“We should start thinking about a return,” Meggie said.
“What, are you the trip leader now?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Just trying to be safe. What time did it get dark last night?”
“Not until 9:30,” Kaitlyn said.
“Yeah, but we’ve still got to hike back down the hill. I don’t want to do that with flashlights. Also, those guys have been waiting all day.”
“Not our fault. Anyway, they knew we’d be gone until late. We have until midnight before they go back for help.”
Probably, Meggie was being overly cautious. Without stopping to map, but taking usual precautions, the return would be quicker than the initial exploration. Until they got to the two ropes leading to the surface. Then it would be a slow, exhausting climb via the vertical ascenders. Using a pulley system attached to the shoes, climbing the rope would be like working out on a high-tension StairMaster, as they ascended inch by excruciating inch back to the surface.
“We’ve come too far to go back now,” Kaitlyn added.
“How about another half-hour?” Meggie said. “And if we don’t find it, we’ll turn around.”
Benjamin shrugged and turned to Kaitlyn, who scowled.
“An hour,” she said. “If we don’t find it by then, we can turn around. We’ll still have plenty of time to get back to the surface and down to the truck.”
Then, without waiting to see how the others would respond, she rose to her feet, hoisted her pack, and continued up the passageway. The other two followed. Meggie struggled to fight down her misgivings.
#
They found the chamber about forty minutes later. It took another chimney, a lucky guess at a fork, and then some more belly crawling through a passageway maybe three feet high. It wasn’t the tightest squeeze, except that it seemed to go on forever. In reality, probably less than fifty feet. But if time was different down here in the dark, then so were distances. More so when you found yourself pinched between two slabs of rock, each hundreds of feet thick. Get wedged down here and you’d die. No rescue team in the world could do a thing.
Then she came out the other side to find Benjamin and Kaitlyn standing upright and staring slack-jawed. They’d found it.
The room was a wonderland of speleothems. Stalactites glistened from the ceiling by the hundreds, looking like so many milky icicles. Stalagmites squatted on the ground, some white, others streaked brown or glittering. Waves of mineralized formations smeared across the walls, looking alternatively like frosting, or popcorn, or even strange, glistening faces. Cascading waves of flowstone formed frozen waterfalls. The cavern amplified and echoed the drip of water, which fell into a clear, bluish pool in the center of the room.
For several seconds nobody said anything, they simply gawked, turning on their spare flashlights and flashing them around the chamber. Then they set about mapping the room. Benjamin wrote everything down, while the two women moved carefully around the room with their flashlights, calling out excitedly whenever they discovered a new formation.
Meggie forgot the time. They were squatting in the middle of the room, gobbling up their sandwiches and talking about what to call the room when she remembered. She grabbed Benjamin’s wrist and turned on the light.
“Crap, it’s 3:52,” she said. “We have to go.”
Kaitlyn groaned. “Who was supposed to be watching the time? Benjamin, what were you thinking?”
“Sorry,” he said, sheepishly.
“You’re the trip leader,” Meggie said. “That’s your job.”
“I didn’t see you taking charge, so why don’t you shut up?”
“Come on, guys,” Benjamin said. “It’s my fault. I was supposed to be watching.”
They scooped up their stuff, repacking their bags and strapping helmets into place. As incredible as this room was, Meggie was relieved to be turning around at last. All her worries were for nothing. She could stress about the embezzling later—now was the time to get back to the surface without goading the other woman any more.
“You know what comes next, right?” Kaitlyn said.
Benjamin turned. “Huh?”
“There’s no time to retrace our steps. That will take hours.”
“You should have thought—” Meggie began, then stopped herself. “I mean, if we were going to make that call, it should have been last time we had this discussion. But we pressed on. So now we’ve got to go back as quickly as we can, while still staying safe.”
“Too late for that. Those guys are expecting us at the truck. What happens when we don’t get back in time? They’ll drive off to find help. Then we’ll be stranded until they return. Not to mention having search and rescue show up.”
