Early June, 1988
Suzie double checked her gear, making sure all the wires fastened securely to her harness. "Alright, I'm good." She grabbed hold of the rope and didn't wait for Martin's go ahead before swinging out over the open chasm. She heard his yelp of protest, but the drop wasn't that far. She might even survive it if something came loose or snapped.
"Crazy woman!" Martin yelled after her. He sounded his usual frustrated self, but with the slightest hint of shocked awe lurking underneath. Suzie expected he admired her foolhardy daring, though he'd never admit it. He kept the wires steady though, and that's all she needed at the moment.
Moving down the rope with ease, her flashlight did little to cut back the dark. The cavern walls closed in quickly as she neared the Eye, as they'd dubbed it. She'd wanted to called it what it actually looked like, the Vagina, but that had made Martin uncomfortable. The shaft narrowed into a four meter long, narrow opening. At either end, the slit was too narrow to get through, but at the very center, it opened enough for a full sized adult to pass with some difficulty. Suzie had been caving for years and never liked the narrow passes. For the Eye though, she wanted to make an exception.
She found it two years earlier on an idle run through the hillside. Small openings into the cave network weren't uncommon, but most of them had been marked by government surveying teams over the years. Or, at the very least, the locals knew about them from hunters or other folk who spent time in the woods. The Eye, so far as Suzie knew, was known only to her and Martin, their own private gate into a brand new cave system. She'd wanted to start mapping it right away, but once she told Martin he put her on ice.
"Unsafe" he'd said. So far as they could tell, the Eye did not have an outlet into any of the other nearby cave systems. That meant some nasty stuff could be waiting in the dark beyond the small opening. Bad air worried Martin the most, which is why Suzie had a small oxygen tank strapped to her side. He'd done as many tests as he could, all of them came back negative for any buildup of carbon dioxide, but they weren't reliable, especially when done by dangling wires down a shaft. In the end, he'd agreed to let them go down with some extra kit, but that didn't speed up their exploration.
Life still pressed in otherwise. Suzie couldn't go without Martin, and she didn't want to share her discovery with anyone else. Martin's job kept him busier than he liked, and Suzie, despite her enthusiasm, couldn't go into an unknown cave at the drop of a hat. Once the extra gear arrived, they fought schedules for four months before finding a weekend with enough time to get in a good dive.
Suzie knew the walls narrowed near the Eye, but actually reaching that spot still surprised her. The cavern walls squeezed in around her shoulders. The gentle sway of the rope kept bumping her into the walls. Beneath her, the shaft opened into the Eye. Martin had no idea how such a crack could form at the bottom of a tunnel, but it did heighten his worries about trapped gas and spontaneous flooding. She slowed her descent, letting her feet drag along the walls of the cavern as she tried to angle herself to get the flashlight shining through the opening. Their tests had let them know a floor waited about ten feet beyond the opening, but that didn't mean much. The depth test could have landed on a small outcropping beside another fifty foot drop. The idea of a massive chasm of blackness waiting a few feet beyond the Eye excited and terrified Suzie. Still, she kept going.
At the opening of the Eye, Suzie could no longer turn. One foot landed on the narrowest bit while the other lingered over the opening. Another haunting thought of something reaching up through the opening and grabbing her foot gave her a moment's pause. Her instinct overrode the errant thoughts, though. They'd not been able to accurately judge the breadth of the opening from the surface, but Martin would be disappointed to learn that Suzie could barely squeeze down, ruling him out completely unless they widened the opening. Her back scraped against the wall as she started to push herself down. Once both feet were through, she kicked around cautiously, praying she wouldn't collide with another wall only inches away. But no, her lower leg could move freely in any direction beyond the opening. She doubled checked her ropes, took a deep breath, and started wriggling down.
She stopped at her shoulders. Martin called down to ask if everything was alright. Suzie shouted back, "Yep!" and hoped that would keep him calm for long enough to get out of earshot. Her arms went up over her head, and she released the tension on her rope, causing a short quick drop as the Eye swallowed her. Her body lights created a small bubble around her, but not enough to see anything. She flicked her main flashlight on, and a bright orange beam scattered on slightly wet, dark walls. Turning the light down, she saw the cavern floor right where they'd predicted, about eight feet from where she hung.
The walkie-talkie clipped to her shoulder strap chirped. "Suzie? Can you hear me?"
She didn't have the hands free to reach her own radio, so she craned her neck down to press the button. "Yeah, I'm good. Give me a minute." She spun to examine the chamber, looking for any other tunnels. The rock looked like limestone, not uncommon in the area, but also not usually so uniform. The far corners of the cavern remained dark. She would have to get on the ground to find any other narrow exits. Looking directly under her, she was pleased to see a clear area to land. A few rock outcroppings crowded the cavern, but otherwise it was a smooth bowl buried thirty feet under the surface.
Touching down, she unbuckled herself from the harness, and grabbed her radio. "Martin? Still with me? How's reception?"
"Little scrambled, but you're clear enough. What's it looking like down there? No lightheadedness?"
"I feel fine. Pretty hollowed out. Not much to remark on really. Hang on. Martin? There's a door."
At the far end of the chamber from where she'd landed, an old, mostly rusted iron door sat embedded into the wall of the cave. Its dark surface sucked in the light and made its presence all the more ominous. Turning her attention back to the cavern, Suzie realized why the area looked so clean and neat. "Someone already cleared this tunnel. These rocks are cut, not eroded." Crossing back to the opposite end of the tunnel, she saw the remnant of old joists and timbers. "Holy crap, we've wandered into an old mine shaft or something."
"Get back in your harness. We'll need to pull you out. Maybe call a preservation society or something. God knows what's down there."
Suzie ignored him, going back to the door.
