“If I intertwine my hands and give you a boost while you jump, do you think you might be able to reach it?” Ramira asked.
“It’s worth a try.”
Ramira stepped up to the wall, interlocking her fingers. Bending over slightly, Zaac placed one foot in her hands. “On the count of three—one, two and three.”
Zaac jumped as Ramira shoved upward. He was able to grasp the ledge with the edge of his fingers. With this hold, he pulled his body up, getting first his elbows and then his knees onto the ledge. She passed him the packs and was soon beside him.
After a moment to catch their breath, they forged ahead up the passage with what little light the cellphone afforded. Zaac pointed the phone at his feet and held one hand up, moving it back and forth in front of his face to avoid any obstacles.
Suddenly Ramira spoke up, “I think we need to take the fork to the left.”
Zaac paused, “What fork to the left?”
“The one just ahead.” Ramira pointed with her hand.
Taking four more steps, Zaac reached a fork that branched to the right and left. He gave Ramira a look, lifting his eyebrows. Without a word, he took the fork to the left.
They continued for another hour before the cellphone’s light dimmed. Zaac started a fire. Even using the pages sparingly, he was tearing out a good portion of what was left of the trig book.
“You might want to help me here,” He suggested.
“What are you going to do?”
“We’re going to combine two pages and roll them up to make a single long one. We’ll use them as torches, lighting one after another.”
After they rolled the pages into long cylindrical tubes, Zaac asked, “Can you hold most of them and pass them to me as I need them? I’ll hold one, using it as a torch, and light the other when it dies down. If I have too many in my hand, I’m afraid I might catch more than one on fire.”
“Yes. I can do that.” Ramira picked up the tubes.
Zaac lit one from the fire. He kept another in his left hand. Ramira carried the remaining ones and they started on their way. The makeshift torches only lasted thirty to forty minutes. Before the last one went out, he rolled up a page and lit it, positioning it on the floor. He realized the pages burned more slowly rolled up than they did if he just laid them on the fire or crumpled them. They both rolled up several pages and set them aside to feed the fire.
“Now what?” Ramira asked. Her voice was tinged with despair.
Zaac was at a loss. “I’m not sure what would be best. We can continue to roll up all the pages using them as torches but that will only last so long. Then we will be in complete darkness. You must be getting hungry because I’m starving.”
“Me too. The Snickers and crackers yesterday morning didn’t last too long.” Ramira felt her stomach rumble at the thought of food.
“You want to get some sleep and see how we feel after a few hours rest?” Zaac thought sleep might get their minds off hunger.
“We might as well. But I already know that I’ll wake up hungry.” Ramira lay down, trying to get comfortable.
They were soon fast asleep. As the fire died down, the shadows disappeared and the darkness settled around them. The only sounds were their rhythmic breathing.
7
Ramira woke first after sleeping for six hours. Hunger gnawed at her. Zaac also awoke famished. He found his fire starter kit. It took a bit longer without any light source but soon he had a fire going.
Getting out the last bottle of Gatorade, he handed it to Ramira. Taking a few swallows, she said, “I’m starving. Are you?”
“Yep, famished.”
“What are we going to do? No light. Nothing to eat. We can burn the rest of our pages as torches but when they go, we will be left with nothing down here in the dark.” Ramira was getting agitated.
Zaac glanced up from the fire looking at her steadfastly, “Can I ask you a strange question?”
His tone of voice made Ramira stop what she was doing. “I guess so. What is it?”
Zaac struggled to word his question appropriately. “Have you ever had a sixth sense about seeing things before you saw them? I know that sounds weird but it is the best way that I can explain it.”
“No,” Ramira replied instantly. “Not that I can remember.”
“Well. You have displayed that quality three times now. The last time you knew that fork was there before we reached it and you also knew which way to go. How did you know it was there?”
“I don’t know,” Ramira replied. “It is like my mind pictured it even though I couldn’t see it.”
Sitting there putting pages on the fire, he wondered how she would feel about his next suggestion. He knew that she’d probably balk at it but he couldn’t think of anything else.
“Maybe you had this ability but since you never had to use it, you didn’t know it was there. These extraordinary circumstances have brought it out.”
“You make it sound like I’m psychic or something,” Ramira said.
“No. I don’t think it is psychic. I’m not exactly sure what it is. But it does look like you have a gift and maybe it just needs to be more developed to reach its full potential.”
Ramira thought about that. “How do you suggest that we do that?”
Zaac knew that he was about to blow her mind. “I was thinking along the line that maybe you could try to lead us down here in the dark.”
“You what? Are you crazy?” She thought Zaac had flipped. “There is no way that I’m going to lead us in this nightmare down here.”
“I’ll be right behind you all the way. When the space allows us, I’ll walk beside you.” Zaac paused for a moment to let Ramira absorb what he was saying. “If you like, we can hold hands. That way you’ll know that I’m with you.”
“It’s bad enough being down here period. It will scare me to death trying to lead us in the dark. Just the thought of it gives me the creeps.”
