The B Girls (26 page)

Once they were satisfied, they helped her to her
feet.

Jane gasped once on the way up and swayed a little.
"Wow. That was a little more exciting than I would have liked."

"You want to sit back down?" Mae asked.

"No. I want to get the hell out of here."

The first section they had to retrace was wide
enough for two people--if they were friends--even though it required walking
bent over.

"Will it help if one of us walks next to
you?" Lucy asked.

"I don't think so," Jane said. "I
won't really be able to lean on you."

"Stay close behind me and put your hand on my
back," Mae said. "That should give you a little support and help keep
you steady."

And off they went, moving slowly.

As the walls closed around them, the tune to
"Three Blind Mice" got stuck in Lucy's brain and she started humming.

Mae joined in, and by the time they'd shuffled back
to the edge of the pool, they were singing like drunken sailors.

Not that they had an easy time.

Jane stopped frequently to suck in big gulps of
air. Each time Jane stopped, Mae waited and Lucy leant what support she could
from behind.

"So, do we get naked again?" Mae asked as
they stopped at the edge of the pool.

"No. But we should take off our boots and
socks and roll up our pants," Lucy said.

Jane looked pained.

"Do you need to rest? Ready to stop?"
Lucy said.

"No." Jane made her way to a large rock
and sat down. "Just get my boots off."

Lucy took off Jane's boots and socks and rolled up
Jane's pants before dealing with her own. "This time you lean on me,"
she said.

"No problem." Jane put her good hand on
Lucy's shoulder and used it as a crutch to help her through the pool.

Mae walked behind them and they all made it across
without mishap.

They sat down to put their boots back on.

Lucy helped Jane with hers and tried to judge how
she was feeling.

Jane was trying to look brave but casting
apprehensive glances in the direction of the rope disappearing into the
corkscrew climb.

"You can stop here," Lucy said.

Jane shook her head. "No. I know I can do
this. Just clip me in."

"Not so fast," Lucy said. "We need
to figure out the best way to do this."

"I think you should go first," Mae said.
"You can help her up with the rope when she needs it. I'll climb without
the rope and help from behind when I can."

"The first part sounds good," Lucy said.
"But I don't like the idea of you climbing without being clipped in. What
if you fall?

"I'll be very careful. We're going to have to
take some risks if we're going to make this work," Mae said.

"Fine," Lucy said. She clipped onto the
rope. "Come on. If Jane can be tough, we can be tough."

"Jane's still here," Jane said. "And
yes, I am still feeling tough."

The climb that had seemed so easy on the way down,
didn't look that way as Lucy went back up. She tried to do as much of it
one-armed as she could, just to get an idea if Jane should even attempt it.

There were two spots where she thought Jane would
have to trust to the rope completely. Two places where Lucy was going to have
to prove she was tough and pull Jane up a few feet with very little help.

At the top, Lucy found a spot where she could sit
facing the hole with her feet braced on a large rock and rigged the rope for
belaying.

The idea was for Lucy to use her Petzl ascender to
take up the rope as Jane climbed, locking her in place on the way. As long as
Lucy didn't go ass over tea kettle into the hole herself, Jane couldn't fall.

"Ready!" Lucy yelled at the top of her
lungs when she finished setting up. Sound did strange things down here and she
wanted to make sure they heard her.

She gave the rope a little shake for good measure.

Within a few seconds, the rope went tight. Lucy
braced harder, leaning back and doing her best to let the equipment do the work
pulling the rope through the ascender at a steady pace to keep up with the
slack.

Lucy shuddered to think what kind of pain Jane was
in. No matter how careful she tried to be she had to be bumping her arm against
the rock from time to time on the way up.

The first time Jane gave her weight to the rope
Lucy came within a hair's breadth of smacking her head against the rock in
front of her. She had the rope positioned too high across her back and the
sudden weight bent her forward hard.

Lucy grunted like a weightlifter, pushed her feet
harder into the rock and leaned backward for all she was worth. All she had to
do was keep from getting pulled over for a few seconds until Jane found the
next hold with a little boost from Mae.

Five seconds seemed more like five minutes as Lucy
grimaced and strained, clenching her jaw, waiting for the slack.

When it came, she thanked God she'd had her back
braced against the wall or she would have smacked the back of her head instead
of the front. She readjusted the rope lower on her back and waited for the next
one.

Lucy's estimate that she'd have to hold Jane's
weight twice was wrong. Apparently just pretending to have a bad arm and
actually having one are two different things. The final total was five.

Five times Lucy held Jane's weight for a few brief
seconds and hoped she wouldn't fail. She didn't.

Jane flopped out of the hole onto her back with a
high-pitched sound of pain.

Mae appeared a few seconds later. She locked eyes
with Lucy and gave a slight shake of her head.

"Don't shake your head," Jane said.
"I made it didn't I?"

"You did indeed," Lucy said. She was in
awe of Jane whether she made it another foot or not.

"You might be making your arm worse," Mae
said.

"Nothing is worse than being down here one
second longer than I have to be. Every step I take brings me closer to a
hospital and controlled substances."

Lucy could think of something worse.

"I've been thinking," Mae said. "I
don't think either of us can pull Jane through this first narrow part while
we're crawling. I think we should attach a rope to the blanket stretcher then
I'll crawl through with the rope and pull her through when I get to the taller
part. You can come through with Jane to ease any rough spots."

