Gunther's Cavern

by Edward Etzkorn

  “We can’t go on. Listen.”

  Again the silence descended, broken only by the distant drip of water. “Nothing,” Dicey said.

  “Yes,” Kelila insisted. “Stick your head down the hole.”

  “Holy blooming daffodils!” Spike exclaimed. “What is that?”

  The group stirred. “Like something … drums,” said Luisa.

  “Coming our way,” Kelila added.

  Against her will, Dicey heard it. A sound like an army of feet marching forward. No, more like pulsing. Streaming. A freight train clacking down the tracks. A tsunami splashing through a tunnel in rock. And, beyond a doubt, coming closer.

  “We’ve got to go back,” Kelila said. “Whatever that is, it’s not good.”

  “I’ve got to go on,” Dicey said. “The rest of you can go back. My children …”

  “We can come back again another time, Mrs. Cowley. We’ve got to get out of here. Fast!”

  The group looked at each other. Dicey saw the fear in their eyes, and knew that Kelila was right.

  Spike turned and ran. Luisa followed right behind him.

  Kelila shot a wide-eyed glance at Dicey, then back to the hole as the sound grew louder and louder. “Mrs. Cowley, if you want to go on, I’ll go with you. But I really think we should go back. If you don’t make it out of this cave, then who’ll be there for June and Gunther?”

  Dicey considered her words, the wisdom and sincerity in the teenage face. She nodded. “If we need to, you’ll come back with me another time?”

  “I promise.”

  “Okay, then let’s go.”

  Headlamp on, Dicey ran and crawled as fast as she could back toward the cave entrance. Kelila followed close behind her, and directly behind her followed the swoosh of the tsunami—or whatever else was making the noise. On reaching the final cliff, Dicey pushed Kelila ahead of her and clipped her into the rope Zeke was dangling from above. “You the last ones?” he called down.

  “We’re it,” Dicey called back.

  Dicey had just helped Cal and Lionel pull Zeke out of the entrance hole when the whooshing sound slammed into the final room, instantly filling it and reverberating around the rocky walls. Backing up until she bumped into the rest of the team, she stared back at the hole, expecting at any moment to see the cave burst open with a geyser of steam.

  Second after second, moment after moment passed. The roar within the earth faded and then grew inaudible.

  “They can’t see in daylight,” Kelila said, panting.

  “What? Who?”

  “The aliens. They can’t see outside the cave. We’ve got to pray that Gunther and the rest of the kids got out the other end.”

  CHAPTER 21

  The darkness of the passage that wound around the side of the rock jumble swallowed up the meager light of June’s candle. No matter where Gunther aimed the light, he could not find a way up the tower of rocks. The tower presented one face after another of near-vertical cliff, composed of thousands of small rocks cemented together with mud.

  June spoke the words he read in all the faces. “Gunth, do we have to do this? I think the faster we get out of here, the better.”

  “Yeah, man,” said Hood. “Who cares what the Tardies do after we’re gone? Don’t we have enough to worry about just getting our tails out of here?”

  Gunther sighed. He’d asked himself the same question over and over, and each time come up with the same conclusion. “We’ve got to do it. I know at least part of what’s waiting for us up ahead. Even if the plan doesn’t work, it’ll at least distract the Tardies so maybe they’ll release their grip on the Guardians.”

  “If the Tardies are calling the shots,” said Tiff.

  “They are,” said Simon.

  All the faces turned toward him in surprise.

  “I know a little of their plans.” he continued. “They’re looking to make a move up to the surface. This is about more than just us getting out of here. If we leave things as they are, we’ll never be able to rest. We’ll never know when they’re going to come up from the cave. Why do you think they study our eyes? They want eyes like ours. They’re making them in their lab.”

  The thought of the Tardies emerging from the cave to the surface made Gunther cringe. Still, he felt relieved that someone was taking his side, even if it had to be Simon. He looked about for further support. Hood appeared noncommittal. June made her Whatever you think gesture. The rest of the kids were too overwhelmed to reflect an opinion.

