Chapter.12

Lucas opened his eyes, stared up into the inky darkness...swirling shadows...he felt dizzy...a mind half hazy with sleep and fatigue...cold stone under his fingertips...

Clinging dampness...

Nathan shifted restlessly, unable to sleep...there was an obvious distance between the two. He listened to Lucas's even breathing, wondered if he was alone in that eternal blackness...

"Neither of us is going to get any sleep."

Lucas's clothing rustled as he stood. Nathan switched the flashlight on, a sullen expression marring his features.

Lucas had opened the pack, and was pulling out spare clothes, lingering over Haley's sweatshirt. Brusquely, he tossed his own shirt at Nathan, where it fell against his legs.

Under the protective shield of darkness once more, Lucas wrapped Haley's spare shirt about his shoulders, drawing his knees up against the cold.

Rescue never seemed farther away.[]

Uncomfortable hours passed. No light marked the passage of time. No sound, save an occasional distant rumble that was usually echoed by tremors.

"Hey- you awake?" Nathan's voice came out rough, unused.

"Yeah."

"I can't really sleep. It's too weird." The term 'creepy' came to mind, but it sounded kiddish and scared. Which it was.

"I know." Lucas rolled over and squinted toward the sound of his brother talking.

"How long do you think we'll be down here?"

Lucas didn't have an answer. Instead, he curled up, trying to conserve his strength. Buried his cold face in Haley's sweatshirt. He'd never noticed how the smell of mint seemed to cling to her. It had just been there, a part of Haley, like her laughter. Her wit. Things he'd been taking for granted..until lately. Until he'd found her hat in Peyton's car. Until she'd lied to him. Until she'd followed Nathan into this cavern. On an impulse, he searched her pockets, found a cool foil wrapper...

By now, he was incredibly thirsty. And Nathan, too, he imagined. The water bottle looped around his waist was buried in about four feet of rock.

Feeling silly, like some reality show survivor, Lucas carefully folded the gum in half and offered one piece to Nathan.

"I want bottled water, not half a stick of Wrigley's." But he took it, almost greedily. The remainder of Karen's sandwiches stuck like sawdust in their throats. The crumbled cookies only made them thirstier. Funny thing was, Lucas reflected, they weren't even hungry.

Spread out across the eerie cavern. Faces luminous in the too bright flashlight glare, foreign shadows playing across their features.[]

"Lucas! wake up!"

Nathan's fingers digging into his arm so hard it hurt.

The ground was shaking so, they could hardly hear what one another was shouting. Lucas jumped up, stumbled into the pack and bumped into Nathan.

"There's no way out!"

"I know!"

Trapped. They began to truly understand the feelings of smaller, weaker creatures...defenseless, totally at the mercy of something greater than themselves. Beyond human power.

The next shock drove them to their knees. Nathan crawled forward, ran into Lucas. Small pieces of the cave shattered around them.

"Ah!" Nathan tried to shield his head in his arms, so close to Lucas that he could feel the rapid pulse of his brother's heart.

The last "quake" had to be the worst, but also the shortest. Unbelievably, it only lasted for a space of about ten seconds.

Lucas, bracing his hand on the wall, drug himself to an upright position. Nathan coughed, still sprawled across the floor.

"You okay?" Lucas touched his shoulder, tentatively.

"Fine." He clambered to his feet, brushing the dust from his clothes. "Do you feel that?"

"Air." Lucas lifted his face, felt a slight breeze caress his sweaty skin.

"Come on!"

"Wait! Let's use the light."

"I dropped it."

Lucas searched the ground, inch by inch; it was frustrating, realizing the flashlight could be mere centimeters from his fingers, yet not find it.

Warm yellow broke the gloom. He sighed in relief. But how had the light gotten over there?

"Great, Nathan!"

"Where are you?"

His half brother's voice floated from behind. The light winked steadily ahead.

They came to the same conclusion simultaneously.

"Hey!"

"Hello! In here."

A jagged hole, almost a thick crack in the cavern wall. And outlined against it...

"Nathan?"

Lucas froze as Dan stepped through the opening, their haven to the outside world...

"Dad!"

Dan threw his arms about his son, holding him tight. "It feels so good to touch you." He held Nathan at arms length. "I've been so worried..."

