Natural Selection

by Liz Wolfe

  “How far have we gone?” Aleisha asked in a whisper, then giggled. “And why does everyone always whisper in the dark?”

  “We’ve used a little more than one of Alex’s rappel lines, so just over two hundred feet.” Paige flashed the light on. The first fork in the tunnel lay just ahead. “We’re going to take the fork to the left first.”

  Aleisha nodded and gripped her hand even tighter. “God, I hope we find a way out of here.”

  “We will. We just have to be patient and not make any stupid mistakes.”

  “Just smart mistakes?” Aleisha chuckled weakly.

  “Only kind to make.”

  They scuttled into the corridor several paces, and she flicked the flashlight on for a few seconds. The tunnel got smaller as it went deeper, then turned to the right. Paige already had a sinking feeling this wasn’t going to be their exit of choice.

  “You stay here for a few minutes. It gets really narrow up there.”

  Aleisha reluctantly let go of her hand. “You sure?” “I’m sure. I’m just going up to where the tunnel turns and see what’s up there.”

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll just wait here?”

  “You just wait here. I’ll only be a few minutes. Don’t move.”

  “No problem. I couldn’t move if I had to.”

  Paige walked toward the bend in the tunnel, keeping one hand on the wall. She felt the top of the corridor brush her head and ducked down a few inches. A few feet further, she had to crouch more. When she reached the bend, she turned on the flashlight and moved it around the tunnel.

  Exactly what she had feared. The tunnel quickly dropped to a space so small, she would have been lucky to get through it, much less Connor or Ty. She fought off a little panic that it would be the only way out. Paige turned off the flashlight and rolled the rappel line up as she made her way back to Aleisha.

  “No good. It dwindles down to a crevice that you and I could get through, but most of the men would have a problem.”

  “Damn.” Paige could hear the frustration and fear in Aleisha’s voice. And she honestly couldn’t say she blamed her a bit. “What do we do now?”

  “We take the other corridor and see where that leads us.” Paige stuffed the rolled line back into her bag and gathered up more of it as they retraced their steps back to the fork.

  “And we keep trying different ones until we find one that leads out.” Paige flashed the light briefly down the tunnel to the right. Aleisha sighed but didn’t say anything. They walked along the corridor until they ran out of rappel line again.

  “Hold on. I need to tie on another line.”

  “Already?” Aleisha asked. “I didn’t think we’d gone that far.”

  “About five hundred feet so far.” Paige tied on the additional line and flashed the light again. The tunnel veered off to the left about twenty yards ahead. She sent up a little prayer to whatever gods might be looking down on her at the moment.

  Touching the wall as they shuffled along, she and Aleisha reached a point where she guessed the corridor curved. Paige turned the light on again and they crept around the bend into a huge room with a pool in the center.

  “Wow!” Aleisha whispered into the echoing cavern. “This is huge.”

  “But it’s not outside.” They walked down to the pool and Paige dipped her hand in the water and sipped. “It’s not salt water. At least we’ve got a supply of fresh water.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought about water.”

  “Yeah, it’s kinda important.”

  “Makes me thirsty, just thinking about running out.” Aleisha stooped to scoop up some water but Paige pulled her back.

  “Not until we’ve purified it. Here.” Paige handed her the water bottle she had brought with them. Aleisha drank thirstily and handed it back. Paige took a sip and put it back in the waist bag.

  “Where do we go now?” Aleisha asked.

  “There are no other tunnels to follow from here. Let’s go back to the starting point. You walk ahead of me and follow the line. I’ll gather it up as we go.” Paige handed her the flashlight. “Just turn it on every few minutes so we know where we’re going.”

  Aleisha moved ahead slowly. After a few minutes she picked up a rhythm of walking about twenty steps then shining the light around. It was quicker walking back since they weren’t looking for other avenues to explore. Paige glanced at her watch when they entered the front chamber where the men were still moving rocks. Just over an hour had passed.

  “Looks like you guys are making progress.” The pile of rocks they’d moved from the entrance to one side was substantial.

  “We haven’t hit daylight yet,” Connor said. “I’d give a lot to know just how thick this is. We might be beating our heads against a stone wall. Pun fully intended.”

  “We hit a stone wall, too, pretty much,” Paige admitted. “But we did find a room with a freshwater pool. At least we won’t die of thirst.”

  “That’s good news. The water bladders are almost empty.” Connor nodded at the bladders and sat down beside her.

  “Hey, I just had a break; I’ll go fill the bladders,” Nick said.

  Paige unfastened the line bag and handed it to him. “Use this.” She gave him directions to the pool. “And don’t drink any until we’ve added the purification tablets.”

  Nick took off, Alex and Ty returned to moving rocks. Connor sat with Paige in the dark for a few minutes, then heaved himself back to his feet. “Break’s over. Ty, your turn.” He stooped to give her a quick kiss before he turned the flashlight on and moved the light over the entrance.

  The pile of rocks they’d cleared was impressive but the entrance still looked the same. And they had no idea how much rock and dirt was piled in front of the entrance. Tunneling through would have been better, but they had nothing to brace the tunnel with.

