Part V

Part V

“Are you sure,” I said as I turned off my headlamp. I looked myself. There was no light.

“I don’t see it either,” said Denise. “Were the batteries okay Jim.”

“I just put them in,” he said scratching his short grey hair.”Maybe it fell over.”

“I knew it. I knew it. We should never have come down here. I should have said something,” Sam said. He was afraid, you could hear it. “How are we going to find our way out now?”

Jim knelt down and ran his hand over the smooth floor. “There is a small amount of sand on the floor. Maybe we can see our tracks,” he said tilting his head and headlamp to the side.

Denise stepped forward and began,” maybe we co…”

“Shhh…,” interrupted Jim. He had his hand to his ear so we stopped to listen.

At first I heard nothing, but then I heard a faint sound. Shallow, labored breathing, that came from somewhere ahead in the cavern. Then there was a high-pitched shriek and we could see the cone of light from the flashlight again. Instead of shining up at the ceiling though it was now moving.

“There is something alive down here with us,” I thought. “Something that could hold on to a flashlight. Something that could figure out how to turn it on.”

“C’mon, let’s go,” Jim whispered while motioning us to follow him.

“Where,” said Sam.

“Towards the light so we can find our way out,” Denise answered quietly for Jim as she started to follow him.

“How do you know that whatever picked up the light didn’t carry it away from the tunnel before it switched it on,” Sam asked. He didn’t move.

“I’m sure it did, but it couldn’t have gone far, it’s only had it for a few minutes. If we go in that general direction we’ll be closer to the tunnel then we are now.”

“You can’t argue with that logic,” I said.

Sam nodded. The light was still visible in the distance, flickering erratically across the smooth rock walls and ceiling.

“Eric give me your headlamp,” Jim asked quietly as he handed me his. “It’s the dimmest one. I will lead, everyone else turn off your lights and follow me. Hopefully the approach of another small light won’t scare whatever it is off.”

Jim started walking carefully across the cavern and we all followed. After about fifteen minutes we were quite close but whatever it was it kept close to the rocks and the other formations in the cave and we couldn’t get a good look at it. We stopped once and Jim motioned for us to be still and listen. We heard the distant sound of water falling and then the labored breathing of our quarry; a swift sucking of air in, followed by an exhalation that almost sounded like excited mumbling or babbling. Then the light reflected off the surface of a jagged, glistening rock wall ahead and it turned and there was an opening. This opening though was roughly square, unlike the broad arched opening we had come through. I wanted to tap Jim on the shoulder and tell him, but he slowed as we approached and I sensed that we were thinking the same thing. As I stared forward wondering if Jim would lead us further into the cave or turn back I noticed that the square tunnel ahead was empty of obstructions. We would see it. Again, I thought Jim and I shared the same thoughts. He stopped and moved to the side against a large rock that we could all just see over the top of, about one hundred feet from the tunnel opening. Jim turned off the headlamp and we watched.

Ahead, the weak cone of light flickered across the walls and ceiling of the cavern from behind a grouping of stalagmites near the tunnels entrance. We could hear the carrier breathing in fitful gasps and expulsions that almost sounded like laughter and then it stepped forward and the reflections from the surrounding wet stone illuminated its silhouette perfectly. Denise reached forward and grabbed my arm painfully and I could tell that she was using her other hand to muffle a frightened gasp.

It was a boy. A little boy silhouetted in the strobe-like illumination of the tiny light that flashed around the cave.

He was about three feet tall, naked and very pale. He was also very heavy. His skin was taught over the rolls of flesh that made up his arms, legs and torso.

Maybe it was our collective inhalation or some other sound we could not hear, but suddenly he turned towards us. We all held our breath and didn’t move. You may think this odd. It was a boy, a little boy. Had you been there, however, you would know the intense feeling of foreboding and dread that had overcome us. Something was not right. Why was this boy here, alone below the earth’s surface in an unknown system of caves under a remote arctic wilderness. 

He turned and ran into the tunnel.

