1
SAM
I woke up before the others, my internal alarm clock beeping in my head before my phone could do the job. My head pounded a little bit as I slid my feet to the floor, but it wasn't bad. Probably far less severe than the others. They'd been awfully drunk last night.
I rose, stretched, and pawed my way into the dark kitchen to make some coffee.
The salty ocean air buffeted me as I walked out to the balcony attached to the villa. Andy had been right: renting out an entire place was totally worth it. We were all adults; we didn't need to scrounge for beer money like the good old days in college. We could splurge a little bit, now.
I sat in the deck chair and sipped my coffee while watching the sun creep over the horizon of the Gulf.
The others would probably struggle to get up again. Partying was fun, I guess, but the others went hard. They seemed like they were trying to relive the glory days of college, beer pong and shots and getting blackout drunk. I'd done that the first night too, and the hangover the next day was so bad I'd made sure I wouldn't do it again.
So while the others went wild, I'd been taking fake shots and sipping my beer carefully. It wasn't hard: once the others were good and sloshed they hardly saw what anyone else was doing. And while they knocked back their tequila, I knocked mine back... into the kitchen sink.
Sitting outside, breathing in the salty air and watching the orange sunrise, I was happy with my decision.
It was also nice having some solitude in the mornings. I was a quiet guy, an introvert, and needed to be alone to recharge my batteries. Reuniting with the boys was great, but after five days I was ready to get back to my normal life.
I closed my eyes and savored it for as long as it would last.
Which, it turned out, was only another thirty seconds.
"Morning!" Andy said, sliding open the door and closing it behind him. He clinked his mug of coffee to mine and sat in the adjacent chair. "God, that's a great view."
"That's why I got up for it." I looked sideways at him. "You're awfully chipper this morning."
"I've always considered myself to be a chipper guy."
"Even after getting shitfaced?"
Andy laughed. "Especially after getting shitfaced. When you're a pro like me, you need to be."
I shook my head in wonder. Andy ran a bunch of nightclubs on the east coast, and talked about how being permanently drunk was the only way he could do business. That sounded like a nightmare to me. Not the drinking, but being around people every hour of every day.
"Anyone else up?"
Andy smirked. "I didn't hear anyone. The smell of breakfast ought to do the trick though." He smacked me on the thigh. "We've got spelunking this morning! I've been looking forward to it all week."
He hopped up and disappeared inside to make breakfast.
I was actually looking forward to the cave tour. We didn't have stuff like that back in Colorado. Plus, what was the point of coming to a beautiful country if you didn't enjoy what made it unique? We could get shitfaced anywhere. But Belize was unique.
I savored ten more minutes of the sunrise, and the peacefulness, before joining Andy.
"I heard Orlando and Roland waking up," Andy said over his shoulder while he mixed pancake batter in a bowl. "Can you go rustle up Ethan?"
I knocked politely on the bedroom door, then tried the knob. Feeling like an intruder, I poked my head inside but nothing else. Ethan was splayed out on the bed across the room, beneath beams of sunlight that streamed through the window. He looked like the chalk-outline of a dead body in a noir crime movie: legs and arms bent at weird angles, hardly moving at all.
"Hey, buddy. You up?" I whispered, but that wasn't going to do the trick. "Ethan. You alive?"
A groan answered me, and he shifted a few millimeters before going still.
"Consider this your wake-up call. And if I were you I'd heed it; Andy's all excited about the caves, so if you don't get up soon he'll storm in here and kick you out of bed."
Ethan responded with something that might have been a grunt, or might have been a groan, but it was good enough for me.
"He's stirring," I told Andy in the kitchen. "And I hear someone else's shower running."
"Good enough for me."
I helped Andy with breakfast, putting bacon on a sheet in the oven while cracking eggs over a frying pan. My stomach rumbled like an avalanche; I may not have gotten drunk last night, but drinking still left me starving the next day.
