The Maw

by Taylor Zajonc

  His vision now unimaginably clear, Milo set his sights on an eland, a spiral-horned antelope, grazing across the valley. With each bounding step, Milo rose higher into the sky, high enough to pierce the constellation of stars, their twinkling orbs rushing past him like fireflies. Spear raised above his head, Milo plunged toward the earth, wind whistling in his ears like the cave’s hurricane howl.

  The eland bent before him, submissive, head down, front limbs curled to the earth, and he pierced it through the neck with the stone blade. Bloodlessly, it crumpled at his feet, the penetrating length of the rod vibrating with the force of the blow. Breathing hard, his legs trembling, Milo gazed up to find himself at the foot of a great oasis, surrounded by incalculable herds of elephant, giraffe, antelope, and water buffalo. Hippos and crocodiles floated within as lions and hyenas stalked from the outer perimeter, birds circling above.

  Milo crept toward the oasis, the herds parting to reveal a woman’s smooth silhouette before him. Facing away, she allowed him to watch as she waded into the oasis waters, long dark hair barely covering her nude form. He reached toward her with his impossibly long arm, almost touching her bare skin, when she suddenly swiveled to stare at him. The ethereal figure was now recognizably Bridget, her face impassive, one arm cradling full breasts, the other looped beneath an engorged, pregnant belly.

  Waking up was a great deal less pleasant than falling asleep. Milo’s exertions from the previous day had gathered in his joints and chest. Knees, arms, thighs, everything ached. The floating lights were a poor substitute for daylight, leaving Milo with the fuzzy, fatigue-laden sensation of the darkest, coldest winter solstice.

  The tent rustled as Logan stepped in, naked as he brushed wet droplets from his hairy body and beard.

  “Did you have sex dreams?” asked Logan, seeing that Milo was awake. “I had these intense sex dreams all night.”

  With that, Logan shook off, hurling water everywhere. Milo grimaced, trying to shield his eyes and mouth from the moisture. “You have to try showering in the waterfall,” said the geologist. “It’s like getting sandblasted clean. Don’t even need soap. Amazing. Cold as hell, though.”

  “Maybe later.”

  Drier now, Logan took a closer look at Milo. “Shit,” he said, pointing at Milo’s nose. “You’re bleeding.”

  “I am?” asked Milo, feeling his face. Sure enough, a steady stream of sticky blood dribbled down his nose and across his mouth. It had already badly stained his sleeping bag below. Milo hadn’t had a nosebleed since he was in elementary school—embarrassing. He couldn’t help but remember the images in the gallery, of crimson blood pouring from the faces of the dancing figures.

  “Get cleaned up,” suggested Logan. “I scored us some wet wipes, should do the trick. Joanne is going to hang back with Charlie and Isabelle at base camp, but you’re with us—Dale says we’re hitting the anthill in ten.”

  Dale led this time, followed by Duck, Logan, and finally Milo. He felt an overwhelming sense of déjà vu: the same claustrophobically hostile cavern walls, the twisting passageways, the forking sub-passages. The cavers dutifully followed Joanne’s chalked directions, taking the most promising routes ever deeper at each intersection. Light from the base camp had long since disappeared; Milo was again reduced to crawling on hands and knees.

  As the tunnel turned upward, Milo watched as the slimy mud beneath him turned dry once more. He expectantly turned his head upward to the chandelier of calcite soda straws. Stopping, he withdrew the flashlight from his pocket and pressed it into a collection of the fragile stalactites, watching in awe as they glowed like upside-down candles.

  “Knock it off,” said Dale, turning around from the front of the pack. “Joanne said you’ve already wrecked enough of those.”

  “Won’t happen again,” Milo mumbled.

  Logan started talking about the straws’ formation rates to anyone within earshot, and soon they were again at the natural chasm bridge. Milo could see the muddy furrows where he’d tried to save himself from sliding over the edge. This time, he gave the slippery section a wide berth, following the others across the bridge. No one commented on the corpse still lying shadowed and hidden below.

