“Did you drop something?” Catherine asked. “I thought I heard—”
“I kicked a stone,” he said. “Let’s walk faster.” And they moved ahead, Catherine
unaware that behind them a ball of twine was unwinding.
The ceiling of the cave seemed to be lower here and the walls damper and—
Catherine laughed at herself for thinking it—ominous. It was as though the tunnel was
beginning to close in on them, threatening and maleficent. “I don’t think this place likes
us,” Catherine said.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Cathy; it’s just a cave.”
“Why do you suppose we’re the only ones here?”
Larry hesitated. “Not many people know about this section.”
They walked on and on until Catherine began to lose all sense of time and place.
The passage was narrowing again, and the rocks on the sides tore at them with sharp,
unexpected protuberances.
“How much farther do you think it is?” Catherine asked. “We must be getting near
China.”
“It’s not far now.”
When they spoke, their voices sounded muffled and hollow, like a series of
continuous dying echoes.
It was getting cold now, but it was a damp, clammy cold. Catherine shivered. Ahead
the beam of the flashlight caught another bifurcation of the passage. They walked up to it
and stopped. The tunnel running to the right seemed smaller than the one to the left.
“They should put up neon road signs,” Catherine said. “We’ve probably gone too
far.”
“No,” Larry said. “I’m sure it’s the one on the right.”
“I’m really getting chilly, darling,” she said. “Let’s go back now.”
He turned to look at her. “We’re almost there, Cathy.” He squeezed her arm. “I’ll
warm you up when we get back to our bungalow.” He saw the reluctance on her face. “I’ll
tell you what—if we haven’t found the place in the next two minutes, we’ll turn around
and go home. OK?”
Catherine felt her heart lighten. “OK,” she said thankfully.
“Come on.”
They turned down the tunnel to the right, the beam of the flashlight making an eerie,
wavering pattern on the gray rock ahead. Catherine glanced back over her shoulder and
behind her was complete blackness. It was as though the little flashlight was carving
brightness out of the Stygian gloom, moving it forward a few feet at a time, encapsulating
them in its tiny womb of light. Larry stopped suddenly.