White Cave Escape (8 page)

The five young people were trotting as quickly as they dared through the boggy terrain. The forest had gone unnaturally quiet. No chirping birds. No buzzing insects. Tendrils of smoke were once again curling around their ears, and the air felt heavy.

“Sorry, Tony,” Craig apologized, looking over his shoulder. “I thought you were farther back.”

“Not so much,” moaned Tony, rubbing the red welt across his cheek.

“Hurry up, you guys,” Shawn called anxiously. He moved up beside Colin, who was leading. “Recognize any landmarks yet?” Shawn asked him in a low voice. Colin shook his head. “Not yet. But we've still got a lot of ground to cover.”

“And not a lot of time to cover it in,” coughed Shawn. His eyes were beginning to water in the smoky haze.

“Pit!” called Petra, pointing out another scum-covered pool, half-hidden by tangled underbrush. “Watch your step.” The five young people picked their way carefully around the innocuous-looking puddle and jogged on through muggy heat. Tony wiped the sweat from his forehead and glanced back at the water.

“Uh, guys?” he called. “How come we can't just wait out the fire in one of these pools? It seems weird to be running from a fire when there's water all around us.”

Ahead of him, Petra was already shaking her head. “No good, Tony. When the fire gets here, the air temperature will shoot up hotter than an oven. Air that hot would cook your lungs. If the smoke didn't kill you first, that is.”

“Don't you ever have any good news?” Tony complained as he followed her.

When they passed another pool, they paused. Borrowing Petra's stick pin (and Tony's head), Shawn quickly made another compass and checked their direction. “We need to veer a little more to the right,” he said, putting the pin in his pocket. They adjusted their course slightly, but had only been hiking for a few minutes when Shawn stopped again.

“Do you guys hear that?”

They halted, listening.

It was coming from behind them: a low, rushing, roaring sound, like waves washing ashore on a rocky beach. The rushing noise became a crackling noise.

And then:

“Fire!” yelled Shawn. The dark shadows pooling beneath the underbrush morphed into smoke. Tentacles of flame flicked out of the foliage. As they watched in horror, the fire divided with serpentine speed, slithering up tree trunks, strangling bushes. Long fingers of flame began crawling across the ground towards them.

“Go go go!” shouted Colin. They bolted.

“Stay together! Stay together!” Shawn choked as he ran.

But it was impossible.

Shawn's eyes blurred, filled with tears from the stinging smoke. He lunged blindly through the trees, following the noise of the others crashing through the brush. The heat was horrible. Sparks sizzled through the air. Out of the corner of his streaming eyes, Shawn thought he glimpsed a large, dark shape racing through the trees just off to his left. Was it an animal or a person? He couldn't be sure.

“Petra! Craig!” he gasped. “Where are you? Tony!”

He thought he heard Craig shout in reply and swerved towards the sound. His brother's panicked face loomed out of the smoke. Shawn grabbed Craig's sleeve and towed him forward.

“Come on! Come on!”

Another figure materialized out of the smoky gloom, loping along beside them. Colin. The boys couldn't spare any breath for talk. They needed every molecule of oxygen they could suck out of this toxic air just to keep moving.

They ran until every breath felt like a knife sliding in and out of their lungs.

Finally the roar of the fire receded. The smoke thinned slightly. Abruptly, the forest ended, spitting them out into a bowl-shaped valley, hemmed in on three sides by cliffs of white gypsum. The boys staggered to a halt.

Still coughing and gagging from the smoke, Shawn looked around him.

“Where are the others?”

“Don't know,” wheezed Colin. He was bent over, panting, his hands on his knees. “Lost sight of them in the smoke.”

Craig ran back to the entrance of the valley and cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Tony! Petra!” he called.

Shawn joined him, shouting at the indifferent trees.

“Petra! Tony! Hobart!” But his voice, ragged from exhaustion and smoke, couldn't penetrate the smoky forest. There was no answer.

chapter
14
The Bullroarer

Shawn looked around desperately.

Before him lay the forest and the approaching fire. Behind him were rugged white cliffs of crumbling gypsum. Beneath his feet, a carpet of tinder-dry grass rustled beneath his sneakers.

