Gunther's Cavern

By Edward Etzkorn

Crazy wishes don't come true—do they? And if they do, might you later wish they didn't?
Almost 16, Gunther finds life on the edge of the Catskill Mountains to be beyond boring. If only a replica of Coney Island's Cyclone would appear overnight behind his house, or a cave would open up in the far reaches of his family's run-down farm, his life would be so much more interesting.
But a cave does open up, and the entrance caves in after he and his younger sister June have entered. Traversing the cave looking for another way out, they find that the cave is populated by tardigrades that have evolved over many centuries from 1.5mm microscopic specimens to four-foot high, intelligent creatures. They find, too, that the tardigrades have captured a dozen fellow high-school students who have unknowingly wandered into their cave via another entrance.
Even while the young humans, led by Gunther and Hood—formerly one of Gunther's least-favorite classmates—attempt to maintain peaceful communication with their captors, they work on a method of escape. To escape, they must not only evade the tardigrade army, but deal with the team of giant insects that guard the exit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781543944808

Book preview

PROLOGUE

No one in New Calar could remember a worse day than the second Tuesday of July. Even the town’s self-appointed historian, Octavius Palestro, could not identify a more evil day.

On the second Tuesday of July, eleven of the town’s children disappeared.

They disappeared without a trace. In the morning, they awoke as usual. Those who ate breakfast ate breakfast. The one who attended daily Mass at St. Rose’s Church attended Mass at St. Rose’s Church. The two who saw their younger brothers or sisters off to daycare so their parents could work saw their younger brothers or sisters off to daycare. The three who helped milk the cows or feed the chickens helped milk the cows or feed the chickens. The six who text-messaged each other via cell phone text-messaged each other via cell phone.

By lunch time, they had disappeared.

None had been seen nor heard from since.

Eleven children lost from Calcutta or rural Sudan might have gone unnoticed by the outside world. Eleven children lost from an upstate New York farming community of four hundred, on the other hand, constituted a significant percentage of the town’s future.

When pressed by the news media, several mothers recalled that their children had arisen earlier than usual that day, and had seemed more excited. Since this was summer, however, with more exciting events than school to awaken to, the mothers had paid little attention.

Some of the parents thought their children had seemed a bit evasive when asked questions about their upcoming day—or about the day before. But this, too, had a ready explanation. Parents of teenagers fast grew accustomed to mysterious actions on the part of their children.

One of the fathers swore he’d heard a whop-whop sound over his house that morning, similar to the sound of helicopters landing when he’d served during the Gulf War.

One of the mothers found a 3-foot circle on her front lawn where the grass had been flattened as if stirred by a giant fan.

A team of mothers, led by a woman named Cathy Sheffield, had convinced themselves and a few townsfolk that their children had been abducted by aliens.

Several of the fathers feared their children had been seized for child labor in a distant country. One of them had read that such kidnappings occurred on a regular basis, but were concealed by the media.

Law officers and FBI felt certain the children had suffered from depression, or had grown bored with their lives and run away together.

Regardless of the explanations—or lack of them—the fact remained that eleven children from a backwater community at the edge of the Catskill Mountains had disappeared. And like communities everywhere—in Calcutta, or rural Sudan, in the richest and poorest communities on Earth—their mothers and fathers, relatives and friends mourned their loss and looked for an explanation. Since no bodies turned up, an undercurrent of hope remained—hope that the children still lived, hope that they could yet be found and the families’ lives return to what they had been before.

CHAPTER 1

Gunther read newspapers as he read e-books—fast, glossing over repetitive paragraphs, gleaning the meaning of new words without looking them up. A few weeks short of sixteen, he found twists and turns in World of Warcraft far more cogent than the toppling of a government in one of the former Soviet Socialist republics. Local gossip ranked right up there in importance with his mom’s lentil and okra recipes.

Regardless of his usual cares and concerns, he felt the pain as much as anyone else in the community when he realized that the two older boys he knew from school and looked up to as role models had disappeared with the nine younger ones. Serge and Giles, alone among the kids he knew, had befriended him and defended him against the kids who tormented him and made his locker-room existence a misery.

As a bird flies, New Calar lay at least fifteen miles from his house, twenty miles and 35 minutes by road. He’d never visited Serge’s or Giles’s homes, nor had he considered any of the New Calar kids his friends—unless, perhaps, he counted the two girls he’d thought about asking out but never had the nerve. In any case, the kids’ disappearance soaked his brain like a spreading grease stain on the cafeteria floor.

