Cave Dwellers (5 page)

   “I know what you mean. I’ve had one bad experience while climbing but it was nothing like this.” Zaac reached up for the headlamp, “I think we ought to turn off the light. Make it last as long as possible.”

   “Yes I know.” Ramira nodded her head in agreement. “I really don’t care for the darkness, though. It makes me feel a little disoriented and dizzy. It is almost like the total darkness plays tricks on your mind.”

   “I think it does too,” Zaac said. “I told you that I was biking. What were you doing at the lake?”

   “I live a couple of miles away. I love that spot. It’s so peaceful. With my brothers, I need to get away. Today I came up here to study for final exams.”

  
“Final exams? You have some textbooks?” he asked with excitement in his voice.

   “Yes I have three textbooks. I’m still lugging these stupid things around.”

   Zaac looked at her. “Do you mind if one of them gets totally trashed?”

   “What do you mean?”

   “I mean ripped apart. We can use the pages to make a fire.”

   “Sure. Anything is better than being in complete darkness. How do you plan on starting a fire? Did you bring some matches?”

   “No. I brought something even better.” He pulled his kit out of his pack.

   “What’s that?”

   “It is a fire starter kit.”

   Zaac extracted a cotton ball smeared with a small layer of petroleum jelly, the flint stick and replica fire steel. “Which textbook do you want me to use?”

   She pulled out her trig book. “I’m glad that we can put this book to good use. It finally serves a purpose.”

   Zaac grinned and took the book. He ripped out a couple of pages then started tearing them into little shreds. Setting the cotton ball on the floor a couple of feet from them, he did a practice stroke on the flint the way he had been instructed. A nice spark jumped from it. He placed the flint over the cotton
ball. It took two strokes for a spark to land on the cotton ball, which erupted gratifyingly into flames. He placed a shred of paper over the ball, then another, and they, too, went up in flames. With the remaining shreds, he got a small fire going. He turned off the flashlight.

   “That ought to give us a little light. It will also put out some heat.” He tore out a few more pages and tossed them to the fire one at a time.

   “That was so cool. Where did you learn that little trick?”

   “Boy Scouts. You want to add a few to the fire? It only seems fair considering it’s your book.”

   “Sure.” She reached for the book and commenced tearing out pages and tossing them on the fire. While her attention was focused on the job at hand, Zaac was able to sit back and watch her. Even after a day of crawling through caves, he thought, she is beautiful.

   This would be perfect if it was an outing that lasted a night or two. Hopefully they would find a way out of here tomorrow and then, that’s all it would be. With that thought in mind, his body began to relax and he started to get sleepy.

   “I think I’m about ready to call it a day,” he said, stifling a yawn.

  
“Me too. I think I’ll add a few more pages to the fire and then turn in.” Zaac had already closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before his breathing was even and regular. Throwing one last page on the fire, she sat beside him and closed her eyes. Soon she, too, fell asleep.

   As they slept, the sparks from the pages slowly faded and complete darkness settled around them.

5

   Silence enveloped the cavern as the new inhabitants slept. Zaac and Ramira were exhausted. Anyone looking at them sleeping so peacefully would never know what they had been through.

   Ramira was the first to wake. Her head was resting on Zaac’s shoulder. Sometime during the night, without knowing, she had leaned over. When she first regained consciousness, she wondered why she wasn’t in bed. Opening her eyes did no good. Everything was still in darkness.

   An involuntary “What?” escaped her lips.

   The sound aroused Zaac from sleep. Opening his eyes, he too was confronted with total darkness.

   “Ramira, are you alright?” he asked. He located the flashlight and turned it on.

   Taking a moment to readjust in the light, Ramira responded. “Yes. I was just startled. I’d forgotten where I was.”

   “I can imagine. Hold on and I’ll get another fire started.”

   He tore a couple of pages from her trig book and ripped them into little shreds. Using another cotton ball, he soon had a fire going. He added a few pages to the fire and turned off the flashlight.

   “How are you feeling?”

   “My body is a little sore. It also seems to be feeling kind of strange. Like something unusual is going on with it.” She wasn’t sure how to describe what she was experiencing.

   “Is it the same feeling you had yesterday when I came back?”

   “Yes, only now it seems to be worse.”

   “You remember yesterday when I first found you. You had some lacerations. I asked whether they were from the fall or whether bats had bitten you. I wonder if it has something to do with that.”

   He turned on his flashlight. “Let me take a look.”

   He first checked her neck then each of her wrists. There appeared to be a little redness around the marks but they weren’t overly inflamed.

   “What do you think?” She held up her wrists to look at them.

   “I can’t say for sure. There’s not much redness. It would be nice to have something to put on them but I don’t have a first aid kit.”

   Zaac wished he had more medical training.

   “Let’s eat something. The most important thing is to keep your strength up.”

Adding another page to the fire, he turned the flashlight off. “Want an energy bar?”

   “Sure. I have a Mountain Dew. Would you like to split it?”

   “Yes. Mountain Dew is probably my favourite soft drink.”

   “Mine too. We have something in common.” She said it with a smile that lit up her face.