Now this was a plan with possibilities. Lucy
wondered why she hadn't thought of it. "Are you sure you have the muscle
power to pull it off?"

"I'll find it. Don't they say you can lift
cars when someone you love is in danger?"

"We'll make it work," Lucy said.
"What do you say?" When she turned to Jane she realized Jane had
passed out again. Probably a good thing. "Alright, let's get her bundled
up."

Jane came to while Mae and Lucy were maneuvering
her onto their last blanket. Mae explained her plan.

"So, all you have to do is sleep through as
much of it as possible," Lucy said.

"Good, 'cause I don't think I'm up for any
calisthenics."

She helped them by wriggling into the middle of the
blanket and straightening everything to make it easier for them to wrap her up.

"We should pull her feet first," Mae said
when she and Lucy debated about how to attach the rope.

"So, all we need to do is rig her climbing
harness around her feet," Lucy said.

It took them three tries to find a way to wrap and
tighten the harness around Jane so that Mae could pull her without shutting off
the circulation to her feet.

They clipped a rope to Mae's harness and Jane's and
Mae got ready to slither into the hole.

"I'll keep an eye on the rope and make sure it
doesn't tangle. Give it a couple of good tugs when you're ready for us to start
into the hole." Lucy said.

Mae nodded and smiled. "We're going to pull
this off and have her out of here in no time."

Lucy managed a weak smile in return. "Soccer
moms rule."

Mae knelt at the hole.

"Wait!"

Mae hesitated. "What?"

"You should take the jar with you in case
something happens. We need to make sure it gets out."

"Nothing's going to happen," Mae said.

"Just in case," Lucy said. "Hook
your pack on the rope between you and the stretcher."

"Fine but I don't think we should be
worrying."

Lucy didn't answer. She felt better knowing the jar
would get out no matter what happened behind Mae.

They clipped Mae's pack to the rope with a
carabineer.

Jane escaped into fitful sleep. Lucy put a hand on
her forehead. She'd been clammy, now she seemed too warm. Could a person get an
infection from a broken bone? Would it show up this fast? Or was her body just
mobilizing all its defenses?

It didn't really matter. There wasn't anything Lucy
could do to help other than get her out of here as soon as possible. If she was
capable of helping.

Lucy stared at the hole watching the rope disappear
foot by foot while her heart raced and her palms slicked with sweat.

"What happened? On the trip to the
treasure?"

Lucy looked at Jane and saw she'd roused herself
again. She shrugged.

"Come on. Take my mind of my arm and tell
me."

How was
she supposed to say no to that?

"The
real
crack of doom happened. A long crawl on our bellies. I flipped my shit
completely and almost didn't make it. Claustrophobia on steroids."

Jane shivered. "I probably would have freaked
out with you. Did you know about the claustrophobia?"

Lucy shook her head. "Not really. I guess I've
never been in a place where it came up. I remember being a little uncomfortable
when I toured Ruby Falls. And there was this little thing when I was a
kid."

"What thing?" Jane asked.

"Well, I got trapped in an abandoned sewer
during a thunderstorm. It was pretty scary for a while but I made it out
okay."

"And you didn't think to tell us that before
we came down here?" Jane looked like she would have yelled if she'd been
able.

"Honestly, I hadn't thought about it for years
until the other day after Gary left. I thought the trauma was way past. And a
cave isn't a sewer."

"Was it really bad?"

"It was bad. I thought I was going to
die."

"Panic attack. I've heard it's just like
having a real heart attack."

"All I know, is I don't ever want to feel like
that again."

The tugs on the rope surprised her.

Lucy didn't see how it was possible Mae had made it
through so fast.

The tugging came again. "That's our cue.
Ready?"

"As I'm going to get," Jane said and
closed her eyes. "Tell me when it's over."

Lucy gave a couple of quick jerks on the rope to
let Mae know she'd "heard" her and slid Jane on her makeshift
stretcher into place at the mouth of the hole before repeating the signal to
let Mae know she could start reeling Jane in.

The rope went taut and Jane's feet disappeared into
the hole.

Jane made a small pained sound.

Lucy put her hands on Jane's shoulders. "We're
in the home stretch," she said. If only she didn't still feel like
something was very wrong. Well something besides the fact that they were down
in this cave and Jane had a broken arm and Belle was in the hands of some crazy
kidnapper.

"Good," Jane said and closed her eyes
with a sigh.

As Lucy watched the crack swallow Jane inch by inch
an irrational wave of fear washed over her. It was silly. The horror show
before the treasure room was way worse than this. She'd gotten through this
part with barely a whimper compared to the crack of doom.

A few times in her life she'd had
"feelings" or premonitions about things going wrong. She'd always
tried to listen to that inner voice.

Right now, her entire being vibrated with the
absolute belief that if she followed Jane into that crack she was going to die.

If she didn't crawl in Jane might get stuck, Mae might
run out of strength, or maybe both, and she'd be responsible for Jane going
into shock and possibly dying.

Jane's head disappeared into the hole.

Lucy dropped onto her hands and knees and directed
her light into the crack. The blue plastic of the space blanket moved another
couple feet into the tunnel.

Ahead of her, Jane made another small sound of
pain.

Shit,
Jane might be in trouble already.

Heat flushed Lucy's skin and she was light-headed
when she muttered, "Fuck it," and pushed her body into the crack.