Deep Shadow

ELEVEN

WHEN WILL HAD RECOVERED FROM THE SHOCK OF being buried under a ton of rubble, his first thought was Not this again . . .

But it wasn’t the same. Not at all like a few weeks ago, his first moments sealed in a wooden crate, listening to the men who had kidnapped him shovel dirt onto the crate. He had never experienced such a sickening panic, which perhaps had numbed his threshold for fear. Because now, lying curled beneath the crushing weight of rock, Will felt in control. He was spooked and shaken, but he wasn’t crazy scared.

Or was he . . . ?

Will let his brain take stock, testing his appendages for pain or wounds, as he assessed his immediate state of mind. Nope, he was a little stunned, true, but he was not feeling the magnitude of fear that could be accurately defined as “scared shitless.”

Will would have been startled by his self-control had he spent more than a few seconds thinking about it, but he didn’t because he was too mad to waste time analyzing his emotions. Not just mad, he was furious—furious at the random, shitty bad luck and at his own uncertainty. He didn’t know what had caused the ledge to collapse on him or how deeply he was buried. All Will Chaser knew was that he had survived worse and he was going to survive this, by God!

At least he could move a little, and he did. Slowly, foot by foot, Will wormed and muscled his way into what might have been a rock crevice, where there was enough space around him to move his hands and find the little flashlight clipped to his BC. The flashlight was rubber coated, waterproof to thirty-three feet—or so the box had claimed—and he’d brought it on this trip even though he didn’t expect to get a chance to use it. Not underwater, anyway.

Will preferred using his own gear. It’s just the way he was, which is why he’d refused when Doc, the biologist, had offered to loan him two additional flashlights that looked expensive, with their flared lenses and dense metal tubes. Doc had tried to force him to carry the things, which at the time seemed stupid. Why the hell carry extra flashlights on a sunny winter afternoon? The lake didn’t look that deep, and they would be out of the water, packing to leave, long before sunset.

Well . . . turned out the biologist wasn’t so stupid, although there was now no doubt in Will’s mind that a weird, wild streak of bad luck stalked Doc Ford. Twice, Will had been with the guy, and both times the shit had really hit the fan.

Bey-HO-ayh. Back in Oklahoma, on the reservation, that was the word that the elder Skins used when referring to some pain-in-the-ass white guy who radiated bad luck. The word sure fit the man . . . And just when Will was starting to like the guy. Sort of.

When I get out of this mess, I’ll call Ford that—Bey-HO-ayh, and let him figure it out. Tell the man right to his face and watch how he reacts. Asshole!

Ford wasn’t an asshole, and Will didn’t really believe it. In fact, there was something solid and comforting about being around the guy. They’d had a pretty good talk the night before. The man had tried bullshitting him, telling the typical adult lies, but didn’t seem to mind at all when Will had called him on it.

Now, though, Will was mad and frustrated. Picturing himself confronting the big biologist gave him an immediate objective, one more reason to get himself free of this mess. He would dig his way from under the rocks, swim to the surface, and call to the man, “Hey, you—Bey-HO-AYH ! Take a guess at what that means, dipshit!”

It could happen. No, it would happen. Will felt certain of it when he found the hippie, Tomlinson, unhurt and alive curled next to him. Only a minute or two later, they heard Ford somewhere above them, signaling. If Ford wasn’t beside them or below them, he had to be free, out there, swimming around. Ford would help dig them out. If he didn’t, Will would manage by himself.

I’ve been in worse fixes than this.

No one could argue that.

Ten minutes later, though, Will had lost some of his confidence. The lake’s rock floor wasn’t solid as rock should be. It was as fragile as rotten ice. The floor kept breaking beneath them, first dropping him and the hippie into a small crevice, then a slightly bigger crevice, sort of like falling through the floors of an old house into progressively larger closets. As the water cleared, Will could see details when he or the hippie shined their lights, but the water was never clear for long.

The third implosion had dropped them in a limestone chamber, where the floor was littered with what looked like giant fossilized oyster shells. There were shells and rock packed tight all around them, with barely room to move, and the rocks overhead were too unstable to touch.

Will had tried digging upward, as had the old hippie. Remove a single chunk of limestone, though, and a barrel of sand and rock fell with it, pouring into the crater like water down a funnel. It destroyed visibility and gave Will a choking feeling, even though his regulator continued jetting air into his lungs when he inhaled through his rubber mouthpiece.