  Duck hung back at the end of the natural span. When Milo caught up to him, the cave guide tapped at another smudged arrow at the intersection. The previous group had missed it in their scramble to reach Milo; this one pointed in a different direction. Marked with calcium hydroxide, the arrow had not been left by Joanne.

  “Lead on,” said Duck, pointing to the incredibly tight passageway.

  “I could use some help with my pack,” complained Dale from ahead. Logan and Duck sat up cross-legged to help Dale as Milo steeled himself for the crawl to come.

  A hundred and fifty feet in and Milo was already miserable. The kneepads were no longer useful; now, on his belly, they only got caught on every jagged rock and loose stone. Hands in front of him, Milo couldn’t turn around, could hardly even wriggle. Even breathing too hard made his spine touch the ceiling above. Every inch-long movement within the dark, airless passage required incredible exertion; every minute felt like hours.

  “Just you wait,” said Duck, now behind him. “Just you wait until we have to start pushing scuba tanks through these passages. Now that is all kinds of fun.”

  Though the ceiling remained low, the chamber ahead opened up to a disc-shaped void twenty feet across, large enough for Milo to drop his pack, flip onto his back, and gasp for air. Allowing the relief to wash over him, Milo couldn’t help but sense a sort of inpenetrable darkness in the center of the room, an unquantifiable emptiness he’d not experienced before. Flipping onto his stomach, he scanned the room with his headlamp. To one side, a table-sized hole opened up the floor of the chamber. He crawled closer to it, finding that the edges of the hole were composed of crumbling, paper-thin stone hanging over sheer void. The hole was like a skylight and the pit below too vast to ascertain any sense of dimension.

  “Don’t come too close,” said Milo as the rest of the party approached. “I think the floor might not support everybody.”

  Dale ignored him and crawled up to the very edge of the hole, sticking his head inside. “You’re not kidding,” he said with a long, low whistle. “That is a big chamber down there.”

  Dale glanced around the upper room until he found a bowling-pin sized rock. Grabbing it, he slid it across the cavern floor and into the hole as Duck punched the timer function on his wristwatch. Milo caught the whisper of wind as the stone dropped from view.

  Ten seconds passed, twenty. By thirty, Dale and Duck were glancing at each other, shaking their heads.

  “If we haven’t heard it hit by now . . .” said Dale, not completing his thought.

  “What if there’s water down there?” Milo asked. “Could it have splashed down?”

  “Still would have heard the kerplunk.” Duck frowned as he clicked open his Zippo lighter above the hole. The flame didn’t even flicker.

  “No air exchange,” said Logan. “And I’m not hearing any waterflow either.”

  “So where did the rock land?” asked Milo.

  “Satan’s featherbed,” said Duck. “His old lady is looking up from the inferno thinking where the hell did that come from?”

  “Should be using these sparingly,” said Dale, retrieving a pack of road flares from his pack. “But here goes anyway.”

  The cave guide lit two and tossed them into the hole, one after another. For a moment, Milo could see the walls of the pit as the flares tumbled one after another, disappearing into the darkness.

  “I can’t see them anymore,” complained Logan. Everyone else mumbled their agreement.

  “What should we do?” asked Dale.

  “I vote we drop Charlie in next,” suggested Logan.

  “Let’s not get fixated on this little mystery,” said Dale. “DeWar wouldn’t have had the equipment to get down there anyway.”

  “There’s no air exchange as far as I can tell,” a
dded Logan. “Means it’s probably a dead end. Could be nothing more than a couple hundred feet down.”

  “Or maybe a couple thousand,” said Duck.

  “Unlikely,” stated Logan.

  As the rest of the party moved on, Milo found himself gazing into the inconceivable darkness of the pit, the skin prickling on the back of his neck as the pit stared back. A quote from Journey to the Center of the Earth leapt into his brain, leaving Milo to drift over every word.

  An impression of void took hold of my being, Jules Verne had written. There is nothing more intoxicating than the attraction of the abyss.

