Free The Number 8 by Joel Arcanjo Page A

that Viktor could easily be slipped on. The next part was difficult. They had to move 190lbs of dead weight up an incline that was littered with wet, mossy rocks. Dante blanked out this part completely. But all he knew was that eventually they reached the exit. It took nearly ten minutes but they did it.
    As they placed the spinal stretcher on the ground, the EMTs arrived.
    “How long has he been out? Did you move him at all?” they bellowed all at once.
    “Uhh…maybe fifteen minutes and yeah we had to,” the old guy replied breathlessly.
    They looked at the old guy disapprovingly but went to work on Viktor. Five minutes later Viktor was pronounced dead at the scene. Everyone involved in his extraction was exhausted and it had all been for nothing. All the other passengers were sat at the bottom of the rocky incline watching on helplessly. Silenced reigned. No one cried, probably because they were too exhausted to. The EMTs took the body away. No one could say a word. The death had been a tragic accident. A novice who had got his foot trapped underwater and had drowned because of it. It looked cut and dried. Clear for all to see. An accident pure and simple. Or that’s how it looked to all but Dante.

Chapter 16
    “What happens now?” Asmir finally said, his voice low and lifeless.
    “A whole lot of paperwork,” came the reply from the old guy.
    It was a cold reply but nobody had the energy to object to it.
    “What do we do now?” Asmir asked.
    The young guy gesticulated towards a clearing about 100 meters away. “Your bus is waiting for you just through there. But you won’t be going anywhere for a while. The police may want to talk to you.”
    “Police,” Dante chimed in.
    “It sounds like what happened in there was an accident, but for the purposes of our insurance we’ll have to call them in. No doubt they’ll want to talk to some of you about what you saw,” the young guy explained.
    “No one saw anything, it was too dark,” came a voice from in the cave. By the sound of the hushed whispers from in the cave, many agreed. So did Asmir.
    “The only person that saw anything was you,” he said pointing at the old man.
    “That’s probably right,” he admitted, “but it doesn’t mean they won’t wish to talk to you lot to confirm exactly what you just said, that I was the only one that saw anything.”
    “I guess I might have seen something,” Dante said quietly. It was so quiet that they asked him to repeat himself.
    “I said that I could have seen something but I can’t think clearly at the moment.”
    The old guy pushed himself off the wall and towards the caves exit. “OK, let’s get you all back to your bus. What are you all still doing down there anyway?”
    For some reason half the group had decided not to make the climb up to the exit. They were stood and sat on the rocks leading up to the landing. It was as if they felt the energy up there and wanted no part of it. Like their minds had instructed them not to go up there otherwise it would all be real.
    The group answered the question with a sea of shrugs that probably would have set him off under any other situation but he let it go.
    “Get up here. I’ll take you back to your bus. Usually you would have some food here and enough time to dry off properly, but under the circumstances…” He didn’t even need to finish the sentence.
    They started climbing. The strongest among them instinctively held back and assisted the others. Climbing anything is difficult but in a wetsuit it’s a lot harder. There’s chafing and the lack of flexibility in the suit makes lifting a leg to the heights necessary very challenging. But it seemed no one was even thinking about this. Instead they had acknowledged their limitations and took their time in making their way up.
    Once reunited, the group, slowly, solemnly made their way back to the waiting bus. By this point Dante and Asmir were more or less dry but most of the others were sodden. It