How much air did he have left? That was the question. And how long would the batteries of his flashlights last? That was another important one.

Will didn’t doubt that he could endure just about any damn thing bad luck threw at him, but his scuba tank lacked his heart. The thing was made of aluminum and had limits—the amount of air it could hold, for instance. Will knew it had to be getting low.

Using his flashlight, Will kept an eye on the pressure gauge that was attached to his vest. First time he checked, the needle pointed just below the 1400 psi mark. Moments later, though, he had sucked down a lot of air when, for the second time, the floor gave way. It was a shocking thing to experience, the earth collapsing beneath him. But that was several minutes ago, and Will decided to have another look at his gauges. He used his flashlight, careful not to blind Tomlinson, who had sensitive eyes apparently.

The needle on the pressure gauge pointed just above the 900 psi mark. The needle of the depth gauge pointed at 20 ft.

Damn. Not good. He was a novice diver, but the written exam was still fresh in Will’s mind and he knew that 1000 psi was dangerously low. Even if he had forgotten, that portion of the pressure gauge was colored red to remind him. When the needle touched red, it meant it was time to surface, no dawdling.

The fact that they were now twenty feet underwater, instead of at fifteen feet, also told Will that the lake floor had indeed been dropping them into progressively deeper pockets. Thirty-three feet was another important boundary, the entry into three atmospheres of pressure, which required the use of decompression tables and also caused a faster drain on the air supply.

Depthwise, at least, he and the hippie were in safe territory. They might drown, but there was no chance of them dying from the bends, which was almost funny if it wasn’t so damn true.

Will had confidence in what he had learned. He had aced the NAUI Open Water written test, much to the surprise of everyone but himself. A scuba class wasn’t like school. Learning something useful, information that could save his life—or even lure a pretty girl into bed if a willing female scuba enthusiast appeared—was worth the effort.

Getting Will scuba certified was the idea of his court-appointed therapist, a woman who wore loud, clanking Indian jewelry and was a closet smoker—Will could smell it on her clothes and in her hair. She had discussed the subject with his probation officer, then the Minnesota couple that was trying to adopt him and, finally with Barbara Hayes before offering Will a choice. He could take a dive course at the Seminole County Rec Center—Oklahoma, not Florida—or he could agree to more therapy sessions specially designed by her to deal with patients who had unusual gifts—Will being among the few who qualified, she said.

It was the therapist’s secret hope that Will would finally be forced to admit his claustrophobic anxieties and decline the dive course.

Fat chance.

“I’m immune,” Will had told the shrink, referring to claustrophobia. “Being buried alive in a box has cured me for life.”

The scuba course lasted three weeks, which had left Will’s hair stinking of chlorine and also delayed his plans to run away from the court-appointed “boarding school,” which is what they called reform schools in Oklahoma. It was worth it, though, because Will enjoyed diving.

He liked being underwater, in the silence of his own skull, even in an indoor swimming pool. Diving a coral reef, though, was a hundred times better, as he had discovered the day they had spent on Key Largo. Will had never experienced anything like it in his life, and it was something good to think about just before going to sleep.

That first dive was as clear in his mind as the water of the Florida Keys.

He could picture himself dropping down through a luminous blue gel, all those waxen coral shapes assuming definition as he descended, colors brightening in his brain even as they were dulled by filtered light. Fish, as they moved among coral canyons, were as animated as wildflowers, whole schools of fish that appeared wind-tumbled by tidal current yet were as symmetrical as geese in flight.

Take a look.

Tomlinson had just now written that on his dive slate, then surprised Will by nudging him before putting the slate in Will’s face and using his flashlight.

Will had to lean closer to see the words, then he asked, Look at what?, speaking through his regulator, so it sounded like “Ook uh-hh utt?”

His eyes were already following Tomlinson’s flashlight to the narrowest part of the chamber, where there was a bowling ball-sized hole into which silt and sand created a small whirlpool as they were drawn downward by current.

Will had already seen the hole. In the last four minutes, he and Tomlinson had probed every inch of the chamber with their lights.

Tomlinson rubbed the dive slate clean and wrote, We have to move. Agree?

Will nodded. No doubt about it, they had to do something before their air ran out. It had been nine minutes since they had last heard Ford above them, once digging so frantically that Tomlinson had had to bang a warning on his tank—the biologist was causing more rock to collapse on them.

Next, Tomlinson wrote, Can’t go up. Agree?

