Sinkhole

by Deborah Jackson

  “Great,” said Mark, feeling exhausted as much from the terror as the taxing dive. He hauled himself to his feet, searched through his waterproof pack for the Nalgene water bottle Jorge’s men had included, and slugged some life-restoring fluid from the lip.

  “Eat one of your energy bars too,” said Jorge, pointing to the foil-wrapped food stocks in the backpack. “You’re going to need it.”

  “No doubt,” Mark grumbled. He snapped up a bar and tore the wrapper off. He was about to let it flutter to the ground, hardly caring at this point about the pristine maintenance of the cave, but Jorge shot a severe look that stopped him cold. He crumpled the wrapper and slipped it ostentatiously into his pack. “All right. Let’s get this over with.”

  Jorge nodded, slid out of his drysuit, and donned some coveralls from his pack. Mark sighed and followed his example. Then Jorge spun around on the very slick rock and strode toward a hole in the wall that was no larger than an air duct in an office building. He bent down, pushed his rebreather ahead of him, and crawled in.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” said Mark.

  “Just a short crawl to the next cavern.”

  “Short crawl. Crawl!” He’d known this wasn’t going to be a picnic, but he just hadn’t bargained on how difficult it would be. How excruciating with the tons of rock over his head and the dense darkness surrounding his feeble light. Now he would have to wriggle like a worm through a passage fit for nothing better.

  Mark removed the rebreather from his back, shoved it into the hole as he’d seen Jorge do, dangled his pack behind him on a long feeder rope strapped to his belt, and thrust headfirst into the tiny aperture. The white rock loomed, smoothly carved by water, but with the occasional jagged knife edge from a stalactite, and a constant bleeding of moisture that drip, drip, dripped on his head. He felt the frantic energy build in him again, his breathing quicken, and his heart start to gallop. No! He wasn’t going to let it take hold this time. He had to do this.

  He pushed in the tank, elbowed forward, dragged his leg up, then thrust himself forward with his foot. It was a tedious method of propulsion and agonizingly slow. His heart still pounded a highland jig. All he could see was the silver metal of the tank and the rock surrounding him like the coils of a serpent. Push, elbow, thrust. On and on, until his joints screamed and he just wanted to raise his head. Of course he did a few times, cracking his helmet into the ceiling, but at least the vibrations in his brain were dampened by the protective foam of the headgear.

  The crawl seemed to go on for miles, up and down, through spiral turns that nearly snagged Mark’s pack as he dragged it behind him. The only things he could hear were the scrape of the rebreather cylinders over the rock and his own harsh pant. Anything Jorge was doing up ahead was inaudible. Any view of the guide, blocked. It felt as though he was alone in a cocoon, wriggling to get out. Alone in the dank, fetid darkness . . .

  Get hold of yourself, man. You can do this. No insects were crawling over him, no bats fluttering above his head. He hadn’t seen any life at all. Maybe they’d descended too deep already, past the zones of trogloxenes, cave visitors such as bats and spiders, or troglophiles, cave lovers like salamanders and cave crickets. This wasn’t his nightmare. Not the one he was used to, anyway.

  A cramp seized Mark’s leg in a strangle hold. He screamed, his body trying to curl inward, which was impossible. It only resulted in bruised knees and battered elbows. The knifing continued for another minute as Mark tried to reach down with one hand and massage it away. When at last it eased up, he collapsed on the floor of the tunnel.

  “Doctor Mark?” Jorge’s voice sounded as if it was deep down a well, very faint and hollow. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” said Mark, gritting his teeth. “I’m not.”

  “Well,” came the merciless reply. “I can’t help you. There is no way to turn around. You’re going to have to help yourself or you may be stuck for a long time.”

  “Damn pitiless bastard,” Mark said.

  “And that wouldn’t be good for me or your wife, since this is the only way out that I know of.”

  Mark swallowed the remnants of pain and burrowed on. Push, elbow, thrust. The cramp tried to take hold again, but he ignored it. Tears streamed down his face, but he still ignored it. He had to get out of this godforsaken tunnel. He was still pushing, elbowing, and thrusting when he suddenly realized that space had opened above and beside him. He’d emerged like a baby from the womb, and it hadn’t even been that much farther on. In fact, Jorge could easily have crawled back in and helped him.