Especially its suddenness. Even on the last day of school before summer vacation he’d had to withstand the taunting of the kids in the hallways. He’d been grateful he would not have to see them again for over two months. And then a few weeks later, less than a week after Independence Day, his dad announced the grim report—a search was under way for eleven kids from the New Calar-Ventnor-Turtle Ridge Regional School who had disappeared.

One day those kids had controlled the corridors of his world—shouting, punching, and pinching the smaller kids, humiliating those—like him—who were different. The next day those kids were gone. They had disappeared.

Just flat-out disappeared.

CHAPTER 2

One day the hole was not there, the next day it was. One day the stream flowed as usual, seeping over mossy dams where it arose from the spring, tripping over rocks, cutting channels in the mud alongside its banks. The next day a hole had opened up just behind the twenty-foot rock overlooking the stream, the rock that Gunther sat on when he came to watch the fish and frogs and pollywogs. Although the hole measured only two inches in diameter, the ground around it had collapsed inward ever so slightly, causing the rock to shift an inch or two.

Or perhaps his imagination was deceiving him. Holes didn’t open up behind giant rocks—did they? Rocks this size didn’t move while the rest of the earth stood still. Or did they?

He surveyed his rock from every conceivable angle—from the woods behind it, from the spring, from farther downstream—but no matter the vantage point, he could have sworn the rock had moved.

Gunther had often suspected something unusual about Dommel Stream, the creek—crick in the local parlance—that ran through the far reaches of his family’s hundred acres. The crick arose in a marshy area among reeds and cattails on the far side of the hill behind his house, perhaps a quarter-mile back. From there, it oozed over rocks and mud before emerging as a full-fledged stream that ran across the width of the property. Gunther had never followed the crick to its far reaches, but he assumed it ran into the larger stream that paralleled the front of his house, which in turn emptied into Batavia Kill just before the village of Turtle Ridge. Frogs and salamanders in all stages of development thrived in Dommel’s grasses, and Gunther kept a log as he watched the tadpoles emerge from the green ooze of frog eggs near the spring and develop into pollywogs and then full-grown frogs before winter set in and buried the crick in ice. Next spring the frogs dug their way out of the newly-thawed mud by the hundreds. For years Gunther had wondered whether the entire group survived the winter, or if some fraction perished during hibernation. He’d once considered banding a few to track their progress, as his weird friend Kelila banded her baby pigeons, but he’d never figured out how to band an inch-long pollywog and find it again the next spring.

The discovery that convinced Gunther that Dommel Stream could not be classified a normal stream was the appearance of a crayfish in the marsh this past spring with the frogs. He’d never seen a crayfish in his stream before. In fact, he’d never seen a crayfish in his life, except in the bay down near Ocean City, Maryland, where his parents had taken him and his younger sister June to visit their cousins Jake and Mina. Watching the army of crayfish had been his happiest memory of that trip.

Those crayfish had been orange and lively—if any crayfish on earth could be considered lively. They’d had eyes that projected on stalks from their bodies. They’d crawled around slowly but surely on their odd appendages that people called legs.

By contrast, the crayfish he found in Dommel was a sickly white, and did not possess eye stalks. And, to borrow from Charles Dickens, it was dead as a doornail. Dead as Jacob Marley’s Ghost. He christened it Jake, in honor both of Jacob Marley and his Wii-addicted cousin.

A month later he found a five-inch long fish floating in the marsh. It, too, was a sickly white, and possessed no eyes. It, too, was dead. He named it Mina.

All his life Gunther had imagined discovering a cavern in his backyard. He’d also imagined amusement parks sprouting outside his window while he slept, a tooth fairy who looked like Mary Poppins depositing a hundred-dollar bill under his pillow, and awakening one morning to discover he could fly. Other than his difficulty relating to his peer group, however, he had few complaints about his life. His parents were congenial and fair-minded—if a bit odd—and he could not have asked for a better sister. Of average height for his age, with his parents’ dark hair and his father’s light complexion, it had never occurred to him to worry about his looks. The need for sunscreen was a perennial nuisance, and the occasional pimple a royal bother, but overall he had more important things to worry about.

By the time he arrived home the afternoon he discovered the hole, Gunther had convinced himself the hole must have existed all along, and he simply never noticed it before. Likewise the position of the rock—the rock must have sat in that same position for a hundred thousand years, or since the Catskill Mountains had been formed. No doubt the hole represented nothing more than a depression in the ground created by the roots of cattails growing near the surface. Still, for the remainder of the evening he debated telling June what he’d found, only to remind himself once again that he was letting his imagination run rampant and that awakening the next morning to find the rock had moved was as likely as awakening to see a replica of Coney Island’s Cyclone roaring in his backyard.

