Dinosaur Lake (30 page)

So it was early the next morning when Francis stared out of the front window of the sub and announced, “There’s the cave’s entrance off the starboard at approximately two o’clock.”

No one uttered a word. All faces were tense. And Greer’s eyes were hooded as he peered out at the yawning hole ahead of them.

They waited as Francis expertly steered their craft, careful to avoid the sharp rocks along the crater wall, into the opening. The Big Rover was tough, but not indestructible.

When the submersible entered the cave Justin’s teeth could be heard softly chattering. “You don’t think it’s waiting for us right inside, do you?”

“Let’s hope not,” Henry couldn’t help saying.

“And if it is,” Francis whispered as he checked his instruments. “We’ll shoot the bastard out of the water.”

Justin piped up, “Sounds like a good plan to me.”

The scientist remained visibly uneasy, but when nothing happened he did begrudgingly acknowledge it was a splendid and unusually rare, vast Lava Tube cave they were entering. “I wonder if we’re the first ones to explore it, besides Lassen, I mean?”

“Possibly,” Henry answered. “There’s nothing whatsoever about it in any of the park’s records. It was undiscovered, I imagine, until now.”

Henry glanced at Justin and gave him a thumbs up sign in the artificial light. Justin’s face was so pale it looked like it was painted white, but the young man smiled back, fighting hard not to show alarm. He was sure the monster was lying in wait somewhere, or would somehow corner them down in the depths of the cave. Ambush them. They’d have no way out. And what would be left of their mauled bodies would never be found, like Lassen and the others.

Henry was scared, too, but not as much since he’d learned the sub was equipped with defensive weapons of electrified probes set two feet apart across the hull.

“Anything tries to touch us, we’ll fry it,” Francis had declared.

The sub also carried the two precious grenade launchers Greer had procured and a large supply of rigged-up phosphorus rockets. And at that moment, Greer was inspecting one of the launchers as he sat up front with Francis. He was going to be ready if the beast showed up.

This time, Greer was positive, they’d be able to hurt and kill the creature.

A lot depended on where they found it as well as how effective their weapons were, in and out of the cave. And those were the unknown factors that made their journey so perilous. None of them were sure they would be victorious, but they had to do it anyway.

So they rationalized, grasping for hope. The fatal flaw in the smaller unarmed Rover’s destruction had been engine trouble, Francis had concluded. “It wasn’t up to evading the creature, wasn’t powerful or fast enough, and, in the end, of escaping its clutches.

“That won’t happen with the Big Rover. I know we can outrun or shoot the monster if we need to.”

Henry only wished he could believe that. It sounded too easy. That was the problem. Go and find the monster and shoot it. Kill it. Way too easy.

Strangely enough, the beast hadn’t shown itself or made an attack in days. No one knew where it was or when it was going to strike again. The submersible couldn’t be everywhere in the lake at one time. What happened if they missed the creature and it got past them? If it was out of the water; out of the park already? That thought terrified them, though there were enough people sneaking through the woods and around the lake to keep it fat and happy.

They had to find it first. None of them wanted more people to die.

“You think we should really be doing this? Going after the thing into the cave? Puts us at a disadvantage, doesn’t it? Maybe we should wait until it emerges onto land again,” Justin grumbled to Greer. “I despise caves, especially one with a nasty surprise hiding in it.”

“Too dangerous. Once it gets out on land again it’ll just be a short run to the exits. Then the towns. And I’d think that as a paleontologist,” Greer raised an eyebrow, “you’d have been in lots of caves?”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?” Justin replied meekly. “But no, I’ve stayed out of as many caves as I could manage. Always let someone else have those particular jobs, unless the discovery was monumental. That hadn’t happened, until now. I hate caves,” he repeated.

“Would you like to tell me why this cave is called a Lava Tube?” Greer was making conversation to ease Justin’s discomfort. They’d entered the underwater cave and the walls were closing in.

