Mercy Point

by Anna Snoekstra

  They took a step into the cavern together. Something about how beautiful it was, how glittering and luminescent, was otherworldly. It made his heart beat faster. It made him feel slightly frightened. He gripped her hand tighter, trying to draw strength from their united skin.

  ‘Where’s Sam?’ asked Emma.

  Michael looked around. At first, he couldn’t see him. But then there he was, standing in a corner and staring up at one of the walls of titanite.

  As they walked towards him, he turned and smiled at them. Michael wasn’t sure if it was the way the light hit Sam’s face, but Michael didn’t like the way he was looking at them.

  ‘This is pretty nuts, hey?’ Michael said. ‘What do you think these plants are?’

  ‘They kind of look like mushrooms.’ Emma let go of his hand to kneel down closer. He wished she hadn’t. His hand felt cold now. Empty. He put it into his pocket.

  Sam rolled his eyes. ‘They are sort of. They’re all plants with phosphorescence. It’s so we can see.’

  Something tightened in Michael’s chest. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We won’t need them soon, when our eyes get used to the new frequencies.’

  Emma stood up and took a step closer to Michael so the sides of their bodies were touching. ‘Sam,’ she said, ‘you’re not making sense.’

  ‘The spectrum that we can see in now is so narrow. Soon, we are going to see on a whole different range, but our brains haven’t caught up with our eyesight yet. That’s why we are just going blind.’ He looked at them as if they were slow, then turned back to the wall. ‘Look.’

  Michael had no idea what the hell he was talking about. But as he looked up at the wall that Sam was peering at, he saw that it glittered. He took his phone out and shone it onto the wall. It lit up images carved into the rock. They glittered more strongly when the light hit them. They were decorated with tiny flakes of titanite.

  ‘It’s like an artwork,’ Emma said. There were little pictures all over the wall. It must have been some sort of pre-historic thing, millions of years old. Except it didn’t look that old.

  ‘Wait.’ Emma’s eyes were glued to the carvings. ‘Wait . . . it’s a story.’

  She was right.

  Michael looked at the first image. It was of figures that looked almost like humans, but all wrong. Their heads were too big and bald, and their hands looked like they had knives on the end. The second was of a hollowed-out circle, incredibly familiar in its pattern. It was the mine, Michael realised. Then there was a war, humans and creatures fighting, creatures broken and dying. The next was of infants. Babies. Four alone and one with the creatures. The images showed the four babies growing above land, slowly mutating to look like the creatures, then returning for a second war. This time the creatures were stronger and the only broken figures were human.

  Michael reached up and touched one of the infants with his blackened fingertip, then looked towards Emma. Her brow was furrowed as she took in the images.

  She tore her eyes away to look at him. ‘This is really weird.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess we found a clue, after all.’

  She nodded. He was about to ask her if they should turn back when he heard something that made his whole body feel even colder. Right into his bones. A scream. It split through the silent space, echoed around the cavern again and again and again.

  ‘That’s Tess,’ Emma breathed.

  ‘Oh God, we never should have separated.’ They whirled around, ready to run back the way they’d come. But Sam rushed in front of them.

  ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘What?’ Michael spat. ‘Didn’t you just hear that? Tess is in trouble! We have to.’

  ‘No,’ he said, his voice even, ‘you have to stay.’

  There was a moment of stunned silence in the cavern. Then a second blood-curdling scream echoed around them.

  ‘You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,’ Emma said, taking a step forward. Sam side-stepped again so he was in her path.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Michael’s anger was rising. If Sam wanted to be a coward, that was fine, but they couldn’t just leave Tessie with whatever was making her scream like that.

  Sam didn’t answer him. He just grinned, saying nothing. It was unnerving.

  ‘You were the one who brought us down here,’ Michael yelled, ‘and now you’re acting like an absolute creep! I don’t know what kind of weird game you’re trying to play, but you need to move out of the way. Now.’

