" "Now where?" George asked Paul. "Where'd you see the skeleton?"

"It's down this way," Paul replied. "But through a different tunnel."

He led them about twenty feet down the stream, then pointed out a small opening in the left wall.

"We have to be quiet now," Paul said. "Turn out the brights."

Once again they crawled into a small space in nearly complete darkness.

Then the tunnel turned. Past the bend, there was not even a shred of light. George couldn't see a thing - not shapes, not outlines of the walls, not even his hand in front of his face. He breathed in nervously, with no idea what lay ahead of them. It was a strange feeling. He felt completely helpless.

"Can you see in here?" George asked Paul.

"No," Paul admitted. "Not now. But it's only a short tunnel."

Moving slowly, George and his friends shuffled along behind Paul.

"Do you know this tunnel well?" Shannon asked. George could hear the hesitancy in her voice.

Paul didn't answer for a few seconds. "I know if okay," he said finally. "I haven't been down here in a long time."

"But you're sure that it's short?" George asked. He tried to look around but saw nothing but blackness. "Paul, if you don't know where you're going, maybe I should be in front. I'm the captain."

"The what?"

George knew that his being captain meant nothing to Paul, but he still felt somehow responsible.

"I'm the - the leader, sort of. Trust me." George could hear that his friends had stopped, and he carefully felt his way ahead, passing Shannon, Derrick, Renee, and finally Paul. He put his arms out on either side, felling the walls of the tunnel. Carefully, he stepped forward.

"All right, guys," he said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. "Let's go."

Slowly the five of them made their way farther down the tunnel. George could see that it wasn't getting any brighter-they weren't even close to the end. "Was the dead guy in this tunnel, Paul?" he asked, feeling his way along the wall. "Or was he somewhere-"

Suddenly, he felt his toe smack into something hard in the floor. Without any warning, he pitched forward.

"Yahhh!"

Desperately, he used his arms to search the space in front of him for something to grab onto. But there was nothing. He couldn't see the walls of the tunnel, and he had no idea where he was falling. He flailed aimlessly, hoping to use his arms to catch himself when he fell.

"Ahhh!" George felt himself doubling over, about to land flat on his face on the rocky floor. His first thought was that this was going to be pretty painful.

There was nothing to hold onto to slow himself down, and the ground in this tunnel was all uneven and sharp. And his second thought was that he was in bigger trouble that that.

Because there wasn't any ground in front of him. He went straight through the tunnel floor falling facefirst - into who know what!