FIRST PLACE GRADUATE FICTION (TIE)

Cave Diving
by Cami Pack

      Nick drops anchor near the peninsula and rocks in the heavy fog. The outline of the shore is backlit now with orange glow. He overestimated the distance, but doesn’t restart the boat. Better to be too far away than too close, he thinks, even if it takes more air. 

      The neoprene pulls against his skin, and he jerks the wetsuit up his waist, impulsively wishing for company. The feeling fades when he remembers the options: Macy, Jason, some random person from his open water class. Not really options and they wouldn’t come anyway, so the anger returns.

      Nick puts on his weight jacket, wipes his face, and checks the air in his tank: 3,000psi, about an hour’s worth. Holding the mask and regulator, he rolls backward into the bluish-green water. It ripples out around him, disappearing in the fog.

      After emptying his lungs, to go further below the surface, Nick lets the air out of the buoyancy compensator. It’s eerily blue. Respiration replaces all sound, whooshing in and out slowly, like some giant machine erasing thought. Every five feet until thirty, he stops, holds his nose through the flexi–plastic and blows, equalizing the mounting pressure in his ears, startling some fish.

      The peninsula’s underside stands out, rising questionably: jagged volcanic rock, braids of lava tubes, other eruption leftovers. His thoughts return to Macy. Maybe it is none of his business, like she said. Maybe he should just butt out of her life. But she’s fifteen—what does she know about life? Fat disjointed bubbles trail out behind him, and the water’s colors drip into their darkly hued counterparts. 

      Below the rock like a ram’s head, Nick grabs a shelf and hurls himself through the black hole he found two weeks ago. As far as he knows, nobody else has found this place; they’re all busy on the other side of the lake, exploring those tunnels. Cool cave water hits his face, his chest, sweeps back his hair like wind. If his mouth weren’t filled with plastic, he would grin at the heady rush. Divelight bounces around the tube drowning the sunlight, and he turns left wondering if Macy would feel the same claustrophobia that bites at the edges of his mind but still sucks him in. 

      When Macy was little, she used to spread their parents’ big burgundy blanket on the floor, lay on one corner, and he would roll her up tight like a burrito. Cheap thrills until she couldn’t breathe; then she’d scream, pathetically airless and he’d stop sitting on her so she could unroll. But sometimes he stayed, or stuffed her under the coffee table, pretending not to hear until she went over the edge: pushing, kicking, crying. Something about her terror thrilled him. It made him powerful. Why did she like it? Keep asking? Macy rolled him once—he panicked, couldn’t get out fast enough: didn’t go in for that kind of torture. Anyway, he told her, he was too old for stupid children’s games.

      Following the white nylon guideline he anchored on the last dive, Nick ignores alternate tunnels—some are windows, others passages. He tries to remember the last several times he saw Macy with Jason. Their talking seemed so innocent at the time. He wished he’d paid better attention. Light ricochets down the tunnel, blue on its edges, shadowy in its recesses. The floor is ropy, bulbous, dirty. Under an arching ceiling, twisted hair–like structures hang mysteriously. Every kick billows sediment behind him, indefinitely suspended, hiding the distance back and concealing the entrance.

      Maybe the pictures he found in the truck weren’t even Jason’s. It didn’t make sense, for a man that age. He had reached for Diving World, in front of the gear-shift, and found himself picking up a few photos instead. Snooping wasn’t his style, but it was funny until he noticed their ages. He had almost called out to Jason, to say something snide or dirty about his whore collection. But at the same time he saw realized they were children, he noticed the hand, and that stopped him. In every photo it reached in to caress the girl, covering some part, owning it—a developing breast, a mouth, a neck. Was it Jason’s? He put the pictures back and fumbled to grab Diving World before Jason got there—now he isn’t sure. It left him with a strange sensation, as though he’d done something bad himself: participated. 

      It takes almost fifteen minutes of wobbling turns through the tunnel to reach the cavern. All the years he played at Celia’s he never dreamed this wound under his feet, masked, complex, beautiful. His divelight barely breaks the cavern’s edges. And it takes almost a full minute to cross to the other side, swim up the remnants of a hardened thirty foot lava fall, the claustrophobia leaves. Great lumps of congealed and darkened rock stick to the ceiling and lay broken on the floor. He turns to survey the room like he did last time. Even though he’s ready for it, his arms prickle.

