Waypoint: Cache Quest Oregon (12 page)

“Okay, I’m sending a car, but after this we will have to seriously talk about your upcoming contracts, I don’t know if I can have such a liability under my employment. So where are you?” He demanded. Blue Van Man gave him the location, and then hung up his phone. He had to catch up with those kids, before it was too late.

Lacey picked up the green cell phone and dialed her sister’s phone number. Ben’s mom answered immediately, she had been waiting by the phone in case of an emergency.

“Hey sis, we are almost there, will you come? I can give you directions. We are being followed and we think this guy wants to steal the money from us once we find it.” Lacey rambled.

“Yeah, let me get a pen, when do you think you’ll be there?”

“Within two hours, it’s at the Oregon Caves, ya know, over by Cave junction.” Lacey sighed deeply; she wanted this trip to be over so badly.

“Okay, we’ll start heading that way, should I call the police?” Ben’s mom asked.

“They didn’t do anything last time, so I wouldn’t; I think we just need to have enough people to scare this guy off.”

“Okay, well I’ll get everyone ready and we’ll see you over there. Be careful Lacey.” She pleaded.

“No worries, we’ll be just fine, just be there, okay.” Lacey said.

“Yep. We’ll be there.” Ben’s mom wrote down the instructions. She then picked up her phone and dialed the number off the business card that she received from the Cocoaliscious Cereal man.

“This is Stan.” The man answered.

“Oh yes, this is Stephanie Conner, I just wanted to let you know that Ben and Lacey are about two hours away from the Oregon Caves.”

“Yes, I know I was just going to contact you Mrs. Conner. So will your family be there?”

“We are on our way as soon as I get off the phone.” She smiled; the excitement was building through her entire body.

“See you there Mrs. Conner.” Stan Berton hung up his phone, this would be one of the biggest publicity stunts ever, he began thinking of all the revenue this treasure hunt was going to rake in for his company. He smiled brightly, collected his wallet and cell phone then walked out of his office and announced to everyone that he was on his way to deliver the grand prize.

17

B
en looked around the empty parking lot of the Oregon Caves National Monument, “I thought you said Mom was coming.”

“She said she would be here, maybe they’re just running late.” Lacey looked at her watch; they would soon run out of daylight. “Well let’s go to the location, grab the prize then we can wait for them here at the car.” Lacey scanned the parking lot area, then looked as far as she could in the distance to see if Blue Van Man was anywhere in sight. When she saw nothing her heart slowed down a bit, they were safe for now.

Ben pulled out the cell phone and pushed the GPS button. An aerial photo came on the screen showing their exact location. The screen was also indicating that the prize was only six hundred feet away. They both smiled, and then headed in that direction.

The ground was covered in rock and shrubs. The air was moist and a small breeze blew pine needles around Lacey and Ben as they approached the spot indicated on the screen of the cell phone. They reached the exact spot and looked around, there was nothing. Just rock and moss blanketing the ground, they began to dig, lifting rocks and pushing them to the side, still they found nothing.

“Do you think Blue Van Man got to it before we did?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know, this just doesn’t make sense. Can I see the cell phone?” She reached toward Ben. He handed her the phone and continued to kick rocks in frustration.

“I don’t get it; we are right where it is supposed to be.” She pushed a button and the aerial photo disappeared; now only the coordinates were on the screen, but there was one other number that didn’t make sense. “Hey what do you think about this number?” She showed it to Ben. Next to the longitude and latitude coordinates was the number -
200’.

“I have no clue, but it isn’t here.” Ben said, with an almost angry tone. Then his face brightened, “Hey wait, duh! We’re at the Oregon Caves!” Ben started walking back to the car.

“Wait up.” Lacey said as she jogged over to Ben. “Yeah, okay, why does that matter?” She paused, “Oh do you think it is in a cave? Yeah that makes sense, negative two hundred feet! So the prize is two hundred feet under the surface.” She looked at Ben; her face had taken on a fearful expression. “Ben I don’t do caves, I can’t go underground like that.”

“Just think, this is our last one, it won’t be too bad…please Aunt Lacey, please!” Ben begged.

“Okay but we need flashlights, and what if there are bats?”

