The Travelers 1

by Lee Hunnicutt

  Just as Jack stepped on the spiral a howling blast of air blew down from the hole in the center of the spiral. The force of the wind almost knocked them over. Now they could make out words that were carried on the wind. Before the words were just a jumble but now they could understand distinct words.

  In English they heard “Bring me a horse.”, in Spanish “Juanita, donde esta?” and in Chinese the words “river” and “tree”

  They also heard words that were clear but in languages that they didn’t understand.

  The wind was cold but particularly for Beth and Jack. Their clothes were still wet. Both of them were shivering.

  Jack said through chattering teeth, “We are going to hafta time this. If we are in that hole when the next blast comes, it will blow us right out the center.”

  “I think we have been here about an hour and a half and we have only had three of the winds. The next one shouldn’t come for another half hour,” said Sonny.

  “Let’s do it!” said Beth.

  They began to climb into the spiral.

  About a third of the way up Beth said, “If I didn’t know better I’d say that this thing was moving. I know it’s just an optical illusion but it really seems to be pulling us in.”

  “Yeah,” said Sonny “I feel it too. How about you Jack?”

  “I’m trying not to think of it. If I think about it I might lose my balance,” said Jack.

  They went up and deeper into the spiral. The ceiling and side closed in on them and gave all three of them a claustrophobic feeling.

  Finally, they were at the center, standing on the threshold of an opening that was about ten feet tall.

  Jack was the first to step through the hole, then Beth, followed by Sonny.

  They were standing on the top of a short stairway. The stairs were ten feet wide and lead down fourteen feet to the floor of another large room.

  Beth was the first to speak. Her voice was shaky and broken. “Oh my Ga Ga God.” she said.

  The room was very wide and very long. Their lights disappeared into the darkness in any direction that they shone them. As far as their lights would shine in any direction the floor was covered with perfectly aligned rows of earthen urns. The urns were about three feet tall and in the middle about a foot and a half wide.

  Each urn had a pottery top and sat on a six-inch-high clay platform to keep the urn from tipping over.

  The children knew all too well what they were seeing. These were burial urns, thousands of them. They had seen similar urns before in caves, two or three at a time, a dozen at most in the caves in this area but never in their wildest dreams could they have imagined something as awesome and at the same time as scary as this.

  Jack spoke next. “There must be tens of thousands of them.” he whispered.

  “They must have been burying people here for thousands of years,” said Sonny.

  At the bottom of the stairs there was a path between the urns that was as wide as the stairs.

  As if they were sleep walking the children descended the stairs and began their journey between the urns. They hadn’t gone more than fifty feet when they came across an urn that had fallen across the path. The urn was broken and had spilled its grisly contents on to the floor. The skeleton was in a fetal position. The skull had rolled over so that its grinning countenance was looking up at them. A gold nose ring and earrings were by the skull. The rib cage was covered by a golden breastplate.

  They gingerly tiptoed around the remains and continued down the path. They played their lights over the urns. They were aligned like battalions of silent soldiers as far as the lights would shine.

  They had gone about two hundred yards when they broke out of the field of the urns. They walked another fifty feet when the floor seemed to disappear. They walked another twenty and sure enough that was exactly what the floor had done. It disappeared. It dropped away into nothingness. They stood on the edge shining their lights down and they could see nothing.

  Jack took a quarter out of his pocket and threw it over the edge. They could see it shining in their light. It fell to the end of their lights. They listened for about a minute to see if they could hear it hit bottom. They heard nothing.

  They stepped back from the edge, and as they did, the hair on the back of their necks stood up. In unison they took a collective deep breath and slowly turned around.

  There, not five feet away from them, bathed in their lights was the giant Indian from last night.

  He was magnificent. He had on a gorgeous multicolored feathered robe that ran from his neck to his feet. On his head was a crown of macaw tail feathers. The crown feathers were eighteen inches long and had the typical macaw colors of red, blue/gold and green. He looked ten feet tall.

  But it was his face that turned their blood cold. His face was framed in the straight jet black hair, cut in the page boy style that the Indians of this area had worn for hundreds of years.

  Half of his face below the nose and cheekbones was colored bright red. The other half from his cheekbones to his hairline was dark blue. The area around his eyes and his lips were painted an ashen white. On his lips were vertical, parallel black lines. This all gave the appearance of a multicolored death’s head.

  The kids involuntarily grabbed hold of each other, sucked in a large breath, screamed and stepped back over the edge and into the abyss. Beth was in the center. She was hanging on to the two boys for dear life and they had a death’s grip on her. They fell for what seemed to be an eternity, screaming all the way down.

  They landed not as they would have expected on a hard limestone floor but in a deep body of water. Frank had taught them to keep some air in their air mattresses and to tie the mattress to the top of the pack. It made the air mattress roll a little thick, but it made the pack buoyant. If they ever fell into water the pack would not drag them down.

  They screamed all of the way down. Just before they hit the water they had to take another breath and they screamed again. They were screaming when they hit the water and they continued to scream when they were under the water. And when they broke the surface they collectively sucked in another breath and screamed again as the current carried them away.

