Gunther's Cavern

by Edward Etzkorn

  More than that, he worried about the headlamp itself. The beam appeared fainter than when they’d started. The batteries were running low. And he had none to replace them.

  Trying to convince himself the headlamp beam was as strong as ever, he turned his attention to the task at hand. He motioned back toward Giles and Van. “Come. Slowly.”

  As well as he could, he guided them across the stream with the headlamp beam. Van slipped halfway across, but Giles managed to keep Kara’s head above water, and Van regained her balance fast enough to rate only a jerk from the insect guardians. “Watch these last few steps,” Gunther told them as they reached the spot where he had slipped. Reaching out, he grabbed Giles’s arm, and the trio reached the far side without another mishap.

  Five down, five to go, Gunther told himself.

  Sass and Rocky crossed next, followed by Rad and June.

  As Hood began the final solo crossing, Gunther’s headlamp gave out.

  “What the … ?” Hood gasped.

  “Hold on,” Gunther said. With a wave of panic, he jerked the headlamp from his forehead and shook it.

  Slapped it.

  Turned it off, then back on.

  The light was gone.

  “Hood, the battery’s dead. Can you make it in the dark?”

  “Oh, man …”

  Gunther heard a splash, and then a further splash, as if someone were batting the water with his or her hands. A thundering of hooves followed from the amphitheater, and a buzz of wings from above.

  “Hood—stop!” Gunther screamed. “Don’t move!”

  All the sounds stopped at once. Only the rushing of the stream continued—and the pounding of Gunther’s heart in his head.

  “Holy Moses,” came from Giles.

  “Sshhh!” several voices responded.

  Several thoughts battled each other in Gunther’s mind.

  The kids were not far from the surface. Some light would trickle down from above—but their eyes would not adapt to the light for twenty or thirty minutes. Hood could not stand in the middle of the stream for twenty or thirty minutes.

  The insects were poised to strike. Unable to see them, they might have been hovering within inches of Hood’s head at this moment.

  He felt helpless. He could not produce light, he could not pull Hood to safety, and he could not hurt the insects.

  But perhaps he could trick them again.

  With but the slightest sound, he grabbed a rock from the edge of the stream and hurled it as far as he could toward the opposite side of the auditorium. A scuffle of footsteps, a thunder of hooves, and a buzz of wings followed it. Thank God the Insect Guardians were too stupid to understand that they were being fooled once again.

  “Run, Hood!” he shouted.

  The exhortation was unnecessary. Hood began charging through the stream the instant the guardians’ footsteps headed in the opposite direction.

  “Hurry,” Gunther coaxed. “Hurry!”

  The sounds of the insects’ movement stopped somewhere over the middle of the auditorium, paused, then headed back toward the children again. Hood slipped a meter away from shore—the same spot where Gunther had slipped. The air throbbed with the beat of wings a meter away as Gunther and Rocky grabbed his hands.

  Gasping, Hood threw himself against the rest of the group. All of them sprawled flailing on the ground.

  “Ow, that was my head,” came June’s voice.

  “Sshhh! Don’t breathe! Don’t move!”

  For several seconds all went silent.

  Then, starting as a whine in the distance, growing closer and louder, came a sound like a scythe in a field of grass. It took Gunther several seconds to realize what it was—the proboscis of a giant insect thrumming the air merely inches away, searching for prey.

  “Slow,” he said. “Slow. Ease a little further along the wall.”

  For perhaps ten more seconds, the thrumming continued. Then, with the whine of retreating wings came the uncontrolled gasping of ten pairs of lungs. Whichever insect had sensed their presence had backed off.

  The group retreated into a sort of alcove in the rock. Without light, Gunther could only hope the alcove did not lead into some deeper cranny where a hostile creature waited. But nothing stirred.

  “There’s some light coming from the passage out of the cave,” he told them. “But it’ll take our eyes fifteen or twenty minutes to adapt.”