Will shook his head. The idea of being crushed by the unstable ceiling scared the hell out of him. “Nooo ’uckin ’ay,” he responded.

Once again, Tomlinson used the flashlight to point at the bowling ball-sized hole. He wrote, You stay. Conserve air!, then banged a fist against his own chest, the gesture communicating Leave it to me.

The light went out. It was like being immersed in a barrel of oil—that kind of blackness. Aside from an occasional flicker of firefly green—Tomlinson’s dive watch, as Will had already figured out—the only respite from the darkness were the thought patterns flowing behind Will’s eyes. They created pulsing yellow blossoms, and a linear red thatching that streamed and throbbed in his brain.

The colors signaled frustration. Impatience, too. Will was getting angry again.

He spent a full minute listening in darkness as Tomlinson worked at the hole. He could hear the random clank of the hippie’s air bottle against rock; a digging sound, then a grunt followed by more digging. Finally, Will had to look. He pointed his flashlight at his fins before touching the switch, then shined the light toward the hole.

He saw that Tomlinson had removed his BC and air bottle. The man was on his knees, pulling away chunks of rock, widening the hole, but the regulator was still in his mouth. He had made a startling amount of progress in a short time. The hole was a couple of feet wide now but still too narrow to enter, Will decided. Tomlinson was scarecrow thin, but he had a wide bony rack of shoulders.

Will grunted to get Tomlinson’s attention and wrote on his dive slate, U—R—2 big. Me first.

Tomlinson responded with an emphatic shake of his head. “Nohh ’ay, Ohhh-zay.”

No way, José?

Maybe so, because seconds later Will watched Tomlinson wiggle his head and shoulders down into the hole, pushing his bottle and BC ahead of him. He had to scrabble hard with his toes to force his body through, but he did it. A moment later, the man disappeared into a blooming cloud of silt that was suggestive of a magic trick.

Will gave it a few seconds before crawling over and pointing his flashlight into the darkness. There wasn’t much to see: boiling silt and blackness. But the hole did appear to widen as it angled downward, about the same steep angle as a slide at a playground.

Crap! Weird-ass hippie! Why doesn’t he shine his light and let me know he’s okay?

After a scary several seconds, though, Tomlinson did signal, and the three dull flashes seemed to originate from someplace far below. The light echoed in the darkness, illuminating the murk, but there was no single beam to mark the man’s location. Will flashed his light three times in reply, his heart pounding.

He expects me to follow?

Apparently so. Silt was clearing, siphoning down the hole as if a plug had been pulled, sucking water into a space beneath him. The hole, jagged-edged, looked smaller now for some reason.

It’s because I’ve got to crawl down into that son of a bitch, that’s why.

Will was getting angry again, pissed off at what he was now forced to do. What he’d told his therapist about being immune to claustrophobia wasn’t exactly true. Since what had happened to him, being packed tight in a crate and buried, Will sometimes awoke at night in a choking, sweaty fever. He felt like darkness was suffocating him, seeping in through his pores.

Even so, Will had never admitted the truth to anyone or even risked providing some sign that he was afraid, such as sleeping with a light on. Leaving a light on at night was tempting, but Will refused to indulge in that sort of weakness. Make even a small concession to what had happened and there was no telling where it might lead to. He could end up a drunk, passed out in a ditch like too many other Skins he’d seen on the Rez.

Besides, being scared was his business, nobody else’s.

As Will studied the hole, he realized that he was breathing faster, burning up air. He waited until he had flipped his BC and tank over his head and pushed them halfway down into the hole before checking his pressure gauge one final time.

The needle pointed close to 700 psi, although it was hard to be sure because the needle wasn’t as exact as a digital gauge.

Christ, I’ve been sucking air like a drunk guzzling whiskey.

How did 700 psi translate timewise? He might have ten minutes of air left, fifteen at most, plus he had the reserve bottle. Will didn’t own a dive watch and now he was almost glad. It was better not to know how long they’d been down.

What Will was sure of, though, was this: He wasn’t going to die, boxed in by rocks, without doing whatever he could to escape—not alone in darkness, no goddamn way!

Will switched off his light and secured it under the sleeve of his wet suit, aware that his entire body was shaking. Goddamn, it’s dark! After thinking about it for a moment, Will looped the flashlight’s lanyard over his wrist so it would be right there when he needed it. Just the thought of losing the little flashlight gave him a sick feeling in his abdomen.

