She flew forward into the elevator, hitting the floor hard.
She scrambled to her feet, knowing she had to get out of the elevator. She had to run back into the hall as fast as she could. Get back to the emergency room. Back to Nurse Haddie. Back to her sister. Back to safety.
There was a hiss. Then a roar. The heavy metal doors flew in from the sides and crashed together with enough force to shake the compartment.
Sarah ran at the door and tried to force her fingers into the seam and pull the doors open. It was too late. She was trapped. The elevator was already going up.
FORTY-SEVEN
The tunnel was a tighter fit than Jack had expected. Unless he had seen Lonetree disappear through the hole in front of him he would not have believed it possible. He kept reminding himself how much larger Lonetree was than himself. If the big man could fit through then he ought to be able to get by without a problem.
But it was a problem. He was stuck. The passage was all smooth rock now. The absence of the mud ought to have made the going easier, but Jack had only moved forward a few feet after over ten minutes of struggle. The rock pressed in on him from all sides. The ceiling was so low that he had to turn his head to the side to pass through. It was impossible to turn to face the opposite wall. His helmet would get wedged between the floor and roof if he tried to change positions.
The small space felt suffocating. Over and over, Jack forced back waves of panic. But seeing Lonetree slide through so easily helped him psychologically. He started to feel more frustration than fear. He wasn’t used to having to be wet nursed through a physical challenge.
The area around him was illuminated by both his own light and Lonetree’s who now crouched at the end of the section of the tunnel and coached him on how to get out of the tough spot.
“Jack, rest for a second and just listen.”
Jack stopped straining and did as he was told, lying flat on the cool rock, the side wall of the passage inches from his face.
“You can’t fight a rock. You’re not going to win. This stuff is all technique. Here’s what’s happening. Notice how the passage is so much lower on the left than the right? There’s half the vertical height on that side than the high side. See what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, I see that.”
“O.K. When you’re moving forward, your body is sliding downhill and lodging into that wedge down there. Slide back a little. Then push off with your left hand and foot and keep on the high side.”
Jack dug his toes into the rock and pulled himself backward. He jammed his hand and foot into the left wall and shifted his body to the high side. Keeping his body weight on the left, he edged his body forward, crab walking through the passage. He was amazed at how much easier it was. Less than a minute later he reached the end and climbed out of the tight tunnel into an open gallery.
The gallery was long and narrow, just wide enough to walk through. On either side, the walls soared up into the darkness. Jack craned his head backward to shine his light upward. The smooth rock walls towered above them, the beam too weak to penetrate up to the ceiling. The stone was a pale white that seemed to absorb the light from the intruders and give off its own soft glow. Wide streaks of dirty brown and green glistened when the light hit them. Jack reached out and felt the wall. It was slimy with algae growth and ground water oozing through the rock.
“How far up does that go?”
Lonetree threw Jack a bottle of water from his pack and glanced up. “Hundred feet or so. The ceiling is interesting.”
“How so?”
“It’s alive. Crawling with bats. Thousands of them.” Lonetree opened some water for himself. “The walls look like that from the guano.”
Jack lifted a foot off the ground and felt the sticky floor suck his boot down. “Nice.”
“Can’t hurt you. Makes a hell of a fertilizer.”
“How could you have found this place?” Jack asked in between gulps of the warm water. “Did you grow up around here or something?”
“No. But I grew up in caves like it. My father taught me and my brother.”
“Oh yeah?” Jack said as he tossed the water back to Lonetree, a little surprised at Lonetree’s sudden chattiness. “He was into caving?”
“Archeology. Growing up he dragged us around the country to different caves. Always trying to prove his grand theory.”
“What was his theory?”
Lonetree took a deep breath as if wishing the conversation had gone another direction. “He was convinced that there was a whole undiscovered record of early North American civilizations buried in the caves throughout the U.S.”
“How did he come up with that?”
“Early cultures on every other continent went into caves for rituals, for burials, to record their lives with paintings. There are more being discovered all the time. Sometimes miles deep into cave systems. But the record left by early Native Americans seemed minimal compared to what had already been discovered around the world in other civilizations.”
“Makes sense. So did he find what he was looking for?” Jack asked.
“He made some important finds. Nothing flashy, you know. Nothing that ended up in National Geographic or anything. But they were enough to keep getting grant money and get him tenure at the University of Oklahoma. For years, he kept looking, sure his theory was correct. Then, finally, he made the find of a lifetime.”
“This cave.”
Lonetree nodded. “This is it. He came in the same way we’re going right now. So did my brother. And what they found changed everything they believed.”
Jack looked around the gallery, again arching his neck to shine his light upward. “So, what did he find?” But when he lowered his head Lonetree was already walking down the gallery and pulling the backpack over his shoulders. Jack hustled to catch up with him and then fell into line behind him. He was about to ask his question again when he noticed the floor of the gallery.
They were following a well worn path. Jack at first thought there had to be another explanation for the feature so far underground, but the more he studied it, the more it seemed to him to be a trail worn into the solid stone by years of heavy use. Based on the little Lonetree had just told him, he guessed that he was walking on the path carved by ancient Native Americans. But why here, so far underground? Jack had no answers, something he was starting to get used to. But with the appearance of the path, he felt as if he was finally close to getting some.
FORTY-EIGHT
The elevator doors on the third floor of Midland General Hospital slid open. Sarah Tremont stood in the center of the elevator, her pink ball clutched with both hands. Even when the doors were open she hesitated to run out, though she wanted nothing more than to be out of the spooky elevator. All she could think about was how fast the doors had closed when she was locked in, how they had smashed together. What if that happened again? What if the doors slammed shut right when she was getting out and squished her in half?
She leaned forward to get a better look at where the elevator had taken her, too scared to move her feet. There was a nurse’s station, just like there was on every floor. But, as far as she could see, there was no one there.
“Hello,” she called out. “Anyone there?”
Silence.
Focused on looking for help outside the elevator, Sarah didn’t notice at first when the lights above her started to dim.
Then they flickered, as if surges of electricity were throbbing through the wires. A low hum filled the small compartment.
Sarah looked around nervously, but she couldn’t pinpoint where the sound was coming from. It seemed to come from everywhere.