“No, I don’t think so,” Tessa says, her voice closer now. “But my adrenaline is pumping so hard, I’m not sure I’d feel it if I had been. I’m pretty sure we’re both going to need rabies shots, though. Just in case. I’m seeing an emergency room trip in our future.”
I wince. “I’m sorry, Tessa. So fucking sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. This is as much my fault as yours. I’m almost forty years old, I should know better than to go climbing around in caves pretending I’m Indiana Jones.” Suddenly, a beam of light appears above me, slanting across the top of the pit. Before I can call out to warn her again, Tessa says, “Are you down there?”
“Yes,” I reply. “Be careful. It’s deeper than I realized.”
“Okay.” Her light tips down. I wince, shielding my eyes for a beat before she shifts the beam to my right. “Sorry. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
I do another quick body scan, then shake my head. “No. Just a little bruised.”
She sighs. “Well, that’s good at least. Think you can crawl out? If I keep the light on the side of the wall so you can see the rocks? It looks like there are some decent footholds and…” She trails off with a soft gasp. “Wes, look!”
I glance down, scanning the circle of illumination around me. “Do you see my headlamp?”
“No, look! There!”
I turn again. “I can’t see where you’re pointing. All I can see is the glow of the light.”
“About four feet behind you and a little to your left,” she says, the excitement in her voice making my stomach tighten. “There, can you see it now?”
She shifts the beam slightly, until it centers on a small pile of rocks. The stones are arranged in a pyramid shape that reaches nearly to my knees, and clearly aren’t something that occurred naturally. Someone stacked them that way.
And why would someone do that here, at the bottom of a pit, halfway through a cave unless…
“Should I see what’s under there?” I ask.
The words are barely out of my mouth before Tessa hisses, “Yes, but be careful. If you feel any cursed vibes, stop right away.”
My lips twitching, I ask, “What do cursed vibes feel like?”
“You’ll know them when you feel them,” she says. “Just take it slow. And maybe say a Hail Mary or something before you start.”
I glance up at her, squinting into the light.
“I don’t know,” she says. “That’s supposed to help in times of need, right? Sorry, I was a really bad Catholic. My mom only made me go until I was eight. Then she got into a fight with the priest about birth control and we never went back. He apparently didn’t think I should be an only child, but she very much did. I did, too, honestly. My mom’s a good person, but she shouldn’t have been a mom. It was obvious to me, even as a kid, that she didn’t enjoy children.”
My brow furrows. “I’m sorry. That sucks.”
“It’s okay. We get along much better now that I’m a grown-up and give her space. And I don’t take it personally. At least, not anymore. Some people just aren’t maternal.” She exhales. “Now, are you going to see what’s under there or not? The suspense is killing me.”
Pulling in a bracing breath, I nod. “Yeah. On it. Let’s see if we can find my headlamp first, though. I’ll be able to see what’s going on under there better if I have more light. Can you scan the floor for me?”
“Sure thing,” she says, slowly guiding the light around the rest of the small depression until it lands on my headlamp. “There. See it?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Wiping my hands on my pants again, I reach for it, positioning it on my head, almost gagging again at the smell lingering on my fingers.
As far as shit goes, it isn’t awful—more of a musty, ammonia-tinged scent—but I’ve never wanted a wet wipe as much as I want one now. I have hand sanitizer in my pack, but it won’t do anything to clean the actual filth from my skin and there wasn’t a single body of water between here and the campsite. I’ll just have to deal with my stink until we get back to the camper.
Holding my breath to ease my gag reflex, I move back toward the stones, pausing to study them in the brighter light of my own lamp. There’s no dust or anything down here in the cave, nothing to hint at how long ago these stones might have been gathered.
They don’t look like something that’s been lying in wait for over a hundred years, but I can’t know for sure. Time passes in strange ways inside caves and underground. It’s why so many archeological finds are discovered in places like this, places protected from the elements that damage artifacts left in the open air.
“Any bad vibes?” Tessa asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.” I reach for the stone on top, letting my fingers linger on the rough edges for a beat before I shift it gently to one side.
“Still good?” she asks again, making me laugh. “Sorry, I’m excited. If we actually find something, we only have to feel half as embarrassed about getting scared by bats and covered in poop.”