”I’d thought about that,” Dar told him quietly. ”But this is what she does, Duks. I’m not tossing her somewhere else in the company for everyone to make cracks about.” She raked her dark hair back. ”No, maybe this whole thing with Steven’s just putting me on edge. I’ll get over it.” She brushed the subject off. ”Sorry about that, I think I need some chocolate.”
Duks gave her a look, then chuckled in relief. ”You and your chocolate.” He watched Dar dig in her belt pack and tug out a few silver wrapped items. ”If you tell me you are carrying around little chocolate kisses, I’m going to have to lose my very meager breakfast over there by the wayside, Dar.”
She stopped and glanced at her open hand, then grinned a touch sheepishly. ”Want one?” she offered weakly. ”I um...” She waved ahead of them. ”I think Kerry stuck them in there.”
”Oh disgusting,” Duks clucked. ”I am getting slimed by all this mushdom.” He did take a kiss though. ”I never, ever thought you had it in you.”
Dar sucked happily on her kiss, rolling it around so the chocolate flavor got equally distributed. ”Yeah well, wonders never cease,” she commented as a shout from the front of the group indicated the next obstacle had been encountered. ”Let’s go see what they found this time.”
IT LOOKED LIKE the next problem was a maze. At least, that’s what Kerry thought it was, seeing the multitude of wooden paths that wound among each other. The paths were about six inches wide and reminded her of balance beams, which had always been a bane of hers.
”Now what?” She glanced at the paths, puzzled.
”We have to get there.” Steven pointed to a low platform about a hundred yards away. ”Just a matter of picking the right path.” He studied the choices. ”I think this is the right one.”
”Why?” José disagreed, kicking the one nearest him with a toe.
”Why not this one?”
”Or this one?” Duks was investigating one that went around the perimeter.
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”Look, this one goes directly across to there. It’s closer,” Steven argued. ”That one there goes all the way over to that side and zig zags, and the other one goes around the edges.”
”Well, but wouldn’t they tend to not make the right one the most direct?” Mariana asked, reasonably. ”What would be the challenge, otherwise?” She watched Mary Lou approach yet another path. ”Not that it’s... I mean, we can just try each one until we find the right one, I suppose.”
”Wouldn’t it be faster if we each tried one and whoever figures out the right one first tells everyone, and then everyone else can just get on that path?” Kerry inquired, peering over the paths. Each wooden walkway was suspended over a coral grotto of pits and slopes, filled with impassable bushes and rock walls. ”What is this thing, anyway?”
Dar stepped up behind her, and turned in a full circle. ”My guess is it used to be a lake,” she stated. ”See how the land slopes up around here?” She pointed. ”So that used to be the bottom of it, soft coral and limestone shaped by the water.”
”Would you can the Discovery Channel, please?” Steven rolled his eyes. ”Let’s get this over with.” He stepped out on his chosen path.
”You all can do what you want. I’m heading over there.”
”This is foolish,” Eleanor muttered. ”They’re going to get a huge piece of my mind when I get back to Miami.” She put a hesitant foot on a board. ”Jesu...if I fall off this, I’m suing.”
Dar was the last one to choose. She waited for everyone else to pick a path, then she stood on the edge of the puzzle and gazed across. Kerry was off to her left and she considered it, then picked a path most likely to intersect with the one Kerry was on. It wasn’t particularly hard, the board being eight inches or so across, you just had to be careful of your step. Falling wouldn’t be painful, just embarrassing, unless you were a guy and fell straight down or you chose to take a dive off the planks and hit your head on the coral.
”See? I told you,” Steven yelled in triumph as his path wound closer to the platform. ”You guys better start backtracking.”
Dar bounced on her feet twice and regarded his planks. ”Maybe,”
she was forced to agree, giving Kerry a wry look as the blonde woman glanced her way. ”I don’t...” She stopped as a faint tremor ran through her legs. ”Did you feel that?”
Kerry concentrated. ”Feel what?” She looked puzzled.
”Like a...a shudder or something.” Dar waited, but the feeling wasn’t repeated. ”No? Must be me, then.” She shook her head, then continued on a bit, watching Duks and Eleanor’s paths come close to each other. Then she felt it again. ”There, did you feel that?”
”Feel what?” Mark had circled around away from the perimeter.
”Dar, are you all right?”
The tall, dark haired woman stopped still and concentrated. ”Yeah.
I think I...” Now it was stronger. ”There...tell me you didn’t feel that, Hurricane Watch
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like a truck going by on the freeway.”
”I felt it,” Kerry acknowledged, looking around nervously. ”Is it an earthquake?”
”Earthquake!” Eleanor heard her. ”What are you saying? Don’t be foolish. There are no earthquakes in Florida.”
Dar's brow creased. ”She’s right.
The entire state’s built on
limestone over a water base. There’s nothing to quake. It’d just turn to sand and—” Abruptly her footing lurched under her. ”Hey!”
”What the—” José wavered back and forth. ”This is some piece of shit trick. Goddamn these people.” He flailed his arms for balance.
”Jesu!”
Dar saw the crack. ”Oh shit.” Her eyes went wide in shock. ”Hang on!” Instinctively, she dove in Kerry’s direction as the entire grotto collapsed under them, in a rumble of rock and splintering wood.
She fell, they all did, with dirt and coral and trees tumbling after them, screams going up as the earth dropped out from under their feet, crumbling and diving down into a sudden, gaping, widening well. Dar covered her head as she dropped, trying to fend off branches with her other hand, and she remained upright until a rock hit her mid fall, knocking her sideways and into the collapsing earth rim.
She grabbed at a limb, but the weight of the earth pressed her onward and she found herself slipping down a moving slope, with rocks and sticks pelting her painfully. ”Kerry!” she yelled, just before a sizable chunk of coral smacked her in the head and knocked her into a dark fog for a long, frightening moment. Then she hit bottom and felt the impact of what seemed like half the world dropping on top of her.
Kerry had screamed as the wood disintegrated beneath her feet, but she’d managed to grab hold of the supports as she dropped and swung over to the side of the falling pit, scraping along the edges and trying to get a grip on anything to stop her slide. Around her, she could hear the others screaming and she ducked a branch, then got her feet under her and managed to slow her descent for a moment.
Not long enough, though, as the earth ledge she’d been bracing against collapsed and she found herself tumbling head over heels towards a pile of coral. ”Jesus!” She managed to shove away from them, but got caught by a falling tree which she grabbed and clung to as it rushed downward. She felt a tremendous jolt as it hit bottom and she went flying through the air.
Luck put her down in a pile of earth and small rocks, instead of anything harder and she crawled out of the way of some falling limbs and huddled under a tree trunk as the collapse roared around her. She heard her name called and she lifted her head, peering through the branches towards the sound. She spotted Dar’s falling body, then saw it crumble in mid air and land, with rocks and dirt on top of her. ”Dar!”