Cave of Souls (Short Story)

Get the Gear

We parked at Joe's Diving and Ascending Shop. Robert walked in with a big smile on his face. "Hey Joe!" He piped happily. Joe looked at Robert and replied grumpily "Shouldn't you be at school?" Laura looked at him cautiously and said "He wanted a break, and Emma told me we deserved one too. Right Emma?" "Right." I confirmed with confidence. "We're just coming to grab our gear that's all." I told Joe. He grunted something incomprehensible, probably something about education. But really why should he care? All I have for grades is straight A's and B's. We walked into the back room, Robert and me staring in awe at the gear we wished we had. We passed the coat hangers where the staff uniforms hung. Two of them have name tags with Robert Fox and Emma Chase written on them. Robert and I had applied as soon as we were old enough which happened to be at age 16. We walked towards two small cubbies that held a bunch of spelunking gear. I gave Laura some of my gear from 12th grade. She looked at it disgusted, but took it anyway. Then Robert and I started putting on our gear. We were ready with everything we needed, so we raced out of the back room, said our goodbyes to Joe, jumped into the car and left.

I looked over at Laura sitting silently in the passenger seat. "What's up?" I asked her. She was looking a bit uneasy. "I've never been cave diving, or even in a cave before. I like to be properly educated before entering or trying something new." Laura said very matter-of-factly. Robert suddenly burst out laughing saying "Well let me 'educate' you." And for the next five minutes Robert gave laura a brief lesson on the do's and don'ts of cave diving. When he got done talking to Laura I asked him "What cave do you want to go to?" He looked ahead for a minute thinking, then told me about this cave area that was supposedly 'haunted with the spirits that had entered it'. Laura complained a bit about not wanting to visit an underground graveyard, but soon enough we convinced her into going. "Well tell me the name of this cave so I can get the coordinates for it." I told Robert. He looked at me and gave a grin that looked like something only The Joker could muster and said, "Devil's Eye Caves." There was a brief pause. Laura looked horrified. "It's just a name Laura" I told her. I went onto my cell phone and typed in Devil's Eye Caves. It didn't say anything about not being able to go in, it just had some directions on how to get there and an article about the caves. Since the directions were right in front of me I clicked on the the map. It loaded for a minute then said "Setting rout to: Devil's Eye Cave" I looked over at Laura, then she looked over at me and put on a slightly nervous smile. We were going to be okay. I'm sure of it.