In the Dripping Cold

She knew he was terrified of small spaces. There was an elevator in their building, but Steve always took the stairs, even though they lived on the fourth floor. Something had happened in his childhood, something involving a prank in a basement; he’d never told her the details and Emily had never asked. She’d seen what crowded elevators and dark closets and even congested streets did to him, and she assumed even asking about it would trigger those fears – which is why, when Steve left the trail to run into a moss-shrouded cave, Emily stayed frozen in shock on the trail.

“Steve?” she finally managed, her voice squeaking out high and stunned. Rowdy pulled at the end of his leash, his spiraled tail whipping back and forth, thrilled at the prospect of an offroad adventure.

“Steve!” she called, louder, hearing in her voice a quaver of fear and feeling that fear seize her chest. She tied Rowdy’s leash to the nearest tree and follow Steve off the trail. Rowdy sat down to watch, perplexed at being left behind but not worried about his humans in the least.

Inside, the cave’s walls were slick with water and damp moss. Daylight disappeared with frightening speed, leaving her in the close-pressing damp and the sudden awareness of the weight of unfathomable earth and rock overhead. Emily activated her phone’s flashlight and found herself in a narrow tunnel, penned in by dripping rock. Outside had been misty and chilly; inside the cave was a cold that scraped the bones. She crept forward, listening, trying to pick out the sound of Steve counting himself back to calmness.

The tunnel split into three, each one looming black and craggy into the trembling light from her phone. Something moved in the left-hand tunnel and she jumped: it was Steve, his gray jacket flashing like lightning as he darted down another passageway.

“Steve!” she shouted after him. It didn’t echo the way she thought it would. The word slammed into the dripping cold and stopped. Emily gave chase, hearing only her ragged breath and slap of her boots on stone. She looked back, trying to keep track of her path, and glimpsed Steve’s jacket flashing across the tunnel behind her.

She turned back. “Steve, wait!” Now she was close enough to hear him. He was counting to himself, muttering a stream of numbers that didn’t flow right. Suddenly he was off to her left again, counting into the 20s. When she turned to catch up to him, he was gone, passing behind her going the opposite direction, nine-ten-eleven.

At the next intersection, they collided. Steve kept muttering thirtyfive-thirtysix-thirtyseven even as Emily brushed the bangs from his damp face and said his name just as insistently as he was counting.

“Emily?” he whispered, his eyes finally meeting hers.

“Why did you come in here?” she cried. It wasn’t the right question, but it was the most urgent one.

“It called me,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It told me that if I just kept going, I’d get out again.”

“I was calling.” Emily’s voice broke on a sob. “I was trying to get you to come back.”

“Are we lost?”

“Maybe.”

“I didn’t hear you,” he whispered. “It didn’t let me hear you.”

Hand in hand they made their way back to the tunnels. The damp rock walls were indistinguishable. Emily had no idea how far she’d run, and she was beginning to feel what she suspected Steve felt: compressed, contained, trapped. She swallowed her panic. If she fell apart, neither of them would make it out.

A sound floated back to them, almost unrecognizable in how the echoes had distorted it: Rowdy was barking.

“Tell me you hear that.”

Steve managed a smile. “I hear it.”

The echoes led them through narrow tunnels that Emily didn’t remember taking. How long had she actually been in here? Unbidden, the thought of all those tons of earth overhead came to mind and she forced it away by squeezing Steve’s hand more tightly.

After the next turn, there was enough light for Emily to turn off her flashlight. They emerged into the ferns and there was Rowdy, sitting patiently on the mist-shrouded trail, panting happily.

They untied him and left. Without discussion, they followed the trail back the way they’d come, abandoning the summit. They never looked back at the cave. If Steve later thought Emily sounded distant, and if Emily felt an enduring, unalterable cold, neither of them said so.