Ray groaned louder. Megan blinked back her daydreams and focused once again on his thrashing body. The calm had vanished.
“Ray, relax.” She knelt closer and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Let the medicine work.” His squirming subsided at her soft touch. Interesting that her hands didn’t burn where she clasped his taut muscles. Interesting that her body didn’t quiver and her mind didn’t flinch. Interesting that a plight of unimaginable terror and peril had brought about a fundamental change in her psyche, a healing that nothing else had been able to achieve.
As she gazed at Ray’s twitching lips and furrowed brow, his eyes suddenly flew open. Megan pulled away as if she’d been exposed in a SWAT spotlight.
“Megan,” he croaked. It surprised her that there was such clarity in his eyes. Ignoring the involuntary shudders that ran through her, she leaned toward him.
“Yes, Ray. I’m here.”
“I can see that,” he said, actually smiling. “I . . . don’t feel as bad anymore. La—la douleur—the pain is dull now. Are you the only one here?”
Megan nodded. “Kat and Pete . . . ” How to explain?
“A rescue team has arrived. They went to meet them. We’re going to be okay, Ray. We’re going to get out of here.” Assuming he recovered enough, she added in her thoughts.
Ray’s eyes brightened. He reached out and seized her hand. “Really?”
“Really,” she said, wondering again at how she wasn’t tempted to pull her hand away.
“Who came? Was it Frank or Pete’s men?”
Megan chewed on her lip and shook her head. “No. It’s a guide, a man we don’t know, and . . . ”
Ray raised his eyebrows, flinching and rolling his shoulder, but still seeming as clear-headed as before the attack had begun. How could she tell him? Yet he’d find out for himself soon enough. Holding back the information wouldn’t lessen the pain, only put it off.
“Mark Delaney.”
Ray’s hand clamped around her own, crushing the fingers. His jaw tensed and his eyes narrowed. “Him!”
“Yes,” said Megan. “I’m sorry, but he came for her. It seems their marriage isn’t over. But, Ray, she may be an amazing caver, but Kat isn’t the only woman in the world.”
“Right,” said Ray. His face seemed to cave in. He was giving up and he mustn’t. She couldn’t let him.
“Ray, please don’t lose hope. I don’t mean in Kat, I mean in life. Fight this bug! You have so much to live for. We all do, no matter what rotten breaks we’ve had. I’m not going to let you die here.” She was surprised at her own words, but it was about time. She’d been wrapped up in her own bitterness for far too long. Finally she’d broken free and was fighting for something of value, something that was worth more than gold and jade, dried-up old bones, and tattered mummy cloth.
Ray gazed at her as if he were drinking her in. “You’re not going to let me? Incroyable!”
She smiled and squeezed his hand. Then she bent down and grazed his cheek with her lips. As she sat back up, the light from the helmet lamp flickered and began to fade. The battery must be nearly drained. She scrambled over to her pack and pawed through it, but soon realized that it was the last battery. The light strobed and sank even deeper into shadow, leaving her with only a dim outline of Ray’s body.
“I think we need another battery.” Ray stated the obvious.
“I know, except—” The light blinked out. Now they should be surrounded by darkness, yet it didn’t seem so dark. She looked around. Green firefly lights were flashing in the Mayan graveyard. Strange, since she hadn’t noticed them there before. The pillars to their left were sparking too.
This wasn’t possible. The organisms couldn’t move, could they? How in the world could they propel themselves? They were stuck with the corpses they’d mutilated. There was no way . . .
Yet the freckles of light seemed uncomfortably close, almost as if they were zeroing in on her and Ray.
“Oh, no,” she squeaked, putting her knuckles to her mouth. “This can’t be happening.”
“What? What is it?” asked Ray.
She didn’t answer, but reacted instead. She broke open her last remaining light—a glow stick that would only last a couple of hours. “We’ve got to move.”
Ray looked at her in the soft light, doubt creasing his forehead. “I don’t know if I’m up to— Why do we have to move?”