“Well, we’ll just be really quiet so that we won’t wake them.” Ben tried to calm his Aunt, but inside his stomach was churning at the thought of being underground with bats and other creepy animals. “We’ll be okay,” he said reassuringly. He grabbed his aunt’s arm and pulled her toward the gift shop, “they should have flashlights” he said, and he hoped they would be able to tell them about any other scary creatures that would be lurking underground.

Ben walked out of the gift shop and adjusted the light on his hard hat, “pretty cool that they rent this stuff out!” He looked like a miner in his bright yellow hard hat, with a flashlight mounted on the front of it; in addition, a carbon monoxide detector was hanging around his neck. If the oxygen level got to an unsafe level the alarm would sound on the detector, they were instructed that if this happened they needed to get out of the cave as quickly as possible.

Lacey paced nervously, she too was wearing a hard hat, but instead of a CO2 detector she had a canteen around her neck, they had just filled it with fresh ice cold water. The clerk who had rented them these items assured them that it was highly unlikely that they would even require them, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. After the last week Ben and Lacey agreed that with their luck they would be getting full use out of their rentals and they were worth every penny.

They headed toward the cave entrance; Lacey held the cell phone, the screen was no longer the aerial
view
from the satellite imagery, now it was simply arrows with word commands. As they stepped into the cave opening their headlamps automatically came on and illuminated three narrow tunnels, each forking off into different directions. There were signs above each tunnel, showing a simple outline of the path they took and the distance that the tunnel went underground. There was also skill levels listed on each one. The tunnel in the middle was labeled ‘Beginner’ the one to the left also read ‘Beginner.’ Lacey looked at the screen of the phone, of course the arrow pointed to the right. She looked at the sign, the outline of the tunnel was winding and crooked, it seemed to have several smaller tunnels that branched off out of the sides of it leading in all different directions. She looked at the skill level; of course, it read ‘Warning! Advanced- guide required.’

“Do you think we have to get a guide?” Ben asked nervously.

“I think we’re supposed to.” Lacey said. She looked at Ben, “Well what do you want to do?” She asked, praying that he would say that they could forget the whole thing, or at least go get a guide.

“I say we go for it! We have our GPS…wait can we even get a signal underground?” He paused in thought. Lacey looked at the unit curiously, “Well I guess we’ll find out.” Against her better judgment Lacey began to head down the narrow tunnel. Ben followed close behind. They had been assured that the only bats that lived in the caves were friendly and used to human contact. None of them were venomous, and at this time of day they would all be sleeping. They both prayed that the gift shop clerk was correct.

The ground was bumpy, and rock covered the walls and the floor, the air seemed to get cooler by the second as they advanced further into the tunnel. Lacey looked at the cell phone, the signal was amazingly strong, “sweet, we do have coverage down here! It says one—hundred—seventy—five feet to the right.” She looked in that direction, her light could only reach twenty feet into the distance, the tunnel widened then became narrow, sharp rocks jetted out, just waiting to tear into their flesh, she looked at Ben with more concern.

“It’s okay,” He said shakily. “It’s dark and creepy, but it’s only one—hundred—seventy—five feet, that can’t be that bad!” He needed to convince his aunt that this would all be okay, but who was going to convince him?

“Okay,” Lacey agreed, not wanting to be the party pooper, she continued to advance into the tunnel. They tried to keep a steady pace as they twisted and turned trying to ease through the tunnel, some points were so tight they had to turn sideways to get through; others were so wide they could walk side by side. After a few minutes they came to what appeared to be the ending of the tunnel, they both looked at each other clearly confused. Lacey bent down and noticed that there was a small space that led under the rock wall in front of them. If they lay on their stomachs they could slide underneath, the only problem was that they didn’t know what was on the other side. “I’ll go first.” Lacey said, “If it gets too narrow for me then we will know that we can’t continue on.” She lay on the cold rock floor.

“Wait, that doesn’t make sense.” Ben said. “I should go first, and then if it is too narrow for me, we’ll know.” He lay on the floor next to her and peered under the rock wall. It looked like he would be able to fit; it would be tight, but clearly people had done this before because on the map at the entrance, the cave didn’t end this quickly.

“Are you crazy? I can’t let you go first, what if you get stuck?” Lacey grabbed his arm as he started to slide on his stomach under the rock ceiling.

“Well I’m going, if you get stuck it would be the same problem, I’m smaller than you so let me go first.” He looked at his aunt, “ ‘S gonna be okay.” he said. Lacey was amazed at how grown up Ben seemed. She let go of his arm and watched as he slid under the tight rock ceiling.

