He stopped crawling twice, when he became convinced that he was not alone. That someone was moving with him, splashing along right at his side. The most alarming thing was that in those stretches, he believed he could also see this other person. A white figure in the blackness, shapeless and featureless. When he stopped and stared, though, there was nothing but the darkness and the feeling of the water and the cold.
Better hurry, Markus. Once the mind goes, you’re done.
He almost laughed at that. He didn’t feel as if his mind had been his own for a long time.
A light broke in the darkness then. A glimmer of white, and he thought, That is the snow. That is the surface.
Then the light went away. He blinked and stared, squinted. Closed his eyes and counted to five — he thought it was five, but he seemed to get lost on the way there — and then opened them again.
Nothing. No snow, no surface. For a moment, though, he’d been so sure.
He pushed on, wishing that he hadn’t imagined the light. Wishing that it might return for him. He thought of the girl — What was her name? — who had died down here. Had she seen a light at the end? If so, depending on the source, it might have scared her. That seemed terrible, to be scared by a light. It was unnatural. Light was supposed to help you in the dark, it was supposed to guide you and protect you. How wrong, if she’d died fearing a light and hoping for blackness.
What was her damn name? He couldn’t forget that. It was the reason he was here.
Sarah.
He wondered who’d said that. Where the voice had come from. It didn’t matter, though — the voice, which came through the darkness in a whisper, was correct. Her name had been Sarah. He said it aloud to make sure that it felt right.
“Sarah.”
His voice wasn’t right but the name was. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten it. He couldn’t allow that to happen again. Keep saying it, then. Keep on repeating it, and that way he couldn’t forget it.
“Sarah,” he slurred. “Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.”
The cave walls returned the name to him each time — Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. He thought it was an echo but maybe not. Maybe it was whoever was down here with him; maybe whoever had told him her name to begin with was saying it too. He tried to determine whether that mattered and couldn’t reach a conclusion. A rock caught his shin, hard, and this confused him. He stopped walking and looked down and, of course, could not see the offender.
When had he begun to walk? He’d been crawling for so long because crawling was safer. He considered that and then he got it: He couldn’t crawl here because the water was too high. He should have remembered that. Like the name. He should have remembered...
He felt a wild surge of panic, because she’d escaped his mind again. Damn, but she was crafty. She could slip right past you. He’d had her, though. He’d just had her, and he could get her back. It was...
“Sarah.”
Yes. Keep saying it. Keep walking.
He moved on, or thought he moved on, using her name as fuel.
Splash. “Sarah.” Splash. “Sarah.”
The cave whispered it back to him every time, and he was grateful for that. The cave wasn’t going to let him forget again. He’d remember her.
18
Ridley had expected to make a stir with his arrival and was almost looking forward to watching Blankenship have to deal with that, but when the two of them got out of the car and began to move through the snow toward the cave, Ridley wearing his helmet and carrying his backpack and a loose coil of rope, there was already a stir going on.
“We can hear him!” a uniformed officer shouted, rushing up, slipping in the snow. “Sheriff, we can hear him! But we can’t figure out how to get to him.”
“Let me in,” Ridley said, shoving past him. “If you can hear him, then I can find him.”
“That’s the thing,” the deputy said, following behind. “It’s like his voice is coming up from under the rocks. It’s creepy, to tell you the truth.”
Ridley made for the cave, Blankenship struggling to keep up. A few heads turned toward them and someone said, “What in the hell is he doing here?” but Ridley ignored that and passed them and entered Trapdoor Caverns for the first time in a decade.
He stood on the wide shelf of stone where steps had been carved so visitors could get down to the tour boats. The passage beyond was filled with people and voices. It was bright and loud and crowded. It was everything a cave should not be.
Two people rounded the corner and headed to the entrance, fighting through the tangle of bodies. One was a deputy whom Ridley remembered well; the other was a woman who was clearly part of the cave rescue team, dressed just like Ridley. At the sight of him, they both stopped short. The woman — Rachel? Robin? He couldn’t remember — said, “You sick bastard.”
He remembered her then. Rachel. She’d been on the outside preparing to go back in when Ridley arrived with Sarah Martin’s body. She’d fallen to her knees at the sight of Sarah Martin and cried as if the girl were her own daughter.
Ridley hadn’t said anything to her back then, and he didn’t now. The deputy moved up to Ridley with his chest puffed and was in the midst of telling him that he had better get the hell out of here or he’d be going to jail when he spotted Blankenship.
“Sheriff? You want me to get this guy into the back of a car? He’s trespassing, bare minimum, and interfering with police business.”
He was right in Ridley’s face now, wanting a fight, pressing as close as he could, one of those idiots who spent hours building up their pec muscles, as if you won fights by bumping chests. Ridley thought about kissing him, tried to imagine what the reaction to that would be. The image made him smile, and at the sight of that smile, the deputy actually reached out and grabbed the straps of his backpack, like a school-yard bully.
“Step back, Dawson, damn it, step back,” Blankenship said. “He’s here because I want him here. Now get the hell out of my way.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You want him—”
“Did I stutter? You want an explanation, you can come to my office once this scene has been handled. Until then, get out of my way.”
Ridley turned and looked up at the sheriff’s flushed face and said, “Thanks, Danny.”
“Just keep walking.”
They moved past the deputy and up to the woman, who was mud-covered and sweating. She regarded Ridley with revulsion and kept her eyes on him even when the sheriff asked her quietly, “Can you take me to the spot where they’re hearing his voice?”
“Yeah. It’s not far.” She finally broke eye contact with Ridley, turned, and started back along the passage. They followed and curled away from the bright lights of the entrance chamber, and minimal darkness encroached, allowing Ridley to breathe easier. After spending so many hours practicing, he felt as if he should be able to stay in control, but he hadn’t been practicing in Trapdoor. This cave was different. This cave was so very different.
Finally they reached full dark, and Ridley clicked on his headlamp but dimmed it down until it was only bright enough to show his boots. The sheriff had a bulky Maglite that was exactly what you didn’t want in a cave, always occupying a hand and always requiring you to aim the light instead of having the light follow the turn of your head. Ridley had given him a helmet but hadn’t outfitted it with a light because the sheriff insisted on taking the big flashlight.