Mystery Flesh Pit Book Excerpt - "Spelunker"

     The first few days were quiet, but by Wednesday, a small group of trucks had become a permanent fixture on the landscape. A metal A-frame of welded fencing pipe had been installed near the cleanest edge of the hole and staked in place. Backed up to the frame was a work truck with a sizable motorized cable winch, and a spool with more than 2,000 feet of line. The first major task undertaken by the workers was to replicate the experiment previously conducted by Dale Whitmer and his sons and get a better idea of the depth of the “sinkhole”, as they had taken to calling it. A 10lb iron block was fastened to a cable, and was allowed to slowly drop into the chasm. The weight descended for more than 15 minutes before the line slowed for a few moments, then picked up speed. 

Something was pulling on the line. 

     It wasn’t pulling it fast, or even pulling hard, but there was a force being applied. The men operating the winch braced themselves and quickly engaged the ratcheted brake of the mechanism before the line could completely despool. A sharp jolt shook the truck, but the rig held.

     After some deliberation it was decided to try raising the line, and to the surprise of the workers, the motorized winch was able to begin wrestling back the cable with the occasional  groan or creak suggesting considerable stress on the mechanism. Five minutes passed, and with a loud pop the line jumped and the prior stress was gone, leaving only the force of gravity on the iron weight. Another thirty minutes of slow silence filled only by the sounds of a generator, the motorized winch, and the sound of a gentle afternoon wind across the ground. 

    Dale had not exaggerated; the last 300 feet of line, as well as the weight itself, was drenched in a viscous, translucent fluid which none of the men present could identify. The smell of the unknown gel was noticeable and distinctive, while  a particularly tenacious member of the men reported that it had little to no discernible taste. It was collected into small groundwater-sampling containers and sent to a laboratory in Midland with which Jim had prior professional relations.

     While there had been an informal agreement from the beginning that a chemical analysis should be completed before anyone would try to descend into the sinkhole, the men were becoming impatient. After three days of delay, it was decided that a more expedient test was necessary. So, a pig was found.

     To date, there are few firm details regarding the prior whereabouts of the young female hog, and even fewer details regarding the ultimate fate of the poor animal following its descent into the sinkhole. The common assumption is that it had belonged to one of Mr. Whitmer’s neighbors, and was purchased with cash late in the afternoon on one of those early days. What is known with certainty is that early during the morning of May 4th, a harness was fashioned out of canvas, clearance was given by Mr. Jackson, and the pig was let down into the pit. It was upset, of course, as it had been during the entire ordeal when the men fitted it snugly with the harness. As the small figure began the slow journey downward, its wails and screams could be heard even over the droning of the generator. Slowly the inhuman squeals of protest grew soft and distant. The porcine-laden end of the line was now wholly invisible, swallowed by darkness. Fifteen minutes passed, and now silence. The line, still under tension, continued its controlled unwinding under the focused gaze of a half dozen men who stood near the edge of the sinkhole, each with his arms crossed. 

     Once again, the line gave a little, indicating some slack somewhere below. Jim shouted for one of the workers to stop the winch, and for a few seconds there was silence before the line was again violently jerked. Immediately the cable was reversed, this time with much more speed than had been exercised with the 10lb weight. The pig had snarled and squealed during the initial descent, but now a new sound could be faintly heard. A wretched and head-splitting scream echoed up from the pit. None of the men present had any formal training in the care of animals or livestock. They weren’t farmers, and less than half of them even owned dogs. However, each man recognized in the screams the sound of primal terror.

     Concern now covered the camp. When the pig had been fully retrieved for examination, it was still screaming. Like the iron weight, the animal was covered in a clear fluid. Small bits of black matter stuck to the legs of the pig like wet dead leaves, and stunk tremendously. The body of the animal, in addition to a few cuts and scrapes from what the men had guessed were sharp rocks or branches protruding from the sides of the sinkhole, was purple with large bruises. The pig’s left hind leg had been fractured, but the animal seemed to be unaware of the injury until after it was entirely out and away from the hole.