  “We don’t have that long,” said Rad. “The Tardy army is coming.”

  Whether due to the power of suggestion or to the realization of a sound that he’d heard all along, once again Gunther heard—or felt—the marching of ten thousand water bears somewhere deep in the cave.

  “I think I have light.”

  The voice was June’s. “I have a candle-lamp, if only I can find the matches.”

  “I’ll help you,” Gunther said.

  “Sshhh!” Rad. “I hear something in the stream.”

  The children fell silent. Gunther heard the sound at once—a splashing sound emerging from the opposite side of the stream. Whatever creature was making the sound was making no effort to conceal it.

  The children pressed deeper into the alcove.

  “Who’s there?” Gunther called out. He heard the fear in his voice, and wished he could retract it.

  No answer. But the splashing sound continued unabated.

  “Who’s there?” he called again, louder, this time able to mask the overlay of fear in his voice.

  The splashing paused for just a second. “It’s me,” came a voice. “Wait for me.”

  Several children gasped.

  “Simon?”

  “No way!”

  “That ain’t Simon,” Rocky warned. “It’s a Tardy. It’s trying to fool us.”

  Ignoring him, Gunther called out: “Simon, if it’s you—stop where you are! There’s giant bugs all around here! They’ll …!”

  As if in response to his words, the buzzing of wings arose a mere five or six meters from where they stood and hummed about in a semicircle, as if trying to zero in on their target. Gunther heard a louder splash, followed by a staccato scream.

  “Simon!” he cried. “Simon, don’t move! Don’t say anything!” Scrounging around on a floor he could not see, he grabbed the first object he could find—a mid-sized rock—and hurled it with all his might into the far reaches of the auditorium. At once the buzzing sound raced in pursuit, along with the thunder of several pairs of giant feet.

  “Go, Simon!” he screamed.

  Instantly, the splashing sounds returned, louder and more frantic than before.

  “Here!” several voices called out.

  In less than three seconds the buzzing wings reversed direction and drilled their way back to the stream. The insects had caught on to Gunther’s trickery. He could feel the draft of the wings close to where he and the other children crouched. He’d fooled the insects for perhaps the last time. Yes, they were stupid—but not that stupid.

  Rocky moaned. “I tell you, man—that ain’t Simon.”

  Despite the nearness of the wings and Rocky’s misgivings, Gunther reached out toward the splashing sounds, nearly entangling his arms in Hood’s, who was reaching out as well. The hands that flailed toward him and Hood were clearly human.

  “Thank you.” Simon’s voice bore both relief and gratitude. His words were nearly smothered by the panting of his lungs. “Sorry … That thing … bit my head.”

  Over the collective sigh of relief behind Gunther came Rocky’s voice. “Simon, what the freakin’ …”

  “Later,” Hood said. “We got to get out of here. These bugs know exactly where we are.”

  “There’s … thousands of … new Tardies,” Simon gasped. “Most … are going toward the way … Gunth and June came in. A few hundred … are coming after us.”

  “We heard them.” Gunther turned away from Simon, in the direction he thought June was standing.
“June, you say you have some light?”

  “I’m pretty sure. Let me feel through my pack.”

  Sounds of her rummaging through her pack followed. “I got it. Trouble is I need light to see what I’m doing. Here … Here are the matches. I got the candle-lamp, but I can’t tell … Gunth, so screed flame tee mon …”

  Gunther felt his way to where she was squatting, tripping over her pack and catching himself on the wall behind her. He felt her hand, then the outline of the candle-lamp. “Squenchung so foll me doe.” Here, let me have the lamp.

  “Kah-chung tin flobin …” Give me a couple of seconds to get it open. “Here …” A match flicked on, and in the meager light Gunther managed to open the lamp and direct the small wick upward.

  The match went out.

  “One more,” he said.