I’ll never go near the freaking water again without carrying an extra light. A swimming pool, to take a piss, doesn’t matter. Lose this, I’ve had it. Why the hell didn’t I take those flashlights that Doc offered me?

Tomlinson had removed his fins to get better footing, and now Will did the same. It was easier without the fins. Tomlinson’s fins were sinkers, but Will’s were floaters, and they had made it difficult to neutralize buoyancy. When he took the fins off, they floated past his ears and attached themselves like magnets to the limestone overhead.

Once again, Will shined his light down into the hole and flashed it three times. Tomlinson responded by swinging his flashlight back and forth, an invitation.

Come on!

Will forced his head, then his shoulders, down into blackness, pushing his tank ahead of him. He dug his toes into the limestone and used the tank to bulldoze a path.

He thought, I’m in a cave. I knew this was going to happen. A week ago, I knew it. Now here I am, goddamn it!

Sometimes, Will knew things. He didn’t know how and he’d never really wondered why, but now here he was. It was happening just as he’d known it would.

A week before, on his way to Sanibel, riding in the rear seat of a Lincoln Town Car, Will hadn’t paid much attention to the woman beside him until she got on the subject of Florida’s underwater caves.

“We might be driving over a cave system right now,” Barbara Hayes had told Will, then nodded, studying a map as a road sign blurred past.

ORLANDO/DISNEY WORLD 146 MILES.

“There are miles of caves in this area, according to this,” the woman continued. “Natural tunnels with chambers big enough to drive a truck. This is the right area”—she had glanced at the map for confirmation—“caves with branches that run beneath shopping malls, highways, even this interstate. There could be scuba divers under our car right now. Seriously. It doesn’t matter that the sun’s setting. What does sunlight matter to a cave diver? They dress like astronauts—you know what I mean, they wear helmets with built-in lights and breathing hoses. They use battery-powered scooters so they can travel faster. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

A moment later, Hayes didn’t appear too sure but sounded hopeful as she had added, “I thought you’d find that interesting.”

Will did. He had leaned his face near the window, picturing a semi they were passing, its lights on, far beneath the road in an underwater cave that was more like a city in outer space, scuba divers soaring through the darkness, their helmets shooting laser beams, milky white.

It was weird to hear the woman talking about caves because the countryside along the interstate was so flat. But she was right. There was a cave beneath them—no scuba divers, but the cave was there. Will could feel it. He had a sense for such things. Images came into his head less like pictures than as overlapping impressions that communicated colors, spatial volume, odors. He wasn’t always right, but he was right often enough.

“Synesthesia,” the shrinks back in Oklahoma called it. Synesthesia was a special gift, according to his government-appointed counselor. She had told him it was a complex neurological condition that caused a heightened sensitivity to all sorts of things.

The boy had touched his nose to the car window and allowed his mind to fill with the scent of algae, salted rock, empty space, and he also sensed a conduit of flowing water beneath them. It was down there, a cave, far below the six lanes of asphalt where billboards were frozen, solitary and bright, among palm trees that caught the windy sunset light.

Beside him, Hayes had interrupted, saying, “It’s hard to picture, I know.”

Will had replied, “Yeah.”

“Wait . . . I just realized maybe the idea of cave diving doesn’t appeal to you. Or does it?” Her tone asked Did I say something wrong?

Will said, “Naw, it does. I’d like to try it if I ever get the chance. I think it would be fun.”

Barbara said, “I forget sometimes. Not about what happened to you. God knows, I could never forget that. But that you might be sensitive . . . that it might make you uncomfortable, the thought of being in a cave. Good Lord!—now I don’t even know why I brought it up.”

The sophisticated woman wasn’t sounding so sophisticated now, which was typical of childless women who tried too hard to relate to him. Will had experienced it often enough to know.

Because he liked her, though, Will had made eye contact and let her see him smile, but only for a second. “What happened doesn’t bother me a bit,” he said. “I don’t know why people keep asking. It really doesn’t.”

Will was sick of talking about what everyone in the world had seen on TV and in newspapers, all those stories about him being buried in a box by extortionists who had intended to bury the woman instead. It had happened more than a month ago, but the woman still felt indebted. It was the reason he was in a limo with her now, driving south to Disney World—Will already knew he would hate the place—then on to Key Largo and, finally, Sanibel Island.