  ‘Seriously, Sam, please just move. If you don’t want to come with us, that’s okay. We’ll come back to find you, promise.’ Emma put her hand on his arm. He flinched and shrugged it off.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, I’m sick to death of your good-girl act!’

  Emma pulled away as though Sam had slapped her. ‘I’m not acting.’

  ‘Cut it out!’ Michael said.

  ‘I’m sorry, sorry,’ Sam said, raising his hands. ‘Keep running around if you like. There’s no getting out.’

  There was silence again. Emma and Michael looked at each other in the semi-dark. He didn’t even sound like Sam anymore.

  ‘It was you!’ Emma shrieked. ‘You opened that airlock door. You’ve done this intentionally, haven’t you!’

  ‘Finally! You guys are a bit slow, I’ve gotta say,’ he said. ‘Well, now that you know, I can take you to them.’

  ‘Take us to who?’ Emma’s voice was almost inaudible it was so quiet.

  ‘To your real family, you moron!’

  ‘That’s it!’ Michael lunged at Sam. He pounded a fist into Sam, hearing the satisfactory thump, though he wasn’t sure what he’d hit. It was too dark. He grabbed at material, maybe Sam’s T-shirt, and tried to hit again but missed. He felt Sam’s hand grab his and try to prise off his grip, so he pushed his whole weight forward, falling on top of Sam and hearing the crack as Sam hit the hard cave floor. This guy was the reason they were down here. They were all doomed because of him. Michael kneeled over him. Hit him again.

  ‘Stop!’ Emma yelled, and Michael looked up.

  Sam’s fist slammed into Michael’s head. Michael was thrown sideways, but he managed to grip onto Sam’s shirt again.

  Then he heard another blood-curdling scream. But it wasn’t Tessie’s. It was much closer, much louder. It was Emma’s.

  He pushed off Sam and tried to stand. He grabbed his phone from the ground and shone the light to Emma, heart racing. He expected to see her on the ground, hurt somehow, but she was just standing there, staring.

  ‘What?’ he puffed, trying to get his breath back. ‘What’s happened?’

  The side of his face was throbbing with pain. She didn’t reply, just kept staring. Her phone torch pointed at the corner. He followed the beam of light. For a moment, his mind couldn’t comprehend it. It couldn’t compute what was in front of him. There was a group of them, up high, stepping out from one of the other tunnel entrances. Their skin was white, nearly translucent. He could see the veins under their skin. The one in front was hobbled over and as wrinkly as a prune. The ones behind stood straight. They had long black fingers, like claws.

  ‘Please don’t be afraid,’ the one in front said, its voice unnervingly calm. It put up a hand to try to shield its face from the light of Emma’s phone.

  The worst thing of all was their eyes. They were a cloudy blue with pinprick pupils.

  Michael gripped Emma’s hand. Beside him, he heard Sam scramble to his feet. He expected a scream from him too, but there wasn’t one. Instead, he began walking towards them, blood dripping from his nose.

  ‘Sam,’ he hissed, ‘don’t.’

  But Sam kept walking. He pulled himself up to the level they were standing on. Michael gripped Emma’s hand tighter.

  ‘Ash,’ Sam said, warmth in his voice, ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

  Then he did something that made bile rise in the back of Michael’s throat. He leaned in and wrapped his arms around it.

  CHAPTER 30

>   TESSIE

  Tessie jumped to her feet and ran. Her heart was hammering, her throat sore from screaming. She thought she might be sick, but she kept moving. Faster, faster. Was it following? She powered forward. Kept moving. She imagined its face and couldn’t help but scream again.

  ‘Tessie?’ a voice echoed down to her.

  ‘Fabian?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  It was him. She ran towards the sound.

  ‘Fabian?’

  ‘This way!’

  She could see the phone light bouncing from the walls. She rounded a corner until there he was, standing alone. She didn’t stop moving until she felt warm arms around her.

  ‘I thought I lost you. I was so scared,’ Fabian said.

  ‘Me too,’ she breathed.