"There he is!" Andy said as Roland came around the corner in his boxers. His Irish eyes had more red in them than white, and he stared at us like a man who'd just received a death sentence.
"Fuck you too, mate," he said, patting me on the shoulder in passing. "If I don't get some coffee in my belly I'm gunna keel over, just see if I don't."
"Always the charmer," Andy teased, pouring him a mug.
Roland held the mug to his face with two hands, inhaling the smell. "Right. Back to bed, then."
"Don't you dare!" Andy rounded on him, pointing a spatula like a dagger. "Caves. We leave in an hour."
"If I'm alive in an hour," he muttered, disappearing.
We plated all the food: a mountain of bacon, a dozen scrambled eggs, and four towers of pancakes that leaned from all the weight. Andy and I were halfway through our first plate when Orlando joined us.
"You're looking better this morning than you were last night," Andy said around a mouthful of eggs.
Orlando did look fresh; his black Dominican skin was almost bright with energy. He wore safari shorts and a T-shirt, and had already put on his hiking boots. He took a seat and began serving himself pancakes.
"It's amazing what a shower can do. You look just as fresh, in spite of the five shots I watched you pound." He pointed his fork at me.
"A shower, like you said."
"Plus, the caves!" His eyes widened with excitement. "Been waiting all damn week for these. I slept like a kid on Christmas Eve, alcohol aside."
"Should be an awesome time," Andy agreed.
Roland joined us after his own shower, and judging by the sunglasses he wore indoors it hadn't helped him much. But he ate his food, and rubbed his belly after, and a smile began to appear.
"Fifteen minutes til we leave, gentlemen," Orlando said, hopping up. "Someone go make sure Ethan's alive."
"He groaned when I checked on him an hour ago," I said.
"I'll go kick his ass out of bed." Andy disappeared down the hall.
The rest of us went outside, where a jeep was waiting. Orlando spoke to the driver in Spanish, then nodded. "We're all set for the tour."
"How're we all gunna fit in that?" Roland asked.
"Someone'll have to ride in the very back, but we're not going far. It'll be fun!"
"Wee sardines in a tin," Roland muttered, looking at the sky and then wincing at the sun from behind his sunglasses.
Ethan did get up in time, though he looked like he'd been hit by a bus. Orlando took one look at him and said, "If you get sick on the ride, hombre, speak up so we can pull over."
"Why... why would I get sick?" he stammered.
"The roads to the caves aren't exactly paved."
Orlando was right; we crammed in the jeep and made our way into the jungle, and calling the thin opening in the foliage a "road" was generous. It was barely more than a game trail, with jutting tree roots and rocks that sent us careening into the air. I eyed Ethan; he looked like he really might vomit all over the jeep. The next five minutes were a battle for him as he visibly tried to restrain himself with each rocking motion. Twice I almost yelled out for the driver to pull over, but in the end he made it.
We reached a clearing in the jungle at the edge of a ravine, the land sloping away from us. A walking trail wound into the thick foliage toward a vertical rock face, which was marred by a long black crevice.
"I got out of bed for this?" Roland muttered.
Andy scolded him while we followed the guide to the trail. He handed out the gear we'd need, harnesses that were similar to what I'd wear rock-climbing, but with helmets and flashlights too.
"No picks or climbing equipment?" I asked.
"Dude," Orlando laughed, "no. It's not that tough of a cave."
"At least, not the part we're exploring," Andy added. "There are some expert tunnels, but that'd be a death sentence for anyone in your current state."
"Amen!" Ethan said, which made me laugh.
I fantasized about the more expert parts of the tunnels while the guide gave his instructions. Spelunking was awfully similar to rock climbing, it turned out, so it was all standard to me. But I stayed quiet, not wanting to sound like the know-it-all on the trip.
The others went into the breach first, and I waited and took up the rear. I took a deep, excited breath, then plunged into the darkness.
