by Jacob Rayne
Fallon thought he saw faint outlines of things moving all around them. At first he panicked, thinking they were figures like the one he had chased, but then he dismissed it as his mind playing tricks on him.
He looked around, trying to keep calm but could see nothing that resembled a clearing anywhere. They uttered prayers as they carried on.
They were still lost when the sun slid behind the horizon, bringing darkness down upon Rook’s Foot Canyon and the woods surrounding it.
Mark felt an acute sense of claustrophobia kick in as he neared the middle of the immense pile of rock shards.
He saw Abbott’s legs out of the corner of his right eye, the captain’s hips wiggling back and forth like he was doing an army crawl.
Suddenly, he felt the pile of rocks shift a little. Some of the rocks beneath him moved, dropping his legs by almost a full foot.
His breath caught in his throat as he realised that he couldn’t move them.
For a few terrifying moments he was too frightened to even call for help.
Luckily, Jake had seen him and he came over.
‘Just calm down, kid,’ he said, upon seeing that Mark was already on the wrong side of hyperventilation.
Mark’s chest felt like it was being crushed by a cruel, icy fist. Breathing became an ordeal. The more he kicked his legs, the more rocks fell from beneath him and the more his lower body sunk. His back was alive with agony. It felt like he was being pulled apart by horses.
The rocks below him crushed into his chest, further driving the air from his tormented lungs.
‘Just keep still,’ Jake said. ‘You’re making it worse.’
The words seemed to come from miles away, even though the cop was no more than a few feet in front of him now.
Mark’s chest heaved, every breath serving only to push more air from his battered body.
He was drowning on dry land.
Jake suddenly disappeared as Mark’s peripheral vision shut down. It was a terrifying feeling and it made more breath escape him in a frantic cry.
Finally, Abbott turned and saw that something was amiss.
He turned just in time to see the rock pile collapse, swamping the trapped bodies of his companions.
Fallon and Thompson were sweating, out of breath, and utterly creeped out by the time they reached the clearing. Sinister in daylight, the place was nothing less than the scene of a nightmare in the darkness. Their torch beams did little to penetrate the all-consuming gloom.
‘I wanna go on record and say that spinning around was the worst fucking idea you’ve ever had,’ Fallon said.
‘Shhh.’
‘Which way are we going?’
‘Shh,’ Thompson repeated. He listened intently. The strange sounds he had heard seemed to have stopped. ‘Thought I heard something. Guess I imagined it.’
‘I sure as hell hope s— Fuck!’
Thompson looked down to see Fallon on the floor, nursing his ankle.
His cry had been more one of shock than of pain, but he realised it was time to admit what they had long been trying to deny; they were lost.
‘How’s your ankle?’
‘Can’t really put my weight on it. You do realise we’re fucking hopelessly lost, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘We should never have come out here. Every fucker else is probably sat at home with a beer while we trudge through this fucking hellh—’
‘Shhh.’
‘What?’ Fallon whispered.
‘What’s that?’
‘What’s what?’
‘Shh. Don’t you see?’
Fallon followed Thompson’s pointing finger and saw what looked like two orange fireflies.
‘Oh yeah. What are they?’
‘Eyes. They’ve been watching us for a while now.’
Abbott cursed and palmed thick clouds of dust out of his face with a grimy hand.
‘Jumping Jesus,’ he muttered, trying to twist his body round.
It was lucky he’d gotten so far ahead, missing the avalanche by a good few feet. Still, the roof of the tunnel was only eighteen inches above the pile of jagged concrete lumps beneath him. It was going to be extremely difficult to turn round.
He muttered an inventive curse as his belly was torn open by a corner of the rubble. Hot blood ran down his belly, plastering his shirt to his skin.
His throat felt like it was lined with chalk on account of the billowing clouds of dust that surrounded him. Again he waved a hand to clear them. He felt grit on his tongue, in his airwaves.
‘You’ve survived worse, Lance,’ he muttered, gritting his teeth and pulling himself round to face where Mark and the cop had disappeared.
He found it extremely disconcerting that they had just vanished. Despite his best efforts, it took him a good few minutes to reach the last place he had seen them.
Every second could be vital.
Fighting back panic, he scanned the bleak vista of concrete lumps.
Fallon stopped.
‘Where did those eyes go?’ he asked.
‘They’re over there.’
‘Ah yeah. Got him. Are we gonna take him?’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I’m shitting myself but there’s two of us and one of him. I say we rush him, Leroy Jenkins style. One goes one way, one goes the other. We catch him in the middle and take him the fuck down.’
‘I don’t know about this.’
‘Come on. Think of the praise if we do bring down the killer. We’ll be in the papers, probably on the TV.’
‘Let’s fucking do it. I’ll go to the left.’
They separated and tried their best to quietly approach the orange eyes. It seemed like the figure was just standing still. They both took heart from this; he was unaware they were coming and was in for one hell of a shock.
Finally, Abbott saw the sole of a shoe poking out from beneath a large lump of paving slab.
He moved forward, cursing as the wound in his belly was aggravated by a sharp piece of rock.
He started hurling rocks away from the figure like his life depended on it.
