When I finally do touch bottom, it’s a gentle bump and not the life-ending crash against hard stone I expected. Still, it’s a shock to my nervous system. I push off from the bottom as water continues to tickle the back of my throat. I gag, coughing air that bubbles past my face. Then I’m at the surface, my head emerging and water unplugging from my nostrils. I cough a few times, spitting up water. Then I breathe. Long and slow inhalations of dank, subterranean air.
With the flashlight miraculously still dangling from my arm, I paddle in place, trying to get a sense of my surroundings. I’m in a cavern roughly the same size as Camp Nightingale’s mess hall. The beam of the flashlight stretches over black water, damp rock, a strip of dryish land surrounding the pool in a crescent shape. The water itself takes up about half the cave, no larger than a backyard swimming pool. When I aim the flashlight upward, I see a dome of rock above me dripping with stalactites. The cavern’s shape makes me think of a stomach. I’ve tumbled into the belly of a beast.
A dark hollow sits in a corner where rock wall meets cave ceiling. The spot from which I fell. I sweep the flashlight up and down, trying to gauge how far I dropped. It looks to be about ten feet.
I swim forward, heading to the land that partially rings the water. The ground there is studded with pebbles, painted pale by the flashlight. I pull myself onto it and collapse, exhausted and aching.
I reach into my pocket and optimistically search for my phone. It’s still there. Even better, it still works. Thank you, waterproof case.
The phone doesn’t have any signal. Not that I was expecting one this far below ground. Still, I try calling 911 in case, by some small miracle, it actually goes through. It doesn’t. I’m not surprised.
I remember what Detective Flynn said about tracking someone’s location using the GPS on their phones. I can’t help but wonder if that still applies when the missing person is underground. I doubt it. Even if it’s possible, such a thing could take hours, maybe even days to pinpoint my location.
If I want to get out of here, I’ll have to do it myself.
I aim the flashlight to the stretch of cave wall rising to the hole above me. It’s steep. Not quite a ninety-degree angle, but mighty close. Before trying to climb it, I scan the rest of the cavern, looking for another way out. I aim the flashlight into every corner and dark cranny I can find, seeing nothing but more water, more rock, more dead ends.
Scaling that wall is my only option.
In desperation, I run to it, not pausing to look for places to grip. Instead, I leap onto the wall, clawing at rock, scrambling for outcroppings. I get about three feet before I lose my grip and fly backward, landing hard on the cave floor.
I try again, this time making it four feet off the ground before getting bucked off. This time I land directly on my tailbone. Sharp pain shoots up my back, momentarily paralyzing me.
Yet I make a third attempt, slowing down a bit, puzzling together the best places to grip and the right direction in which to climb. It works. I find myself rising higher. Six feet. Seven.
When I’m about a foot from the tunnel that leads back outside, I realize there’s nothing left to grasp. I reach up with my right arm, my palm smacking smooth rock that’s cold and slippery. My left arm and shoulder, bearing all that weight, start to give out.
My body droops.
For a second, I dangle against the cave wall. Then I plummet back to earth, landing feetfirst, my right ankle twisting beneath me before buckling. I think I hear something snap. Or maybe it’s my imagination as I collapse into a pained heap.
I scream, hoping it will take the edge off. It doesn’t. The pain continues. So does the screaming. I look at my ankle and my foot, bent in a way it shouldn’t ever be. There’ll be no more climbing for me.
That’s when reality sets in.
I’m trapped here.
No one knows where I am.
I’m now as lost as Vivian, Natalie, and Allison.
40
The flashlight dies shortly after 4:00 a.m. I know the time because I check my phone as soon as the dying beam flickers into nothingness. I regret looking, even as I’m comforted by the blue-white glow of the screen. Time continues to pass at an agonizing pace. It’s as if the minutes last longer down here, stretching themselves until a single hour feels like three.
Wanting to preserve as much battery as possible, I shut off the phone and return it to my pocket. Then I sit in darkness so complete it feels like death. Nothing but black emptiness.
I start to shiver, realizing how alarmingly cold it is down here. The pool of frigid water doesn’t help. Ditto my wet clothes, which cling to my clammy skin. My body trembles. My teeth chatter.
Yet none of that keeps me from dozing off as I huddle against the side of the cave, my knees pulled to my chest. Each blink in the darkness somehow ends with me falling asleep only to bolt awake with a spasm of pain and a startled yelp.
I’m beyond exhausted, if such a thing exists. I can’t remember the last time I slept. I guess it was this morning, when I woke up inside Dogwood. I turn on my phone and do another time check.
Four thirty.
Fuck.
I then look for a signal, once again finding none.
Double fuck.
I turn off the phone and count the passing seconds, saying them aloud in the echo chamber of the cavern.
“One. Two. Three.”
When I blink, my eyes stay closed.
“Four. Five. Six.”
I’m suddenly too tired to speak. But the counting continues, now in my thoughts.
Seven. Eight. Nine.
I sleep after that. For how long, I have no idea. When I awake, it’s with another pain-filled jolt, me still counting, the number flying from my parched lips.
“Ten.”
My eyes snap open, my sleep-blurred gaze landing on Vivian right in front of me. She reclines on the cave floor, her elbow bent, head propped up. It’s how she liked to play Two Truths and a Lie. She claimed the relaxed position made it harder to tell when she was lying.
“You’re awake,” she says. “Finally.”
“How long was I asleep?” I say, now long past trying to cast her away through sheer force of will.
“An hour or so.”
“Have you been here that whole time?”
“Off and on. I guess you thought you were rid of me.”
“I certainly wanted to be.”
There’s no point in lying to her. She’s not real.
“Well, you’re not.” Vivian spreads her arms wide in mock delight. “Surprise!”