I immediately noticed what made this different than rock climbing: there wasn't much room. Yeah, I know, that sounds obvious, but it's not something you truly understand until you're squeezing through a rock opening barely wide enough for your shoulders, the weight of the mountain pressing down on you. I was used to being on the outside of the mountain, with it beneath me. The walls scraped my arms, and if not for the helmet I probably would have split my head open on several jutting rocks.
I wasn't claustrophobic, but I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the narrow passage when it finally opened up ahead of us. Ethan's shape stepped to the side, allowing me inside, and I looked around with wonder.
"It's like being inside a sports arena," I muttered.
The space was huge. Like a basketball stadium, with the ceiling high above, barely visible even with Orlando's flashlight aimed at it. Tiny shapes that were probably bats clung to the surface, everywhere the light touched. Air rushed along my legs, a steady breeze.
Even in the indirect light, the smugness on Andy's face was obvious. "Didn't I say it'd be worth waking up for?"
Thousands of tiny puddles of water were spread throughout the space, which we had to tip-toe through to avoid stepping in. I wondered how the water got inside; since we were near the entrance it was possible that air entered through the entrance and condensed on the roof and walls, then trickled down to the floor. Or there were leaks in the ceiling, cracks we couldn't see. It was fascinating! I wanted to ask the guide a thousand questions, but I didn't know Spanish and didn't want to bother Orlando with translating.
The guide led us across the chamber until we came to another narrow corridor, partially hidden until we were practically on top of it. I realized then that it would be incredibly dangerous to be in here alone, even if you knew the way. I tried not to think about the horror movie The Descent.
This chamber was like the entrance, but occasionally we had to duck to avoid hitting rocks that jutted from the ceiling. Orlando called out from the front to make sure we were all doing okay, and Roland made a joke about having to take a piss. I could feel the nervousness in the banter, the unease at being in such a deep place, even though we'd only been there a few minutes. The rock walls absorbed our voices like sponges, like the opposite of an echo.
I loved it, even in spite of the fear trickling up my spine. Like a natural roller coaster, fear and entertainment intermingling perfectly.
We wound through the caves for maybe half an hour. It was tough to tell in the dark, without any way to keep track of time. The world narrowed to Ethan's body ahead of mine, and the slabs of rock on either side. Step, duck, crouch, slide. Repeat. Even though it was a guided tour that had probably been done by a million tourists, it felt like we were descending into an unexplored tomb.
Finally, we came to another huge chamber like the first one. Our guide stood and waited until I was inside before speaking excitedly. I knew what he was going to say before he said it, because it was one of the features people wrote about on Trip Advisor reviews of the tour.
"Okay. Everyone's lights. Turn them off," the guide said in accented English.
Roland sputtered, "Do what now?"
"He's gunna show us how dark it is down here," Orlando explained.
"I know what the dark is like, thank you very much," Roland said.
"Not like this!" Andy snapped off his flashlight, then waved at the rest of us. "Come on guys! Don't be poor sports."
My flashlight was already off, so I watched the other lights wink out one by one. The moment the last cone of light disappeared we were in complete darkness.
No, seriously. Complete darkness. We were so deep underground that there were no trickles of light: no stars, or distant glows, or anything else. There was nothing but the darkness. It felt thick, like it had physical mass to it. I waved my hand around in front of my face and couldn't see a thing.
I'm glad nobody could see my silly grin.
"Pretty neat, huh?" Orlando said.
Before I could say that it was, something flickered to my right. I turned--at least, I thought I turned, it was tough to tell when you couldn't see your body--and then the light flickered again. It was like a firefly, a small mote of luminance ten feet away. For a moment I thought it was my imagination, until Ethan spoke.
"Do you guys see that?" Ethan said.
"What?" Roland said, Irish accent thick with mirth. "The whole bunch of nothin'?"
"No," Ethan insisted, "the green light."
I gave a start. "Green light?" Unless he was colorblind, this was definitely blue.
"Dude," Andy said, "your senses are all out of whack. Like a deprivation tank."
