A Face in the Crowd

We move slowly, like convicts on a chain gang. Lou is cautious with the shadows, as though they might open up in front of him and drop him into oblivion. Step by step, inch by inch, we continue into the expanse of this new cavern.

It is immense. Our footfalls echo repeatedly, creating a white noise that masks any possibility of hearing approaching Yanomami. I feel a private comfort at first. The echoes come in just over the voices I hear in the cave around me. For now I am just following Chris who is following Lou. The blind leading the blind as far as I know.

My mind races, a disconnected free association. Short bursts of thought after which I sail through nothingness for what seems like an eternity. When I finally touch the ground of semi-sanity again it is a jolt and I hang on for dear life.

How long, how far, how is it that we are in here in the first place. My inner dialogue sounds as mad as a hatter and it is playing a tug of war with my grip on reality. There is a pause in this frog induced psychosis. Lou has stopped at intersecting branches of this cavern. The resulting collisions nearly light some scalps on fire.

"HEY... " Lou brushes the embers from his hair.
I have ignited Chris' shirt in one spot and give a hearty slap to extinguish it. He turns and looks at me with raised eyebrows.
"I accidently caught you on fire."
"Let's hope so."

We continue on for what seems like the better part of an hour, but only minutes have passed. The top of this cavern has come down to greet us and at times we have to duck to make passage. I am afraid to ask if Lou is feeling the same thing I am feeling. If so we might as well have Betty Crocker up front for the good it will do us. Finally, after yet another choice of direction at a rocky intersection, Chris rakes his scalp when he should have ducked. After checking his head for blood, Chris asks the question that had been on my lips several hundred times in the last few minutes.
"Where in the FUCK are we going?"

Lou is silent, just keeps shuffling along.
"HEY... come on, man, where does this lead?" He takes a hold of Lou's shoulder and spins him around.
"Oh... hey, man, lights are on but no one is home."

There are a thousand voices whispering from the darkness of the cavern. I don't know if Chris can hear them. I say something in response to Chris, who turns and looks at me.
"Shit, man, if there are any Yanomami in this cave they sure know we're here now. You don't have to yell. I'm right here."
He hands me his his torch and then takes Lou by both shoulders.
"Lou?" He gives him a little shake, "Come on, Lou, snap out of it."
Lou's torch falls to the floor as the revival effort continues. It rolls to the side of the path and extinguishes in a shallow dribble of a water that seems to run the length of the course we are following.
"Ah crap."
"The floor." Lou comes out of it.
"Hey, there you are."
"The floor... it's shiney."
"Yeah, okay Lou."
"Spiders."
"What?" Antonelli's eyes dart around the cavern floor and then on his clothing.
"Spiders everywhere."
"Hey, that shit ain't funny."

I hear him talking, his voice is the same volume as the ones I hear in the darkness just outside of range of my torch. I force my voice into a whisper.
"Did he say spiders?"
"Yeah he did. Are there any on me?"
Antonelli gets a little frantic. He writhes around, brushing himself off like he was covered with tarantulas or something. But there is nothing there. At least I don't think so.

I set the torches down to help him, not realizing they will roll off of the path and meet the same fate that Lou's had. Before I can take the two steps forward to Chris, the torches extinguish and we are in total darkness.
Silence for a good ten count, even for the voices I hear, and then...
"Nice one."
Antonelli is no longer slapping at himself. I suspect his hands are now on his hips and there is a look of disgust on his face.
"Nobody move."

Now, closing your eyes in total darkness does nothing to increase your feeling of security. I leave them open and cover my ears instead. The voices, now chanting in more than a whisper, are back in force. In this all encompassing darkness I am seeing something, a kind of reverse shadow, pale figures in the blackness.
They are Yanomami, walking with arms full, heading back from the way we came. But they aren't coming from the way we are going. They seem to be coming from the path we did not select.

