Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [116]
“There’s a little problem.”
“I’m turning around and going back.”
“The tunnel shrinks just past me. It’s large enough to get through in an army crawl.”
Espy doesn’t respond. After several seconds, I wonder if she was serious and is now making her way back the way we came. I reach out for her.
“Watch it,” she says and slaps my hand away.
“We have to be near the end,” I say in my most reassuring voice.
“You’re going first, and you’re bigger than me. So as long as you don’t get stuck, I guess I’ll be fine.”
“Thanks.”
I feel my way back to the start of the crawl space. After a few deep breaths, I slip in, clutching my cargo like a football. Here, the heat is stifling, and fresh beads of sweat run down my face and my arms as I shimmy forward, scraping my knees and elbows.
I hear Espy following close behind me. I talk to her, to calm her, when my voice catches and I can no longer speak. Before I know what’s happening, the walls of the crawl space close in on me, pinning me within the rock. The stone is like a living, breathing organism, compressing and holding me in its grip. In the dark, fear is a physical thing, with long fingers that can wrap around the heart, an insidious voice that whispers terrible things—hot breath on the ear. I can’t move, can’t even feel where my limbs end and the stone begins. Somewhere deep in my chest is a need that manifests as pain, and it occurs to me that I’m not breathing.
My world is made up of darkness and silence, a sensory deprivation chamber that keeps me from counting the seconds or feeling the pain in my knee. My mind gropes around for an anchor, and I seize on the only image I can conjure: my brother. He’s sunburned, covered with sand, and flashing a raffish grin— the same one he wore when I last saw him alive.
I feel a sob somewhere in my throat, but it won’t come up because I’m locked down and it’s choking me. I think I hear someone calling to me, and I think it might be Esperanza. Yet the sound is fighting a fierce wind to reach me and I lose it on the gusts. I’m buried in sand, pawing at the stuff as it gets in my mouth and in my eyes. I’m calling for help, and I think I hear someone talking to me from above me but it’s unclear. All I know is sand, and that the people up above will not reach me in time.
Whatever this is, it’s killing me. So, with as much effort as I can muster, I force Will from my mind. I push him out, knowing the Will in my head is nothing more than guilt. Guilt is killing me. I seize on the only thing that makes sense; and while my grasp of the idea of God is not a firm one—a tenuous handhold—it’s something that feels safe.
Somewhere along the line, I come to believe that fear has brought its best game. It is roaring like an ocean in my ears and I take as deep a breath as I can and force the sound of waves crashing on rocks to fade. The icy fingers of fear still threaten to wrap around my heart, but I can exercise some control over the air entering and leaving my lungs.
Sweat covers me and I’m shivering. I focus on the idea of God, something I have never latched on to before, and yet it’s all I have right now. I force my hand to move. A small thing.
I hear Esperanza’s voice.
Before I pop the grate up and push it aside, I’m sucking fresher air into my body. The light hurts my eyes, but I refuse to squint against it. Instead, I let it hurt. With leaden arms I pull myself up until I’m sitting on the edge, then swing my legs over and lie on my stomach to help Espy. Once she is out, we both collapse on the dirt.
It’s like a rebirth, this emerging from the hole, and I soak in every sensation.
“What happened in there?” She’s raised herself onto her arm, her face close to mine.
I appreciate the concern in her eyes but we don’t have the time I