ARES Virus: Arctic Storm (22 page)

Understanding exactly what is happening, he knows that he has to stop Clarke’s fall or be swept away with her, both of them plummeting toward an unknown end. In the darkness, he hears slithering and flailing, along with sharp grunts emanating from Clarke’s position. In one fluid motion, he drops his carbine, hops to replace his secure foot with the other, crouches slightly, and reaches upward with his now free open palm, searching. In the background, he hears the flashlight and carbine skip and clatter down the slope.

I will not be budged. I am rock and will not move
, he thinks, feeling his hand come into contact with a firm pair of buttocks.

He pushes upward to halt Clarke’s slide. His muscles strain to stop her momentum without allowing his foot and other hand to move from their precarious holds. The effort presses Clarke’s midsection hard against the stone floor.

Brown hears Clarke fart and feels a slightly warmer passage of air pass by his hand, but her slide stops after a few inches.

You have to be kidding me!

After making sure that neither of them is going to move any further, the fact of where exactly his hand is comes to the forefront of his thoughts.

Good thing she rolled over
.

He can feel Clarke’s arms and legs flail as she frantically searches for a grip on the floor.

“Relax, lass. I’ve got you. Now slow your movements and carefully find your footing.”

Brown feels Clarke’s movement become less desperate as she finds secure purchases.

“Okay, I think I have it,” she replies.

Brown slowly releases his firm grip, waiting to see if she starts sliding again. She doesn’t move.

“Okay, work your way back to a standing position.”

He can’t see anything, but her movements indicate that she’s able to do just that.

“Thanks, Sergeant,” she replies after gaining her footing.

“Think nothing of it.”

“You didn’t manage to jump out of the way.”

“You didn’t give me half a fucking chance. Are you okay to move on?”

“I think so,” Clarke states.

“Is that our flashlight way down there?” Hayward asks from above.

“Yes. And it’s your job to go retrieve it,” Brown replies.

“What?”

“Never mind. Just hang on a sec.”

Brown turns to look down their path. In the distance, he barely makes out a beam emanating from the flashlight.

That’s one fucking tough flashlight
, he thinks, trying to identify what it has stopped against, but unable to.

“Open the outside pouch on my pack and grab another flashlight,” Brown says.

He feels Clarke fumbling for the zipper. A light flashes on, indicating that she found one.

“Do you think you can keep ahold of this one?” Brown asks.

“Yeah. I’m not sure that I want to be groped again,” Clarke responds.

“I didn’t gr—just don’t drop it, and try not to fall like a girl in a horror movie.”

As they draw closer to where the flashlight sits, casting its motionless beam, the slope begins leveling out in earnest. Near the flashlight, Brown steps out of the tunnel and onto a level platform of stone. The walls widen and the ceiling rises out of sight. The ledge is wide enough for all of them.

Brown retrieves the flashlight and returns the other one to his pack. Shining the light along the ledge, he locates the AR-15. Surprisingly, the magazine in still in place, but is scratched and gouged in places, attesting to its rough journey.

I’ll look at it closer if we get out of this godforsaken place
.

He then surveys the rest of the cavern. Several feet ahead, the ledge ends abruptly, falling sharply off into a deep black crevasse that stretches almost all of the way to the walls, beyond the reach of the light.

Well, that’s just great
, he thinks, stepping closer to the ledge, each footstep sending echoes along the cavern.

At the edge of the drop off, Hayward picks up one of the larger loose stones and tosses it over. For a couple of seconds, nothing is heard. Then, they hear it hit, and hit again, and again, until the sound fades.

“Sooo, don’t fall, right?” Hayward says.

“I wouldn’t suggest it,” Brown replies.

“Does that go on forever?” Emily asks. “I didn’t hear it hit the bottom.”

“It might as well,” Clarke says.

“So, what now? Where do we go from here?” Hayward questions.

“That way,” Brown says, shining his light on a narrow ledge that extends along the right-hand wall.

