The Devil's Cauldron

by Michael Wallace

  Her fingers groped at her jeans. She got the button loose, then unzipped her pants.

  Meggie twisted and squirmed to get her arm out in front again. Her head pounded like it would explode. She felt faint. She only just got her arm up before she blacked out again.

  When she came to, she was weaker than ever. Could barely form a coherent plan. The same deep voice that tried to calm her spoke again. It came to her from somewhere distant, more like a memory than a conscious thought.

  This is it. One last chance. Then you die.

  Meggie groped for the end. Couldn’t reach it. Either she’d slid backward (impossible), or she simply couldn’t extend her arms as far as before. Instead, her fingernails clawed at the stone. Her pants slipped down from her waist. She moved a fraction of an inch. Her fingertips found the end of the tunnel.

  With one final, heroic effort, she yanked on the end of the tunnel with everything she had. She squirmed out of her pants, leaving them behind. Then she had her hands out entirely, grabbing the end of the passage in a death grip. Then up to her elbows, then her head emerged.

  A tight moment when she tried to get her shoulders free, but they popped out with a painful shifting of joints. Finally, her chest, but only when she blew out all her air. She stuck again at the hips.

  But by then her lungs were free. She took in ragged gasps, huge lung-fulls of air. A wave of nausea penetrated the pounding headache, and she leaned forward and threw up.

  She found her voice. “Help! I’m stuck! Benjamin! HELP!”

  There was no answer. The only sound in the blackness was her own gasping. They must be on the surface already, or at least up beyond that first landing. Unless they heard her and simply refused to answer.

  Meggie slumped forward, wanting to dangle there, half in, half out of the squeeze. Regain her strength and try to figure out how badly she’d injured herself coming through.

  “Not yet you don’t. Get out now or die.”

  Meggie got her hands in position and pushed, while digging her toenails in. She twisted her body, wriggling back and forth like a snake squeezing out of its skin. The stone clawed her flesh. At last it let her go, tearing her underwear in half as she came out. Meggie collapsed in a heap on top of her backpack.

  She lay there for several long minutes, weeping in relief and pain. She knew she had to get up and keep moving. She groped until she found her helmet, verified that the light had broken on the fall—stupid, unreliable safety equipment—and unzipped her pack. Her hands found the flashlight.

  The light was blinding after so long in complete darkness. But a fresh wave of gratitude poured over her when she could see around the chamber. She looked herself over. It was awful.

  The crawl through the squeeze had left her hands bloodied, her fingernails broken off. The skin had torn off at her hips where she’d shredded it and lubricated her final passageway with her own blood. Her ribs throbbed and as she pulled up her shirt to poke at the darkening flesh, she guessed she’d cracked two ribs and bruised several more.

  She was trembling now: cold, injured, and fighting shock. She had to retrieve her pants and boots. That’s right, her boots. She hadn’t even thought about them, but they’d come off too, yanked off, tied laces and all. Maybe that’s why her ankles hurt so much. One sock was missing; it must be in there too. Shining her light in, she found her pants, dragged up to the edge. She grabbed them and pulled them on. That was better, but she needed her shoes, too. And her missing sock. Shining the light inside, she spotted the boots, deep enough she’d have to lean back in to get them. No sign of the missing sock.

  The hole had become like a living thing, and she was afraid to stick any part of her body back inside, lean in far enough to grab them.

  “What’s it going to do, bite you? Swallow you alive? Get hold of yourself.” A shudder worked through her. “Oh God. I don’t want to do it. I can’t.”

  Then what? Sit and wait? No, she needed to get the hell out of here and back to the surface. And that meant the vertical ascenders. And she needed boots to wear those.

  Meggie set the flashlight carefully to one side so she wouldn’t step on it and break it. Then she felt for the hole and the stone that radiated bone-chilling cold. Before she could work herself into another terror, she lunged in up to her shoulders, with one arm outstretched. Her shoulder ached. She brushed the lace of one boot, grabbed it, and yanked it out.

  “There you are,” she said, as she found the missing sock down in the boot toe. She put on the sock and boot, then steeled herself for a final lunge into the hated squeeze for the other boot.

