For Clive

I was down there for nearly eight

days before I gave in. The thought to me
was, at the time, quite sickening, and as I
remember it now, I am still disgusted at
what I have done to myself.
I sought only survival, and now I lay
dying, ironically as a result of what I
have done to survive. My whole
predicament is rich with delicious conse-
quence, as it was my greatest passion
that brought me to this place; this dread-
ful dark prison where I have lived for
the last 24 days, and where I will die,
probably momentarily.
Spelunking has long been a great pas-
sion in my life, and the thing that has
brought me the most joy. I have navigat-
ed caverns in India, Ireland, Spain, and
throughout the United States, but my
current location is among the least exotic
I have explored: Serona, California. I
have always treasured the solitude and
silence of the deep, but after these last
three plus weeks, I have learned to

229
despise the darkness for its ugliness, mys-
tery, and the terrible emptiness that it
brings. When I came into this cavern, I
anticipated only a few hours of peace, but
I received an awful lot more.
I have experienced earthquakes in
California before, but they are far more
frightening when you are underground.
When the cavern around me began to
tremble, I immediately knew I was
going to die. It turns out I was right,
but this is not quite what I was expect-
ing. Rocks began to tumble around me,
and I struggled for footing on the
ground, which seemed to wiggle and
writhe beneath me like a serpent. I fell
and hit my head against the jagged wall
of the cavern, then dropped to the still-
moaning ground.
The duration of the experience was
probably less than a minute, but it
seemed to rumble on for an eternity as I
twisted for support on the rocky
ground. Finally it stopped, and I lay
panting on my back for a solid five min-
utes. I smiled, relieved to be alive, and
breathed deep, knowing that I was
lucky to avoid the rocks that tumbled
from above me. Lucky? That actually
seems rather funny now.
When I finally dared myself to my
feet, I could not find my flashlight, so I
pulled out my lighter and attempted to
search for it on the floor. As I stumbled
through the dark, I kicked the flashlight,
then located it with the lighter, only to
find that it had been smashed by one of
the raining stones. I remember not being
too concerned at this point, as I knew the
way back. Though it was quite a walk, my
Zippo had been freshly filled, and I car-
ried extra fluid for it in one of the pockets
of my cargo shorts, so I knew I would
have enough light to navigate back to the
entrance I had come in.
It wasn’t until I began walking back
that I realized about ten feet in front of me
the tunnel had become jammed. Where I
had walked through moments ago, there
was now a menacing wall of rocks imped-
ing my way. I put the lighter into my
pocket and began to push and pull at the
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layer of impedance in front of me. But, I
could not budge any of the large stones,
each held tightly in place by the weight of
the stack above it. This section of the tun-
nel was only about ten feet high, but that
ten feet was completely consumed by the
dreadnought wall.
My next idea was to venture further
down into the cavern and find another
passageway out, but that’s when the situ-
ation proved to be much worse. For,
when I walked less than ten yards in the
other direction, I was greeted by an
almost identical mountainous roadblock.
Here, too, giant rocks had bonded togeth-
er after collapse and formed a wall that
prevented me from traveling further
down into the cave. This is where I really
began to panic, because at that point I
realized that I was trapped in this place; a
narrow, secluded tunnel below
California. I think I tore wildly at the
rocks on that side too, but at that point I
entered some stage of shock, and my
actions are rather blurry to me.
So there I was, trapped in this dark
cavern, walled in on all sides by rock and
unable to travel more than a few yards in
either direction. All I had with me was
my lighter, the bottle of lighter fluid, my
knife, a thankfully full canteen, and a
crumpled ancient topographic map of
California. Then I sat and thought for a
very long time in the quiet, imposing
darkness, alternating for several days
between despair, deep repose, and
uncomfortable sleep. Without the gentle
gift of sunlight, I used my wristwatch to
track the time, and four days passed with
hardly a sound, and hardly a movement
from me. I sat languishing on the floor for
this entire time, nipping occasionally at
my canteen, but doing so sparingly. The
more I thought, the more frustrated I
became, because I could not think of any
way for me to escape this predicament.
After these days, I began to tug feebly
at the walls again, hoping that perhaps as
they settled, the rocks had loosened
slightly. I could not budge any of them,
and I even tried climbing to the top of the
wall and loosening stones at the ceiling. I
managed to pull away a few small rocks,
but there were layers behind the ones I
removed, and I could make no impact on
the massive hindrance. In desperation, I
tried kicking at the rocks, but only suc-
ceeded in making my feet throb with an
unholy pain. I clawed at the stones like a
trapped animal, which, in essence, I was.
