Running Scared (7 page)

“We need to stop moving and wait for them to come to us. They'll find us, Ashley. I promise they will.”

H
ello! We're here! Help!”

Jack and Ashley took turns calling out, but their words seemed to get sucked away into nothingness, and after a while they decided to pace themselves and shout at intervals of ten minutes, no oftener than that, to keep their throats from getting raw. Minutes dragged as they waited. It felt to Jack as though they were marking time under dark, murky water. He shifted whenever his legs got numb from sitting. Even in the half-light he could tell his hands and his clothes had become encrusted with gray dust. He sighed and looked for the hundredth time at his watch, which cast an eerie green glow against his skin. 5:32. By now, his parents must have been told that the three of them were lost. In his mind he could picture their panicked reaction; his dad would insist every single ranger be sent to comb the cave, and his mother would probably call in the SWAT team. The fact that his folks would know exactly what to do to get them out of Left Hand Tunnel reassured him. Any minute now, they'd be found. Any minute. Patience was the key.

“Hello! Help—we're back here!”

Shifting again, Jack wrapped his fingers around the lantern, feeling its warmth but blocking some of the light. From the shadows, he heard his sister speak. “You cold?”

“Maybe a little, but not as much as I figured I'd be. I thought caves were supposed to stay around 56 degrees, but this feels warmer than that. How 'bout you? Do you feel cold?”

“I was warmer when we were moving.”

“Then get up and walk around.”

“Maybe I will.” But Ashley stayed put, sprawled on her side. With her cheek propped in her palm, she looked more like she was sunning on a beach instead of waiting in a cave. Her voice flinty, she asked, “How long now?”

“Two hours. Well, two hours and seven minutes and thirty-three seconds since we sat down, not that I'm counting or anything. The way I figure it, we got off the trail to look for Sam around 2:30. After we found him we walked around for about an hour, and then we've been sitting here for just over two. Not that long to get a rescue team together to find us.”

“Soooo—three hours plus some minutes,” Ashley said. “Where the heck are the rangers?”

Jack could hear the testiness in his own tone as he answered, “They're out there.”

“If they are, they're sure being quiet. Listen—I don't hear a thing. You'd think rescuers would make a little noise.” When she stopped speaking, silence enveloped them once again. Jack heard a single drop of water hit a pool somewhere in the distance, an empty, hollow note, and then it was still as a tomb.

“I already told you, sound might not travel too well in caves,” he told Ashley.

“Then why are we calling out if the sound won't go?”

“Because it's better than doing nothing!” he snapped. At the tone of Jack's voice, Sam raised his head, then dropped it back onto his arms. Taking a breath, Jack said, “Look, Ashley, the Park people, they've got to know we're down here. They'll find us. The rangers are probably making up a map—you know, figuring out their plan of attack. Bet they're going in a certain order, tunnel by tunnel, one at a time. That way they won't mess up.”

“But what if—”

“Hey, you OK, Sam?” Jack interrupted, deliberately changing the subject. “You haven't been talking much.

Not at all, really. You all right?”

“I have to g-go to the b-b-bathroom.”

Uh-oh. Now what? Jack wondered. “Can't you wait?”

“How long is he supposed to wait?” Ashley asked irritably. “Another three hours? Just take him somewhere, quick.”

“Where? You're talking like there's a rest room right around the corner.”

“I don't know where, and I don't want to know,” she answered. “It's a guy thing. Just find someplace where I can't see you or hear you and get it over with.”

That wasn't hard. All they had to do was walk 20 feet from where Ashley sat and she wouldn't be able to see them, as long as Jack shielded the lantern with his hand.

As for hearing them—he wasn't going to worry about that.

When he and Sam returned from their little side trip, Sam slumped back onto the ground, lowered his head, and once again stopped talking. Silent as the stone, he faced the wall, biting the edge of his thumbnail. When Ashley told him to stop, he quickly switched to biting his bottom lip instead, which Ashley chose to ignore.

“Hello—we're back here.”

