Chapter 14 #2
He looked over to his left and found Darren standing beside him, looking shaken. He looked pale, worn, and covered in a layer of dust.
“You saved my life. How can I ever thank you?”
“Find us a way up to the other level,” Ethan joked ruefully.
“Hey, is Darren okay?” Thomas called.
“I’m fine,” Darren replied and instantly had a coughing fit, bending over double.
“That’s great news! And on that topic, I found something,” Thomas yelled, and a moment later, there was the patter of something coming down the debris pile. “It’s rope.”
“Great!” Ethan called. “Is it tied to anything?”
“It certainly is,” Thomas said. “To another length of rope, which is tied to a boulder. You can use it to climb up.”
“That’s a good idea,” Darren called up between coughs. “Just got to catch our breath.”
That was not so easily done. Darren was full of dirt and dust, and Ethan’s ribs were painful.
He held his torso, crossing both arms over it, and tried to breathe.
There was something tickling his nose. Perhaps it was the dust that had been thrown into the still air of the cave, or maybe it was something else.
There was more light in the cave now somehow, and smoke coiled in the air.
Smoke?
“Oh, great!” Ethan said. Some of the wooden debris was burning. A little clump of it was covered with hungry flames. As they watched, more of it started to burn.
“Kick sand over it!” Ethan called to Darren.
Standing beside each other in the small space that now remained from the debris cascade, they tried to kick sand over the burning wood. It had little effect.
“Move the rest of the flammable debris away from it,” Ethan said.
It was the pole. It had dislodged several planks and bits of wood. Most were charred and blackened but still seemed to have something left in them to burn. They pulled what they could away, but the fire grew in front of them despite their efforts.
“We have to get out of here,” Ethan said. “Come on, use the rope and climb!”
He pushed Darren in front of him and thrust the rope into his hands. Darren winced as he began to use the rope to pull himself up the steep incline of the rubble.
“What’s going on?” Darren asked. “Where did the fire come from?”
“It’s my fault,” Ethan admitted. “I was careless with the plank I used as a torch.”
Darren didn’t reply. He put all of his effort into climbing up and out.
As he watched his friend go very slowly up the fifty-foot drop, Ethan cursed his luck.
All he wanted was to get out of this hole in the ground.
He wanted to reach the surface, to find Diane and tell her how much he loved her.
If this whole horrible day had taught him anything, it was that he loved her madly and couldn’t go another day without telling her, no matter what her own feelings were toward him.
As smoke curled around him, turning the air into a stinging, biting thing that burned his eyes and nose, Ethan held on, waiting for Darren to reach safety before he too tackled the debris bridge.
Once again he thought of Diane and how much he wished none of this had happened. If he got out of this mess, he would take her to dinner and nothing short of the restaurant blowing up would interrupt them. He sent up a fervent prayer for just such a miracle.
“Okay,” Darren called down. “I’m up. Come on! Get a move on! I’m gonna try to drop some sand on that fire from up here!”
“Okay,” Ethan called, taking the rope in his hands. “Okay, Diane, here I come.” The last bit he said softly to himself.
The first bit of the bridge wasn’t so difficult to tackle. It was relatively sturdy. But as he got higher and higher up, it became less and less stable, which he should have expected. He would have expected it if his mind wasn’t so stressed and so full of yearning to see Diane again.
“You’re not going to see her if you don’t focus,” he told himself angrily.
The smoke from the fire was getting bad. Things were starting to shift in the bridge, and there was a lot of heat on his back.
He didn’t dare turn around and look. That would be too much for him.
He gritted his teeth, ignored the pain his body was in, and pulled himself up, one step at a time.
Beneath each foot, he felt more and more give in the rubble he was stepping on.
It just had to hold for a little longer.
Not forever, but just until he reached the top.
It was such a slow process, picking his footing carefully, that when he looked ahead, he thought he was making no progress at all.
“You might want to speed up!” Thomas called from the top.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” Ethan yelled. With his multiple injuries, every step and breath was agony. But he had to soldier on. He had to get out of there. Inch by painful inch, he would get himself there.
The bridge of rubble and planks began to shift under him. It swayed and rocked and, with a roar and a terrible, ground-quaking shudder, collapsed in on itself.
Ethan gripped the rope with all his might, closing his eyes against the smoke and dust that shot up into the air, choking him. For a terrible moment, he couldn’t breathe, and then the air cleared some.
He was hanging in the air, his right shoulder pressed to the rock face. He looked up.
Two heads blocked out the light and then disappeared.
Where had they gone?
Suddenly there was a pull on the rope, and Ethan found himself grazing his shoulder against the rock. He turned to face the rock, getting a foot on it, and as the next heave came, he walked up the uneven surface.
This happened again and again until finally, his head rose above the ground and hands grabbed his clothes. He was pulled and dragged onto the ledge, where he lay on his back, panting.
Two forms flopped down beside him, laughing.
“You made it,” Thomas said. “When all that debris fell, we thought it was over for you.”
“Well, I’m glad it wasn’t,” Ethan admitted when he had his breath back.
Staring up at the hole in the rock roof above them, the light was blotted out for a moment. Then dust rained down on them and a rumbling, grating sound filled the air. A moment later, the light returned.
Ethan watched with interest as the same procedure was followed three more times. By then there was a large hole, and a face appeared in it.
“Ethan? Are you there?”
A grateful laugh escaped from Ethan’s lips when he recognized the voice.
“Diane? Is that you?”
“Of course it’s me,” she said. “I’m so glad to hear your voice.”
“You’re not the only one,” Ethan admitted, relief rushing through him.
Thank you, Lord!
“Are you here to rescue us?” Thomas asked, hope ringing in his voice.
“Yes and no,” Diane said. “Are all three of you alive?”
“Yes,” Ethan said, “But we’re pretty banged up.”
“Okay, I suspected as much,” Diane said. “I’m going to lower you this parcel of bandages and things. Do what you can to help each other. I’ll be back.”
A moment later, a rope dropped into the hole with a rucksack on the end of it. It landed between them and Ethan untied it.
Dust rained down on them as the rope was pulled back.
“They’re clearing the rubble as we speak,” Diane said, poking her head back in the hole. “They say the ground is too unstable to do much for now. But just hold on and we’ll get you out.”
“Okay,” Ethan said. He hoped they wouldn’t take too long.
Thomas assured him that the collapse of all that debris had quenched the flames, but the ground being unstable didn’t sound good. Ethan hoped that they would be rescued before anything else terrible could happen.