My Cousin, the Alien (7 page)

The place didn’t look very promising, just a parking lot and a low cinderblock building. We parked and, when the rain let up a little, made a dash for the building. The next tour wouldn’t leave for a half an hour, so we hung out in the gift shop, looking at bat T-shirts, bat refrigerator magnets, and glow-in-the-dark plastic bats.

More people started showing up for the tour. I recognized other resort guests. First was the white-haired pavilion lady. She smiled at us, then began browsing through nature books. After a while came the family with the loud little kids and a dozen or more other folks I didn’t recognize. Then, just before time for the tour, the door opened and in stepped the two fat, bald twins, Clyde and Bill. My stomach tightened, and Ethan looked like he was going to throw up.

“They’re after me,” he whispered.

“No, they’re not,” I whispered back, hoping I was right. “They’re just fat golfers who can’t play today because it’s raining. Let’s just stay away from them.”

“The next tour of the magnificent Sunken River Caverns is about to begin,” announced a young man in a brown uniform. “Step through the door on your left and guides will take you to the boats.”

All the guides were pretty young, like they were high school kids with summer jobs. The rain quit as they trooped us down a steep path. Ahead, the cliff looked like it had had a big bite taken out of it. Ferns and vines grew from its curved, rocky sides. Ethan and I stayed well away from the pudgy twins.

“This part of the state is full of limestone quarries,” a guide said, “and honeycombed with caves and underground rivers. But this particular cave wasn’t discovered until 1953. That’s when a farmer noticed one day that his cow pond had vanished. The weight of the water had collapsed the top of an underground cavern, and the pond and a couple of cows fell into it.”

“Did the cows die?” a worried little girl asked.

“Yes,” the guide said in a scary voice. “And their ghosts still haunt the cave.”

The kid looked like she was going to cry, and the guide quickly said, “Just kidding. Actually the farmer got them out, but he discovered that under his farm was a whole underground river. He and his sons started exploring it, and since then we’ve mapped miles of underground passages.”

“Could more of the cave roof fall in now?” someone asked. I couldn’t see through the crowd, but from the oily-sounding voice, it might have been one of the twins. I glanced nervously at Ethan, but he didn’t seem to have noticed.

The guide laughed. “If I thought so, I’d find another job. But to be safe, the state bought all the land above the stream system and keeps away heavy activity. Now, walk carefully once you’re in the cave. The path’s slick with dripping water.”

The rain might have stopped, but it was still hot and steamy. Stepping into the cave, though, felt like stepping into an earthy-smelling refrigerator. I was glad I’d believed the brochure and brought a jacket. “Caves keep a constant temperature year round,” said the guide. “Early settlers used to store food in them.”

As we continued down the steep path, the guide talked about how underground rivers are formed. I was too busy looking to listen much. The rough stone walls glowed with widely spaced electric lights. Occasionally, other passages led off into darkness.

Ethan stuck close to me and as far from Clyde and Bill as possible. When we reached the dock, he whispered, “Let’s try for a boat of our own.”

A half dozen boats were tied to the wooden dock. Nearest us, a girl guide stepped in and immediately two teenage boys chose that boat too. All the other boats were filling up, so we climbed into hers as well and were soon joined by an Asian couple. At least we weren’t sharing a boat with our parents or the fat, bald guys.

One by one, the boats were untied from the dock. Our guide sat in the back, steering and working a quiet electric motor. She talked in a bored voice about blind fish and crayfish, saying that when animals stay out of the sun for generations, they become white and blind. I suppose guides get bored always saying the same stuff, but it actually sounded interesting. I’d have to admit to my dad that this was pretty cool, though not as cool as horseback riding, of course. I watched the black water as the headlight, mounted low on our boat, sliced into it.

Ethan was paying more attention to the other boats. “Our parents are two boats behind us,” he whispered. “And the two aliens are way in the back.”

I grunted but kept my eyes on the water sliding under us, trying to keep focused on what was the real world. After all, why make up guys from outer space when you’re already in a really alien-looking world?

“Hey, there’s a blind fish!” I said, pointing at what looked like a bleached goldfish. The guide shone a flashlight on it, but it wasn’t bothered by the light. Blind.

The passage the river took narrowed as the guide shone her light over the cave walls, pointing out rock formations with names like “The Camel” or “The Old Man.” They kind of looked like those things, but mostly they looked like rocks—rocks that were all melted and twisted like candle wax.

We glided on, seeing more blind fish and several white crayfish looking like tiny ghost lobsters. In the boat behind us, a little girl squealed as something zipped through the air overhead.

“Bats,” her guide said. The other kids in that boat started making vampire jokes in really bad Transylvanian accents. Finally someone shushed them.

“This far underground, one of the things you notice, or ought to,” our guide said sternly, “is the quiet.”

The other guides were saying the same to their boats. The low babble sank to stillness. Total quiet. It was creepy. Then someone banged loudly against the side of a boat. The sound, like cannon fire, rumbled on and on.