      Layers of dust and mud and silt cling to grotesquely distended rock; they look like bones: a foot, a femur, a swollen face without eyes: interment sculptures cut from the water’s relentless flow. Nick revels in this, in being the first one here, in owning it. In only three dives he’s charted two caverns and an alternate exit on his writing slate. The darkness fascinates him. With his back turned, the grim facsimiles are almost company, almost breathing in the blackness, flesh-like, a taste of the edge between excitement and panic.

      Nick’s light catches a structure, and he returns gently to the pounded out pool at the foot of the falls, the last part of the floor to solidify. Gray lava roses boil in cadences around each other, crumpled like membranes, thick and swelling from heat-induced elephantitis. It was a mistake to stick his finger in the dust, to run it up the crease of the fat petal thinking of the space between Kristy’s legs. Clouds of silt well up and the roses disappear. Kristy would call it a sign; he thinks wryly, noting their location on his writing slate; she’d use it as an excuse to push him off at the last minute, tease him with pious claims. There’s something reverent about trapped lava, he’ll reply; she should let him reverence her.

      Contraction cracks, blades pierce through the west corner. It looks like an old in-feeding conduit now sealed from three, maybe four lava flows. The vents are still active at the bottom of the lake, creating gentle currents even in these tunnels. Sometimes he thinks there is a glint of movement at the edge of his periphery, though when he turns: no fish, no life, not even moss. Chimeric. Things only live in the lake. Here there is nothing: a hallucination-inducing waste-land.

      Glancing at his pressure, Nick finds it halfway gone: 1,500psi. He snaps back to the rope and kicks up the falls into the passage as planned. Nitrogen is no worry at this depth, but there’s one other cavern, just past the end of the guideline, leading to an alternate exit at 60 feet, an incredible find. Wait until he shares this with the diving community. Depending on how much time he spends there, he may need a safety stop on the way to the surface: decompress.

      The tunnel is narrow and pressing, like a snake skin graveyard. It’s too much rock, too much water. His chest rises and falls faster like it did last time, and he shuts his eyes: it won’t collapse, he tells himself; it’s been stable thousands of years. But he understands how a buddy could be useful, someone to help him keep his wits, preserve his sanity. Because the passage is smaller, silt forms light-reflecting clouds: blinding him, making the air heavier. He holds his right arm in front of his face, over his head to protect it. Like last time, he considers turning back, but the cave draws him in further, an irrational compulsion. 

      Jason mentioned a kick. Nick moves his legs awkwardly, frog-like, sending the force of the water behind him, instead of down into the silt and mud. It’s slower, but helps the passage clear. The walls are smooth and dimpled. Except where diverging tunnels bend off. There’s a spring on the peninsula above him, bubbling up from the ground—he’s sure there’s a vertical tube down here that leads to it; he saw one in the small cavern before, but didn’t have time to follow. Nobody needed a caving course if they could stick to their line, he thought, proud of himself. It was just one more way to make money off divers. Silt fogs the tunnel and Nick passes beneath three windows, watching the rope curve out a body length ahead, disappearing. 

      Time contracts, warps, molts in deep water, and the tunnel stretches. Nick checks his pressure and taps the gage to make sure: 900psi. Sensing company he glances back, wondering if there’s a fish or something trailing him, then chides himself for his paranoia, debating still if he should return. The tank is a little low, he spent too much time in the lava fall cavern, but it would take longer to go back than forward, and it isn’t far to the smaller cavern. Nick shakes his head to clear his thoughts, kicks a little more urgently.

      When the guideline turns up, leads through the window, he shakes his fist in triumph. Or is it relief? At last! When he laid this guideline, it didn’t seem to take nearly so long, but then, he didn’t sleep much after he took Kristy home and maybe that’s impaired his judgment. Silt wraps around his fins, moves up his legs, and engulfs his head while he holds the window opening. Of course memory distorts under pressure, but the opening looks much smaller, even hard to fit through. Ridiculous. Nick breathes a little heavier and looks back the way he came, at the wall of solid particles. The idea of swimming back through a silt-out isn’t attractive. He’d have to turn off his divelight. That thought nearly makes him panic. Get out fast, he decides, the small cavern is closer. Trust the guideline. Squeezing through the window, clouding it, he follows the guideline away from the dust, noticing that the tunnel also seems smaller. But of course that’s not true. 