Mrs. Barbara Hayes, a widow—also a United States senator—had the hots for a man who lived there, a marine biologist named Marion Ford, but everyone called him “Doc.” He was a big, nerdy, friendly-looking guy who didn’t say much and who Will sensed wasn’t as nerdy or as friendly as he appeared.

Will had wondered how he and Doc would get along, not that it mattered much.

Well . . . we’ll see.

Sounding relieved, the senator had said to Will, “I’m so glad to hear you feel like you’re recovering. I wonder sometimes—at night when I’m alone, you know?—how I would have reacted. If they’d done to me what they did to you.”

Will wanted to get back to the images in his head, the scent and feel of rock tunnels below. He said, “Don’t worry about it,” and leaned his face closer to the window. End of conversation—he hoped.

No such luck.

The woman began laughing, sounding girlish, as she told him, “I stayed up past midnight, trying to find information about Florida I thought you’d like. That’s how I know about the caves. I even marked it on a map. Here, look—I have a whole folder of things. Scuba diving, horses—there are a lot of ranches down here, cattle and horses. People don’t realize.”

As Barbara leaned to open her briefcase, Will had sat straighter, suddenly paying attention, but not because of the articles. The lady was old—in her forties—but she was still good looking, with a body that she liked to show off but not in any obvious way, which was usually the way with classy, good-looking women.

Like now, for instance, dressed for their long drive to Sanibel. Barbara was wearing a cashmere business jacket with a lavender blouse stretched tight over her breasts. The way the buttons strained allowed Will to peek at her beige mesh bra where white flesh bulged when she moved just right or, if Will dropped something, then made room so she could retrieve it.

Twice during the hour drive—Jacksonville to I-75, then south—Will had dropped his bottle of water, but the thing was finally empty so this was his first chance in a while to sneak a peek, and he leaned in closer to watch her lean down to flip through papers, separating files.

Barbara had said, “I brought some articles for you to read—but maybe you don’t feel like reading.”

“I do,” Will had answered quickly, wanting the lady to stay right where she was. Then he’d asked, “Are you sure that’s everything?,” when she sat up and squared the papers on her lap.

She had told him, “I even brought an article on post-traumatic stress syndrome. You’re old enough for me to speak frankly about it. Even if you feel fine now, William, it might be helpful to do some reading. It’s important for you to get your feelings out. The therapist at the boarding school that you . . . that you left”—she hesitated, wanting to get the phrasing right—“the therapist says you don’t talk much. Not to her, anyway.”

The woman had faltered because Will hadn’t left the facility, exactly. He had broken a window, jumped the fence and hitchhiked halfway to the home of his former foster grandparents, in Minneapolis, before the cops found him.

Will had replied, “It’s easier talking to you,” giving it just the right touch, a confession that laid his vulnerability out there for the good-looking older woman to act upon if she ever wanted to. Even if Hayes wasn’t naïve enough to believe it, Will knew he could work it to his advantage.

It didn’t take long.

A moment later, the woman freed the top button on her blouse, wanting to give herself space to move, after Will had asked, “Anything else in your briefcase for me to read?”

Will liked Barbara Hayes, but he wasn’t going to tell her what he was feeling. Not really. Telling adults the truth had caused him nothing but trouble. It spooked foster parents. It invited more questions from disbelieving government shrinks, back on the shithole reservation where he lived when agencies weren’t shuttling him from home to home.

Oklahoma Reform School was next in the cards if Will ran away just one more time. His parole officer had told him that before signing papers that allowed him to travel to Florida under Hayes’s supervision.

Mentioning underwater caves was the first interesting thing the woman had said since the limo met him at Jacksonville International, the driver smiling, saying, “Welcome to Florida,” as he placed Will’s backpack in the trunk, then gave a fake salute.

Hayes was a billboard reader, which was irritating. The woman didn’t think he could read for himself? It was a habit that she resumed after discussing the caves, looking out the window and saying, “Lake City, High Springs . . . they’ve got a knife outlet store. Oh! Boiled peanuts—you ever try those?”

Twenty miles down the road, she had said, “Gainesville, next four exits. University of Florida, Santa Fe Junior College. You should think about it. It’s smart to start the application process early.”

Will was thinking, With my grades and no money?

Five miles later, she caused Will to bury his iPod earbuds deep, saying, “Ocala, Silver Springs. The Cracker Barrel looks busy—but I hear there’s a cold front coming. Frost in Orlando, possibly snow in Gainesville. Don’t worry, we’ll be on Sanibel by then—but I wonder how it will affect this area. Snow, I mean.”

