Cave Dwellers (15 page)

16

   Zaac and Ramira woke up the next morning and turned to face each other, saying their good mornings with a smile.

   “I think today might be the day I seal the entrance to the cemetery,” Zaac said.

   “It’s a lot of work to carry all that rock over. I’ll help.”

   After breakfast, they headed to the rock pile and Zaac knelt to test the size of rocks he wanted to carry. He started with one that was about a foot in diameter and lifted it without any trouble. He chose another one about twice the size of the first and
lifted it with ease. Not realizing the potential weight of the rock, he carried it over to the other side without any problem. He sat it down in the corner of the entrance, beginning a row upon which to lay others. Ramira arrived with her rock, so he waited for her and they walked back to the pile together.

   Zaac chose another rock that was even larger and lifted it with ease. Ramira watched in fascination as he toted it across the floor of the cavern. She picked a smaller rock and hurried after him. They walked side by side with her glancing at him occasionally. He wasn’t even breathing hard. When they reached the tunnel, he sat it down next to the previous one. She placed hers outside the entrance. She knelt next to the rock he had carried and tried to move it. It didn’t budge.

   “What are you doing?” he asked.

   “I was just checking something.” She looked confused.

   “It looked like you were trying to move it.”

   “No. You put it where it needs to be.” She started walking back to the pile.

   He stood for a moment with a baffled look, then hurried to catch up with her.

   “The way we’re going, it won’t take long before we have enough rocks to seal up the tunnel,” she added as he joined her.

   “I hope not. The faster it’s closed, the better.”

   At the pile, Ramira chose a rock that she couldn’t lift. It must have weighed at least a hundred pounds. “How about picking this rock up?” she asked.

   Zaac lifted it and held it in one hand the way he might hold a baseball.

   “Follow me.” She headed toward the lake.

   Zaac did as requested tossing the rock up in the air from hand to hand. When they got to the edge of the water, Ramira pointed to the other side. “Let’s see if you can throw it to the other side.”

   Zaac looked at her strangely then glanced across the water. Extending his hand fully back with the rock in it, he threw it with what he felt might be enough strength to reach the other side. The rock not only cleared the water but ricocheted off the far wall before landing.

   “Just what I thought.” She looked at him from head to toe. “Do you feel any different? Stronger?”

   “Not that I can tell.” He gave her a bewildered look. “I do feel pretty good but not anything out of the ordinary.”

   “Well, unless I miss my guess, that last rock you carried weighed more than a ton. The rock you tossed across so easily weighed at least a hundred pounds if not a little more.”

  
“No way. That’s impossible. The first rock felt a little heavy but I thought it might weigh around seventy pounds. The rock I tossed felt like it only weighed a couple of pounds. There isn’t any way that I could lift a ton of rock like a bag of dog food.”

   “It might seem like it’s impossible but somehow you managed to do it.” She added, “It’s also impossible to cling to walls like an insect but we now have that ability. I can see in the dark in a strange sort of way, which isn’t normal. Something else has happened to give you supernatural strength.” She looked at him with a sort of admiration.

   Zaac thought back over the events of the past few days. They had both been bitten by some type of bugs and now they were able to climb walls. Ramira had a strange gift enabling her to see images in her mind, something he attributed to the bat bites. A thought occurred to him. He had been bitten by ants at one point. He wondered whether the ant bites had had the same effect on him that the other bug bites did, somehow causing a change in his physical make-up which now afforded him a type of supernatural strength.

   He was right on target. His DNA had changed drastically as a result of the bug and ant bites. He could now lift just about as much as could an ant, relative to its size. Even so, his musculature and bone structure had not yet developed to their full potential. The change was still progressing.

   “There is one thing,” he said. “When we stopped at that ledge, I was sitting on the ant hill and they climbed up my leg and bit me.”

   “I remember that. You jumped up and pulled off your jeans.” She giggled.

   “You didn’t have to remember that particular part.”

   “It was pretty comical. If I had my way, I would train an ant colony to climb up your leg and bite…I’ll leave the rest to your imagination but your backside would not be out of the question.” She laughed heartily.

   “If you had those, I guess I would have to get me an aardvark for a pet. If he happened to get loose and made a feast of your ants, what could I say?”

   There was no way she was going to let him have the last word. “If your aardvark ate my ants, guess what we would be having for dinner,” she responded with a triumphant look.

   “The way you talk, it sounds like we’re a couple and married. Doesn’t one of us have to ask the other for that privilege? So is this your way of asking me indirectly?” he suggested with a little smile.

   Ramira turned red in the face. The triumphant look had disappeared.
For once. It didn’t last long. “No I’m not asking you to marry me. But now that you mention it, would it be such a terrible thing to be married to me?”

   Now it was Zaac’s turn to be at a loss for words. Talk about turning the table on someone. He might be falling in love with her but marriage? He was only seventeen. He was still in high school. He had not completed the eleventh grade. Marriage was not part of the equation.

   Ramira drew closer to him with a slight smile on her face. “You haven’t answered me.”

   Zaac was beginning to feel very uncomfortable. Even though the cavern was humongous, he felt trapped. The best possible escape was to change the subject.

   “Shouldn’t we finish moving the rocks?”

   Ramira grinned. She would let him off the hook for now.

