Prism (3 page)

Screams are like strings. Sometimes they’re thick and fat, sturdy and strong. Sometimes they’re thinner and braided like yarn. And sometimes they’re like sewing thread, so skinny that they barely withstand any pressure before snapping. Joy had covered the full range of screams—from fat to skinny—all in a matter of seconds, just by saying the word
no
!

“Zee-yeek!” she screeched with a voice so shrill as to almost break. “Kay-duh-haw!”

My reaction was a millisecond quicker than Zeke’s. I reached out and grabbed onto something. It felt like a person, but who knows? Whatever it was, it tugged me forward until I
fell on my stomach. The heavy mass was dragging me toward a big, black hole. I wanted to let go, but I knew I couldn’t do that without losing Joy.

I screamed. She screamed. A second later, my dreadful skid was abruptly stopped.

Someone was holding my legs, digging sharp nails into them.

“I got you!” Zeke yelled from behind. “I got you, I got you. Just stop struggling!”

My legs ached with an excruciating pain. My stomach had been sandpapered by the rocks and mud. My chin and forehead were scraped raw. But mostly my arms were numb from trying to keep Joy from falling.

“Relax,” Zeke barked at me. “I’ll try to pull you both up.”

I’m 5’2” and weigh 124 pounds. Joy weighed a little more, but I didn’t have any better ideas, so I said nothing. I now knew the true meaning of the phrase “eat my dust.”

“Ready?” Zeke didn’t wait for me to answer. Encircling his long fingers and rubbery palms around my ankles, he started to drag me away from the pit.

I tried to hold on to Joy. She tried to hold on to me.

Too heavy. Joy slipped out of my reach. She let go and screamed.

Her scream seemed to go on forever, but in fact it was just a second. Both Zeke and I heard the plop.

I screamed into the hole. “Joy, can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can hear you. I can’t see anything.”

Zeke quickly got out the flashlight and shone it into the pit. It appeared to be just deep enough so Joy couldn’t climb out. “Are you all right?”

Joy looked into the spotlight, her face blackened with mud. She appeared to be holding herself. “I hurt my arm.”

“Is it broken?”

“I dunno, but it hurts. Maybe I just pulled something.” Her eyes frantically searched around. “Get me out of here!”

Zeke said to me, “I’ve got an idea. I’ll grab your ankles and lower you into the pit. You grab on to her arms, and I’ll pull you back up.”

“Didn’t we already try that?”

“Yeah, but we didn’t plan it properly. You didn’t have a good grip on Joy, and I didn’t have a good grip on you. I almost lost my footing.”

I was silent.

“If you’ve got a better plan, I’m listening.”

I didn’t have a comeback. We positioned the flashlight so we could see Joy and explained our rescue attempt to her. She was still gripping her arm, but what choice did we have other than to proceed?

“What if we all fall in?” I asked Zeke.

“Well, you can stay here with her and I’ll try to get help—”

Joy screamed another no. “You’ve got to get me out of here!”

It was still raining waterfalls outside. The sky was crackling
like a cherry bomb. I sighed. “How about if I lower my messenger bag down and see if she can grab it? Then we can both try to reel her in.”

Zeke thought it was worth a try. As soon as we tried to pull her up, the strap broke. Joy fell backward and landed on her tailbone. By now, she was wailing.

Back to Plan A.

Zeke dangled me upside down and lowered me into the pit. I felt like something about to be fondued.

“Grab Kaida’s hands!” Zeke called out to Joy.

“Trying!”

“Right…here.” I was waving my hands around. The inside of the pit was inky black and ominous. Joy’s outline looked like something from an ultrasound, like she was made of liquid metal.

I felt fingers gripping around my wrists. “We’ve got her!” I whooped. “Pull, Zeke, pull!”

Blood swam to my head. My brain started to go all fuzzy and my left hand began to tingle. Something in the way Zeke was holding my legs and Joy was holding my arms…too tightly.

“Got us?” I choked in a nasally voice.

He didn’t answer. I heard the sound of rubber against earth.

“Zeke?” I persisted. My hand was losing sensation. I felt like I was dreaming, drugged. He started to pull us upward. “Go, go, go!”

“Hold on! Give me a second!” he yelled as an answer. Then he swore. I heard more scrapes against the ground.