  ‘How do you run so bloody fast?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought you were behind me.’

  ‘Tessie.’ He pulled away and looked at her, but it was too dark to see him properly. ‘Why did you scream? Was it just that you slipped? You sounded really scared. I’ve never heard a scream like that.’

  She took a step back so she could see him. The harsh light from his phone made his skin look almost bluish. Like the creature.

  ‘I saw someone. Something. Its face,’ she said, and then clamped a hand over her mouth. She couldn’t say it.

  ‘Oh God,’ Fabian read the horror in her eyes, ‘we need to get out of here.’

  ‘I don’t know if we can get out. I think we just need to hide. Before it finds us.’

  He looked around. ‘When I got lost, I found somewhere — it might work. Come on.’

  They rushed forward. She kept noticing Fabian turn back. He was checking. Making sure she was still following. He didn’t want to lose her again. Through her fear, she felt a trickle of warmth. All the bad thoughts really had been wrong.

  He stopped walking and looked towards a dead end.

  ‘Did we go the wrong way?’ Tessie turned back. She hadn’t heard anything, but it was still possible that thing was behind them, slowly and silently following them. It could be just a few metres back. They wouldn’t know.

  ‘No,’ he whispered, ‘look.’

  His light shone on the corner of the tunnel. Instead of bouncing off the rock, it shone through a gap. The wall and roof didn’t quite connect.

  ‘There’s a cavern,’ Fabian said. ‘Maybe we’ll be able to hide inside?’

  She nodded.

  CHAPTER 31

  EMMA

  Ash. Ashleigh. The woman Sam said had raised him. There she was, and she was a monster. A monster that Sam, goofy Sam, cheerful, optimistic, mysterious Sam, had his arms around. He turned to smile at them and brushed his nose with the back of his hand. Blood smeared across his face.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Emma whispered to Michael. ‘We have to run.’

  They turned and raced back towards the entrance they’d come from.

  ‘Don’t go!’ she heard Sam cry out behind her. ‘I want to introduce you!’

  They reached the entrance and went back into the darkness. She pulled out her phone and fumbled for the torch button. The light turned on and she held it out in front of them. Her throat was already hurting from the cold, but she kept going, breathing in puffs of freezing air, their feet clapping against the hard ground.

  She had never been so afraid. It was like her mind went blank with fear. It was too much. She pushed forward, not stopping even though her throat burned and her heart beat too fast and she could barely breathe. They didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. Those things might be behind them. Those horrible things. They went downwards, always downwards. And then she smacked into Michael’s back, falling backwards with a painful thud onto the hard floor.

  ‘Ouch!’ she yelled, her breath ragged.

  ‘Sorry . . .’ Michael gasped out.

  ‘Why did you stop?’

  He leaned his hands on his legs. ‘We need to make sure we’re going the right way.’

  She shone the light past him; he was standing at a fork.

  ‘Who cares! Any way is the right way if we’re away from them.’

  ‘We should be trying to find the others.’

  ‘But how? They could be anywhere.’ She pulled herself gingerly to her feet, rubbed her butt. Now that hurt too, along with her hands and her knee from where she’d fallen before.

  ‘I don’t know! But we have to try!’

  ‘Yeah, well, making me fall over isn’t going to help!’

  ‘Neither is yelling at me!’

  She was about to yell back, but she felt her chin begin to tremble. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m just so . . .’

  ‘I am too.’ He grabbed her hand again. ‘Pick a tunnel and let’s keep going.’

  ‘You want me to pick?’

  ‘Yeah, my sense of direction is terrible. I trust you.’

  ‘What if I’m wrong?’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  She looked between them. It made sense to pick left — that was the way she’d gone last time. Maybe it would lead them to where Fabian and Tessie were.

  She nodded, not wanting to say anything in case she started crying or screaming or worse, then jogged into the left tunnel. He followed.