Jim Jackson would occasionally recall this story at parties later in life, always ending the anecdote with “..Yessir, whatever was down there spooked that little sow a new one, but it didn’t kill her…. No sir, it didn’t kill her, and that’s what got us excited.”

***

     Prudence, or possibly fear, was enough to restrain the team from attempting another descent, manned or otherwise, into the pit until the analysis of the chemical compounds could be completed. However, when the team finally received a fax of the lab report, it only added to their confusion.

“Attn. Mr. Dale Whitmer,

Please excuse the delay in processing your specimen. As explained over the telephone, the well samples you have provided are somewhat concerning. We would attribute our initial investigations to error had you not graciously provided us with four sample containers. Fortunately, no immediately hazardous contaminants or pathogens were discovered, but we would not characterize these samples as potable. In fact, we hesitate to even classify these samples as groundwater. We have determined  that, while water is the primary element by composition, with expected trace amounts of minerals common to groundwater, the high viscosity and odor of the samples is the result of the presence of the enzyme lysozyme, as well as the glycoprotein mucilage. It is our professional opinion that this fluid is either partially or wholly the result of an organic process, most likely botanical or mycological. Further conclusions are beyond the abilities of this laboratory, but we are happy to recommend biological testing facilities if you so desire.

Thank you for your business,

Mason Adler

A&L Geotechnical”

     Understood by the men at the sinkhole camp, the report indicated that it might be a small aquifer or cenote after all, possibly teeming with mold or slime. Such a hydrological feature did not excite the workers or Dale Whitmer in and of itself, but these kinds of discoveries had historically been of interest to universities. Universities had research grants, and personnel who would need tools and lodging. Universities had money. 

     More information would be needed to pique any serious interest, but descending into the sinkhole would require gear capable of dealing with a liquid environment. As an activity, diving was not a widespread hobby in the arid climate of West Texas, and cave diving was rarer still, but it wasn’t completely unknown, even in the early 1970s. Just east of Roswell, New Mexico were a series of lakes of great depth which were all interconnected in a labyrinthine network of flooded caves. The retrieval of a body from the lakes a few years prior had provided a small spectacle in the region as the FBI utilized local cave divers to search a few of the passages for evidence of homicide, though the investigation was ultimately ruled to be accidental drowning. Jim had directed his office to contact one of these divers as soon as liquid had been discovered on the weighted line, and now a white jeep with a bright turquoise New Mexico license plate traversed the Whitmer property towards the camp.

   The first human to descend into the Mystery Flesh Pit proper was an easygoing man in his late twenties. Born in San Diego, Isaiah Olmos trained and served a tour of duty as a search and rescue diver for the Coast Guard before the lure of cenote water caves drew him to the Southwest. Like Jim, as well as the other men present, the prospect of discovery that this sinkhole seemed to promise was enticing. A few days and a small deposit for travel expenses after the initial phone call, he stood at the rim of the chasm, double checking his harness in preparation for descent. He wore a modified helmet of his own design outfitted with a bolt-studded acrylic faceplate, a battery-powered headlamp, and a quick-connecting re-breather port to be used in the event he would need to submerge. Over his wetsuit were protective knee and elbow pads. On his back, a full tank of air, and a set of flippers tied to his harness; he would wear boots during the descent, and switch to the flippers if necessary. On a typical dive like this, Isaiah would use a strong but lightweight nylon cord, but Jim and the other men had rejected it during the dive planning. “Steel cable”, one of the men had gruffly insisted, “we’ll lower you down with the winch, and you’ll use steel cable.” 

Besides the exceptional depth of the hole, the first thing Isaiah had noticed was the constant blast of hot, humid air emanating from it. When asked, the workers at the camp gave shrugs, but Jim had given an impish grin. “That’s what we’re paying you to look into,” he said with a wry laugh. But now, as the cave diver repelled down the shaft and into the dark Earth below, none of it seemed very funny. Visibility was poor; the hot and damp air had fogged up the faceplate of his helmet, and he found himself having to constantly wipe it clean with his free hand in order to continue the descent. On his wrist, the altimeter indicated 100ft deep, and it felt warmer. 

150ft.

200ft.