  His eyes caught Rad’s. “Rad?” he said, hopefully.

  She hesitated. Then: “Go for it, Gunth. Let’s knock them out.”

  At the far end of the rock jumble, near where the first salamander had accosted him several days earlier, Gunther spied an area where the tower slanted backward toward the auditorium at a sixty-degree angle. From here, he could not see the top of the tower, but he could make out chinks and protruding rocks that might enable him to climb to the top. Sweat—or cave goo—ran into his eyes, limiting his ability to see. Wiping his eyes with his wet sleeve, he handed the candle-lamp to June, then turned to Hood.

  “Hood, I think we can make it up here. Give me a few seconds’ head start, then follow behind me, then three or four of the strongest kids.”

  “You the man, Gunth. Go for it.”

  “Slight change in plans,” Rad announced. “I’m coming up between you and Hood.”

  “Rad …”

  “I’m the Tardy expert. Case closed.”

  Gunther sighed. “Whatever. Just don’t follow too close. I might kick a rock down on you.” After a brief pause, he added: “Not on purpose …”

  “I know.”

  With June holding the candle lamp as high as she could, Gunther stuck his hand in a chink in the tower and pulled himself up until his foot found a hold on a jutting rock. Securing his hand on a higher rock, he pulled himself up higher, again locking his foot onto a rock. Still the tower loomed thirty feet above him, the teetering rock not yet visible. Pebbles tore at his fingernails. His foot slipped, caught, slipped again. Eventually he found a rhythm: Anchor hand, steady foot. Next hand, next foot. All accomplished by feel. The light that filtered down from the cave entrance ahead permitted no more than a dark outline of the tower. The light from June’s candle lamp evaporated three meters from the floor.

  The summit came without warning. One instant he was climbing, the next his hand met only air. His feet found little surface on which to stand—the teetering rock occupied nearly the entire summit. He felt its mass, but was reluctant to grab it for support for fear of sending it falling to an uncontrolled destination below—and carrying him with it. Try as he might, he could see it only as a lump on a larger lump.

  He called back down to the base of the tower. “Rad, I’m at the top. You can come up.”

  His foot slipped as he spoke, just enough to dislodge a stone and send it plummeting into the auditorium below.

  “Rock!” he cried.

  A hiss and a thunder of hooves followed. He sucked in his breath as a buzzing of wings descended above his head. Hardly breathing, he froze in place until the buzzing wings moved on.

  Cautiously steadying himself on the teetering rock, he looked down at the huge room below him. Perhaps his night vision was improving, for he could now make out details he’d been unable to see before. The stream sparkled with flecks of white, while the spires and columns that formed the auditorium’s floor and ceiling composed a photo in a hundred shades of gray. Most important, the panorama below allowed him to verify that a huge rock planted in the right location could indeed divert most of the stream’s flow to the center of the auditorium and direct it to a different part of the cave. Whether or not such a move would disrupt the Tardies’ activities enough to force them to move their operations to a different part of the cave, he could not tell. But it should certainly distract them long enough for him and his friends to escape.

  He jumped at the sound
of a hoarse whisper behind him. “Sim so bloated overblown boy obst-no scroy-yee font. Hey?” Seems the bloated, overblown ego forgets we’re in this together?

  Instinctively grabbing the teetering rock for support, he whirled around, grateful the rock did not move.

  “June, you shouldn’t be here. I asked for the strongest …”

  “Did we not agree that whatever you do I do?”

  “Yes, but …”

  Rad’s voice followed close behind June’s. “Hey, people, you think you’re going to party without me?” Rad had never been known as a party girl—but perhaps this situation suited her style.

  “Did somebody say party?” Hood followed right behind Rad.

  As he spoke, a rock slid down the side from which they’d climbed, and within a second the beat of wings stirred the air above them.

  “Down!” Gunther cried.

  For ten seconds or more, the buzz seemed to focus right above his head before finally gliding away.