Jack's cry hung in the air, like words in a cartoon bubble. A thick, black silence settled over them, dark and heavy. No one seemed to want to say much. After half an hour Jack told them they should get a drink, since it was important to stay hydrated. Following the sound of the drips, he led them to a cave puddle a hundred feet from where there were sitting, a clear pool invisible except for the candle's golden reflection. Ashley was the first to try, squatting down on all fours and lapping the water like a dog. Raising her head, she said it tasted fine, and Sam drank it without comment. When the cool water slipped down his own throat, Jack realized how thirsty he'd become. From years of scouting he knew that the problem in staying healthy when lost wasn't lack of food, but liquid. It took a month to starve but only hours to dehydrate. Shaking his head, he drove the thought from his mind. They'd only be here a little longer, at the most. Any minute now they'd be found.

“Hello. We're back here. Anybody?”

Silence. The cave was silent as a—tomb! That phrase kept coming back to haunt Jack's brain, like a gong that wouldn't stop ringing. He needed to get some real conversation going here, especially with Sam, who seemed to be shrinking deeper and deeper inside himself.

“Come on, Sammy, talk to me,” he urged. Sam didn't respond when Jack prodded him with questions, when he brought up stupid things Ashley had done at school, or talked about their visits to other parks. Nothing worked. Sam stared off in the darkness, his eyes vacant, his shoulders hunched, hands limp, and after a while, Jack gave up. Sam would be OK once they were out of Left Hand Tunnel, which would be any minute now. Things always seemed worse when wrapped in darkness.

“Hello—we're back here. Help us.”

6:41. Leaning against the wall, Jack let his mind wander. Formations that looked like giant mushrooms seemed to sprout from the walls, and his thoughts began to connect in patterns as crazy as the cave ornaments. In his mind's eye he could almost see the Elk Refuge, 50 acres of flat marsh bristling with cattail and wild geese where his mother worked with wild animals. The Refuge was ringed by low mountains, not the majestic Tetons but smaller, plainer hills that seemed to hold the marshes in the palms of their hands. A few shallow caves had been carved by the howling Jackson Hole wind, nothing like the deep, twisting caverns of Carlsbad, but little caves that seemed to pockmark the yellow stone. A family of cougars was said to live in one of them, and the smaller ones were supposedly filled with snakes, although Jack didn't believe either story. He remembered pointing out the caves to Sam, telling him he'd take him on a hike someday, but Sam had resolutely shaken his head no. Later, the social worker, Ms. Lopez, explained that Sam had hardly ever been out of his cramped apartment, that he'd been left in front of the television set for hours and hours, which was one of the reasons he was so fearful of new things. Now, as Jack looked at Sam's round head, he wondered how much more skittish Sam would be after all this time lost in the underbelly of Carlsbad. Sam seemed to be getting lost, too, but in a different way. He was disappearing inside himself.

Where were the rangers?

By the time Jack's watch beeped 7:00, he knew something was definitely wrong. Ashley knew it, too. She kept looking at him from beneath lowered lashes, as a kind of wordless shorthand passed between them.

Where are they? Ashley seemed to ask, to which Jack replied, How should I know?

Do you want to try to leave? to which Jack answered, No, not yet. Stay put. Don't panic.

Neither one of them wanted to upset Sam by saying it out loud, but they had to face the possibility that they might not be found before nightfall, which was a strange thought since night was endless here. The cold fact remained that they'd been gone close to four and one-half hours, and no one had found them. How was that even possible? Jack raged inside his head. Left Hand Tunnel wasn't that big, was it? Jack couldn't understand it, but his not comprehending didn't change a thing. They were lost, and they were alone. This could get serious.

As his empty stomach gave a rumble, Jack realized he was hungry. “Clean out your pockets to see if there's anything in them we can eat,” he told Ashley and Sam.

None of them found much. In addition to a dried-out granola bar shoved in a corner of his jacket pocket, Jack found an old cherry cough drop and 11 cents, while Ashley produced a pack of gum, warmed from her sitting on it, which they agreed to leave unchewed for a while, just in case. Sam, though, gave them the best find—a book of matches from the Carlsbad airport.

“Matches—that's great!” Jack enthused. “We could really use them. Man, I can't believe we lucked out this way! Not that we're going to be here very long, but….”

“My m-m-mom c-c-collects matchbook c-covers,” Sam answered softly. “It's for h-h-her.”

