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A noise behind me and I whirl  but the darkness is absolute.  Staring into the black I try to make out some difference in the shading, some shape in the stygian dark.  But its no use and I listen instead.  Is that a shuffling footstep?  I start to edge backwards away from the noise, but I can’t.  Lisa has the only lantern and she is somewhere directly above me, in the open shaft we found.  The opening was too large for me but she could squeeze through.  Our only hope was that she could find a way up and then to where the equipment had been on the level above.  The lantern she has will only last a short while longer.  It’s once bright light already showing signs of dimming.  If she could get to the piles of equipment there were several more battery packs as well as the ropes and equipment that could give us a chance to climb out.  Of course that was assuming we lived long enough to try.

Only hours (I think, time moves strange down here) before, we had been a party of 12 earnest explorers.  Excitedly looking forward to entering Naj Tunich.  One of the largest and most storied caves in Guatemala.  Long known as a site for ancient Mayan rituals, it was a hotbed for Archealogical study.  But so far no modern explorers had managed or dared to descend the nearly vertical shaft located far down in the earth at the most distant areas of the cave.  Rope measurements showed the descent to be at least 400 feet and no one knew what was at the bottom.  Professor  Arnold Richsteen, the dean of the Archeology department at the college where my wife and I both attended, theorized that the Mayans had held even more sacred ceremonies at the base of the shaft in the heretofore unexplored regions.  Basing his project proposal on sonar readings conducted from the top of the shaft showing what appeared to be manmade structures below.  And some rather intriguing readings showing movement below led him to believe that another river flowed at the bottom, even lower that the one above which had carved out the main body of the cave.

I wasn’t a member of the Archeology department myself, instead a graduate student in English Literature.  But I had some experience in spelunking and it hadn’t been hard to convince Richsteen to include me in the trip. I paid my own way and since only a couple of the members of the Arch. Dept. had any caving experience at all, my knowledge and skills seemed certain to be helpful.

The strange sound came again and this time I felt certain it was closer.  Every fiber of my being was telling me to run, even if I couldn’t see where I was going.  I didn’t know what was making that sound.  But I had seen the way a person looked after it got done with them and I was terrified of seeing it in person.  As far as I could tell it, or others like it had killed every other member of the party.  Only Lisa and I remained and if it wasn’t for her I think I would have given up hours ago.  My muscles were tensed as if even they wanted to run but I would not leave the small vertical shaft above where my wife had disappeared minutes earlier.  The vague glow from her lantern could no longer be seen above me, but I still had the small piece of rope she had tied to the rocks in the cavern below.  If I lost my way in the dark I despaired of ever finding her again even if she climbed back down.  Finding the dropped helmet here had made us sure that the shaft above emerged not too far from where we had made our impromptu base camp.  Karen had dropped it only minutes after we set out for the final descent. When it had rolled over the edge of the hole and dropped, we assumed it to be gone for good.  But finding it here seemed like the break we might need to survive.  Now I cursed it.  If we hadn’t found it, Lisa would never have insisted on making the climb and though our chances might not be as good we would at least still be together.  For all I knew she might be…..No, I refused to even think that way.  She was ok and she would be back.

I still don’t know if all this was inevitable once we entered the lower cavern, or was it the result of that moron Richsteen disrupting the ceremony above.  When we reached the point in the huge cave mouth where you could no longer see the outside world, our native guide explained that this was the point where you conducted the ceremony to ask permission of the cave god was held.  He said it was important to seek the cave gods blessing before anyone entered the main body of the cave.  Of course none of us believed that there was such a thing as a cave god (then at least!) but we saw no harm in the few minutes it would take to make the natives satisfied.  Everyone that is except for Richsteen.  He professed that he would not wait for any pagan ceremony, he had been waiting for months for this trip and he was not going to waste any more time.  Ignoring the guides pleas, he stalked ahead, hollering over his shoulder that we could meet him at the first descent point.  The guide looked as if he might pursue him at first but then sullenly performed the rest of the ritual.  When he was finished he announced that he had a sick child at home and could not accompany us into the cave itself.  Susan Miller, the member responsible for the arrangements protested that we had paid him to take us as far as the opening of the unexplored shaft but he refused.  We had the maps he said, the professor had already been there twice before he said.  Then he turned and moved out of the cave in a hurried pace.  Shrugging we turned and moved down the passageway.

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