Lost at Running Brook Trail (8 page)

Elaine and Miriam entered the dark cave to dead calm. Elaine turned the wheels on the lighter and hoped there was enough fuel to last the night and get them through whatever else they may need a lighter for. She felt the fast pace of her heart and hoped they would see any danger before the danger could get to them. The orange and blue flame on the lighter danced up, the darkness melted a little and their eyes adjusted somewhat to the dim light. Miriam slipped the Storm into one of her army-green cargo pants pockets and turned on the iPod for added light.

“ Oh crap!” Miriam jumped.

“What is it?”

“I thought I saw something move.” Miriam held the iPod higher and moved it around to get a better look.

“It’s just our shadows on the walls. It’s hard for our eyes to adjust to what’s real and what’s not.”

“Great, I’m jumping from my own self.”

The first things they saw were icicle-like cones that jutted out of the ceiling. They complemented the strange, twisted rock formations that surrounded them.

The calm was broken by a steady drip of water that sounded like coffee seeping through a filter into a full pot.

“Hear that?” Miriam asked.

“Yes, it sounds like water dripping somewhere in the distance.”

“I think that’s how these stalactites over our heads started,” Elaine said, “the dripping water.”

“They’re going to freak Susan out, the stalactites and the dripping. It’s the perfect storm.” Miriam looked at the rock icicles and wondered how long they took to form.

“It doesn’t take much for that to happen with her.” Elaine allowed the flame to go out for a second, which left only the small light of the iPod.

“What happened?”

“The flame was a little too close to my thumb.”

Elaine turned the lighter on again and tried to take a closer stock of their surroundings. As they got closer to the walls, their eyes barely made out more faded carvings and pictures. In a few more years, maybe all of them would be destroyed by water. It was only a matter of time. There were more moose, people dancing, teepees and an oversized picture of a deer that seemed to take up the entire area. A dancing human figure, its hands resembling claws, had a head that sprouted the sensory appendages that insects might have.

“Eww,” Miriam said, “gross. Protruding icicles and strange insect humans. She’s really going to lose it.”

The antennae were not just the normal ones seen on insects. There was something abstract and confusing about their arrangements, because they were twisted into a whirlwind of disorder. It was like a ball of yarn that had unraveled but had not come back together in the same way.

“We’re either going to tell her what’s in here before she comes in so she’s prepared, or we’re going to have to try and hide everything from her .” Elaine moved deeper into the cave and looked to see where it ended. “Frankly, I think we should just tell her; it’s no good for her to be in the dark about things, and we’ll never be able to steer her away from everything.”

“I don’t know,” Miriam said. “She freaked out about things she saw on the outside. What’s she going to do when we tell her about the stuff on the inside? I don’t know which is better. If she sees, she freaks; if she imagines, she freaks.”

“That’s why we should just tell her. It’s better for her to get hysterical about something real than something imagined. Or we could just leave her to discover things on her own. It’s totally scary being in a place like this, just the four of us, but Susan is either in total despair about something or she doesn’t want to take action. We could stay outside all night without finding a place to sleep, and that would be all right with her. It’s true that something could be in here, but there are a lot more things out there.”

It wasn’t a very large cave. They had walked in under the arch in only a slight crouch, which had led them to believe it was roomier on the inside. It was about three midsized rooms put together. The wall at the back wasn’t fully closed in. Small gaps in the wall seemed to lead to narrow openings.

“Where do you suppose those lead to?” Miriam asked.

“Maybe to more caves. Or a water source. Who knows? They’re not very large fissures, so that’s good. There won’t be any large, unfriendly animals coming through any of them. Let’s look on the ground to see where we can make a bed.”

The ground was rugged and lumpy with formations of small craggy water-formed rocks and stalagmites. It would have to do because, as people said, necessity was the mother of invention.

“The surface is uneven,” Miriam commented, “but we should try to make the bed in the middle away from the walls and closer to the front of the cave.”

“You’re really concerned about her, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but when she gets the way she gets, it’s a little contagious. It gets you to that place where you think about what can really happen. Laughter is contagious, but so are other things. I don’t want her freaking me out.”

