by Jeff Strand
Gabriel opened his mouth to scream. Something struck his back between his shoulder blades and jerked him upward. He sputtered with the influx of air, retched, then rolled away from the opening and vomited onto the stone floor.
“Shh!” Cavenaugh hissed into his ear.
Gabriel continued to gasp until he calmed down and rationalized the situation. The darkness in the cavern was lighter than the underwater tunnel by degree, but only enough to limn the silhouettes of the others. His harsh breath echoed hollowly in the large, unseen room.
“Hurry back,” Cavenaugh whispered.
With a soft splash, Jess crawled down into the water and headed back for Kelsey. She was obviously a better swimmer and had handled the journey far better than he had.
Gabriel sat up and tried to get a feel for his surroundings. The blackness was claustrophobic, and even though he couldn’t see the stone walls, he felt confident they were about to collapse and bury him alive.
There was a rustling noise, then a metallic snapping sound.
“This won’t last long,” Cavenaugh whispered. “Memorize everything you see.”
Gabriel wasn’t sure what Cavenaugh meant until with a whoosh and a scream, a fireball streaked off into the darkness with a startling flash.
***
The resultant glow stained the room orange from where the ball of fire burned against the stone wall ahead and to the left. Already it was beginning to fizzle and fade. Gabriel was shocked by the sheer enormity of the cavern, which more closely resembled a highway tunnel through a mountain than any sort of natural formation. The walls were smooth, with few outcroppings, and rounded to create an elliptical room perhaps twenty-five feet wide, but only a dozen feet high. It almost appeared man-made. Beyond the leading edge of the fading light, a section of the roof and walls had collapsed into a pile of rubble.
Gabriel tried to absorb every detail before the crackling flame extinguished. Rivulets of water trickled down the walls and dripped to the ground from the condensation above. A small channel of water cut through the middle of the floor, whisper quiet, and emptied into the pool from which they’d emerged. There was a stack of red aluminum containers to the right, presumably what they’d heard the rock strike from the hole through which the cat had crawled. They were rusted and dented, but one still bore the faded letters KER SENE. The smooth stone floor beside the small stream was wet and sloppy. Maybe it was the orange glare, but the long smear that led deeper into the tunnel glimmered scarlet.
The flare diminished to a wan glow of embers, and finally to nothing at all. In the dying light, he thought he had seen movement ahead near the mound of rocks, a shadow passing across shadows. The darkness wrapped around them again with humid arms.
Gabriel felt Cavenaugh’s breath on his ear before the other man whispered, “They dragged the bodies through here. There’s blood all over the ground in front of us.”
There was a muted metallic clatter as Cavenaugh ejected the spent metal flare casing and chambered another.
“We should have brought flashlights,” Gabriel whispered.
“You think?”
He’d obviously hit a sore spot. Cavenaugh had gone to great lengths to outfit their expedition, but apparently hadn’t foreseen every contingency.
Gabriel heard a shuffling sound beside him and realized Cavenaugh was getting dressed. Following suit, Gabriel stripped out of his wet clothes, unpacked the dry, and had only begun to get dressed when a slosh of water and a gasp announced Kelsey’s arrival. His reaction upon crawling out of the spring was the same as Gabriel’s. He was still retching when Jess slipped out of the water.
They dressed in a silence marred only by the occasional zip of a zipper and scratch of Velcro.
“Ready?” Cavenaugh whispered. When no one immediately spoke up, he detailed his plan. “We advance in a diamond formation. I’ll take the lead. Jess and Gabriel, you’ll stay right behind and to either side of me. You’ll carry the flare guns. Only fire one off on my signal. Kelsey, you’ll bring up the rear. Walk backwards. Make sure no one tries to sneak up on us from behind. Anything moves, shoot it. Got it?”
Whispers of assent.
“If you see or hear anything—anything at all—stop where you are and tap the people to either side. Keep the formation close, and no one strays away. Understood?”
The stream hissed past them, an indifferent serpent in their midst.
Kelsey checked to make sure a load was chambered in the rifle with a clack.
