by John Bolin
Gator grunted. “Yeah, and that creepy donkey?”
Peter laughed. “The burro’s movement on the ground? That was a muscle reaction that only looked to be manipulated.”
“You’re losing me, Pete,” Linc said. “But I gotta give you props for being creative. Now explain the levitation.”
Peter shivered again and pulled the torch a bit closer. He walked on a few steps as if he hadn’t heard. “Watch your step here.”
Gator chuckled. “You got him on that one, Linc. Hit him again.”
“Yes,” Alex said from farther back in the tunnel, “I’d like to hear this one, too.”
“What about it?” Linc said.
Peter sighed. “That’s the one that gets me. My current theory involves delayed hallucinogenic effects of the chich, but I’m still working on it. I know the answer is out there, but I can’t quite place it.”
“Are you honestly that much of a skeptic?” Linc asked. “For crying out loud, the animal was flying in the air. Now, it’s a shish kebab. And you’re trying to tell me there’s a perfectly good explanation for that?”
Peter knew it sounded nuts. As he walked, Gator’s words came to him. I don’t think we should play around with this.
“Sure,” he said forcefully. “There has to be. Hey, magicians have used rods and fabric for years to misdirect audiences and levitate things. Some even used magnets to do it.”
“That’d be one heck of a magnet,” Linc said. “And where is it? Besides, any of that stuff means you gotta have a magician. Tima is not a magician.”
“I don’t know, all right!” Peter whipped the torch backward. It made a swooshing noise as it moved. “I have no clue how she did it, okay? I just know there’s some explanation. And just because we can’t explain it right now doesn’t mean it was some act of God.” He turned to walk deeper down the tunnel. “Gimme some time, I’ll figure it out.”
“Easy, Pete,” Linc said. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Peter kept walking. He didn’t need this, not now. “Forget about it, Linc.”
“Well,” Linc said, blowing it off, “too bad I didn’t get it on tape, huh? Now, that would make an episode. Crazy Incan girl levitates and then makes donkey on a stick.”
“No doubt about that,” Peter said. He laughed, trying to release the tension.
Sure, Zachary, the donkey was crawling. Of course, it was all a mass hallucination. And the fact that the donkey really was skewered on that stalagmite? What about that? Maybe it climbed up there on its own and threw itself down. Sure. Whatever.
Ahead of him, Peter could see a wall. As the light from his torch drew closer, he realized that they had moved from a tunnel into another small cave. But there was a problem.
There were three separate passageways leading forward.
Peter stopped, and the others pulled up beside him. Gator and Linc lowered Tima to the ground.
“Looks like we’ve got a choice to make,” Peter said.
Linc swept his torch over the passageways. “Eenie, meenie, minie, moe.”
“This big problem,” Skins said. He turned in a circle with his hands in the air. “This big problem. Maybe we go back now, yes?”
“No,” Peter said quickly. “We’ve just got to pick the right one.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?” Linc asked.
Peter turned to Tima. “We ask her.”
But Tima was already investigating one of the tunnels. She turned and shook her head. “Not go,” she said, pointing to one of the tunnels.
“Hmm,” Peter said. He shrugged and decided to go a few steps into each entrance behind Tima. Alex and Linc followed him. The first branch snaked out to the right of the cave. Small, fist-sized stones had been placed around the entrance in an arc. Some of the stones had symbols on them.
“What are those?” Linc asked.
“They look like some form of hieroglyphics,” Alex said, “but I don’t recognize them. Could be pre-Incan.”
Alex pointed to the symbols and spoke to Tima. Tima shrugged.
“She doesn’t recognize it,” Alex said.
They all moved to the second tunnel. It went straight ahead. It was identical to the first, except that the stones over it had different symbols. The third was rough-hewn, without symbols or stones. Inside, the path seemed to arc upward.
Peter walked back to the middle of the room and turned to Alex. “You’re the anthropologist. Any ideas?”
“I don’t know. If I could read the symbols, it might give us some clue.”
“Footprints!” Skins said.
Everyone looked at him.
“Follow the footprints.”
“Good idea.” Peter lowered his torch toward the ground. Sure enough, there were footprints at each of the tunnel entrances. But there was a clear concentration of prints at the second tunnel, prints going in and out.
“Looks like we’ve found our tunnel,” Linc said.
Peter shook his head. “I don’t know. I’d hate to waste time. It could be a dead end.”
“Could be,” Gator said, walking toward the group, “but it’s the best guess we can make without knowing for sure. I say we take our chances and take the road more traveled.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Alex said. “It’s as good a guess as anything else.” She turned to Tima.