Elaine put the lighter out, leaving only the light of the iPod to cast strange shadows in their soon-to-be room.

“Turn the iPod off for a sec.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just see what it looks like inside here with no lights.”

Miriam turned the iPod off and plunged the cave in complete darkness. The drip-drop of the water became apparent again.

“We need to conserve the fuel in the lighter. We may need it for something else,” Elaine said into the blackness. “Hey, try closing your eyes for about ten seconds, and then open them.”

Ten seconds later, Miriam whispered, “I can see better.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“It just seems like that’s what I should do in the dark.”

With their eyes now adjusted, they could make out obscure shapes and abstract spaces.

“Okay, bed in the middle to the front,” Elaine agreed. “Let’s take one last look around before we make the bed.”

The lighter and the iPod came back on. Elaine and Miriam inched closer to the back wall to take a closer look. They heard the squeaking sounds first and then in the glow of the lighter and the iPod they saw what looked like an army of bats coming toward them. They had no idea where they’d come from—maybe the narrow opening or maybe the roof. Neither Elaine nor Miriam stuck around to investigate. With hands over their heads like protective helmets, they ran from the cave with only the two-inch square screen of video iPod flashing as they ran the short distance to the mouth of the cave. Elaine had long ago taken her thumb off the wheel of the lighter.

Kimberly and Susan, who had been looking toward the mouth of the cave for Elaine and Miriam’s appearance, suddenly saw the two girls bolting from the cave. Over their heads and following them out of the cave a multitude of dark wings rushed up into the darkening burnt-orange sky. Kimberly and Susan were already off the rock with bags on backs by the time Miriam and Elaine were stooping breathlessly in front of them.

“Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo, why are we running from a flock of birds?” Kimberly asked.

“Those are not birds,” Elaine said, trying to catch her breath, “those are bats!”

“What! I told you there might be something in there.” Susan was animated. “And now we know it’s vampire bats. Those things feed on blood.”

Elaine stood up straight. “Listen, we don’t know what kinds of bats they were. It’s not as if we had time to inspect and scrutinize them. They came at us so fast, the only thing we could do was run. They’re all gone now, so none of us need to let our imagination run wild. Let’s just take the branches inside. It’s good to go.”

“Then why were they coming at you?” Susan insisted.

“They weren’t coming at us. They were in their natural habitat, and we disturbed them, and what do things and people do when they are disturbed?” Elaine let the question hang. “Sometimes they run way, get scared and move. That’s all. Let’s not make this anything more than it is.”

They moved toward the yawning mouth of the cave. Elaine and Miriam were at the front, the other two following. The sky was now a mixture of yellow, orange and splashes of red but still weirdly bright.

“Those bats might be back to drain our blood.”

“Hey, stop that!” Elaine turned to Susan. “Why do you insist on making mountains out of molehills? Every little thing is Armageddon. They’re not coming back. Bats don’t feed on human blood, and those bats that you’re talking about live only in Central and South America. We are in Canada, for Pete’s sake. Get a grip!”

“How do you know this?” Susan sounded skeptical.

“From books.”

“Books …” Susan repeated the word as if she wasn’t sure any reliable information could come from such a source. As they approached the cave, she adjusted her eyes to avoid contact with the drawings. Of course when she did this all that was left to look at was the darkness of the cave or the darkening sky.

Elaine held the lighter again as they entered the cave, each dragging branches behind her. Miriam still had the iPod but Kimberly said nothing. Susan, as was now the custom, was the last one to enter the cave and drop her branch on the growing bed. They went in and out of the cave until the “mattress” was finished. They stood over the bed and looked down at the thing they had constructed. The flame of the lighter and the small square light of the iPod cast lights and shadows over the odd installation piece.

They left the thing there to the front and centre of the cave and sat on the rocks just outside the cave. They would pass the time until night fell and were forced inside.

“We have nothing to cover with.” Elaine took a scarf from her bag and tied it over her cornrows. She made a triangle first, placed it on her head, felt with her hands that it was on right and then made a knot at the back.

“What’s with the scarf?” Miriam asked.

“I have kinky hair. If I don’t tie this thing down”—Elaine pointed a finger at her head—“it will be sticking up all over the place tomorrow. And now that we’re out here, it’s come in handy because it will protect my head against the cold.”

