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Maddock stumbled when the forest floor disappeared. He didn’t go all the way down, though. He stopped himself and then stood stock still, taking in the new scene. Instead of seeing cool, crisp mountain air and a vast forest, he was inside a large cavern at least a hundred yards in diameter, with the top more than forty feet over his head. It was dim, but not dark, as lights were visible throughout the area.
Bones was sitting about twenty feet away, whirling his head from side to side with wild urgency. The big man was clutching one hand to his right shoulder. Maddock called out to him.
“You okay, Bones?”
Bones stopped moving and looked at Maddock. “If by okay, you mean caught in the Twilight Zone with Rod Serling yanking our chains then, yeah, I’m okay.”
“So you’re seeing the cave, too?”
Bones nodded. “We’ve seen some weird crap, but this could be the weirdest. A mountain landscape one instant, a dungeon the next.”
Maddock’s brain had started to race. “It was all an illusion or a hologram. The jungle, the mountains, the creatures.”
“Yeah, but those things made physical contact with us. You were even wounded.”
Maddock slid his left hand over to the wound on his right shoulder. As he felt the area, he let out a whistle. “This feels more like abrasion from contact with the ground than it does a claw wound. In fact, I remember thinking there’s no way that raptor could have missed tearing out my guts.”
Bones furrowed his brow. “I bet those asshats drugged us. Otherwise we would have noticed that we were striking air when we swung at them.”
“That’s probably what the mist was. I remember—” He stopped.
“What?”
“That’s odd, I can’t remember the creatures I was fighting when you found me.”
“Are you going senile on me? They were, um... Oh hell no, I can’t remember either.”
“Drugs might explain that, too, though it’s kinda scary. They would also explain us trying to kill each other for no reason.”
Bones smirked. “No reason? Come on, you know better than to lob me a softball like that.”
“I kinda figured we had enough on our minds, what with being trapped in a giant cave with no food or water and no idea where we are.”
“That’s the perfect time to give you crap.”
“I stand corrected. I think we need to try to figure out how to get out of here, though. Let’s work our way around the walls in different directions, see what we can find.”
Bones didn’t answer, he just followed Maddock across the cavern until they reached the nearest wall. The light they had glimpsed from a distance came from torches which were mounted in sconces every twenty feet or so. They protruded from the wall almost ten feet off the cavern floor, well out of even Bones’ reach.
The humidity had returned to levels Maddock associated with northern Virginia, but the temperature was lower than it normally was there in the summer. That could be explained by the cavern, but Maddock wasn’t at all confident that they were still in Virginia. Or even in a cavern for that matter.
“We had to get in here somehow, so that means we can find the way out. I’ll go clockwise.”
“Why do you get the fun direction?”
Maddock didn’t bother responding, he just started walking. He moved steadily but without rushing, running his hands along the wall and devoting all his senses to identifying anything unusual.
All too soon, he and Bones met halfway around from where they had started. “Any luck?”
He shook his head “You?”
“Not a damn thing. I suppose the way out could be higher up the walls or in the ceiling, but that would mean they had to lower some kind of rope or ladder. Possible, but we’ll never find anything that high.”
“Leaving us with the ground. Which means—man, I’m not gonna like what we have to do next.”
“Yep. We have to search in a grid pattern, just like hunting for buried treasure...” He trailed off as the words brought him close to a memory. Treasure... We were supposed to find something. Something made of gold....
“It’s a lot more fun looking for buried treasure.”
Maddock gave up trying to retrieve the memory. “Come on, Bones, you always hate methodical searches. It doesn’t matter what we’re looking for.”
“Shut up, Maddock.”
After agreeing on a division of labor, they began methodically walking back and forth across the bottom of the cavern. Maddock had to take it slowly, as the lights on the walls cast shadows that made picking out details on the floor more difficult. Nothing like having to examine every square inch of a place to make you appreciate how much surface area it contained.
With no watch Maddock couldn’t be sure how much time had passed, but he figured it was over an hour before a shout came from Bones.
“I am the Man!”
Maddock rushed to his friend’s side, at a spot close to the dead center of the cavern. “What’d you find?”
Bones pointed to the floor. “A pretty weak attempt to hide some hinges.”
Maddock knelt on the floor and saw what appeared to be rubber flaps painted the same color as the cavern. Underneath them were indeed hinges. They contained some rust, but didn’t seem to be deteriorated much. The hinges were held in place by what looked like two giant rivets or bolt heads in each one. He ran his hands along the floor next to them.
“Feels like ...yeah, some sort of seam here. There’s a whole section that’s rubber, with another flap right here.”
He pulled on another section of floor, and exposed a rusted metal handle recessed into what was clearly some sort of portal. A tug on the handle yielded no movement.
Bones nudged him aside. “Allow me.”
Bones jerked the handle up, but again created no movement. He tried again with more effort, but the result was the same. “I’m thinking this one will be brains over brawn.”
Maddock stroked his stubble. “It probably locks from the inside. If pulling the handle isn’t doing it, then we have to go after the hinges. Maybe find some rocks we can smash them with?”
“I found just the thing during that boring grid search.” Bones jogged away and returned a few seconds later carrying two pieces of sandstone, each just small enough to be held in one hand. “These should be solid enough to take a bit of punishment. Not as hard as iron but it’s the best we can do. There’s more of them after we break these.”
He offered one to Maddock before kneeling by the hinges. He looked up. “Time to destroy things.”
Bones lowered the rock, and a loud crack echoed through the cavern. He repeated the motion and soon got into a rhythm. After about three minutes, his rock had crumbled to the point where it was no longer accomplishing anything.
“Your turn, slacker. I’ll go get more.”
As Bones trotted off, Maddock started hammering with his rock. He could see some chips in the hinge Bones had attacked, but nothing that seemed close to getting it loose. He resigned himself to it taking a while.
Three times Bones returned with more rocks and they took turns pounding. Maddock could see progress now, with half of the first hinge missing. His shoulder ached some, but a lifetime of physical training had prepared him for a lot worse than this. As Bones jogged off yet again, he set about his task.
A few moments later, he noticed the mist again.
The effect was different in the cavern than it had been when they thought they were in more open spaces. But he had no doubt about its purpose. “Bones, get your ass back here. We have a big problem.”
While Bones was running, Maddock started hammering like a madman with the rock. The first hinge gave way just as Bones arrived. Maddock tore what remained of it out of the ground and then grabbed the handle again. This time there was some give in the area formerly occupied by the hinge, but they still weren’t close to getting the whole portal loose.
Bones dropped to his knees as the mist descended to within ten feet of them. He snatched the broken hinge and began using it to pound the other one.
The harder metal did damage faster than the stones had, but Maddock started coughing when the mist reached head level. He dropped to his knees. “Anything I can do, Bones?”
Bones didn’t stop his frenzied pummeling.
“Pray.”