Fatalis

Chapter Forty-Four

Grand made his way through the increasingly narrow tunnel as he had made his way up the mountainside: fast and surefooted. Holding her flashlight in her right hand, at her side, and keeping her left arm up to block and shift around stalactites, Hannah struggled to keep up with him.

She had come down here hoping to pick up more information, more understanding, and more news. She hadn't expected to actually catch up to the cats, though that really seemed to be Grand's intent. Hopefully, he had something in mind for what they would do then. Despite what Grand had said, Hannah didn't think the cats would welcome them with open paws.

As Hannah walked, she watched Grand. The quiet-university-professor aspect of the man seemed even more deeply buried than it had been on the mountainside. Climbing to the tor, he had been focused. But here it was almost as though he'd become the thing he was tracking. The movement of his shoulders reminded her of a stunt pilot who had once performed off the pier. Grand's "wings" kept ducking this way and that to avoid rock projections, to turn his light into narrow fissures, to move him around stalactites. Like the pilot, he did all of this at a fast walk. His legs also moved with fluidity and confidence. It was almost as if he could anticipate the terrain, like a driver who had been along a road so often that the ride was almost a coast, even at night. Obviously, all caves and tunnels weren't the same. But maybe the senses one used were. If so, Grand was certainly using them.

The tunnel sloped down, which didn't surprise Hannah. After several minutes it turned sharply to the north and dropped away faster, nearly at a forty-five-degree angle. Grand turned so that his right side led and leaned back slightly as he continued down. Hannah did the same. Grand would frequently turn quickly to make sure that she was all right. Despite his attitude before they descended, his attention-and expression-showed concern for her.

As they walked. Grand also swung his flashlight over the floor and walls of the tunnel looking for signs of passage. Twice so far he'd stopped to examine scratch marks on the ground. He would turn and nod to Hannah that they appeared to be going in the right direction.

The deeper she and Grand went, the more the tunnel turned and twisted, sometimes in a tight S-shaped pattern. There were thin, deep ruts here and there. They looked like cracks but Hannah realized that they were probably caused by water dripping from stalactites and dribbling downhill over the millennia. Hannah tried to picture lava being forced up slowly to create these passageways, burning through the softest strata of stone, the path of least resistance. It probably piled up in these lower caverns until the pressure became so intense that the magma just blasted through the upper sections of rock. Hannah imagined heat so intense that higher areas of the tunnels, areas that weren't submerged as long, were liquefied, then solidified into the oddly shaped bubbles she saw around her. It was strange. The bubbles looked so new, ready to pop, while the stalactites-which were formed much later-appeared vastly older.

As Hannah thought about these awesome natural forces, she realized that she had been at this newspapering game for too many hours of her life, far too intensely. She was actually writing the antediluvian volcano story in her head, as if she were publisher of the Ice Age Gazette.

Hannah had no idea how far they'd gone. A half mile? Maybe more?

It certainly felt like more. The tunnel became tighter-

Grand was ducking now, and she had to as well in spots- and Hannah began to feel closed in. The air was cool and wet and it was scary, the idea that it was probably longer to go back than to go forward. Her legs had been weak after the climb and they were getting wobbly now. Blisters were forming on her heel and big toes. But she pushed herself on, then on some more, because she had asked for this. And she was actually glad she had exhaustion and claustrophobia in the front of her mind. It was something to think about other than what they were searching for. If she thought about the cats for too long she might freak or freeze, the way she did when she first saw them back on the mountaintop. They were frightening, yet so overpowering in their form and hypnotic in their movement that she couldn't look away.

There were no turn-offs from the tunnel, no side-tunnels. Hannah didn't know if that were unusual or not, but she was glad about that. At least there was no question which way the cats had come.

After what had to be another quarter mile or so-some of which they had to walk bent over, since the roof of the tunnel was less than five feet high-Grand stopped suddenly. Hannah stopped too. She listened. She heard nothing except Grand breathing deeply through his nose.

She breathed through her nose too.

And tasted fresh air.

Grand started up again. When he could finally stand up straight he ran, weaving and moving through the stalactites and outcroppings and getting well ahead of Hannah. She wasn't worried about losing him. The air was getting sweeter. The tunnel was coming to an end.

The ground leveled off and then rose slightly. The final leg was about fifty feet up a steep slope, which she took on her hands and knees. Though the rock scraped her knees and the heels of her palms, it was the quickest way up.

She reached the top and climbed out. She stood beside Grand.

There were near the base of a mountain and looking across a wide gully. Hannah couldn't place where they were or even what direction they were facing. There were more hills beyond the gully and peaks on either side of them.

Hannah looked straight ahead, where Grand was looking.

"This isn't good, is it?" she asked.

"No," he replied gravely. "It is not."