#FreeDailyReadingFix - Wild Child 1, Part 13
Kyle slipped his hands underneath Briana’s
bandaged torso and legs and picked her up.
She put her arms around his neck, and he wove his way through the woods
as fast as he could without dropping her.
She felt like she weighed no more than 80 pounds.
He was aware of her looking up at him, her
face plaster-white in the moonlight.
“Kyle?” she whispered, as he slowed down to
step over a log.
“I’m sorry I said you were a major snooze.”
“It’s all right,” Kyle said.
“If I don’t make it, I want you to know that
I—“
“Shhh,” he said. “Don’t talk like that. You’re going to make it. Just hang in there.”
When they reached the water, he set her down
gently on a rock. The helicopter was now
only about 50 yards away, rounding the point where Briana had entered the water
the day before, where the fisherman had been.
Kyle stripped to his underwear and threw his
clothes into the bushes, then started putting on the scuba equipment. After he strapped on the tank, the fins, and
the mask, he reached behind his head and opened the tank’s air valve. He held out the hose to Briana. “You remember how to be breathing partners?”
“I remember,” she said softly.
He stuck the hose into his mouth and took a
few breaths to make sure it was working.
She laughed, surprising him.
“What’s the matter?” he said.
“You look like the Creature from the Black
Lagoon.”
Kyle smiled, not because he thought it was
funny, but because he hadn’t heard her laugh all day.
Kyle
glanced over at the cooler. He had
planned to take it down with them, but now that he had put on all the scuba
gear, it didn’t seem feasible. He would
have to come back by himself and get it while Briana was in the cave, nursing
her wounds.
Kyle hid the cooler behind some bushes. He glanced up at the helicopter—it was still
getting closer. Hopefully, they wouldn’t
spot the jeep while he was gone.
He handed Briana the underwater
flashlight. “Can you hold this while we
go down?”
She nodded.
He picked her up in his arms again and carried her into the water. Now, he really did feel like the Creature
from the Black Lagoon, slipping and sliding on the rocks with his fins,
descending into the murkiness, carrying a bleeding, blonde maiden in his arms.
When the water was up to Kyle’s waist, the
helicopter’s searchlight swept dangerously close to them. He could even feel wind from the chopper’s
rotor as it sent ripples across the surface of the water. “Hold your breath,” he said, as he leaned
forward. They both slipped into the
chilly water. He immediately pulled her
down to the bottom. A few seconds later,
the searchlight beam whisked across the water above them, creating a blinding
white flash. He only hoped the water was
too cloudy to see through.
He started swimming along the muddy lake
bottom, pulling her with him. He kept
one hand around her waist and followed the downward slope out into the middle
of the lake, handing the air regulator to her and taking it back every thirty
seconds or so. As they went deeper, the
water felt ice cold.
After a couple of minutes, he was astonished
to find that Briana had started swimming herself. Within a minute or two, she was pulling him
along. She slowed down a little bit, handed
him the regulator, and after he put it into his mouth, she surged ahead again,
picking up even more speed.
The green water’s got hold of her, he
thought.
He stopped kicking, realizing that now it was
only slowing them down. She drove them
both forward faster and faster, the water pulling hard on the oxygen tank, the
weight belt, and his fins. He had
trouble relaxing, afraid that she would bump into something in the dark, but he
knew she was tuned into some kind of internal homing signal that would lead to
her sacred spring.
He closed his eyes and finally felt himself
relax, letting her pull him deeper and deeper into the blackness, picking up
more and more speed, the water roaring past his ears...
In that moment, he completely trusted her,
and he felt a strange sense of inner peace.
They soon began to slow down. He sensed that they were approaching the
opening of the cave. Not a second later,
he felt the tentacle-like thing brush against his legs, as he had the first time.
Briana turned on the flashlight. The opening of the cave was no more than a
jagged, two-foot wide hole in the rocks.
He glanced below and let out a small underwater shriek. There was a huge catfish lying just
underneath the opening. It was fat as a
hog, its mouth open, its lips pulsating slowly, revealing a few teeth that looked
like miniature elephant tusks. Kyle’s
skin crawled as he realized that he had brushed his leg against one of its
thick, spindly whiskers, which were splayed out a couple of feet on either side
of its head.
Briana nudged him and motioned for him to swim
through the opening. He didn’t move,
wondering if there were more catfish—or worse—on the other side. She seemed to understand his fear and handed
him the flashlight, then swam through the opening herself. She looked like an injured mermaid in her bloody
hospital gown, swimming gracefully through the water, her bandages leaking
blood that left swirling, smoke-like trails.
She extended her hand through the opening to
help him. Just before he started to join
her, the flashlight beam shined on something that scared him even more than the
catfish. A boulder was poised
precariously above and to the left of the opening, one edge propped up on
another large, triangular-shaped rock.
The boulder looked like it weighed a couple of tons. If it slipped, it would completely block
their exit.
Kyle heard the sounds of Briana yelling at
him underwater. Before he could protest,
she grabbed his wrist, her grip now strong, and literally dragged him through
the opening. He reached for the air
regulator, but she yanked him upwards before he could get a hold of it. They quickly accelerated again. Fighting the pull of the water, Kyle finally
managed to get the regulator in his mouth.
A moment later, they broke through to the surface at the same spot they
had the first time, in the big room full of stalactites.
Briana let out a gleeful shriek and helped
Kyle climb out of the water. He took off
all the scuba gear and laid it down on the rocks, catching his breath. She led him away from the water, up the flat
boulder, towards the green light. They
soon weaved their way through the gigantic plants and over to the shimmering
pool of green water.
Briana threw herself into it, thrashing
around, rolling over and over, drinking greedily. “Thank you, God!” she yelled, her voice
echoing crisply off the cave walls.
Kyle just watched her for a while. She waded out into the water until it was up
to her neck, then discarded the hospital gown.
It floated on the surface for a few seconds, then disappeared into the
greenness. She began to carefully
unravel her bandages, moaning softly.
But it was a moan of pleasure, not of pain.
She became so engrossed in what she was doing
that she seemed to forget Kyle was there.
“Well,” he said, “I better go back and get
the cooler.”
She turned his way, then cupped a handful of
the green water and held it out to him. “Are
you sure you don’t want to...”
“No,” Kyle said, but with regret.
Briana looked disappointed and let the
glowing liquid run out of her hand and back into the pool.
“I’ll be back soon, okay?” Kyle said.
Briana looked at Kyle as if she didn’t want
him to leave, but then said, “Okay.”
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