But, there was no effect, and five days in,
I was no closer to leaving the cavern.
Somewhere long before then, my
stomach had become knotted with an
insatiable emptiness. I hadn’t eaten since
before leaving for my journey, and after
five restless days without food, I was
ragged to say the least. By the sixth day,
hunger became an obsession, and as I lay
curled on the hard floor, defeated and
despaired, it was all I could think about.
Even water didn’t seem appealing to me,
as the wetness only upset my stomach as
it entered. At some point on this day, I
crawled optimistically across the floor,
fingering the rocks searching for bugs,
plants, or anything I could put into my
stomach. But, there was nothing living in
this tunnel but me.
After a week without food, I was
weak, delirious, and barely alive. A large
part of me wanted to die, but the pain in
my stomach kept me disturbingly alert,
and my hunger consumed and ravaged
me. I mumbled phrases that didn’t make
sense even to me, and I knew for sure
that I would die very soon. I could
almost feel cold fingers wrapping
around me, and my stomach throbbed
unyieldingly. The pain was worse than
anything I had the displeasure of endur-
ing before, and if I had any energy in my
body at all, I would have been screaming
into the darkness.
I awoke on the eighth day in agony, the
tightening in my stomach refusing to sub-
side. I needed to eat, or die, and I don’t
know why survival even seemed like a pos-
itive option at this point, but food sounded
like a much better idea. More than any-
thing, I just wanted to take away that cruel
pain that tormented me from within, and
my muddled brain told me that I would do
anything to have something to eat.
I don’t remember exactly how the
thought blossomed in my head, but I
realized that I had 180 pounds of meat in
this cave with me, and that there was one
way I could quell the fire in my stomach.
I managed to sit up and remove the
Zippo from my pocket. After taking a
couple of attempts at lighting it, I suc-
ceeded and used the light of the flame to
survey my disheveled self. I looked
down at my feet, which were bare,
though I did not remember when I had
taken my shoes off. I moved my toes
slightly —it was all I could manage—
and I saw life. I specifically remember
studying my foot, and when I did, I did-
n’t see my appendage. I saw meat: ripe,
plump sustenance, right in front of me,
taunting my stomach with its proximity.
My whole body shuddered, and my
parched lips parted as I drooled from the
corner of them. I thought of sinking my
teeth into tender flesh, and my mouth
watered sadistically. Then, I merely
decided that I wanted to eat.
I don’t know how, in my delirium, I
summoned such a plot, but my prepara-
tion was actually quite ingenious. I
gathered a medium sized stone from the
floor and doused one face of it with
lighter fluid. I used my Zippo to ignite
the fluid repeatedly, and gradually, the
surface of the rock became red hot. I
eased the edge of my knife over this
rock several times then touched my
thumb to the blade, sending a stinging
surge of heat through my hand. My
stomach gurgled with anticipation as I
lowered the knife to my ankle.
The first cut was the most difficult,
and more painful than the ache of starva-
tion in my stomach. I shrieked through
the tunnel as the hot knife pierced my
flesh. I stopped immediately. I could feel
hot blood pouring from the cut, and the
agony sent a wave up my twitching leg.
Somehow, I was able to continue, my eyes
glowing with a desperate madness as I
sawed at my anklebone, stifling my
screams by bellowing “food” with each
pass of the blade. Tears burned from the
corners of my eyes, but I cut away, and in
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a moment, I heard a sickening thud as my
foot fell from the stump on my upraised
leg to the floor. My leg was spasming vio-
lently, and when I rested it on the floor, I
could feel a warm pool of blood creep
beneath me.
I could see the still-glowing surface of
the rock though the darkness, and I hur-
riedly pressed the hemorrhaging stump
against the red-hot surface. I felt only a
slight burning though my shock, and
somehow I remained conscious through
the ordeal. There was a sizzling sound as
the wound was crudely cauterized, and I
laughed (can you believe that?) as the
flesh closed together over the heat. When
the sizzling dwindled slightly, I pulled
the stump away from the rock and
reached down to inspect my work. As I
ran my fingers across the bumpy surface
where my foot had been moments before,
an icy chill ran through me. But, my
inspection revealed that the wound had
been successfully closed, and I could feel
no warm fluid flowing through the wall
of flesh I had built over the sever.