  CHAPTER 17:

  THE SERPENT AND THE CATHEDRAL

  2,475 feet below the surface

  There were no more black-smudged arrows marking the winding passageways. Milo felt the absence was logical enough; the path now rarely split, and even then only one of the forking tunnels was ever large enough to fit through. He first tried keeping his backpack in front of him, shoving it along ahead, but eventually found the sensation too confining. Duck told him to instead tie the bag to one foot, leaving it to trail behind as they descended.

  Duck still marked each intersection, but the action now felt perfunctory, even illogical. Milo had learned cave life demanded as much ritual as the strictest monastery. Every knot tied, every meal cooked, every lightbulb, battery, carabiner, rope, and camera went through a liturgical checklist before use. Back at the camp, Dale had attributed the methodology to Darwinism—as apostates rarely survived heresy, so too did cavers seldom survive mistakes in such a hostile environment. But instead of ten roughly equal commandments, there was just one law to rule them all . . . Thou Shalt Not Succumb to Summit Fever.

  “Summit Fever is all about getting there, with nothing left to get you home,” Dale had explained. Didn’t matter if you’d just found Blackbeard’s treasure or a trio of mermaids. If your air tanks were down by a third, if you’d gone through a third of your juice, a third of your flashlights, a third of your food, of your water, your physical strength . . . it was time to turn around and go home. Never make that final push for the peak, the deepest chamber, the final sump at the cost of your life. Better to come home to your family and try again next year.

  Silence clung to the foursome as the passageway opened up, becoming smooth and tubular, with easy, gentle bends. They could stand up now, and Milo appreciated finally getting off his raw knees and stomach. The passageway descended for another quarter mile until the muddy floor dipped below the glasslike surface of still waters. Milo stooped down and brushed his fingers against the rocky shore of the newfound underground river. A mineral crust had developed around the edges of the river like the last ice retreating in spring. The water level hadn’t changed in decades.

  “Well, boys,” said Dale, surveying the water’s edge. “Looks like we’ve hit our first proper sump.”

  “What’s that?” asked Milo, well aware that he was the only person in the group in need of an explanation.

  “Sump? Just means an underwater passage,” said Logan. “We’ll probably wade it for a while, see if the ceiling stays above water. We may hit a point where the whole tunnel is submerged. If it’s a quick dunk, we’ll swim under it to the other side. If not, they’ll need to use dive gear, leave the rest of us behind.”

  “They used to blow ’em up in the early days of caving,” said Dale, first to slosh into the shallow waters. “Let ’em drain out. On the other hand, tribes worshipped them—their shamans believed they were the delineation between our world and the next.”

  Duck waved everyone back. “Let’s rest for a bit,” he said. “We should eat. Then I want to seal everything in our bags up tight, especially if the river gets deep. Everybody needs to stay sharp—the moving water will make every natural hazard twice as gnarly.”

  “Fair enough.” The fragile mineral concretions crunched under Dale’s feet as he retreated.

  The group waded downriver for what seemed like hours. The structure of the tunnel reminded Milo of an abandoned Parisian sewer, almost man-made in its eerie symmetry. Logan explained how the limestone below them was flecked with copper, giving the waters a greenish, serpentine appearance. Milo decided he didn’t mind his waterlogged feet, not even when the waters rose above chest level; the fact that he could stand upright was comfort enough.

  They swam the final section. Milo dog-paddled, his sealed, buoyant backpack awkwardly holding him up as his helmet bumped and rubbed against the rocky ceiling above. Eventually the passageway widened again, allowing the cavers to swim into the cold, open waters of an unthinkably large chamber.

  Dale dipped his head and took a mouthful from the subterranean lake. “It’s pure,” he said.

  “It’s filtered through a half-mile of earth,” said Logan. “Cleaner than any bottled water in the world.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Milo. “I saw Logan take a bath upstream.”

  “I heard that,” grunted Logan from behind.

  “This way,” Dale said, leading the explorers to the side of the massive expanse. Milo followed, his feet touching the smooth stone bottom and dragging himself free of the lake and onto a low, sloping rock. He couldn’t get a true sense of the scale from their echoing voices, knowing only that the chamber was surely gargantuan.