Ahh, I thought. That's what it reminded me of: the random flickers from a sensory deprivation tank. I'd tried one of those out as an experiment in college, and it was trippy as hell. Like being on acid. Or at least, what people described what being on acid was like, since I'd never tried it myself.
And if Ethan saw a green light, while I saw blue, then what we were seeing was certainly a result of that phenomenon.
But then another thought came to me. A memory of being in the tank of water, putting on headphones to dull the noise. Because, as the grad student conducting the experiment had explained, it only worked when you eliminated several of your senses: sight, sound, and the sensation of gravity.
"Deprivation tanks only work if you block out sight and sound," I said, watching the mote of blue light flicker.
"Well if Ethan's seeing something," Andy said.
Roland snorted. "More likely Ethel is fucken with us."
A flash of light blinded me. My eyes shut automatically, and I winced and covered my eyes before opening them again. A flashlight's cone of light arced through the air.
"There," Roland said with satisfaction. "Back to normal. Still see anything, Ethel?"
"No," he admitted, ignoring Roland's childish tease.
I stared at the place where I'd seen the blue light. It was a sheer wall of rock ten feet away, completely featureless. And Ethan was staring off in a different direction.
Must have been sensory deprivation after all.
The guide pulled out an electric lantern and called for a ten minute break. Roland went off to take his piss and Ethan followed.
"Orlando, wanna go check out this tunnel?" Andy asked, shining his flashlight in another direction. "If the guide is okay with it."
"Si, is simple path," the guide said, waving them on.
"You coming Sam?"
"I'm good here," I said, sitting down on the rock across from the guide. I felt slightly disoriented. "You guys go have fun."
The guide handed me a bottle of water, which I sipped on while we waited. It helped, along with sitting down. The air tasted musty and old; I wondered if that was bothering me. There was a weird tugging sensation in my head, too. Probably the air pressure down here. I stood and stretched once, and felt marginally better. Strange that something like this could bother me, but climbing a mountain at 15,000 feet didn't.
Hell, maybe that's why this was bothering me. I'd been acclimated to being high in the mountains for the last decade that being at sea level was too much.
"Ethan?" Roland suddenly shouted from across the chamber. "Is Ethan with you guys?"
"I thought he went with you," I said.
"He did. But now he's gone." He raised his voice. "Ethan!"
I turned my flashlight on and picked my way along the slanted rock toward Roland's panicked shape. The rocks were slick, and I almost fell twice, but then I was standing next to Roland at the far wall.
"Where'd he go?" I asked, shining my flashlight. There was a wet spot on the wall to the left, but nothing else.
Roland's eyes were wide, and the cocky Irishman sounded more afraid than I'd ever heard him. "He was just here..."
I put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. I'd seen panicked rock climbers act this way before when they were disoriented, and human touch always helped.
"He couldn't have just disappeared, could he?"
Suddenly we saw another light to our right, down near the ground. We shone our own flashlights simultaneously, revealing a hole in the wall not much larger than a soccer ball. A hand appeared, then an arm, and then Ethan was shimmying his way out.
"Dude!" Roland darted forward, sliding down the diagonal rocks toward the hole. "Where the fuck'd you go?"
"I was right here..." Ethan said simply.
Orlando and Andy came rushing over with the guide close on their heels. Andy stopped, took one look at the hole, and put on his best lecturing tone.
"Ethan, what did we say about--"
"I'm fine," Ethan insisted. "You guys are overreacting."
Orlando stared at the tiny hole. "What possessed you to go down there?" he said, a strange curiosity in his voice. "Good lord, how'd you even fit?"
Ethan moved his hand to his side, like he was going to pull a rock or something out of his pocket to show us. But then he flinched, and told us he was curious, and began apologizing.
Something came over me, then. A wave of dizziness from climbing the rocks so fast. We were too crammed together up in this corner, so I walked back down toward the center of the chamber where the guide's lantern sat on the rock.
And as I walked that way, I felt the same air pressure as before. It almost felt like it was pulling me in that direction, toward where I'd seen the blue mote during the darkness. And then my stomach was doing backflips, and my breathing intensified, and I knew I wouldn't be able to stop my nausea.