“I’ve got this,” he shouted to Joy and me. “I’ve got it—”

“Then get it!” Joy screamed.

“I’m trying, damn it!”

We were good for about three seconds. And then Zeke lost it, the three of us plummeted back into the pit, and the earth devoured us like some kind of biblical plague. A low growl rumbled in the background, the sound of something collapsing.

“Ow!” I said.

“Gah!” Zeke said. “What the—”

Joy wailed out, “Oh, God! We’re going to die, we’re going to die!”

“Stop it!” I told her. “We’re not going to die.”

But we
were
going to die. That much I knew.

“You’re sitting on me, Kaida,” Zeke said dryly.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“No problem.”

“That’s a good one.” I laughed. “No problem.
Au contraire, mon ami
. The problem is monumental.”

“I’m sorry.” Zeke sounded on the brink of tears.

“It’s not your fault, Zeke. It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s just…” My voice trailed off. “Can anyone see, or am I stunned from the fall?” I asked, feeling around.

“No, it’s pitch-black,” Zeke replied. “I took off my backpack to pull you guys up. Now we don’t even have a flashlight!”

“My messenger bag!” I shouted. “
My
flashlight’s in
my
bag and my bag is down here somewhere!”

We all started groping around. We literally couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces. It was the most enveloping, evil darkness I had ever experienced, and I had to constantly talk out loud to myself to keep from panicking.

“You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay…”

“Found it!” Zeke shrieked. With a flick of a switch we had illumination. I looked at Zeke’s face and saw the curve of his mouth set downward, his turquoise eyes half closed in misery.

“What now?” he asked.

“Shine the flashlight above us,” I suggested. “Maybe we can climb back up.”

He did. Several rocks had fallen on top of our entrance, blocking our escape path. I felt the surrounding walls. They were wet and steep.

No way out.

“Don’t panic,” I said out loud. “Panic doesn’t do any good.”

No one spoke. Finally Zeke asked, “What now?” I took the flashlight from him and moved it around. Joy was rocking in a fetal position. She was beyond panic.

“I really screwed up,” Zeke choked out.

“It’s not your fault, Zeke,” I told him. “This was just a bad situation that kept turning worse. If the van hadn’t crashed, we wouldn’t have been in the rain. The rain led to the cave,
the cave to Joy’s fall. Joy’s fall to…” I trailed off. “What’s the use? Let’s think up another plan. At least it’ll keep our brains occupied!”

“You okay?” Zeke was crouching by Joy. She looked like a cornered animal.

“My arm,” was all she said in response. “I hurt it in the fall and then it got yanked.”

I squatted down beside her and stroked her hair. It felt like silk. That’s the most basic way to comfort a girl, by touching her gently. I had experienced this sort of aid a million times before.

“Joy,” I asked softly, “are you bleeding?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can I pick up your arm?”

“No.”

“Okay. It’s okay,” I tried to soothe her.

“It really hurts.”

“I know,” I crooned, “I can’t even imagine.” But I could. I broke my arm in sixth grade playing basketball. That had been the end of my athletic career.

Zeke started shining the flashlight over the walls. “Look. There are tunnels down here. Maybe we should wander around.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t do anything right now,” I told him. “We’re all too frazzled and too tired to think properly.” I felt several pings on my head and looked up. The hole that we had slipped through was starting to cave in. “On second thought,
maybe walking around is a better option than getting buried alive.”

Joy let go with a wail. I said, “Can you walk, Joy? Is it just your arm or your legs, too?” I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

“I can’t walk! I can’t move!”

“I’ll carry you.” Zeke stretched out his arms.

“No, no,” I insisted. Another bit of dirt crashed onto my skull. We had to get away from the spot and we had to do it now. The hole was beginning to leak pebbles and rocks. “Try to get up, Joy. I’ll help you—”

“Don’t touch my right arm!”

Zeke grabbed her waist and hoisted her to her feet. Slowly, he let go. “You can stand.”

She nodded and took a step forward. “I’m okay. I can walk.”

“Are you sure?” Zeke dusted off his pants.

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s get out of here…as in right now.”

Zeke shined his flashlight around, and we walked into the tunnel. I could stand up inside, but Joy and Zeke had to bend over. A sharp odor plunged into my nostrils. The place felt diseased: chilly and clammy and without hope.

