Gunther's Cavern

by Edward Etzkorn

  She realized the knock on the door had been repeating itself for quite some time. Now it had become more insistent. Why didn’t Spike answer the door?

  She opened the back porch door to see over a dozen faces staring at her, all bubbling with excitement and smiles of determination.

  Jimmy B and his sister Lola, both wearing long-sleeved shirts and gaiters—a bit out of place in the eighty-five-degree morning.

  Marge and Arthur Brandow, fresh from milking their cows. Old, but fit. Arthur with a little droop to his mouth and a limp in one leg.

  Vern and Lucky Cohen, accompanied by their teenage daughter Kelila, who wore an ethereal grin fresh from her most recent contact with the heavens.

  Luisa Steinmetz, auburn hair setting the air on fire, ready to hit the mud in a halter top and shorts that could have caused rear-end collisions on the New York Thruway from here to Utica.

  Cathy Sheffield with a man a size and a half larger than she, both of them winded by the ten-meter trek from their car to Dicey’s door.

  Cal and Hallie Givens, sparring with each other as Dicey opened the door but putting on smiley masks almost before Dicey could register her surprise.

  Last, but in no way least, a guy sitting on a machine that had to be homemade—a cross between an off-road motorbike and a wheelchair, with balloon tires and a motor that appeared far larger than needed to propel the thing. A gray beard and frizzled hair nearly hid his face. His arms, neck and upper chest were so ripped they made his shriveled legs appear even thinner than they were. The tattoos on his legs appeared to be running in retreat from the stoked images on his arms.

  She knew at once who he was. Jimmy had told her about Zeke Wolff and the freak caving accident that had paralyzed him below the waist.

  Looking over the group, Dicey felt overwhelmed. She turned away to stave off the flood of tears she knew was coming, but to no avail. Within seconds she was bawling like a child.

  Timing impeccable as ever, Spike strode out of the outhouse beside the garage, the outhouse they used only in emergencies. “Sorry,” he said, looking around at the group. “Thought I’d save the bathroom inside in case someone needed to go worse than me.”

  Smothering her embarrassment, Dicey sniffed back her tears and spoke quickly. “Thank you. Thank you all …” she stammered. “As far as I can guess, they disappeared somewhere around the back spring.”

  Spike leaped onto the middle of the three back porch steps and threw his arm around her. “What my wife wants to say is … First, thank you all for coming. Second, the back spring is up over the hill back of the house there. We don’t know exactly where this cave is, but if there really is a cave, it’s back there somewhere.”

  Zeke sniffed and pointed to his nose. “This nose can sniff out a cave as sure as a roomful of canaries can sniff out a speck of carbon monoxide in a mine.” With his other hand, he pulled a lever and the motor on his machine revved like that on a Harley. “We’ll find it. We’ll find my little buddy! Who’s gonna guide the way?”

  Spike jumped down from the stoop and began jogging toward the hill behind the house. With a wave of his arm, he called, “Westward Ho!”

  Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, Dicey watched her group of rescuers turn around and begin the trek up the hill behind Spike. To call them an unlikely group was not an exaggeration.

  If Cathy and her husband made it to the top of the hill, she promised herself, she’d sit by the spring until she’d seen a hundred pupas turn to butterflies.

  She laughed, causing several of the searchers to turn around and look at her.

  In fact, if Cathy and her husband made it the next fifty meters, she’d buy them a pizza dinner at Sisters every night for the next year.

  Euridyce, you are one weird chick. The voice was her father’s, speaking from the top of a cliff on a Greek isle.

  Yeah, Dad. Family history repeats itself.

  Suddenly bursting with energy, she ran ahead, passing the Sheffields on the left, approaching Kelila.

  Last one there watches pupas for a week!

  CHAPTER 13

  Beneath the light of Gunther’s headlamp, Hood led the way up a shaft behind the sleeping area. Gunther would never have guessed the shaft existed had someone not shown him the way. Even with the headlamp shining off and on—to conserve battery life—the shaft appeared as a mishmash of shadows in the overpowering darkness of the cave.