  Throughout the whole ordeal they had never let go of each other. They had stopped screaming but their breath was quick and ragged. They made whimpering noises each time they inhaled and exhaled. Their fear and panic consumed them. They had little or no realization of where they were or what had happened to them.

  Time meant nothing to them. For the longest time they didn’t even realize that they were in water. Their air mattresses kept them afloat and even though they didn’t realize it, through reflex action they were treading water.

  Sonny was the first to speak. He said, “I think we’re moving.”

  If the other two heard him, there was no reaction out of them.

  Jack looked into the water. What he first saw made him flinch in fear. He saw that there were three lights following them. One was about a foot away from them and the other two lights were about three and a half feet away. His mind swirled at the possibilities. Everything else about this day had been strange. Why not man eating lights?

  He then realized that the lights were their flashlights. He heaved a sigh of relief, thanked Frank for hammering into them to tie their lights to their packs and with one hand followed the cord down to his light.

  He pulled the light out of the water.

  Beth screamed “What’s that light!”

  “It’s my flashlight.”

  “Oh, yes of course.” She said in a rapid breathless voice. The light seemed to calm her down.

  She pulled her light out of the water. Sonny did the same.

  Now that they had light they could see that they were in an underground river. They could see the ceiling high above them and the walls sliding by them. The river completely filled the width of the cave. They were closest to the left bank and it was hard to tell but Jack estimated that the river was about sixty fee
t wide and moving at a rapid rate.

  From what they could see it was like being in a large stone tube or pipe. There was no bank for them to swim to and the cave walls were too smooth to give them a handhold.

  Jack said, “Put your lights out. I’ll leave mine on. We should save the batteries.”

  They did as he said.

  After a while Sonny said, “We’ve got to hold on to each other we can’t allow ourselves to be torn apart. If we become separated, we may never find each other in this darkness.”

  He was right and in an already terrifying situation this prospect terrified them even more. They laced their arms through each other’s pack straps. Jack’s left arm went through Beth’ right backpack strap and his right arm through Sonny’s left backpack strap. When they had all done this they were facing each other with Jacks light shining at the ceiling.

  Beth said, “What’s that sound?”

  At first Jack and Sonny could hear nothing but the water around them and their own breathing but then they heard it. It was a slight roar. The kind water makes over rapids or over a waterfall.

  Sonny said, “We’ve gotta get outta here.”

  “How?” said Beth.

  “I don’t know but if we don’t we’re all dead.”

  The water began to pick up speed and the sides of the tunnel began to close in.

  Jack could not make up his mind. Was the water rising or was the ceiling dropping? Whatever the case, he thought, it wasn’t a good sign.

  A strange thing began to happen. As the water’s speed picked up the water and the sides of the cave began to luminesce. At first it was just a faint light then it became brighter until the whole cave was bathed in a green/white light.

  The roaring became louder and louder. The sound was deafening.

  Jack could see Beth’s lips moving. He could see that she was shouting and even though her mouth was inches from his ears he couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  The light now was almost blinding and the sound from the water hurt their ears. The ceiling was just inches from their heads. They were moving at a tremendous rate.

  The next thing they knew they were floating in space.

  The closest thing that Sonny could come to describing what had happened; he later said it was like being shot out of a garden hose.

  Everything seemed to slow down. They could see the water blowing by them as if in slow motion.

  Beth saw Sonny’s and Jack’s heads moving but incredibly slowly. It took forever for Jack’s head to turn and face her, his lips moving ever so slowly to talk to her. His voice when it did come out was a deep rumble and she couldn’t understand him.

  There was a twilight darkness around them. They could see around them and as they tumbled they could look back to the water spewing out of large hole in the face of a cliff. The water that came out of the hole was so bright. It was like looking at the sun.

  They could feel themselves slowly tumbling further and further away from the water fall and after what seemed like an eternity they could no longer hear its roar.

  It got darker and darker and then nothing.

  It was like waking up from one of those dreams where you are falling but never hit the ground. You wake up with a jolt in complete terror. All three kids sat up at the same time unable to speak. They just looked at each other, hearts pounding, covered in sweat.

  After about twenty minutes Beth was the first to speak. "What just happened? Where the heck are we?"

  The other two looked at her with blank expressions, like they were brain dead. Jack lay back down and stared at the sky. Sonny buried his face in his hands.

  Beth got shakily to her feet and stumbled around surveying the area. After wandering around for a while, she sat back down and stared at the horizon.

  Two maybe three hours past, Jack slowly sat up. He looked at his surroundings and then at his two friends, Beth looking at the horizon, Sonny with his head in his hands. He was too weak to stand so he crawled over to Beth and touched her on the shoulder. Beth let out a grunt and sucked in air. She slowly turned her head and looked at Jack.

  Jack's voice was hoarse. "Beth, Beth" was all he could get out. Beth just looked at him. "Beth" Jack was beginning to feel stronger. It was as if the effort he was expending was bringing him out of a trance. He shook Beth's shoulder. As he shook her, he repeated her name over and over.

