by J. C. Allen
She punched at the device for a few seconds, “Only 0.4 miles.”
“No sweat! Let’s go! Nobody lags behind — if you need to stop, make it known.” He stopped and turned around, looking each of them in the eyes, “And do not get near this blade. I’d hate to accidently hack off one of your ears... or arms…”
They all made frightened faces — just what he wanted. He smiled inwardly as he furiously lashed at the first weeds and moved into the woods amidst flying debris.
“What if we run into a bear?” Kaylie asked, half curious, half worried.
“Just grin at it!” Rick answered between whacks at the brush.
“OK, Davy Crockett,” Abby snickered.
Rick chuckled and kept hacking, wishing he had brought a weed-eater instead. They traveled over a fourth of the way in just less than fifteen minutes when the brush seemed to give way to forest. Rick sheathed his weapon and asked if anyone needed a break, sweat dripping from his brow.
They looked at him as if he had sprouted horns.
“What?” he wiped the sweat with his sleeve.
“We’ve only walked like a few hundred yards,” Anna teased.
He peeled off his sweat-soaked shirt and threw it directly in her face, “Here, hold that for me please. Thanks!”
She let it fall to the ground and grinned, unfazed by his antics.
“OK, I guess we move on. Abby, you can lead until we meet resistance again and I’m required to battle our way through!” he said gallantly.
Abby checked her locator and started through the forest. Within five minutes they could glimpse the hillside through the trees past an open field. Rick had been busy carving marks in each of the trees they passed and didn’t notice until they were in the clearing.
“Stop,” Abby instructed as she consulted the GPS. “We should be 25 meters from the cave entrance now!”
They all looked at the hillside, it was steep and rocky. Rick imagined it would be almost impossible to walk up the loose rock.
Abby studied the map and terrain, finally locating two rocks, nearly thirty feet tall, side by side. “There!” she said as she tromped through the waist-high grass with everyone following.
As they neared the rocks, Rick called ahead and ordered them to stop while he cleared a wide area in front of the entrance, “And check your clothes for ticks. I suspect you each have a few undocumented passengers right now.”
A few seconds later, “Ewww! I got two!” Alex screamed.
Rick chuckled as each girl squealed or screeched at the discovery of another parasite.
Abby, a veteran of many wilderness treks, calmly removed her trespassers. She instructed them to take off their extra pair of pants, turn them inside out and check for more, and then look inside their socks and shoes.
By the time the girls finished their de-ticking, Rick had finished clearing a twelve- foot area around the entrance. They all found resting spots while Rick checked his clothes.
Alex walked toward the entrance. The two huge rocks must have plunged down from above, resting about five feet apart, making a tall, narrow slit of an entrance to the cave beyond.
“No!” Rick stopped her cold. “Wait until we’re all ready.” He pulled his pants back on, stood up and downed a long gulp of water, and tossed the bottle back in his sack.
“Who wants to mark our path?” he asked.
Anna volunteered.
“Here,” he tossed her a large piece of chalk. “Mark the cave wall at least once every ten feet — make it a huge mark, too.”
She drew a huge A, nearly a foot tall, on a nearby rock. “How’s that?”
“Perfect!” he answered and pulled out the digital camera, “Who wants—”
“Oooh, me, me!” Jessica screamed.
He handed her the camera. “I want you to take a picture of every intersection and pathway.”
“OK, Daddy. Can I take some pictures outside, first?”
He nodded and she proceeded to click away.
“Kaylie, you’ll be my backup. I want you to carry this rope, in case I fall in a hole or something, so someone else will have rope to lower for me. And carry one of these flares and a couple extra batteries.”
“OK,” she accepted the honor.
He pulled out two extra flashlights and handed one each to Alex and Christy. “You two are the light crew. I want one of you in the back with Anna and one in the middle with Abby, who will be checking the map. Everyone else keep your flashlights in your pockets in case you need them later.”
“OK, I’ll help Abby with lighting the map,” Alex offered.
“I’ll help Anna,” said Christy.
