THE PLACE

Thonk, a rock thudded into the spongy surface of the boggy floor, making Billy jump.

"Okay, that's it," she mouthed, "I'm out of here. Besides, this can't be The Place."

Billy wheels toward the entrance but is stopped short by a disheartening sight. Instead of the anticipated river of sunlight flooding the cave mouth, a shadowy delta of rocks, dirt and twisted roots confronts her.

"Oh shit Carol, what have you gotten me into this time?"

A loud crash drowns out the question and seals the cave mouth. Shock still, Billy gapes at the ever-growing pile of debris edging toward her. She wheels to her left and is knocked off balance as an algae-slimed boulder brushes her shoulder on its way to the cave floor.

Breaking into a panic-induced gallop, Billy frantically shouts, "Hello, is anyone there?" She realizes the futility of her plea when it ricochets off the unyielding walls. Billy races onward, slipping and sliding over a surface blanketed by mildew and stagnant water until her lungs ache and a painful stitch stops her dead.

Doubled over, Billy collapses against a clammy wall, dragging in long ragged breaths. A hairy hand brushes her forehead, rocketing Billy away from the cave wall. She trains a shaky beam on the hand — a long tendril of moss set in motion by Billy's frenetic movements. Billy laughs aloud as the light captures the offending plant. She revolves slowly, surveying the rest of the area with the yellow beam. The sight brings little promise. It reveals only the shadowy mouths of multiple tunnels, and the narrow path ahead littered with stalactites, greenish rocks, and decaying plants.

Struggling against pain and exhaustion, Billy wills herself forward again. Ignoring the many tunnel mouths, she chooses the path of least resistance and continues her present route. This time she will limit her gait to a measured trot.

As she threads her way through that interminable web of darkness, comforted a little by the flashlight's softly bobbing beam, she realizes that she cannot go on without a plan. Her backpack holds a single red apple and a small bottle of Perrier, too little sustenance should she get lost in these miles of tunnels.

She scours her memory for some survival strategy. Surely the guidebook had given some advice. But what? What? Billy screams soundlessly. Without warning, the instructions blast into her brain, "In the unlikely event that your entrance becomes blocked, there will always be another exit. Simply stay calm and walk steadily toward the light." Walk toward the light? The ominous phrase sends a chill through her already shivering body.

Billy frantically scans the distance, seeing only endless shadowy blackness. A sob catches in her throat as she struggles to maintain her composure. Where am I supposed to look? How am I supposed to find the light? she asks herself. Then in a flash of understanding, she realizes that her own flashlight beam would eclipse any distant light.

She flicks off the tiny switch and blackness engulfs her. Struggling against the need to scream, Billy strains her eyes in an attempt to penetrate the unnatural blackness. Seeking light. Seeking light. See-ing light! A tiny pinpoint in the distance promises fresh air and freedom. Billy's trembling fingers search out the on switch and the beam paints the cavern walls in mottled shades of gray.

"Okay," she breathes, "move forward now. One step at a time as they say." Billy urges herself on, the growing sound of crashing rocks and splintering wood dogging her heels. As she inches forward, Billy's mind drifts back to the discussion that got her into this mess in the first place. She remembers vehemently opposing her friend's suggestion that they go cave exploring.

"Dammit Carol, I'm no spelunker. I'm claustrophobic for crying out loud!"

But over chilled Chianti and crisp salty calamari, the two had hashed out the merits and demerits of this cave-roaming venture until, as always, Carol's arguments prevailed. In their 38 years of friendship Billy had never won an argument against Carol. When her friend had to cancel at the last minute, Billy thought she'd won a momentary reprieve, yet here she was after still more discussion and still more Chianti and calamari. So here she was, the victim of yet another of Carol's hair-brained schemes.

"Well to be fair," Billy admitted to herself, "I probably would have eventually wound up here anyway: partly in an effort to overcome one of my too many unresolved fears — phobias as Carol insists on labelling them — and partly because of Bob."

"Maybe you'll find Bob," Carol had teased her. "Maybe the cave is The Place."

Carol was only teasing, but it was that jibe that finally persuaded Billy. Billy had told her friend her theory that Bob's disappearance six years ago was an alien abduction. When Carol hadn't laughed at that, Billy had tentatively mentioned The Place. When Carol fell backward onto the sofa, wracked by hysterical gales of laughter, Billy realized too late she shouldn't have revealed her fantastic theories to her pragmatic friend.

But let Carol laugh. Billy knew. She knew The Place was out there somewhere and she knew that someday she would find it. And there, at The Place, she would be reunited with Bob.

A sound interrupted the drip drip of water leaking from stalactites and the quiet symphony of her footsteps. Billy hadn't noticed how quiet the cave had become until a skittering, scratching sound dragged Billy back to the present. Squinting, Billy tried to pinpoint the source of the sound. The sound draws her eyes downward where, directly in her path, squirms a living patch of black.

Spiders! Hundreds of thousands of scurrying, scratching, scrambling spiders. Billy shudders, blood coursing through her body, pounding in her ears, draining from her extremities. Her knees buckle, but she catches herself a moment before she pitches into the quivering nest of arachnids.

"Breathe, dammit," she commands herself, "breathe. And keep moving."

Billy draws in a great gulp of stagnant air. The clammy dankness assaults her as the odor of the mold and mildew from a thousand putrid shower stalls at a thousand putrid public pools dizzies her. She weaves under the overwhelming stench; nausea threatens to fell her.