Meggie stared. “Are you serious? What about what you said before? You said we had plenty of time, that those guys would wait until midnight.”
“I said an hour. It’s now been an hour and a half, nearly.”
“Oh my God. I give up.”
“Stop fighting,” Benjamin cut in. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter whose fault it was. We don’t have a choice—we have to turn around.”
“Not necessarily.” Kaitlyn shone her light across the room. There, like a deeper shade of shadows, was the hole they’d spotted from the other side. The squeeze they’d ruled out after their initial descent. “We take the last squeeze.”
Meggie shook her head. “No.”
“We cut hours off our return, get back to the surface by seven. Collect our gear and we reach the truck by eight.”
“We didn’t like the squeeze then,” Meggie said, “so what makes it better now? We’re tired, impatient to get back. That’s the time people make mistakes.”
“Who’s the trip leader here, you or me?”
“A good trip leader doesn’t push when others are uncomfortable.”
“Bullshit. That’s exactly what a good leader does. She gets people out of their comfort zone.”
“Kaitlyn,” Benjamin said, sounding tentative. “Maybe Meggie has a point.”
Kaitlyn turned on him. “Strap on your balls for once.”
“Oh, come on!” Meggie said. “It’s a question of common sense. Let’s go back the other way. Really, it’s not worth it.”
But Kaitlyn was strolling across the room. Without waiting for the others, she shoved her pack into the hole. She leaned in until her entire head and shoulders were through, then pulled back again.
“See, plenty big.” Her tone was triumphant. “And my pack is through anyway. I’m committed. Now you babies can stay behind if you want. I’m going through. And then I’m going back to the surface—with or without you.”
“You’re out of your mind!” Meggie said.
She made her way to the crawl space that had brought them into the cavern. Compared to the stone birth canal Kaitlyn wanted to squirm through, it was a spacious, airy chasm. Before dropping to her belly and squirming inside, she looked back across the room. Kaitlyn had gone ahead and entered. She was already through past her hips, her legs disappearing into the hole like an animal sliding down the throat of a giant snake.
Damn you!
“Meggie,” Benjamin cried. “What do we do?”
“Come on. She made her choice. We’ll make ours.”
“But she’s the trip leader!”
“I’m not going in there. So help me God, I won’t.” She crossed back to him, then put her hands on his shoulders. “Come on, wake up. We have to go the other way. You know it.”
Grunting and scrapes came from the tunnel. Benjamin leaned down and shone his light in.
Was she stuck? Holy crap, what would they do then? And Meggie realized with a sick feeling in her stomach, that part of her wanted the other woman to get wedged. That would show her.
No, stop it. That’s wrong.
“Through!” Kaitlyn called, her voice echoing through the tunnel. Her light flashed through from the other side.
“Come on, let’s give it a shot,” Benjamin urged.
A bitter laug
h came up. “A shot? There’s no, ‘oops, guess it didn’t work.’ If you get stuck, that’s it. You’ll never get out.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
She grabbed his wrist. “We’re going back the other way. I mean it.”
“Come on, guys,” Kaitlyn coaxed from the other side. “You can do it.”
She sounded perfectly reasonable. Sure, now that she’d forced them into this awful situation. Waste hours going back around, or trust her against their own misgivings. Serious, deadly misgivings.
Benjamin pulled away. “I’m going for it.”
“I’m warning you,” Meggie said.
“What?”
She stopped what she was about to say. No ultimatums. The situation was too high stress. Whatever she said, she’d regret.
But in that moment he apparently decided. He shoved his pack in, took off his helmet and squirmed up into the hole.
“Benjamin!”
He didn’t listen, but kept moving forward. More slowly than Kaitlyn, and with a good deal of grunting, but little by little he disappeared into the hole. While Meggie looked in after him, his boots continued forward. He groaned and made straining noises, while Kaitlyn shouted at him to keep going. She was tugging on him. Then, a cry of satisfaction from the other side. He was through. His face looked back and squinted against Meggie’s flashlight.
