D. Thomas - Backlash

The group traveled with only the dim illumination from Lewis’s dying dive light until it finally gave way, just as they reached the triangular room. Gonzalez switched her dive light on and helped Lewis retrieve their final full tank along with its regulator, leaving the dive harness and other gear behind for now. Samantha marveled at the straightness of the walls before following to the newly-revealed exit Gonzalez and Lewis had described.

The opening was roughly circular, matching the basic lava tube formation they were all used to by now. It was approximately twelve feet in diameter, making it easy to walk along without hunching over. It was also big enough to have transported even the largest of the artifacts. The tunnel sloped gradually downward, still wet from all the water which had drained this way.

Craig led into the passage with Pierre and Samantha right behind him. Gonzalez followed next with the light, while Lewis took up the rear. The passage was fairly straight for the first hundred yards, before taking a gradual left-hand turn. Samantha let out a shriek at what lay ahead. Gonzalez saw it too and quickly shut off her light. There was a dull glow coming from around the corner. They were almost out!

Gonzalez turned her light back on and they all moved onward at a hurried pace, fighting the urge to take off running. When they finished rounding the corner, they all saw what they had been yearning for: daylight. The tunnel opened into the outside world less than 200 yards away, straight ahead. Samantha let out a new shriek, but this time it was not at the light. Twenty feet ahead of them, tangled in a pair of fallen rocks, lay the pale, wet body of Doctor Scott Miller, PhD.

Lewis knelt beside the professor’s limp body, checking for a pulse then listening to his chest, despite the fact that Miller looked to have been dead for quite some time. Lewis looked up to the hopeful eyes of the others and slowly shook his head. Samantha began to sob, and everyone seemed visibly shaken by Miller’s death, all having become close to the endearing, older man.

“He must have fallen in while watching the water drain,” Craig offered, sounding defensive.

Lewis couldn’t tell if Craig was trying to avoid blame for not keeping a better eye on the professor, or because he was more directly involved in Miller’s fate. While checking for a pulse, Lewis had noticed that Miller’s neck was broken in at least two different spots, a possible but unlikely injury for a drowning victim. The professor’s hands were wrinkled from the water, but his fingers didn’t exhibit the sorts of scrapes Lewis had seen on cave divers who had tried to claw their way through solid rock after becoming trapped. The look on Gonzalez’s face confirmed that she too was skeptical about this being just another accident; the fact that she subtly distanced herself from Craig confirmed that they shared the same prime suspect.

“What do we do with him?” Samantha asked, regaining control of her emotions.

Everyone looked to Lewis for an answer. He looked back to Miller before replying. “There’s nothing we can do for now.” He didn’t want to sound cold, but the reality was that they were in no position to transport a fallen teammate. “The best thing we can do is get back to civilization and get the authorities in here.”

The others nodded their agreement. Lewis stood, leading the way towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Even before they got there, Lewis could tell this wasn’t going to be the type of exit that a person simply walked out of. Their ordeal was not over yet.

The tunnel suddenly opened into the middle of a vertical shaft. The mouth of the cave where they now stood was 40 feet above the rocks littering the bottom of the pit below. Looking upward, it was approximately 50 feet to where the rock walls gave way to some overhanging tree branches, and the sky above. The shaft itself was nearly a perfect square, twelve feet wide. The sides appeared to be hand carved, like the triangular room, making them incredibly smooth and probably impossible to climb.

The others stepped to the side, letting Pierre move to the opening to look for a route up. He stayed quiet as he looked around, examining various possible hand-and foot-holds that would have forever remained invisible to Lewis. Much like when he scouted the route to Sigurd’s ledge, Pierre moved his eyes from one location to the next, visually scaling the walls. For the first five minutes, Pierre tried a number of different routes, none of which made it more than ten moves before Pierre shook his head, starting over after finding another dead end. Before long, Lewis could see that Pierre was making progress, the climber’s focus remaining much higher up the shaft, never retreating all the way to the start. Finally, after nearly half an hour, Pierre nodded, but he didn’t sound overly convincing when he said, “I found something that might work.” These were not encouraging words coming from someone who was normally close to bursting with confidence.

Like before, Lewis prepared to belay Pierre in case he fell. Pierre warned that the first move was going to be one of the trickiest — the route really began with a narrow crack running up the right corner of the opposing wall. There was no choice but to run down the tunnel then leap diagonally across the shaft, hoping to dig his fingers in when he got to the corner. Lewis could only shake his head in wonder as Pierre shared the rest of his daring plan.

After a very short meditation period, Pierre grabbed just a few cams and carabineers, and was ready. The reasons for the limited kit were two-fold: First, it was all they had left without going back to the supply dump; second, there were only two places Pierre saw that would hold any form of protection anyway.

Lewis let out slack as Pierre backed down the tunnel, trying to keep the rope on the left side so it would be as out of the way as possible. Everyone but Lewis moved behind him so they wouldn’t be obstacles either. Pierre counted down, “3…2…1!” The moment he reached one, he sprinted down the center of the tunnel, eyes completely focused ahead.

As Pierre ran, Lewis retrieved rope as quickly and smoothly as he could, trying to reduce the slack and, therefore, the distance Pierre would fall if he failed to latch on to the corner. The Frenchman was at full speed when he passed Lewis, launching himself through the air towards the far corner. His trajectory took him on a perfect collision course, the last of the line trailing out behind him as he flew directly towards the small crack. Lewis had left the perfect amount of rope, just enough for Pierre to reach the corner. As he collided with the wall, the climber quickly scrambled with his feet, fighting for some sort of traction as he tried to force the tips of his powerful fingers into the tiny crack he had spotted. His left index and middle fingers went in exactly where he wanted. His right hand, however, missed the mark and ended up scraping down the wall. Without the opposing force of both hands, Pierre fell a short distance before the rope got tight and swung him back against the near wall below Lewis’s feet. Luckily, Lewis was ready, arresting Pierre’s fall without being pulled from the cave himself.

Lewis immediately towed Pierre up, expecting him to be upset. Instead, Pierre had a beaming smile. “I was so close,” he said with a shake of his fists. “This is going to work!”

They repeated the process. Pierre backed to the exact same spot while the others got themselves and the rope out of the way. He counted down and then rocketed off with a burst of speed, passing Lewis and lunging for the crack once again. This time, both hands got a hold and he was able to cling to the corner like a super-human fly.

Cheers and encouragement erupted from the mouth of the cave as everyone moved forward, excited to watch Pierre climb. The first ten feet looked easy as he somehow wedged his toes into the tiny crack, quickly scaling upward like he was climbing an invisible ladder. The crack ended there, but Pierre was somehow able to grip two tiny protrusions on the far wall, keeping one foot in the crack as he muscled himself up and to the left, primarily with his fingertips. Next, he somehow stretched for a single tiny hole, just big enough for Pierre to insert the first half inch of his middle finger. He steadied himself before slowly swinging his entire body further to the left by that single finger, before doing a quick jumping pull-up, switching from his left to right hand. He then stretched across the final span to another tiny crack running up the left corner of the far wall.