Now, Lynn wanted him to stay behind with her while Chris and Brad went into the cavern.
Not a chance,
he thought.
Even if he didn't need to go in for Paula, it would take more than claustrophobia to make him remain behind with Lynn. He wanted nothing to do with her.
And he didn't want Chris and Brad to be thrown together.
Though Brad was more subtle than Lynn, he'd obviously taken a fancy to Chris. He would be very glad to have Hank stay with Lynn. Then, he'd have Chris all to himself in the dark cavern.
'Frankly,' Brad said, 'your condition might endanger the rest of us.'
'Frankly, bullshit.'
'Chris, maybe you can talk sense into him.'
Chris glanced at Hank, her brows drawn together. Then she looked at Brad. 'Hank's already talking sense. It's his decision. I'm sure he's aware of his… limits. If he thinks he can make it, he should give it a try. I want him with us.'
'So what am I supposed to do?' Lynn asked with a whine in her voice. 'Stay here all by myself?'
'Or go back to the car,' Hank suggested.
That got a quick grin from Chris.
Lynn, pursing her lips in a pout, tipped her head to one side. She folded her arms, squeezing her breasts together and lifting them. 'So I just get left out?'
'Come with us if you prefer,' Chris told her.
'Maybe I just will.'
'It's up to you,' Hank said.
'Come on with us,' Brad urged her. 'Why not?'
She nodded briskly. 'I think I'll do just that.'
Great,
Hank thought.
Shit.
'That's good,' he told her. 'You can carry the backpack. You've very accomplished at that.'
She wiggled her eyebrows, grinned, and said, 'You bet.'
While Hank and Brad had taken turns smashing through the layers of rock and concrete with the pickaxe, sledge hammer and wedge Hank had bought at the hardware store, Chris had fuelled the Coleman lantern, and lighted it. Now, crouching beside the hissing lantern, she picked up the fuel canister. She slipped it into the backpack and took out four flashlights. Putting them down, she lifted the pack and offered it to Lynn.
Lynn squirmed into the straps. Though she stretched and squirmed more than necessary, her blouse didn't open quite as much as before and she failed to expose either of her breasts entirely. When the pack was on, she modestly tightened her blouse's loose half-knot.
A corner of Chris's mouth curved up as she watched the girl. 'Aren't you going to wear your jacket?' she asked.
Lynn patted the sleeves tied at her waist. 'I have it if I need it.'
Chris glanced at Hank. She looked as if she might start laughing. 'Up to you,' she told Lynn.
'That's right. I mean, it's boiling out here. It's going to feel nice in the cavern.'
Even as she spoke, Brad was pulling his knit shirt down over his head.
'Why don't you take my shirt,' Hank told him. 'I won't need it.'
'If it fits,' Brad said.
Hank tossed it to him, and Brad put it on over his own shirt. His arms fit into the short sleeves, but he was unable to button it across his massive chest.
'Nothing a diet wouldn't cure,' Hank said.
Brad whuffed out a laugh.
Sitting down on the hillside near the cave entrance, Hank pushed his feet into the warm-up pants Chris had bought for him. As he drew them up over his shorts, he watched Chris step into her pants. She left her red shorts on. Balancing on one foot, then the other, she pulled the pants up, and her slender bare legs vanished inside the baggy garment. Instead of taking off the oversized white shirt she'd worn as a cover-up, she tucked it in. Her fingertips pinned the cuffs against her palms to keep the sleeves from climbing her arms as she slipped into the warm-up suit's jacket.
Like a kid,
Hank thought,
lust how a kid does it.
She left the front of the jacket open.
Getting to his feet, Hank put his jacket on. It clung to his sweaty skin. He pulled up the zipper, stuffed a flashlight into a side pocket, and lifted the sledge hammer.
'Are we going to take the hammer and the pick?' Brad asked. He already had the pickaxe resting on his shoulder.
'I guess just one or the other,' Hank said. 'Might as well make it easy on ourselves.'
They decided to leave the sledge hammer and wedge behind. Brad insisted on being the one to carry the pickaxe. Hank lifted the lantern by its wire handle. 'I guess we're all set,' he said, and a tremor passed through him as he turned toward the dark opening of the cave.