“Lucky you.” Susan would have appreciated the cool air earlier in the day, but now it was unwanted.

“So back to the cover situation,” Elaine said. “We could make a cover from leaves, but that’s too much to think about, much less to do right now. I have a sweater; does anyone else?”

“Why would you have a sweater?” Miriam asked.

“Because I heard that temperature varies in these parts even in the day. So anyone else have one?”

Kimberly rummaged around in her bag and came out with a grey sweater with pink stripes around the sleeves. “As you can see, I have one, but why do you need to know? Are we going to make a sheet out of it?”

The sunset made strange abstract shapes in the sky.

“Funny,” Elaine said. “I’m going to wear my sweater and sleep at one end and you might want to give Susan your sweater so she can sleep at the other end.”

“Why me?” Susan jumped off the stone that she was sitting on. “Why do I have to sleep at the end?”

“Susan, you don’t have to do anything. It’s just practical that you would have more body heat. I’m sleeping at the end too, remember?”

“It’s because you’re fat!” Kimberly said. “And now because of that I’m going to lose a perfectly good sweater! She’s going to stretch it out, you know. It won’t be of any use to me after she puts it on.”

Miriam jumped off her rock and started for Kimberly, but Elaine blocked her. “Just cool it.”

Miriam paced back and forth, not knowing what to do, while Susan sat with her head down.

Elaine looked at Kimberly and thought about what she could say to her. It all seemed futile with this girl. There would be no appealing to her better nature. What could she say to an abnormal person? Should she even bother? And why didn’t Susan respond?

“I’m sure my words will simply fall into the dry, hard earth or dissolve into the impending darkness, but do you have to be so willful and hurtful? Do you feel good about the things you say?”

“It’s only the truth.”

“Ha!” Miriam cried. “Treating her like the average person who can be reasoned with will only make matters worse because she will not listen. Here, Susan, this sweater is yours.”

She grabbed Kimberly’s sweater with a forlorn look. Kimberly was right. She was fat, but Susan knew that, and although this information was a known fact, it still stung. Kimberly had that ability to make whatever she said so raw that it became abrasive and poisonous.

“So, Susan,” Elaine said, “you don’t have to sleep at the end, but since we only have two sweaters, it would be better if someone with a lot of heat sleeps at the end. But maybe you can give the sweater back to Kimberly and she can sleep at the end.”

Miriam grunted. If Kimberly somehow got that sweater back, Miriam would be fuming. Miriam would rather see that sweater destroyed than in Kimberly’s hand. She felt like taking Elaine’s lighter and setting the thing on fire.

“I’ll sleep at the end, but something must be at the door to keep animals out.” Susan decided that if they wanted her body heat, they would have to give her some protection.

“There is no door,” Kimberly said.

“Shut your face!” Miriam said. “We all know what she means.”

“We’ll be all caved in,” Elaine said. “Let’s see what we can use; it’s getting dark.”

“What about one of those rocks over there?” Miriam pointed a little ways off.

“Too small,” Susan pointed out.

“We could use more than one,” Elaine said. “The mouth of the cave doesn’t have to be covered all the way up, just as much as possible. Let’s just pick some stones that we can manage to roll over there.”

They chose two stones. Both had a flattish side and had been chosen because of this. It looked like they could be stacked one on top of the other. Elaine and Kimberly got behind one, Miriam and Susan behind the other. Together they rolled and pushed the stones with the strength of fifteen-year-old girls. Their breathing became ragged with each push, but they managed to get the stones to the cave’s entrance. They put their bags inside the cave, knowing that once the stones were in place, they would be blocked in. One stone was rolled into the cave and the other placed directly in the entrance. They took turns climbing and clambering over this rock to get inside the cave. Once inside the semi-darkness of the cave, they had the task of getting the other stone on top of the one already at the mouth. This was harder than rolling the stones at intervals toward the cave and took all their concerted efforts to pull off. Where they found the energy they didn’t know, but after much heaving, they managed to build a suitable blockade. They had taken turns going into the bushes again with Elaine’s tissue because they knew it would be very difficult to get back out once the stones were put in place.