Underworld Page 16

  Rock is never soft.

  ‘What is it, boy!’ the Captain demands, and I hold out my hands to him

  ‘The wall is soft,’ I say.

  He looks at me, and then he touches the wall too. I hear his low moan.

  The wall is soft.

  Rock is not soft. So this cannot be rock. It cannot be wall.

  When did the nightmare realisation dawn on me? In what instant?

  I do not know.

  I looked all around the cave and I screamed.

  ‘We are inside the Worm!’

  * * *

  Mr Marks stirred uneasily as they lifted him. They stopped and watched him for a moment. Was he going to wake up this time? Angie came towards him and felt his brow.

  ‘I’ve been giving him water,’ Fiona told her. Her tone surprised Zesh. It was as if she wanted to please Angie, to assure her she had taken over her job.

  Angie smiled again. ‘I knew you would,’ she said. Then she turned to them all. ‘This way,’ and she stepped forwards and disappeared into the black hole.

  ‘I can’t believe she’s back, Zesh,’ Fiona whispered. ‘Can you?’

  It seemed that none of them could. No wonder they all seemed scared of her. She had gone, disappeared, and now, she had reappeared just like magic. It gave Zesh a chill feeling in his stomach. ‘But she knows the way out,’ he said. ‘What choice do we have but to follow her?’

  Liam said softly. ‘Well, I’m telling you this. I’m keeping my eye on her. I don’t trust her.’

  Axel tried to make a joke of it. ‘Liam thinks she’s the evil ghost of Angie, come back to lead us to our deaths.’ No one laughed.

  Liam didn’t even dispute it. ‘I’m gonny watch her anyway.’

  They moved into the tunnel, and it seemed to Zesh that they were going the wrong way, going back, going down. He glanced at Axel. Axel whose sense of direction was always good. And saw concern on his face too. Axel felt him watching him. ‘Where is she taking us?’

  Angie caught the whispered words. ‘It leads to the sea. Honest.’ Her eyes went wide. ‘Look. There’s one of my signs.’

  Her sign was a pile of rocks built into a pyramid. ‘This is the way I came.’

  Axel and Zesh stared at each other. What choice did they have indeed, but to follow her?

  As they struggled deeper the water began to run down the cave walls and the smell grew musty. None of them liked it.

  ‘I don’t think this is right!’ Liam yelled.

  Angie’s voice was calm when she answered him. ‘Wait till you see the signs.’

  ‘What signs!’ Liam yelled again. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Signs, numbers. I found them, like a countdown to the sea. 10, 9, 8. Come on.’ She seemed to glance behind her, and her smile wavered.

  They all felt it. Something ominous in the dark.

  ‘Please. Hurry,’ Angie said.

  ‘Do you think there’s going to be another collapse?’ Liam asked Zesh.

  But a collapse was the last thing on Zesh’s mind.

  Not one of them felt easy about following Angie, but at least they were moving. And if Zesh thought the caves were growing darker, he refused to be afraid. If this was the way that would lead them out, that was all that mattered.

  But what if it didn’t?

  Liam had put it into their heads that Angie might be … no, that was stupid. He was letting his imagination take over. It was the dark. In the dark anything was possible.

  * * *

  My scream and his send tremors that disturb it. I feel it move under my feet.

  We are inside the Worm!

  No wonder the stench, the oppressive heat.

  We are in the belly of the Worm.

  We begin to run. In front of me I can see the open mouth of the cave.

  No. Not the cave, I see that now. The mouth of the Worm.

  Wide and open.

  Our only escape, that way.

  We are both running for our lives. Screaming in terror. I slip on the slime beneath my feet, and the Captain runs past me.

  ‘Captain!’ I try to stand but I keep slipping. ‘Captain, do not leave me!’

  I must not be left in here, to be digested slowly by the Worm.

  He does not stop. He will leave me and save himself.

  That terror alone gets me up and steady and I begin running again.

  And as I run I realise that the mouth is closing slowly. Closing, trapping us inside.

  No!

  Like an athlete I run. Like an Olympic athlete I run. No one should die this way.

  I am beside the Captain now. He is struggling, his face strained with terror.

  I pass him. The mouth is closing. I must get out. I must throw myself the last few feet. Hurl myself forwards and outside of the mouth.

  I am free. Free.

  I turn and urge the Captain on. And still that mouth is closing … closing.

  He is screaming so loud my ears bleed with the pain.

  RUN!

  But he will not make it. He knows it. He screams to me. ‘Don’t leave me here!’

  But what am I to do?

  Nothing.

  Nothing but watch as the mouth closes on his terrified face.

  * * *

  Axel was afraid too. Afraid of Angie. Why was he following her, listening to her? Especially after what Liam had put into his head. But he wanted desperately to be out of here. To wide open space. He wanted to see the sky. Breathe air. He breathed in and the smell was putrid. There was a sound, like someone, something, letting its breath out. Behind him.