He entered first, on his knees and one hand, the lantern held out before him. The twin mantles glared silvery-white and produced an amazing amount of light. He saw the stream stretching out ahead of him until it was engulfed in darkness. The walls around him formed a low, narrow tunnel. Though the ceiling was several inches above his head, he felt it pressing down on him, squeezing the breath out of his lungs. His heart hammered. He gasped for air. But he kept crawling.
'You all right?' Chris's voice. Close behind him.
'Yeah,' he managed.
He heard a clank, apparently the head of the pickaxe bumping a side of the cave.
They're all behind me,
he thought.
Blocking the way out. Jesus.
A vice was tightening around his chest. He heard a ringing in his ears. He made high-pitched wheezing sounds each time he sucked air into his shrinking lungs.
A hand rubbed the calf of his right leg. Chris. 'God,' she said, 'it's really bad for you. Do you want to go back?'
'No,' he gasped.
The hand went away, and he kept crawling. Though the cave seemed to be crushing him, he could see that it was growing larger. A short distance ahead, the walls and ceiling seemed to vanish. He scurried forward, sprang to his feet, and rushed on to make room for the others to come through behind him. Then, stopping, he raised the lantern high.
The ceiling, jagged with stalactites, was probably thirty feet above him. The walls to his right and left were barely visible at the far extremes of the lantern light. Surrounded by columns and stalagmites, he felt as if he were standing in a forest of rock. The formations gleamed and glistened and cast deep shadows.
'How are you doing?' Chris asked.
He turned around and watched her stand up. The legs of her pants were wet from the knees down. She rubbed her hands on her thighs. She looked wonderful.
'Better,' he said. He was better, though he hadn't realized it until now. He still felt trapped under the weight of the hill, he still struggled to breathe, but he was no longer wheezing and his heart had slowed down somewhat. It no longer slammed inside his chest as if trying to smash through his ribcage. 'It's not… so tight,' he said.
Chris stepped closer, and he swung the lantern out of the way. She put her arms around him, pressed her cool cheek against his. And the vice on his chest loosened just a little more. He curled his free hand over the firm soft mound of her rump. Squeezed it. Then moved his hand up her back as Lynn crawled out of the tunnel's mouth.
The girl stood up and staggered toward them. Her blouse was untied. Her breasts, half covered by the hanging fabric, bobbed and swayed. They stopped moving a moment after she did. Smirking at Hank, she shook her head.
As Brad came up behind her, she fastened a button at her waist, then a second one a few inches higher.
Hank lowered the arm that was wrapped around Chris. She kissed his cheek, then turned around. Hank could still feel the warmth her body had left on him. Too quickly, the cold seeped in.
'How are you doing?' Brad asked.
'Better.'
'You sounded terrible back there.'
'Well, it's not so bad now.' But it seemed to be getting worse now that Chris was no longer holding him.
'Good.' Brad's head tipped back and swivelled. 'This is incredible,' he said. 'You realize, we're the first people to set foot in here since…'
'1923,' Lynn supplied, and looked pleased with herself.
'Man,' Brad went on. 'Just think of it. It's awe-inspiring. I've been hearing about this end of the cave all my life. To think that nobody but us… nobody… has set foot in here during all that time. Hell, my grandfather was a kid in 1923. Incredible.'
'Incredibly creepy is what it is,' Lynn said. She looked around. Her lip was curled up. 'I mean, this is where Elizabeth Mordock bit the big one.'
Chris, who'd stepped around behind Hank while the others were talking, took hold of his left hand. The lightness in his chest eased slightly. He looked at her and smiled.
He gulped a few quick breaths, then said, 'We might as well get going.'
Still kept her grip on his hand as they turned around.
'Up the middle of the stream?' Chris asked.
'The River Styx,' Lynn informed them.
Scanning the lighted area in front of him, Hank saw that the stream itself was lower than its banks and free of obstructions. All the stalagmites and columns and other rock formations, which seemed to surround him, were actually off to the sides of the narrow waterway.