  “I’m ready for a short break,” Ty said as he took his turn to rest for a few minutes. Connor turned the light off and darkness enveloped them again.

  Paige sat in the dark and thought about their situation. Obviously, clearing the cave opening wasn’t going to work. Moving the rock in total darkness was going too slowly. Turning the flashlight on and working faster would burn up the only source of light they had. Light that they would need if they couldn’t dig their way out.

  The only good thing about being buried in the cave was that it was unlikely the Hunters would find them. On the other hand, there wasn’t anyone else to find them either. Even though she was in total darkness, Paige closed her eyes to think about their location.

  The cave was on the northeast part of the island. The mountain it was in jutted up close to the beach. Possibly there were tunnels that led to a sea cave. Then again, there could be tunnels that just led to another opening somewhere else on the mountain. She refused to acknowledge the possibility that none of the tunnels led anywhere. She had no idea which tunnel might lead to an opening. Paige would have to rely on instinct and guesswork.

  All in all, being buried alive didn’t have much to recommend it.

  By the time Nick returned with the water and added the purification tablets, Paige had come to the conclusion that they needed a different approach to getting out. She turned on the flashlight again and everyone gave her his or her attention.

  “We need to rethink what we’re doing,” Paige said. “The rock moving is going too slowly to be really productive. If we use the flashlights, we can move the rock faster, but we’ll also use up our only source of light.”

  When everyone nodded, Paige continued. “I think we should concentrate our efforts on finding another exit from the cave.” Five dejected faces looked back at her. “But I have to be honest here. I’m not a spelunker. I know next to nothing about caves, and even less about cave-ins.” She looked at each person. “Any ideas? Comments?”

  “You’ve steered us right so far,” Ty said. “I vote we go with your decision.”

  His words were followed by a chorus of nods and mumbled affirmations. Swell. Pai
ge had kind of been hoping someone had a better idea.

  “Here’s what I suggest, then. We head into the interior of the cave, through that corridor.”

  Paige pointed to the one she and Aleisha hadn’t explored. “When we come to a fork, one of us ties a line onto the main line and goes to check it out.”

  “Good idea,” Connor said. “If the person finds something promising, we can all head in that direction. If it’s a dead-end, the person comes back and joins us.”

  “Exactly. We’d be better off if we had more line. All together, this is only a thousand feet. At some point, we might have to stop using it and venture out without a line back.”

  That brought on total silence.

  “Wait. I’ve got some cord in my pack,” Ty said. “I’d forgotten about it. It’s about five hundred feet, I think.”

  “Oh, I’ve got my crochet yarn,” Aleisha offered. “I don’t know how many feet it is, but I’ve got two skeins of it.”

  “Get it,” Paige instructed both of them, shining the light on their packs so they could find the items.

  Aleisha’s yarn was delicate and could easily break, so Paige stowed that at the bottom of the bag to use as a last resort. She added Ty’s cord on top of that and put the rappel line back in the bag.

  “All right. Let’s all lie down and get some rest. We didn’t get more than a couple hours’ sleep last night, and we’ll do better rested.”

  Paige left the light on until everyone had found his or her sleeping place, then turned it off. She noticed that Alex and Aleisha had been moving their sleeping areas closer together each night until they were pretty much in one area now. She couldn’t say she blamed them. She was pretty happy to have Connor’s warm body next to hers.

  Everyone settled in quickly. The drain of the adrenaline rush from the cave-in along with the labor of moving rocks had tired the men out, and Aleisha looked ready to drop from fear and frustration. Paige understood that feeling. She wasn’t far from it herself.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  PAIGE WOKE AND OPENED HER EYES to inky darkness. She fought down the panic that wrapped itself around her chest and threatened to cut off her breath. She forced herself to take deep, slow breaths until the hammering of her heart slowed. She was damned well not going to die in a cave. Was she a model of positive attitude, or what? Paige turned on the flashlight, dismayed at how weak the beam was, and woke the others.

  After a few minutes of stretching and getting some water, she sent the men off with one of the flashlights to the tunnel that she and Aleisha had explored earlier to take care of their personal business. When they returned, Paige and Aleisha took their turns.

  Paige’s watch showed that it was six in the morning. They had slept for about four hours. She examined the rubble filling the cave entrance for any sign of light but was disappointed. She went over the instructions again, and they all set off down the unexplored corridor.

  After a couple hundred yards, they came to the first fork. Connor tied Ty’s cord onto the rappel line and set off with the second flashlight while the rest of the group continued on. The batteries in one flashlight had burned out, and Paige replaced them. They still had two batteries left. Precious little light in such complete darkness. She pushed that thought to the recesses of her mind, refusing to dwell on it.

  They had moved another hundred feet along the tunnel when Paige felt a tug on the line. She had been keeping it taut, so Connor could tug on it to signal when he was ready to return. She stopped and turned on the flashlight, holding up a hand to stop everyone behind her. In a few minutes, she saw the light of Connor’s flashlight.

  “Anything good?” Paige asked.

  “I think so. You need to come look at it.” He was breathing hard and his hands and knees were covered with dirt.