  He gasped, sat up, and stretched the leg until the pain receded. Then he spun toward Jorge.

  “You son of a bitch. You could have helped me.” He stood a little drunkenly and faced the guide, whose face was no longer bland. It appeared to be shining.

  “Doctor,” he said, “you will never get down to your wife if you can’t crawl through a thirty-meter tunnel. This is only the beginning of a very long, very hard journey. Toughen up.”

  Mark felt like throwing a fist in Jorge’s face, but he could still feel the steel muzzle of the man’s gun from their last standoff.

  “Fine!” he said. “Fine. I’ll toughen up.” He limped over to a rock and sat down, massaging his calf. Only then did he notice the great cones of stalactites and the shimmery beads of slime hanging from them. One large dollop of what looked like snot dangled right above his head.

  “I wouldn’t sit there,” said Jorge.

  “Why not?”

  He wasn’t about to move yet. His leg still ached. But as he spoke the slime elongated and began to drip from the cone. Jorge grabbed him and shoved him from the rock. The droplet landed right where he’d been sitting and sizzled as if it were bacon in a frying pan.

  “Because you don’t want to die,” he said. “Yet.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Kat twitched and tensed as a jab of pain dragged her insistently from her sleep-drugged state. She pried her eyes open, to see absolutely nothing except the tiny light from the gas monitor. Shuddering, she hauled herself up, out of the crinkly space blanket and onto the solid stone of the cave. The monitor was still glowing green, so she reached down and turned it off to preserve batteries. She felt carefully around, her hands whispering over her backpack, touching Ray’s relaxed form, then finding his backpack. She fumbled over food packets and leather and steel climbing equipment as she dug through the backpack, but she couldn’t find the flashlight. Yet for an instant she thought she saw a spark of light somewhere beyond the vast columns of flowstone. Peering from side to side, she tried to determine the direction, but it was absolutely black again. As she returned to her search of the pack, it recurred—a brief flash of light, like the dying ember of a fireworks display. She blinked and it was gone.

  Okay, this was too mysterious to let lie. Pain or no pain. Finally her hand fluttered over the cylinder. She clenched and extracted. Making sure she aimed away from the sleeping group around her, Kat flicked on the beam. How welcome that light always felt down here in the charcoal depths. The light touched Megan beside her, picking out the locks of grubby brown hair draped around her face. It brushed Ray on the other side, his mahogany skin glistening with dewdrops, and blond Pete, who slept a short distance away, as if he spurned their company. Kat noticed that his hand rested near his knife.

  Is it paranoia, Pete, or preparation to eliminate your team?

  She shivered and scrambled to her feet, angling the flashlight in the direction of the strange spark. Now she couldn’t see anything but stalactites and the occasional wink of a crystal formation. Maybe that was all it had been. But with no light to cause a reflection, how could it have been seen?

  She began walking, treading carefully on the pebbles and chipped karst to avoid the crunch that could awaken her companions. A stab of pain doubled her over. She clutched her chest and whimpered. The words that tumbled out were maddening.

  “Mark. Where are you now? I need you.” She could picture
him in his white lab coat, a slanted smile on his too-thin lips and the quirk of an eyebrow lifted in amusement. In all likelihood he was tinkering with his toy—the microscopic submarine—making it zoom through some poor patient’s body and preparing to proclaim his genius to the world. He probably didn’t even care that she was trapped in a tomb, deep underground.

  Kat shook her head, the pain subsiding, but her brain refused to release Mark’s image. She slipped around a column and aimed her flashlight deeper into the cavern. The distance was still too far to penetrate. A jungle of ivory formations—like a vast array of elephant tusks—marched into the shadows. She flicked off the light, letting her eyes adjust to the null-vision. Waiting. There it was again, a firefly that winked on, then off.

  She marked its location and switched the flashlight back on. A determination as stubborn as her pain burned through her body. She set out, but hadn’t traveled two steps before a hand touched her shoulder. Startled and terrified, she spun, her fists raised, flashlight clenched in her hand as if it were a crowbar.

