“Damn!” he said.
“What’s the matter?”
“I think we took the wrong turn back there.”
Catherine nodded. “All right. Let’s go back.”
“Let me make sure. You stay here.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Where are you going?”
“Just a few feet. Back to that entrance.” His voice sounded strained and unnatural.
“I’ll come with you.”
“I can do it faster alone, Catherine. I just want to check the fork where we made the
last turn.” He sounded impatient. “I’ll be back in ten seconds.”
“All right,” she said, uneasily.
Catherine stood there watching as Larry turned away from her and walked back into
the dark from which they had come, enclosed in a halo of light like a moving angel in the
bowels of the earth. A moment later the light disappeared, and she was plunged into the
deepest blackness she had ever known. She stood there, shivering, counting off the
seconds in her mind. And then the minutes.
Larry did not return.
Catherine waited, feeling the blackness lapping around her like malicious invisible
waves. She called out, “Larry?” and her voice was hoarse and uncertain, and she cleared
her throat and tried again louder. “Larry?” She could hear the sound dying a few feet away
from her, murdered by the darkness. It was as though nothing could live in this place, and
Catherine began to feel the first tendrils of terror. Of course Larry will be right back, she
told herself. All I have to do is stay where I am and remain calm.
The black minutes dragged by, and she began to face the fact that something had
gone terribly wrong. Larry could have had an accident, he could have slipped on the loose
stones and hit his head on the sharp sides of the cave. Perhaps at this moment he was lying
just a few feet away from her, bleeding to death. Or perhaps he was lost. His flashlight
could have gone out and he might be somewhere in the bowels of this cave trapped, as she
was trapped.
A feeling of suffocation began to close in on Catherine, choking her, filling her with a
mindless panic. She turned and began to walk slowly in the direction from which she had
come. The tunnel was narrow, and if Larry was lying on the ground, helpless and hurt, she
had a good chance of finding him. Soon she would come to the place where the passage
had divided. She moved cautiously, the loose stones rolling beneath her feet. She thought
she heard a distant sound and stopped to listen. Larry? It was gone, and she began to move
again, and then she heard it once more. It was a whirring sound, as though someone were
running a tape recorder. There was someone down here!