Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 799 & 800, March/April 2008

“Yeah, I think I did. But never mind about that now; that’s the least of our worries. Help me over to those rocks before they find me lying here.”

“They” had been drawn by the impact of Josh’s fall, and as Paul’s head whipped up in alarm, the sound of their approach was made all the more sinister by the stygian darkness that lay outside their faint circle of light. With a gasp, he heaved Josh to his feet, ignoring his moans, and the two men shuffled as silently as they could toward a heap of rubble that lay at the foot of a nearby wall. As gently as he could in their haste, Paul helped Josh up onto a large, flat-topped boulder, and quickly joined him. Breathing hard, they looked back to the spot where the rope still dangled beckoningly in the dimming illumination of Josh’s lamp, and became aware by degrees that the floor was no longer flat, but heaving and alive. “Jesus Christ,” Josh breathed.

“They’ll go away,” Paul promised, only half believing it himself. “They’re just irritated with the commotion. They’ll go back to the sunlight; they have to... for the warmth.” He glanced back hopefully to the patch of sunlight that had lain at the back of the cave, and found that it had wandered to the cavern’s limits, and would soon begin to climb the far wall where the snakes could not follow. The sun was rapidly descending in the winter sky and both men shifted closer to one another in the gathering chill and gloom.

“How much longer do you have on those batteries?” Paul asked, meaning the miner’s lamp.

“Not long,” Josh replied tonelessly. “An hour, maybe.”

“Any spares?” Paul persisted.

“Yeah,” Josh answered. “Right over there,” he pointed at the backpack smothered in reptilian life. “Wanna get ’em?”

They fell into silence.

After a while Josh spoke again, “After you found what, exactly?”

Paul answered immediately, his thoughts never far from the discovery that had inspired their current circumstances. “The pregnancy test... it was positive. She’s going to have your baby.”

“My...” Josh began, then started to laugh; the echoes flying back and forth in the darkness.

“If you keep that up, I’ll kill you for sure, and right now.” Unseen by Josh, Paul fingered the hilt of the survival knife he wore on his belt.

“No, no,” Josh began, winding down. “Not me... not mine... no way!”

Paul turned a miserable face toward his friend. “Oh, and why’s that?”

“Had ’em snipped, that’s why. I’ve been neutered!” Josh began to cough with a liquid sibilance; caught his breath and resumed. “No way I was gonna get snagged into marriage and kids. That’s not for me... never will be. Besides all that, I’ve never made it to first base with her. If we’re gonna be truthful, and we may as well at this point, I would have if she’d have let me. She makes me a little crazy, I guess, always has really, but it never happened, Paul. So, if you wanted to kill me for being a bad friend with impure thoughts, then I guess you’ve got me dead to rights, but if it’s for this baby, then you’ve got the wrong man.”

Paul stared at his friend in stunned silence as the implications of what he had said began to make themselves felt. He knew that Josh was telling the truth; he had known him long enough to know. “Then who...” he began.

“What about you, for starters?” Josh interrupted him, still chuckling and coughing uncomfortably.

Paul turned away for a moment before speaking, then drew a deep breath. “Can’t... we tried for a long time, but nothing. We both went to the doctor and had a few tests run. It was me... I can’t.” He lapsed into a shamed silence.

“Well, who’s the lucky man?” Josh said.

Paul’s head sank onto his drawn-up knees. “Shut up, Josh. Just shut up.”

“Maybe we can ask her ourselves before long; she knows where we are.”

Paul’s head snapped around. “She does? I didn’t tell her... under the circumstances,” he finished lamely.

“No... but I did. She called me last night, said you were acting strange and for me to keep an eye on you. So when you showed up this morning wanting to go caving, I gave her a call while you were loading the car. She knows this area as well as we do now, and I pinpointed it pretty well, based on what you had told me. She’ll come looking soon and see the equipment up top.”

“Will she?” Both men glanced uneasily at the dwindling patch of sunlight that now had climbed the wall of the cave and threatened to vanish altogether in the greater shadows of the distant ceiling. Sundown was upon them and they could feel the temperature dropping perceptibly.

Josh switched off his lamp to conserve the batteries and the two men sat in shivering silence staring up at the hole they had descended through. As they watched, the sky dimmed and grayed, leached of color by the retreating sun, until the small opening faded into the surrounding blackness of their subterranean prison and vanished altogether. Paul and Josh shifted ever closer until they were sitting back to back in the darkness to ward off the dank cold.

“Just divorce her, Paul. She’s not worth all this,” Josh spoke into the silence.

“No, I can’t; you know that... and so does she,” he finished in a whisper.

Josh mulled this over, thinking how he had never been as serious as his friend in religious-studies class. In fact, he had never been as serious as Paul about anything. “For crying out loud, exceptions can be made; even by the almighty Church. She’s pregnant with somebody else’s baby, for Christ’s sake!” He regretted the harsh choice of words as soon as they were uttered.

“No, it’s not just that, Josh. I just can’t... or won’t, I guess. I love her.”

“I feel sorry for you, Paul,” Josh said gently. “And you don’t even know who she’s been seeing.”

“No,” Paul agreed. “Now I don’t have the slightest clue. Nothing’s changed, you see. That’s why I figured it had to be you; you’re always around. We’ve gone along in the same pattern for years — she goes to work; I go to work; two nights a week she drives back up to college for her graduate studies. And before you ask, I pay the tuition bills and I’ve helped her do research work for Professor Rais, so, yes, she really is...” He left the sentence unfinished; remembering the first words Vanda had ever spoken to him. A rush of familiar scenes swirled through his mind; memories now made unwholesome by the poison of unwelcome revelation. While above them, somewhere in the distance, arose the faint growl and grind of an approaching four-wheel-drive vehicle.

“Listen,” Josh whispered. “You hear that?”

They both stood silently in expectation. The motor coughed and was extinguished. Paul guessed that the vehicle had arrived at the spot where he and Josh had parked, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Whoever they were, they would have to make the rest of the way on foot.

Josh hastily switched on his helmet lamp and aimed its failing beam at the cave’s entrance; then both men waited, listening intently for the scrabble of loose stone that must accompany their rescuer’s arrival. As they stared upward, Paul became aware of the cold, winking stars that were now visible in the distant firmament, while at the very limit of their portal to the living world, a slice of the moon peeked over the edge like the eye of a mischievous giant. From above, the rattle of stone and scree announced the arrival of their salvation.

Josh began to hop up and down and shout, “Hey, we’re down here! We’re down in the cave!” The cracked rib pressing into his lung prevented him from continuing and he lapsed into a fit of painful coughing that silenced his pleas. Paul said nothing and waited.