It is all lost in the glare of red light from the flare that Chris has found in remaining pack. He takes the flare to the side of the path and grabs up the torches.
After sitting Lou down so he won't wander off, he tears a large amount of fabric from his shirt. I follow suit and we wrap the cloth around the top of the torch and I expect Antonelli to ignite them with the flare.
"We might as well use the flare first... it's already lit. We save the torches until we are almost spent on the flare, capice?"
I nod.

He puts Lou between us and starts down the path that Lou had chosen. We proceed very slow... Chris even more careful than Lou at this point. I listen to the echo of our steps and realize that the voices are gone.
"Hey." I whisper. I can hear that just fine.
"What." Chris stops.
"No more voices."
"Just yours and mine, so?"
"Just checking."
"Jesus... what the fuck is wrong with you two?"

I look at the floor in the brightness of the flare. The wide, shiney path we had been following is much more narrow and it's shine diminished.
"Something isn't right here."
Chris stops a second time.
"Now what?"
I point to the floor of this narrowed section of cavern.
"This path was three feet wide where it was shiney and worn. Now it is just... like ten inches or so."
"Hey, Columbo, cut to the chase."
"This isn't right. I think we should have gone the other way." I take a knee and touch the ground here.
"You're as nutty as my Aunt Kathy's fruitcake. Let's get going."
Chris turns and takes two or three steps and rounds a bend. Then he and the flare are gone.

It is total darkness. I have one hand on Lou, who has said nothing up until now.
"You never take your eyes off the trail."
"Is that you, Lou?"
"Who the fuck else is standing here, Nancy?"
"Well... welcome back. I was wondering if that shit wore off of you too."
"What shit?"
"That frog shit."
"Oh... "

"HEY... HEY!"
Our eyes adjust to the total darkness and we can see the faint glow of red around the turn. We shuffle forward and for a moment we can see the outline of Antonelli as he dangles from the edge of a vertical shaft.
Lou snaps on his headlight. I had totally forgotten about the damn thing. I turn my on and am instantly told to turn it off.
"We only need the one, Jake... save yours for later."

It takes everything have to wrench Chris up and out of that hole. The operation has us all worn out before it is over. He is on his back puffing like a locomotive once we have him safe.
"I... can't... believe... this... shit."

Once breathing is back to normal, and the echo of the last complaint has faded, Lou makes an observation.
"Hey... do you hear that?"
We all stop breathing for a moment and try to get a fix on what he is talking about.
There is the sound, albeit faint, of running water. A river, or a brook that is doing a whole lot of babbling.
"Yeah, I hear it."
"Me... to." Chris reports, still a little out of breath.

Lou rolls onto his belly and shimmys up to the hole.
"Hold my legs."
I grab his legs around the shins and he scoots out over a rounded edge of the hole next to the spot we just pulled Chris from.
"Hey... it's a ways down there, but it is a good flow. It goes somewhere."
"Well, that's reassuring."
"A free flow like this and it is making an exit from these caverns... you can bet on it."

Unlike the last hole we tried to get out of, that stinking pit in the middle of the jungle, this one is a bit more user friendly. It is much more volcanic in nature and provides for hand and foot holds. Lou, of course, is the first one down.
"It's pretty sharp, cuts the hell out of you, but you can make it."
His light shines back up at us from a good two stories down. It turns back to the chamber he is standing in.
"There is a underground river in here. He looks back up at us and I shield my eyes."
"I'll check it out."
He is gone for a moment or two, and then we can see the light returning to the hole.
Once again he looks up at us.
"Oh yeah, it is a deep son of a bitch. The way it is moving I think we can just hop in and ride it on out of here."

"Oh HELL no."
"Come on, Chris, it's the only way out of here."
"You go. I'll wait for the bus."
"Come on, man, I will help you."
"How in the hell are you going to help me? Got a spare lower leg I can borrow, a real one? This thing didn't come with a hiking boot, you know?"
I take a moment. We can't leave him here.

"I will go down first, and then when you start down, I will make sure your feet are planted in the right spots... okay?"
"That's going to work? Or are we both going to end up at the bottom of this hole using the express route?"
"It'll work, Chris... it has to."