The sound of their breathing grew harsh, tense.
Something pressed into Gabriel’s stomach and he took the flare gun from Cavenaugh. His palm was sweating so badly it took several attempts to find the proper grip. A thought struck him like a bullet to the temple.
They were all going to die in there.
“Move out,” Cavenaugh whispered, and took the first step forward into the darkness.
***
The clatter of rock against rock signaled Cavenaugh had reached the section where the roof had fallen. A faint slant of mote-riddled gray light cut through the darkness from a hole in the ceiling mere feet above the top of the pile. Judging by the distance from the spring, Gabriel could only assume that was where Oscar had entered from above.
“Be careful and quiet,” Cavenaugh whispered, and began his ascent.
Gabriel leaned onto the mound and tested the boulders with a shove, but they didn’t budge in the slightest. He reached out and found purchase on a rock. His hand slipped when he tried to pull himself up. The surface was slick and damp. He prayed it wasn’t blood from a body being dragged over them, and resumed his climb. When he crested the top, he looked up into the hole in the fractured ceiling, but couldn’t see the more than a few feet before the passage bent to the right. Cold air blew in his face.
The descent was more challenging as he refused to turn his back to the unseen chamber beyond in order to properly use his hands. Instead, he picked his way down on his rear end, testing each step with his heels. At the bottom, he stood beside Cavenaugh, where they waited for the others to join them.
“Jess,” Cavenaugh whispered. “Flare.”
Again there was a whoosh and a scream as the ball of fire sped into the darkness. It hit the ground and bounded down the tunnel. Its momentum petered out after about fifty yards.
Gabriel gasped. Nothing could have prepared him for what he now saw.
“Holy crap,” Kelsey whispered.
The thin stream on the ground divided the cavern into halves. To the left, a stained and aged mattress rested against the rounded rock wall. Two rumpled sleeping bags were spread out on it. The pillowcases at the head of the bed looked like they hadn’t been washed in ages. There were two backpacks on the floor, overflowing with clothes. A kerosene lantern rested beside the bed. A bench had been constructed from tree trunks, still round and flaking with dried bark. A black leather book sat on the planks. It was embossed with three white words: The Holy Bible. The pages were dog-eared and tattered. Another lantern had been positioned next to it beside a reserve tank of kerosene.
The right side of the room was something else entirely, as though the occupants had created their version of heaven on one side, and hell on the other.
There was a pallet composed of uneven tree trunks lashed together with various thicknesses of rope. A rusted ax stood at an angle from where the blade was buried in the wood. Chips and wedges had been stolen from the trunks through repeated use. Its function was no mystery, as Maura’s and Will’s bodies were sprawled across it. They had been stripped, their wet clothes piled beside them in twin heaps. Their flesh had paled dramatically in stark contrast to the vicious red wounds across their chests and throats. Oscar sat in the crook of Will’s neck, worrying at a sizeable gash with his teeth. He secured a mouthful and darted deeper into the tunnel without a backwards glance.
Various animal carcasses were scattered on the floor, the bones bleached, presumably from being boiled in the carbon-scored pot sitting on th
e charcoaled remnants of an extinguished campfire.
Gabriel caught a reflection from the wall above the carnage and looked up to see a half dozen necklaces hanging from the imperfections in the stone. His eyes were drawn to one in particular, from which a small golden cross dangled. There were five small diamonds set into the design, one in the center, and one at each end.
He recognized it immediately.
The flare died, and again the darkness enveloped them.
Gabriel stifled a sob, but couldn’t prevent the tears from streaming down his cheeks. He felt like someone had reached inside him and torn out all of his bowels. His stomach roiled and his head spun. Whatever hope he had held out that Stephanie might still be alive had been crushed. Rage and anguish warred within him. He wanted to rip the rifle out of Cavenaugh’s hands and run screaming down the tunnel, to make someone pay for his sister’s death. All he could see was an image of Stephanie’s naked, lifeless body spread across that hideous chopping block, covered with blood, while a faceless shadow stood over her, raised the ax, and—
Thuck. Followed by an angry hiss.