  This time she had to get her shoulders all the way back inside. Her heart was pounding to match her headache, her body hurt all over, and she was terrified. As her fingers groped for the shoe, which she had seen with her own eyes, but could not feel, she imagined a hand reaching in from the cavern on the opposite side. A clawed hand, covered with scales. It would seize her wrist and drag her in to die.

  She found the boot. Grabbed it. Pulled it out.

  Exhausted and hurting, but relieved, Meggie sank down with the flashlight. She steadied her breathing while she put on her second boot.

  “Now you’re safe. Now you can wait for rescue.”

  That was stupid. Sit here and wait? For hours and hours and hours? The hell with that. Her injuries were not crippling; she could get her own damn self out. And the first rope was only a few yards away.

  Meggie drained one of her remaining water bottles, ate an energy bar, then climbed shakily to her feet and pulled on her pack. She strapped on her helmet, wishing the light wasn’t broken. There was no way to hold the flashlight and climb at the same time; she’d have to go up the ropes in the darkness.

  That was if they were still there. She wouldn’t put it past Kaitlyn to yank the ropes up after them to make the rescue all that much more difficult. And Benjamin would be too spineless to tell her no.

  So Meggie was relieved to get to the lower landing and find the rope still dangling, and her ascenders and harness still there. A small miracle, and she was grateful. She harnessed herself, hooked the ascenders on her shoes, threaded the rope through the pulleys, and put on her gloves. Reluctantly, she turned off the flashlight and put it away. She tightened her grip on the rope.

  “Straight up. That’s it. Up to the next landing, then straight to the surface.”

  She started to climb.

  Climbing this way was exhausting under the easiest of circumstances. But Meggie had now been on the road, hiking, or in the cave since early that morning. It must be dusk by now. She was injured and exhausted. The climb went on and on, her breathing growing labored. A dull ache spread from her calves into her thighs.

  When she finished climbing the first, easiest stretch, only 80 feet, compared to 120 in the upper segment, she disconnected from the rope, fished out the flashlight, then lay on her back, breathing heavily for several minutes.

  “Get up. One more to go. You can do it.”

  She started climbing the last, most grueling stretch. For the first fifteen minutes or so, she made slow but steady progress. That probably took her a third the way up. She stopped to rest, slumping in place, swaying back and forth on the rope while she regained her strength.

  A hint of gray cut the blackness. It must still be daylight. Could it be that only a couple of hours had passed since the others abandoned her?

  That light, or rather, hint of light, was enough to send her adrenaline surging. She redoubled her effort.

  Twenty minutes later there was no doubt. There was definite daylight filtering into the depths. She could see her gloved hands on the rope above her face. Then, the sides of the cave. Then, the bend of the shaft itself.

  Finally, she spotted the jutting boulder. That was only fifteen feet from the end, she realized with elation. Get over that and she’d see the surface. Bushes, rock, dirt. The sky.

  She was spent. Three pumps with the vertical ascenders, then stop to rest. Three more. Rest. The la
st ten feet to the boulder took several minutes. At last, she grabbed it and used her arms to help her pumping legs get up and over. She looked up and caught a glimpse of blue sky. So beautiful.

  A face looked down at her.

  Meggie was so startled that she screamed and let go of the rope. The ascenders and the harness caught her, and she swung back and forth in the shaft. She grabbed at the wall to stabilize herself, then looked back up toward the surface. The light was behind the speaker’s head, washing the face out with contrast.

  “Benjamin, is that you? You left me, you jerk.”

  “Try again,” a woman’s voice said.

  It took Meggie’s eyes several seconds to pick out the other person’s features. It was Kaitlyn, lying on her belly and peering down into the shaft.

  Meggie bit back a snarling retort. Assholes, leaving her down in the cavern, trapped.

  Instead, she forced calm into her voice. “So I guess you waited for me, huh? Didn’t decide to abandon me to die? Bet you were tempted.”