It seemed to take an eternity but he eventually exposed Jake’s body.
Swaddled in a sticky flux of dust and blood, he didn’t look too healthy, but his chest was slowly rising and falling.
Cruel to be kind, Abbott thought, and gave a hard slap to the cop’s left cheek. Jake woke up like he was on fire, his eyes wide and unfocussed as they tried to make sense of the situation.
‘Relax,’ Abbott said, pressing a hand to his heaving chest. ‘The ceiling came down.’
Jake nodded as if it all made sense to him.
‘Where did you last see the boy?’
Jake furrowed his brow. A dense fog had settled over his thoughts.
Abbott didn’t have time for this; he was aware how long Mark had been trapped under the rocks.
He administered another hard slap to Jake’s face.
‘Think, man, the boy. Where was he?’
Jake’s eyes scanned the terrain and a light seemed to come on behind his pupils. ‘I was right next to him,’ he said. ‘Somewhere around here.’
‘Can’t see shit,’ Abbott said, arming another cloud of dust from his vision and staring hard at the carpet of rubble beneath him. ‘Goddamn shit all looks the same to me.’
‘’Bout there,’ Jake said, pointing to a patch where the rubble seemed denser than the rest.
‘Give me a hand then,’ Abbott said, already on his fourth handful of stones.
They set about the task with desperation.
‘He’s not fucking here,’ Abbott said.
As he was about to give up and move along, he caught sight of a filthy, blood-smeared hand.
‘Shit, he’s way down there,’ Abbott said.
He ended up going slightly down the incline and started throwing rocks off the pile with renewed fury.
Soon he’d exposed an arm. The torso appeared thirty frantic seconds late
r.
By the time he’d exposed Mark’s chest, it became obvious that he wasn’t breathing.
Fallon and Thompson were ready to close in on the creature. It still stood in the middle of them, seemingly unaware. Its orange eyes stared straight ahead, not looking at either of them.
They raised their guns, then Fallon moved in a bit, realising that if he didn’t, he and Thompson had a good chance of shooting each other.
As they moved in the eyes suddenly vanished. Fallon and Thompson met in the middle where the creature had previously been.
‘What the hell?’ Fallon said.
Rustling noises came from all around. When they listened closer they could hear animalistic breathing.
They stifled terrified cries as they noticed they were surrounded by the orange lights. Fallon tried to count. Lost track after twelve.
‘At least six,’ he muttered.
Thompson nodded.
Panicking, he aimed at one of the pairs of eyes and squeezed the trigger. Fallon jumped at the roar.
Then the circle of orange lights came in towards them. They fired, the gun blasts crashing through the still night air, but their bullets didn’t seem to have much effect.
Thompson let out a scream as something heavy began crashing through the trees towards them. Without looking back, he started sprinting into the woods.
‘Try and stay together, for Christ’s sake,’ Fallon implored him as the dark figures fell upon him and began to tear the flesh from his bones.
‘Help me,’ Abbott roared, grabbing Mark’s torso and pulling for all he was worth. The low ceiling meant he couldn’t generate enough force to lift Mark out on his own.
Jake scrabbled over the rocks, pulling at the sections of stone that held Mark’s legs.
‘Come on, for Christ’s sake,’ Abbott hissed, pulling harder.
Sweat rolled down his face, cutting paths in the grime that smeared his cheeks. He inhaled more grit, feeling it burning the back of his throat and his nostrils.
He pulled again but Mark was still stuck.
Finally, he came free.
Abbott hurled him onto his back and started giving him frantic mouth to mouth.
He held his face to Mark’s mouth, waiting for the life-affirming rush of air.
Nothing.
‘Come on, kid. Don’t ya fucking die on me,’ Abbott growled.
He pumped another lungful of air into Mark, his thoughts of panic and utter despair.
Again he waited for the air.
Again he felt nothing.
He pumped another gust of air.
Waited.
Another.
Another.
Another.
Still nothing.
‘I don’t think he’s going to make it,’ Jake said.
Abbott ignored him and pumped in another breath.
Still nothing.
‘Come on,’ he hissed.
He pumped in another mouthful of air, starting to feel like he was pissing in the wind.
After Fallon’s first scream, Thompson hadn’t cared where he ran or how much noise he made.
He couldn’t hear much over the cacophony he himself was making – couldn’t hear if anything else was moving in the woods – but he knew that there had been only one scream. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
Finally his leaden limbs buckled and dumped him on the floor. His hands and face skidded into slimy leaf mulch and mud. The torch flew from his grasp. He let out a cry of surprise then smiled. In front of him was a small stone structure that reminded him of a well.
Unable to believe his luck, he hauled himself over the wall and dropped into darkness.
When he got inside, he took a furtive glance, to see if there were any more of the glowing orange eyes. He was pleased to note that they were conspicuous by their absence.
He crawled down a short length of passageway which lead out into a small room.
It was not tall enough to stand up in, but he could sit without hitting his head. It was too dark to see how big the cubbyhole was, but there was enough room to permit him to lie down. This pleased him as, in spite of his terror, he wanted to sleep.