  Gunther’s adrenaline surged with the thought that every step upward led closer to escape. He welcomed the sticky warmth that chased out the chill.

  His companions proved to be better cavers than he’d expected. Hood negotiated every turn with ease, warning his companions of low ceilings, worming his way through narrow parts of the passage, then stopping to help his companions negotiate them. Gunther followed behind Hood, followed by Billy, who did not stop complaining about the difficulty of the route or muttering when Hood or Gunther let loose a few stray stones. Gunther thanked the rushing stream for drowning out the details. Kara, following in the rear, had no trouble moving her slender frame over the path set by the boys. Unlike Billy, she did not complain about sharp corners or showers of stones that rained down on her from above.

  After about two hours, they reached a sort of plateau where the cave opened into a room large enough for them to stand and watch a small-theater production. With his lungs gasping for air and his stomach crying out for food, Gunther had been about to ask Hood for a break, but had refused to be the one who gave in first. He was overjoyed when Hood stopped and sat down, head hanging over his knees, dripping sweat onto the rocky floor.

  “Break,” he announced, and the rest of the group sat down without a word.

  For a minute, silence reigned—except for the sound of hard breathing that temporarily overcame the rushing of the stream.

  “This sucks,” Billy said.

  Hood reacted at once. “Yeah, it sucks, man. Would you rather be back down there tending the garden? Complain day and night that you want to get out of here, then when the chance comes, complain that it’s just too hard!”

  With their flashlights off, Gunther could see nothing. But he felt he could hear Billy hanging his head lower.

  “Shut your face, Hood,” Billy said.

  Gunther allowed another moment of silence before speaking. During that moment, he practiced his listening skills. Billy was breathing heavily, as if each breath physically hurt. Hood’s breathing resembled his own—measured and slow. And unless he focused carefully, he could not hear Kara breathing at all.

  He spoke as nonchalantly as he could. “I’ve got a nutrition bar. We can divide it four ways.”

  Hood and Kara gasped.

  Billy nearly shouted. “Oh do me, man. Do me!”

  With a flick of the switch, Gunther turned on his headlamp, then removed the nutrition bar from his pocket. He removed it from its wrapper and scored it with his fingernail. “You’ve got to eat it really slow, because once it’s gone, there’s no more. Like, bite, chew, concentrate. If you eat too fast, it’ll be gone before you know it and you’ll be hungrier than you were before you started.”

  The group drew together into a circle. Billy’s hand was shaking.

  “Cool it, Billy,” Hood said. “Do like the man says. Concentrate.”

  One by one, by the light from his headlamp, Gunther set the prescribed quarter piece of nutrition bar into each outstretched palm.

  Before Gunther had even handed all the pieces out, Billy tossed his piece into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. As he flicked his light off, Gunther saw Hood stare at the piece of food in his hand as if it were a sacred object. Kara, too, stared at the morsel in her hand as if it were manna from the heavens.

  Hood’s voice rose like that of a preacher. “Lord, for this food that we have received from our brother Gunther, we are truly grateful. Both to you and to him. He could have eaten it in secret by himself, but he chose to share it. And we love him for it.”


  With a surprising sensation of warmth, Gunther felt Hood’s wet palm touch his, followed by Kara’s.

  Hesitantly, unsure how the others would respond, Gunther sang.

  “First we take a bite—small bite.”

  When no one laughed, he did as he exhorted, then continued.

  “Chew, chew, chew—slow chew.

  Let the stomach know—com-ing.

  Think, think, think—swal-low.”

  Ripples in the air to his right and left told him Hood and Kara were following his commands.

  Billy’s voice. “Hey, man—you got any more o’ this stuff?”

  Only a brief intake of air told him Hood had heard Billy’s words.

  “Gunther, my man—you are one O-K dude.”

  Gunther felt Billy’s eyes on him, heard him smack his lips. But to Billy’s credit, he did not say another word.

