Carved in Bone

jacket and yanked me backward just as a stalactite plunged downward and shattered on the floor where I’d been standing. I jumped, then cursed. A lot.
    “Bill, you okay?”
    I nodded, shaken. “You?”
    “Still taking inventory. So far, I count a knot on the head and a couple bruises, but nothing broken.” He paused. “Hey, Bill? That four-mile trail you called the bad news? I think that was actually the good news. Back when there was some good news.”
    We picked our way across the fringe of jagged rock surrounding us, making our way toward the cave’s back door, or what used to be it. The pile of debris grew steadily higher. Within a few yards the rubble reached clear to the roof, sealing off the passage completely.
    I felt a tide of panic rising fast. I couldn’t seem to get my breath, no matter how deeply I breathed. My head began to swim. As if from a distance, I heard Art’s voice. “Bill? Bill! Listen, Bill, you need to calm down.” He sounded strangely normal, not like a man struggling for oxygen. “Bill, you’re hyperventilating. You need to breathe slower or you’ll pass out.” I fought the urge to gasp, but it was stronger than I was. “Try breathing through the sleeve of your jacket—maybe that’ll help.” I felt his hands on my arm, bringing my sleeve up to my face. The fabric slowed the flow of air. As I labored to breathe against the resistance, I felt my respiration slow, my head begin to clear. Finally my breathing seemed under control again, and I dropped my arm.
    “Sorry,” I said. “Thought we were running out of air.”
    “Not yet. We’ve got plenty still. Probably starve to death first.”
    “Damnit, Art, this isn’t a joke. We’re in a tunnel that’s blocked by tons of rock. Even if we could clear it, which I doubt we can, there might be somebody outside just waiting to kill us.”
    “Might be,” he agreed. “But no sense getting all worked up about it, seeing as he’ll have to wait awhile for us to get within range. Let’s figure out what to do.”
    “I’m open to suggestions.”
    “Okay, let’s see what our resources are. We’ve got two flashlights and one headlamp. A camera. A gun. An evidence kit, which probably doesn’t help us much at the moment. You got any food or water?”
    “Pack of gum,” I said. “Sugarless, so there’s no energy in it. We got water flowing in the cave, though.” I pointed my light in the direction of the subterranean stream, which we now knew originated at the springs behind the church. But the stream was gone, leaving only a muddy bed behind. The first of the two cave-ins must have blocked it.
    “I’ve got a Snickers bar and a bottle of water,” said Art. “If I can just pull off that loaves-and-fishes trick I read about in the Bible, we’ll have bushels of leftovers. Oh, this might help—the map Methuselah the Caver faxed me.”
    “What good’s that gonna do? We already found the cave. Unfortunately.”
    “It’s not a map to the cave, Smarty Pants, it’s a map of the cave. The interior. The part where we happen to be trapped like rats. Or bats.”
    “But we’re sandwiched between two cave-ins, with nothing in the middle but fifty yards of tunnel and that damn grotto.” Art studied the map silently. “Face it, Art,” I said. “We’re sealed up in here. No way out.”
    Art aimed his headlamp straight into my eyes, blinding me. “You’re just gonna give up?” he said. “Me, I’m not ready to throw in the towel.” With that, he spun and began picking his way back through the debris, back toward the grotto.
    “Art, wait. Slow down.”
    “You hurry up.” He kept moving, his lights sweeping every square foot of the tunnel’s walls and ceiling. But his pace slackened slightly.
    I caught up with him in the grotto, just in time to see the beam of his light point upward at the grotto’s ceiling and disappear into a circular opening about the diameter of a beach ball. “Aha!” he said.
    “Did you know that was there?”
    “Not until I checked the map. Back there when you were busy kissing our asses good-bye.”
    “Sorry. Does it go out?”
    “Don’t know.”
    “What’s the map say?”
    “Says ‘Unexplored.’ Guy who made the map used to be pretty hefty. I’m guessing the word ‘Unexplored’ shows up on most of his maps.”
    “So maybe it leads to another entrance—but maybe it just meanders around inside the mountain for a while and then peters out?”
    “Maybe. Do I need to get all