We stood in silence and shock for several minutes. Should we follow the boy and try to learn where and from whom he came from or should we turn back to trying to find the only known exit from what was a seemingly endless expanse of caverns.

Jim turned on his headlamp and spoke first. “I think we should follow the boy.”

“Why,” I said.

“He must be with a group that is exploring from some other opening at the surface. He couldn’t be down here alone, surviving. He must have parents nearby.”

“I agree,” said Sam. “But something doesn’t fit.”

Denise answered, “I’ll tell you what doesn’t fit. We haven’t traveled more than a mile horizontally since we’ve been down here. Where did they come from? There wasn’t anybody else in that valley above. Now, maybe these tunnels link to another tunnel from another valley, but it would be on the other side of the surrounding mountains. Any one that traveled down here had to have come through miles of tunnels to get here. Why would they do that? More importantly, why would you bring a kid?”

“Let’s mark this opening with something that can’t be carried off and then let’s go a little further. I have this feeling that the kid is the answer to getting out of here,” Jim responded.

“No! I’ll wait here,” said Sam. He looked worried. “I can’t go any further. I’m starting to think we will never get out of here.”

Denise put her hand on his shoulder and spoke softly and calmly, “We shouldn’t split up Sam, let’s just go a little further, we won’t get lost in this tunnel. Look, it’s practically an underground road.” She was right. It was straight and wide. The walls, floor and ceiling were smooth.

Jim added, ”we’ll see where the little boy went and then we will follow the tunnel back here and then search the walls of the large cavern in either direction to find the tunnel we came down. It shouldn’t take us more than an hour or two. Then we will head back to the surface just in time to signal the search planes and get the hell out of here.” He paused and then looked Sam in the eyes and added,” besides, aren’t you a little curious about what is going on here.”

“Of course, I’m a scientist.” Sam looked at his feet. “This is, I mean, this whole place, is an incredible find. I just have this feeling. This feeling, this terrible feeling, that we are never going to get out, that we are all going to be trapped down here forever like those climbers.”

I finally spoke. “Sam, these LED headlamps have hundreds of hours of light in them. We have enough food for a week and there is water flowing out of the walls down here. We are going to get out.” God, if we had only listened to him.

He kicked a rock on the floor and then looked up. “Okay.” And with that our fates was sealed.

The tunnel went straight ahead. There was no sign that the boy had passed this way, but he had no choice. There were no other openings. Jim again took the lead with a single headlamp and the rest of us followed. After about fifteen minutes we came to a patch of sand that covered the floor and we could clearly see the tracks of the boy. Jim knelt down over the tracks.

“Look, the distance of the steps, he’s slowed down, he’s walking and here where his foot is turned to the side. He stopped and turned to look or listen behind himself.”

Suddenly Sam said, ”Jim turn off your headlamp. When you bent over I think I saw something.”

“What is it?” Denise asked. “Do you see him?”

“No, Jim the light.”

Jim turned off the headlamp and we stood and looked into the darkness around us.

“Sam?”

“Hold on, let your eyes adjust. There, do you see it, ahead, in the tunnel,” Sam said.

Denise responded first,” a light, there is a dim greenish light in the tunnel ahead.”

“I see it too,” said Jim.

One hundred feet in front of us, a faint green glow emanated from the tunnel’s ceiling. Jim switched on his headlamp and we continued forward. As we moved deeper into the tunnel the glow became stronger and we could see that it was coming from some flat, lichen-like plants that grew in circular, randomly spaced patches on the rocks above us.

Sam asked, “Eric, have you ever seen anything like this?”

“No,” I answered. “Bioluminescence in plants is rare, but it does occur. I just didn’t think it occurred in Alaska. This could be a new species.”

“This trip will probably go down in history as the most successful scientific expedition to begin with a plane crash,” said Jim.

“I hope so,” said Sam.

We kept going. Soon, the light was bright enough to illuminate the passageway, Jim turned off his headlamp and we continued forward.

I knew Sam was watching the time. I kept seeing the blue glow of his watch face after he had lit it up to check, but he didn’t say anything. I guess he was as curious as the rest of us.