I reached the wall in time to spew vomit all over it.
Four sets of lights shone in my direction, hitting me like spotlights.
"Dude..." Roland said as they approached.
I wiped my mouth and stood up. I felt a little bit better now that I'd emptied half my stomach, but more embarrassed than anything. "Sorry guys, really. Must be the aftereffects of last night."
Andy grabbed my shoulder. "No sweat, buddy. Maybe this was a bad idea."
"No, I think I'm okay!" I took a step, but wobbled a little bit. "I just need a minute."
But Andy shook his head. "Forget about it. This was fun, but I was probably overzealous. Let's get back to town and grab some food."
I wanted to argue more, but he seemed insistent, like he'd been looking for an excuse to leave. Orlando sounded disappointed, but then the guide was leading us back out the way we'd come.
As we left, I definitely got the impression that it wasn't concern for my stomach that made the others leave. Even Andy seemed in a rush to leave the chamber, casting aside all concern for me as I went through the crevice.
I took up the rear, and as I approached the exit to the chamber I slipped and fell.
My knee hit the wall hard, sending jolts of pain down my leg. I hissed, then jumped back as a foot-wide section of the wall fell away. It crumbled to the ground, kicking up dust into the air. I'd narrowly avoided having my foot crushed.
"Hey guys?" I said, but nobody heard me.
And before I could follow them, the blue mote of light returned.
It came from the part of the wall that had broken. There was a small pocket of air inside the rock, now cut in half by the piece falling away. A rock inside the pocket glowed blue, exactly as I had seen before, but now close-up. Except that didn't make any sense; if it had been inside the rock I wouldn't have been able to see it before.
The air pressure sensation was back, but instead of making me nauseous it pulled me toward the rock. And my own curiosity demanded I see what it was, so I reached out and picked it up, and the moment it was in my hands the pressure ended.
It wasn't a rock, but a stone carving. I immediately recognized it as a gryphon, the mythical animal that was half-lion, half-eagle. The details carved into it were incredible: individual talons on the feet scratching against my palm, and the bumps of feathers all along the back. The wings were folded against its body, but one of the joints poked up above the back.
And the light...
The source came from a sapphire set in the gryphon's neck, just between the shoulder blades. It was a round cut stone, too perfect to be natural, every facet and face designed with artistry.
The entire figurine fit into the palm of my hand, but felt like it weighed much more.
And then the light dimmed on the gem, returning the room to darkness.
Suddenly conscious that I was alone, I shoved it in my pocket and flicked my flashlight back on. I scrambled into the gash within the rock wall, following my friends out of the caves.
I was excited to tell them about it, but as I exited into daylight I hesitated. A strange mood had fallen over the group. Everyone seemed quiet, and brooding. But the object in my pocket was so unique; I wanted to pull it out and show them...
"Bout time," Roland said, sneering at me. "Thought you'd stopped to vomit some more."
And then the moment was gone, and they were peeling off their gear and getting into the jeep.
As we drove back to town, the thought of telling them became less and less ideal. Roland would tease me about it, and call me Samantha like he used to. The others might not believe it'd come from the cave. And even if they did, Andy would probably insist I turn it in to the locals.
Honestly, that's what I should have done. If the object was ancient, it was probably a crime to steal it and take it home. The Boy Scout in me knew turning it in was the right thing to do.
But it felt like it belonged to me. And the thought of giving it away filled me with a strange pain.
As soon as we were home, I ran to the bathroom and locked the door. The figurine was even more incredible in better lighting; the details in the feathers and body was extraordinary for a piece of stone, and even though the gem no longer glowed--had it ever really glowed at all?--it was as beautiful as any I'd ever seen. And it was so large that it had to be fake.
Fake. That's what my mind latched onto: this was some trinket from a gift shop tourists bought. Hell, a tourist had probably been the one to lose it in the cave. Or had hidden it behind a rock as a joke to fool someone gullible.
