"You ever see one before?" Jed asked, shining his Petzel at the back of his charred head.
"Yeah, funerals."
"No, not someone in a suit looking peaceful in a coffin. A real dead body, right where they died. Ever see one?"
"Can't say I have."
"Makes two of us."
We both stood in silence for a minute. No one has a plan for something like this.
Jed licked his tongue over his teeth. He always did that before saying something important. Kinda stupid looking. "Wow ... do you know what this could be?"
If I was in Atlantic City I'd place a bet that Jed was going to say something stupid and overthought. "What?"
"Lightning." I would have won the bet. "If you drag a long piece of metal behind you, like a surveying chain or something, through a stream underground, and there's a storm brewing, you can conduct the lightning right through you. Like this poor guy."
"That's not true."
"Swear to God it is. Lightning comes from the ground up, not from the sky down. We're below the surface, so we have a bigger chance of getting hit than some guy waving a five iron at a golf course."
"Never heard of that before."
"Well, take the very small amount of people who have been hit by lightning in one set, take the very small amount of people who cave in another, and those two barely intersect."
"I don't know ... lightning seems pretty remote. If that surveying chain thing is right, it could, but he could just as easily, I don't know, spontaneously combusted."
"No, this doesn't look like spontaneous combustion. That's a more intense flame, complete incineration of the flesh. This guy's just burned on the surface."
"Well, it could be both of those, or something that you don't need to overthink. How about murder?"
"Well, if you have to bust out Occam's Razor, that's a more likely possibility. Explains the lighter fluid."
"Lighter fluid was used?"
"Yep. Two reasons. One, it's still in the air a bit, if you've brave enough to breathe through your nose. Two, there's the empty carton over there." Jed flashed his Petzel beam to a now-lit corner where its metal corners gleamed.
I walked to it and saw it was half covered in mud. "Probably shouldn't touch it. Fingerprints."
Jed stopped where he was. "Ooh, forensics. Forgot that. If this is a murder, they're going to want to keep everything just like it is for the crime scene. So no touching the body."
"Damn, and I wanted to do that so much."
He crouched over the body. "OK, Sherlock Holmes time. We figure out exactly what happened to this guy without disturbing him."
I walked over to get a better view of the corpse. "He's not wearing a light."
"Good point. No flashlight in his hand, either. This rules out suicide."
"Suicide was ruled in?"
"I was wondering about it. Burning yourself to death is about as painful a way to go as possible, so it wasn't probable. But going deep into a cave with no light just to set yourself on fire ain't happening."
"Guess not. You're putting all those mystery books to work."
"I knew there was a reason for reading them. Look at his head. No helmet, longish hair, shoes with his toes poking out, clothes that I can tell were nasty before they got burnt."
"Could just be cave clothes. Not everyone wears a suit in here."
"Could be. But could be something else."
"What?"
"I don't know. Maybe he was extra poor."
"Chances are he didn't leave his car parked outside, then." The Ferrari and SUV in the parking lot were definitely not owned by a guy with holes in his shoes.
Jed stood up and made towards the exit of the room. "We should go back up, call the police."
"Aw, I was hoping this would get more interesting."
"I know, calling the cops turns it into real life instead of Jed and Ted, Cave Investigators."
"Ted and Jed."
"Says you." Jed disappeared through the tight passage out. It was still smoky. I followed.
"Well, this'll make a hell of a story," Jed said as I came out a few feet later. "George Fenwick found a couple dead bats seven years ago, and he still won't shut up about them. Hands down this'll beat him. Hands down."
I felt something weird. "Hold on, Jed, other people in the cave," I whispered. A faint light came from around the bend. It could have just been a trick of the light, but Jed saw it too.
"Must be the other guys in the lot," Jed whispered back. We both knew who this could be; if the corpse was a murder, then there was a murderer. Jed twisted off his light; I waved mine out. We crouched along a wall.
The cave was completely dark. If there was someone else in here, he had turned his light off also. Jed and I sat silently, not even moving from our positions. Every minute or so I saw Jed cup a hand over his wrist and check his Indiglo watch. I needed to get one of those.
Two minutes went by. I stuck a finger in my carbide, so I wouldn't waste the acetylene. Five minutes went by. My leg was getting a cramp; I didn't know I'd be in this position for so long when I put myself there. Ten minutes went by. My hearing had improved so I could hear every hushed breath Jed took, but nothing else.
The silence was broken by Jed. "We're just a couple of babies," he said as he twisted back on his light and stood up. "Hello?" It echoed back.
I popped my light back on, expecting a pack of vampires. Nothing. "Hello, anyone in here?" It echoed back.
"Hey, how's about this part doesn't go in the story?" Jed asked, giggling. He walked through the big passage. A red light popped up on his chest. "Too much darkness. Ted, I'm seeing a red spot on me!"
"I see it, too." It looked like a laser pointer. Or a scope.
Something small and liquid exploded on Jed's chest as he was walking. He staggered back a step. "Oh crap," he muttered, "I'm shot."