“Let’s just quit over-preparing and go!” Jessica said impatiently.
Rick smirked at her, shaking his head.
“Everyone knows what to do?” Everyone nodded excitedly, so he continued, “Nobody, and I mean nobody, is ever to be in front of me or behind Christy, OK? If anyone gets separated, scream. Everyone is responsible for watching the person in front of them. Anna, you have to watch Christy too. If her light disappears, yell. We must all stay together no matter what.”
“We get ya, Dad; let’s go before it gets dark!” Jessica chirped.
“OK, OK! Abby, give us a rundown to the first fork, then we go in!”
Abby briefly explained, “Looks like about 120 feet downhill to the first intersection. This part of the cave should be really open.”
“OK, lights?” Alex and Christy turned theirs on and Rick led them in between the massive boulders framing the cave entrance.
The entry between the two giant rocks narrowed then widened from four feet to nearly eight feet at the cave mouth. The cave floor was about five feet from ground level, so Rick boosted Abby up and then helped each of the girls before climbing up himself. The walls inside the cave mouth were over ten feet apart and the dome-shaped ceiling was twelve feet high in the middle. The ground was smooth dirt and the cave walls seemed to reflect light. They appeared to be polished as smooth as glass, but were actually coarse as the rocks outside. The crew of seven stood and stared in awe. Only Rick and Abby had ever been inside a cave before, and they both knew instantly this one was not normal. They shared their thoughts with a knowing glance. Rick aimed his light down the increasingly dark tunnel, motioned everyone to follow, and journeyed onward.
“Don’t forget to mark…” he started to say.
“Oh yeah!” Anna interrupted, and quickly drew her initial on the wall, which prompted Jessica to take some pictures.
The decline wasn’t steep, but was enough to make everyone look as though some imaginary force was pushing them. In two minutes they made the first junction uneventfully, and paused.
“Anna, I want you to draw an arrow at each intersection to point back to the exit, OK?”
“Gotcha!” she replied and drew huge arrows on the walls.
Rick looked at Abby for further instructions.
She directed, “We keep going down; the other path dead-ends. Looks like 250 feet or so to the next fork.”
They continued forward after Jessica shot a few different angles of the dead-end tunnel, reaching the next split in just a few moments. Anna again marked the exit direction, Jessica took more pictures, and Abby gave details of the next leg.
They passed three side tunnels before finally altering course, taking a left at a T-shaped intersection. The tunnel by then had shrunk considerably, to roughly six feet wide and eight feet tall.
They stopped at the next fork and Rick checked everyone, “Are we all OK?”
Abby spoke up, “These are not natural caves. I mean the beginning was sort of normal, but these are constructed by some method I’ve never seen.”
“What do you mean? It’s obvious it’s not natural, but what in particular is weird about it?”
“Well, first off, these walls don’t even look like rock — they’re smooth and glossy, almost like they were molded, and the floor has been perfectly even. If they had poured concrete floors
it wouldn’t be any smoother. And… there are no support beams and not one single rock has fallen from the ceiling. The digging techniques of 250 years ago could not have been used to do this!” she waved her arms around broadly for effect.
“That’s what I thought; I just wanted an expert opinion,” Rick revealed.
“If you want my opinion,” Anna butted in, “I’d say you over-prepared for the journey, just like Jess said. We could have jogged in with one flashlight—”
“Shush and keep doing your job,” Rick smiled, “it could turn nasty at the next fork.”
“Yeah, right” Anna said, rolling her eyes. Jessica giggled.
Eight turns later, twelve junctions and twenty minutes had passed, and Rick paused again. “Maybe the next turn will get nasty,” Anna joked.
“I think your butt is about to turn nasty shades of red,” Rick teased, and then turned to Abby. “How far down have we come and how far do we need to go?”
Abby checked the map carefully, chuckled, and looked Rick in the eye with a smirk, “Looks like we’ve traveled about a hundred feet.”
Rick and the girls all laughed.
