|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Madden pushed himself away from the wall, turned and took several steps deeper into the cave. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
As I started after him, I made a solemn commitment to myself. If I lived through this to write another journal, all, I repeat, all research was going to come from the pages of an encyclopedia. The days of "living it" were definitely over. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gregory worked his way around Madden and took the lead. The walls of the dirt tunnel were caked with a putrid, greenish slime that bombarded the senses with an overpowering stench of mildew and rot. Huge gray rats, first disturbed by Gregory, had worked themselves into a frenzy by the time I sorted my way through their sordid little world. One, perched precariously on a narrow ledge at eye level, stared back defiantly as I passed. At the last minute I threw the beam of my flashlight in his angry red eyes to dissuade him from what I only guessed he might be thinking. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The floor of the cave was gradually sloping down. I had my compass outwe were heading east and northand deducted we had already passed under the old woman's house and beyond. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
At the first turn, a sharp angle to the right, Madden had stopped to wait for me. He was holding his fingers up in a silencing |
|
|
|
|
|