Megan hustled over to him and grabbed his arm, tossing it around her shoulder. “Lean on me and stand up.”
Ray gritted his teeth, shuffled his feet, and managed to get them beneath him. Slowly Megan eased him up. “We’re going to have to climb the breakdown and head for the lake.”
“Are you going to tell me why?” asked Ray, biting his lip and wiping a stream of sweat from his brow.
“Because if we don’t, we’re going to die.”
Megan prodded Ray forward and together they staggered toward the mound. It was an impossible climb with an injured man, but by God, they were going to do it. Megan didn’t hear anything, but she could feel the swarm behind her like a million killer bees on their tail.
Chapter Forty-three
Mark helped Jorge along the lakeshore, but soon the weight of this extra burden seemed almost too much to bear. The flood of excitement over seeing Kat had long been sapped by the reality of the physical challenge his body had endured during the past five days. On top of the rigors of caving, he’d just performed rescue breathing and was now supporting his guide along this slippery lake passage. But the man who’d nearly drowned seemed even more determined to find Kat than Mark was right now. Jorge’s eyes gleamed in the silver light bouncing off the lake, and although he stumbled occasionally, somehow he forced his legs to move.
Mark thrust aside his fatigue and plodded onward. If Jorge could do it, so could he. But he was almost ready to collapse when the Maya stopped, studied the rocky cavescape, and frowned.
“What’s wrong?” asked Mark.
“The signs are muddled,” said Jorge. “It looks like they might have turned into the middle of the cavern, but there are indications that they also went farther along the shore. I don’t know which way to go.”
Mark gazed at the myriad footprints hollowed into the snowdrift crystals. Most led between the columns and back this way, but there were also some snapped stalagmites beside the lake. The direction of the majority of prints seemed the most logical—the interior.
“We’ll turn and see what’s in the middle of this cavern. I just have a feeling . . .”
Jorge agreed and pivoted, but his legs gave out at the same instant. He slumped to the ground, pulling Mark with him. “I think I need a rest.”
“No argument here,” said Mark with a sigh. He released his pack and slipped it next to Jorge, encouraging him to lie down and use it as a pillow. Then he broke out his water bottle and handed it over. Jorge gulped down a generous amount before thrusting the bottle back at Mark, who chugged it immediately. After emptying the bottle, Mark sprawled out on the stone and was about to close his eyes when he heard a sound. A muffled crunch of crystal granules being pulverized beneath hiking boots?
He sat up and trained his flashlight deeper into the central part of the cave. Another bouncing light clashed and then merged with his. Through the web of cave formations a slim blond man glided, almost ghostly, ducking beneath low-hanging branches of karst and weaving through the columns. Behind him came another figure that Mark couldn’t fail to recognize: clad in army-green coveralls, capped with marigold hair. She was coming back already.
“Kat!” He sprang to his feet, forgetting all about his fatigue. He rushed along the zigzag path, snapping some delicate crystal latticework in the process. Around another column he was upon her, or at least upon the blond man, who cocked a smile and stepped aside.
“Are you all right?” He snatched her shoulders and held her at arm’s length.
She nodded and smiled. “I’m fine. I hope Ray . . .” A fleeting look of worry dashed
across her face. “I did the best I could, but I couldn’t wait to see if it worked. I had to come back. How did you get so far? I thought Jorge was quite weak.”
“He had a burst of strength. Seemed determined to reach you, although I don’t know why. The pathway out is behind us, I take it.”
“Yes, it looks like the only way out. We’ve been trapped here for days. Our rope snapped, but you must have seen that.”
Mark bobbed his head.
“Where’s Jorge now?”
“He’s by the lake.” Mark turned to point down the path and saw the other man watching him intently. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Pete.” He held out his hand. Mark, still holding onto Kat, released one hand and clasped Pete’s. “I’m a microbiologist, like Kat.”