“What was that?” Jess whispered.
The sounds had come from deeper in the mountain, where Oscar had just fled.
“Someone’s down there,” Kelsey whispered.
“They’ve been leading us in that direction the entire time,” Cavenaugh whispered. “They’re waiting for us.”
***
Cavenaugh led them through the pitch black, slowly, silently. The ground began to slope upward ever so slightly. Once they reached the point where the flare had died, they halted and closed rank.
Gabriel heard a rustling sound behind him and turned. Something warm and wet slapped him across the face. A salty, metallic taste filled his mouth and he had to swipe the fluid from his left eye. He froze. His mind raced in an effort to comprehend what had just happened. His first thought was that Kelsey had stomped into the stream, but there hadn’t been a splashing sound to match.
Gabriel spat out the foul substance, then whispered, “Kelsey?”
There was a scraping noise mere feet away from him, but he couldn’t see a thing.
“Kelsey?”
“Gabriel,” Cavenaugh whispered. “Flare. Now.”
Gabriel pointed the blunted gun back in the direction from which they had come and pulled the trigger. The tunnel bloomed orange as the fireball streaked away into the darkness with a shriek and collided with the wooden pallet where the corpses still rested, and burned, hot and fast.
The ground at Gabriel’s feet was sloppy with blood, and, as he could now see, so was he. A wide smear led back down the tunnel, terminating in a pair of boots. Kelsey was sprawled on his stomach, his head and shoulders under the water, arms pinned beneath his chest.
Jess ran to him, rolled him onto his back, and cradled his head to raise it out of the stream. The laceration across his neck opened like a second mouth into a soundless scream.
A shadow darted along the wall to Gabriel’s left in the dying light, but by the time he turned, there was no sign of movement.
The flame fizzled and extinguished, stranding them in the impregnable blackness.
There was the clatter of rock on rock and the soft sound of footsteps, and then nothing at all.
Jess whimpered and started to cry.
Gabriel spun in a circle. It felt like he was surrounded, as though there were people so close he could feel their breath on his face.
“Fall back,” Cavenaugh whispered.
“What about—?” Jess whispered.
“Leave him. There’s nothing any of us can do for him now.”
“But I just saw someone—”
“I said fall back.”
Gabriel felt a hand shove him between the shoulder blades from behind and started walking. He could no longer tell if his eyes were open or closed.
There was a splashing sound from his right. A few seconds later, a wet rifle was thrust into his abdomen. He shoved the flare gun into his jacket pocket and cradled the rifle across his chest, sweeping it in front of him in jerking motions.
“Jess,” Cavenaugh whispered. “Fire another flare.”
Light exploded from the barrel and hurtled away into the living quarters. The flare struck the mounded rocks and bounded back toward them. The area was momentarily illuminated by a wavering peach glow, casting shadows from every object like black flags, before the ball of flame bounced into the stream and darkness raced back in with a hiss.
“Give me the flare gun,” Cavenaugh whispered.
A dozen more echoing footsteps and the light blossomed again. With a scream, the flare flew into the corner of the dead end, ricocheted from the boulders and then from the wall, and came to rest beside the bed. Cavenaugh passed the smoldering pistol back to Jess and walked directly toward the lantern on the ground.
“What are you doing?” Gabriel asked.
“What we should have done from the start.” Cavenaugh picked up the lantern, removed the glass housing, and held the broad wick to the flare until it lit. After dialing up the flame, he replaced the top and held it up to light the room. “I thought we’d make easy targets walking with the lantern. Apparently we did a good enough job of that without it.”
The dancing flame and the refractions through the glass brought the furthest reaches of the lantern’s light to life with shifting shadows.
“How many flares are left?” Cavenaugh asked.
“I have one,” Jess whispered.
“Same here,” Gabriel whispered.
“Then we don’t have much margin for error,” Cavenaugh said in a normal tone. The lantern was a handheld bull’s-eye. It didn’t matter now if their voices betrayed their location. “Jess, do you think you can carry that red canister?”
