Marty is trapped down a cave beneath the Welsh mountains.
Will his life begin at forty – or will it end?
Newly single and reunited with old friends from university, Marty finds life is no longer as idyllic as his memories of hot summers, music festivals and recreational drugs. He is persuaded to resume his hobby of caving, and, while twisted relationships play out on the surface, he descends into the strange and beautiful world of caverns and stalactites, where ghosts from the past are waiting to haunt him. But the others have secrets too - and as they are revealed, Marty unknowingly walks into danger.
Available in kindle format from amazon.co.uk and amazon.com, in most e formats from smashwords and in quality print directly from this website and from other retailers in UK and US
Newly single and reunited with old friends from university, Marty finds life is no longer as idyllic as his memories of hot summers, music festivals and recreational drugs. He is persuaded to resume his hobby of caving, and, while twisted relationships play out on the surface, he descends into the strange and beautiful world of caverns and stalactites, where ghosts from the past are waiting to haunt him. But the others have secrets too - and as they are revealed, Marty unknowingly walks into danger.
Available in kindle format from amazon.co.uk and amazon.com, in most e formats from smashwords and in quality print directly from this website and from other retailers in UK and US
CAVE - CHAPTER ONE
Cave - a hollow place in a rock, sometimes extending into a large system of underground passages and chambers.
‘Die happy.’ Those were the last words I heard.
It was three or four hours ago and I was climbing the wire ladder that stretched above me to the cave entrance and the welcome glow of afternoon light. It had been a strange trip underground and I was glad to be returning to normality.
The way out was via a vertical pitch, measuring seventy feet from the floor of the entrance shaft up to the opening in the hillside above. As always I tackled it slowly and methodically. I moved steadily upwards, wedging each foot, one after the other, onto the boot-wide rungs; right toe in front, left heel behind, like a dance; simultaneously weaving my arms through the mud-streaked framework, hauling myself upright, heading for that everyday world on the outside.
Today I felt an urgency that made me want to clamber faster, but I knew that if I hurried I'd be exhausted after forty feet. So I breathed deeply, gasping in the energy that propelled me upwards, and held tightly onto the ladder. Normally I’d have had a rope clipped onto my belt, a lifeline; but this wasn't a normal day.
I'd gained twenty feet, thirty at most, when I paused and looked up. High above me beckoned the ever-widening circle of light, the door to the outside world. But it seemed I wasn’t welcome in that world. Far away, in the sunlight, voices argued in harsh rasping discord. Then the ladder began to swing, twisting and lashing like an angry snake, throwing me against the knife-edged boulders that surrounded me. My head crashed against stone and, despite my helmet, my brain buzzed with the shock. My shoulder hurt, my cap lamp went out, I lost my footing as my knee slammed into a rock, and I let go – only for a second, but enough for the ladder to slip out of my grasp. I plummeted to the bottom and landed in a painful heap.
And the words clattered down around me.
'Die Happy!'
Fucking hell, man! I had no intention of dying, happy or otherwise. Not for a very long time. And preferably of old age.