I was stunned that it worked, and
shocked at myself for enduring the
process. I was shaken, but the trauma
had left me feeling little pain, and soon it
was my stomach that was overwhelming
me again. I laughed again, and cried
some, at this point probably insane with
hunger, and when I was done, my act
was almost forgotten. My mind returned
to nourishment, and I could think of
nothing but eating.
So I felt through the dark and picked
up my severed foot. I don’t know if my
mind even really registered that I was
holding my own foot in my hands, but
my stomach roared at the upraised
appendage, its message all too clear.
The surface of the rock was still warm,
and I used it to lightly cook my foot, turn-
ing it often to get every side. There was a
bittersweet smell that arose as my flesh
was charred, and though it was some-
what sickening, the smoke sent the
unmistakable odor of cooking meat into
the tunnel, and no barbeque I can remem-
ber attending has ever offered such a
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pleasing air. I grew impatient with the
cooking though, and I was in agony to be
so near food, but forced to wait for its
preparation. The hunger spoke to me
again, and I greedily pulled the foot to my
mouth and sank my teeth into the tender
tissue of my heel.
I have heard that human flesh has a
flavor reminiscent of chicken, but I found
it to be much different. The meat was
very salty, and maintained moisture with
the blood that drained out with each bite.
After the first taste, I swallowed a chunk,
then immediately vomited the remnants
of bile left in my completely empty stom-
ach. The bite of flesh came out with it,
and I started to cry again. Now, I had
food, but my stomach refused to take it.
Determined to survive, I raised the foot
to my mouth again and gnawed off
another bite.
This second bite was perhaps the
most stunning experience of my tunnel
ordeal. Because, as I chewed the flesh, I
was not nauseated, I was enraptured. The
meat was not disgusting, it was delicious.
The taste reminded me of beef jerky, but
the consistency of the raw flesh was
doughy and tender, not dry. I savored
every chew of that bite, and I think I
moaned “oh, god” as the blood and tissue
swirled around on my tongue. Perhaps it
was the circumstances, but the meat was
the best I had ever tasted, better than
lamb, veal, or any steak I had ever
devoured. I enjoyed the bite thoroughly,
then took another. Then another.
Within moments, I had picked the foot
bone clean, leaving nothing but stringy
bits of sinew attached to the joints. I
dropped the husk and the bones rattled on
the stone floor as they landed. I took a long
swig from my canteen, which was dwin-
dling, and washed the salty remnants
down my throat. I burped, and it was such
a beautiful sound in this lonely darkness.
It still didn’t fully hit me what I had just
done, but the throbbing agony in my stom-
ach was gone, replaced by a new and far
more pleasant pain. As I swayed on the
bumpy ground laughing like a madman,
my stomach now hurt because I was full.
 It was that night, as I vomited up the
digested mass I had devoured earlier,
that it became clear to me exactly what I
had done to myself. I crawled around on
the floor, and screamed into the cruel,
dark tunnel, which answered me with
the echo of my cries. My small area had
become filled with the pungent stench of
my sickness on the ground. As I crawled
aimlessly, my hands would occasionally
slide through one of the puddles, as there
were several.
I think by this time I had completely
lost my mind, and it seems odd to me that
I can remember it so lucidly now. I was a
complete mess, and the stump that had
once held my left foot to my body began
to throb in disagreement with what I had
done. I don’t know how I made it through
that night, but eventually I exhausted
myself into a shaky sleep.
On day nine, I was surprisingly calm.
The meal and rest had done me good, and
I was focused and alert. I used a shoe (my
left, since I would not be needing it) to
start a comforting fire. The light that filled
the chamber soothed me, but I would
occasionally shift my eyes to the stump,
which sent an unpleasant shock through
my body. Though the wound was closed,
thick bulging blisters had gathered over
the surface of the stump. It was a revolt-
ing sight, compounded by the fact that I
had produced this monstrosity on my leg
myself. As days went on the blisters
began to pop, sending a rainbow of nau-
seating fluids across the floor of my
prison. The stump was revolting and I
spent some time wishing I could get rid of
the infected mess.
The light of the shoe-fire added to my
perception of my surroundings. I discov-
ered that the cavern I was in had been
used at one time as a mineshaft. There
were bulky wooden beams lining the tun-
nel walls, and several timbers had broken
free and spilled to the ground, perhaps
from the earthquake I experienced, or
perhaps from one countless years before.