  “Kat. It’s only me.” Ray’s brilliant white teeth beamed through the darkness. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, catching her breath and wiping a hand across her moist brow. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

  “I wasn’t sneaking. I just woke up, probably because I didn’t feel you nearby anymore, and saw the light. What are you doing?”

  “There’s something over there,” said Kat, pointing toward the far side of the cavern. “A flash of some sort.”

  “Light?” asked Ray. He seized her arms. “A rescue?”

  “No,” said Kat. “Well, maybe. But I don’t think so.”

  Ray cocked his head, looking baffled.

  “It was just a wink, like a firefly. Might be some sort of bioluminescent creature. I don’t know. I just wanted to check it out.”

  “Then you should have woken me. You know you shouldn’t wander off alone.”

  Kat mustered her most apologetic smile. “Sorry. I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake anyone else. Do you want to investigate with me?”

  “Sure,” said Ray. But he didn’t release her arms. She didn’t make any move to free them either. “Kat.” He crooned her name deep in his throat. Then he bent forward and kissed her.

  At first it was just a gentle kiss, barely grazing her lips, but eventually he became more forceful, tickling her skin with his mustache and flicking in his tongue. Kat melted in his arms, her pain-ravaged body coursing with tingles of pleasure. He pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and exploring deeply with his probing tongue. When she came up for air, his tongue trickled over her chin and down her throat. She moaned, feeling her whole body ignite, but suddenly a wall shot up inside her.

  She pushed him back, shaking her head, whispering, “No.”

  “Why?” he asked, anger flushing his face as much as desire. “How long have we wanted this? You know it. I know it. That bastard of a husband even knows it. How can you still feel any loyalty to him?”

  “It isn’t him,” said Kat softly. And it was true, in a way. If anything, she knew the two-timing jerk deserved to be treated in kind. “It’s . . . me.”

  “What the hell does that mean? Kat, I love you. I have for years. Years! And I know you feel something for me. Tell me you don’t care.”

  “I— Ray.” She took a deep breath. “I’m dying.”

  Ray’s eyes widened. His body stiffened. “The cancer?”

  “Yes. It’s back. With a vengeance.”

  “But . . .” His eyes darted back and forth as if searching for some answer. Some miracle cure. He seemed as desperate as she was. “There’s chemo, radiation.”

  “No more,” she said. “I’m not poisoning my body anymore. It was killing me as much as the disease.”

  “No.” It emerged as a soft whimper. “There has to be a cure.” Limply he sank to the cave floor. “What about those cave bugs you keep talking about? They had some amazing results, you said.” His voice held a pleading note.

  Kat shook her head. “They wouldn’t let me try them. They said they’re not suitable for human testing yet.”

  “Not suitable,” he growled. “When will they be suitable? When you’re dead!” He looked down as soon as the words shot out. “I’m sorry.” Turning away, he reached up and rubbed his neck as if he could hardly support his head anymore. The small moles on his neck seemed more prominent in the pale light.

  “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “I feel the same way. You know, you should get those checked out.” She pointed at his neck.

  Ray glanced at her and frowned. “You’re concerned about me, when . . .”

  “I’m concerned that you’re going to wait until it’s too late. I’m down here searching for a miracle, Ray. I almost thought I found one too,” she said. “Look.” She pulled up her sleeve and showed him the perfectly sealed skin where her cuts and bruises had been. “After I fell in the lake by the rafts and got covered with god knows what kind of ectoplasm, I was suddenly healed. It’s some sort of microorganism that promotes cell regeneration, I suspect. At first I was ecstatic, until I remembered that what I need is something toxic to tumor cells. Something that will inhibit, not promote, cell growth. This won’t help me.”

  Ray took a deep breath. “I can’t lose you, Kat.”

  She knelt down beside him. “You never had me, Ray. Please don’t take it like this. We were never lovers, just friends. It has to stay that way. It’ll be so much easier to let go.”

  “I can’t.” He pleaded with his eyes, willing her to leap into his arms.

  She touched his face, kissed his forehead, and got up. “We should investigate that light.”

  “What’s the point?” he asked.

  “Because I don’t want to die here,” she said.

  She traipsed forward, tripping over calcite that had fallen in drifts like snow. It breezed up and glittered in the air. She heard Ray struggle to his feet and follow, heard his ragged breath as he caught up. She could feel his pain almost as much as her own, but she pushed her thoughts away from him.