“We walked about a mile and a half to get here, but we’re roughly fifty feet from the entrance, and about a hundred feet down. I’m guessing about another half mile, maybe a quarter of a mile, and one, two… seven, eight — eight more intersections.”
“OK,” he pulled out his cell phone to check the time, “It’s 7:45 — what do you think? It gets dark in an hour or so, is everyone healthy enough to speed up?”
“We can make eight more intersections in eight minutes, and leaving should be just as easy,” Abby speculated.
Everyone agreed except Jessica, “I’m getting sleepy,” she said, yawning for effect.
“You’ll be OK,” Rick assured her. “OK, everyone do your job double-time. Let’s go!”
Less than eight minutes later, they were halted by Abby, “This should be the branch with the missing tunnels. That drawing didn’t exactly match the maps, but this is definitely the area where it should be.”
Rick flashed his light down each hallway, which was now only five feet wide and less than seven feet tall, feeling sort of crampy with everyone gathered closely. “I’m going to the end of the tunnel and back, this wall is where it should be, right?” he placed his hand on the wall to his right as he faced the left tunnel of the T intersection.
Abby nodded, “Yes, there should be a branch leading directly into this one from there,” she confirmed.
Rick walked down the entire hall, lightly brushing the surface from top to bottom for nearly eighty feet until he reached an abrupt end. He then called out, “Jess, I want you to snap pictures of this entire tunnel.”
Jessica quickly accepted the task, walking toward him, clicking and flashing thirty or more times to the left, right, up, and down, documenting the entire area. They went down the opposite path, which was nearly identical in length, and did the same.
When they stopped back at the intersection where the others were patiently waiting, he told them, “I see nothing at all that could be another passage.”
“Let us look, please?” Alex asked.
Rick had already seen them solve riddles he couldn’t, so he figured it was worth a shot. “Sure, knock yourself out. But we’re leaving in five minutes if we can’t find anything.”
All of them searched both tunnels, poking, prodding, and knocking the wall all the way. They all came back with sad, disappointed faces.
“What a bummer!” Christy complained.
“All this way for nothing!” a depressed Kaylie sulked.
“Complete waste of time,” Anna contributed to the whine-fest.
“OK girls, it’s a disappointment, but we’re not through yet. Let’s head home and try to figure it out later — after ice cream.”
Jessica perked up, “Yes, definitely! Ice cream solves all problems!”
“That’s the spirit!” Rick said as he patted her on the head.
“These tunnels were so well-made, why didn’t they just put in an elevator to take us to the entrance?” Anna joked, not looking forward to the long, sad walk back.
“Hah, good idea! OK, let’s move it. Alex and Christy, I want you two to lead. Yell if anyone needs to stop. Set a fast pace.”
It was about 8:30 when they reached the entrance without a single mishap or slowdown, not even a break. As Abby made the leap out of the cave, down the five-foot drop, she realized something and stopped in her tracks. “Rick?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you think they did with all the rock from those tunnels? There are miles of them down there.”
“Uh, probably carted it out, like everyone else does when they dig tunnels…” he shrugged, raising an eyebrow.
“But there’s a five foot drop-off — that wouldn’t be easy to navigate. And this crevice is too narrow for a cart and…” she looked around, “where could they have put it? There should be millions of tons of earth; that would make a mountain five hundred feet high. I don’t see one, do you?” She put her hands on her hips and awaited an answer.
His blank stare indicated he had none. They both dismissed the question and set about helping the girls out of the cave.
It was already getting dark, but they made it back to the van by flashlight before 9:00, packed everything in the back, piled in, and let out a collective sigh.
Rick stole a look back at the girls; they all drooped with exhaustion and dejection. Jessica didn’t have the energy to take off the extra pants and shirt. Rick got out and helped her out of the dirty clothes, stuck them back with the others and reclaimed the driver’s seat.
“It was fun though, wasn’t it? Girls?” he asked hopefully.
Only groans came from behind him.