Ben was what appeared to be half way through when he announced, “Uh…problem here…my hard hat is stuck, the rim must be too big!” his head was wedged between the rocky ceiling and the cold rock floor.

“Okay, scoot backwards, your head should come out of it. Then once your head is free, twist the hard hat to release it, you’ll have to just push it the rest of the way, unless you want to turn back.” Lacey said. She watched Ben scoot backwards, then he released the hard hat just as she had suggested. Suddenly an ear piercing sound screeched through the air. Ben jerked with fear and slammed his head into the ceiling of the crawl space. The CO2 alarm was going off; Ben panicked and pushed himself through the hole faster. “Is that the alarm?” Lacey yelled over the loud beeping.

“Yeah!” Ben yelled back. “Probably just this tight space, hang on a sec, let me get through then I can check the oxygen level.” His ears were ringing from the obnoxious noise. Lacey’s stomach started flipping even more, anxiety seemed to creep up her spine and her chest felt tight, was this because of a lack of oxygen, or was her mind just playing tricks on her? Ben continued to wiggle through the narrow opening, after about ten feet he could see that the tunnel grew in size again.

“Okay, the tunnel gets big again, I think you will fit through just fine, just take your hat off to start with.” Ben called back to Lacey.

“What about the alarm?”

“Hang on!” Ben yelled. He wiggled the alarm off of his neck and tossed it ahead of him into the large space just a few feet ahead. Within thirty seconds the alarm stopped beeping. “Yeah, it’s just the crawl space, there isn’t enough oxygen in it so you need to hurry through it!” he called back to his aunt.

Lacey took off her hard hat, and then inhaled deeply. She didn’t do well in dark, small spaces; it felt as though the walls were closing in on her. Her chest tightened with fear as she pushed her head under the dense rock. Thoughts of earthquakes ran through her head, if one hit right now she would be dead instantly. If she got stuck, she now knew that there wasn’t enough oxygen in the crawl space to support human life, she determined she was a goner either way. She shook with fear, and then forced her arms to pull her through the tight opening. If she died now at least her obituary would be interesting, she thought.

Ben peeked his head out the other side of the crawl space; the cavern on this side was enormous. Stalagmites rose from the floor from millions of years of mineral build up dripping slowly over time. The ceiling was thirty feet above his head, he could see the stalactites that had formed from the dripping minerals, they looked like brown shiny icicles, hanging down, decorating the vast cavern. He continued to shine his light around, illuminating one wondrous thing after another, he wondered how many people had actually been down here, couldn’t be that many, he felt so lucky to see such a beautiful space.

Lacey continued to wiggle and push her way over the rock floor, she couldn’t lift her stomach at all and the rough rocks felt like they were shredding her clothes. She tried to ignore the pain and focus on the fact that there was only five feet left of this crawl, and then she would be able to stand up again. She could see Ben’s feet move back and forth, the flicker of his light would occasionally drop to the floor. She swore that the rock above her was moving; it felt as though it were pushing down, almost like it would crush her at any moment. She pushed forward, trying to ignore the panic that was overcoming her entire being and finally poked her head out and looked around. A sigh of relief escaped her lungs as she saw the huge space before her, she had made it, she was alive, and she would never have to do that again, except she instantly realized, on the way out. A small flood of panic came over her once again, just the thought of potentially being squished between two enormous rocks made a lump come to her throat.

“Isn’t this amazing, Aunt Lacey?” Ben beamed as he shined his light around the huge cavern. He made circles, trying to ensure that she saw every last inch of this incredible space.

“Yep, pretty crazy huh.” Lacey said, somewhat enthused. Ben looked at her with disappointment, he so wanted her to be in awe with him, but he soon realized that she was fighting a battle within her brain. He had never known his aunt to be afraid. She had always been so crazy and outgoing; ready to try anything, go anywhere on a moment’s notice, but now in this space, he saw how the fear had drained her. She looked empty.

“Well let’s see,” Ben said trying to get back on track. He shined his light to the right side of the cavern; if his sense of direction was intact they should still be moving in this direction. The mouth of a large tunnel was illuminated, the shadows grew and shrunk as Ben’s light moved across them. He was headed toward the tunnel when he saw that Lacey was looking at something different. “What’s up?” he called over to her.