  She struck another match, and within seconds the wick was burning. Gunther replaced the glass on the lamp’s base, and the group looked around at each other. Although the lamp provided barely enough light to make out one another’s faces, it was a major improvement over the view they’d had a mere two seconds ago.

  The new addition to the group was unmistakably Simon, looking disheveled and frightened. A stream of blood pulsed down his face from somewhere on his scalp. June reached into her pack again and pulled out a lacy handkerchief, placing it on his scalp and motioning him to hold it there.

  “We’ve got to move,” Gunther said.

  “There’s fewer Tardies … than there might have been,” said Simon. He allowed himself a smile. “I convinced them we wouldn’t be a problem, that whatever’s going on at the other end of the cave is far more dangerous.”

  Several faces crinkled in disbelief.

  “You convinced them?” said Sass.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said June. “If we’re going, we better go.”

  “Right on, Little Sis,” said Hood.

  Hood gestured toward Gunther, who shone the candle-lamp on June’s pack for another fifteen seconds while she repacked it and zipped it shut, then extended the candle-lamp in front of him as he led the way along the right wall of the cave. As before, he stopped every twenty or thirty seconds to warn his followers of a rocky projection or low ceiling. Now and then, he heard thumps or buzzing sounds from the auditorium to his left but, wrapped in his cocoon of candlelight, he could see only darkness in that direction.

  He approached the rock jumble with trepidation, knowing that their fate as well as that of their adult “rescuers” at the opposite end of the cave might depend on what happened here, and knowing, too, that whatever obstacles lay beyond it, between the rock jumble and the escape hatch, might prove more powerful than they could guess.

  INTERLUDE 9

  Still sitting on the edge of the precipice, Zeke sniffed the air. Again and again and again. Perhaps his nose moved, but to Dicey, he might have been one of the Mount Rushmore presidents—imposing, but just a piece of rock.

  Dicey wished he’d say something. Anything. All the rescuers were in place and ready to go deeper into the cave. Even Kelila was ready. Logic told her that the sooner they took the next step, the sooner they’d find her children.

  She was about to say something when Zeke spoke up at last.

  “Cave’s breathing,” he said.

  Oh, for the love of … Dicey thought. And then she realized the significance of his pronouncement. “You mean there’s another way in?”

  “Or out, depending how you look at it.”

  “That’s it!” Kelila gasped. “That’s why I keep getting the conflict message!”

  “My apologies, little sister. You were right all along. Well, let’s do it. Dicey, you lead the way.”

  Dicey felt her heart rush to her neck and grab on in terror. “Me?”

  “Got to be either you or Kelly. First person down should be small—bound to be some tight spots where you’ll have to squeeze. If you’re uncomfortable about it …”

  “I’ll do it,” Dicey said. There was no way she would let Kelila with her ambiguous attitude lead the way to her children.

  “Jimmy, you’re the last to go down. Kelly goes after Dicey, then Spike, then Luisa. I’ll stay right where I am and coordinate between you guys below and the folks up on top. Wish I could go down with you and lead the party, but I got this little problem with the legs.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dicey could almost hear Zeke’s breathing stop.

  “Jimmy, how many times do I need to tell you? We’re not in the army, and I ain’t no ‘Sir.’ I may be the bona fide representative of Our Lord here on Earth, but I ain’t no ‘sir.’”

  “Sorry, sir—uh, Zeke! I’ll stay right here until you tell me.”

  “You better, or the Lord might pitch you over the edge. I can’t be responsible for everything He does.”

  Luisa’s laughter provided a pleasant echo through the cavern. “And then who’ll clean up my flies?”

  From his perch at the edge of the scree slide, Zeke lowered Dicey, then Kelila down the cliff to the next level.

  “Jimmy, when you go down, you don’t move from the base of the cliff. You’re my liaison with the folks deeper in the cave.” Zeke called down to Dicey. “My nose tells me the cave will head off to your left.”

  “Which way is left?”

  “Your back to the cliff.”