“Cave thunder,” said our guide. “The rock and water carry sound for miles.”

We continued down the cold twisting passage, while our guide chatted with the teenage boys about stuff having nothing to do with caves. Then she raised her voice again.

“As we go by here, you’ll feel a slight breeze. We’re passing one of the many underground streams that feed into this river. The breeze comes from outside, where a normal surface stream suddenly disappears underground. And now we’re coming to the Imperial Cavern.”

Ahead of us, the tunnel opened into an underground lake. As the boats glided into it, the guides pointed their big flashlights around. The cave ceiling was high, and rock hung from it in frozen curtains. Water drops glistened at their tips while stumps of rock jutted out of the dark water. Sometimes the two merged into solid pillars. In the center of the lake rose a rock mountain topped with a lump that looked like a throne for some Emperor of the Underworld.

The boats didn’t have to keep in line anymore, and they spread out over the dark surface of the lake. Our parents waved from their boat, and we waved back. We tried to ignore the boat that held Clyde and Bill. They were the only ones in that boat except for the guide. Guess they reached the weight limit all on their own.

“It was a cavern like this,” the chief guide announced, “that used to be under the farm pond. Today, you could walk through the woods above us and never know that this fantastic underground world was here. Now we’re going to show you something you seldom get to see on the surface. This is what pure dark is like.”

Suddenly, all the lights on the boats switched off. This was dark. Majorly dark. I waved my hands in front of my face but couldn’t see a flicker.

Nervous whispers echoed around the cavern. Then a mournful call silenced the rest. Low and sad, it recalled every ghost story I’d ever heard.

“The ghosts of the lost cows!” a deep voice intoned. That set off one kid’s scream and a bunch of giggles. Soon the cavern echoed with less-than-ghostly mooing.

“So, that’s a cave fish’s view of the world,” a guide said as the lights came back on.

A moment earlier, I had been staring at blackness. Suddenly, I found myself looking right at the boat carrying Clyde and Bill. I saw more than their gross shapes and shiny heads. I saw what one held in his hand. Something metallic. Something that looked like a gun.

What happened next took seconds. But I remember it in very slow motion.

When the lights switched back on, I was the only one looking toward the fat, bald guys. The glinting gun pointed in our direction. Grabbing Ethan, I threw us both to the bottom of the boat. At the same time, a twin raised the gun higher. He wasn’t aiming at us but at the cave ceiling.

Was it just a camera? No. I heard a crack—sort of like gunfire. But what came from the barrel was no bullet. It wasn’t flame or light either, but more like a stream of air above a candle—air quivering with heat.

It sliced into the rock above us. An explosive rumble filled the cavern. People screamed. The rock groaned. Flashlight beams darted upward, catching a huge slab of rock shuddering loose. More screams. The guide and the two teens leaped off one side of our boat and the Asian couple off the other.

“Mom! Dad!” Ethan called, lurching to his feet. The boat rocked. I tackled him around the waist and leaped off the back. Cold black water closed over us. A sound like thunder crashed. The empty boat bobbing behind us splintered under cascading rock. A huge wave lifted us like driftwood, washing us back toward the tunnel.

The cavern filled with noise. People screamed as more rock broke loose. A few beams of light zigzagged about. The two of us smashed onto a slick, flat rock that was just under the water. Crouching on it like a toad, Ethan started to yell. I slapped my hand over his mouth.

By the frantic beams of light darting through the darkness, I could see one boat moving closer. Not a rescue boat. Clyde and Bill were steering it. Their guide was gone.

“They want to finish us,” I whispered. Tugging on Ethan’s arm, I slid silently into the water. He didn’t need more urging. Keeping our heads just above water, we paddled back into the mouth of the tunnel.

From the wet darkness, I looked back. Clyde and Bill, in their boat, were examining the wreck of ours. A metallic something still glinted in one of their hands. Then their flashlight began skimming over the water in our direction. We slipped behind a big rock and kept swimming.

In the chaos behind us, I could hear our parents calling our names. We didn’t dare answer. I couldn’t hear its electric motor but was sure Clyde and Bill’s boat was heading our way. The passage ahead was dark. It still echoed with the thunderous explosion. Pulling myself half onto a rock, I tried to remember the way this tunnel had looked just before we’d entered the cavern. Was there any place to hide?

I shivered as a cold draft played over my skin.

“The side passage!” I whispered, slipping again into the dark water. With Ethan close behind me, we floundered into even deeper darkness. A faint current in the water showed I was right. A side stream entered somewhere nearby.

Ahead, a break in the rock wall was low and tumbled with boulders. We’d just pulled ourselves behind them as a lit boat glided silently by in the main passage.

This was an underground creek, not a river, shallow enough to walk in—or rather duck-walk since the ceiling was too low for standing.

“What do we do now?” Ethan whispered, his scared voice barely rising above the noise from the cavern.