Tima moved to the final tunnel and looked inside. She turned and nodded. “This right one. This Eden.”
“That settles it,” Peter said. “Load up and let’s go.”
* * *
They’d walked along this stone path for an hour. Over the last twenty minutes the footprints had gotten less and less frequent.
But there were other signs of life now. Broken pottery, ancient remains of burned wood, and more bones. Peter didn’t bother telling the others about the skeletons from the cave. Even though these bones were old, the fact that they were there seemed to make everyone hopeful, especially Alex. Peter decided Alex’s excitement was half because it meant they might be closer to the Mek and half because she was an anthropologist. Twice she’d made them all stop so Linc could snag some footage.
That’s what she was doing now.
Peter watched as Alex knelt down while Linc took out the video camera and got footage of the bones, plus Alex’s technical commentary. Skins sat against one of the walls nursing a water bottle. Tima followed behind Alex.
“Can you guys believe this?” Alex’s voice was high-pitched and excited, like a child’s.
No one was going to move, so Peter shuffled over and leaned in over her shoulder. In the torchlight, he could see what looked to be a perfectly intact skeleton. It was half-buried in the dirt, with its arms folded across its chest. There were what looked to be metallic ornaments still attached to the wrists and around its neck.
Alex carefully wrapped her fingers around a braided rope that still hung from the person’s neck. It had a pendant at the end of it, some sort of faded gemstone. She lifted her fingers, and the rope easily broke free from the dirt. She brought the stone to her face and looked at it closely. She even extended her tongue and tasted it. She let out a short laugh and then turned to face Peter. “It’s gold.”
“What!” Linc said, lowering the camera and then immediately bringing it up again and zooming in. “I think you’re right. What a score!” He reached toward the necklace.
“Not so fast, Linc,” Alex said. “This is fragile stuff. We can’t just take it. We’ll send back a team from the Smithsonian.”
Linc sighed. “So close . . . and yet so far away.”
Peter furrowed his brow. Something about this wasn’t right.
Alex took a few more pictures and put the jewelry back where she’d found it insisting that they’d send in a proper archeology team later.
Peter got the group up and moving again.
They kept walking, upward now, for another hour. Finally the path leveled and then headed downward, at first at a slight angle and then steeper. Small stair st
eps were carved into the rock, but even so the team had to slow considerably to make their way down. Progress became tedious. As they descended, water began to run down a mostly dry, bowl-shaped riverbed that ran parallel to the steps. Peter guessed they were halfway across the mountain by now.
And on the other side? Perhaps a valley perennially shrouded in mist. Hidden from satellite cameras. And the home of Bogart’s killer.
Peter noticed that there was little noise in the tunnel except for the trickle of water, the small falling rocks, and the sound of the team behind him huffing and puffing as they hiked. He also noticed that of the members of the team, Tima was faring the best of them all. While the rest of the team was struggling now with almost every step, Tima was walking with strong steps, her breathing strong and measured.
As Peter moved to a spot near the back of the line, just ahead of Gator, who carried the torch at the rear, they heard a deafening crash.
It was an explosion, right behind Peter
The blast and debris ripped through the tunnel, followed by what felt like an earthquake.
Everyone hit the dirt. Tima landed sidelong on the ground, near Peter. A giant gust of wind rushed through the passageway, blowing out the torches.
“Is everyone all right?” Peter asked.
Collective moans, but everyone was accounted for.
“What was that?” Linc asked.
“Uh, I think it was some sort of cave-in,” Gator said. “Some pieces of rock hit me.”
Gator’s words sounded more muffled to Peter. There was less echo. It was as if someone had dampened the room. Probably just a temporary drop in his hearing due to the sound of the explosion. And yet the sound of water off to one side was louder.
“Everyone hold tight,” Gator said. “Let me get this torch relit.”
Linc moaned. “The torches! Peter, the torches are out! Too much CO2!” He took a massive breath and held it.
“Relax, Linc,” Peter said. “The blast knocked out the torches, not too much CO2.”
Peter could hear Gator’s lighter as the metal wheel struck against flint. After a dozen attempts, he managed to get a flame, long enough to light the wad of fuel-soaked fabric.
Now Peter could see down the tunnel in the direction they’d come—the direction of the blast.
Just past him, no farther than ten feet up the path, a pile of rocks and debris clogged the tunnel from top to bottom and side to side. Peter snatched the torch and walked over to the pile. It was thick and deep. No way they’d be able to dig their way out. He glanced over at the water running down the mountain. It was sluicing down the smooth rocks with greater speed. The cave-in must have breached a deep spring or water table. In any case, the water kept flowing through the crumbled cave.
