The Cat Dancers

68

They had to crawl on their hands and knees for about fifty feet before the passage allowed them to stand up. The left-hand passage had been a more attractive proposition, except for that one not-so-minor detail. Ankle-deep water rising in the main chamber had pretty much forced the decision: Stay there and drown, or give the other passage a shot.

They made better progress once they could stand up, but Cam was pretty sure they were going down, not up. The passage was only about two feet wide, so they had to step sideways most of the time. Cam led, shining the light alternately ahead and down so that they didn’t walk off a subterranean cliff in the dark. The air smelled of old rock and damp, and the walls seemed to press in on them constantly. He could hear Mary Ellen’s labored breathing behind him, and he was pretty sure it was not due to physical exertion. He tried to make a joke about her looking to see if her cell phone had a signal, but she didn’t laugh.

They finally stepped down into a small cavern. Cam shone the light around and saw that there were three other passages leading out of it. He had no idea which way to go.

He shone the light back into the passage they’d come through. A silvery ribbon of water was pushing toward them through the dust on the floor.

“Look,” she said. “If the water’s coming down here, it can’t flood that cage area, can it? You said people are coming. Let’s go back up there. At least that’s close to the surface.”

Her eyes were huge in the tiny white glow of the flashlight. He thought about it. “They’d never hear us underground. Not unless they’d come over to the chicken coop, like I did.”

“They won’t search?”

“I was prepared to pull that trailer off its foundations because I knew you were here. They’ll see my truck, see my dogs, and think I’m out in the woods somewhere. The trailer’s still sealed. They didn’t find the tunnels the first time.”

“So which way do we go?” she asked, her voice rising. “How do we even decide?”

Her voice was loud enough to create a small echo in the surrounding passages. It was answered by a distant guttural cough. Cam put his hand over her mouth before she could say anything more and pushed her roughly back into the passage from which they’d just come. He swung the light beam across the mouths of the other three tunnels and then turned it off. He bent down and whispered in her ear that a cat was coming. He felt her tense up. He signaled with his body that she needed to back up some more, then got the. 45 out, made himself as comfortable as he could, and waited.

Nothing happened for about two minutes, and then there was another cough, louder this time. He felt in the dark for her head and bent backward so he could whisper into her ear again. “The cats probably know the way out. There was air flowing through here when the main hatch was open. We’ll follow it.”

He felt her nod slightly and then he straightened back up.

They waited. The darkness was absolute. He could feel his eyes trying to adapt for night vision, but there was no ambient light. So listen, he told himself. And be very fucking quiet. He tried to detect Mary Ellen’s breathing, but she’d already figured it out.

Those cats could supposedly see in the dark, but not in this kind of dark. But they could smell and they could sense another animal presence. He and Mary Ellen had walked down into the junction cavern, so their scent would be in the dust on the ground, if not in the air.

So turn on the light, he told himself. The cat has all the advantages right now. He had a bad thought: Could the cat be behind them?

No, that cage door had been locked, and there’d been no side passages in the tunnel they’d come through. No, it had to be in front of them.

He pointed the flashlight into the cavern and switched it on.

The cat was three feet away, staring at them, its amber eyes blinking in the sudden shaft of light. Mary Ellen gave an involuntary little squeak, and Cam swallowed hard. He didn’t move, and then, almost without realizing he was doing it, he let go the best and loudest imitation of a cat’s hiss that he could muster. The cat replied in kind but then bolted across the cavern and disappeared into one of the passages-the one directly across from them.

Cam stepped down into the cavern with shaky knees and helped Mary Ellen get to her feet. They listened for a moment but didn’t hear anything.

“I’m guessing there’s a way out, and that he went for the tunnel that would let him escape.”

“And if there isn’t?”

“Let’s try it. If it looks like a dead end or we run into more intersections, we’ll go back and do it your way.”

“What if he’s in there, setting up an ambush? That’s what they like to do, you know.”

“Maybe, but he’s the one who ran.” He didn’t bring up the fact that two cats had gone into the tunnels, but an ambush in these narrow passageways would be just about impossible. On the other hand, so would escape.