“And apparently you’ve found some remarkable things,” said a voice behind them, ending in a glottal click. Mark was amazed that Jorge had stumbled this far after collapsing on the lakeshore, but the man was mule-stubborn.
“We have,” said Pete. He turned around and eyed Jorge. “Some very interesting organisms and a Mayan burial chamber.”
Mark’s eyes widened at the news, but Jorge hardly blinked. “Yes, the chamber would be here. Is it as incredible as Pacal’s? Or King Tut’s?”
“I suppose,” said Pete. “Rather remarkable. But the pièce de résistance is the graveyard beyond.”
Mark eyed Pete in confusion. What the hell was he talking about? He turned to Kat, who nestled deeper in his arms and rested her head against his shoulder. My God, she was his again. He almost lost track of the conversation at the rush of blood through his ears. His arms tightened around her and he wished he could make the others disappear.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered.
“I can’t believe it either,” he said, “but I had no choice.” Their eyes met, full of emotion, crowded with memories and apologies, accusations and forgiveness. They had so much to say.
The conversation the others were having filtered through again. “A lot of people died down here.” It was Pete. “At first we thought it was volcanic gas, but Ray, through his carelessness, gave us another explanation.”
“An organism?”
“Yes, a deadly one.” Pete went on to describe the hemolytic nanobacteria that was rapidly killing Ray. Then he described the unusual antidote they’d found in the mat of microbes near the chamber’s entrance. “It seems to be working, so Ray might pull through.”
“So that’s it,” said Mark, addressing Jorge. “There’s your curse. I told you it was a natural phenomenon. There are enough dangers in nature that we don’t need to fear mystical ones. But nature usually provides a neutralizer, too. So we’ve got nothing to worry about if Ray recovers.”
“Yes, doctor. You were right, but so was I. A dangerous organism can sometimes be a curse. It can create a plague from which no one can escape. The Maya knew enough even a thousand years ago to isolate such an organism—or such a curse, as they thought of it. They avoided this place of death and killed any survivor who attempted to escape the perimeter. It was the best solution.”
Mark tried to tap the undercurrent of Jorge’s words. What was he trying to tell them? That they shouldn’t escape? That they might accidentally transport this deadly microbe into the civilized world?
“For their time,” he said, attempting to fight the man’s skewed logic. “Now it’s obvious that Kat has found the cure for this disease and bringing Ray out with us will hardly endanger anyone if he’s recovering.”
Jorge smiled, but didn’t answer. He’d once again become the enigmatic revolutionary with a hidden agenda. Mark didn’t like it at all.
“Well, I think it might be prudent to go and take a look at Ray, and see if there’s anything I can do to help him,” said Mark. He turned away from Jorge toward the interior path.
“And how will you do that, doctor? With your little case of magic?”
Mark spun around. “What do you know about my case?” he snapped.
Jorge hardly flinched. In fact he looked quite smug. “I know that it contains your remarkable submarine. Don’t look so surprised. You cradled it like a treasure when you transferred it to your pack. What else could it be? But why would you carry it all the way down into the depths of the planet? What were you hoping to achieve?”
Mark clenched his fists, feeling the bite of Kat’s fingers into his arm. He looked down at her and saw her eyes shining. She knew. She knew why, and she wasn’t angry or distrustful. What he saw in her eyes was hope.
“It was a wasted effort,” said Jorge, igniting Mark’s rage again. “Because, doctor, this cave is very dangerous.”
Mark turned back to him, but was distracted by frantic yelling and the scrabbling of panicked feet. He rotated on his heel and saw two shadowy figures limping at speed down the enormous breakdown pile.
“We have passed the gates of hell,” Jorge said softly, “and there is no return.”
Somehow Megan had hauled Ray up the treacherous incline of the breakdown, even though his feet slipped out from under him more times than not. She looked back once. The ghastly glow seemed only a fraction closer to where she and Ray had been resting, but it was undoubtedly closer. The organisms were moving. Wherever there was moisture, it appeared, along the dew-speckled rock and the glistening ground. The winking alien lights exploded on the columns and stalactites like fireworks, at times paling the light of the glow stick around her neck.