The next morning he caught June eyeing him as if he’d sprouted a second head.  As always, he could not hide his moods from her.

What? she asked him the moment their parents had closed the porch door to leave for work.

June, I’m sure it’s nothing.

But he could not stop his fingers from tapping the tabletop as he watched her move the dishes from kitchen table to sink. Today was her day to wash the dishes, his to vacuum the floors.

You’ve got to come with me this morning. There’s something funny going on by the spring.

She jumped with excitement. A dish slipped from her fingers and shattered in the sink. Another crayfish? she gasped.

Maybe more than that. Against his will, the words came tumbling out. There’s a hole by our rock, and the rock’s shifted, and … I know it sounds crazy, but I really think there’s a new Howe Caverns in our back yard.

She swiped her hands with a dishtowel. Let’s go. Dishes aren’t going anywhere.

Neither is the dust on the rugs.

They ran nearly all the way to the top of the back hill, bending and twisting between the saplings that now grew where once Holsteins had grazed. Then down the hill, following the well-worn path through the underbrush.

I’ve definitely decided to be a dancer when I grow up, June announced as they approached the marsh. She performed a few kicks to demonstrate. Only I’ll have to figure out how to budget my time between my husband and my kids. I want to be close by my kids so I can be involved with them every step of the way as they grow up. There’ll be two of them, a boy and a girl, and I’ll choreograph their first dance act.

Gunther smiled the smile of a kindly older brother, the same smile he’d seen on the faces of his parents and grandparents when June had told them of her plans. For an instant he thought he saw her as they did—a cute 14-year old with brown eyes, brown hair and ponytail, with a complexion darker than his—more like their mom’s. With a lively brain and a lithe body that was still awaiting its growth spurt.

Become a dancer first, then worry about a husband, then worry about having kids and being a classroom mom. Maybe you should take dance lessons before you decide to become a dancer.

I took dance lessons already. And when Mom and Dad have a little more money, I’ll take them again.

Gunther clamped his mouth shut to be sure it would not speak the next several thoughts that popped into his mind. Of course, he said at length.

Thoughts of June’s future evaporated at the sight of his rock. A gasp drew his lungs open like shutters blown open by a gust of wind. He no longer needed June’s or anyone else’s confirmation to verify that the rock had shifted. Not only had it shifted several inches closer to the stream, the hole behind it had expanded. The hole had doubled in size, to perhaps four or five inches. Unlike the ferns that grew nearby, the grasses at its edge waved ever so slightly. The hole was breathing.

June emitted a squeal at the sight of the rock. Gunth, it’s … she spurted.

… breathing, he finished for her.

Don’t be silly, she returned. Holes don’t breathe.

She squatted beside the hole and stuck her hand in. And then her whole arm. Then pulled her arm back and jumped up, as if the hole had meant to suck her in. Gunth … she said. Holy …

Don’t say it.

Holy …

June!

Christmas.

I told you not to. But he had squatted on the side of the hole opposite her, and stuck his own hand in. Not only was the hole breathing in and out, it was trying to suck him in. Gunther knew at once what this meant. The hole had another entrance—or exit, depending on your point of reference. The other entrance could be close-by or far away. It could be on the opposite shore of the stream. It could be six or seven miles away on the other side of Richmond Mountain. Or it could be fifteen miles away, as far as New Calar.

Gunther, stop. We should tell Dad or Mom first. We shouldn’t be doing this.

I know. We shouldn’t.

But even as he spoke, he let his arm roam deeper into the hole—wrist, then forearm, then elbow and upper arm. Excitement would not let him control his own movements. He waved his arm around, first in a clockwise circle, then counterclockwise.

He rotated it around again to be sure. His hand met no resistance.

This was no mere hole. This hole opened up into something much deeper.

He could think of no other explanation. The first of his absurd dreams had come true. He’d discovered a cavern in his backyard.

CHAPTER 3

With a rock shaped like a spatula, Gunther dug around the hole’s edges. The mud and stones fell away at once, plummeting to some unknown depths. Within ten minutes, he’d dug an opening wide enough to wriggle through. When he stuck his head in the opening, he could see nothing. A stale smell assailed his nostrils. The cold air gave him a sense of airiness, a sense that whatever space his head occupied, it did not end a mere meter or two away.

June’s voice oozed anxiety. Gunther …

It’s definitely a cave, he called back, his head still underground. But I can’t see a thing.

Oh, Gunther …

He did not need to look at her to know she was wringing her hands.

Hallo-o-o-! he called into the void.