“What do we do now?” asked Craig, looking up at his big brother, his blue eyes wide and frightened. Shawn glanced over at Colin, but the older boy was also looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. Shawn squared his shoulders and took a deep breath.

“We stick to the plan. We head for the White Caves and take shelter underground.” Shawn dug into his pocket and handed the pin to Colin. “Find some water and take another bearing,” Shawn ordered. “Make sure we know where north is.” Colin nodded and sprinted towards the cliffs at the back of the valley. Shawn began criss-crossing the clearing, scouring the ground. Craig bounced along beside him, peppering him with anxious questions.

“How are we going to get out of here, Shawn? What do we do when the fire reaches the valley? What about Tony and Petra? How are we going to find them?”

“We're going to call them.”

“Call them? With what? We don't have a phone.”

“I'm going to make something.”

“You're going to make a
phone
?”

Shawn stopped and knelt. He brushed aside the tall, swaying grasses to reveal a shallow stream. It cut a narrow, curving course across the valley floor. Shawn stood up, cupped his hands around his mouth, and called to Colin: “Hey! I found water!”

From the back cliff wall, Colin gave them the thumbs-up. “I know—it's coming from over here!” his thin voice came back. “There's a spring coming up from beneath the cliff!”

“Go ahead and drink,” Shawn told Craig. “Spring water is naturally filtered by the earth. This is probably better than the bottled stuff Mom buys at the store.” Both brothers scooped frantic handfuls of the icy-fresh water into their mouths before splashing it over their sooty, sweaty faces. Shawn shook the water out of his eyes. He stood up and squinted again at the small figure of Colin over by the far cliff. He was drinking, too.

“Colin! Did you take a bearing?” called Shawn. “Which way is north?”

Colin turned and pointed directly at the sheer rock face behind him.

“Great,” muttered Shawn. Craig tugged at his brother's sleeve impatiently. “Shawn! How are we going to make a phone?”

“We're not going to make a phone.”

“Then how are you going to call Petra and Tony?”

But Shawn was busy running his hands along the stream bed. In a few minutes, he found what he was looking for: a narrow strip of deadwood, worn smooth by the endless rippling of the water. Shawn fished out the thin, ruler-sized piece of wood and ran back towards the narrow mouth of the valley. Smoke was wafting from between the trees, slowly filling the valley. Colin jogged over to them.

“What's with the wood?” he asked.

“Shawn's building a phone,” Craig told him.

“Huh?”

“Craig, I need your twine,” said Shawn.

Craig pulled his string collection out of his pocket and handed it to Shawn. Shawn unravelled it. He looked up. “We need to make a small hole in the end of the wood so we can attach the string. Anybody got anything sharp?”

Colin pulled out a small red jackknife. It had multiple blades that folded out.

“Oh, cool!” breathed Craig. “I wish I was allowed to have one of those!”

“It's a real Swiss Army knife,” Colin said proudly. “My dad sent it from overseas. The corkscrew might work.” A few seconds and some sawdust later, the hole was made. Shawn fed the end of the twine through the hole and tied it off.

Playing out about four feet of string, Shawn stood up and dangled the piece of wood until it hung just above the ground.

“Give it a spin for me,” he instructed Colin. “We need to twist the string. Hurry!”

Colin flicked the piece of wood, sending it spinning in place at the end of the string.

“Okay. Give me some room,” said Shawn. Colin and Craig moved several paces back. In the centre of the clearing, Shawn began to swing the rope around his head like a lasso. Around and around it went. The piece of wood sliced through the air in a swooping arc. A strange, unearthly moaning filled the clearing.

Craig clapped his hands over his ears. “Whoa— what
is
that thing?”

“It's called a bullroarer!” Shawn yelled over the noise. “Aboriginal people around the world used to use these to send messages over long distances.”

The strange buzzing wail filled the clearing.

“Some people believed that the sound of the bullroarer was the spirit-voices of their dead ancestors,” Shawn said.

“It does sound freaky,” said Colin. “Kind of like a ghost.”

“Like a ghost imitating a chainsaw, maybe!” said Craig, his hands still over his ears.