He took her hand and they went into the passage the cat had disappeared into. To their vast relief, this one started to ascend. He checked for tracks in the dust and thought he could see some every four feet or so. Then the passageway turned hard right and went up at almost a sixty-degree angle. The slope was wider than the tunnel, perhaps fifty feet up, and littered with loose rock and dirt. He shone the light up to the top of the slope and thought he caught a momentary flash of amber-green eyes. A moment later, some small stones rattled down the slope.

“That what I think it was?” she said.

“Yeah, but it’s still running,” he replied, sweeping the light across the top of the slope. It was a yellow light now, no longer quite so bright. They’d have to resolve this pretty soon, or go back before the flashlight died entirely.

He went up first, got halfway up, and then slid clumsily all the way back down in an avalanche of dirt and rocks. Mary Ellen tried it, got ten feet higher than he had, and slid back to the floor in the same manner.

“The cat did it,” Cam said. He searched the sides of the incline and pointed out some scratches on the cavern’s walls. The dirt seemed firmer here, so he tried again, making it to the top this time. Mary Ellen did one more avalanche drill and then finally got up to the top. Cam swept the light around and exhaled in relief. There was only one passage in front of them, and it continued to ascend. He thought the air was fresher up here, although he knew this could just be wishful thinking.

They dusted themselves off, stepped into the passageway, and continued to climb, going slowly in case that big cat was waiting up around the next corner. The incline wasn’t dramatic, but the footing was slippery, which indicated water, so Cam switched the light out to see if there was daylight ahead. There wasn’t. Just lots more of that stygian darkness. He rested for a moment, listening. He was about to start moving again, when they both heard the sounds of something scrabbling up that rocky slope behind them. Cat number two.

They hurried as best they could, bumping their heads occasionally as the space above dwindled to five feet or less. Cam swung the light behind them about once a minute to see if eyes flashed, but the tunnel twisted and turned so much, nothing could be seen. He thought the air was definitely getting fresher, which was good, but his flashlight was dimming fast. He wanted to switch it off again but didn’t dare as long as that other cat was ahead of them. They’ve been fed, he kept telling himself, and they’re more scared of us than we are of them. Right.

When the cat screamed ahead of them, he very nearly tripped over his own feet in his attempt to halt. Mary Ellen bumped into him and gripped his arm. The cat screamed again, a hate-filled noise that ended in a prolonged rumbling growl. Its noises echoed in front of them, as if it were making its stand in another large cavern. Then from behind came an answering noise, this one sounding a lot more lionlike than the one ahead of them. We have you where we want you, it said. Your move.

Cam was tempted to let fly with the. 45, but he knew full well the danger of ricochet, not to mention causing a cave-in from the explosive noise.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Time to face these bastards.”

Mary Ellen seemed frozen in place, so he pulled gently on her arm and then she followed. They rounded a corner and encountered a cavern that was not so much large as it was high, a beehive-shaped rocky cylinder that rose nearly sixty feet to a tiny point of visible sky over to one side. There was a deep water-carved fissure running down one side of the wall, which looked like the way up to the opening at the top. The cavern was about a hundred feet across at the bottom, and there was a pool of black water in the center. The bones of numerous animals lay around the pool, and the panther was on the other side, its tail switching angrily. It screamed at them again as they stepped into the cavern. Cam switched off the flashlight, and they could actually see. They edged around to their right so they could watch the passage behind them for the other cat.

“I’ll watch the cat,” he said. “You study that big crack over there, figure out the best way up.”

The cat on the far side began to slink around to its right, watching them every step of the way. Cam and Mary Ellen moved to keep the cat diametrically opposite them across the pool.

“It’ll take some climbing, but that looks like the only way up,” she said. “Everything else slopes in at the top.”

“Right,” he said. “Good thing these damned cats can’t climb.”

The second panther appeared out of the passageway then and growled in what sounded like triumph. The first cat reversed course, and now the two cats closed in on them from separate directions. The cat on the right was between them and the fissure. Mary Ellen tugged his sleeve and pointed at a rough ramp of rock right in front of them, leading up to a ledge.