“You’re kidding, right?” Hayward retorts.

“Do you want to climb up that?” Brown asks, pointing back the way they came. “And to what?”

“More than I want to walk on that. I don’t want to follow that rock,” Hayward answers.

“Are you seriously considering going along that?” Clarke asks, referring to the ledge.

“Do you really see any other options?” Brown returns.

“Well, honestly, going back and waiting to be dug out doesn’t sound so bad. I’m kind of with Hayward on this one,” Clarke responds.

“Okay. I’ll pretend this is a democracy for a second. If we go back, it will take anyone who gives a damn a long time to clear that entrance. We certainly aren’t going to be able to do it. We have food and water, but not an indefinite amount. Even if they do manage to blast their way in, which I doubt they’ll bother with, I don’t think we’re going to be well received. That’s just the simple facts. This way, at least we’ll have a chance, slim as it may be.”

“Well, I guess a few moments of plunging in sheer terror before a sudden death is better than slowly starving,” Clarke comments.

“Thatta girl.”

Upon closer inspection, the narrow ledge varies in width from six inches to a couple of feet. For as far as Brown can see, the rough-hewn wall rises straight up, with both the wall and pathway coated with moisture. It looks to be a trip much like their journey down, except they won’t have to contend with a steep slope.

We’re trading steep for narrow
, Brown thinks, eyeing the path.

His main concern is Emily. If she becomes scared and freezes, they’ll be screwed.

“Emily, are you okay with this? Does this frighten you?” Brown asks.

“It’s not that bad. I’ve walked on narrower. I’ve walked on the curb, staying between the crack and the road around my block five times without stepping on the crack or falling onto the street. This looks easy,” she answers.

“Okay, then. These two could take a lesson from you,” Brown says with a look at Hayward and Clarke.

Staring at the ledge, Brown wishes that he had searched Emily’s house further for a sling for the AR, or at least some rope or twine. As it stands, he’s going to have to carry the weapon by hand if he’s going to keep it. Given the narrowness of the ledge in places, that could get interesting. And, as he is unable to see how far the ledge goes, or how far they have to transit, the fun factor is at an all-time low.

“We’ll do this the same as before. Clarke, keep the light on me while I move, then you move next to me and shine it for Emily and Hayward,” Brown briefs.

The handholds are slippery, but as they only have to use them to maintain their balance, it proves easier than descending the treacherous slope. Each shuffle of their feet echoes throughout the giant chamber. At one point, while waiting for the others to catch up, Brown again contemplates how events have taken him from a relaxing afternoon reading a book on the grass to traversing a narrow underground ledge, heading to God knows where.

The ledge bends in places, but the rock wall remains nearly perpendicular. Brown’s fear was that there would be overhangs, making handholds nearly impossible. Rounding one sharp corner, Brown sees the ledge end in a shelf similar to the one they left behind.

Setting foot on the wide perch, he realizes that the crossing was easier than he first thought it would be. He had imagined a trek much like their descent. At the back of the ledge, another tunnel forms, taller and wider than the one leading into the chamber. And, more importantly, the slope downward is shallow enough to be nearly level.

“Okay. It looks like we’ve reached the second gate of hell. There’s no use in entering hungry, so we’re going to hold up here for a moment to eat. We’ll use the light to open the cans, but then turn it off to conserve the batteries. Once it’s dark, no one moves. I don’t care if you feel a snake the size of Florida crawl across your leg,” Brown states.

After getting their food ready and taking a seat well back from the drop off, Clarke clicks the light off, plunging them into total darkness. The blackness is so complete that Brown can’t see his hand as he shovels the cold food into his mouth.

It’s a good thing that I’ve had a little practice at eating or I’d be jamming food all over my face.

After spending a short time wrapped in a complete void, Brown’s other senses become more finely attuned. Rising from deep within the hole, he hears the faint roar of rushing water, like the sound of a jet passing high overhead.