  The passage began lightening soon after they left their luncheon site. The route upward grew less steep, but more difficult to follow.

  “Other time we came up this way, we got lost a few times,” Hood said. “And once we saw the insect guards, we had to come charging back. I thought we lost a few people at first, but they trickled back one by one. Eventually we all met back at the spot where we just had lunch.”

  “We should make that arrangement again, Hood,” came Kara’s voice, surprising Gunther by its firmness. “If any of us gets lost, here is where we wait for each other.”

  “Right on, Kara,” Hood said. “Got it, Billy?”

  “Got it.” Billy huffed and panted. “Hey, Gunth—sorry about the lunch thing. I couldn’t control myself. I really ’preciate you sharin’ that. First thing we’ve had to eat ’cept butterfly larvae for weeks.”

  “No problem,” Gunther answered.

  Slowly they picked their way through row after row of columns in a part of the cave that grew higher, but not wider. The passageway split into a half-dozen possible routes, some of which seemed to join again, others of which looked like dead ends. Gunther tried to find the way by the current of air as well as the dribbles of light, but both were too feeble to follow. Hood seemed to have no advantage. He was following his intuition as much as Gunther.

  “How’d you guys end up down here, anyway?” Gunther asked, at last comfortable to pursue the question he’d been burning to ask since he and June had arrived.

  “I’m still not clear on that myself,” Hood said.

  They fell silent as they searched first one way, then another around a pillar that spiraled in a half-circle like the post of a banister. Kara ended up going one way around it, the boys the other.

  “This way!” Kara sang out. Her voice sounded sprite-like despite the exhaustion of the journey.

  “It was Serge, man,” Hood continued once the four of them rejoined, Kara now in the lead. “He told us he found this sucking hole out in the woods near where his folks used to cut down their Christmas tree. So of course we had to go see it.”

  “Weird spot, man,” Billy said. “Trees grew so freaking close together you could barely walk. Birches mostly, some maple and oak. And prickly bushes that would tear your clothes to shreds and make your mother holler holy terror.”

  Hood continued. “This one afternoon about six or seven of us were out looking for it. Serge couldn’t even find it again. Kept saying, ‘I know it’s around here someplace, I know it’s around here someplace.’ By the time we stumbled on it, it was like almost dark, so we decided to meet up nearby the next day. Place was like totally alien, man—smack in the middle of a bramble patch, and this hole that was really like trying to suck us in.”

  “Lucky thing Serge insisted we wear long pants and bring a jacket,” Kara said. “He had no idea what we were in for, but at least he made us dress for underground.”

  “Next day there were more than five or six of us,” Hood continued. “Kids were so excited, some had brought along friends. Like Billy—he brought along Rocky VII. Tiff brought Giles, and Sass brought Van. I don’t know who brought Simon—think he just heard people talking and tagged along.

  “We’d just got underground when we started hearing some weird kind of voices. Turned out to be the Tardies, but we didn’t know it at the time. We just followed Serge’s light—could hardly see where we were going. Pretty dumb when you think about it.”

  “Couldn’t see your hand in front of your face,” Billy vouched.

  “Stepped in lots of bat do-do,” Kara added.

  “We went on for maybe fifteen minutes—couldn’t have gotten very far, ’cause we were moving at a snail’s pace, trying not to bump into things. Next thing we knew, we were deep in the cave, down past where we just had lunch. None of us had a clue how we got there.”

  “It was like the lights went out, man.”

  “By Giles’s watch, it was three hours later. Some of the kids were hurting pretty bad—we figured they’d hit their heads on cave formations, or bruised their arms and legs. That was when we saw the Tardies for the first time. By that point, we had no idea where we were. They told us they’d help get us back out, and ’cause we had no clue where we were, we just followed them.”

  “I kept saying something was wrong,” Billy said. “I knew we shouldn’t have followed them, but nobody wanted to listen to a stupid football jock.”

  “You didn’t say squat, man,” Hood said. “You were mute as that limestone icicle over there.”