   “Yes. Another thing is we are . . .” he stopped in mid-sentence.

   “Another thing is we are . . . what?” she asked, looking at him.

  
“Nothing.” Zaac held his head down.

   “Well you were getting ready to say something. You might as well finish it.” She wasn’t letting him off the hook.

   “Well I thought another thing was that we were stuck down here together.” He glanced at her. “I got ready to say it without thinking. Then I thought the better of it so I didn’t finish it.”

   “Well, you’re not wrong. That’s definitely something we have in common. It’s okay. We can’t change what is.”

   They ate their energy bars in silence for a few minutes. Ramira took a couple of swallows of Mountain Dew and handed the bottle to Zaac.

   Sensing the awkward moment was
past, he took a swig and said, “This is good.”

   “I know. I shouldn’t, but I often drink it for breakfast instead of juice.” She giggled.

   After finishing the Mountain Dew, Zaac threw one last page on the fire. Standing up, he asked, “You ready to go? Let’s see if we can find a way out of here.”

   “I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.” She stood up.
“Which way?”

   He could see their footprints coming out of the cave tunnel into the cavern. “We came in over there. That leaves the branch going to the left and the one straight ahead. We went straight last time. Want to try going left or stick with going straight?”

   “We can try left this time and see where it leads.” Walking over she picked up a loose piece of limestone. “I have an idea. Would you mind putting one more page on the fire?”

   Zaac did as she asked and she walked over to the cave wall. Taking the rock, she scratched it against the wall. It left a mark.

   “That is a brilliant idea,” Zaac said. “We can mark the passages that we travel and the ones that we enter just in case we get turned around.”

   Ramira was glad that she’d had an idea that had won his approval. “With all of these different passages, it would be easy to get lost.”

   As the trig page settled into ash, Zaac turned on the flashlight.

   “Let’s go.” The branch on the left was so narrow at the beginning that they could walk only in single file. After sixty feet, it widened, and they walked side by side. Another couple of hundred feet brought them to another set of options.

   “This can get confusing. Which way should we go?” Ramira asked.

   “Let’s try left again,” Zaac said, pointing to the left. “See where it takes us.”

   “Okay. Let me mark these first.”

   It wasn’t long before they came to another cavern that had even more branches. This one had formations like the one where they’d spent the night. It also had some new types that appeared to
be growing sideways, with thorny spines on them that formed strange shapes.

   “These are different. Look at this one. It looks like a snake.” Ramira walked over to one. It did, indeed, resemble a snake.

   “That one is like an octopus.” Zaac pointed to another configuration.

   “These are so cool. It would be nice if people were able to tour down here. This is definitely worth seeing.”

   Wanting to linger, but knowing they needed to continue, Zaac said, “Let’s see which branch we ought to take. Let’s mark the one we came from.”

   Ramira walked over and scratched the wall of the one they emerged from. That left a choice between the branch going straight and the one going left.

   “What do you think?” she asked, looking toward Zaac as if he would know.

   “Want to try the one to the left again?” Zaac asked without much confidence.

   “Sure. Let’s give it a try.” Ramira figured one was probably as good as the other.

  Ramira stopped long enough to place a mark on the cave wall. The tunnel required them to walk single file again. It had a small bend to the right, which they went around. Soon they came to another crossing of branches.

   “I’m beginning to think we’re walking in circles.” Zaac said.

   Pointing to the floor of the branch that led to the left, Ramira said, “Unless there are two other people walking around down here, we are walking around in circles. Aren’t those our footprints from the crossing we encountered yesterday?”

   Looking down, Zaac began to laugh. “I’ve been leading us in circles.” He handed her the flashlight, “Maybe you should lead for a while. You can’t do worse than me.”

   Before long, they reached the cavern where they spent the night.

   “I think here would be a good spot to take a break.” She sat down at the spot they slept last night. “You want to build another fire while we rest?”

   Soon Zaac had a fire going. “Building all of these fires, it won’t be long before we go through your trig book.”

   “No worries,” Ramira said. “The year’s about done. I can borrow one or study with my friends for finals. After that I won’t need it anymore.”

  Zaac sat beside her, rummaged through his pack and brought out a bottle of Gatorade. They passed it back and forth. Then he brought out the last apple and cut it in half. He handed her one half and
started eating the other. With every bite, he tossed another page on the fire.

   They both took a couple more swallows of Gatorade. Zaac put the rest of the bottle back in his pack.

   “Are you ready to try again?” Ramira asked.

   “Lead off.”

   She was losing her nerve. “What do you think? The branch straight ahead where we haven’t gone or back down the same cave and take another branch?”

   “It’s totally up to you this time. You lead and I will follow.”

   Looking first to the branch on the left then the one straight ahead, it was almost like she was doing ‘eeny, meeny, miny, moe’. She chose the cave they had traveled before, and they soon reached the crossing where they had gone to the left.

   “This time let’s try going straight.” As she started into the cave, she placed two marks on the wall signifying they were going down it on their second attempt.

   Soon an opening appeared on the left, a crevice that went only a couple of feet into the wall. The next cave had several turns alternating to either side. At some points they had to bend or squeeze sideways to get through.