She shut her eyes.
Somehow, the feeling passed.
The air was growing cooler and cooler, cold even. Amy had forgotten about this, would've worn something warmer had she remembered, plundering a sweater from one of the archaeologists' backpacks. She began to shiver, even as she continued to sweat. Nerves, she knew: fear.
By the time she opened her eyes again, Jeff had come into view. Murkily: He was there, and not there. It was like seeing him underwater, or through smoke. He had his head tilted back. Amy couldn't make out his face, but there was something about his posture that made her certain he was smiling up at her. Despite herself-despite her fear, despite her sweating and shivering and general sense of discomfort-she smiled back.
Her feet touched the floor of the shaft. The sling went slack; the creaking stopped. And it was odd, because the sudden silence gave her a panicky sensation, a tightness in her chest. "Well," she said, just for the sound of the words, to break that eerie quiet. "Here we are."
Jeff was helping her out of the sling. "It's incredible," he said. "Isn't it? How far down do you think we are?"
Amy was too startled by the obvious excitement in his voice, the pleasure, to answer him. He was enjoying this, she realized. Even with everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, somehow he was managing to find pleasure in this. He was like a little boy, with a little boy's passions: the illicit joys of things underground-caves and hideouts and secret tunnels.
"Farther than I've ever been," he said. "No doubt about that. You think it could be a hundred feet?"
"Jeff," she said. It was strange: they were in darkness, but there was light, too. Or some hint of it, some residue dropping toward them from above. As her eyes kept adjusting, she could see more and more, the walls and floor of the shaft, and Jeff, too-his face. She could see him peering at her, his puzzled expression.
"What?" he asked.
"Let's just find the phone, okay?"
He nodded. "Right. The phone."
Amy watched him crouch, begin to prepare his torch. He uncapped the tequila, started to sprinkle the liquor over the knot of clothing, slowly, letting it soak in. He took his time, pouring a small trickle, then pausing, then pouring some more. Amy could smell the tequila; she was so emptied out-hungry, thirsty, tired-that the scent alone made her feel slightly drunk. She could see a sock and a shoe lying on the floor of the shaft, a few feet to Jeff's right, and it took a long moment to realize that they were Pablo's. They were the ones Eric had removed yesterday so that he could scrape the bottom of Pablo's foot to see if his spine was broken. They'd forgotten them in the flurry of their departure last night, and now they were already covered with a thin growth of vine. Amy almost bent to retrieve them, thinking Pablo would want them, but then she caught herself, feeling stupid. And wretched, too, because-morbidly-she'd started to smile. No need for socks and shoes anymore, of course, not for Pablo, not ever again.
"There was a shovel there last night," she said, surprising herself with the words. She hadn't thought them out first, hadn't even been conscious of noticing the shovel's absence until she'd heard herself remark upon it. She pointed toward the far wall of the shaft, where the shovel had been leaning. It wasn't there anymore.
Jeff turned, followed her gesture. "Are you sure?" he asked.
She nodded. "It was the kind you can fold up."
Jeff stared for another moment, then returned to his torch, dribbling more tequila across it. "Maybe they took it," he said.
"They?"
"The vines."
"Why would they do that?"
"Mathias and I were trying to dig a hole earlier, using a rock and a tent stake-for a latrine, and to distill our urine. Maybe they don't want us to be able to do that."
Amy was silent. There was so much to contest in this that she felt something like panic in the face of it, a buzzing sensation rising in her head. She didn't know where to begin. "You're saying they can see? They could see you digging?"
Jeff shrugged. "They have to have some way of sensing things. How else would they be able to reach out and take Pablo's feet like that?"
Pheromones, Amy was thinking. Reflexes. She didn't want the vine to be able to see, was horrified by the prospect of this, wanted its actions to be automatic, preconscious. "And it can communicate?" she said.
Jeff stopped with the bottle, capped it; the clothes were thoroughly saturated now. "What do you mean?"
"They saw you digging up there, and then they told the ones down here to hide the shovel." She wanted to laugh, the idea seemed so absurd. But something was keeping her from laughing, that buzzing in her head.
"I guess," Jeff said.
"And they think? "
"Definitely."
"But-"
"They dragged down my sign. How could they have known to do that without-"
"They're plants, Jeff. Plants don't see. They don't communicate. They don't think. They-"
"Was there a shovel there last night?" He gestured toward the shaft's far wall.
"I think so. I-"
"Then where is it now?"
Amy was silent. She couldn't answer this.
"If something moved it," Jeff said, "don't you think it makes sense to assume it was the vine?"
Before she could respond, the chirping resumed. It was coming from her left, down the open shaft. Jeff fumbled quickly with the box of matches, plucked one out, struck it into flame, held it to the knot of clothing. The alcohol seemed to grab at the match, sucking its light into itself with a fluttering sound, a cloud of pale blue fire materializing around the torch. Jeff lifted it up, held it before them; it gave off a weak, tenuous glow, which seemed constantly on the verge of going out. Amy could tell it wouldn't last long.
"Quick," he said, waving her toward the open shaft.
The chirping continued-it was up to three rings now-and the two of them rushed forward, hurrying to find it before it fell silent again. Five rapid strides and they were into the shaft, a steady stream of cold air pushing against them, making the torch in Jeff's hand shudder weakly. Amy felt a moment's terror, leaving that small square of open sky behind, the ceiling dropping low enough for Jeff to have to crouch as he moved forward. The darkness seemed to press in on them, to constrict somehow with each step they took, as if the walls and ceiling of the shaft were shifting inward. The vine, oddly, in such a lightless place, appeared to be growing in great profusion here, covering every available surface. They were wading through it, knee-deep, and it was hanging toward them from above, too, brushing against Amy's face; if she hadn't been so desperate to find the phone, she would've immediately turned and fled.