Will had pretended to adjust the volume on his iPod, but it was silence that he wanted. His mind was still probing the road for a dark space beneath them, sensing it was important, the word cave having touched a chord that produced colors and odors in his brain, all characteristic of a synesthete who had uncanny instincts for intuiting future events.

Why?

On this Tuesday afternoon in February, diving a remote lake in central Florida, Will Chaser got his answer.

Tomlinson’s flashlight was on, and he was doing something—possibly writing another note on his dive slate—as Will wiggled his body free of the passageway and let the weights in his BC vest pull him face-first onto the floor of what appeared to be a cavern filled with clear water, a room the size of a garage.

Excited by exiting into an open space after twenty yards of darkness, Will hurried to get his feet under him, which was a mistake, because it caused a cloud of silt to explode around him. He took his time putting on his BC, using the Velcro straps to pull it tight around his chest, while reminding himself, Breathe slow, dipshit. You don’t have enough air to be in a hurry.

As he waited for visibility to improve, Will considered risking a look at his pressure gauge but decided against it. No matter how many times he checked the damn thing, it wasn’t going to change the amount of air he had left.

Tomlinson didn’t agree. When the water was clear enough, the man used his flashlight to look at Will’s gauges before showing him what he’d already written on the dive slate.

Get reserve bottle ready.

That scared Will, so he checked the gauge himself. The needle was midway into the red zone, close to 500 psi. He wondered what it was like when a tank ran short of air. That was something they hadn’t covered in class. Did it become gradually harder to inhale a breath? Or did the regulator shut down abruptly due to lack of pressure?

The pounding of his heart had slowed since he had exited the passageway, but there was no controlling how his body responded to fear, and Will could now feel his chest thumping, blood pulsing in his temples.

Tomlinson pointed to his own air bottle. Attached to it was a canister about the size of a small fire extinguisher. The canister was yellow with a manufacturer’s name, SPARE AIR, stenciled on the side. A single silicon mouthpiece was already fitted at the top.

Will had a similar reserve system attached to his tank, only the canister was bigger, but he hadn’t paid much attention when Ford had explained how to use the thing because the system appeared self-explanatory. Bite down on the mouthpiece, turn the knob and breathe. Nothing hard about that.

Will remembered Ford saying that Tomlinson’s bottle was only good for a couple of minutes. But how many minutes of air did his bottle contain? Ford had gone into detail but Will hadn’t listened.

Crap! Next time, I’ll carry extra lights, and I’ll by God pay attention.

Will reached to find his own dive slate and began writing out the question How much air in my . . . but Tomlinson grabbed his elbow and stopped him. The man was shaking his head, his eyes large and emphatic behind the glass of his face mask, as he grunted, “Ohooo ’ime.”

No time.

Tomlinson used his flashlight to rap on his dive slate, reminding Will to Get reserve bottle ready, then wiped the slate clean before helping Will free the bottle and position it inside his BC beneath his chin, ready to go when he needed it. Next, Tomlinson surprised him by giving Will his bailout bottle, too. Because he had no choice, Will held still while the man clipped the little tank to his BC.

Tomlinson wrote, Stop breathing, watch bubbles.

Will shook his head, letting his expression answer. Huh?

Tomlinson rapped his flashlight on the dive slate, telling Will, Do it!, then panned the light along the ceiling of the cavern, maybe ten feet above them, where icicle-looking spears of limestone were hanging down—stalagmites or stalactites, Will could never keep the terminology straight.

He stopped breathing, as he’d been told, and watched Tomlinson use the flashlight to explain. The light threw a circle of white that moved from the ceiling to the floor . . . from the ceiling to the floor . . . then to the ceiling again, but more slowly.

It took Will a moment to understand. Air bubbles, that’s what Tomlinson wanted him to see. Air bubbles were seeping out of the rocks beneath them, ascending until they collided with the top of the cavern. There, the bubbles congregated briefly, but then continued moving, tracing silver tracks toward what might have been a tiny opening in the highest part of the cave.

What did it mean? Was Ford somewhere beneath them? That had to be it. Where else could air be coming from?

As if on cue, Will heard a grinding, clanking noise from outside—faint, but it was the unmistakable sound of the biologist doing something, digging again possibly. Tomlinson held a palm up—Stop—and then attempted to signal Ford, but there was no response.

Seconds later, though, Will was startled by a muted roaring, a mechanized sound, like a cross between a leaf blower and heavy rain. It seemed to be coming from above them but far away.