“It’s not that bad,” he said. “A little tight at the end.”
“Seriously?”
“You can do it.”
You’ve got those wide hips, Kaitlyn had said, but maybe you’ll make it through.
This was nuts. She wasn’t going into that hole. It wasn’t simply a claustrophobic nightmare, there was real danger.
“What a coward,” Kaitlyn said. She’d pushed Benjamin out of the way to speak through the tunnel.
“No way. I’m going back. I don’t care if I’m alone or not.”
“You idiot, how are you going to do that? You don’t have the map.”
Full-blown terror blossomed in Meggie’s chest. “Benjamin!”
“He can’t hear you.”
“Benjamin!”
“Sorry, Megs. I sent him ahead to get started on the ropes. Give him a head start. He’s a slower climber than we are.”
He left? Didn’t even bother to encourage her through? What a jerk.
“Please, for God’s sake. I need the map.”
Kaitlyn laughed. “Oh, this is great. You’re stuck over there.”
“Don’t do this to me.”
“You’ll probably be okay. We took our time coming through. There were only a half-dozen different choices to make. You get them all right, you’ll find your way back around to here. We’ll wait for you on the surface.”
“Benjamin!” she screamed.
Meggie staggered back, gasping for air. The light blinked out on the other side. She screamed for Kaitlyn this time, but there was no answer. She heard the woman’s voice, calling ahead. The woman sounded calm, like she was shouting to Benjamin to assure him that everything was fine. Keep on climbing up, we’re right behind you.
“Stay calm,” Meggie told herself. “Don’t panic. Think.”
Going back alone and without the map was out of the question. Maybe she’d make it. Probably, even. But if she got lost, that could be fatal. Who knew how big these caves were? They might stretch for miles. There would be dead ends, chimneys, even underground pools. She’d wander around, tired, cold, frightened. Then the batteries would die on her lights. Then the spare batteries. She might stay alive for days, or even a week or two. Eventually, she’d curl into a shivering, starving ball in some black corner to die.
“Two choices. You wait for help, or you squeeze through.”
Waiting sucked. The other two would climb to the surface, wait for her there, then what? Kaitlyn might talk Benjamin into leaving her behind, ostensibly to get help, but those two guys at the truck wouldn’t buy it. They’d come back for her. Duperre would take charge, grab the map, while cursing the other two for being idiots, then lead a rescue himself.
“Unless he’s still puking up his guts.”
Say Duperre was sick. He still wouldn’t abandon her. He’d go fetch search and rescue. That would take time. Maybe twenty-four hours until they returned. She’d be cold, hungry, and thirsty, but alive.
“Or you could suck it up and crawl through there.”
It was the only sane choice. Those two assholes left her behind—and yes, she was fully including Benjamin when she thought that. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that they were done. The first thing she’d do when she got back to the surface was call off the wedding. Break up with him.
He’d sputter and whine, while Kaitlyn got in her aggressive little digs, but none of that mattered. Benjamin had shown exactly what kind of a man he was. The kind who would go ahead and not return. The kind who would leave her stuck in a cave. And that was not the kind of man Meggie wanted to spend her life with.
So she’d break up, tell him that Kaitlyn was stealing from the company, and leave it there. He could do with that information what he wanted. That was her only responsibility before she quit her job and Benjamin’s life forever.
Making a concrete decision about her future hardened her nerves. Without giving it another moment of thought, Meggie hurried to the hole and shoved her pack and her helmet into it. She plunged into darkness. Behind her, the steady drip of water into the pool.
“Go!”
She hoisted herself up, arms outstretched, squirming forward. Determination and adrenaline carried her in to her waist. She stuck briefly, but further squirming and twisting kept her moving forward. She pushed the pack and helmet ahead of her.