  She tried to breathe. They couldn’t panic. There had to be a way, there just had to be. She knew she had been wrong about everything, everything she’d ever thought was right was wrong. That her parents were honest, that Sam liked her, that Michael was a bad person and that she knew the way out. But she couldn’t be wrong in her belief that they would get through this. That they wouldn’t die down here.

  The battery symbol was blinking on her phone. It was four am. Her parents still had no idea she was gone. They’d wake up in just a few hours and find her bed empty.

  They kept running. Slower now. Her heart was beating too fast to run quickly. Those things, the carvings on the wall. It was all starting to make a hideous sort of sense.

  Her phone light bounced off a solid surface at the end of the tunnel. She slowed, and then stopped.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Michael puffed, catching up to her.

  ‘It’s a dead end.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  She put her hands over her face. She could hear, very far off in the distance, the sound of footsteps, the hisses of a strange language. They were coming. Sam and his weird monster family were coming.

  She swallowed and shone the light around the walls. Michael was standing with his back to her, his hands flat against the dead end.

  ‘Should we turn back?’ he asked.

  ‘I think they’re coming,’ she whispered, staring at him. He took a step towards her and clasped both her hands. They stood there silently. Listening. The sounds were getting louder. She stared at Michael, not knowing what to say. His cheek was smudged with dirt and his eyes were sad, but the look on his face as he stared at her was intense.

  ‘Maybe we should turn back,’ she whispered, ‘face them.’

  ‘Wait,’ he said. One of his hands unclasped from hers. He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I can’t die without knowing how your hair feels,’ he whispered. She tilted her head, just slightly, towards his hand. His thumb stroked her cheek.

  ‘I just wanted you to know,’ he said, ‘if we don’t make it —’

  ‘Stop.’ She grabbed his hand from her face and held it tightly. ‘We are getting out of here. I promise.’ Then she leaned in and kissed him. His mouth was hot against hers and, despite her fear, her whole body felt charged. She felt more alive than ever.

  She wanted to pull him closer, touch his hair, feel his jawline under her fingers, run her hand down his back. Instead, she pulled away. He stared at her, his mouth still slightly open from their kiss. She had to say something, explain it.

  ‘I —’ she began, but then a horrifying sound cut her off. They drew back. The wall of rock in front of them, the wall they thought was a dead end, was moving.

  CHAPTER 32

&
nbsp; MICHAEL

  She’d kissed him. Emma had kissed him. And now the rock was moving in front of them, and the creatures were going to get them. But he didn’t even care. Emma Arling had kissed him.

  ‘Should we run?’ she cried, gripping his hand.

  ‘Wait!’ came a voice. A familiar voice. It sounded like Fabian.

  The rock shifted more, and he could see their faces now. Tessie and Fabian, smiling at them, pushing the top section of the rock out of the way.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ Michael said.

  ‘Thank God,’ exclaimed Emma, and she clambered up through the gap and dropped down into a cavern. Michael scrambled down next to her. Fabian’s and Tessie’s phones were resting upwards on the ground so that the torchlight filled the small space. Fabian and Tessie faced them, dirty, pale but okay. Emma threw her arms around them both.

  ‘Come on, let’s move this back before we start celebrating,’ Michael said.

  Emma untangled herself, and the four of them pushed the boulder back into place, blocking the top part of the entranceway. It felt light, too light for its size, almost like it was hollow. When it was covering the entrance completely, he looked back. The cavern was small and rounded, but big enough for the four of them to easily fit into. He smiled at Fabian and Tessie, so relieved that they were all back together. Without really thinking about it, he reached out to them too and was surprised when they both gripped him into a hug. When he pulled back, the four of them stared at each other for a moment, then, all at once, they started talking.

  ‘Sam’s in on it.’

  ‘He’s been messing with us this whole time.’

  ‘We found his room.’

  ‘He grew up here, I think.’

  ‘We heard you scream.’

  ‘There are things down here.’

  ‘Creatures.’

  ‘They’re terrifying.’

  ‘Sam’s one of them.’