"That sure is a workout," he said.
"No kidding," Sean said with a slap on his friend's back. "I doubt you could have done that last year."
"No way I could have."
Tommy looked up at the cave entrance. Then, he took out his phone and switched on the light. "Well, let's take a gander inside. After you."
Sean switched on a flashlight and started into the cave.
The first twenty feet were easy enough. The floor was covered in sheets of rock that — at one point in time — had been on the cave roof. Years of erosion and occasional seismic activity had caused the layers to break away and collapse to the floor.
"If there was anything in here on the ground, it's underneath tons of rock now," Sean said, shining his light around on the broken stone.
Tommy scanned the room. "Yeah. I wonder how much of the ceiling fell. The actual cave floor could be ten feet farther down."
"It's possible."
Sean flashed his light ahead where a short wall appeared to block the way. "We have to climb up to that opening," he said, pointing at a passage above the blockage.
"Was it always like that?"
"As far as I know. Had to do the same thing twenty years ago when I came down here. Although it does appear more of the ceiling has fallen in since then. Seems like the floor is closer to that corridor."
Tommy didn't like the sound of that. "How often does the ceiling fall in this place?" His eyes darted around as if the rock above could crush them at any given second.
"No idea," Sean said as he reached the wall. He stepped up on a smaller boulder and pulled himself up easily to the opening. It was only seven or eight feet up, and the rocks had fallen in such a way that getting up was no problem. "I'm not a geologist."
Tommy started climbing the boulder once Sean was out of the way and into the passage. "Yeah, I just thought since you'd been here a few times maybe you could gauge it."
As Tommy's right foot touched the top of the boulder, something brushed by his face and knocked him off balance.
He shrieked, waving his hands around like a bird trying to fly for the first time. His weight shifted backward, and he lost his footing. Tommy desperately reached out to keep his balance, but gravity was working against him.
He felt Sean's hand slap him in the chest and squeeze his shirt. A split second later, Sean jerked his friend away from the ledge and into the safety of the narrow corridor.
Tommy panted for a second, still feeling panic course through his veins. "Something flew past my face," he said, swiping his hand around like he could feel an insect crawling on his skin.
"Probably just a bat," Sean said. "Keep moving."
Sean pushed forward while his friend gave a few more precautionary brushes on his arms and neck.
"There are bats in here?" Tommy asked.
"It's a cave," Sean said, keeping his eyes forward. "Of course there are bats in here."
Sean couldn't see his friend blush in the darkness.
"I guess I didn't really think that one through."
Sean pushed forward with bent knees, staying low so he didn't hit his head on the low ceiling.
The narrow corridor stretched deeper into the cave for about thirty feet before coming to a sudden end that dropped back down to the main cavern floor.
Sean unfastened his gear bag and fished a pair of glow sticks out of it. He cracked the sticks, shook them up, and dropped them to the bottom to shine a little light on the climb down.
Carefully, Sean made his way down the wall until he was back on the ground and stepped back to give Tommy some room.
"Are there many more climbs like this?" Tommy asked as he worked his way down the wall. "Will make for some pretty slow going."
"No," Sean said. "Just this one. It goes downhill from here."
He took off again, trudging through the mud and across the wet rocks, leading the way down the gradual slope. The damp air smelled, well, slimy — like a hundred years' worth of mildew had built up on the stone. The temperature remained constant in the high fifties, warmer than aboveground but still chilly enough to warrant a jacket.
The two friends pushed on, navigating their way deeper into the cave until they arrived at a spot where the tunnel ended in a small circular room. The ceiling shot high into the rock, much taller than in the passageway.
An empty milk jug sat on the muddy floor next to a couple of old beer cans. Several loose stones were arranged in a circle close by with charred black wood in the center.
"Looks like we're not the first ones down here," Tommy said.
"Nope," Sean shook his head. "The funny thing is that stuff was here when I came down twenty years ago."
"Seems like having a fire down here isn't a good idea. Would get awfully smoky."
"Yeah. I was wondering about that, too."
The two men looked around the room but quickly realized there wasn't much to see.
"So… what are we looking for down here?" Tommy asked.
Sean set his gear bag on the floor and dug out some larger lights and mounts. A minute later the powerful bulbs bathed the cave in bright light.
"The times I came down here before, I never noticed anything unusual," Sean said. "But I didn't have much light, either."
He tilted his head back and looked around the upper reaches of the room. The rough rock walls almost had the feel of being hand-hewn. Unlike most natural caves, this one had no stalactites or stalagmites.
"I wonder how many people have been in here through the years," Tommy said as he ran his fingers along the wall's surface. He bent down and picked up a loose rock and then tossed it aside.
Sean was still searching the upper reaches of the cave walls for anything out of the ordinary.
"Always weird to think about it like that. You never know whose footsteps you're standing in when you visit historic places, or any place for that matter."
Tommy kicked one of the beer cans, sending it rattling along the hard floor. The sound echoed in the room, amplified by the high ceiling's natural dome shape. He looked up to the wall opposite of Sean. Spotting something that seemed out of place, he paused, cocked his head to the side, and then got Sean's attention.
"Hey, what's that up there?"
Sean turned and followed Tommy's finger to the spot.
High up on the wall, about fifteen feet off the ground, was a collection of stones stacked on a ledge. At first glance, they were nearly impossible to discern from the rest of the wall. The stones matched the rock from the wall and were packed tightly in the shadows. Unless someone was looking for it, the little arrangement of rocks would easily be missed.
"It's definitely something," Sean said.
"Yeah. No way that's natural." He turned to his friend. "You think we can get up there to check it out?"
"Maybe," Sean said, his voice full of hesitation.
"It's not that high," Tommy said. "You usually only get freaked out by things higher than twenty feet. That's maybe sixteen feet, tops."
Sean's rabid fear of heights had been an issue as long as he could remember. Usually, the phobia manifested itself in tall buildings or on mountains where a steep drop-off was nearby. When Sean found himself in a high place, it was paralyzing. His muscles tensed, and he could barely make his body move.
"The height isn't the problem," Sean said. "I'm just not sure about how to get up there."
Tommy searched the wall for a moment and then stepped closer. He put his hand up and grabbed a narrow ledge. His fingers strained as he pulled himself up. Next, he put the toe of his right shoe on a thin lip and reached up with his right hand to another handhold.
Sean watched, mesmerized, as his friend expertly navigated the climb. Tommy was ten feet up when he hit a snag. There was a solid piece of rock jutting out from the side of the wall. Climbers would have called it a chicken head due to the shape. Tommy could reach the hold, but there wasn't another foothold except for a ledge right under the chicken head.