Nothing happened for about two minutes, and then there was another cough, louder this time. He felt in the dark for her head and bent backward so he could whisper into her ear again. “The cats probably know the way out. There was air flowing through here when the main hatch was open. We’ll follow it.”
He felt her nod slightly and then he straightened back up.
They waited. The darkness was absolute. He could feel his eyes trying to adapt for night vision, but there was no ambient light. So listen, he told himself. And be very fucking quiet. He tried to detect Mary Ellen’s breathing, but she’d already figured it out.
Those cats could supposedly see in the dark, but not in this kind of dark. But they could smell and they could sense another animal presence. He and Mary Ellen had walked down into the junction cavern, so their scent would be in the dust on the ground, if not in the air.
So turn on the light, he told himself. The cat has all the advantages right now. He had a bad thought: Could the cat be behind them?
No, that cage door had been locked, and there’d been no side passages in the tunnel they’d come through. No, it had to be in front of them.
He pointed the flashlight into the cavern and switched it on.
The cat was three feet away, staring at them, its amber eyes blinking in the sudden shaft of light. Mary Ellen gave an involuntary little squeak, and Cam swallowed hard. He didn’t move, and then, almost without realizing he was doing it, he let go the best and loudest imitation of a cat’s hiss that he could muster. The cat replied in kind but then bolted across the cavern and disappeared into one of the passages-the one directly across from them.
Cam stepped down into the cavern with shaky knees and helped Mary Ellen get to her feet. They listened for a moment but didn’t hear anything.
“I’m guessing there’s a way out, and that he went for the tunnel that would let him escape.”
“And if there isn’t?”
“Let’s try it. If it looks like a dead end or we run into more intersections, we’ll go back and do it your way.”
“What if he’s in there, setting up an ambush? That’s what they like to do, you know.”
“Maybe, but he’s the one who ran.” He didn’t bring up the fact that two cats had gone into the tunnels, but an ambush in these narrow passageways would be just about impossible. On the other hand, so would escape.
He took her hand and they went into the passage the cat had disappeared into. To their vast relief, this one started to ascend. He checked for tracks in the dust and thought he could see some every four feet or so. Then the passageway turned hard right and went up at almost a sixty-degree angle. The slope was wider than the tunnel, perhaps fifty feet up, and littered with loose rock and dirt. He shone the light up to the top of the slope and thought he caught a momentary flash of amber-green eyes. A moment later, some small stones rattled down the slope.
“That what I think it was?” she said.
“Yeah, but it’s still running,” he replied, sweeping the light across the top of the slope. It was a yellow light now, no longer quite so bright. They’d have to resolve this pretty soon, or go back before the flashlight died entirely.
He went up first, got halfway up, and then slid clumsily all the way back down in an avalanche of dirt and rocks. Mary Ellen tried it, got ten feet higher than he had, and slid back to the floor in the same manner.
“The cat did it,” Cam said. He searched the sides of the incline and pointed out some scratches on the cavern’s walls. The dirt seemed firmer here, so he tried again, making it to the top this time. Mary Ellen did one more avalanche drill and then finally got up to the top. Cam swept the light around and exhaled in relief. There was only one passage in front of them, and it continued to ascend. He thought the air was fresher up here, although he knew this could just be wishful thinking.
They dusted themselves off, stepped into the passageway, and continued to climb, going slowly in case that big cat was waiting up around the next corner. The incline wasn’t dramatic, but the footing was slippery, which indicated water, so Cam switched the light out to see if there was daylight ahead. There wasn’t. Just lots more of that stygian darkness. He rested for a moment, listening. He was about to start moving again, when they both heard the sounds of something scrabbling up that rocky slope behind them. Cat number two.
They hurried as best they could, bumping their heads occasionally as the space above dwindled to five feet or less. Cam swung the light behind them about once a minute to see if eyes flashed, but the tunnel twisted and turned so much, nothing could be seen. He thought the air was definitely getting fresher, which was good, but his flashlight was dimming fast. He wanted to switch it off again but didn’t dare as long as that other cat was ahead of them. They’ve been fed, he kept telling himself, and they’re more scared of us than we are of them. Right.
When the cat screamed ahead of them, he very nearly tripped over his own feet in his attempt to halt. Mary Ellen bumped into him and gripped his arm. The cat screamed again, a hate-filled noise that ended in a prolonged rumbling growl. Its noises echoed in front of them, as if it were making its stand in another large cavern. Then from behind came an answering noise, this one sounding a lot more lionlike than the one ahead of them. We have you where we want you, it said. Your move.
Cam was tempted to let fly with the. 45, but he knew full well the danger of ricochet, not to mention causing a cave-in from the explosive noise.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Time to face these bastards.”
Mary Ellen seemed frozen in place, so he pulled gently on her arm and then she followed. They rounded a corner and encountered a cavern that was not so much large as it was high, a beehive-shaped rocky cylinder that rose nearly sixty feet to a tiny point of visible sky over to one side. There was a deep water-carved fissure running down one side of the wall, which looked like the way up to the opening at the top. The cavern was about a hundred feet across at the bottom, and there was a pool of black water in the center. The bones of numerous animals lay around the pool, and the panther was on the other side, its tail switching angrily. It screamed at them again as they stepped into the cavern. Cam switched off the flashlight, and they could actually see. They edged around to their right so they could watch the passage behind them for the other cat.
“I’ll watch the cat,” he said. “You study that big crack over there, figure out the best way up.”
The cat on the far side began to slink around to its right, watching them every step of the way. Cam and Mary Ellen moved to keep the cat diametrically opposite them across the pool.
“It’ll take some climbing, but that looks like the only way up,” she said. “Everything else slopes in at the top.”
“Right,” he said. “Good thing these damned cats can’t climb.”
The second panther appeared out of the passageway then and growled in what sounded like triumph. The first cat reversed course, and now the two cats closed in on them from separate directions. The cat on the right was between them and the fissure. Mary Ellen tugged his sleeve and pointed at a rough ramp of rock right in front of them, leading up to a ledge.
By now, Cam had the. 45 out. He wanted to accommodate Mary Ellen’s wishes as a naturalist and not harm the cats, but not at the price of becoming dinner. He pointed it into the water, aiming in the direction of the second cat, and fired one round. The noise was terrific, as was the waterspout created by the heavy bullet. The cat stopped and screamed at them, shaking water off its face. The first cat, now no more than a dozen feet away on their right, wasn’t impressed and kept coming. Cam fired again, this time trying to hit in front of the approaching panther. This produced another scream and a slashing ricochet that whacked around the inside of the cavern, making them both duck. Mary Ellen jumped onto the ramp and scampered up onto the first of the ledges. Cam followed, watching the cats, who were stopped now and treating them to a lively display of teeth and noise. One was still between them and the climbing fissure, but below them.