The tunnel grew tighter. It squeezed inexorably on her shoulders and pinched her chest. Her hips were too wide. Soon, she was gasping for air, fighting down panic. No way. She couldn’t do that. It would make her breathe faster, make her body swell. She’d get pinched and fight it and then . . .
Steady. Forward. Go.
The pack pushed ahead of her, then plopped out the end. She nudged her helmet all the way out, but didn’t knock it over the edge, afraid she’d break the light when it fell. But it was close. A few inches more, and she’d touch the empty space on the other end. She could get her fingertips around the opening and get some leverage. The stone was crushing her chest, but she exhaled all her air to make her lungs smaller, then one final push forward and . . .
Her hips wedged in the tunnel. Panic surged from some dark, hidden place inside, and up came a scream of absolute terror. But it wouldn’t come out. She had no breath. And she couldn’t move.
She was trapped.
Chapter Thirteen
Eric spotted a strange woman at breakfast on Sunday, sitting with the wheelchair team. She was talking to the aide, and then to Mr. Usher. Something about her didn’t look right, but he couldn’t figure out what. Mostly, he was looking at the pretty lady, but the distraction of the new woman made him forget why.
Meggie, the pretty lady’s name is Meggie.
Oh, yeah. Wes wanted him to speak to her, and he had. Three times. But she didn’t talk much. She was like Team Smile back at Riverwood. They never talked either. Eric was glad he wasn’t like that.
He liked to talk. He liked to listen, too, but the pretty lady could only talk with her eyes. They blinked sometimes, and she tapped one of her fingers. Eric was sure she was trying to say something, but he could never figure out what.
Eric had lived in group homes and other facilities for most of his life. Riverwood sucked. Yucky food and it smelled funny, like cleaning chemicals. Sometimes Mom and Dad brought him home to to visit, and he wanted to stay there. But they had jobs. Now Wes and Becca were getting married. They said he could live with them. He liked that.
Eric frowned and looked down at his bowl of Captain Crunch. Then why was he here? Why did Wes drop him off at Foggy Hill?
“Sherlock Holmes! That’s why!”
“Com
e on, Eric,” his aide said. “Your cereal is getting mushy.”
His aide was named Diego, which Eric thought was funny. That was the name of Dora the Explorer’s friend from the cartoon show.
“The rest of your team already finished,” Diego said, “and you have a lot to do if you’re going to be ready to go to the Devil’s Cauldron this afternoon.”
“What’s that?”
“The hot springs.”
“Oh, yeah! I love that!”
Diego laughed. “You haven’t been there yet.”
“Yes, I have.”
“Oh, yeah? When? You just got here a few days ago.”
Eric started to answer, but then he remembered what Wes told him. Not to talk about his family with anyone. They called that TOP SECRET. Like a spy. No, like Sherlock Holmes. On a top secret mission for Scotland Yard.
Diego rose to his feet. “Just hurry it up, will you? I’m going to help the others fold their laundry.”
When the aide was gone, Eric turned to stare at the pretty lady again. But Meggie’s aide had turned her chair around and was pushing her up the path to the residence halls. Instead, Eric’s eyes fell on the strange woman, who stood by herself with her arms crossed, next to one of the flowering poles. The roof out here on the veranda was made of vines and flowers that climbed across pieces of wood. It was kind of like being outside, but kind of like inside, too. Someone was really smart to think of that.
The woman stared back at Eric and something cold trickled down his back. Like how he and Wes used to throw snowballs down each other’s shirts when they were boys. Only it was warm outside, and there were bees buzzing on the flowers and no clouds in the sky.
You don’t belong here, he thought as he met the woman’s gaze. Why are you here?
Oh, now he knew why she didn’t belong. She wasn’t wearing the right clothes. All the aides wore smocks, blue and green, with pockets in the front for holding pencils and chewing gum and cigarettes. And Mr. Usher wore a white shirt and tie, and the nurses and doctors dressed in special white clothes. But this woman didn’t have anything special about her clothing.
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