“Will you at least try? You never know until you give it a shot.”
Ramira thought about it for several minutes. She definitely did not want to lead them around in the dark. He must have lost his mind to even suggest it. But she had done some strange things the last few days. Maybe she did have a gift that she was just now starting to experience. She had no other explanation for what her brain had showed her recently.
Ramira was indeed experiencing a very strange phenomenon, one that no human had experienced before. The bat bites, the bat saliva, had caused a change in her biological functions. Her vocal cords had transformed, along with her ears and eardrums. She was intermittently sending out vocal signals that were being picked up and processed through her ears to her brain. Her brain was then processing the information and giving her a visual image in her head. In layman’s terms, she was beginning to acquire echolocation, much like bats use for navigation. It would become a lot more acute in the coming days.
“I’ll give it a try,” Ramira responded finally. “But I want you holding my hand every step of the way.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Zaac said. “I won’t be able to see a thing. I will definitely be holding your hand.”
She reached out with her right hand and took a hold of Zaac’s left. They started up the cave passage.
“Put your hand on my shoulder, I need both hands to feel my way along.” She lifted his hand to her shoulder.
She extended both hands, trying to feel in the dark. He placed his left hand on her shoulder and tried to use his right hand to feel anything that protruded.
“Let’s step to the right,” he suggested. “We can place our right hand on the wall and use that as a guide.”
“I’m starting to get very dizzy. I think the darkness is throwing off my equilibrium.” Ramira’s knees started to tremble.
“I am too.” Zaac’s head began to spin.
They reached out to touch the wall. Holding onto it, they stood swaying, trying to regain their balance.
“I don’t t
hink this is going to work.” Zaac hoped that he wouldn’t fall over.
Ramira’s head started to spin also. Her body began to sway. Her breathing increased with fear. She was having a panic attack. She opened her mouth to take more air into her lungs. Unknown to her, that allowed her to send air waves vibrating out from her vocal cords. They resonated off the cave walls and came back to her in signals. Her brain processed those signals and an image appeared in her mind of the cave passage surrounding her. The image was faint, but it was there.
Closing her mouth, she reached out to touch the far wall, working from the image in her brain. As soon as she closed her mouth and started forward, the image disappeared. Dizziness engulfed her and she fell to her knees. With another panic attack starting, she opened her mouth again to take in more air. Once more, the signals were sent out and retrieved, allowing the image to reappear in her brain. Her breathing slowed. The dizziness faded. She stood and stepped over to the far wall, touching it. Without realizing it consciously, she instinctively knew to keep her mouth open, allowing the image to stay.
She turned and walked back to Zaac. He had knelt because of the vertigo he was experiencing.
Ramira knelt down beside him. “Zaac, how are you feeling?”
“I’m a little lightheaded and dizzy. This darkness plays strange tricks on your mind.” His voice had a slight quaver.
“Here. Take my hands.” Reaching down, she held out her hands to him allowing him to touch them. She helped him to stand. “I know this will sound strange, but I have a mental image of you and the cave passage in my head. It’s like I can see in the dark, yet I can’t see a thing with my eyes.”
Zaac shook his head, trying to clear it.
“If you put one hand on my shoulder and hold my hand with the other, do you think that may be enough to steady you? I’ll lead us as well as I can.
Ramira reached around and took his left hand in her left hand. “Now place your right hand on my shoulder.”
With Zaac gripping her, she started forward. She navigated him around boulders, helped him to duck and assisted him over obstacles. She had to stop at one point to squeeze through a narrow enclosure, then helped him do the same thing. Progress was slow but they pressed on.
Abruptly she came to a halt. “There’s a hole here around three feet across. It looks like a chimney that goes down. I’m going to jump across, then guide you up to the edge. I will reach across and take your hand. When I say jump, you leap across after me. You should be able to jump across without a problem.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should build a fire so that I can see to jump across.”
“Sure, if you want but it would take more time to get a fire going than it would to just make the jump.”
Zaac thought about it for a few seconds. She was right, even if he didn’t like the situation. “Okay. I am going to trust you. Just don’t let me fall.”
Ramira couldn’t help but smile. “If I let you fall, who will keep me company?”
He couldn’t argue with that. “I’m ready when you are.”
Within a minute, they were both safely across. They continued up the cave, travelling steadily for several hours before Ramira suddenly stopped.
“What?” Zaac asked.
“There appear to be boulders sticking out from each of the walls. On the other side of the boulders, there are some shapes—a lot of little creatures on the walls and along the floor. Some type of bug or something. There are also a couple of larger creatures. I’m not sure what they are but they may be eating the bugs. I’ve watched you build fires. Let me try so we can get a better look.”
Gathering the supplies caused enough noise that whatever varmints were there scurried away. It took several tries but Ramira managed to get a good sized spark on the cotton ball, which jumped into a flame. She had torn a page into shreds and she added those, soon getting a tiny fire going.
“I wonder what they were.” Zaac was very interested. “That is the first life form we’ve come across besides insects.”
