In another moment, her fingers struck gravel and the raft grounded. Jack immediately jumped free, dragging the raft and them with it, up onto the dark beach.

The three of them crawled free, and lay on their backs, breathing hard. He turned to her, and grinned. “Next time you’ve got a job, please lose my number.”

She looked back, sharing the joke. “And I forgot to mention; you don’t get paid until you get us out.”

“There’s pay?” Jack laughed then, and in the next moment all three of them were laughing uncontrollably, relief bursting from them in waves. The sound bouncing away to repeat countless times in the monstrous cavern.

Cate sat up first, and smacked dry lips, for the first time feeling a thirst that made her throat rasp and head pound. She bet Jack and Abby were the same; they’d need to drink soon, or be in trouble. She grinned again. In trouble? In more trouble, she adjusted.

She picked up a pebble and tossed it at an army of small blue crabs that marched like a wave along the shoreline, stopping now and then to pick at small mosses and feeding them into their constantly moving mouths.

Jack got to his feet with a groan, and walked up the beach. He stopped and stood with his hands on his hips, looking around. “This is as close as we’re going to get.” He lifted a single finger, pointing upwards. “Heceta Island – thatta way.”

He turned back to the cliff face, but then stopped and stared. “Well, well, looks like this is the place.” He turned back to them. “Cate, Abby, look here…”

They crowded closer.

“Abby, switch your light on.”

Instead she took the light band from her head and held it out. “You guys are getting me out of here, so you lead – take it.”

Cate shrugged, took it from her and switched it on, the brighter beam illuminating the cave wall for dozens of feet in either direction.

The cave drawings were the same as the last they’d encountered, but showed more of the story and struggle the people had endured down on this dark sea. Many figures rowed to the shores, this time dragging a giant shark by the tail, dozens of spears sticking from its body. There were also more peoples coming out of a crack in the wall, and at first, Cate thought they were greeting them, until she saw the next tableau of arrows being fired at the newly arrived party.

“Turf war,” Cate said softly.

“Looks like it, but more importantly, what it says is, this is where the fishermen came ashore with their prize. Unfortunately, the Heceta Island natives weren’t exactly welcoming.” He shined his own rapidly-diminishing light over the scenes. “Many tribes worshipped sharks. And the Megalodon would have been the ultimate shark god.”

“And the Nantouk killed one,” Abby said.