Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 6. Whole No. 766, June 2005

He heard about the cave and how the light coming up through the water was the most fantastic sight anybody ever saw and he had to see it. Clearest and greenest water anywhere, glowing green in the middle of a black cave. A giant emerald. A giant green light. He hadn’t listened too carefully to the part about getting out. He remembered that you had to get wet, but he figured you just got down on your belly and crawled through. He didn’t get the message that you had to swim straight down maybe fifteen feet. After he decided that he had to see it, he talked her into going with him, told her that it was something he wanted to do bad and it wouldn’t even cost anything. He’d said they’d just wear old clothes and she’d said that was all they had. And she’d finally agreed to go on a pretty Saturday afternoon when there really wasn’t much else to do.

And now it was a black Saturday night and she was in there alone. He wondered if there were any bears in that cave. Or snakes or waterdogs or rats. Or spiders. She was deathly afraid of spiders. Or bats that could see in the dark and fly down and get tangled in her beautiful long brown hair. What if there was another person in there? Maybe somebody hiding out? He had to get her out of there. He glanced back over his shoulder at the window. The lights were still out.

He got up and went back to the door and tapped lightly on the screen. Maybe he’d been too rough before. “Please listen,” he said in a pleading voice. “I’ve got to get help and get back to that cave back down the road and get my wife out of there. I’m not going to hurt anybody. I just want to get help. Can I just use your phone? Or could you just call the highway patrol? Please, won’t you help me?” He waited several minutes. “Please? Can’t you see I’m in trouble and need help?”

When he saw they weren’t going to answer, he became enraged. “Goddammit! Open the door! Help me! I need help.” He waited again. It was useless. He slammed the screen once more and then turned, left the porch, went across the yard and back onto the dark road. He could just make out objects near the road in the darkness. He thought about the level of blackness in the cave and wondered how much she’d used the flashlight. As he did, he tried to figure back how long he’d been gone from inside the cave.

Having rested on the porch, he started running again, his footsteps on the pavement producing the only sound anywhere in the vacuum of the black, windless night. He glanced back over his shoulder and the lights were on again in the window.

He kept moving, and in a few minutes the sounds of his heavy breathing fell around his footfalls as he concentrated on finding a pace he could maintain for a while. How far had he run? How far was he from the big cow-head rock? Two, three miles? That’s how far it seemed. Maybe four. The rock was around twenty-six miles from the edge of town. Would he have to get close to town to come to any more houses? He couldn’t remember.

Suddenly he saw some light. A car coming toward him. The first one he’d seen since he’d been on the road. It was coming pretty fast. He stepped out into the road in the path of the car and began to wave his arms up and down. The car approached, slowed down as it got near him, steered carefully around him as if he were an obstacle, and then accelerated back up to speed.

He turned and watched it disappear and then dropped to the surface of the road, flat on his back with his knees up, resting, waiting for his body to stop throbbing. He wanted to sleep and closed his eyes for a moment. He thought about his wife in the blackness of the cave and wondered if somehow she might have been able to sleep, or at least rest. Probably not. How would anybody be able to? He had to get help and get back there. Suddenly feeling very rested, he hustled to his feet and started off again, first walking and then in a slow run.

The road curved sharply and he saw another light in the distance. Remembering how he had been fooled before, he didn’t rush at the light but held his pace, watching it slowly approach him with each heavy jogging stride. The little house was very reminiscent of the first one — same distance from the road, same setting, same porch on the front with the light coming through the window. The house was on the right-hand side of the road instead of the left. Could it be the same house? Could he have started off in the wrong direction when he got up off the road? Maybe he had slept a minute or two and had gotten up all turned around. This possibility made him feel weak for a moment, but he figured he’d find out as soon as he knocked on the door. He slapped the screen three times and waited.

The lights went out and a strong voice said, “Git going!”

“You gotta help me. I gotta get help. My wife’s in the bottom of a cave back down the road and I gotta get help getting her out.”

“Git going. Git off the porch and off this land. Git going.”

“Please help me. I mean no harm. Let me just use your phone. I’m telling the truth. My wife’s in that crazy cave down the road. I gotta get help.”

“If I open the door I’m gonna be shootin’ to kill. Now, git!”

“Please! You gotta help me. Just let me use your phone. Call the cops. Anything. Please help me.”

“Got no phone. Now git moving.”

He hesitated a moment. “How far to the next house?”

After a prolonged silence, “A mile toward town.”

“Tell me something else,” he said to the closed door. “Was I here banging on your door a little while ago?”

A foot kicked the other side of the door and the voice shouted, “Git! Git moving!”

The kick startled him and he ran off the porch into the yard. He stopped, turned, and stared at the house. There was a white earthenware pot with something growing in it on the porch step which looked familiar. He had gotten turned around. He had to get moving toward town. One mile to the next house. He could get there in ten minutes. He was going to get lucky at the next one. He felt assured and took off running down the road.

Another car approached him from behind and this time he was determined to stop it. He turned and stayed in the middle of the road, flagging wildly with his arms. When it became apparent that the car would hit him if he didn’t move, he leaped out of the way and watched the red taillights fade.

He started running renewed. Help was a few minutes away. This time he was sure. He was going to get help and get on back and get her out of that black hole. The next house was the one.

He came up over a little rise and the lights appeared, right on schedule. He pounded harder, down the hill, feeling much stronger. Second wind. As he came upon the house, he could see it was much larger than the other one, set farther back from the road, painted white, lots of lights, a nice house, one like she often said she wished someday she could have.

He slowed down as he reached the corner of the yard and then noticed an old pickup truck, a small one with an open bed, parked heading out. He studied the house. They couldn’t see him. They were inside in the light. He was outside in the dark and already had eyes like an owl’s, used to the dark.

He moved across the yard to the truck, stepped up on the running board, and reached through the open window. The key was in the ignition with a heavy piece of cotton string hanging from it. After surveying the house again, he silently eased the truck door open and slid into it. He clutched, twisted the key, and the old clunker exploded into life. He was on his way to get help.

As he approached the town, things finally started looking familiar. Once in the town he began to realize that a lot of time had passed. Everything seemed quiet, deserted, asleep, even for Saturday night. He went straight for the highway patrol station and as he pulled up to it to park, two troopers got out of a car where they had been sitting and walked over to him.