Ramira used her hands as she tried to describe them. “They were the size of a groundhog or raccoon. Hopefully we’ll get a better look at them later. But the most important thing is what they were doing here.”
“What do you mean?” Zaac asked in bewilderment.
“They were eating bugs.” She walked to the boulders. Reaching across, she picked a bug off of the wall. Taking a few steps further, she bent over and grabbed another one off the cave floor. She turned around and came back holding a bug in each hand. Sitting beside Zaac, she held them close to the fire, where they could see. One was a cave cricket. The other resembled some type of cockroach.
Zaac watched her with curiosity. “What are you going to do with those?”
“We are going to eat them.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Zaac said shaking his head. “I know I’m hungry, but not that hungry. Have you ever eaten a bug?”
“No, but I’ve eaten a worm.” Ramira smiled, remembering the occasion. “We were at camp and that was one of the dares the boys gave the girls. A couple of years ago I wrote a report on insect eating. You’d be surprised at how many places they eat bugs. There is a place in London where they serve it as fine cuisine. They serve locusts and crickets. They even have a bug salad. From what I read, half of the customers order something with bugs. It’s also a common form of street food in Thailand.”
“Just because some people have lost their minds doesn’t mean that I have. That is just plain gross.” Zaac screwed up his face.
Ramira wouldn’t be dissuaded. “If a person gets hungry enough, they will eat about anything. I don’t know about you, but I am pretty hungry. Our attitudes toward food are purely psychological. Once you overcome that barrier, you’ll be fine. Can I borrow your Leatherman?”
Zaac retrieved the Leatherman. She opened it and with the pliers, she removed the heads of the insects, then the legs and the wings. She remembered these were the parts that often got hung up in the throat. She took a bottle of water to help wash down any remains.
“Here goes nothing,” she said as she stuck the cricket in her mouth. Biting through the exoskeleton, she chewed quickly and swallowed, her face crinkling up. A nutty flavour filled her mouth. After a swallow of water, she stuck the bug that looked like a cockroach in her mouth. Since it was larger, the chewing took longer but she soon had it swallowed along with another mouthful of water.
“That wasn’t so bad. The flavour reminded me a little of macadamia nuts. I’ve tasted worse.”
Zaac sat there astonished. “You ate those like it was nothing.”
“It won’t replace pizza, but right now, we need nourishment and there isn’t anything else.”
Ramira took the Leatherman over with her and as she gathered more bugs, she plucked the heads off. When she had about ten, she came back over to the fire and started repeating the process.
After she had eaten her fourth bug and was getting ready to start on the fifth, Zaac spoke up, “I might as well give it a try. I am hungry enough to eat about anything. Can I have one of the crickets?”
Taking a bottle of water out, he stuck the cricket in his mouth. When he took his first chew, he closed his eyes and made a very strange face. Chewing faster, he finally managed to swallow and quickly took a couple drinks of water.
“Yuck. That was awful.”
Ramira had to laugh at his difficulty. “Your face was priceless. Here, try one of the other ones,” she said passing him a second bug.
He made just as many faces getting that one down. “I don’t know how you do it. But we don’t really have much choice in the matter, do we?”
“If we want to keep up our strength we don’t.” She popped another bug into her mouth.
Finishing off the ten bugs, they gathered twelve more and soon those were gone too. They topped them off with two swallows of Gatorade. Even though their taste buds rejected the bugs, their digestive system devoured them for the much needed nutrition.<
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They started again up the passage with Ramira leading. The travel was slow but uneventful until the ceiling lowered, requiring them once again to use the bear crawl. This lasted only half an hour, with Zaac bumping his head once in the darkness. Then the height increased and they walked normally for an hour. Suddenly the cave ended. The only opening was a small one on the right about three feet high.
Ramira quickly built a fire enabling Zaac to see. Having him wait, she crawled in the hole until only her legs below the knees were visible. Flipping over, she paused then retreated back out.
“The hole turns into a chimney that looks to be about eight feet high. The cave passage continues normally at that point off to the right. I’ll climb up through the chimney first. After I get on top, I’ll turn around and reach back down. When you stand up, you should be able to touch my hand.”
Zaac wanted to do his part since she was leading so well. “I’ll take both of the packs in with me and pass them up to you after you reach the top.”
“Sounds good.” She started into the hole. “I’ll let you know when I get there.”
Ramira disappeared. Within a few minutes, she called for Zaac to follow. When he started into the hole, the light from the fire quickly turned to darkness. He pushed the packs ahead of him until they couldn’t go any further. Turning over on his back, he felt the opening to the chimney. He squirmed and wiggled until he was able to sit up. After a lot of maneuvering and twisting, he could stand in the tight confines of the chimney. He passed the packs up and was shortly sitting beside Ramira.
They rested for a few minutes and drank some water before continuing up the passage. They soon reached a cavern with walls that gave off a pale green phosphorescent glow. They ran their hands over the strange illumination. It was soft to the touch.
“Is it some type of moss?” Ramira asked. An eerie light bathed her face.
Cave Dwellers Page 6