then gives a slight nod. “Fine.”
“You want to walk … through there,” Kit says, “through piles of bat crap and cockroaches and who knows what else?”
“Unless you have the power of flight,” Shy says as she yanks down his hood, “that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
“Hey, look at this.” Darryl reaches down into the muck, pulling something out.
Maria shines her light on it. “It’s a pocket watch, one of those really old ones with the chains.”
“This is awesome, right?” He wipes it off on his jeans. “It means someone’s been down here before.”
“Yeah, like a hundred years ago,” Kit says, staring at the black sludge covering the cave floor. “I wonder if the rest of him is in there, too?”
Darryl shrugs. “Finders, keepers.”
As Darryl slips it in his pocket, Kit wrinkles up his nose. “See, now that’s just nasty.”
“How am I even going to do this?” Maria winces as she shines her flashlight over the path. “I don’t want to kill any of them.”
“She has a thing about that.” Darryl shoots me a look of apology. “She thinks it’s bad karma to kill any living thing.”
I have to look away. I can only imagine what Maria will think of me when she figures out who I really am.
“Piggyback,” Darryl says as he leans down. “That way, if I step on any of them, it will be on me … not you.”
“That’s why you’re the sweetest,” Maria says as she hops on his back and kisses him on the cheek.
“Slow and steady,” Darryl says as he starts walking across, but the sound of the roaches crunching beneath the soles of his boots only seems to agitate the horde, making them sizzle even louder.
Shy stands next to me, her eyes trained straight ahead. “Are you sure about the bats? You really think we can find them?”
“It’s the best lead we have.” I shove my hands in my pockets, mostly to warm them up, but also because I don’t want her to see how nervous I am. “I know we have our differences, but I want you to know that I’m going to do everything I can to get you out of here.”
“You better.” There’s an edge to her voice, but when I look at her, there’s no real anger in her wide brown eyes. Maybe fear, mixed with sadness? Resignation. That’s the word I’m looking for. I want to ask her why she hates me so much, but I’m not sure I want to know. Wouldn’t matter anyway.
When Darryl and Maria reach the other side, they give the thumbs-up.
Kit is panting, hopping around in place, clearly trying to psych himself up. “I’m just doing it,” he says as he takes off running across the cavern, leaping over boulders, weaving through the mounds like a professional football player. I want to yell at him to slow down, but that could cause this whole place to come down, and also it’s hard to be mad at someone like Kit. There’s something about him. You can’t help but like him.
With all three of them safely on the other side, I turn to Shy. “Ladies first.”
She shoots me a withering look. “Then you better get moving.”
“Suit yourself,” I say as I crouch to make sure my boots are tied, but mostly it’s to hide the flush I feel taking over my face. As soon as the worst of it passes, I get up and start making my way to the other side. I’m trying to take it slow, but when I feel the cockroaches squirming beneath me I want to take Kit’s approach and get it over with as quick as possible. Knowing my luck, I’d probably end up tripping and diving headfirst into one of those guano piles.
As soon as I’m safe on the other side, I signal to Shy.
She starts casually walking toward us, stepping on the cockroaches as if it doesn’t bother her in the least.
Maria’s gagging. “Can you at least try not to kill them?”
“What’d I tell you…” Kit says. “She’s an animal.”
“Maybe she’s just imagining stomping on Grant’s head,” Darryl chuckles.
“Darryl!” Maria smacks him in the chest.
“What? It’s a joke.”
“Don’t pay any attention to him.” Maria rolls her eyes. “And that’s just Shy. She’s hard to get to know. She’ll warm up once she trusts you.”
“But she’s got the best BS detector I’ve ever seen,” Kit says.
“Seriously.” Darryl crosses his arms over his chest. “Forget the Olympics. She should be an interrogator.”
“As long as you’re real, she’ll be cool with you.” Kit shoots me a look. “But if you try to hide something from her … forget it.”
“Co
me on, Shy. Cut the act,” Darryl calls out. “You’re not freaked out by thousands of cockroaches?”
“Please,” she replies. “I work at Papa John’s.”
“What?” Kit’s voice raises about two octaves. “Is that the reason you’re always giving me free pizza?”
Shy starts to say something, no doubt some stinging comeback, when a pile of guano collapses right in front of her, sending cockroaches scrambling for purchase.
I’m getting ready to tell her to go around, when I see the strangest look come over her. With a shallow breath, she asks, “They’re on me … aren’t they?”
I skim my headlamp down her neck, her chest, her hips, and then stop. Her light-blue track pants are covered in shiny, black, skittering roaches.
Everyone’s yelling at her to run, but she just stands there, paralyzed.
It starts low, the grumble beneath our feet, until I can feel the entire cavern begin to tremble.
I spring forward to get her, struggling to pick her up over my shoulder. As I’m trying to run, I feel the cockroach carpet moving beneath my feet, the cavern crumbling behind us. And all I can think is that I don’t want to die like this, buried in here with whoever owned that watch, cockroaches feeding on our flesh.
We make it to the other side just as the cavern completely collapses, sending a huge rush of foul air whooshing through the tunnel.
“I don’t care if you have to bludgeon me to death,” Shy screams, “just get them off me.”
I set her down and we all start beating the cockroaches off of her. Even Maria gets in on it, cursing up a storm as she stomps away. So much for bad karma.
“Enough.” Shy cowers. “That’s enough.”
We stand there in silence, roach carcasses strewn all around us. Shy’s leaning over, bracing her hands against her knees, when I see her shoulders begin to shake. At first I think she’s crying, but when she looks up I see the huge grin taking over her face. With her eyes squeezed shut, she begins to laugh. Something about seeing her like that, this serious girl cracking up like that, makes me join in. Soon everyone’s dying laughing. The sound is earsplitting, but it only makes us laugh harder. I don’t know if we’re just delirious or relieved, but, in this moment, it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me. Maybe to any of us.