  Now where had that spark come from? Dozens of stalagmites cluttered the ground, making navigation difficult. She flicked off the light again, eyes searching, waiting for her pupils to widen. Where?

  A flicker, like the flame of a candle in a gust of wind. To the left.

  She cast the flashlight beam in its direction. A jumbled sea of breakdown barred her path, where cluttered slabs of limestone had collapsed from the ceiling and piled up on the floor. She clipped the light to her belt and climbed, placing her boots carefully on the slippery tablets of stone. A slip now could mean the end of her. Very funny, Fate.

  She reached the peak, aimed the flashlight down, and stopped. Staring up at her from the other side of the breakdown was a pair of enormous green eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Jorge watched the acid eat into the rock where the doctor had been sitting. He clenched his jaw, wishing he could have left the man to suffer the consequences of his arrogance. The gringo seemed to think he could ignore Jorge when he chose, when he was tired or angry, while Jorge held his life in his hands. Would this man even make it halfway to the bottom of the cave system?

  “Wh- what is it?” asked Mark, pointing to the effervescent froth that continued to chew at the malleable limestone.

  “Sulfuric acid,” said Jorge. “From the snottites. Your wife would know all about it. The scientists seem to think that bacteria eat the sulfur in these particular caves, and release acid in turn. Like battery acid, it would give you a good burn.”

  “And you couldn’t have told me?” asked Mark.

  “I warned you not to sit there—” Jorge squeezed his hands into fists. This man was the most insufferable, pig-headed, ungrateful bastard. “—then I saved you from a burn. Yet you continue to whine that I don’t do enough for you.”

  Mark opened his mouth to retort, his face going through acrobatic shifts of emotion—ang
er, agitation, and was there a flash of contrition? He snapped his mouth shut and nodded. “Okay. I’ll try not to whine. Where do we go from here?”

  Jorge pointed to a steep incline of marble-smooth flowstone.

  “Up? We have to go up?”

  “I told you that already. The cave doesn’t drop right to the lowest chamber. We will have to climb closer to the surface, then descend again. It may take us many days to get to your wife. If you can keep up. I don’t think she has much time before she exhausts her supplies, so you’d better forget everything you ever knew about your soft life in Toronto if you want to see her alive.”

  Jorge felt a warm flush of satisfaction at the doctor’s flinch and slight shiver. It was about time the man faced some harsh reality. The Maya had lived with it all their lives. He handed the man a water bottle, not out of sympathy, but merely to keep him from collapsing so soon in their travels. Dehydration would put him out of commission for a lengthy period, and Jorge couldn’t afford to waste that time. Neither could the people buried beneath them, assuming they were still alive.

  Rooting through his pack, Jorge removed some rope, webbing, metal anchors, and lever cam ascenders. He swung a harness at Mark, showing him exactly how to attach the equipment and how to work the Jumar ascender. The device consisted of a chest harness and loops for the feet, and a metal grip that allowed climbers to ascend using SRT—Single Rope Technique—by sliding up the rope. Brakes in the device prevented the chance of slipping down. Of course Jorge would have to do all the hard work—the lead climb—attaching the rope to bolts or anchors in the rock face every ten meters ahead of Mark, and climbing the slick surface to each contact point. Nothing he hadn’t done before. The only trouble he anticipated was having to haul the unfit man from halfway up the slope to the summit when his underused muscles gave out.

  Jorge attached another rope to the rebreathers, so they could be pulled up afterward, and began to climb, tapping anchors into the soft rock or slipping web slings over natural projections and attaching them to the rope to secure it. At the same time he jammed his boots into cracks and ledges to keep his footing. He scanned the rock face, detecting minimal damage from the woman’s science team. The last member must have removed most of the bolts after he or she had climbed past them. Jorge pushed upward. Every ten meters or so, he rigged another anchor, giving Mark a solid line to ascend. Surprisingly, the doctor followed without much difficulty, although his raspy breathing filled the hollow chamber like a whistling hurricane. Jorge smiled with grim satisfaction. Every gasp, every ache or pain that the doctor experienced, filled him with pleasure.