The opening of the pit was now just a small circle of light far above, broken by a few dark dots of some of the workers looking down. He could hear nothing but the current of hot air as it collided with the boxy frame of his harness and air tank. Combined with low visibility, the motion of the air made securing footholds difficult, so Isaiah switched on his headlamp. The walls of the shaft were slick with moisture. Here and there on the rock face were deep but smooth vertical grooves that extended far above and below the small bubble of visibility. 

     250ft.

     The air was thick now, laden with an earthy taste and mildew smell that Isaiah didn’t much care for. On his forearm was a plastic card with several canary-yellow squares that were supposed to turn red in the presence of dangerous gas; so far they were unchanged. He waved his arm around a bit just to convince himself that there was nothing wrong with the air. 

300ft. 

302ft.

305ft.

     The cable slowed to a stop as this predetermined depth was reached, while Isaiah shifted his weight in the harness and once again wiped the moisture off of the faceplate. The diameter of the shaft gently increased so that a bell-shaped chamber, no more than 35 or 40ft tall, expanded and then rounded at its lower extreme to an uneven surface at the base. Jutting out from the wet walls in a few places were sturdy columns of stone that lined up vertically with the rest of the shaft above. His eyes adjusted to the darkness further and he began to make out thinner ribbons of rock, stalactites, stalagmites. All around him were finely stratified layers of deposits. Isaiah wasn’t a geologist, but his caving experiences had taught him enough that he recognized these features as being thousands, or even tens of thousands of years old at the youngest. He was having trouble keeping his thoughts clear; The air was so thick with heat and moisture that he considered switching to his air tank. His mercury headlamp cast a pale green beam weakly through the darkness as he angled his head downward to get a look at the floor of the chamber, but his mind struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. 

     Three holes, one larger than the other two, but each irregular and tightly concentrated together at the base of the pit. The largest, he judged, was at least 10 or 11 ft wide. At first it appeared that the surface comprising them was a mud or soft clay, and that this might all be the work of a fumarole after all. Except, Isaiah noticed, the edges of the holes were moving. They undulated softly like ribbons of seaweed, or…he had a horrifying thought…like skin.  

     He unclipped the piton hammer from his belt and gave two hard but well-spaced bangs on the steel cable, then three more. In a few seconds, the line descended another 9 ft. He tenderly placed his boots on the surface, straddling one of the holes. A flash briefly illuminated the cavern as he snapped a photograph with the camera tied to his harness; how could the men above believe him otherwise? As he examined them closer, it became apparent that this was actually one very large portal, separated into three by a thin septum of sturdy-looking smooth material. Gently, he touched the rim of one of the orifices with his hammer, half expecting some violent response, but none came. The surface was soft, but there was a rock-solid strength beneath it that did not yield to either his weight or the repeated probings with the hammer. After another series of clanks against the cable, a few more feet of slack was given. Very slowly, with the utmost caution, Isaiah dropped into the hole, expecting it to collapse on him at any second, but again, there was no movement except for the steady blast of air from the darkness below.

     The spelunker was now fully inside one of the fissures, his head a few feet below its rim. A smooth and uneven tube extended beneath him into more darkness. Its walls were pale, mottled, and visibly slick with moisture. Another photo, and another bash against the line for more slack. 

330ft.

340ft. 

      The fog condensing on his visor was unrelenting now. Fighting to keep his visor clean had left his glove drenched so that it now left streaks of water whenever he tried to wipe the faceplate. He now descended into another chamber, one much larger but still composed of the same sickly, glistening walls. Above him, he could see where the other two tubes rejoined, the base of the septum divider buttressed by large, stringy, webbed members which connected to bulbs which protruded from the sides of the cavity. Another photograph, and another call for slack on the line. Further below the anchor bulbs, the cavern increased in diameter again. It was circular only in the loosest definition, the walls themselves gently billowing with the air current like wet bed sheets hung out to dry. Arranged around the chamber were more holes, slightly angled upward as they followed the sloping contour of the floor. These, he determined, were the source of the air flow. Four or five of these portals, each of them easily three times the height of an adult man, seemed to disappear further out and downward into more darkness. A few of the others, however, opened immediately into dense bunches of yellow grooved tissues that gave the vague impression of gills, or whale baleen. More photos, and some more slack in the line. This was unlike anything the veteran diver had seen, and he wanted to capture all of it. “National fuckin Geographic”, he muttered to himself with a chuckle as he clicked the camera, carefully walking on the slick and narrow floor of the large chamber. “Cover shot.”