  “Is that blood on your clothes?” Kaitlyn sounded pleased. “Looks like you’ve had a hell of a time. The squeeze was pretty tight, huh?”

  “Yeah, how do you like that? Some trip leader you are, leaving one of your team behind. Wait until . . . ” Her voice trailed off.

  “Until what?”

  Wait until I tell the forum what you did. You’ll never go caving again. Again, Meggie forced herself to shut up. Inside, she was boiling with anger, but only an idiot would keep talking back now. Kaitlyn was still on the surface, and Meggie in the shaft. One of them had all the power.

  “Where is Benjamin?”

  “He went back to the truck to get help.”

  “By himself? Nice.”

  “It’s not that far. Pretty sure he can handle the hike. He’s a—well, we both know he’s not a big boy. But he can follow orders.”

  Kaitlyn strummed the taut rope like it was a giant banjo string. A vibration shivered its way down and made Meggie shake. Then Kaitlyn pulled on the rope, making it swing back and forth.

  “Stop that. I mean it.”

  “You’re taking your time down there. Don’t you want to come up? Maybe you’re out of shape. You’re so fat and lazy I’m surprised you made it this far.”

  Only fifteen feet more to go. Meggie was spent, and even a few seconds talking to her tormentor had her muscles stiffening up. She had to keep moving. Slowly, laboriously, she pumped her legs. Foot by foot she rose to the surface. Kaitlyn disappeared. The rope strummed again. What was she doing up there? Meggie redoubled her effort.

  The rope lurched. It was like a jerk from an old elevator, when the brake releases and the car falls, feeling like it is about to plummet to the earth. Meggie’s heart leaped into her throat.

  “Hey!”

  The rope caught fast. When Meggie’s head stopped swooning, she looked down to see that the rope had slipped several feet and dropped her halfway back to the boulder. She swung back and forth, heart pounding.

  Kaitlyn appeared above the shaft. She held the end of the rope coiled over her forearm.

  “What are you doing?” Meggie cried.

  “Untying the knot. Don’t worry, I left a couple of coils slung around the boulder.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “Maybe. I wonder sometimes.”

  “Kaitlyn, please don’t.”

  “Because how else would you explain it? I had everything I wanted. Then you came along. I knew right away you were no good. That you were going to poison Benjamin’s mind.”

  “That I what?”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Kaitlyn asked.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Please, I’m coming up.”

  For a moment she debated dropping back to the rock and holding on for dear life. Wait for Duperre to find her, even if it took all night. But the boulder was wet, moss-covered, and she’d still be in plain sight of Kaitlyn. The woman could drop rocks on her head, she was so close. If Benjamin’s cousin was about to have a breakdown, Meggie damn well had to get back to the surface, and fast. Her legs pumped with fresh energy, drawn from God knew where.

  “You must think I’m an idiot,” Kaitlyn said. “Did you forget that I’m in charge of IT? I’m no idiot—I put monitoring software on all those computers.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  Kaitlyn kept talking over her, as if Meggie were lying. Because of course she was.

  “I need to keep an eye on Benjamin’s brothers. They don’t trust me like he does. They want to force me out, and cheat me of my share. Turns out, you’re a cheating bitch, too.”

  Meggie was only a few feet down now. She swung her arm up, grasping for the surface.

  “No, you don’t,” Kaitlyn said. She took a coil of rope and whipped it back toward the rock like a fly fisherman trying to free a snagged hook. The rope started to slip.

  “No!” Meggie pumped her legs. She flailed for the surface and got a gloved hand up and onto the ground. She gave a final heave and got her other hand up to grab the surface, just as the rope slipped free.

  All of Meggie’s weight was now on her fingertips and not the rope, but with 120 feet of length still dangling into the cave, it was enough to spool out of Kaitlyn’s hands like line tearing off the tip of a fishing pole when something hit the bait. The rope disappeared into the blackness below, and then jerked at Meggie’s boots where the vertical ascenders still gripped it. All that weight pulled down on her legs. She dangled by her fingertips, quickly losing strength.

  “Please,” she gasped. “Help me.”

