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Culhane had been periodically checking his watch. They had collapsed the
catacombs behind them more than an hour ago. It was nearly three-fifteen.
They walked on, Culhane noticing the tunnel ceiling lowering, ducking his head
a little, not mentioning this to Mulrooney until it was unavoidable. By
threethirty, the tunnel ceiling was sufficiently low that Mulrooney, too,
needed to duck. "This is a good sign, I think," he told her. "We should be
nearing the end of the tunnel."
She said nothing. Culhane watched her eyes again in the flashlight's beam. The
light was still strong, but it wouldn't last forever, no matter how good the
flashlight itself was, no matter how strong the batteries were.
Ducking their heads, they quickened their pace. They walked until it was
nearly four. The tunnel was too low now to walk in at all unless they
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completely doubled over.
He looked at her in the light of the flashlight. "We're gonna have to crawl
the rest of the way, Fanny."
"All right," she said dispiritedly.
"I'm going to shut off the light just in case the tunnel goes on longer than
we anticipate so we have light when we need it."
The beam was aimed at the ground, and a rat scurried under the light.
Mulrooney pressed against Culhane, shivering. At least the cockroaches were no
longer in evidence, and as Culhane tracked the rat for a split second he saw a
substance that looked like something he had once seen in a cave in Mexico: bat
droppings.
He looked at Mulrooney. "Now I don't want you to let go of me. I'm going
first." She was staring at the ground. He knew she'd seen the rat. "I think I
just saw bat droppings on the floor "
"Bats?"
"Fruit bats I'm sure that's what they are just fruit bats. This time of day
they'll cling to the ceiling of the cave and "
"We'll be crawling under them."
"Their droppings will be on the floor it'll be like crawling through sticky
mud. Just tell yourself that's what it is. Mud. Don't touch your hands to your
mouth or your eyes."
She shook visibly.
"And don't let go of me. If we keep the light off, we shouldn't disturb them.
But it's a good sign the bats. That means there's a way in and out of the
tunnel. Will you be all right?"
She nodded almost imperceptibly.
"I'm going to shut off the light. Hold my hand." He worked the switch of the
flashlight. There was nothing for their eyes to become accustomed to; there
was no light except the glow from the face of his Rolex. The single triangle,
the dots, the bar for the minute hand and the dot on the hour and second hands
were like stars in a night sky.
"Now, hold on to my shoulder while I get down on my knees, then drop to your
knees and slide your hand down along my leg until you have my ankle. Don't let
go of my ankle. No matter what you do, don't let go of it."
"All right, Josh," he heard her whisper in the darkness. "We're never getting
out of here with the Log, with our lives...."
"Sure we are," he said, but he didn't really believe it.
Mulrooney had slid the Log under her shirt inside the waistband of her shorts
earlier, and Culhane presumed she still carried it there now.
He dropped to his knees, his bare flesh feeling the wetness of what would be
bat droppings. He felt Mulrooney doing the same, heard her rasp, "What's "
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"Bat droppings. Remember it's just sticky mud."
"Sticky mud," she repeated.
"Now move your hand down and hold my ankle and "
She screamed.
"What is it?"
"I think... I think it was a... ohh, shit, Josh it was a rat something furry
ran across my right hand, Josh...."
"Shhh it'll be all right. We'll be out in the sunshine soon. I'll use that
word again relax."
"Relax," he heard her repeat, then felt her hand move down along his left
thigh, along his left calf, grasping his left ankle.
"All right," she whispered.
"Let's get started," he told the darkness.
Culhane began to crawl ahead, the small rocks in the dirt and bat guano of the
cave floor sticking to the palm of his left hand, the knuckles of his right
he held the shut off flashlight in that hand and to his knees.
He hadn't told her that bats were very flexible creatures and could insinuate
themselves between two objects a quarter of an inch apart. A crack through
which he and Mulrooney could never move.
There might be no way out at all.
* * *
She was breathing hard enough to hyperventilate and tried telling herself to
stop doing that. She could feel the stuff on her hands, all over her knees and
calves, under her toenails and fingernails, on the palms of her hands.
She could feel it dribble down her neck, on her bare arms, hear the
high-pitched squeals, the fluttering of wings, feel
"Jesus, Josh there's one in my hair!" She screamed the last word, feeling the
thing, feeling it tangled there. She let go of his ankle, wanting to reach up
to her hair to get the thing out, to get it away from her, but she was afraid
to touch it. "Josh!"
She felt something slap at her, heard more of the high-pitched squealing
sounds, felt something leathery brush her left cheek. She screamed.
"It's all right I got it out of your hair." Culhane's voice came to her in
the darkness.
She was crying, sobbing as she hadn't sobbed since she was a little girl. His
arms, slimy but comforting, were wrapped around her. Her face was against his
chest. "Can't you turn on the light? Please?" she begged.
"It'd only get them flying then they'd be all over you," she heard him tell
her.
She shivered despite the suffocating heat of the tunnel. "I can't stand it,
Josh. Those...those...." She couldn't say the word, her throat tight with
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crying, her eyes smarting with the salt of her tears. "I don't want to die
here!"
"Shh," she heard him say, feeling his breath against her face, smelling his
sweat and her own mingled with the suffocating stench of the bats. "If anybody
can do it, we can right?"
She nodded, not saying anything, not knowing if she really believed him but
wanting to believe him.
"Right?" he persisted.
"I I guess." She nodded in the darkness.
"Then hold on. The faster we get started, the faster we'll be out of here."
She held his ankle tightly, bending forward, putting her other hand into the
bat droppings, hearing the squeaking sounds again. She held his ankle as she
crawled after him.
She tried telling herself stories, remembering things from her childhood. She
tried to remember what her first pair of earrings had looked like. She made a
mental picture of the long dress she'd worn to her senior prom in high school.
Then she tried imagining what the Gladstone Log really talked about. What was
the power Steiglitz had raved about possessing?
The tunnel ceiling was lower now, a curse but a blessing, too, because the
bats were no longer overhead, and the muck under her hands and her bare legs
was less thick. Had Culhane taken a wrong turn? She didn't want to think so.
She went back to the mental picture of her prom dress; it had been white. She
kept crawling, bending lower now because she was bumping her head into the
ceiling of the tunnel, feeling it closing in on her on both sides.
Culhane stopped ahead of her. She felt him turning around, his hands finding
her hands in the darkness. "It's getting too narrow for me at least. Another
few yards and my shoulders won't get through. This mustn't be the main tunnel.
We must have missed itmaybe when we ran from the cave-in I don't know."
"What are you "
"I'm saying that just because it's too narrow for me to get through doesn't
mean you can't. I think you can make it. The tapering of the walls seems less
drastic maybe it levels off. You can take the gun, get to the end of the
tunnel, and get out. Maybe come back for me " [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]