Since those were the first words Sam had actually spoken in ages, Jack nodded at him encouragingly, but Sam seemed to dry up. His fist closed around the matchbook, tight.

“I need the matches, Sam.” When Sam hesitated, Jack added, “Please. We'll get you some more when we leave Carlsbad. OK?”

Sam slowly loosened his grip. Without waiting for a reply, Jack snatched the matches and pocketed them. Those were more precious than the food.

“Are you going to build a fire?” Ashley asked.

“We could, except we don't have anything to burn.”

“How about some of our clothes?”

“You volunteering yours?”

Ashley clutched her sweatshirt tightly under her chin. “No.”

“I'm just joking—none of us have clothes that'd make a decent fire. Everything's at least half polyester, which means they'd just smoke, and then we'd end up choking to death. Besides, we'd get way more warmth from wearing our clothes than from any fire we could make. We—we might be here a while. Not too much longer, but…” Jack hesitated. Resting his head against the rock, he focused once again on the problem staring him right in the face, a problem bigger than food and almost as big as water. Light. Illumination. The six inches of white wax had melted to four, then three, and now it was hovering dangerously close to two. Two inches, and then what? He'd sounded so sure when he'd announced that they'd be rescued if they stayed in one spot, but would they be? If the candle burned to nothing, they'd have no illumination; that slender piece of wax had become their lifeline. He shuddered, picturing the inky blackness that would envelope them when the last of the candle melted away, but he didn't want to let on how bad it could be, especially with Sam acting as spooked as he was. With the matches, Jack had another option. He just prayed they'd be rescued before he'd have to do it, but….

“Hello—Earth to Jack,” Ashley said, waving her hands in the air. “What are you going to do with the matches? Heat the granola bar?”

“The candle's burning low,” he answered slowly. He might as well say it—there was no way around the problem. He tried to keep his voice emotionless as he stated, “I'd say we have two more hours of light—tops.”

Ashley's eyes widened. It was obvious she hadn't thought of that. “Not that it's a problem right now,” he rushed on when he saw panic ignite in Sam's face, “but unless the rangers show up soon, we'll have to blow out the candle and then relight it later, you know, to sort of pace it. That's why it's so great that we can relight—”

“No!” Sam cried. It was as if he'd suddenly come to life. Rocking forward onto his knees, his face contorted as he choked, “I h-h-hate th-th-the d-d-dark. B-b-bad things h-h-hap-p-pen in the d-d-dark. N-n-no, no, n-no!”

“OK, OK, we won't blow it out, Sammy, at least not yet.” Ashley was instantly at Sam's side, her arms encircling his shoulders, and for once he let her hold him. “Shhh.

It'll be all right. We'll wait.” Then, to Jack, “What is wrong with him? He's shaking like a rabbit.”

Jack had no idea what to do. The blood had drained from Sam's face, leaving his skin deathly white in the candlelight. He looked like a ghost, like a troglodyte or a cave imp. Fear had distorted his features.

“P-p-promise m-me! L-leave the c-c-candle burning!”

“But we can't afford to waste—”

“It's all right, we'll let it burn for now,” Ashley told Sam soothingly. She settled in next to Sam's small form, so close there wasn't enough space for a credit card between them. Ashley's head, thin and oval-shaped, rested against the top of Sammy's so that a braid hung right in his face until he pushed it away. Jack got closer, too, patting Sam's leg awkwardly. He wasn't as good at this as his sister was, but Sam quickly moved from Ashley to sidle up next to Jack. If that bothered Ashley, she didn't let on.

“P-p-promise. P-p-promise.”

“OK. Why are you so scared of the dark, Sam?” she asked, keeping her voice smooth. “Didn't anyone ever tell you there's nothing in the dark that's not there in the light? Why not?” she asked after Sam shook his head defiantly.

Sam looked away. His face began to settle back to normal. He hugged his knees tight, but didn't hide his eyes.

“You can tell us. Jack's your friend. I'm your friend. We're stuck here, with absolutely nothing to do until the rescuers get here. So why don't you explain—what are you so afraid of in the dark?”

Sam blinked. Ashley's quiet tone seemed to have softened him at the edges. After a few gulping breaths he said, “M-my d-d-dad—m-my d-d-dad—”