  “Wow,” said Milo, and not for the first time.

  “I hope you appreciate how special this is,” said Dale as he stretched out on the rock to rest. Dale’s intense headlamp beam was still too weak to reach the length of the chamber. “A cave with this many large-scale rooms—it’s truly unique.”

  “He’s right,” added Logan. “Quite the rare bird—I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen anything like it before.”

  Dale pulled out another road flare, lit it, and hurled it as hard as he could toward the center of the room. Improbably, it landed atop a truncated stump of a stone column, the molten white core of the blood-red fire illuminating the chamber like the Eye of Sauron.

  Squinting against the flickering light, Milo found himself at the edge of a primordial cathedral, its stalactite-dripping ceiling three hundred feet above. The triangular room narrowed at the far end to a pipe organ of a hundred massive stone columns of various thicknesses, the largest of them stretching from floor to ceiling.

  Most of the chamber was flooded, but rocks, having dropped from the ceiling in eons previous, formed disorganized huddles of pews. Most notable was the statue-like edifice before the pipe organ, a towering figure not unlike an angel. It loomed before them with outstretched stone wings, a single, lamppost-sized crystal formation pouring from its heart to the waters below.

  Logan and Duck abandoned their packs to explore the perimeter of the chamber, beginning in opposite directions from the mouth of the serpentine river. Milo waded into the subterranean lake and began to swim, transfixed, toward the ancient edifice. Reaching its foot, Milo took his most powerful flashlight from his pocket and placed it at the base of the crystal. Instantly, the entire column glowed to life with an intense yellow light, harsh and distinct. A billion metallic imperfections sparkled within. With Milo’s flashlight giving life, the edifice gained the distinct appearance of an angel holding a flaming sword, simultaneously colossal and beautiful and frightening.

  Logan and Duck met at the pipe organ a few minutes later, neither having discovered a passageway out of the cathedral chamber. They again departed in opposite directions, this time slowly picking along a patch of wall and diving to the bottom of the shallow lake, probing through the clear waters with flashlights, searching for an exit.

  After a long time, Milo withdrew his flashlight from the base of the crystal, and the flaming sword once again faded, the natural statue now a hulking shadow above him.

  Logan was first to return to Dale and the packs, Milo following not long after. Duck still worked tirelessly, disappearing beneath the surface over and over as the other three watched.

  Eventually, the cave guide turned and slowly swam the length of the chamb
er between the pipe organ and the flat rock, approaching the waiting party.

  “I don’t see any other passages,” called out Dale. “Is it a dead end?”

  Duck climbed out of the waters and collapsed onto his back. It was the first time Milo had seen him tired, out of breath—but the guide smiled broadly.

  “I found an exit,” he said. “There’s a submerged passage underneath the columns—should we swim for it?”

  CHAPTER 18:

  THE SHRINE

  2,625 feet below the surface

  Milo, Dale, and Logan joined Duck beneath the pipe organ stone columns at the far end of the underground cathedral. Toes brushing the bottom, the four men paddled sluggishly, barely keeping their chins above water. Behind them, the red flare faded and died, the room-filling flame hissing mournfully as it shrank to embers. Milo’s world became terribly small once again, no larger than the reach of his fading headlamp, the light disappearing into blackness before even reaching the far wall.

  “What’s the plan?” asked Dale.

  “I’m going to swim it,” said Duck. “I took a peek, and it’s a simple dunk, no more than ten feet down and fifteen across to the next room. I’ll check it out, make sure it’s safe, and then come back for the rest of you.”

  “Whoa, hold up a minute,” said Dale. “If you get stuck, can’t turn around down there—”

  But before anyone could say another word, Duck took three quick breaths in succession, priming his lungs before plunging beneath the surface. With a small splash, the caving guide disappeared, leaving a trail of bubbles.

  Milo held his breath and submerged his face, letting his waterproof headlamp illuminate the lake. His eyes easily penetrating the crystal clear waters, Milo watched as Duck kicked, disappearing into a manhole-sized hole in the wall. Then the bubbles vanished as well, leaving only stillness.