“Sure, I’ll tell you. Because immense flows of lava moving through drilled it out from the rock. And this particular cave, from what I see on the Deep Rover’s camera, is even rarer,” he added. “Since its main orifice originates in a volcanic caldera. There is even less known about volcanic Lava caves.”

“Yeah, and, I bet, this sort of cave is highly treacherous, isn’t it?”

“Of course. Lava Tubes can be real tricky. And sometimes, as in this one, there’s active lava, and you never know how deep under your feet an active flow is still moving. So, if we leave the sub, be careful where you step.” A small grunt escaped Justin’s lips, and he directed his next remark to the three men around him, reiterating what he’d already said. “Hey, you guys, maybe we really should have waited for the thing to come to us?”

Greer turned around and playfully thumped Justin on the shoulder as Henry chuckled and said, “Too late now. We’re here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Godzilla doesn’t already know we are.”

Greer even cracked a smile at Henry’s off-handed reference to his partner Patterson’s original nickname for the creature.

Peering out through the glass into the open cavern, Justin looked as afraid of the looming cave walls as he was of the monster.

The Big Rover glided into the immense cavern they’d seen through the other Rover’s cameras, and it slowly surfaced into the main chamber. They’d accepted this cave was the most likely candidate to be the monster’s escape route, its hiding place or even its home. Lassen had also believed that. So they’d explore it first.

“Well, here we are,” Francis announced. “It was a little tight getting in, but it’s not so bad now.”

Unlike Justin, Henry adored caves. He’d studied them and had trekked through lots of them when he’d been a teenager. Many a weekend he’d spent crawling around in the caves in the woods behind his house. But he was only familiar with the more common limestone variety, not Lava Tubes. For him this was a new experience. And he thought the cave was beautiful, no matter what it sheltered. It wasn’t the cave’s fault it hid a predator.

The chamber they found themselves in was filled with stair-stepped rows of orange-red stalactites and large rim stone deposits formed of drip-deposited silicon dioxide. Thin grayish black stalactites of once molten lava hung above bulkier stalagmites built up drop by congealing drop, and could be traced to the slumping and dripping of glazed lava that thinly coated the tubes.

All along the stone on their left the glaze had formed spectacular patterns resembling clumps of gray toffee. The cave walls were grooved, deeply ridged, and ledges created long ago by various lava flows through the tunnels jutted out along the cave walls. Congealed lava tongues and frozen lava falls were everywhere as the crackling active lava lit the cavern into a soft golden twilight. Steam rose from the churning magna flow that meandered across the rear section of the chamber and as it met the colder air, it created a wraithlike fog that drifted head high through the tunnels. Henry had to squint through his portal to see anything. The cave’s weird formations and stone were wreathed in the heavy fog and muted rainbow lighting.

“As dangerous as it is…it’s still beautiful. The colors are so rich, vivid,” Henry said. “And now we know where the mist on the lake is coming from.”

“Yes, exquisite, isn’t it? This cave’s so primitive. Like something from another time.” Greer’s voice was tinged with awe.

“And was probably formed thousands and thousands of years ago, when the volcano blew its top off,” Henry supplied, his park ranger spiel kicking in. “It hasn’t changed much since, except for the gradual cooling of the lava, which allows us to enter it now. I’d wager only some of the chambers we’ll be going through will house active lava; be hot. Most will be bearable.”

“Hope you’re right about that.” Greer was still eying from the portals the cave they were traveling through. “Or our expedition might become very uncomfortable.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I am. How long do you think we’ll be in the cave?”

“We’ll be in the cave as long as it takes to search it, on foot if the waterway runs out. We won’t leave until we’re sure it’s empty or we locate our hungry friend.”

“Oh, boy. Cave exploration with a voracious meat-eater Jack-in-the-Box hiding somewhere in the tunnels. I can’t wait.” Justin shook his head.