  Kaitlyn squatted and looked down with a sneer. Their faces were only inches away. “Help yourself, Meggie. Isn’t that what you do best?”

  As she stood, a broad, placid smile spread over her face. “Benjamin tied that rope. Looks like he did a poor job. But didn’t I ask you to double-check his knot? I think I did. What a tragedy.”

  Meggie kept struggling through all this. She dug her boots at the wall, trying to get purchase. Her shoulders and arms were on fire, already injured from the ordeal at the bottom of the shaft, but she wasn’t letting go. She flailed up with her hand and caught hold of a woody trunk of a sagebrush that grew over the edge of the cave shaft. Its roots dug deep into the rock and soil and refused to let her fall.

  Kaitlyn stood a few feet away, watching. Her smile faded as Meggie fought on, darkening to rage when it looked like her enemy would get one entire arm up and then fight to the surface. She walked back to the shaft, then bent and picked up a fist-sized rock.

  Meggie stopped to catch her breath and prepare for a final heave out of the cave. She stared in terror as Kaitlyn squatted in front of her with the stone gripped in her hand.

  “Don’t do this,” Meggie said. “Please. I’ll forget it. I won’t tell.” She gasped. “Won’t tell anyone.”

  “I don’t believe you. I think you would tell.” She hoisted the rock above her head. “But I guess we’ll never know for sure.”

  Kaitlyn slammed the rock down on Meggie’s hand. Meggie fell into the shaft.

  Chapter Sixteen

  On the hike back from the hot springs, Eric thought about the funny story Wes told him about the witch and the princess locked in the dungeon.

  “That’s Meggie,” he said. “The evil witch made a dungeon in her mind.”

  One of the other residents, a girl named Jilly, interrupted him to tell him a story about a witch with a walled garden and a man who sneaked inside to steal peaches for his wife. Then the witch caught him and took away the couple’s baby.

  “I know that story,” Eric said. “The girl got locked in a tower. My brother read it to me.”

  “No he didn’t,” Jilly insisted. “My Daddy made up that story, and it’s called Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Thy Hair.”

  “I know that,” Eric scoffed. “Everyone knows that story.”

  Jilly stomped ahead on the trail, then tripped on a sneaky root that came up from the
ground. It was almost dark and there were lots of sneaky roots and scratching branches. Eric felt bad that he’d been mean, so he tried to help her up, but she pushed him away.

  When Eric fell back, he remembered his brother’s story and he remembered something else, too. A chill shivered down his spine. He’d met the witch.

  It was that mean woman. The one who wasn’t an aide and wasn’t a nurse. She wasn’t staff. She had called him names, then threatened him.

  Don’t mess with me, Eric. And stay away from the pretty lady if you know what’s good for you.

  Why didn’t he see it before? You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes—even Watson could have known that. “It’s elementary, dumb-dumb.”

  “Hombre, what’s wrong?” Diego asked.

  Eric’s aide was bringing up the rear, hanging back a distance, like he wanted to be alone, but Eric kept walking slower and slower while he was thinking about princesses and witches.

  “Mean woman,” he said. “She called me a retard.”

  “That’s a bad word,” Diego said firmly. “And anyone who says it should be ignored. They’re not worth the time or effort. Wait, who told you that?”

  Eric fell silent. Oops. Shouldn’t have said anything. He was going to blow his cover. Blowing your cover was a bad thing, very bad, especially in this case. If they found him out, bad things would happen not only to him, but to the pretty lady, too.

  “Eric?” Diego said. “Who was it? One of the other residents?”

  “Mean woman. Who does she think she is anyway? She’s the stupid dumb-dumb, not me.”

  Diego stopped and took Eric’s sleeve. “Wait a minute. What’s going on here?”

  Eric shrugged and tried to look confused. It was easier than he thought.

  “Does this have something to do with your brother and his wife?”

  “They’d never say that,” he said, outraged. “Take that back!”

  “Whoa, there. Hombre, that’s not what I mean. Of course they wouldn’t. But I’m still asking myself questions, Ruk. You know I am. I’m seeing stuff and putting two and two together.”

  “Two and two makes four.”