     Catastrophe.

     Isaiah Olmos felt the surface beneath him give way, and he was plunged downward into an abyss. Before he could think, he was up to his neck in dark water. He flailed and reached out for a wall, but found it to be slick and waxy. Despite its deep grooves, it resisted his attempts to grasp it. 10 or 15 feet overhead, a stout and muscular valve closed organically around the steel line, curling and clenching around it like a clam. His senses were assaulted by ten thousand abominable scents and tastes. Decay. Despair. Death. Splashing, and the reverberation of his own movement were the only sounds he could hear now that the valve had shut. The liquid around him was filled with soft objects, large and small, all black with rot. Floating in the dark basin were half-dissolved bones and bloated corpses of animals Isaiah couldn’t recognize. Hooves, skulls, mesquite branches, and white segmented legs more than a foot long. A droning sound was persistent amid the splashing, and only now with his headlamp did he see the hundreds of flies buzzing, frenzied, above the water in the damp crypt. The steel line thankfully seemed to hold despite the firm grip of the lobe above, but the caver could not bring himself to focus on it, instead fighting with his collection of gear for the weights attached to his harness. 

     He was sinking. 

     The liquid entered his mouth as he took a breath and he choked on the rancid vileness of the taste. He tried to center his mind. 200. 200 dives he had been on during his tour with the search and rescue arm of the Coast Guard. Dives in rough seas in hurricane weather with panicked people drowning. Training kicked in like a muscle. “Air”, he calmly thought to himself. “I have a scuba tank on my back, I am going to be fine.” With methodical precision he reached behind him, brushing away the gooey remains of a prairie dog, grasping for the respirator tube. 

     It wasn’t there. 

      Panic rose, but he willed it down. He was sinking down into the blackness. Of course, it had to be there, he had checked it three times just before the descent. He felt around behind him with a gloved hand. Nothing. No mouthpiece, no tube. 40 seconds had passed. The grasping became more frantic as the diver fought away more bones and soft chunks of god-knows-what. The flippers were there, he could feel them, but where was the damn air tube? 55 seconds. His lungs began to burn as rationality gave way to primeval panic. In a desperate flash of lucidity he stretched to grab the top of the air tank. There was the tube, firmly attached. “Carefully, slowly now” he thought, “follow the hose.” It had become wrapped around the flippers, knocked loose during the fall. He thrust the valve into his mouth and took a deep and thankful breath as his tunnel vision widened. 

     “GET OUT” his body screamed at him as he surfaced. The cable was still anchored to his harness, but it was now coated in the enzyme and was far too slippery to grip. His motion as he tried to grasp the line caused it to swing back and forth, but the top, still firmly gripped by the valve, didn’t budge. A heavy metal flashlight rocked in a holster on the belt next to where the hammer had been. Furiously, Isaiah banged it on the cable in rapid succession as hard as he could. After a small eternity the cable began to retract upward, but the valve didn’t move. He dropped the flashlight and unsheathed his knife. With adrenaline driven panic he stabbed at the twisted, wet shape, slashing and cutting as the cable pulled him horizontally against the slimy flesh. Sound. Air rushing around him in the dark. 

     The flap finally relented and opened, then shut tight behind him. He was out. 

     His thoughts blurred as the cable hoisted him out of the sinkhole. Never in his life had he been so grateful to see the searing Texas sun. Once free from the line, he was surrounded by the oilmen who were offering water and giving him a cursory check for major injuries. A few commented on the smell of his soaked wetsuit, and the soft bits of decay which stuck to it. They helped him out of the harness and took the air tank off of his back. After the flurry of activity was over, Isaiah collapsed beneath one of the tents that had been erected on the site, exhaustion overtaking the weary caver. The last image he witnessed before sleep was the silhouette of Jim Jackson outside the tent. 

     He was holding the camera.