The greeting repeated itself over and over, as if his message were being repeated a dozen times along a telegraph line that led from upstate New York to the prairie states of the Midwest and across the Rockies to the west coast.

June’s voice emerged from above as firm as Mom’s when she stood with her arms folded. Like Mom’s, June’s hips would be tilted to one side—firm, yet ready to yield. Gunth, we’ve got to tell Dad and Mom first.

Gunther popped his head back into the air. His head felt as if it could float away. We will. But not just yet. He thought fast. We need our caving gear.

She wrung her hands. Gunth, you know we don’t have everything we need.

Leaping to his feet, he grabbed her by the shoulders. "June, we’ve got everything we need today. Today’s just a quick look-see. Tomorrow might be different. If that’s the case, we can get Jimmy B to drive us to Zeke’s store and pick up whatever we’re missing."

She huffed and frowned as Mom would have done, pawed the earth with her feet like a nervous pony. Gunth, it’s too dangerous. You know that. We can’t …

He wanted to scream. He wanted to jump up and down. He wanted to lap up the dirt with his tongue, and dive into this new world that lay just inches below his feet. All at once, he had become the child and June the force of reason.

Containing his urge with a maximum effort, he grabbed her shoulders tighter. He felt each word trip off his tongue. "June! It’s o-kay! We’ll just pop inside and take a look around. We’ll have our caving gear on. If the cave goes deeper than a few feet, we’ll come right back out and tell Dad and Mom. Or Jimmy B. There’s no harm in just looking, is there?"

Oh, Gunth. Maybe. I don’t know.

He could not mistake the excitement in her voice. His inner devil smiled. She had yielded. She wanted this as much as he did.

CHAPTER 4

Gunther already owned a substantial collection of caving gear, most of it purchased on eBay at far below its usual cost, with a few items purchased from Zeke’s caving shop in Catskill. With only a minuscule income from performing odd jobs, Gunther had learned to be shrewd with his purchases. His parents had never voiced objections. Amateur cavers themselves, they figured he would never, ever just happen to find a cavern, and any established cave he wished to visit required transportation from one of them. Over the past few months, he’d had to redirect his mom’s thoughts on several occasions when she’d voiced concern that once he got his driver’s license this summer he could drive to places of his own choosing when she and his dad were at work.

Whenever possible, he’d purchased his items in twos—one for him and one for June. He did not need to consult his inventory list to know what items he was lacking. He’d kept June up to date on his purchases, and now hoped she would not remember which things he still needed. Like Mom, she would refuse to enter an unknown area if even one item was missing. He could simply not wait another day to dive into his new-found hole.

To his relief, June left him alone back at the house while she hunted down her own personal items from her closet and from under her bed. Alone in his room, he pulled his backpack down from the middle shelf of his bookcase and dumped it out on his bed. Beside the contents of his backpack he dumped the contents of the canvas bag of equipment that he kept on the floor. Within two minutes he’d segregated the future items from the immediate essentials. Jacket, boots, knife, and headlamp—plus a few extra batteries—went into the pack, while rope, carabiners, ascenders, and canteen went into the canvas bag. The extra rope, the miniature flashlights, and the long-expired food items—nutrition bars, unopened peanut butter and jelly jars, and a bag of sloppy joe mix—he returned to the shelf. No need to carry extra weight. Today was just a look-see.

He grabbed his helmet from the corner and fingered the crack on the top of it—not bad enough to keep him from going underground. Perhaps a piece of duct tape to hide the crack from June …

A little spit, a rub with a Kleenex, and a couple of pieces of duct tape, applied so that it looked like an I, made the helmet look almost new. Gunther turned it over in his hands, pleased with his handiwork. Now let’s hope she’ll forget about the sewing kit, her knife, and the fresh batteries that he kept promising to buy and always forgot.

June met him in the hallway, her pack slung over her back. Ready, Gunth.

Me, too.

How bad’s your helmet?

Gunther blinked with feigned innocence. My helmet?

Yes, you know—it’s cracked. Remember?

Darn these women. He offered her his helmet. Looks okay to me.

Stopping just shy of the staircase, she took it from him and held it up in the light from the window in Mom and Dad’s room. Gunth, you know this won’t do. If you bash your head …

I won’t bash my head. And anyway—today’s just a look-see. Remember? We’re not going far inside.

She sighed as she handed it back to him. The gleam of excitement in her eyes told him he was reprieved—for now. I guess it’ll pass for a look-see.

She flew down the stairs, stopping so fast at the bottom he nearly ran into her.

You know I don’t have a decent knife, and we don’t have a sewing kit, and the batteries are expired …

Just a look-see, he reminded her. "If