      Around the third corner, the line ends, anchored neatly to the wall. Did he tie it off here? It doesn’t feel right. Nick puts his face next to the wall, the anchored end, and shuts his eyes, trying to concentrate, then focuses on the rope. It’s exactly like he left it, in a square knot, and he distinctly remembers tying a square knot. This reassures him momentarily. He’s diving tired; it’s messing with his mind. In a few minutes he’ll feel the spacious water in the second cavern and follow the sunlight out, even take a safety stop.

      But he’s not sure, so he returns to the window he came through: a pointless activity; he can’t see into the room below. Nick fingers his gage then follows the line back to the anchor and past it, in the direction of the cavern. It’s better not to change plans mid-dive. Jason always warned of that. In the clouds of dust that follow him—bubbles hover, lodge, and pop on the ceiling.

      With his empty left hand Nick traces the wall and tries to breathe more slowly, less like Frankenstein. Last time he was in this tunnel the silt was almost transparent, thin enough to see through, but he must be kicking too hard, or maybe the silt dislodged a few days ago never settled. He can sense the darkness wanting him, running its hands over his heart, squeezing. He keeps forgetting the frog kick, probably the real reason there’s too much silt—he keeps rushing, thinking it shouldn’t be so narrow. Even with the frog kick, there’s too much silt, and he’s got to stop looking behind him. It’s only making him paranoid--there’s nothing there. But Nick throws a glance behind his shoulder again, and his hand, which had been traveling along the wall, brushes nothing.

      One hard thud from his heart. He reaches for it again, but it’s not there, points his dive light where the wall should be: silt-out, nothing. He turns around, but everything is identical, blurry, formless. Reaches for it again, kicking. Nothing. Kicks. Nothing. Kicks. Nick hits a wall on the right. His breathing is way too fast. It’s getting to him. Calm down, he thinks, but he repeats it, over and over, not at all calmly: calm down, calm down, and it’s hard to stay under control. Breathe. What happened? He’s not in the cavern; there would be light from the exit into the lake. He also wouldn’t be drowning in silt, not in a cavern. Under his glove the wall is smooth and concave. He follows it . . . steady: one hand over his head, just in case, kicking slowly: he hits another blockade.

      Trapped, his mind yells—panicked. No, not trapped the ceiling has caved-out. It must have caved out last week. It’s the only thing that makes sense. But this thought only alarms him further. What if it collapses again? Comes smashing down? Nick wheezes air desperately. Dribbles of sweat gather inside his mask. He could take the mask off, clear it, but what if he made it worse? He tries to look around. What about the guideline?

      Turn back? What an idiot. What has he done? His pressure reads 500psi. Impossible: taps it—no movement. He grabs his hair and pulls his head down: it’s too much air; he’s breathing way too fast, killing himself. Idiot! How did he let it get so low? Didn’t Jason warn about this? He’s got to focus. Be smart.

Nick turns, keeps his hand planted on the wall, swims, not too fast, but his fingertips graze heavily. Find the guideline—it’s just a white nylon cord. He keeps his right hand above his head. He’s got to get somewhere he can see, but he hits another wall, a cave-out. It looks the same. It must be the same. He turned in a circle. Must have gone around the ceiling. Stop. 

      His fingers glow in the divelight, crowded by bright particles that blur with the black rock. With his hand back on the wall, he turns, a half turn and moves forward. It’s all right. Nothing is in front of him. Nothing changes. Nothing wrong, except blindness. He’s not on the ceiling anymore. The guideline will appear any second; any second. He scans for a glint of white and counts to keep his mind sane, to fill up the space: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

      In the forest they used to play hide-and-go-seek. Nick would sometimes call it hide-and-go-leak, to piss her off: 21, 22, 23, 24. Don’t drain the lizard in my game grodo, Macy said once when she found him in the middle of a leak before stalking off, but he did anyway, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, even waiting until after 100 to heighten the suspense. His mother didn’t want him turning into a hillbilly—if Macy told it was guaranteed grounding. So stupid. And she’d love nothing more than to get him in trouble, 69, 70, 71. She only caught him that once, and he felt exhilarated each time it ran down the trees into the ferns and mossy pads, like he was getting away with something, though he wasn’t sure what.