Yeah, that made the most sense. And of course telling the others would just make me look stupid. I pictured Roland laughing his ass off and explaining how he'd seen a shelf full of them at an airport kiosk. Definitely best to keep it to myself.
When I left the bathroom, I found Orlando waiting for me just outside the door.
"Well?" he said expectantly.
I gave a start. "Uhh... what?"
"You practically sprinted in here," he explained, sniffing the air. "You still throwing up? Or should I be worried about food poisoning from breakfast?"
"Ahh." I ran my hand through my hair. "Nah, I thought I was gunna be sick again. False alarm."
Orlando hesitated, and for a moment looked like he was going to ask me something, but then shook his head. "Glad to hear it pal."
I kept the figurine in my pocket while we relaxed in the sun on the beach, and again when we went out to dinner. It was a warm comfort against my hip, making me feel safer with its presence. And when we went to bed I kept it with me, underneath the pillow like some teenager's diary.
We all had different flights out the next morning, so we said our goodbyes at the villa, exchanging hugs and kind words and assurances that we should do this again sometime. But as I took my taxi to the airport, I knew they were just words. We were all too old, and too spread out around the country to make this a regular thing. Hell, it'd been a hassle just coordinating this trip with everyone's schedules.
It was sad, but I'd probably never see any of them again.
When I got to the airport, I stopped in the bathroom to transfer the figurine to my carry-on bag. It was probably my imagination, but even having it that much farther away from me, the bag on my shoulder instead of my pocket, filled me with unease.
Nobody said anything as it went through the metal detector, and then I hurried to the first bathroom I saw on the other side and transferred it back.
As soon as the plane was in the air, I slid it out of my pocket and held it between my legs, holding it so that nobody could see.
It felt right in my hands. Like it was meant to be held, not hidden away, whatever that meant. A silly thought, but it forced its way into my head nonetheless. I was transfixed by it, every detail and carving, the legs and talons and even the curling tail that looked like it would snap off if I weren't careful.
Mountain climbers carried totems with them for good luck. A tradition started by the Nepalese Sherpas, I think. I'd always laughed whenever my colleagues did the same, dismissing it as a silly superstition. But as illogical as it was, I found myself understanding it then.
I finally put it back in my pocket, feeling sad as I did. I replaced it in my hands with my cell phone, which had cached a week's worth of emails in Belize that I'd avoided reading. Most were unimportant, stuff I'd been CC'd on without needing my real attention, but I had a cluster from my boss.
I groaned as I read them. We were setting up a new radio array in the Rockies, and the install dates had been moved up by two weeks. He was already up in the mountains beginning the construction, and I would need to join him as soon as possible.
I did some mental math: if I landed at noon, and went straight home to change the clothes in my pack (Belize was about 100 degrees warmer than where I'd be going) I could be on the road at 1:00. I didn't know the exact location of the array site, but it was in the range near Mount Antero, three hours or so outside Denver. I could be there before sundown, but only barely, which meant I wouldn't be able to help with any of today's work. Might as well relax and drive up first thing in the morning.
I shook my head. My boss wouldn't accept that; if he said to be there ASAP, he meant ASAP, even if I couldn't help on the array itself. Plus there was programming work that could be done at night. Best to head up there as soon as I had a changed bag.
And as I scrolled through my emails, I saw that my boss had forwarded the email to me half a dozen times, asking if I'd gotten the email and insisting I confirm my arrival time. I considered paying $49.99 for the in-flight Wi-Fi to respond to him, but decided that was stupid. I would email him back the moment we landed.
No, I would call him. That would set his mind at ease better. Thomas loathed the slowness of email communication.
My hand went to my side automatically, resting against the figurine in my pocket. I didn't realize what I was doing until I felt it; I had to fight the impulse to pull it out and stare at it some more.
"You'd better bring me luck in the mountains," I muttered to myself, counting down the minutes until we landed.