The humidity in the tunnel started to increase and the damp air carried the smell of mildew and wet earth. Suddenly I heard Sam muffle a shriek of surprise. We turned towards him. Jim turned on his headlamp. He was whipping something off the back of his neck.

“What is it,” we all whispered at once.

“Something cold and gooey just dropped on me,” Sam answered looking up at the ceiling.

Jim turned his light up to the tunnel’s roof. The glowing lichens there were growing all across the ceiling, but most were concentrated in the center where they overlapped each other.

“Look, it’s wet,” said Sam, and he extended his trekking pole upwards. He touched the tip to the ceiling and then pulled it through the glowing plants and slowly pulled it back. A long strand of viscous liquid hung from the pole’s tip. “There is some kind of groove or crack in the center of the ceiling. Water must be running down the crack and the plants are more concentrated here because of it.”

“Look,” Denise said pointing down the tunnel. “The crack must extend for some way.” Ahead of us on the tunnel’s ceiling a long line of light extended into the darkness. We continued on.

After we had been walking for about an hour, we decided to stop and rest. I leaned over to the stone wall to rest my back against it and immediately felt a slight vibration. Suddenly the whole tunnel began to shake.

“It’s another earthquake,” said Denise trying to maintain her balance. We lurched together in the center of the tunnel and held on to each other. The sound of grinding rocks was deafening. Through the noise I thought I heard what sounded like piles of rocks falling from both ends of the corridor we were in. It lasted about a minute and then suddenly stopped. The air was full of dust and a number of smaller stones had been knocked free of the walls, but our tunnel had not collapsed.

“I hope the tunnel hasn’t collapsed in front of us,” said Jim.

“I hope the tunnel hasn’t collapsed behind us,” said Sam.”Wait, I think I hear an aftershock.” He motioned for us to be quiet.

“No,” said Jim,”I thought I heard something too before the quake started. The sound was coming from up ahead.”

We continued to walk forward and soon we were all hearing the sound, a low constant rumbling. The sound of falling water. I remember looking forward to filling my water bottles. The tunnel turned sharply to the right and we walked into the entrance of a vast cavern. What I saw before me filled me with wonder, but at the same time I felt that we had stumbled upon something better left unseen.

We stepped out on to and were standing on, a small rocky shelf overlooking the largest cavern I had ever been in. I had been to a Seahawks game once in the Seattle dome and this cave was at least as big as the inside of that stadium. A soft cool breeze blew past us that again smelled of mildew and wet rock. All along the ceiling, water dripped and the glowing plants grew in clumps that hung down to the floor. The glow was so bright that it had lost its green color and had become a soft white light. At the far end of the cave a torrent of water fell through a hole in the rock and filled a vast pool. Huge wet stalagmites projected from the ceiling to the floor forming pillars of smooth, black rock. At the base of the columns and across the floor of the cavern was a thick layer of small, whitish, sponge-like balls that were packed close together on a layer of what looked to be broken sticks and other debris. All of these things were remarkable. We had stumbled upon something new and unexpected and to a certain extent that is what we had hoped to find. Nothing, however, in my colleague’s or my, academic and scientific training could have prepared us for the freakish discovery we were about to make.

We entered the cave on a ledge that was raised maybe fifty or so feet above the floor of the awesome cavern. A smooth ramp of stone left the right side of the shelf and led to the floor of the cave below. We all moved towards the ramp and then stopped suddenly.

The beam of the tiny flashlight flickered upwards from the out of sight area in front of us below the ledge.

Jim turned towards us holding up one finger and then pointing to himself and then to the edge of the ledge. He got down on all fours and crept to the edge and then slowly looked over. I was standing to the side and could see his face. His eyes were wide with intrigue, but the look on his face told me that he was troubled as well by what he saw. I wished that I could have heard something but the roar of the caves waterfall droned out quiet sounds in the cave. Suddenly he turned back to us and motioned for us to stay low and then come forward. We copied him by getting down on all fours and crawled forward. I got close to the edge and then slowly leaned forward. A line of broken rocks shielded the view and I had to move a short distance to the side to get a decent look.