“It's all about frequency and vibration,” said Shawn, “with a little aerodynamics thrown in. We can change the pitch and frequency by slowing the movement…”

Letting out more string, he swung the bullroarer in a bigger, slower circle. The sound dropped to a deep, vibrating moan.

“Lower sound frequencies travel farther,” said Shawn as he continued to swing the bullroarer. “Hopefully Tony and Petra will hear the noise and follow it.”

“Unless Tony thinks it's a ghost,” said Craig. “Then he might run the opposite way!”

In the smoky gloom of the valley, the bullroarer moaned and wailed.

“This is creeping me out,” said Colin.

“It's a good way to attract attention,” said Shawn determinedly, still swinging the strange instrument.

And then—

“Look!” yelped Craig.

“Something's coming out of the bushes!” Colin yelled at the same time.

The branches parted and two sooty, dirty figures half-stumbled, half-fell into the clearing.

“Tony!” cried Craig.

“Petra!” shouted Shawn. He dropped the bullroarer and ran towards his fallen friends.

Colin got there first.

The teenager scooped the half-conscious girl into his arms and ran towards the cliff. “They need water!” he called over his shoulder. Craig and Shawn hoisted Tony to his feet. Draping his arms around their shoulders, they towed Tony towards the cliff wall.

Head lolling, Tony still managed to roll a pair of incredulous eyes at Shawn.

“What the HECK was making that freakishly weird sound, man?” he gasped through parched lips. “I thought for sure Petra was leading us straight to the Gates of Ghostville.”

Craig patted his friend's arm soothingly. “No ghosts, Tony. We didn't have a phone so Shawn made a bullroarer instead.”

Tony blinked at him through bleary, red-rimmed eyes. “Oh. Well, that makes perfect sense.”

At the base of the cliff, Colin was easing Petra next to the spring that burbled up from beneath the rocks. Gently, he dribbled some water onto her cracked, dry lips. Petra groaned and coughed. She opened her eyes. Looked into his dark ones.

“Colin,” she whispered. Surprise and gratitude flickered through the exhaustion in her face. “You saved us!”

Colin opened his mouth, but before he could speak, there was a thud, and then a yelp from Tony as he landed in a heap on the ground beside them.

“Ow! Geez, Shawn! Warn me the next time you're about to drop me, will ya? I appreciate the lift, man, but your landing could use a little work!”

Tony's complaints went unheeded. Shawn had already turned on his heel and was striding away across the clearing.

“What's up with him?” Tony asked.

Shawn picked up the bullroarer from where it had landed in the grass. He turned it over. To his surprise, his hands were shaking.

Well, why shouldn't they be shaking after all we've
been through today?
Shawn thought angrily. He squeezed the bullroarer to stop the trembling in his hands. He felt the sharp edges of the wood digging into his palms. He squeezed harder and took a deep breath. That was shaky, too.

What do I care if Petra thinks Colin saved her?
Shawn thought. What did it matter, anyway? Sure, maybe Colin had warned them about the Pits of Despair. And maybe he had told them about the White Caves…but they weren't exactly
saved
yet, were they? And it wasn't
Colin's
bullroarer that had called Petra and Tony out of the burning forest.

Shawn felt a splinter drive deep into the heel of his hand. He loosened his grip on the bullroarer and began wrapping the string around it with tight, angry jerks. Well, Petra could think what she liked about Colin, Shawn decided, shoving the bullroarer into his back pocket. If that scrawny, shaggy-haired teen was her idea of a hero, that was just fine with him…

A loud cracking sound interrupted Shawn's moody thoughts. His head snapped up in time to see a hoary old poplar tree, its head wreathed in flames, tipping forward in slow motion. As Shawn watched, transfixed, the tree fell across the mouth of the valley, slamming into the ground in a shower of sparks.

For a long second, the tree lay in silence, like a fallen soldier.

Then, a tiny flame crawled out from beneath the body of the dead tree and began licking the dry grass at the edge of the clearing. Another followed. And then another. The flames grew and multiplied, devouring the valley floor with ravenous intensity.

“Uh, guys?” called Shawn, backing away from the advancing army of hungry flames. “We need to find a way out of here—RIGHT NOW!”