Tomlinson explained the noise by scribbling Jet dredge on his slate.

Will nodded.

Less than a minute later, though, the thing stopped, and they heard Ford signaling. The hippie responded, banging his flashlight against his tank in a deliberate three-beat rhythm. An SOS maybe?

Possibly so, or maybe it meant nothing, but Will suspected it did because when the jet dredge started again Tomlinson grabbed his dive slate and wrote, Got to move now!

Move? There was nowhere to go!

Tomlinson made his case by shining the light on the ceiling, reminding Will about the stalagmites or the stalactites hanging down, their points sharpened by a couple thousand years of dripping water.

Crap!

If the ceiling collapsed on them, getting crushed was the least of their worries. Those stone stilettos could skewer them both.

Will nodded his head rapidly, saying, “Esss eely ’ucks.”

Yes, it did really suck. The cavern ceiling was covered with stone daggers. Where the hell could they go?

Up, as it turned out. Stay close to the ceiling, the stalactites couldn’t build up speed if they fell. Which was smart, Will had to admit.

Tomlinson was writing again and then held the slate up for him to read. Do what I do!

Will nodded.

Holding the flashlight in his left hand, Tomlinson let the dive slate swing to his side, then exaggerated his movements as he opened the weight pockets on his BC vest. He removed four rubber-covered chunks of lead and dropped them, one by one, at his feet, then pantomimed how to inflate his vest manually instead of using the valve connected to his tank.

Conserving air. That made sense, too. And they sure as hell didn’t need a bunch of lead to keep them on the bottom now.

Up. That’s where they wanted to go. Damn right, that’s where they wanted to go. The vibration of the jet dredge could cause those stone daggers to fall at any moment.

After Will had jettisoned his weights, Tomlinson used his thumb to signal toward the ceiling, then began inflating his own vest for real. The man became weightless, drifting upward as if levitating, and Will followed, allowing the image of astronauts to come into his head, lights piercing the blackness. It was the same tableau that had filled his mind while traveling I-75 with Hayes, in the backseat of the Lincoln.

Will remembered wondering, Why? It was a sensation so powerful that he had lost himself in the fantasy of being in a submerged cave, darkness all around. Now here he was, and it was all too real.

Outside, the leaf-blower sound of the dredge stopped once again. By then, though, Tomlinson was using one hand to fend off the rocky ceiling of the cavern while using the light to follow the path of their own bubbles.

Will gave the man room to work, first trying to steady himself by clinging to a spike of limestone—the thing broke off in his hand—then by purging air from his vest until he was less buoyant. He hovered below and behind the hippie, eight feet above the cavern floor, reminding himself, Stay calm, breathe slo-o-owly, as he watched Tomlinson move to the highest part of the cave.

Will was thinking Where the hell is Ford? when the sound of the jet dredge began again, then stopped seconds later. From beneath them came a random clanking noise, as if something was being dragged along the rocks under them, followed by a momentary silence.

Will thought, Why is Ford under us now?

Jesus Christ, what was the man doing? Didn’t he realize that they were almost out of air?

Tomlinson was tapping on his tank to get Will’s attention, waving for him to move closer, when they both heard a shuddering rumble that sounded like distant thunder. The sound grew progressively louder, vibrating through the cave walls. Soon, stalactites began dropping to the floor, the sharp stones clanking hard when they hit. The rumbling sound peaked, then faded, as if a train were passing. Then the rumbling stopped.

Scary.

A minute later, it got scarier. Tomlinson was using his flashlight to show Will what appeared to be a vent in the highest section of the cavern when a chunk of ceiling above them collapsed, brushing past Tomlinson’s shoulder as it fell. In that same instant, Will ran out of air.

It wasn’t gradual, as Will had expected. One second, he was breathing normally. The next second, the mouthpiece of his regulator felt as if it had been abruptly sealed shut. Will continued trying to suck air from the thing as his hands found the pony canister inside his BC. Use the largest bottle first, that seemed like the smart thing to do—and, besides, Tomlinson’s Spare Air bottle was clipped to a D ring, which would require more time to free.

Will was thinking, Stay calm . . . don’t rush . . . that’s how people screw up.

As he tried to remove the little tank, though, the knob caught inside his vest. Fumbling in the darkness, Will tried to free the thing, but he yanked too hard. The tank went spinning out of his hands before he could take a breath . . .