Finishing their exquisite fare, they make ready to continue their trek through the mines of Moria. The beam from the flashlight seems like a solar flare after the total darkness. However, the light is definitely dimmer than it was before. Brown understands that when a flashlight begins to fade, its time is limited, and he knows that the light will soon become unusable.

Shortly after leaving the ledge, they come to a fork in the tunnel. In the dim light emitted from the flashlight, both paths look nearly the same. He’s reminded of the Robert Frost poem, something about two roads diverging in a yellow wood. Changing flashlights doesn’t reveal much of a difference, either. In both directions, the rough-hewn walls, ceilings, and floors march downward at a shallow slope, vanishing into blackness.

“Which way?” Clarke asks.

“Well, we’re down one flashlight, so whichever way we choose, we can only continue to the extent of one more light,” Brown answers.

“So, if it’s a fifty-fifty thing, we toss a coin or use some other random method,” Hayward says.

“Maybe so, maybe not. Wait here for a second,” Brown states.

He heads a short ways to the left. Pulling the firestarter from his pack, he turns sideways and holds the lighter in the middle of the path. The flame flickers but remains mostly upright. Doing the same down the tunnel on the other side, there is a slight bend in the flame indicating a draft. It’s not much of one, but more so than with the other way. He remembers hearing somewhere that a draft underground might indicate an exit, much as following a stream might lead to civilization. Then again, it might only lead to the rushing water they heard in the deep hole, but it’s the only thing he has to go on.

Returning to the rest of the group, Brown declares, “We’re going this way.”

He then marks the cave walls, etching arrows pointing in the direction they came. To be certain of which direction they need to take if they have to return, he carves one on the wall of the tunnel they’re going to take, and another one on the tunnel leading into the large cavern. That way, if they have to make their way out, they only have to follow the arrows back. Under each of them, he scratches a “1.” If their path begins running in circles, they’ll know it; the number will indicate exactly where they are within the tunnels.

“Okay, my dwarven friends, let’s continue,” Brown says, adjusting his pack.

They continue down into the darkness, taking breaks every now and again to rest their legs. The travel is slow and, other than having to choose a route at several other forks in the path, fairly monotonous. The tunnels vary little: moisture-covered walls and the occasional small pool on the floor. To Brown, it seems as if they’re stuck in time. They walk, but without actually seeming to go anywhere. Each time he sees their path split ahead, his anxiety increases, but so far, they haven’t come to any of the arrows he etched.

The cold penetrates into his very bones. Their feet scraping along the hard surface echoes within the tunnel and their breath rings out. After hours of endless walking, Brown truly wonders what in the fuck he is doing. With nothing else to occupy his mind, he begins to constantly second-guess his decisions. He imagines that he was wrong with regards to the cave entrance being completely sealed. Perhaps he gave up too quickly and they should have spent more time trying to dig their way out. The odds of actually finding an exit by randomly selecting tunnels drops significantly with each path they choose. He can only hope that the draft and flame method works, and that the opening won’t be some miniscule crack in the rock. It would totally suck to see a sliver of sky without being able to get out.

As time goes on, Brown’s thoughts meander, his conscious mind only focusing on where next to place his feet, when he’s suddenly brought up short. The light shining on the walls, ceiling, and floor ends. That’s it: black void on all sides.

“Whoa. Hold up everyone,” Brown commands.

Taking the flashlight, Brown inches forward. He draws close to the void. The beam of light extends outward, touching nothing. Only once he reaches the very edge does the light faintly reveal a pillar of whitish stone. Looking over the pillar, he notes that it tapers downward. He shines the light straight down and sees that he’s on a ledge with a sheer drop ending on a rocky floor some thirty feet below. Listening closely, he hears the sound of water dripping, each drop sending out an endless echo. He shines the light on the cliff below him, searching for a possible route down, but it seems that they’ve arrived at a dead end.