“In a place with light deprivation are creatures deformed?” I asked, half joking.

“What?” Joy asked, confused.

Zeke ignored her. “There’s light here somewhere.”

“Yeah, your flashlight,” I retorted.

“It’s not pitch-black,” he insisted. “It can’t be.”

“There are undiscovered parts of the earth,” I began, my voice not seeming to belong to me. “Not everything is safe.”

I shivered at my own words.

“You’re joking, but you’re not joking,” Zeke whispered.

“Why are you whispering?” But I was speaking quietly, too. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

We continued to trek through the tunnel. Mercifully, it widened and heightened until Zeke and Joy could walk upright. I thought about these kinds of scenes on TV. At the end, something was always waiting. It could be a hermit who’d kill us just because we were there. Or undiscovered animals…creatures of the underworld. Maybe we’d be attacked by our own mental insanity. But surely something was waiting for us.

The pungent stench intensified all around us.

“God, what is that?” Joy gasped.

“Bat shit,” Zeke answered. “I think.”

“It’s called guano,” I added.

We walked on, the smell strangling us.

“Wait.” Zeke suddenly gripped my hand.

“What?” I squeezed his hand back. Even though we weren’t
the best of friends, his touch felt wonderful.

“Guano,” he replied. “Guano! Lovely, lovely guano! Bat shit.”

Joy regarded Zeke’s slaphappy grin. “Maybe you should sit down?”

“You guys!” He was clearly frustrated. “Guano comes from bats!” He shook his head and turned directly to me. “Kaida, what have we been learning about the caves in science class?”

“You mean the Carlsbad Caverns?”

“Yes, exactly! What particular creature lurks inside these dark, dank caverns?”

“Bats,” I said.

“And how do bats eat?”

“They fly out at dusk to feed and return in the morning to sleep,” I answered. “Zeke, I don’t see—”

“There’s guano in this cave. That means there’re bats in this cave.”

I thought of bats and heard Maria’s voice.
Rabies.
I kept my thoughts to myself. “We’re all on the same page with that one, Zeke. Bats do live in caves.”

“And presumably, like all bats, our bats get hungry?”

“One would assume.”

“So…” He moved his hands, waiting for me to say something.

Guano…bats…bats have to feed.

It was the middle of the night. Meaning if our cave had bats, the bats were out feeding. Then it came to me like a
lightbulb turning on. “There has to be an opening for the bats to fly in and out!” I shrieked.

He picked me up and swung me around. Then he clapped his hands together. “All we need to do is search. There
is
an opening somewhere!”

“What if the opening to the cave was what we fell through?” I asked him.

“Not big enough for bats to go in and out of. There has got to be a ton of bats, judging from the amount of guano. There should be another entrance. All we have to do is find it.”

“Happy.” Joy yawned. “Very happy.”

“How can you be tired?” Zeke squealed.

I blushed in solidarity. “I don’t know, Zeke. Maybe she’s tired because it’s God-only-knows how late.” Something illuminated from Zeke’s wrist—his wristwatch. “What time is it?”

“Two in the morning.”

“We’re more likely to find the opening when the bats fly into it at dawn. Why don’t we just rest and conserve our energy for a while?”

“But we’re so close!”

“It’ll be easier to follow the bats…and the sun will come out and…” My eyelids fell steadily. I felt dreamy and groggy.

“I agree.” Joy sat down, leaned against the walls, and closed her eyes.

Zeke yawned. Our exhaustion was contagious. “Okay.
We’ll take a nap.” He sat down between us. “Just a
nap
,” he enunciated. “I’m going to set my watch. We’ve got to get up in a few hours, all right?”

I agreed. Nothing better to do.

He turned off the flashlight, and with that out went consciousness.

I heard: Hi, hi, hi, in a wispy voice.

Then someone shook me awake. Zeke’s voice. “We’ve got to get going. It’s five in the morning. We’ve got to find the bats.”

“Why don’t we just let the bats find us?” I croaked, rubbing my eyes.

Zeke turned on the flashlight and shined it in my eyes. Then he woke up Joy. It took several minutes to leap back to consciousness, and when I did, a heavy despair smothered me like a wet towel. We were in the same nightmare as before the nap. If I had been alone, I probably would have sunk back down into sleep and died. But other people were depending on me and I was depending on other people. No one could let the next person down.