Below us, in a clearing of sorts were about fifty naked, very heavy human beings. Their skin was very pale, their hair was long and black and their faces were circular with strong, high cheekbones. Most were sitting or squatting gorging themselves on the whitish balls that clung to the ground and surrounding rocks. The adults were mostly female. There was only one adult male that we could see. He stood slightly apart from the main group. At the center of the group several mothers nursed their infants while they busily picked and ate. Nearby, a group of children played and ate. Standing amongst them picking and eating the white balls with one hand and shining Jim’s flashlight around with the other was the little boy. Now that we could see his face, it was apparent that he was more interested in the weight and feel of the flashlight then the light it made. He never shined it in his face or looked at the beam.

Sam had been watching to closely and not paying attention to his hand holds. While he stared over the edge he reached his left hand forward and then fell forward slightly as he shifted his weight. He caught himself before going completely over the edge, but in the process knocked loose some rocks and soil.

With horrified fascination we watched the dislodged earth rain down onto the backs of the small group below us, but we were even more shocked to watch their reaction. Almost in complete unison, they all stopped eating and then ponderously turned their heads to look up at us and stare.

They did not run. They seemed unafraid. The little boy stood in the middle of them shaking the little light around. Their facial expressions were flat and unemotional as they continued to chew. Slowly, one by one, they turned back to their eating.

We all crawled back from the ledge and sat silently with our backs against the rock wall at the mouth of the cave’s entrance. We sat that way for some time until Jim reached out to a small cluster of the white balls that grew on a rock nearby. Without much effort he grasped one about the size of a baseball and plucked it from its perch.

“Must be some kind of mushroom,” he said, holding it in his palm squeezing it gently. He took out a knife and cut it in half and smelled the cut surface. “It smells sweet, and earthy. I am tempted to try a bite, but they might be adapted to eating them or maybe, eating these is what made them that way.”

“What is going on here,” Denise asked. “They look like they might be descendants of the Inuit or Aleuts. Why would they be so far up in the mountains though? Did they build the dome and carve out the caverns to escape the cold?”

“And after millennia underground their society began to degenerate until they reached this point,” Sam finished.

Then I said,” I want to know why they weren’t afraid of us. The boy ran from us in the tunnel. Without knowing who or what we were, he ran, but now, they just looked at us. Why?”

“They made no attempt to communicate,” said Sam. “They weren’t even talking with each other before I spooked them.” He returned to the edge of the ledge and continued to observe.

Jim was picking more of the strange mushrooms.

“Maybe the dome and tunnels were made by an older civilization,” Denise said. “Their ancestors found it and decided to stay, or maybe they became trapped down here somehow and couldn’t leave.”

“I have another question for you both,” interrupted Jim motioning us to look at something near him. We crawled over to where he was sitting.

Just then Sam turned back to us and asked Jim to give him his binoculars. Jim wrapped the strap around them and tossed them lightly to Sam who was still looking over the edge, although it seemed as if he was concentrating on something across the cavern instead of on the group below.

Denise and I turned back to Jim and asked, “what is your question.”

“My first thought when I saw these mushrooms was, well that’s odd. Most fungus live on decaying organic matter not rocks, so I wondered how these things were doing it and I began to remove them from this rock to see and I discovered this.” He reached down into the area he had been examining and picked up what looked at first like a large stone and held it out for us to see. It was a partially decayed human skull. He pulled out several more bones from underneath the strange mushrooms and then gestured towards the cavern floor and the multitudes of white balls that grew there. At first I had thought the cavern floor was littered with rounded rocks and small broken sticks, but now it was clear that these were really human bones, the remains of hundreds, maybe thousands. When Jim saw that we shared his realization he asked,“ what killed all these people.”

Suddenly Sam came back to us. He grabbed my shoulder. His face was taught with panic and fear, and he was holding one of the pistols,” hey, hey, get the guns out, something is coming this way from across the cavern, something big!”

~ by transcription17 on October 19, 2009.