  “The corridor goes down at a pretty steep angle, and it’s tight in places, but I was able to get through.” Everyone looked at him expectantly in the dim glow of his flashlight.

  “I saw daylight.”

  A big whoop followed which echoed through the tunnel until Paige held up a hand to quiet everyone.

  “But?”

  “The opening is high. Too high for me to be able look out, and it’s small. I don’t think a couple of us would fit through it.”

  “Stay here,” Paige instructed the group. There was some muttering and protesting, but they all stayed where they were.

  “We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  She left Connor’s almost dead flashlight with the group and used the one with the fresher batteries to follow Connor back along the rappel line to the cord he’d tied off. They had to squeeze through some tight places, but she knew if Connor could get through the others could, too.

  The corridor was a steep incline, and they both stumbled a few times in their haste. When Paige saw what he was talking about she decided she would have crawled there on her belly. Naked. Over sharp rocks or burning coals. Maybe both.

  In the ceiling of the tunnel, there was a fissure glowing with daylight. Paige had never seen anything so welcome in her entire life.

  “Let’s check it out.” She clicked off the flashlight and they hurried to the opening. It was several feet above Connor’s head.

  “Give me a leg up,” she said. Connor cupped his hands and Paige placed her foot in them.

  He lifted and she was suddenly about three feet off the ground. And still a couple feet away from the opening. Paige reached up and grasped the edge with her fingertips. If she stood on his shoulders, she could probably put her head and shoulders through and see what was out there.

  “Hold on. I’m going to climb up onto your shoulders. You okay with that?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Connor stood rock solid while she climbed up, first putting a knee on his shoulder then shakily getting to her feet, steadying herself with her hands on the rock. She pushed her head and shoulders through the opening and blinked at the sunlight. The fissure opened up in the jungle. Not very deep into it, from the amount of vegetation she saw.

  “Sweeeeet!” Paige yelled. True, the fissure was too small for the men to get through, but they could hack away at it until it was big enough. In her enthusiasm, she lost her footing on Connor’s shoulders and fell. Her fingers grasped at the rock, tearing what was left of a few fingernails, and the backs of her thighs landed solidly on his shoulders, her crotch about two inches from his face.

  “Under different circumstances, I’d take advantage of this situation,” he said calmly, his hands coming up to cup her ass and steady her tenuous balancing act.

  Paige’s breath hitched in her throat at the arousal that surged through her body. A hot, wet need spiraled from somewhere deep inside her. She hung there for a moment, hands grasping the ledge of rock, taking a portion of the weight of her thighs off his shoulders.

  “Under different circumstances, I’d let you.” Her voice was deep and raspy even to her own ears. Somehow it seemed a little kinky to be that aroused considering their situation. When she got back to civilization she would have to get online and do some research into the effects of danger on the libido.

  Paige finally managed to pull herself into a half chin-up and lifted her crotch away from his hot breath. She swung her thighs off his shoulder and dropped to the ground in front of him.

  “But right now, let’s tell everyone the good news.”

  They were back with the group as fast as their legs could carry them up the corridor’s steep incline. Paige used the flashlight with reckless abandon, wanting to see the look on everyone’s faces.

  “We’re outta here!” she announced.

  The whoops of joy reverberated off the cavern walls and Paige didn’t do a thing to stop them. They had been through hours of hell, wondering if they would ever get out of that damn cave. They deserved a little whoop-ass celebration.

  The group hurried back to the front of the cave and gathered their few possessions. Paige took one last look around the cavern
to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything, because she knew for sure she was never going back into the cave again. Satisfied they had gotten everything, she led the group back through the corridor, down the incline to the fissure in the tunnel ceiling.

  They took turns using knives as chisels and rocks as hammers, standing on shoulders, chipping away at the fissure. Minute by minute, the opening got bigger, until it was finally wide enough for even Connor to crawl through. Paige stood on Connor’s shoulders and pushed all their gear up through the opening. Backpacks, tarps, water bladders, their few cooking utensils, the compound bow, recurve bow, and arrows she had appropriated from the Hunters’ storage shed. With all the gear outside, Paige dropped down from Connor’s shoulders and looked at the group.

  “Okay, here’s how it goes. First, Aleisha goes up, then Alex, Nick, and Ty. Then Connor. When he’s up, Connor and Ty will pull me up with the rappel line.” Feet shuffled and Paige strained to hear the murmurs from everyone.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “You should go first,” Aleisha finally said.

  “What?”

  “You should go first,” Nick reiterated. Alex nodded. “Hey, you and Connor found the opening, it’s only fair,” Ty agreed.

  Paige rolled her eyes. “Are we back to fair again, Ty?” She grinned to ease the sting of her words. Ty chuckled.

  “Listen, this is practical. The opening’s too high for anyone to get through without having someone else to step on. I have you going up in order of weight because that’s the logical thing to do.”

  They all looked at her as if none of them had thought of it before. “I’m last because I’m the strongest for my size. That means I’m strong enough for Connor to stand on to get out, but I’m still easy to pull up on a rope. Nothing personal, it’s just the best way, all right?”

  Everyone nodded except Connor.

  “No. You go up ahead of me. Between you, Ty and Nick, you can pull me through.”