Part 24

I study the miniature version of us for what feels like an hour while Mary taps her foot.

“What are we waiting-“ She begins to ask, but I grab ahold of both her and Benny’s arms and yank on them, dragging them with me through the moving rocks, not stopping once until a curved wall stands before us, despite Freak Bean’s high pitched scream.  Hugging this outer wall, I glare at Benny, who shrugs in apology. 

I look to the left and then to the right but do not see an opening leading out of the chamber.  “So, which way?”  I turn my head toward Mary and ask. 

 “Are you crazy?”  Benny finally shouts, drowning out Mary’s response.

I look over Mary’s shoulder to where he now stands, huddled tightly against the wall, and say, “We were safe,” and it is my turn to shrug. 

“But how did you…?”

“If you would like to go back, I can show you,”  I offer but he shakes his head slightly.

“Didn’t think so.  Ok, which way?”

Mary looks in both directions and then points over my shoulder.

I pull a red marker from my pocket and try to make a mark upon the dark wall, but the color is not visible against the almost black concrete. 

“Here,” Benny says, reaching into a pocket and producing a white piece of chalk. As he extends his arm out to me, it comes in line with one of the passing rocks and gets clipped, the chalk launching from his grasp and curses flying from his mouth. 

I take a deep breath and jump around Mary after the car sized rock passes us by again.  “That’s going to be a nasty bruise,”  I say, looking at his elbow which has already begun to swell.  “I don’t think it’s broken though,”  I say, trying to be reassuring.

He cradles his arm against his chest, but moves closer as Mary crowds in behind me and hands me the chalk that she has managed to retrieve.

I use it to draw an arrow in the direction we are heading on the wall and then, waiting again for the massive rock to pass by, I resume my position in the lead and start along, keeping the wall at my right.  The car sized rock passes by us twice more, and we flatten ourselves against the wall each time it approaches, before we find an opening.

“This has to be the tunnel we came in,”  Benny says as I approach it.  I poke my head into the hole and have to agree. 

“This looks exactly the same,”  I say, watching the pebbles bounce across the floor.  I use the chalk and write the word ‘entrance’ beside the opening.  “You want to lead or do we need to swap?”  I ask Benny as we suck in our stomachs again to avoid the passing stone. 

“I’ll go first,”  He offers and begins to scoot along the wall, wincing every time his hurt arm brushes the concrete. 

One.  Two.  Three times I count the rock pass us before we get to the point where our arrow is drawn on the wall.  Benny waits for the large stone to pass us again and then turns to face us.

“What now?”  He asks and Mary answers before I can.

“Keep going, and mind the big rocks.”

Benny does just this and the rock passes us another four times.  I start to count the time between its passes when Mary blurts out “There,” and points at an opening a little further around the bend of the circular room. 

We continue our shuffle and, by the shaking of Freak Bean’s head, I know what I’m looking at before
I am even standing in the opening.  ‘Entrance,’ in my handwriting, is written in the same spot I had written it.

“Okay,”  Benny starts, and Mary cuts him off.

“I know, I know.  What now?”  She says with a hint of sarcasm before turning to me.  “What are we looking for next?”

I recite the lines in my head, but there is nothing beyond ‘through the walking rocks’ that I can recall about this part of the ordeal.  I begin to look around the small tunnel we are in, holding my sphere aloft as I get to its opposite end.  I inspect the wall closer, rubbing it with a corner of my long coat. 

“What is it?”  Mary asks, approaching.

“It says ‘Exit,”  I say, pointing to the familiar looking word.  I am pulling the chalk from my pocket when Benny draws the connection for me.

“That looks like-“  He runs back to where I had marked the passage earlier and calls back, “Yeah, did you write that?”

“Don’t think so,”  I say, but I go ahead and spell the word out below the original.

“You sure?”  Mary asks, looking at the two identical markings on the wall.

“I swear.”

Mary nods, “I believe you.  This has been weird enough already though.  What’s through there?”  She points past me.

I shrug, and pocket the chalk, peering past the illumination from my sphere, but seeing nothing, not even outlines in the dark beyond.  I extend my arm further, trying to force the shadows to retreat but am blinded by a bright flash of light.  I am still rubbing my eyes when I hear Benny.

“What was that?  Oh.  Oh, um guys?”

“What’s going on Benny,”  Mary asks from somewhere to my left.

“Did you guys see that?”  I ask as I finally am able to make out shapes again.

“Look out,”  Mary yells as she yanks me back into hallway, the Volkswagon sized rock careening through the space I had moments before occupied.

I stare blankly at the walking rocks, the word ‘Entrance’ written in chalk at my left.  “Benny, please tell me the word exit is down there now.”

“How’d you know?”  He asks, still standing where I had previously written the word ‘Entrance’ upon the wall.  “Um guys?”

Mary and I begin to prompt him for more information but the cavern beyond him has begun to glow red, casting a fire-like glow upon him, and everything else.

“The devil’s rib cage?”  Mary asks.

I shrug, “Only one way to find out.”