  He could see recognition slowly coming in Beth's eyes. When he had what he hoped was Beth's attention, he said, “Let's get Sonny and try to figure out what's going on here." Beth nodded her head.

  They crawled to Sonny. Beth whispered his name. Jack touched his shoulder. Sonny leapt to his feet with a yelp, looked around wildly and then looked down at Jack and his sister. "What do you guys want? What are you sitting on the ground for?" Suddenly his legs wouldn't support him and he slumped back to the ground.

  He looked weak and shaky but they all did. He said, “What a ride. Where are we? Damn, that was the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me. WOW!" The effort was too much and he lay down. "WOW! What a ride!"

  Jack said, “We've got to find out where we are and how to get home."

  Beth said, “We go to a road, catch a bus or hitchhike."

  "Beth, you may not have noticed but we're not in Panama anymore. Look around you. This is semi-arid and the mountains have snow on them. The driest spot in Panama isn't as dry as this and El Baru, the highest mountain in Panama, is only a mile high and no snow. I don't know where we are."

  Sonny said, “WOW! What a ride."

  They looked at Sonny. He was lying there grinning from ear to ear. He looked at his sister and Jack. "You gotta admit that was the most exciting thing we've ever done and we lived through it. Let's do it again."

  "Sonny don't be a jerk. We're in deep shit. We don't know where we are and for all we know we may be dead,” said Beth. "Now sit up and help us figure out what we're going to do."

  Sonny sat up and said, “You gotta admit that was some rush.”

  Jack grinned and said, “Yeah it sure was."

  Beth yelled "Will you guys quit acting like this was an amusement park and try to focus on our problem? We're in over our heads here."

  "OK Beth," Sonny said, “what are we going to do?"

  "Hell I don't know. Jack?"

  "Don't look at me. I'm as lost as the rest of you."

  "Well we've got to do something,” said Beth.

  Both Jack and Sonny agreed.

  "Let's look around” said Jack "and see what our options are. Let's walk about a hundred yards in different directions and see what we can find. Don't lose sight of each other and be careful. I'll walk this way. Sonny you go over there and Beth you go that way. Remember we don't lose sight of each other. OK?"

  Jack walked toward the mountains, Sonny toward a rise and Beth toward what looked like endless grass land. When they returned Jack asked "Did you see anything?"

  Beth said, “All I saw was grass and some scrub brush for as far as I could see." Sonny who had topped the rise said the same thing.

  "Well,” said Jack "it looks like we should head for the mountains. If we go in any other direction we are heading into the grasslands. The mountains have snow on them, which means snow melt, which means water, plants and game.

  It's hard to judge distance but I think it's our only chance. We each have our packs and canteens so we have food and water. What do you guys think?"

  "Everything looks pretty bleak” said Beth "but I think you’re right. Sonny?"

  "Yeah. Let's get going."

  "I think we should find some shade and only travel at night and the early morning,” said Jack.

  The only place they could find shade was on the west bank of a dry arroyo. The sun was in the two o’clock position so the shadow from the bank was narrow.

  Before they climbed down into the arroyo, Sonny took a compass read to the mountains. He said, “If we go to sleep and wake up in the dark, we have to know what direction to go in.”


  “Good thinking,” said Beth.

  They climbed down into the arroyo and sat as close to the bank as possible. Even then their legs from the knees down were in the sun. They leaned back on their packs and went to sleep almost immediately.

  When they awoke it was almost dark. Beth woke up first. She lay there for a while trying to figure out where she was. As sleep wore off and she did realize where she was and what had happened, she had to fight hard not to panic. After she got a hold of herself, she shook Sonny awake and called out to Jack to wake up.

  Sonny said, “I had the weirdest dream.”

  “It’s not a dream Sonny,” said Beth.

  Sonny looked at her, thought a minute and realized what said she was true. He sat up and took in a ragged sharp breath.

  Jack put his hand on Sonny’s shoulder and said, “I feel the same way buddy.”

  Jack reached around Sonny and took Beth’s hand. She put her arm around Sonny and after a minute said, “We can’t let this overwhelm us. If we let our fears get to us now we are dead before we start.”

  Sonny let out a sigh and said, “Your right. Let’s get going.”

  “But first” said Jack with a smile, “let’s take care of important things first. I’ve got to take a leak.”

  They all laughed.

  The boys walked a few paces in one direction and put their backs to Beth. When the boys had finished they waited until Beth said she was ready.

  As they were picking up their packs, Jack said, “Lord knows how long it will take to get to the mountains. I read somewhere that distances are hard to gage in the desert or a plain with no reference points. We may be in deeper trouble than we thought."

  "How so?” said Sonny.

  "We based a survival scenario on surviving in a rain forest where water is everywhere. We're not in a desert but it still looks pretty dry. All of our food stuffs need lots of water. We have rice, dry beans, candy bars and jerky. Everything but the jerky and chocolate needs water to prepare. Lots of water. The jerky is seasoned with salt and pepper. The minute we eat it we'll be thirsty. We also have the raw potatoes, carrots and onions. We could eat them raw but I suggest that we hold off and hope we find water before we eat them."