THE ANCHOR
1,100 feet below the surface
Pain radiated down Milo’s chest and legs, as though his heart had turned to ice and now pumped freezing liquid throughout his body. His heartbeat thumped deafening in his ears, louder even than the cascading waterfalls. He tried to force air into his lungs but could only manage little hiccups. He was choking, his vision gray. He needed to run, but was trapped as the walls of the shaft dropped away, leaving him hanging in nothingness, hard droplets slamming against his plastic helmet like hail.
Milo breathed a wheezing gasp of air, barely enough to keep himself conscious. The rope in his hand slipped and he slid one, three, five feet before catching himself.
“Milo!” shouted Joanne from below him. “Stop fucking about!”
He tried to say something reassuring like yeah, sure, no problem, but just loudly coughed.
“Milo!” said Joanne again, but this time Milo couldn’t even speak, his jaw and mouth clenched in fear, flashes of heat all over his body overpowering the freezing spray.
But then in front of him, a sparkle of refracted light pierced through the void and the fear and the pain, a delicate pinpoint almost lost behind a sheen of moisture. Milo fixated his entire attention on the glint, trying not to think about the fact that he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move.
He had to reach the glint.
Pulling in a single jagged, uncertain breath, Milo wiggled his frozen, tingling legs back and forth, swinging toward the wet, rocky wall of the shaft. The glint came almost close enough to touch, then fell away.
“Bloody hell, Milo!” shouted Joanne. “What are you doing? I told you to stay put!”
“Have . . . to reach . . . the wall,” murmured Milo through gritted teeth, each swing placing him a tantalizing inch closer to the glint. The rope snaked through his stiff hand, abruptly dropping him another three feet. Kicking against the wall, he swung back, hard, and slammed bodily against the slippery rocks.
The rope harness went loose as Milo held himself up on an inches-wide ledge, allowing feeling to rush back into his twitching, unsteady legs. The drop had put him a few feet below the mysterious glint. He’d have to climb to reach it.
“Milo!” yelled Joanne, fear entering her voice for the first time. “We must get to the bottom—please!”
Ignoring her, Milo pressed his face against the rock wall, limiting the spread of his headlamp to an intense circle just inches across. Unable to see his hands or feet in the misty darkness, he felt around for handgrips and footholds until he could drag himself up another precious few inches.
“Oh God,” said Joanne, gulping. “Milo, please, please, please stop climbing. This is static line, not an elastic climbing rope. A drop of even a few feet could cripple you, even kill you.”
“I’m . . . I’m not climbing out,” protested Milo, finally finding his voice. “I just saw something—I need to get a closer look.”
He found another handhold, grunting as he dragged himself upward another few inches. The glint was finally within reach. He extended a trembling hand and brushed across its cool surface with his fingers, feeling a small metal anchor bolt secured into the wall. Experimentally, he pulled against it, feeling it just slightly loose in the slimy rock.
“Milo!” pleaded Joanne. “Whatever you’re doing is not worth it. Talk to me, you must talk to me.”
“It’s a metal anchor,” shouted Milo down to the others, feeling the last of his sudden fear slowly slip away as he fumbled in his pocket for a small folding knife. “It’s loose—I think I can get it out.”
“If you can talk, you can listen,” said Joanne, her fear turning to outright anger. “And if you can listen, you can bloody well follow instructions.”
“Just give me a second,” protested Milo, digging the blade of the knife between the wall and the bolt.
“You’d better not be getting that blade anywhere near the rope, Milo,” said Joanne. She too kicked back and forth until she reached the wall, clinging to the rocks underneath him.
Without warning, the anchor popped free from the wall. Milo watched in slow motion as it tumbled through his field of vision, corroded stainless steel glinting in the harsh glare of his headlamp, slipping through his outstretched fingers and into the darkness. The sudden jerk had thrown him off balance, and he felt his tenuous grip slip loose.
And then Milo fell.