Yet she wills herself forward, choking down the bitter bile. She casts her eyes about for an alternative to the path blocked by the shivering ebony mass. Just to the right of the squirming creatures Billy spies a narrow rock outcropping. It isn't more than six inches wide, but she if she is lucky she will only need it for a dozen or so feet. Sidestepping onto the narrow ridge, Billy grabs an overhanging root for balance.

The root lets go with a soggy snap and Billy's feet slither over the spiders' guano-like droppings, plunging her down a stalagmite-encrusted embankment. Rocks rip away the soft skin of Billy's hands and bare forearms, bruise her clenched jaw. A dank boulder abruptly ends her downward slide.

Heedless of ragged fingernails and blistering heels, Billy scrambles back up the embankment, long fingers scrabbling for purchase, leather-toed boots slipping on the guano- slicked slopes. She yowls in pain curses as her knee bangs against a rock. As Billy instinctively reaches down to massage the painful joint, the flashlight slips from her grasp, clattering into the depths. Its landing is muffled by immense distance. Billy curses the darkness that now enshrouds her.

Regaining the little plateau, Billy seeks and finds a solid foothold. She leans against the clammy wall to catch her breath, heedless now of the ugly little eight-legged creatures swarming over her boots. She struggles to adjust her eyes to the blackness. Terrified by the overwhelming darkness, Billy wonders she will ever find her way without a flashlight? She is answered by a mellifluous baritone.

"I'll guide you," the disembodied voice assures her. "Look. There to the right. The light is there. Just walk toward the light. That's my girl. We'll be together again soon, Billy. Together again."

As Bob's voice melts into the gray rock, Billy wills her mind to calmness and clarity, fingering the ever-present good luck charm snugly zipped into her jacket — a single steel guitar string. She allows her mind to drift back to soft spring breezes heady with the scent of yellow daffodils and purple irises, to sunny picnics and gentle ballads. She recalls how she'd bought the string for Bob that day — that last day. It had been her good luck charm ever since. She couldn't even remember what kind it was. A? B? C? Do guitar strings come in different keys? Does it really matter now? Snapping out of her reverie, Billy strengthens her resolve to escape.

She begins to move forward again, eyes straight ahead. Step by painstaking step, Billy edged toward the pinpoint of light, gritting her teeth, steeling herself against the sickening crunch of tiny black bodies crushed beneath her leather-soled boots. Time stands still. Time is nothing when there is no light to bring it to life.

A papery rustling insinuates itself into Billy's consciousness. Billy ignores it. Her mind begins to drift again, begins a subtle shift. She feels a distant hunger, a quiet thirst, but it is someone else's hunger, someone else's thirst. She is removed from her body now, must be if she is going to survive the spiders, the claustrophobia, the blackness, the . . .

Water! The sound of crashing surf invades her brain, insinuates bony fingers into her tattered threads of sanity, seeking to separate and destroy the frail strands like so much rotted silk. Aquaphobia roots her to the ground, threatens to make her forever a part of the cruel cave and its ugly terrors. She is Lot's wife now. A solitary, unmoving statue oblivious to her surroundings.

Tiny gibbering squeaks are her only warning before the bats descend on her, furious at the intrusion, seeking bloody revenge.

Throwing her head far back, Billy opens her mouth and releases a single primeval scream. The sound echoes throughout hundreds of hidden canyons, penetrating shallow alcoves and deep hollows alike. It strikes the dank roof, rebounds off slime-encrusted walls, resounds in long dead alleys, and ricochets back to her screaming ears.

The effort of the scream breaks Billy's paralysis and she flails at the screeching rodents, knocking tiny bodies left and right, pulling the tiny creatures from her hair, smashing them to the ground, relishing the crunch of their bodies as her boots grind them into bloody pulp. The survivors flee to nurse their wounds on the high roof of the cavern.

Billy begins her plodding forward motion again, gradually gaining momentum until she shifts into a goose-step-rhythmed march. She knows now that she can make it. And she will even swim if she has to.

The sound of waves is louder now, singing in her ears, singeing her nerves. The cave walls are widening, but she is unaware of anything but the ever-growing pinpoint of light in the distance. Of the redemptive light and of the damning water. It is very near now, but for an instant the tiny beacon blinks out and Billy's hope wavers momentarily. Then the light is back, freed again by the outgoing waves.

Billy plods onward. Suddenly she is violently pitched sideways as guano kidnaps her left foot. She senses rather than feels the wrenching twist followed by a sharp crack as her femur snaps clean. The pain is excruciating. Waves of nausea and dizziness overwhelm her.

Billy struggles to retain consciousness, to hold onto the pain, onto the saneness that only the pain can preserve. But her fingers involuntarily seek the nameless steel string, close around it, and with a violent shudder, Bill surrenders. She wills her talisman to take her to The Place. The Place where Bob waits, where there will be no pain, no fear. No need for sanity.

Billy's body becomes weightless, and suddenly Bob is there. She is mesmerized by the vision of him, standing atop the waves, smiling his funny little Bob smile. His eyes beckon her, invite her to plunge into the pounding sea, to reunite with him forever.

The narrow channel empties and refills in minutes. A swimmer would have to resurface in less than 90 seconds before the weight of the ever-replenishing water crushed the lungs.

Smiling, Billy inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the pure fresh air from The Place. Then, gently caressing the guitar string, she slowly expelled each and every molecule of that beautiful life-giving air. Then completely ready, she staggered forward and plunged in . . . into The Place. Into Bob.