   When they reached the pile, Zaac chose a rock that was larger than the previous one. It was approximately four feet in diameter and would weigh about one and a half tons. When he lifted it, he knew that he was close to the limit of his strength, but he still managed to take it across to the tunnel.

   Ramira watched with fascination. He was able to do what no other human could imagine. She could not even guess at the possibilities so much strength opened up.

   They carried a few more loads across before stopping for lunch. In those few trips, Zaac had managed to carry six tons of rock. Little beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead.

   While they were eating, Zaac decided to find out more about something that interested him. “What made you decide to go into martial arts? No offense intended, but you don’t look like the normal black belt.”

   “How should a girl look if she is an advanced martial artist?” She had a fake look of exasperation on her face.

   “I don’t know.”

   Ramira broke out laughing. “Well as you know my father is a police officer. He is also a third Dan Black Belt. He has a dojo that is called Shotokan Karate and Jujitju. Learning martial arts seemed like the normal thing to do since it was already in our family.”

   Zaac had never considered martial arts for himself, but the opportunity was right here in front of him. He might as well take advantage of it. “What do you think about teaching me? When we’re not taking excursions out into the tunnels, we have plenty of time to kill.”

   Ramira could see no reason not to teach him. It would give them something to do and he would provide a good sparring partner for kumite.

   “It’s an excellent idea. When would you like to start?”

   “We can start this evening after dinner if you want. I do want to finish sealing up that tunnel first.”

   Zaac made three more trips with the largest rocks. On his return, he noticed he had run out of the large ones on the ground, but he still needed a few more. He could see some up on the ledge. Without any problem, he scaled up the wall to get them.

   Making sure that Ramira was out of harm’s way, he tossed the rocks he needed over the side. When he was finished, he started climbing back down. Before he reached the ground, though, an idea occurred to him. He scrambled back up to the ledge. Choosing some of the largest rocks that he could find, he tossed or rolled them over the side after the others.

   Zaac carried the remaining rocks he needed to the tunnel. The smaller ones, weighing between a hundred to two hundred pounds, he carried down to the edge of the lake and threw them across. Within three hours time, they were standing back admiring a completely sealed tunnel.

   Feeling as though it was a solemn occasion, Zaac said, “May they rest in peace.”

   Ramira glanced at him with a surprised look. He never ceased to amaze her.

  They went back to the cave and had a small dinner. Ramira didn’t want too much in their stomachs when they worked out. She knew people who had eaten sizeable dinners before coming to the dojo to do their martial arts. Some of them had hiatal hernias as a result. With a full stomach, the training puts pressure on the abdomen, forcing the food up through the esophageal hiatus which causes the hernia.

   “We need to wait awhile for digestion before we start your training.”

   “That’s alright with me.” He set his plate down and stood up. “While we wait, I think I’ll transplant a few more sections of moss. A couple more should provide enough light to the ledge.”

   Ramira stood up with him. “I’ll get some more vegetables. When you’re done, we should be able to start.”

   They each went off separately. After he had finished planting, he walked to the ledge and scrambled up to sit with his feet dangling over the side. He ran his hand over the lichen that was growing on either side of him. It had an intricate shape made up of finely interwoven strands.

   He wandered whether it might be possible to interweave the strands to form a fishing line. It was worth a try. With this in mind, he selected areas from which to harvest sections of lichen. He did not
want to disrupt the growth of the plant or kill it while he was trying out his experiment.

   He returned to the cave where Ramira was waiting for him.

   “Are you ready to start?” she asked.

  
“Yep.”

   They began by running a lap around their side of the cavern. Then she had him perform exercises—push ups, sit ups, jumping jacks, crunches and leg stretches. After she felt he was warmed up, the real workout began.

   She started out with kihon which included everything from the horse riding (straddle) stance, kiba dachi, to the down block, gedan barai.

   After Ramira taught him the basic punches and blocks, the next step was the kicks. These included the front snap kick mid level/mae geri keage, side snap kick/yoko geri keage and side thrust kick/yoko geri kekomi.

   The first kata that is required for ninth level (yellow belt) Shotokan karate is Taikyoku Shodan (First Cause). Ramira instructed Zaac in the first half of the kata. It took him several tries until he learned it. She planned to teach him the rest of it on their next lesson.

   Next she decided to throw in a little jujitju. The first step in this is to learn how to land. A person should know how to land if they are pushed from
behind or backwards or if they are thrown. Ramira started with the basics of properly landing on your front, then on your back. She concluded by showing him how to land if he was thrown. She demonstrated, running a few steps and flipping in the air and landing on her back. The palm of her hand and her feet were used to absorb most of the impact.

   Ramira completed the first lesson with some basic sparring. She planned to teach him five-step sparring at his next lesson. Zaac was soaked with perspiration by the time they finished.

   They went back to the cave where they each got a bottle of water. Zaac drank his in a matter of seconds. He got another bottle and they went to sit down by the boulder.

   When they were seated, Ramira said, “Now I’m going to teach you to count to ten in Japanese. One is ichi. Two is
ni. Three is san.”

   Zaac spoke slowly after her, “Ichi, ni,
san.”

   “Ichi, ni, san, shi,
go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyu, and ju.”

   Zaac had trouble when it came to Roku and Shichi. Ramira went over them again as Zaac repeated each number after her.

   “This concludes your first lesson. You did very well.” Ramira smiled at him.