If he could wait it out in here till morning, he felt sure he could find his way back to town in daylight.
Assuming that whatever was looking for him didn’t find him first.
Still, he reasoned he was better off hidden in here than out in the open.
Then a terrifying thought hit him; what if this was something’s lair and it had yet to return?
He decided he was still better off here. At close range, he could blow it to pieces with bullets. Yes, it seemed that his prayers for sanctuary had been answered.
He started to feel uneasy as the idea of being in something’s lair returned. Best to know, he decided and set about exploring on his hands and knees. His right hand clutched his gun, ready to blow a hole in anything that lurked in the darkness.
He hugged the right hand wall of the cavern as he crawled. Hands waving in front of his face to feel for obstacles, he carried on until he hit the wall at the end of the cavern. It was roughly ten feet from the entrance, although it was hard to tell; the darkness seemed to distort distances.
Time too, when he thought about it. He had already lost track of how long he’d been down here.
He turned so his right hand touched the rear wall of the cavern, imagining that this was very much what being blind would feel like.
Still, no monsters in the lair yet.
So far, so good.
Waving his hands in front of him as substitutes for his eyes, he eventually reached the left hand wall without any nasty surprises.
He turned ninety degrees, so the left hand wall was now to his right. Rough guesswork told him that the cavern was bigger widthways than it was lengthways.
His hand brushed something cold and slimy on the wall, six inches from the corner.
He recoiled in horror, his mind trying its best to process a positive solution to what it could be. His optimistic side decided it was mushrooms growing on the wall.
He continued to grope for the dark wall, touched the awful slick mass again, forcing himself not to pull his hand away from it as much as he longed to.
The patch was probably a foot in diameter before it mercifully returned to the damp wood. He breathed a sigh of relief.
Then his hand fell upon the round object, which he knew, without even looking, was a skull.
Abbott vowed to give it another few minutes, loathe to give up so easily.
Finally, Mark gasped and let out a scream of utter despair. He sat up fast, but Abbott pushed him back down, not wanting him to hit his head on the ceiling.
He noticed the bloody dent in the side of Mark’s head.
‘Relax, kid,’ he said. ‘Thought we’d lost ya, but you’re gonna be ok.’
Mark retched, spitting up thick strands of dust-flecked saliva.
‘That’s it, kid. Get it all up,’ Abbott said, giving him a hearty whack on the back.
Mark coughed and spluttered for a few minutes.
‘I suggest we high-tail it outta here before the whole sorry lot comes down,’ Abbott said.
‘Agreed,’ Jake said.
Mark nodded. The last thing he felt like doing was moving, but he was aware of how precarious a situation they were in.
Abbott again set a furious pace, eager to be out of the shifting pile of impending doom.
Thompson’s hand flew away from the skull as if it had touched a hot stove.
‘Oh shit,’ he breathed.
His imagination had been right. He was in something’s lair.
This man or woman was one of its many victims, victims which lay along this wall like a row of trophies in a cabinet.
Victims who had gotten lost in the woods, just as he had.
Oh, God, he thought. If I’m to die, please let it be quick, please let it be painless, don’t let it be too hard for my family to see, not like the atrocit
ies that had been inflicted on Mrs Blake and Harry Cornell. Oh, please, God, not like that.
He realised that the terror of uncertainty was worse than finding out who he was sharing the cavern with. He had a small, weak torch on his keyring. It would hardly be of use in this total, obscuring darkness, but it would be enough to reveal the cavern’s secrets.
If the light attracted some hungry creature then so be it. At least he’d die sooner without all the horrible waiting.
He dug out the keyring and fumbled the torch. It hit the floor with a tinkling sound that seemed to be the only noise in the entire world.
He cursed and fumbled around for it. His hand brushed against the dead man’s leg. He felt cold, hard bone and again his hand darted away like it had been burnt.
Slowly, tentatively, his fingers crawled across the floor, searching for the keys. He hoped not to feel the bare bones again, as they were a reminder of the grim fate that he could expect to find him. In the dark he could at least try to pretend it didn’t exist.
He found the keyring and his fingers scuttled around until they found the small torch. He twisted the head of the torch and a dim light came out of the tip. In the blackness it was a beacon of hope as bright as the sun.
Do I really want to see this? he thought. What if the body’s in a horrible state?
Again, he reasoned the uncertainty was worse than knowing. He shone the torch beam at the floor and worked up.
He saw a brown hiker’s boot, old and shredded and caked in dried mud. He saw two gleaming white leg bones, both intact. Next to them, he saw two snapped leg bones, the tibia and fibula almost at a right angle to the rest of the limb above the break. Even though the skin was gone from the limbs, it still shocked him.
The torch continued its path up. Above the knees, bright blue shorts with a white skull and crossbones design covered the poor bastard’s hips. The cheery colour of the shorts looked distinctly out of place considering the circumstances, although the design was curiously apt.
Above the waistband of the shorts, a plain white t-shirt covered the torso. The front of the shirt looked like it had been used to clean up a giant’s nosebleed. In the blood were flecks of grey matter and tiny shards, which puzzled Thompson.
