The last thing I remember

CHAPTER TWELVE

Into the Dark The forest seemed suddenly alive with noise-with noise and danger. The dog howled. The men shouted. Branches and leaves snapped and crackled as they stormed quickly through the underbrush. I couldn’t see them yet, but I could tell that they were on my trail. Every moment that passed brought them closer to me.

For another second, I stood where I was, too confused and frightened to move. One more time, my eyes scanned the forest, looking for an escape route. There was none.

Without thinking, I let my hand flutter down to my waistband. I felt the butt of the pistol there, the gun I’d taken from the truck driver. But what good was a pistol against machine guns?

It was no use. No use to run. No use to stand and fight. There was only one thing for me to do.

I turned to face the sinkhole, that opening into absolute blackness. On TV and in the movies and stuff, all you have to do to throw a dog off your trail is splash around in some water. But that’s not real. In real life, a dog can follow you through water just fine-I saw it once on the Discovery Channel. But maybe if I went into the caves- maybe I could lose the bloodhound in there…

Still, I hesitated. If I went down there and there was nothing, just a dead end, a small chamber, the guards would climb down after me. They would corner me down there and put an end to it. And even if there was a passage, a network of caves, how could I find my way through it? I could be lost forever underground. I could starve to death in the terror of that darkness.

The dog howled. The men shouted. The branches and leaves snapped and crackled. Closer.

“This way!”

“There-over there!”

“The dog’s got his scent! Go, go!”

Closer still.

I took a deep, trembling breath. I stepped into the little stream. Splashing through it, I walked unsteadily over the clearing to the sinkhole.

The hole was small, set into the bottom of the depression just like a drain at the bottom of a sink. When I reached it, I had to lie down in order to slide into it feet-first. I lowered myself into the water and mud and mulch that had washed to the mouth of the hole with the current. I eased my feet into the opening, into the unseen.

The hole was narrow. I had to work my way in, turning to lie almost facedown in the muck. I slid my way down the funneling stream and felt my feet go over the edge and into thin air. I gripped the wet, slippery ground to keep from falling. My feet felt around for a ledge I could stand on, for anything I could stand on. There was nothing there. For all I knew, it was a straight drop into oblivion.

Suddenly, the dog let out a fresh howl, so close it felt as if he were standing right beside me, howling into my ear. The men answered him with a fresh round of shouts.

“Here. Look here!”

“Water!”

“Look at the branches.”

“He must’ve found the stream.”

“There’s the trail!”

“He’s following the water!”

“Go, Hunter! Good boy!”

“This way!”

And the branches started crashing again, and the whisk and rattle of the leaves was so near it made the breath catch in my throat. I looked in the direction of the noise. There they were. I caught my first glimpse of them. Hulking shapes moving between the tree trunks. They would be here in a minute, maybe less.

With a grunt of effort, I slid myself farther into the sinkhole. The water and mud now oozed up over my shirt, over my neck. I felt the cold, damp, gritty mud lapping against my cheek, leaking into my mouth. I felt the gun in my waistband press into my belly as my waist went over the edge and the narrow hole closed in around me. I felt my legs kicking, searching for a place to rest, dangling in nothingness. I whispered the fastest prayer I know, probably the oldest prayer known to man: Help me!

Then, my fingers clawing at the wet earth, I slid in the rest of the way.

I gripped the edge of the earth as my body hung down, as I swung my legs against the wall and my feet scrabbled against its slippery surface. Another burst of howling from the dog made me look up. The daylight had telescoped to a narrow gray circle over my head. When I looked down I saw that gray light fade away to nothing.

Finally, I felt something: a little ledge in the rock. I wedged my toes on top of it. But the second I tried to shift my hands from the wet ground above and find a grip on the wall, I slipped. The next moment, I was plunging downward into darkness.

It was a short fall. I landed hard, banging against the wall as I touched down, scraping my knee, tearing my pants. I stumbled, grabbing the wound, grimacing against the pain, trying to keep hold of the slick stone.

I steadied myself. I looked up. The sinkhole was now nothing but a patch of blue sky about as big around as a basketball. The wild howls of the dog and the deep shouts of the guards filtered down through it, fading into echoes.

I looked down. There was just enough light from above to make out where I was standing. I was on a broad ledge of rock with the water from the stream spilling down to it, running over it. My eyes followed that flow to a wall of rock, only just visible, a few feet in front of me. A dead end… No, wait: the water ran to the base of that wall and then into a gap at the bottom of it. The gap was long and maybe two feet high. If I laid myself down on the ledge, I should be able to slip into it, slide myself into the space beneath the wall. It wasn’t a very nice thought. It’d be a tight fit with no way out. If they caught me in there, there’d be no escape. But what else could I do? I could hear the footsteps of the guards now, crunching over dead leaves, splashing through water. They had come into the clearing. They were right above my head.

I lowered myself onto the cold gray stone. I felt the thin stream of water running into me, bubbling against me, soaking my shirt. With a grunt, I began to shove myself into the gap beneath the wall.