There was an awkward silence as everyone took in the situation. The stairs ahead of them dropped and winded until they faded out of the firelight. No telling how far they went.
“Look at the bright side,” Linc said. “At least now we know which way to go.”
Alex and Gator laughed nervously.
Peter didn’t. He suddenly realized what was so strange about the skeleton with the jewelry. Anyone could have come along and picked up the gold necklace. It had hardly been buried and was probably worth a life’s fortune. Anyone would’ve seen it and taken it.
Unless no one had walked that far into the tunnel.
The torch in Peter’s hand began to flicker. He looked at it. As if it had now sucked from the room all the oxygen it could find, it faded and went out. Peter knew what that meant.
So did Linc.
* * *
Alex moved as fast as she could down the steps, but she knew it wasn’t fast enough. Peter had told them they had ten minutes until they began to suffer the effects of oxygen deprivation and too much CO2.
So they were running—at times sliding—down the stone staircase, probing forward with their flashlights. Maybe they could find a passage or chamber that could bring them oxygen.
The beams bounced all over the place, and Alex had to be careful not to trip. She wouldn’t get a second chance. It was too steep. A fall would almost certainly mean a broken arm or leg and stop all progress. Not that it would matter.
It was still slow going. Fifty yards had taken them five minutes.
Alex stumbled and toppled forward into thin air.
Panicked, she reached backward. She hit the steps hard on her side. Her body twisted, sending her sliding toward the underground river. She grabbed for the steps with both hands and managed to stop her forward progress.
Everyone stopped.
“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “I don’t know what happened. What a klutz.”
Peter steadied Tima. “No, it’s not your fault. It’s the CO2. It affects your sense of balance. There’s nothing you can do about it. If the air’s no better here, we’ve only got two minutes, maybe three.”
Alex felt like her head would explode. The flashlight beam was going in and out of focus. She needed to throw up. Skins put his head between his legs and started to moan.
“Wait a minute!” Peter said, struggling to stand up. “There’s only one way out.”
Alex’s mind was foggy. She squeezed her eyes, trying to focus.
“The river! We’ve got to get in the water. Ride it down.”
“Huh?” Alex said.
“A waterslide,” Gator said. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”
There was no time for planning. They just started to get in. Alex decided to go last. She was the lightest. Better her to fall on them all than, say, Gator.
“Ditch everything except the guns. Hang onto them if you can,” Peter said.
“What about the camera?” Linc asked.
Peter paused for a second. “Forget about it,” he said as he handed Alex the flashlight and rolled into the water on his back. The water swept him into the darkness below. Gator did the same. Tima volunteered to go next, understanding what was happening. Then Linc and Skins. Until Alex was alone.
She shone the light into the water. She could see little rivulets carved into the stone. Was that even a word? Rivulet. For some reason, it didn’t seem right, too small. Maybe the word was gully. It seemed to fit better. Little gullies in the stone, like a thousand miniature streams, filled with water, following gravity to the bottom. Her mind was drifting. What was she supposed to be doing?
The world was spinning. She felt drunk. Her heart was racing. Her tongue was thick and her legs wobbly. With no more strength in her body, she fell into the water and rolled, somehow managing to hold the flashlight.
The force of the water took her away, down into the darkness.
She still held the flashlight in her hand as the water rushed over her. It was ice cold and helped to jolt her awake a bit. She lay in the torrent with her hands on her chest, her legs taut and unmoving. The water was furious around her, taking her down the mountain. This was probably a very bad idea.
The water made a turn. Alex rolled to one side, hydroplaning. Water shot up her nose and mouth like a jet. She sputtered and covered her face.
And the flashlight was gone.
Her breath came in short, desperate pumps, as if they were the last ones she’d ever take. The darkness swallowed her, blackness and moving water.
In her mind she was suddenly back under the water in the Amazon River, being held away from air by some invisible hand. Then she was in her tent, and the large weight was pressing down on her chest. Then she was flying through the air, subject to some unknown entity.
What was happening to her?
She stretched out her hands to either side to serve as rudders. Though she couldn’t see where she was going, she knew she was moving too fast.
All she needed to do was grab rock or an outcropping, but the angle of descent was too steep and the stone beneath her too slippery. She kept clawing at the stone tube around her but couldn’t grab anything.
She had to make it. Not for herself, but
for Tima. Alex took some comfort in the fact that she hadn’t run into any of the team yet. That had to mean they were farther down the river. Whether they were dead or alive, Alex didn’t know. But the thought that Tima might be waiting for her, hoping for her, gave Alex hope, maybe faith.
A branch! She saw a branch or maybe a tree root ahead. All she needed to do was—