Dark Water (Cooper M. Reid Book 1) (19 page)

When he was done, there was a hole along the side of the blockade that would allow him to slip through easily. He looked at the darkness on the other side and felt suddenly terrified. This alarmed him because despite all the crazy things he had seen in his time working for the government and travelling as an author of the paranormal, he had
never
feared the dark.

Cooper threw each of his tools through the opening and listened to them fall with a hollow thud in the darkness on the other side. He took out the water, opened it, and took a few short sips. He wanted to drink more but had no idea how long he would have to make it last.

He threw the pack on, relishing how light it was without the tools. He heard the flashlight and the other items shifting around as he slid it on, though. Knowing that the flashlight was there made him a little more comfortable about going into the cavern, but not much.

Stepping forward, he placed a hand on the partially broken barricade and tried to summon up some sort of vision. What he saw was basically a copy of the scene he had captured yesterday—a tour guide leading a few people down into a relatively creepy attraction. He looked for anything he could find about Douglass Pickman within that hazy vision, but there was nothing.

With no other excuses to delay him, Cooper carefully slid into the opening he had made for himself. He had to duck slightly and suck in his gut, but he made it.

He looked back out through the opening, into the brightening morning light, hoping he would see it again soon. Then, with a single turn of his head, the world seemed to shift drastically, as there was nothing but absolute darkness to greet him.

25

Cooper snapped on his flashlight and felt frustration sting like a slap to the face at what he saw. Roughly eight feet in front of him, there was another barricade, made of the same wood he had just busted through outside. When he approached it, though, he saw that these boards had been thrown up haphazardly, perhaps as a temporary fix until the much stronger barricade had been placed at the mouth of the cavern. There was no plywood backing here; he could even see slats of the darkness beyond through the boards.

A few hefty swings with the sledgehammer knocked the barrier down, revealing more darkness ahead. Cooper shone his flashlight forward and saw no further obstructions. What he
did
see was a straight and slightly descending passage with a rock floor that looked as if time itself had polished it to a perfectly flat surface.

The walls were rough and ragged, as was the high ceiling. Cooper glanced up and saw that the cavern allowed for at least five additional feet above his head.
That’s a relief,
he thought. While he wasn’t scared of the dark (until about two minutes ago) he did have a slight case of claustrophobia.

He looked back to his tools and wondered if he needed to take all of them just in case. He didn’t know how likely it would be that there would be more barriers along the way. Actually, he wasn’t sure
what
to expect.

He decided to drag all of the tools a little further into the cavern, just in case someone managed to discover what he had done. He supposed a runner or hiker might see the partially broken barrier at the mouth of the cavern, but what were the chances of them mentioning it to anyone at the visitor’s center or the grounds crew? He didn’t know. Honestly, it was the least of his worries.

He put the sledgehammer, axe, and crowbar on the ground after another fifty feet, in a slight bend in the cavern. He kept the shovel in his hand, mainly because it was lighter and he didn’t feel like carrying the extra weight of the sledgehammer and axe through the darkness.

Ahead of him, the passage started to decline a bit more. The flashlight beam revealed the first signs of this place once having been a tourist attraction. There were guardrails bolted into the side of the wall, descending at an angle. There were also metal steps placed strategically to make climbing down the slick cavern floor a bit safer. A small sign had been bolted to the right wall, kindly reminding passersby to
Watch Your Step!

Cooper walked down the passage, the flashlight beam etching out the cavern ahead of him. There were more stairs, descending down beyond the light’s reach. To the sides of the stairs and installed along the lower portions of wall beneath the railings, Cooper could see small lights in the shape of black metal boxes. The protective lenses pointed directly up towards the ceiling, casting up nothing more than dust.

He felt like a ghost that was haunting a location the world had forgotten. The silence within the cavern walls was eerie. Even the soft shuffling sound of his footsteps on the stairs seemed muffled, as if the cavern walls were absorbing it.

He made it to the bottom of the stairs, where the passage leveled out once again. Here, the floor was a bit rougher than before but the cavern opened up a bit more. The rails stopped, allowing about five feet of open space in each direction. Cooper traced the walls with the flashlight and saw where bored tourists had taken the time to carve their initials into the wall with pens or coins.

With each step he took forward, the passage seemed to grow wider—so wide that it didn’t seem like an actual passage anymore, but a small kiva. After another fifty feet, he found himself standing in an area that was large enough to be considered a chamber. There were more guardrails bolted into the floor along the right edge. Signs along the bottom of the rails read:
Keep Your Children Close!

The thought of kids being here in this dank dark place was unnerving. Cooper found himself constantly moving the path of the flashlight, as it seemed incredibly thin and almost insignificant when he focused it on a single spot. The darkness down here was impenetrable and had a thick feel to it.

The silence of the place once again snuck up on him. He felt like he was in some weird primitive isolation chamber. The only thing that broke this sensation was the sight of the metal rails to the left. Cooper walked in that direction and shone the light over one of the guardrails. He saw a drop-off on the other side that he estimated went down roughly ten feet, although the darkness made it impossible to tell for sure. There were traces of water down there, just enough to make the surface of the floor glimmer and shine in the flashlight beam.

He turned the flashlight to the right and saw more of the same. The guardrails gradually started angling to the right as the chamber started to grow narrow, but Cooper could see where the drop-off wound behind a massive outcropping of rock that merged with the cavern wall.

The ocean is that way,
he thought.

That made him realize for the first time that the campgrounds were over his head. If he could manage to continue walking along that drop-off in a search for the water source, he assumed he’d end up walking beneath the roads and, eventually, the beach.