"How did you find us? Did Peyton and Haley get out okay?"

"The girls? No, no. They're still down here. Keith and I, we used to explore this place every summer. Actually discovered a few things about the old cave we kept as our secret hiding place. The rescue team isn't exactly our pace. They put safety first."

Lucas watched the exchange silently, a familiar sadness welling up. He felt awkward and an outsider...with his own family. Which he was. He stepped back, into deeper shadows beyond the widening circle of light.

Dan's eyes narrowed as Lucas's shoe scuffed against the rocks.

"Who's there?"

"It's Lucas, Dad. We've been together practically this whole time ."

"Oh, yes. Lucas...he's down here, too."

Time enough for keeping quiet and feeling miserable. Lucas straightened and forced himself into the center of the cavern.

Dan's gaze only briefly lingered on his face; it traveled over Lucas's body, quick, impartial, taking in injuries.

"Where's Keith?"

"Oh. We split up."

"Split up?" He caught up to them, shook his head.

Dan halted, turned with an impatient gesture. "We disagreed on the route, so he went one way, I another." He pushed past Lucas, muttering under his breath.

Lucas took in the heavy knapsack, the walkie talkie looped over Dan's belt.

"Shouldn't we let him know we're alright?"

Dan cast him an angry glance. "He isn't answering. The signal disappeared, his talkie's dead."

"Dead?"

"Listen. I found you two, I'm going to get you out of here, that's about all I'm up to, at the moment. Now, either go back in there and wait for someone else to find you, or shut up and come with me. Clear enough?"

Lucas frowned. He couldn't let the matter slip. "Did-did you lose contact with him before or after the slide?"

"Before." Dan helped Nathan through the exit, jerked his chin at Lucas. "Get going."

Lucas climbed through the jagged opening, ducked into another tunnel.

"Where are we?" Nathan asked, in a hushed tone.

"Some kind of Indian diggings." Dan grunted, squeezed through and waved his light at them. "It's completely unstable. Let's get out of here while we have the chance." He pressed a thermos into his son's hands.

Nathan tilted it, drank deeply, coughed, then offered it to Lucas.

Dan watched the exchange, eyes narrowing at the apparent civility between the two.

Nathan grew uncomfortable under his father's scrutiny. He could read the words spinning through the elder man's mind.

"So, Nathan. You just going to give it all up? Handing him your life on a platter?"

Dan would intercept the growing tolerance as a sign of weakness.

"Okay." Dan tossed an energy bar at each of them.

Lucas shook his head. "I'm not going back. I'm not, I'm not leaving until I find him."

"You're coming with us and letting the rescue team do it's job."

"They might be too late. You said so yourself."

"You listen to me." Dan strode forward, took Lucas by the arm and shook him. "You're going to shut your mouth and follow."

"You think that you can ignore me my entire life, pretend I don't exist, and then suddenly start taking charge?"

"You're ---- right I can."

They faced each other, a stand off neither could win.

"Why do you care?" Lucas practically screamed. It threw them all off guard. He was shaking with rage, pent up emotions, anger from years and years of abuse.

"Why do you care?" It came out in a whisper. "You don't care about me. Keith does. I'm going to him."

Dan watched him, eyes focused, yet vacant.

Lucas twisted under his grip. Tell tale tears he valiantly held back.

"Let me go!"

"Keith isn't your father."

"Who is, then?" Lucas pulled away. "Because I think a father is the person who brings you gifts at Christmas, who tucks you in at night and who teaches you how to ride a bike and play basketball. Who talks to you about becoming a man and how to treat girls and asks you what you want to be when you grow up."

Dan shook his head. He seemed dazed.

"Because if that makes someone your father, I think mine is somewhere out there, maybe waiting for help. And I'm going to find him."

Time seemed to stand still. Dan shook his head, regained the cold, aloof manner his personality defined.

"Suit yourself. I don't know who you are, and I didn't care before, I don't think anything's changed." He cast Lucas a careless look. "Go find someone to claim you. I don't."

He draped his arm about Nathan's shoulders, turned his back to him. The light wavered down the path, Nathan glancing back, once.

And the darkness reclaimed him, literally.

Standing alone, hugging himself, the repressed tears marking a silent course down his face.

Alone. Completely. And the whispering of the caves...[]