"Seems like we're moving down, all right," Sean said.
"Yeah. I wonder how far this thing goes.” Tommy tried to stay cool, but inside, his anxiety was going full throttle. He didn't like being in tight spaces, and so getting out of this squeeze was motivation enough for him to press on a little faster.
The passage twisted slightly, bending to the left and then straightened out, dropping more dramatically downhill.
"My sense of direction isn't always on point," Sean said, "but it feels like we're heading down toward the road."
"Yep," Tommy grunted as he pulled himself along. "Do you know if there's another entrance to this thing?"
"Probably a question you should have asked before we started crawling through a random cave tunnel. It's gonna suck if we have to go backward through here."
"I… yeah, I didn't really think about that."
"Hey, we had to do something. Couldn't sit there in the cave and wait for the cavalry to come rescue us."
Progress was slow for the two friends as they continued to belly crawl down through the tunnel. It didn't take long before their elbows and knees started to hurt from digging into the hard floor. Their winter coats helped cushion the joints a little, but they also caused the men to sweat profusely despite the cave temperature being in the fifties.
Around twenty minutes after leaving the main cavern, the men reached a part of the tunnel where it leveled off and snaked its way forward, bending to the left, right, and back again.
"I wonder how far this thing goes." Sean said.
"Shh," Tommy hushed his friend. "Do you hear that?"
They both stopped and listened closely. There were ten seconds of silence before they heard the noise again. It was a low, rumbling sound that seemed to come from above.
"There it was again."
"Yeah, I definitely heard that," Sean said. He wiped a jacket sleeve across his forehead to remove the sweat rolling down the skin. "Sounds like we're under the road."
"Or really close to it. Maybe there's a way out of here up ahead."
"I hope so. Because I do not want to try to back out of this."
Tommy started crawling again with renewed strength. "What's the problem? Not enjoying the view back there?"
"Now that you mention it…"
They pushed on, dragging themselves forward until the sounds of the road began to fade and were gradually overcome by a different noise.
"Is that water?" Tommy asked.
Sean wiped the sweat from his nose. "Probably. We must be getting close to the creek. Been a bunch of rain lately, so there's a lot more water than usual."
The two crawled another thirty feet before they were met with an obstacle. Thin cracks of light streamed into the dark space. They were nothing more than slivers, poking through tiny crevices around the edge of what appeared to be a giant stone.
"Someone put this here to block off the cave," Tommy said.
"You think?"
"Yeah. This rock is different than the walls and floor around us. It must have been brought up from the creek bed or maybe from a nearby quarry."
Sean shook his head. "I was kidding, Schultzie."
"Oh."
He inched his way closer to the big stone. He turned his head and reached out his left hand, pushing on the rock as hard as he could. After a minute of effort, he stopped and gasped for air. He rested until his breathing slowed, and then he craned his neck so he could see Sean.
"This thing ain't moving. It's too heavy."
Sean thought for a second and then contorted his body so he could reach his right foot. He'd been dragging his gear bag behind him through the entire tunnel. Inside one of the pouches was something he thought might help their situation.
"Hold on a sec," Sean said. He unzipped the front pouch and shoved his hand inside. He pulled out four little disks. Three were black and the other silver. After putting the three black ones back in the bag, he straightened his body and held the little object out for Tommy.
"Here," he said. "Press this twenty times, and then wedge it into the top of that rock. Try to get it in one of those narrow openings.”
"What good is one of your flash bangs going to do here? We need something more powerful to blow that thing out of the way."
Sean swallowed. "That isn't a flash bang. It's high-density RDX with compressed ammonia nitrate."
Tommy's confused look turned to one of fear. His eyes opened wide, and he nearly tossed the thing back to Sean.
"You brought C4?"
Sean sighed and shook his head. "It isn't C4."
"You said there's RDX in this thing. That's what they use in C4."
"It's a modified compound. Much more stable and way safer to use. If you wedge it properly between the mouth of the cave and that stone, the pressure it puts out should knock the stone over from the top."
Tommy was skeptical. He felt like there was something he didn't know but decided to trust his friend — a fact for which Sean was relieved since he didn't tell Tommy that the little device in his hand was twice as powerful as C4. Probably best if Tommy didn't know that.
"Hold it down for three seconds," Sean said. "Then press it twenty times. That will give us enough time to back up to a safe vantage point."
"Twenty times? Why not like fifty times? That would give us a chance to get farther away, you know, to an even safer distance."
"Twenty is the maximum number of seconds this explosive will allow. If you want to give my friend at DARPA some suggestions about his R&D weapons, be my guest."
Tommy took a deep breath and then gave a nod. "Fine. But do me a favor, and start backing up. I don't need you in my way when I'm trying to get clear of this thing."
Sean started scooting backward, pleased to find that moving that direction was easier than going forward. He doubted it would be if they were in the uphill section of the tunnel.
Tommy took a short glance back to make sure his friend was far enough away and then held the button for three seconds. The device gave off a subtle beep, signaling that it was ready for deployment. Tommy blinked rapidly and stared at the explosive before he started squeezing the device.
"You're sure this has been tested and won't explode sooner than expected, right?" Tommy's voice trembled with uncertainty.
"Oh yeah," Sean reassured him while he continued backing up. "They do a ton of testing on all their stuff. We'll be fine."
Tommy wasn't so confident, but he didn't have much choice.
"I'd do it myself, but I doubt I could squeeze by you in here," Sean said.
"I'm fine. Just need a second."
"Shoot. I almost forgot. You'll need to keep squeezing it until you have it in place, otherwise the internal timer will start, which means you'd have less time to get clear of the blast radius."
Tommy swallowed hard again and stared at the device. "You almost forgot?" he said with a tremor of irritation in his tone. "Don't you think that's maybe one of the more important facets of using one of these?"
Sean shrugged. "Hey, we're okay… for now."
Tommy took another in a long line of several deep breaths and looked up at the narrow seams between the cave rock and the stone blocking their exit. One appeared to be just wide enough to allow the disk to slip between.
He squeezed the device, counting carefully every time his thumb depressed the embedded button. When he reached twenty, he held it down and kept the thing squeezed tight, pinched between his finger and thumb as he worked it into the crack. He had to wiggle the disk to get it how he wanted. At the last second, he gave it one last shove before letting go of the button.
His fingers used too much force, though, and the disk slipped through the slim crevice and out onto the ground.
"Oops," he said.
"Oops?" Sean shouted. "What oops?"
"I dropped it. It fell outside."