House of Bathory(112)
Only if there were rats.
Her fingers splayed out tentatively, inching blindly along the wet rock.
Above her she heard the rustle of movement.
Bats used echoes, didn’t they? Did they sense her movement beneath them?
She heard another rustle. She crawled ahead, trying to move past the bats as quickly as possible.
Suddenly there was a high-pitched cheeping sound and a fluttering roar. She snapped on her light to see scores and scores of bats coming toward her, making a mass exodus from the cave.
She ducked flat, her interlaced fingers across her head, her hands clasped tight against her ears.
A few deep breaths later, Betsy inched ahead in the darkness, pushing her fingertips forward, feeling her way through the cold, wet tunnel. Her bare hands tasted the edges of the jutting rocks and ledges.
A faint mineral smell evoked a memory of a tomb she had visited in Egypt many years ago with her father.
Her father.
She could not think of him now. He could not help her. He was dead.
In the tight space, the only trace of life was her own body and the smell of her sweat, sharp and acrid.
She flashed her headlamp on at long intervals, relying on her sense of touch rather than sight. She could not risk anyone seeing the light when she finally reached the dungeon. The passage squeezed her tightly, then widened and released her, then squeezed tight again and tighter yet. Push your right shoulder through, twist your head, pull your torso on through the hole in the stone, she told herself over and over. She used muscles long untested, moving more like a serpent than a human.
She flashed on her light, trying to negotiate the impossibly tight tunnel. With her face pressed against the gray-red rock, she could feel the edges of the raised veins that meandered through the stone. She was climbing now, the passage angling upward. She used the deep muscles of her back, shoulders, and arms to pull herself up. She snapped off the light, pushing on.
The blackness enveloped her, a dense velvet hood. The darkness took on a dimension of its own, becoming much more than the absence of light. Texture and depth forced her to look harder—further—into the inky distance.
Her eyes strained to see further.
She saw flashes of colors, drifting twigs and spots ascending and descending, a carnival of motion. She could feel her heart pound against her rib cage.
No. She could hear it.
She saw red. Flowing red. She jerked back her right hand in horror, the slickness of the rock suddenly sinister. She stopped, paralyzed, watching the pulsing tide surround her.
A figure gestured from the corner of her eye. She jerked her head around to see.
Her right foot slipped. The sudden jolt pulled her right hand from its hold. Loose rock rattled down beneath her, echoing through the blackness.
Her left hand and foot strained, as the right side of her body searched blindly for purchase, her knees and hips banging hard against the rock.
She pressed her eyes shut. The colors extinguished, her toe struck a ledge. With her right hand pressed flat against the wall of the cave, she slid her weight up. In her blindness she felt her way.
A vision flashed, of the blind worms and eyeless fish living deep in caves and on the floor of the ocean.
She did not want to open her eyes. Even with her eyes closed, she could still see the contours of rock, the cave itself.
She thought of John and his logic. The way his eyes would open wide as he assessed a problem. She inched her way forward, eyes shut tight.
There were voices. A steady conversation, just beyond her hearing.
No. There were no voices. The murmuring was her mind searching desperately to fill the absolute silence.
The murmurs continued. She strained to find words.
Her rip-proof jacket—her favorite for skiing in the trees—protected her skin from the rock. A bulge in her zipped back pocket had twisted around, pressing against her side.
She thought about taking it out, leaving it behind. No, this book of girls’ names was somehow important. Her father had hidden it behind his most beloved book. She twisted her jacket around so she didn’t feel the pressure. Now she felt the hard lump of her pocketknife against her upper thigh.
She shifted her jacket again.
She wriggled wormlike through a level passage, an endless journey. Dust from fallen rock made her cough. She could not risk letting anyone hear her approaching.
She tied her bandana over her nose and mouth.
She choked back phlegm, not allowing herself to cough. Her chest tightened with the effort.
The rocks were smoother now, like the polished rocks in a river. To her cut and bruised hands, they felt like jewels.
A smell made her stop. A foul, human stench.
She opened her eyes.
She could see light, only a few feet above through the cracks in a wooden panel. She stopped, listening.
From the other side of the door, she could hear moans.