And oh yes, it was tight in there-way tight. I felt as if I were being buried alive, as if the weight of the whole Earth were settling onto my back, pressing down on me. I felt the pistol jammed hard against my belly. There was no room to bring my hand to it, no way I could use it or pull it free. I couldn’t even turn my head, couldn’t look back to see the sinkhole anymore or the little circle of sky. I could make out only the faintest gray shading in the darkness, the last trace of the light.

Still, I edged in farther underneath the stone. It was like climbing into my own coffin.

It took the guards about ten more seconds to find the sinkhole. Then the sound of their voices changed. They got louder, deeper, more echoic. The dog, Hunter, stopped his howling and let out a series of wild, throaty, triumphant barks. They were right above me. They were looking into the cave.

“Must’ve gone in here!”

“Well, that’s it. He’s cornered now!”

“Hey!” the first guard shouted down to me. “West! Come out of there, you’re finished.”

“Give up, kid. Don’t make this worse than it has to be.”

How much worse can it get? I thought. I lay there, like a corpse in a coffin, but alive, claustrophobic, trying to keep my breathing steady, trying to keep the panic sparking in my stomach from catching fire and flaming through me.

Another man-another man with a thick accent- cursed. “I can’t believe it!”

“We’re gonna have to go in after him.”

“I can’t believe it,” the man with the accent said again.

“All right, I’ll go. Hold on to the dog. Stupid punk,” he muttered-that was referring to me, I guess.

I thought I saw something. I thought the nature of the faint gray light changed. It grew slightly brighter for a moment, then faded again. A flashlight, I thought. One of them was shining a flashlight into the sinkhole.

I heard another curse. The guy must’ve had his head right down into the sinkhole now. I could even hear him sigh-and even his sigh echoed.

“All right, hold the flashlight right like that so I can see my way,” he said. “I’ll go down and have a look around.”

Instinctively, I shoved myself even farther underneath the rock-and to my immense relief I felt cool, damp air on the fingertips of my right hand. I pushed my hand up and wiggled my fingers. There was nothing above them. There was a way out from underneath the wall. The gap went straight through. There was another opening, up where my hand was, above my head. If I could edge up a little, I might be able to fit through it. It was worth a try anyway, better than getting caught in here.

Above and behind me, the dog let out a series of frantic barks. I could hear the scraping and grunting and cursing-a lot of cursing-as the one guard started his climb down into the sinkhole after me. With the flashlight to guide him, he’d be down in a second. Then all he’d have to do was follow the path of the water like I did. He’d lie down on the rock and see me under there. Then, if I refused to come out, he’d just poke in the muzzle of his AK-47 and blow me to kingdom come.

So I had to move-now. Crawling on my belly, I inched my way under the wall, toward the opening. I was moving away from the sinkhole light and the flashlight light too. The darkness closed over me like a steel trap until I couldn’t see a thing-not a thing-it was absolute, pitch black. I squirmed up farther along the narrow passage. My arm was free of the wall. Then my head popped out into that dank air. Then I got my shoulder out. Clawed my way over the stone, pulling my legs after me into the open.

Then I was free. I let out a gasping breath of relief. I turned over.

And I fell off the edge of rock.

The next moment I was rolling down and down and down. Bouncing hard off the stone, feeling it scrape pieces of flesh away from my face and arms. I couldn’t see. I was completely blind. There was nothing but motion and rock and pain, and I had no idea whether I was about to plunge off another edge and just drop straight down…

But no. No, I hit bottom. I felt the jar of the impact go through my entire body so that my bones ached. The breath was knocked out of me in a loud grunt. I lay stunned in a darkness so complete that when I lifted my hand in front of me, I literally could not see my fingers an inch in front of my eyes.

I lay still, aching, gasping for breath, staring up at nothingness.

Then the nothingness was broken. The pale, pale out-glow of a flashlight’s beam appeared overhead for a single moment, then was gone. It was the guard. Obviously, he was lying down, poking his flashlight into the gap in the wall, looking for me.

I held my breath, watching as the dim glow appeared again, then faded.

Then the guard shouted, “He’s not here!”

He couldn’t see the opening I’d fallen through. It was out of his sightline.

The shout came back to him from above. “What do you mean he’s not there! Listen to this dog. He’s going crazy!”

As if in agreement, Hunter the dog sent up a fresh chorus of ferocious barking.

“I’m telling you,” shouted the guard above me, “there’s nothing down here. There’s nowhere for him to hide! Idiot dog must be after a squirrel or something.”

He sighed again. Cursed again. The next time he spoke, his voice sounded farther away. “Throw me a rope, man. This place is giving me the creeps. Probably bats down here and everything.”

I heard him grunt again and go through another long series of curses as he retreated, as he climbed back up the wall, back through the sinkhole into the upper world. I heard his voice again as he reached the top.

“Let’s get out of here.”

I heard his footsteps receding. The dog’s wild and argumentative barks grew dimmer as the men dragged him away from the sinkhole.

Finally, silence. I couldn’t hear any of them anymore.

Still, I didn’t move. I lay a long time in the absolute darkness, absolutely still. Trying to think. Trying to make sense out of what was happening to me. Looking for an answer.