'It'll be a lot easier if we stick to the stream,' he said, and began walking, Chris at his side.
'I wouldn't mind getting my feet out of the water,' Lynn said. The beam of her flashlight poked in among the cones and pillars on the high ground to the right. Hank glimpsed the far wall of the cave, probably thirty feet beyond the shore of the stream. Lynn's light swept to the other side. More of the same. 'Forget it,' she muttered.
Prefers wet feet,
Hank thought,
to climbing around in all those shadows.
Can't blame her.
'Creepy as shit,' she said.
'I'd thought you might be used to the cavern,' Brad told her.
'Yeah, right. The lighted side. Where there's for christsake a sidewalk. And where there isn't any goddamn stiff. '
'I don't think we'll run into the stiff,' Brad said. 'It's supposed to be at the bottom of a chasm.'
'Yeah, well, it's here just the same. I don't have to see it to know it's here.' She splashed up behind Hank, appeared at his side, and wrapped her fingers around his upper arm. The arm carrying the lantern.
'I need this for myself,' he said.
'Sure.' She let go, but stayed beside him.
The stream was really too narrow, Hank soon realized, for the three of them to walk side by side. Though Lynn often nudged him, he refused to give ground and force Chris over. Let Lynn be the one crowded against the bank. Maybe she'll get tired of it.
When they came to a thick truck of rock on the stream's edge, Lynn turned sideways to squeeze by. Her backpack hissed against it. Her left breast rubbed against Hank's upper arm. 'Excuse me,' she said, and edged out in front of him. The rubbing had brushed the blouse off her breast. Her nipple, jutting out like a fingertip, nearly touched the lantern's glass chimney. Hank quickly swung the lantern out of her way, though it crossed his mind that he might've let her get burnt as a lesson. Saying 'Woops,' she covered herself.
'Maybe you should stay up in front of us,' Hank said. 'Or go back with Brad.'
'Yeah,' came Brad's voice. 'I'm all alone.'
'Too bad, so sad.' Sidestepping, she grinned at Hank. Her pack hit another stalagmite. Yelping, she twisted around and flopped facedown into the water.
Chris groaned. Brad started to laugh.
Hank, pleased but worried, said, 'Are you okay?'
Gasping, 'Oh shit, shit, shit!' she pushed herself up to her hands and knees. Chris hurried forward, clutched her arm, and helped her up. 'God damn!' Lynn turned around. Hunching over and shivering, she looked down at herself and shook her head.
'Did you hurt yourself?' Chris asked.
'Yes! No.' With a whine in her voice, she added, 'Shit, I'm soaked.'
Her dark hair was matted across her forehead. Her face dripped. Her blouse was dark and clinging to her chest and belly. The front of her pants hugged her legs.
'Let me carry the backpack,' Chris offered. She held it while Lynn squirmed out of the straps.
Brad came forward and stopped beside Hank. He was still chuckling. 'Fall down go boom?' he asked.
'Eat my shorts.' She plucked the blouse away from her skin as if its touch were repulsive. Then she opened the two lower buttons and took it off.
Brad whistled.
'You don't have to watch,' she said. She used the dry back of her blouse to wipe her face, her arms, her chest and large pale breasts, her belly and sides.
Though Hank watched, the sight of her stirred no desire. She had a fine body, he couldn't deny that. But he felt embarrassed that she had stripped like this in front of Chris. He was annoyed, too. Her fooling around, acting the tease, had led to an accident that might've been serious, an accident that was delaying their progress through the cavern, postponing the moment when he would reach Paula.
'Hold this,' Lynn said, and handed her blouse to Chris. Making no attempt to cover herself, she staggered toward Hank. 'The lantern,' she muttered. Hank was holding it down at his side. He raised it as she approached with outstretched arms.
'Careful,' he warned her.
She stepped close to it, and looked as if she might hug the glowing lamp to her chest. She sighed. 'Ah. Ah, that feels good.' Her head tipped back. She shut her eyes. Her mouth hung open. She might have been standing under a shower, luxuriating in its hot spray. She took long, deep breaths. She began to rub her breasts.