I assessed a fair amount of firewood, and
I knew that I could hold off on igniting
the shoe for my still-functional foot.
Even as I cursed the act I had performed
on myself, I soon found myself in the
same situation as before. I hadn’t actually
retained most of the foot meat I had
digested, and I was exhausted and hun-
gry once again. My stomach ached, and
my canteen was nearly empty. I felt
myself growing weaker, and I alternated
between my instinct to survive and my
shattered will to live. Though a part of me
struggled for survival, the more rational
part of me wondered exactly why I want-
ed to survive in this hell the earthquake
had buried me in. I was sickened by what
I had done, but there was always a voice
whispering through my head that I could
do it again.
It was five days before I gave in to the
hunger again.
After a particularly painful night of
stomach cramps, I severed my left leg
below the knee. My shinbone was very
difficult to slice through, and it took me
some time. I almost lost consciousness
during the operation, and if I had, I
would have bled to death for sure. I cau-
terized the wound as before, but this time
with a fire I built from a small pile of
shredded wood. The open flames hurt
worse than the cutting, but I forced
myself to hold the gushing stump over
the miniature inferno.
Even through the pain, I began sali-
vating in anticipation of my meal. Once I
was satisfied with the charred closing of
the stump, I used the dwindling remnants
of my flame to cook the bloody piece. The
meat was tender and delicious and I was
careful to cut away the scabbed remains
of where my foot had been.
This time, the meat stayed in my
stomach, and for the first time since I had
become trapped in the cave, I was happy.
I did not think about the fact that I had
severed half of my leg off, merely that my
stomach was sated. I have always been
sleepy after a big meal, so I settled into a
deep rest, a broad smile stretched across
my face.
After that, I did not hesitate when the
hunger became unbearable. I still waited
at least a day between meals, but to be
233
honest, I’m not sure if that was because I
was reluctant to mutilate myself, or reluc-
tant to squander the limited supply of
meat I had. On day 18, I ran out of water,
and was forced to fill my canteen with my
urine. I found it far less refreshing than
water, and it did not complement the
meat nearly as well.
It became sort of an addiction, for the
more I ate, the more I craved the food
between each sitting. My stomach was
expanding with each meal, and it
demanded more nourishment. Very
quickly, I ate my way through both of my
legs, finding the thighs to be the tastiest
bits of meat.
But then, I was at a loss, for I did not
know what piece I should take next. I was
reluctant to begin work on an arm, for I
knew that food preparation and trans-
portation of my legless tusk would be
much more difficult with only one arm. I
hesitated to make a decision right away,
so for a couple of days, I attempted to sus-
tain myself with accumulated feces from
the corner of the cavern that I had desig-
nated for such activities. I found the taste
to be most vile, and its consistency was
beyond description. The foul meal only
made my stomach ache more for the
sweet taste of my flesh.
On day 21, I submitted to the tight
pangs of hunger within me and severed
my left arm at the shoulder. It was a
greedy cut, I realized, preparing a
whole section of my body at once. But
my analysis had found the limb to be
somewhat frail after the previous three
weeks of malnourishment, and there
was precious little meat to be had on the
arm. I ate through it quickly, using my
remaining arm to hold the long piece as
I tore into it, then discarded the bones
into a corner with the scraps of my pre-
vious meals.
Two days later, yesterday, I was in
agony, and the hunger consumed me like
never before. I wanted to eat so badly, but
I did not know what part of me was left to
take. I could not cut off my right arm, for
if I did, I wouldn’t be able to cut anything
else, and there was sparse meat on my
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thinning trunk. I considered my next cut
carefully through the night, and when I
awoke this morning, I had chosen.
I finally settled on my buttocks, two
round shanks of meat that still rested
above the stumps that remained where I
had removed my legs. It was no easy task
cutting the rump meat off, as I could bare-
ly see where I was slicing, even with fresh
fire illuminating the scene. I managed to
get one side off, then the other, but my
incisions were far sloppier than I would
have hoped. The chunks of meat were
small, and would not fill me up, I knew,
but they were something. I eagerly
attempted to cauterize the gaping open-
ings I had carved into myself.