  Dicey did as he ordered. With her back to the cliff that she and Kelila had just descended, she pivoted in every direction, trying to let her headlamp delineate the borders. She could see nothing but sharp black rocks—more a war zone than a cave. She nudged Kelila, hoping to find the girl grounded in reality.

  “Scary,” was all Kelila could say, barely above a whisper.

  “Scary,” Dicey agreed.

  “Back to the wall,” Zeke called down. “Turn left.”

  Dicey snapped into position, turned left, and almost at once found herself looking into an opening that led further into the cave. She took a step toward it. “I see it!” she called up to Zeke. “Looks like a cellar window.”

  “Coming down!”

  With a thud, Spike landed behind her, right where she’d been standing thirty seconds earlier. “Holy moly,” he said. “Came down a little too fast. Break a leg that way.”

  Yeah, or crack your wife’s skull.

  For the remainder of the morning, Dicey led the way through the bowels of the cavern—through the cellar window into an area that reminded her of Grandma Cowley’s porch, through an oval window to its far right and down a short cliff into a chasm where she heard drips of water ahead and off to the left. She left the only piece of rope she’d brought with her attached to the oval window for those who followed her to climb down.

  She moved slowly, feeling a compulsion to examine every corner to look for signs of Gunther and June, calling out to them often. She relayed a call back to Zeke to send them more rope, and heard the message transmitted by Kelila, then Spike, then Luisa, and finally Jimmy. The echoes of their voices resounded many times throughout the cavern.

  Once the extra rope arrived, the group proceeded through the chasm, perhaps the loveliest portion of cave Dicey had ever seen. Her feet slid on the moist rock, forcing her to grab stalagmites or sharp projections of rock for support. In a broad open area she slipped and fell, scraping her knee. There on the ground she saw her first clue—a footprint, right after a slide mark. Someone had wandered this realm before her and slipped in the same spot. Bending over, she focused her light on the footprint. She angled the light, first one way and then another. And then burst into tears.

  She could not mistake the shoeprint. Just as she’d examined over and over the tiny fingerprints and footprints of her children as she’d nursed them, so had she examined the prints of the shoes she’d bought them when they grew older. Although perhaps a hundred thousand of these e-walker shoes had been sold world-wide, she had no doubt this imprint was June’s. She was sure she would find prints of Gunther’s shoes ne
arby, too, but her blurred vision would not allow her to see anything but a hazed windshield in front of her, with no wipers to clear the screen.

  The rest of the group stopped behind her. Only Dicey’s sobs and the drips of water somewhere up ahead broke the silence. Luisa spoke at last.

  “At least we know we’re on the right track, Dicey.”

  Dicey nodded.

  “You want us to go ahead?”

  “No, I’ll be okay. Let me …”

  But Kelila took advantage of the situation to surge ahead. The rest of the group followed her, and before Dicey realized what was happening, she was last in line.

  She caught up to the rest of the group as they paused before a hole in the rock wall. Kelila was staring down into it. Her voice emerged more as the Voice of Doom than the voice of a teenage girl. “We’ve got to go back.”

  With gentle pressure, Dicey insinuated her way to the head of the group. “No! We can’t!”

  She stopped at the entrance to the hole and peered down. No matter how she directed her headlamp, she could not see the end of it—or even which way it went. Like a diabolical water slide it wound its way downward through the rock, twisting first left, then right. Once they started, they might not be able to make their way back up.

  Feeling a wave of anxiety rising within her like bubbles in a boiling cauldron, she called into the hole. “June! Gunther!”

  None of the group moved behind her. Her voice echoed again and again before fading into silence. The silence pressed inward like a series of walls closing in.

  Kelila’s voice broke the silence. “They’re trying to get out the other way, Mrs. Cowley.”

  Dicey turned on her. “What?”

  “Zeke told us there’s another way out. That’s where they are.”

  “Well, then we’ve got to go on. How else are we going to find them?”