CHAPTER 17Spotty’s legs quivered, and his breath came in long wheezing sighs, but he stood on the hill of breakdown stuff at the bottom of the drop. His body, burned and squeezed by the rope, felt like one big bruised fingernail. But Spotty had made it, and he couldn’t waste time coddling his aches and pains. He was ahead of Kurt. He had to stay ahead.
As he slid awkwardly down the slope of breakdown, dragging his rucksack, he heard Kurt’s foghorn voice echo weirdly through the black chamber: “Move over down there, kid. Make way for big Kurt!”
“Come ahead, chump,” he yelled up. Then he hoisted the rucksack to his sore shoulders, checked his wrist compass and the map on the clipboard attached to his belt, and headed west.
He wanted to get far enough ahead so that Kurt couldn’t see his li
