tremble uncontrollably, and she began to scream. An instant later, they were on her,
hundreds of them, swarming over her, beating at her with their cold, clammy wings and
smothering her with their furry rodent bodies in a nightmare of unspeakable horror.
The last thing she remembered before losing consciousness was calling Larry’s name.
She was lying on the cold, damp floor of the cave. Her eyes were closed, but her
mind had suddenly awakened, and she thought, Larry wants to kill me. It was as though
her subconscious had put the idea there intact. In a series of kaleidoscopic flashes she
heard Larry saying, I’m in love with someone else…I want a divorce…and Larry moving
toward her through the cloud on the mountaintop, his hands reaching for her…She
remembered looking down the steep mountain and saying, It will take a long time to get
down, and Larry saying, No, it won’t…and Larry saying, We don’t need a guide…I think
we took the wrong turn. Wait here…I’ll be back in ten seconds…And then the terrifying
blackness.
Larry had never intended to return for her. The reconciliation, the honeymoon…it
was all pretense, part of a plan to murder her. All the time she had been smugly thanking
God for giving her a second chance, Larry was plotting to kill her. And he had succeeded,
for Catherine knew she would never get out of here. She was buried alive in a black tomb
of horror. The bats had gone, but she could feel and smell the filthy slime they had left all
over her face and body, and she knew that they would be back for her. She did not know if
she could keep her sanity through another attack. The thought of them made her begin to
tremble again, and she forced herself to take slow, deep breaths.
And then Catherine heard it again and knew she could not stand it another time. It
started as a low humming, and then a louder wave of sound, moving toward her. There
was a sudden, anguished scream, and it rang out into the darkness over and over, and the
other sound kept coming louder and louder, and out of the black tunnel a light appeared,
and she heard voices calling out and hands began to reach for her and lift her and she
wanted to warn them about the bats, but she was unable to stop screaming.