Chapter 11 — If at First You Don’t Succeed
After several minutes arguing over what each of them wanted, the orders were finally placed. “Two cookie dough Blizzards, two M&M Blizzards, one Hawaiian Blizzard, a banana split, a chocolate fudge sundae, and two large cherry freezes, please,” Rick enumerated into the speaker at the Dairy Queen. The girls were too tired to go inside although they usually insisted, so they had decided to swing through the drive-thru instead. A few minutes later, the harried clerk handed the goodies through the window and they pulled into the parking lot to eat.
Alex popped in a DVD and Rick and Abby laid their seats back to watch the screen that hung between the front seats, each absently devouring their frozen treats in silence.
They pulled into the garage at 10:30 and Rick honked the horn to try to wake them; only Anna stirred. “Ugh,” Rick moaned. He and Abby climbed out. Abby grabbed the trash to throw it away. Rick leaned in, unbuckled Jessica and lifted her out of the van.
“Carry me too, Uncle Ricky,” Anna pleaded, holding her arms out for him to take her.
“No,” he answered curtly.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re almost as big as I am, and you’re actually awake! Wake the others — tell them the van’s on fire, whatever it takes. I’m not carrying everyone! Come on — move your lazy butt!”
He made a mental note to start parking the van next to the kitchen door as he carried his uncooperative load across the garage. He lugged the slumping lump up to her bed, pulled her shoes off, wincing at the smell, and dumped her in the bed.
He grumbled all the way back down to the van. Kaylie and Alex were bleary-eyed, but awake. Anna finally had her seatbelt off. “Anna, hit the shower before you even think about going to bed,” he ordered.
“Awww! Why?”
“Duh!” he snorted, then held his nose.
Anna simply glared at him, “Fine!”
Rick shook Kaylie and Alex, whose eyes had shut again. “You, too!” he said. They both mimicked Anna’s rueful expression, but shook their heads in assent.
He then rustled Christy a bit, but she just grunted, so he unbuckled her and carefully worked her out of the van across his arms.
“Come on, girls,” he said softly to the others, and they followed.
Rick deposited Christy in Alex’s room, laid her on the large hide-a-bed and plucked her shoes and socks from her feet. She gave him a weak hug and said thanks as he covered her up and said good night.
“Get a bath, girls!’ he instructed the others.
“Why doesn’t Christy have to take a bath?” Alex argued.
He stuck his nose to her and sniffed for effect, then turned to them, “Because she doesn’t stink.”
They both stuck out their tongues and gave a big raspberry, he calmly pointed to the bathroom, then left.
“I guess I’ll go first,” Alex sighed, trudging into the bathroom and closing Jessica’s door.
Rick wandered down the stairs and back to the van, gathering the camera and cube out of his sack, and securing all the doors as he came back into the house. He carried everything to his study, setting them on his desk before searching for Abby.
It didn’t take long to discover she was sprawled across his bed. As he tiptoed across the floor, she muttered without moving, “Please don’t disturb this burial site.”
“Come on, I got plans for you, mummy,” he whispered softly, tugging at her arm.
She grumbled, “My only plan is to take a bath and go to sleep, and not even in that order… or I might just go to sleep in the tub.”
“No can do, Anna is…” he glanced through the bathroom to see Anna’s feet, still shod, hanging off the end of her bed, “…well, she’s supposed to be in there. Anyway, we have a date with the hot tub,” he informed her.
“Mmmm... that does sound good.” She suddenly had the energy to get up.
“Why don’t you head on down there and I’ll join you after I get that brat in the tub?” He pulled her from the bed, kissed her lightly, squared her shoulders, and pushed her in the direction of the door.
“I’ll be waiting,” she said, turning to wink slyly.
Rick decided he had better make quick work of Anna. He turned on the water and plugged the drain in the tub on his way through the bathroom, yanked her shoes and socks off, then just as easily jerked her off the bed, by the feet, catching her under the arms and shoved her toward the bathroom. He stood her by the tub, leaving her standing there, teetering, while he finished with the water. When it was full and about the right temperature, he turned to her, “You smell like a wet dog, you cannot go to bed until you get clean.”