A Cache of Trouble: A Cassidy Callahan Novel. Kelly Rysten

      I listened.

      “Sit down,” I said, “I think it’s bats. Just stay low. They are used to coming out of this tunnel at night so they aren’t going to be happy that it’s blocked.”

      The bats flew overhead to the end of the tunnel.

      “What are we gonna do? I don’t like bats. They give me the creeps!”

      “Hey, I’m the girl. I’m the one who’s supposed to get creeped out. The bats won’t hurt you if you just stay out of their way. And they will go away soon. This might mean it is nighttime out there, though. I wonder how the bats know it’s night if they live where it’s dark all the time.”

      After a while Trevor said that he was tired and hungry, so I located the pack and got out my stove.

      “Hey, Trevor, we’ll have a little light while the stove is on. Choose a backpacker meal from the pack.”

      I took apart the pots and the stove by feel and set it up. I felt around in the pack for the lighter, pumped up the stove and lit it. I put the lighter in my pocket so it would be easier to find next time. Trevor chose spaghetti. Not my favorite, but they all tend to taste alike after a while anyway. I rationed out just enough water to cook the spaghetti, heated it to the boiling point, and poured it in the pouch. I folded the top over to keep the steam in.

      “How do you cook the spaghetti? Doesn’t the plastic melt?”

      “It’s cooking right now. It absorbs the hot water and stays hot until it gets done. Then you just eat it.”

      I opened the pouch and stirred the spaghetti judging the doneness by the feel. I dug in my pack until I found my only fork and handed it to him.

      “Just eat it right out of the pouch. If you do that we don’t have to wash dishes. We don’t want to have to wash anything because we don’t have enough water to waste it.”

      “What about you?”

      “I’ll finish off whatever you don’t want. If I need to, I’ll cook another packet.” I wouldn’t, but let him think I would. I didn’t want him to skimp on his meals.

      Trevor ate most of the spaghetti and pronounced it on the bland side. I agreed with him. That’s what I always thought about backpacker spaghetti. Trevor left me a little spaghetti so I finished it off. Time stretched on. We ran out of things to talk about and eventually we both fell asleep. Trevor was cold as he slept so I dug out the extra clothes I had in my pack and laid them on top of him as he slept. I drifted off again.

      “Miss, miss,” Trevor said, trying to wake me without touching me. “Are they ever going to find us? It feels like we’ve been in here forever.”

      “Sure they will. We just don’t know how much of the mountain came down in the earthquake so we don’t know how much digging they have to do. They won’t just bring in a tractor to dig because they will worry about hurting us if the rocks buried us. So they are digging carefully, and careful digging takes time. I wish I had a way to tell them we’re safe in the tunnel.”

      We got bored so we played car games. We played the old suitcase game to keep us thinking.

      “I went on a trip and in my suitcase I packed an apple, beach ball, cat, dingbat, egg, frog, golf ball, headlamp… are we on I or J?”

      “J”

      “Ice cream cone and jump rope.”

      “I went on a trip and in my suitcase I packed….” It went on and on. Trevor did pretty well at it. We played I Don’t Spy because there was nothing to see. We felt more aftershocks and I prayed they didn’t knock more rocks down.

      We only ate when necessary, and I measured time by how many times we ate and slept. We’d gone through three backpacker meals, two sleep cycles and had no idea if it was day or night. The tunnel was getting pretty ripe but there was nothing we could do about it. Eat, play mind games, sleep, talk… We were on the sleep part of the routine when I was awakened by noises.

      “Hey, Trevor, I think our rescuers are close! I hear noises.”

      “Hey!” he yelled, “We’re in here! Hey!”

      I heard excited voices, more scrambling and digging.

      “Hey, Trevor, when you get out of here be sure and smile real big. You may be on TV. You can tell all your friends back home you went to California and became a TV star.”

      All those rescue vehicles within sight of the highway had surely lured in the press. It was usually a pain to work with the press hanging about, but I was willing to bet Trevor was ready for his spot in the limelight.

      “Cassidy?”

      “I hear you,” I called back.

      I started digging from our side, pulling rocks out of the way. I would have been digging all along but I wasn’t sure our food and water would hold out and I didn’t want to push it. A stab of light blinded us and we both stumbled back shielding our eyes.

      “Ouch! It hurts my eyes!” Trevor wailed. I covered his eyes with my hands so he could relax. I closed my eyes and turned away from the light. When a large enough sized hole was opened I sent Trevor through first.

      “Cover his eyes,” I called out. “He’s been in the dark too long.”

      Then I crawled out of the mine. The light hurt even with my eyes closed.

      The rush of fresh air was wonderful. I felt firm hands lift me to a standing position and guide me away from the mineshaft, then strong arms enveloped me. Rusty’s worried hug. I’d recognize that hug anywhere whether I could see or not. After burying my face in his shoulder I tried looking around, but quickly hid my eyes again. Hands patted me on the back and jubilant voices filled the air. Rusty clasped me like he’d never let go. His sleeves were rolled up and his shirt was dirty. I peeked out again and realized he’d been digging. Okay, time to tough it out. I placed my hands over my eyes and cracked my fingers. Just a little light at a time.

      “Point me at the truck.”

      It took him a while to let go but he finally turned me and I started walking, feeling with my feet just like I did in the woods when I was stalking. My toe gently hit a big rock and I felt my way around it. The ground went down and down and down some more and finally leveled off to where all the emergency trucks were parked.

      “I swear, Cassidy,” said Landon, “you’re a cat. You have nine lives or something. Let’s check you out.”

      “No, Landon, I’m fine. As soon as my eyes adjust I’ll be back to my normal self. We had food, water, nobody got squashed or cold or hot or anything. The worst thing that happened was boredom. And bats. Trevor didn’t like the bats.”

      When my eyes adjusted to the light I looked around. I picked out Kelly and Rhonda, all my search team, Lou, Schroeder, Trevor’s parents, and Paul. There were a dozen people in hard hats. I could hear Trevor off in the distance, “And there were bats in there! Real live bats!”

      I looked back at the mine. The shack was gone. The wash was gone. Part of the hill was gone. A huge section of the mountain above the mine was gone. How long had we been stuck in there?

      “Hey, Cassidy,” Victor said, a big grin on his face, “I’m glad you made it.”

      “I’m glad I sent you back for a headlamp!” I replied.

      “We didn’t know what to think when you didn’t answer your radio. It looked pretty grim there for a few days. Then we started hearing faint voices when we used a listening device. Everybody got a second wind right about then.”

      “A few days? I made a backpacker meal whenever Trevor said he was hungry but we only cooked three or four of them. We couldn’t have been in there two whole days.”

      Trevor, his parents and a flock of reporters converged on me.

      “This