By now, Cam had the. 45 out. He wanted to accommodate Mary Ellen’s wishes as a naturalist and not harm the cats, but not at the price of becoming dinner. He pointed it into the water, aiming in the direction of the second cat, and fired one round. The noise was terrific, as was the waterspout created by the heavy bullet. The cat stopped and screamed at them, shaking water off its face. The first cat, now no more than a dozen feet away on their right, wasn’t impressed and kept coming. Cam fired again, this time trying to hit in front of the approaching panther. This produced another scream and a slashing ricochet that whacked around the inside of the cavern, making them both duck. Mary Ellen jumped onto the ramp and scampered up onto the first of the ledges. Cam followed, watching the cats, who were stopped now and treating them to a lively display of teeth and noise. One was still between them and the climbing fissure, but below them.

The cat that had been splashed reversed course and headed all the way around, apparently aiming to get behind his partner, who was gathering himself for a spring up to their ledge. Cam squatted down and aimed carefully at that one as Mary Ellen struggled to stay up on the narrow and slippery rock ledge.

Starvation trumped tame as the cat jumped right up at them. Time slowed down. The cat’s huge face filled Cam’s entire vision. It was so strong that it could hang right on the edge of the narrow ribbon of rock with its hind claws, gather its immense shoulders, and roar at him. He could smell its rancid breath and feel the heat of its predatory fury.

He shot it full in the face as at least one fully clawed paw swiped the air right in front of him. The cat screamed and tumbled back down the rock, sliding into the pool and disappearing. Cam barely had time to switch his aim before the other cat was bounding up at them. He fired once and then again, missing both times, but that was enough to make the cat overshoot, lose its balance, and fall off the ledge amid the sound of ricocheting rounds. It dropped like the other one into the pool. Mary Ellen lost her grip and slid off the ledge. Cam reached to grab her and joined her in the debacle. They hit the water together and gasped at the icy temperature.

Cam held on to the gun and spun around, looking for that one operational cat. It was right there, swimming powerfully in their direction, making a hideous screeching sound. Cam tipped the big pistol down to drain any water out of the barrel and shot the beast right down the throat. The recoil lifted his arm just as the cat tried to slash him, and then, spewing blood, it sank out of sight.

Mary Ellen had managed to get to the side of the pool, but she couldn’t get herself out of the water because of the slippery surface. Cam tried to swim over to her but found his left arm wasn’t working. He looked down and saw a mass of blood and other things where his left bicep had been. He hadn’t felt a thing, but now he did. Gritting his teeth, he backpedaled over to where she was struggling and told her to wait a minute and catch her breath. His own boots could gain no traction on what seemed like the glass-smooth sides of the pool, but first he wanted to make damn sure the cats were out of the picture. A roil of bubbles broke the surface out in the middle of the pool and then all was still-until the first cat surfaced right next to Mary Ellen, causing her to scream and lunge back out into the pool. One of the cat’s eyes was completely gone, the other one showed only white, and the back of the cat’s skull was missing. Somehow, it found the edge of the pool and used its long claws to pull itself up onto the dry ground. It rested unsteadily there for a few seconds, flanks heaving, and then hoisted its body all the way out of the water. It tried to stand up but couldn’t. It collapsed, convulsed once, coughed, and then died on the rock floor, its front claws still embedded two inches into the dirt.

They treaded water for a long minute, really feeling the cold now but wanting to make sure it was over. Mary Ellen’s teeth were chattering, but Cam was silently blessing the cold water as it numbed his ruined left arm. Then he paddled over to where the cat’s body lay, hesitated for a second, then grabbed its tail and hauled himself one-armed out of the water. He lay right alongside the panther for a moment. The cat was still warm and it was longer than he was tall. He gestured to Mary Ellen, but she wouldn’t come near the panther. He crawled down to where she was treading water and pulled her out ten feet away from the cat’s inert body. Then they both sprawled on the floor of the cavern. She hadn’t seen his arm yet. He didn’t want to look at it.

At that moment, an authoritative voice called down from the hole up top and asked what in the hell was going on down there.

“Better late than never,” Mary Ellen gasped.

“County cops. What can I say?” Cam replied, putting his hand on her forehead.

“Sorry about the cats,” he said. “Sorry about this whole damned mess.”

Feeling a familiar roar in his ears, he clamped his good hand over the wound on his arm. “You better get them down here,” he whispered.

She sat up, saw the arm.

Then things got a little fuzzy.