      582, 583, 584. Macy would have found him by now, unless he’d doubled back, followed her while she looked for him. 760, 761, 762. A blast: jumping out at her while she looked for him. 1294, 1295. Gotcha. Stop crying, cry baby, cry baby.

      Nick watches the floor of the tunnel curve down now, 1600, 1601, 1602, widening. The silt has cleared. It’s now obvious that he’s not going toward the guideline; he missed it. Missed it a long time ago, but the floor articulates that reality. His stomach heaves into his diaphragm, panicked until he remembers the floor sloped like this before the small cavern. His heart thuds: still on track? It looks right, maybe. He scans ahead to convince himself, checks his pressure: 400psi. How in the hell?

      Nick abandons the frog kick, kicks straight, and hurtles downward, veering. Around the next turn, it’s still not there. His depth is 65 feet now, increasing. Did the tunnel go down this far before turning up? No. Maybe. Definitely, maybe. It gets wider. There is no outside connection, glimmer of sunlight, familiarity: just dislocation.

      Benches develop on the sides, marking the edge of a second lava flow through the “Shit,” he breathes adrenaline into his exhale. It’s the wrong tunnel: 350psi. Nausea wells in his stomach, garners up his throat like lava; he pushes at it, clenching his mouthpiece, trying to stop his thoughts. He’s ten feet below the other exit—even if he could get to the guideline, he doesn’t have enough air to go back. He’s got to find the cavern. Nick stalls in his kick for one second, so close to choosing the left fork, then jerks to the right, toward where he thinks the cavern should be.

      His kicking disrupts centuries of silt, making it billow again, filling the blackness with effervescent refraction. Sweat runs around, burns his eyes: there’s a good size puddle in his mask now, running back and forth when he turns his head. The tunnel levels off at 70 feet: flat, widening more. He passes above a window, but can’t go deeper. This isn’t right. His divelight is alive, sweeping the walls, glancing off cracks, surging forward, forcing the next turn, looking. It’s too deep, he keeps thinking, as though the depth were his problem: too deep, too deep.

      Nick drags against the wall, slows down, uses it to pull himself around. His arms flail, plowing the water while he flees through the suspended particle trail. At the fork, he turns into the tunnel he should have taken minutes ago. The water clears again. He can see a darker hole. His mind processes too fast. He starts hyperventilating. Don’t, he tells himself. It will work. But his legs quiver and spasm as he kicks. 

      Entering the hole, light-headed, he curves to the left, descends straight down to a collapsed wall: 85 feet. He’s going to need a safety stop when he gets out of here. He’s still pretending he’ll get out. But there’s no time. He’ll get the bends for sure. The bends are okay. Someone can take him to a decompression chamber, fly him to one. Only needs to make it to the surface. His mechanical breathing is so loud and heavy it scares him. The reverberations hemorrhage through his ears. He turns back, swims up, re-enters the last tunnel, it’s okay, it’s okay, following curve after curve, it’s okay. He’ll make it. The tunnel narrows worm-like, contracts, descends, rises, turns another twenty minutes around to disjointed images of his fight with Macy. Serious accusations. He’s using you, he yelled. But now he’s too tired to stay ahead of the silt. 150psi: his kicking slows, it’s okay.

      Nick turns over to look at the ceiling, at the rock—he forgets its foggy and overcast outside, above the peninsula, instead imagines blue sky piercing so lovely, so bright. His lips are numb from hyperventilating; his breathing pulses, eyes burn. The last dregs. Never thought it would happen to him, doesn’t even check his pressure. Instead, he brings his slate in front of his face. Stares at it. What is he looking for? A message. His hand jerks while he writes slowly across the slate: “lost. I’m sorry. love you mom.” Nick’s eyes go wild, bulging. Out of time. Used up. Breathing is so difficult, so tight. One more rush of adrenaline pours: he rams himself into the ceiling, claws the rocks. Silt rains. But he kicks hard, ripping his gloves, digging for the sky.