However, it was even more difficult
than the cutting when I attempted to align
the wounds with my fire. I could not con-
tort my body into a good angle to access
the blaze, and with my lone arm, I could
not navigate my torso around very well. I
was losing blood quickly, and growing
weaker as I struggled valiantly to heal my
wounds. Exhausted, my back plopped to
the floor, but I felt no pain as my severed
backside hit the stone ground. I could feel
the escaping blood flowing under me, and
I knew at that moment that I could not fix
the cuts I had inflicted.
I roll my head to the side, eyeing the
two bloody lumps of flesh that rest hap-
hazardly beside the fire. They seem so
close, but as I reach out with my single
arm, I cannot grasp them. My flailing
appendage smacks on the ground in
defeat, and I struggle for air that is rapidly
becoming more difficult to summon. I
remain very calm, and draw in a deep
breath, which invigorates me, but my
vision is beginning to blur, and as I release
it, I know that I will only be able to take a
few more....
And then I realize that I am breathing
underground in a section of cave complete-
ly walled away from the outside. So, how
am I able to get air in this tight space?
Furthermore, why has the smoke of my
fires not suffocated me if it is truly trapped
in this cavern with me? I realize that the
tiny cracks between the rocks that had
pinned me in here would not be sufficient
to allow these things to happen, and I curse
myself for not pondering this earlier. I
know there must be air coming into this
place, and freely going, and as my con-
sciousness drifts, it hits me that I had obvi-
ously overlooked something in this cavern.
Then I hear it: a joyous, buoyant laugh-
ter from somewhere distant. The woman’s
voice is haunting as it echoes from beyond
my entrapment, and I roll my eyes back
searching for the source. Then there is
another sound: a dim unintelligible voice,
this one belonging to a man. He is speaking
to her, but I cannot hear what he is saying.
But, the words themselves are not impor-
tant to me. My concern is that I can hear
people, and they are close by. I try to cry
out for help, but I have no voice left, and no
energy left to use it. I manage a winded
“unh,” then I can do no more. The voices
are getting closer, and though I don’t think
anyone can save me, I want them to hear
me. Very quickly, they are close enough for
me to understand them, and I can clearly
hear the woman.
“Where is that smoke coming from?”
Then suddenly there is a light in my
eyes, a blinding blast of illumination that
makes me squint in agony. Still, I look up
into the light, and there is a white circular
beam of illumination coming through the
tunnel ceiling. The circle is large, and it
almost looks like a sun above me, beaming
straight down on me like a spotlight. The
woman speaks again.
“Oh my god!”
As this happens, I realize that there is a
hole in the ceiling large enough for me to fit
through. The blinding glare on me is from
a flashlight aiming down through this hole,
and the woman and man I hear are in a
cavern above me. Though I am rapidly los-
ing consciousness, my brain is still active,
and I don’t like what it is saying to me. It
tells me that for the last 24 days there has
been a hole in the ceiling above me and I
have been too busy losing my mind to
notice. It tells me that there are people on
the other side of this hole, and obviously
they entered this cave somehow, and if
they did, they can exit it. My distant head
tells me that there is a way out of this
imprisoning cavern, and it is through the
hole in the ceiling that has yawned above
me the entire time I have been down here.
The woman’s voice comes again.
“Oh, my god! Dale, come here! I’ve
found something!”
Now I know that she is looking at me,
and I picture what I look like through that
hole: a legless, bloody, one-armed torso
floating in a widening pool of its own gore.
And, I don’t know why, but all I can do is
laugh. It hurts to do so, but I am laughing
as deeply as my fading body will let me.
The man’s voice comes through the hole.
“Holy fuck! What is that? Jesus Christ,
is that a....person?”
He is panicking, and I am too weak to
do anything but lie on my bleeding back-
side and stare up into the light above, hic-
cupping laughter into the small cavern
around me.
“Hello? Oh, my god, Christy, it’s
moving! Hello?”
The light seems to dim as my eyes
struggle to remain open, and the couple
is speaking frantically again, but I can’t
really hear what they are saying, and it
doesn’t really matter anyway. I am still
laughing as best as I can, because this is
fiercely comical on so many levels, but it
gets harder and harder to focus, and
each sound comes with a labored breath
that stings in my chest. The light is danc-
ing around whimsically, but soon I can-
not see it, only feel its warmth on my
face as the tunnel grows darker around
me. Very quickly, I feel almost nothing.
However, my last living memory is an
echo through the cavern as my taunting
stomach growls demandingly.
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