“Can’t . . . go any . . . farther,” Ray gasped, his head slumping forward.
“No, Ray. You can’t pass out now. Crap!” She fought to support his entire weight and prevent him from tumbling back down the slope. Her muscles groaned and she nearly tripped backward, but through some miracle she held her ground. There was no way they could rest here, now. Yet Ray was in no condition to flee any farther. What could she do? She couldn’t leave him to be engulfed by the organisms, but how could she carry him? She just wasn’t strong enough.
A new sparkle erupted on a nearer column, spurring her to action. She bent down and wrestled Ray’s enormous body over her shoulder. He was so tall and she so short that his arms dragged on the ground behind her and his feet nearly touched in front, but there was nothing she could do about it. It was enough that she was still standing. She trudged over the peak of the breakdown, the muscles in her legs shivering, her knees nearly buckling. Just when she was ready to give up, a strange power flushed through her. Adrenaline? She wobbled down the other side, trying to avoid unstable rocks and slippery boulders. Ray moaned and grumbled, but wasn’t alert enough to be of any help. His body was still limp.
Megan had stumbled halfway down the mound when she heard voices echoing faintly in the chamber. She looked up and spied the light of a flashlight or helmet lamp. “Help!” she called, but her voice wasn’t nearly as strong as her calves.
Her legs wobbled again. The boulder beneath her boots shifted and rocked downward.
“HELP!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs as her feet slid out from under her. She and Ray, limbs tangled together, rolled like a tumbleweed down the slope of breakdown. Shockwaves of pain rocked her body as she crunched against the stone. She was ready for bones to snap, but somehow they held firm. There was one particularly nasty jolt to her head, and briefly she saw more fireworks. She ended up at the bottom of the mound, dazed, with Ray sprawled on top of her, cursing and sounding more lucid than he had earlier.
Megan gently pushed at him, rolling him to the side. She tried to sit up, but the pain that sizzled through her chest made her sink back down again. But she wasn’t about to give up when escaping this nightmare cave was even remotely possible. Megan gritted her teeth and forced her muscles to comply. She fumbled to a sitting position, then tucked her legs beneath her.
“Have to—” She was up, but barely. Teetering and dizzy, she could hardly see Ray.
“Ray, get up,” she muttered.
Ray didn’t move. She bent again, feeli
ng for his arm. Her fingertips brushed a cone of rock, but she eventually found the limb and tugged. The man wouldn’t budge.
“Oh God, Ray. We’re gonna die.” Tears welled up and blurred her eyes even more. This was all so hopeless. She tried one more time, heaving with all her might. Ray shifted, rose a bit, then dropped back down, pulling her on top of him. “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to end,” she whispered.
“I know,” he mumbled. “But I just don’t have the strength. Tu vas. You go. Get out of here. Maybe it was meant to be, anyway. I’m no good to anyone like this.”
Megan shook her head. “No, Ray, you’re wrong. It’s not meant to be. You don’t deserve this. But whatever happens, I’m not leaving you.” She looked into his eyes. The soft light of the glow stick exposed the naked need in them. She lowered her head and kissed him.
A voice above them startled her away from Ray’s lips. She squinted into the spotlight aimed at them.
“What the hell are you doing, Megan?” It was Kat.
Chapter Forty-four
Stunned by Megan and Ray’s hasty appearance, Kat and Pete raced over to the bottom of the breakdown hill, Mark trailing closely. Not only was Kat shocked to see Megan carrying Ray over the unstable mound, and falling, but she was equally disturbed by the scene she’d witnessed at the end. Why was Megan kissing Ray? A twinge of jealousy nipped at her that she tried to ignore. Ray had been enthralled with her for years, but even though she knew that Mark was the only partner for her, it hurt to see Ray involved with someone else.
Sinkhole Page 25