The sub had broken the surface of the water and come to a full stop. The water had run out. Ahead of them was nothing but cave.

Well,” Greer swung around in the tight space and spoke to him and Justin. “Are you ready? Let’s find out if this is the bastard’s home.”

Everyone looked at him. The certainty of what they were about to do had settled in. They were leaving the metal sanctuary of the submersible and going on foot into unknown territory.

“Justin,” Henry reminded him, “don’t forget the radio and the fire crackers.”

Music and firecrackers had been Justin’s idea. They’d use them to draw the creature out because they couldn’t just sit around and wait for it to show up. That could take forever.

“When we see signs of recent habitation or believe the beast is near, we set off the fireworks, turn up the music loud as we can,” Justin had said. “The more noise the better.”

“Anything, but shoot off the real guns,” Greer had advised. Henry and Greer were sporting revolvers on their hips. “The shells might ricochet off the rocks or walls of the cave and hurt one of us, or break through a lava seal, you did say they could be fragile, and flood the tunnel or chamber. And we’d be flooded in with water or fresh molten lava.”

Justin had whistled. “Don’t want that.”

“No, we don’t. We only use the weapons within the confines of the cave, especially the grenade launchers, if we absolutely have to. And when we have a target. The bigger the cavern we’re in, the safer firing our weapons will be. So keep your heads about you, boys. Eyes open.”

Justin had brought his own radio, an old battery powered Magnavox boom box. Ancient. Said he took it with him everywhere. It made Henry smile when he’d first laid eyes on it. It reminded him how young Justin was. The young always had to have their music. Laura was the same way.

Greer was watching Justin as he unloaded the radio from the sub.

“If we suspect our creature is anywhere in the vicinity,” Justin said, “we’ll leave it in the open, turn it up full blast; shout loud enough to wake the dead, and set off the fireworks then run like hell and hide. Wait. All the ruckus should attract the monster if it’s anywhere nearby.”

“Should. Sounds in a cave this deep can carry for miles, even through the water.” Greer was struggling into his backpack. “If the monster’s anywhere within that radius, it should hear the commotion.”

“And when it shows up, we shoot it with the grenade launchers,” Justin finished, grinning.

“If the launchers can pierce the thing’s tough hide,” Henry tossed in.

“And if our aim is true,” Greer worried out loud. “That monster can move.”

They’d discussed the plan many times, but now that they were actually in the cave, disembarking, it didn’t sound as fool proof, clever, as before. There were a hundred things that could go wrong, and they were beginning to think of them.

For instance, it’d dawned on Henry as Greer had been giving his warning about firing off live rounds, that if live bullets in the cave could be hazardous, what would happen when they fired the RPG-7’s? If they missed the monster, big as it was? He didn’t want to think about that.

There were risks any way he looked at it.

“I hope the cave’s not too hot,” Justin had fretted as they exited the submersible.

“By the way, the lava in this cave can actually be cooled down enough for a man to enter and move around through,” Greer cautioned, “but still be deadly because of lethal gases and places where the magna is still active. So appearances can be deceptive. If the lava is fiery and steaming, and moving, I don’t have to tell you to stay away from it, we all know that. But if any of you detect something strange in the air, it could be noxious gas. So say something and put on those gas masks you have in your backpacks immediately.

“Be careful where you walk, scan your helmet lights downwards as much as ahead and upwards. There’re bottomless pits and crevices where you can get so stuck you can’t get out.”

The other men trailed Greer, helping each other over the damp, slippery rocks to solid ground that led up into the cave. They’d unloaded the supplies and divided them between themselves to carry, and were stalking through the cave’s above water chamber loaded down with their backpacks.

Making small talk among themselves to ease the growing tension, Greer entertained them with his spelunker horror stories.

“Ever hear of Floyd Collins?” Greer asked innocently.

“No,” they chorused. Their footsteps were loud in the dark cave. The lights from their helmets tiny rays of brightness leading their way.