She lifted the container easily by the handle and sloshed the fluid. It sounded like there was maybe half a tank. Cavenaugh passed her the lantern, which she held aloft in her free hand.
“Gabriel,” Cavenaugh said. “You stay in the rear. Walk backwards. I’ll lead. Jess, stay between us and keep the lantern raised high enough that we can see.”
He started walking back toward Kelsey’s body.
“What are you doing?” Gabriel asked.
“I just told you.”
“We need to get out of here. I thought that’s what we were doing.”
“No,” Cavenaugh said. He turned. The expression on his face was frightening. “This ends here and now.”
“You’re out of your mind. Think about what just happened to Kelsey. We need to get the hell out of here while we still can. Let the police and the FBI come in here after them.”
“We leave now and they’ll be gone before reinforcements arrive. If we don’t do this now, we’ll never know what happened here.”
“It’s pretty obvious,” Gabriel said, gesturing to the corpses on the other side of the stream. “What more do you need to know?”
“I need to know why!” Cavenaugh shouted.
Gabriel retreated a step. Cavenaugh’s eyes were wide and wild, his red face contorting awkwardly with emotion. Gabriel was debating the merit of turning his rifle on Cavenaugh when the man spoke again, this time more softly.
“I’ll be dead inside three months. The cancer’s metastasized to my stomach and lungs. In a matter of weeks, I won’t be able to breathe without oxygen or swallow anything solid. Radiation will just prolong the process. There’s nothing I can do to change that. And I can’t go back empty-handed. There isn’t anything for me to go back to anyway. All of this equipment? These guns? You’d better believe someone’s noticed they’re gone by now. The department’s probably pretty anxious to have a little chat with me, one that starts with ‘You have the right to remain silent.’ So, as you can imagine, this is my last chance. My little sister died here. She never had a chance to get married or have children, to find happiness. All I want from the time I have left is to make sure that Jenny’s life mattered, that it counted for something. I don’t ca
re if you come with me or not. Run away. That’s fine by me. But there’s something I want you to think about before you do.”
Gabriel looked at Jess, then back at Cavenaugh.
“Whoever killed Kelsey snuck up on him from behind. From the direction you want to go,” Cavenaugh said. “We probably walked right past him in the dark.”
Gabriel felt a sudden chill at the thought. Neither option appealed to him in the slightest. He wanted to just sit down and wait for someone to come rescue them, but he knew that if none of the search parties had found this tunnel before, they weren’t about to any time soon.
Cavenaugh turned away and struck off deeper into the mountain. After a moment’s hesitation, Jess followed.
Gabriel glanced back at the mound of rocks and the passage over them that led to the spring one final time before he joined the others. He spun around and walked in reverse, pointing the barrel of the rifle at the moving shadows cast by the lantern.
He slid his trembling finger onto the trigger.
***
Gabriel watched Kelsey’s body fade behind them until the darkness advanced from beyond the lantern’s reach and claimed it. He could barely breathe. The terror had conspired with the heat and humidity to compress his chest. Were it not for the prospect of someone with a wickedly sharp knife lying in wait in the darkness, he would have gladly succumbed to the panic and run screaming out of the cave. As it was, he was slowly losing the battle with his nerves. Every shift in the shadows nearly summoned a fusillade of bullets. With his hands shaking as badly as they were, he wondered if his aim would be remotely accurate if he had to put it to the test.
He had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn’t notice Jess had stopped until he backed into her.
“Sorry—”
“Shh!” Cavenaugh whispered.
Gabriel listened, but couldn’t hear anything over his ragged breathing and the thrum of his pulse. After seeing nothing ahead, he risked a glance back over his shoulder. About twenty feet past Cavenaugh, illuminated by just the faintest glow, were twin mounds of rock to either side of the tunnel where another section of the earthen roof had collapsed. The passage narrowed to a bottleneck. They would have to pass through single file, becoming sitting ducks as they emerged on the other side one at a time.