  Kara stopped ahead of them and whirled around. “Sshhh!” she exclaimed.

  The boys fell silent at once, stopping dead in their tracks.

  “Did, too,” Billy added.

  “Sshhh!”

  “Getting close,” Kara said. “I think I heard something.”

  Gunther listened. Despite the fifty-degree temperature, sweat soaked his hair and dripped down his face and the back of his neck. He heard Billy cursing under his breath, and Hood shifting from one foot to the other.

  “There!” Kara exclaimed.

  Gunther listened more intently—and at last heard it. Not far ahead, some creature was moving, somewhere beyond the next corkscrew turn of their passage. A patter of feet, followed by silence. Another patter of feet, then silence once more. As if the creature was darting across an open space, then hiding. Darting again, and then hiding.

  “Oh, man,” Hood said, his voice just louder than a whisper. “I don’t want to find out what that is.”

  “We’ve got to!” said Gunther.

  “Sshhh!”

  After a pause, during which Gunther no longer heard the footsteps, Kara glided forward, climbing upward at a thirty degree angle into the next portion of the cave. Like a spiral, it took them upward as if they were following the coils of a giant spring. In fifteen or twenty minutes she stopped and motioned for them to gather around her, her usual reticence forgotten. Ahead of them lay a room the size of an auditorium, its features vaguely outlined by a silvery light from somewhere above. Like the inside of an auditorium, a curtain up ahead—in reality a limestone waterfall—graced what looked like a stage. Unlike an auditorium, however, the sides and ceiling dripped with some of the most bizarre formations Gunther had ever seen, in various shades of gray that Gunther could imagine were school colors.

  “I think the way out is just ahead, past this room,” Kara whispered when the group of four had assembled.

  “I see it!” Billy said. “I see green! We’re home!” He shot forward.

  Hood and Gunther grabbed him and pulled him back.

  “Lemme go, man! Let me go!”

  “No!” Hood’s voice emerged louder than the situation called for. “We’ve got to check it out first!”

  Ahead, on the far right side of the “auditorium,” Gunther, too, saw the patch of green. It indeed looked like their escape route, a corridor leading upward. Between where they sat and the corridor, however, lay the vast auditorium, filed with columns, stalactites and stalagmites that could have hidden an army.

  “Cover
me!” Kara said, and before any of the boys could stop her she ran out into the auditorium, headed straight toward the green corridor. As in a nightmare, the footsteps they’d heard from below now reverberated from their right. A giant beetle, perhaps five feet long, charged across the open space in Kara’s direction.

  “Neaphaenops tellkampfii,” Gunther murmured. Supposed to be five millimeters long, not five feet.

  A fraction of a second later, a winged insect—perhaps a dragonfly, but forty times its proper size—flapped toward her from the far left. And from the far right, an outsized springtail—an insect like a cricket with unusually muscular legs—sprang to her side in two leaps.

  “Kara, stop!” Gunther screamed as loud as he could. “Don’t move!”

  Kara stopped in her tracks, panting as she looked from one of her attackers to the next.

  The springtail stopped scarcely a meter away from her, looming above her but not attacking. The beetle halted as if it were a reindeer reined in by some invisible Santa Claus. And like a helicopter, the dragonfly hovered above her and to her left.

  Gunther spoke again in a voice no less urgent, but not as loud. “They’re blind, Kara. They can’t see you. If you don’t move, they won’t know where you are.”

  She shot a glance in Gunther’s direction. Even in the meager light, he could see the whites of her eyes, huge and frightened.

  With a quick look around, Gunther picked up a rock and threw it against a column far to the left. At once the insects honed in on the sound and ran, hopped, and flew toward it.

  “Run, Kara!”

  Without another look around her, Kara sprinted the distance back to where the three boys waited. They ushered her into their midst.

  “How did you know to do that?” Hood asked, his voice betraying his wonder.

  “They follow sound and movement,” Gunther said. “They’re blind. But they’re supposed to be just a few inches long.”