  “That dude wants you, my brother,” Hood said.

  “I know.” He returned his attention to the problem at hand. “Careful, guys. I don’t know how steady this rock is.”

  The foursome pulled themselves upright. Gunther jumped when the rock wobbled, but it stayed in place.

  “Anybody behind you, Hood?” he asked.

  “I’m it. Let’s do it and blow this joint.”

  “Okay. The idea is to push this rock over so it’ll tumble down and land smack in the middle of the stream. That should divert the stream toward our right, away from The Swamp and the Tardies’ laboratory.”

  As one, the children gazed down at the auditorium.

  Rad clucked her tongue. “Oh, man. That’s a real challenge. We can’t make out the sides of the tower, how are we going to predict which way the rock will fall?”

  “I think if we aim it this way.” Gunther pointed down and off to the right. If we can push it just so.”

  Rad’s whole body moved as she shook her head. “That’s a big just so.”

  “Correct me if I’m repeating myself,” said Hood. “But did I ever tell you you be the craziest dude I ever did run into?”

  “I’ve been told that.”

  “Sshhh!”

  A moment of silence followed, during which Gunther could hear the shuffling of a thousand Tardy feet, the sound magnified by the passageways of the cave and seeming to grow louder with each passing second.

  “What are we waiting for?” June said. “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. History’s full of just-so’s.”

  “Right on, Little Sister. Let’s do it and split!”

  Under Gunther’s guidance, the children positioned themselves on the tower’s tiny summit and stretched out their arms until they’d outlined the rock’s edges. With four pairs of arms outstretched, they could barely manage to touch each other’s fingers.

  As far as Gunther could tell, the rock teetered on the rock jumble at such an angle that an earthquake would have nudged it to fall at a sixty degree angle right of the position he wanted—into a part of the auditorium where it would have generated a whirlwind of dust before settling to rest as just another rock in a field of rocks. To send it into the stream, he and his friends would have to nudge it sixty degrees to the left of its natural angle of fall.

  “We’ve got to stand back here,” he told them. “Rad, you’ve got to move back. Careful now.”

  He tiptoed back and forth to show them the area where he wanted them to stand, careful not to knock any of them off the tower or slip on its edge himself.

  When the children had assumed their prescribed positions, he stepped back and forth again, assessing the angle of fall one more time.

  “I think a little more to the left,” Rad said.

  Gunther evaluated their positions a final time, and directed them to move as Rad suggested.

  “Hurry,” June said. “The Tardy army is getting closer.”

  “I hear something else, too,” said Rad. “Very close.”

  Gunther tried not to let their comments disturb his concentration, but as he peered over the edge of the tower to verify which way his rock would fall, he could hear it—the sound of an army marching toward them, or creatures making their way through a dozen or more caverns leading toward the auditorium. Rad was right—it was not the Tardy army, but something much closer than the Tardy army, and possibly even more threatening. Whatever the sounds represented, he and his companions needed to get this job done and get out of here.

  Sweat blurred his vision as he crept back to his position behind the rock. “Okay, I think we’ve got it. Everybody ready?”

  The answer came at once. “Ready!”

  His foot slipped in the muck as he prepared to guide the rock toward its assigned destination. “Okay. On three. One … Two …”

  The rock trembled as it swiveled on the rock below it—and then moved. The children grabbed each other as the rock tumbled down the far side of the tower. The four of them fell flat on their stomachs in the void left at the summit, faces gazing over the edge, ignoring the spiderlike creatures and centipedes—normal-sized—that had called the underside of the rock home.

  “Yes!” Gunther shouted.

  “Boo-yah!” shouted Hood.

  Rad shifted to the left, then twisted. “No! No! Left! Left!”

  “It’s good,” Gunther said. “It’s …”

  The rock bounced down the tower in precisely the direction he’d planned. Then it hit an obstacle. What the obstacle was, he could not see. But all at once, the rock’s trajectory shifted to the right, toward the center of the auditorium, away from the stream.