It would be a long walk, but that was where he needed to go. With the flashlight in one hand and the shovel in the other, draped over his shoulder, he carried on into the darkness.

Another one hundred feet or so brought him to a severe shift in the terrain. The large chamber took a harsh right turn and started to grow narrow again. In the beam of the flashlight, it appeared as if the darkness was actually eating the open space of the chamber. It was a dizzying effect that Cooper had to close his eyes against to steady himself.

When he regained his sense of balance, Cooper followed the narrowing chamber into another passage similar to the one near the mouth of the cavern. This one was mostly straight and required no stairs. He came to a curve in the wall as the cavern bended to the left and saw a copper-colored sign that had been placed along the wall. It resembled one of the historical markers up on the trails, but had a more rustic look to it.

Cooper approached it and pointed the flashlight at it. A brief historical account had been engraved into it, reading:

When locals came into the cavern searching for Douglass Pickman, they found two coins, a bandana, and a significant amount of blood at this location. There is no way to tell if any of this belonged to Pickman or his daughter, but local legends claim that the blood was still wet.

“Cheerful,” Cooper said.

His own voice came back to him in what seemed like a thousand whispers. He promptly shut his mouth and vowed to never speak in these dammed caverns again.

He left the marker behind and carried on. The passage ended a few yards ahead, emptying into another kiva-like area. There were two passages to choose from and he selected the one that had a series of steps directly at the opening. The stairs were incredibly necessary, as the passage went up at a harsh angle and then went instantly down. This passage curved almost the entire way down and, again, came to a large chamber.

Cooper didn’t know how far he had walked or how far under the earth he was. He estimated that he had been walking for maybe thirty minutes. He assumed that was pretty accurate; he didn’t see how any sort of tour guide in their right minds would allow a cavern tour to go on any farther.

As if the darkness had read his mind, it revealed a sign against the far cavern wall. It was the only feature Cooper could see. He saw no further passages to take. The caverns had simply dead-ended.

Before he’d allow himself to feel defeated, he shone his light on the sign at the far end of the tunnel. It was just as brief as the one that had come before. In Cooper’s opinion, he imagined that this tour had likely not been very much fun, unless you enjoyed creeping around in the bowels of the earth—which he did not.

This sign read:

Only a few locals made it beyond this point in their search for Douglass Pickman. Those that searched beyond this chamber were never seen again. It is assumed that they either had a confrontation with Pickman or that the passages beyond were incredibly treacherous and they became trapped.

The sign insinuated that there
were
passages beyond this chamber, but Cooper sure as hell didn’t see any. He slowly traced the flashlight around the room, already furious that he had come all the way down here for nothing.

But then he saw a slight crease in the wall to his left. It was about four feet off of the ground and seemed to create a dip in the rock wall. Cooper trained the flashlight further up and saw that the wall angled back away from the chamber, creating something of a walkway near the ceiling.

Cooper walked towards the area where the slight angle in the wall started and placed the flashlight there. It rolled back a bit and then stopped. He did the same with the shovel and found that there was just enough space on the ledge to hold it. Cooper then reached up and placed his hands on the ledge, pulling himself up.

With the use of his feet, it wasn’t too hard of a climb. There was not enough space on the ledge to properly balance himself, so he had to lean forward against the angled wall. Even then, the heels of his shoes were dangling out over the open air. The walkway he had seen from the floor was about two feet over his head and to the right. He could easily get there by spider-walking across the ledge he was currently on.

He reached down very carefully and retrieved his flashlight. It took a bit more effort to get a grip on the shovel without falling back down to the chamber floor, but he managed to pull it off. With each hand filled, he scaled across the ledge. He let out a sigh of relief when it widened after a few steps, making enough room for the entire length of his feet.

After that, getting to the other ledge was simple. He threw the flashlight and shovel up onto it and then pulled himself up. It took only the smallest amount of balance and when he stood up, his head was nearly touching the chamber ceiling. He looked down and realized that if he fell, he’d likely break his neck. It was probably a ten foot drop onto a solid sheet of rock.

Cooper aimed the flashlight ahead and saw that the makeshift walkway widened out and led into a small opening in the cavern wall up ahead. Cooper cringed when he realized that he was going to have to duck down and crawl in order to get through it.

He allowed himself enough time to take another gulp of his water before continuing on. He walked along the top portion of the cavern wall, thankful at least that this ledge was about three feet wide and bordered by the wall to his left.

He approached the small opening and crouched down. The flashlight revealed only blackness ahead.

Cooper slid the shovel inside ahead of him and felt no immediate obstructions; apparently, this this passage was straight. Had it been angled upwards, he had no idea how he’d manage to crawl up it.

With a sigh, he pointed the flashlight ahead and started crawling.

26

He was relieved almost immediately when the small passageway not only began to angle downwards, but started to drastically open up in height and width. It took less than five minutes of crawling before he was able to rise up and amble along in a hunched position. Quickly after that, he was able to stand.

The sense of isolation along this passage was a complete one; he no longer had the railings or historical markers to break the illusion. He didn’t know when he had last felt this alone. He tried recalling the memory he had
almost
glimpsed on the beach last night, assuming that wherever he had been during his disappearance, he’d probably been just as alone.

He paused for a moment, taking his phone out of the backpack. Its glow in the cavern was like some weird cosmic light, beaming down to suck him up into another world. The clock on it read 7:12. He’d been in the caverns for a little over an hour now.

The current passage he was walking down was much longer than any of the ones he had passed through along the Pickman’s Caverns tour. It seemed to wind on endlessly, not breaking a single time to allow for more tunnels, but opening to chamber length and then narrowing again on numerous occasions.