  And from down below, behind them, where their friends waited, came a rock-piercing scream. “Aaahhh!!”

  “Dude!” a voice followed, along with several exclamations of alarm.

  Next, from below and behind them, came the thunder of giant beetle hooves and the buzzing of giant wings.

  Gunther felt assailed from every direction. He focused his attention first on the rock. It had taken a turn in the wrong direction, and like a bowling ball curving toward the gutter, nothing he could do or say could stop it or change its course.

  “Hit something!” Rad screamed at the rock. “Hit something!”

  “Left,” June coaxed. “Phot so. Phot so. Phot so!!!”

  With a thud, the rock came to rest in a pool of mud, at least fifteen or twenty meters from the stream it was supposed to block.

  Gunther could not even speak the words aloud. His plan had failed.

  Hood was first on his feet, calling back down to their friends at the foot of the tower. “Yo, what’s up with that?”

  Sass’s voice answered from below. “Kara woke up. She’s like flipped out, man!”

  June’s voice was laced with an unusual urgency. “Forget the rock. We’ve gotta get down!”

  “Dude, we’re screwed! Gunth …!”

  The words had barely escaped Hood’s lips before the hum of giant wings darted from near ground level to the top of the tower.

  “Hood—down!” Gunther shouted. “Everybody still!”

  The buzzing shifted in his direction and settled directly above him. A sharp sound bit the air, like the sizzle of a lightning-bolt. Again, a few inches to the left. Yet again, to his right. The insect had honed in on his voice, and was attacking. So long as he remained motionless, it was shooting in the dark. Or perhaps—and the thought nearly paralyzed him with fear—it could hone in on his sweat, or body heat, or some other feature he couldn’t control. The thought made him sweat even more. As he lay without moving, face pressed into the dirt, other sounds percolated into his awareness—the rhythm of marching creatures from deeper within the cave, a chorus of moans from his companions below. Kara’s screams coming in shrill, fitful outbursts. And perhaps worst of all—a scuffling of sounds from the route ahead—their escape route.

  A nip on his shoulder made him cry out. Several velve
ty strands touched his mid-section and wrapped around him. The dragonfly had zeroed in on him and was trying to pick him up!

  At once he twisted, struggled to pull away, bumping into June.

  “Gunther! What …?”

  Despite his thrashing, he felt himself being lifted from the ground. Then without warning, a sound like the snap of a whip stirred the air above him and the dragonfly let go. The residual pull of its legs yanked him over the edge of the tower and he found himself sliding feet first on his stomach down the muddy cliff. Frantically, he grabbed for anything he could get his hands on. His fingers grasped a rock, but slipped off. Grasped another, then another and another, until little by little he managed to slow himself down. Hands reached for him, and he found himself on his back, sprawled amid a half-dozen of his friends.

  “You alright?” came Giles’s voice.

  “I think so,” Gunther said—although he was unsure the words were true. “What was that?”

  “Salamander,” said Sass. “Over there.”

  Gunther followed her finger to the giant salamander poised at the edge of the auditorium some five meters away, munching contentedly. In the half-light he saw the last glimpse of the dragonfly’s wings disappear into its mouth.

  “Scampered right up the tower and shot its tongue out at that flying bug,” Giles said. “Slurped it right up.”

  “We’re next,” Rocky pronounced, crouched into an alcove.

  “Careful coming down,” Simon called up to the three children who remained atop the tower. “Big salamander down at the bottom, off to the right.”

  “Come down the side near the wall,” Van added. “We’ll catch you.”

  Within minutes the group had reassembled at the base of the tower, with the tower between them and the auditorium. Although Gunther had not seen nor heard the salamander leave, it had disappeared—disappeared, Gunther feared, somewhere up ahead to regroup with others of its kind. At least, he now knew that the Cave Guardians were not a unified force bent on the destruction of any outside creature that entered their domain. They were simply a group of blind cave dwellers that had somehow grown huge and had been impressed into service by the Tardies.