  He began to hurry.

  * * *

  I cannot rest. For I see the thing begin to move, sliding towards me. It is as if the whole cave is moving. It is coming after me.

  No!

  * * *

  I’m off my chump, Fiona was thinking. I’m shaking like a leaf and I’m beginning to run as if there was something after me. Or maybe the something’s here. She looked ahead at Angie, half hidden in the gloom. Angie turned right at that instant and smiled at her. Fiona shivered. Why was she so afraid? More afraid than she’d been since they had come down here? The caves seemed to be whispering to her. Zonks! She was beginning to sound like Angie.

  ‘Look, Fiona!’ Angie was pointing to another sign, a number on the rocks. 9 scraped in stone. ‘This way.’

  Was that the gushing of water she could hear behind her, above her, around her? ‘Are you sure, Angie?’

  Angie hurried ahead. ‘I’m sure.’

  * * *

  I look desperately for my signs. The numbers I scratched so hurriedly as I stumbled behind the Captain. The Captain! I try not to think of his fate. I will go mad if I do. I am almost mad already. It is behind me, like a rush of water, like the tide.

  At last, my sign. 8. I run on.

  * * *

  Liam had a bad feeling about all this. To him, Angie didn’t seem real. How could she have survived on her own, found her way out, and come back to them? And why would she do it? She could have organised a rescue party to come for them. Better able to find them, to help them than she was. No. Something wasn’t right about all this. And now, they seemed in even more danger than they’d ever been.

  She turned and looked right at him, almost as if she could read his thoughts. ‘We have to hurry,’ she said.

  There was a sudden sigh through the caves. A sigh that seemed to be moving closer. Angie heard it too and caught her breath. She urged them on faster. ‘Look, we’re almost there!’ Her light shone on another number. 7. Written as if by a foreign hand.

  ‘Come on! Let’s go!’

  It was coming behind them, that long sigh, as if something giant and dark, filling the cave, was coming after them.

  * * *

  I dare not look behind me, though I can almost feel its putrid breath against my back. It must not get me. My screams are mixed with the sound of it, the almost silent sound of it oozing behind me.

  I am almost there.
6.

  * * *

  They all began to run, hauling the teacher between them, hardly daring to glance behind them.

  Whatever was behind them was coming ever closer, oozing through the chambers, filling them with terror.

  They screamed. They yelled. They ran. And still it came behind them.

  * * *

  If I stumble once it will catch me and it must not catch me. I turn my head. I must see how close it is …

  Ah! It is too close, and its mouth is beginning to slowly open again … for me.

  * * *

  The light. At last, Fiona saw the light. She had thought she would never see it again – and there it was, just a pinpoint in the darkness, but it was light.

  It gave her the strength to run faster, to try to forget whatever horror was there behind them.

  She risked a glance at Zesh. His mouth was open wide as if he was gasping for breath. He looked at her too and she knew from his eyes that he had seen the light too.

  He hadn’t the breath to speak, so she spoke for him, calling out to the rest. ‘Daylight! Look!’

  It looked as if Axel grew in height. Fiona could feel his power as he lifted Mr Marks higher, practically taking all his weight. Liam, skinny little Liam, was hauling him with the rest, as they saw the light coming closer.

  Fiona prayed. Her mind a jumble of thoughts all coming together at once. What if it’s not daylight! What if Angie really is a ghost, and we’re dead too and don’t know it, and she’s come back for us, to lead us into the light! She’d seen that in a film once. That’s what they do, dead people, they head for the light.

  And behind them, was a devil from Hell trying to keep them here?

  Nightmare thoughts, running round her head, and no time to work them out. Just keep going. No matter what was ahead, it had to be better than what was behind them.

  * * *

  It’s getting closer, Axel was thinking. Whatever’s behind us is getting closer and I am frightened. I don’t want to know what it is, I don’t dare look behind me. Why wasn’t he dropping the teacher? He could run faster without him, yet something was stopping him, he didn’t know what.

  He saw the light too, felt a cool breath against his face. Was that the touch of Death?

  Stop thinking like that!

  Run!

  Liam was afraid to look back. He felt the cold breath too, making the hairs on his neck stand on end. And the stench of something too. Something long dead.

  Get out of here! he was screaming inside. Get out of here before it catches us!

  * * *

  Get out of here! I am screaming inside. Get out of here before it catches me!

  Chapter 31

  The cave opened like a mouth, spitting them out one by one. They threw themselves screaming with joy and relief against the rocks of the Doon.

  Zesh was the first to look back into that black cave. Did he see something? Something disappointed, oozing back into the darkness, winding itself down tunnels and chasms and chambers to its lair?

  ‘It’s nothing. It was our imagination,’ Liam said to him, following his eyes, knowing what he was thinking.

  Zesh grabbed for his inhaler and sucked into it before he said a word. ‘Something was after us. I was sure of it.’

  Axel was breathless. ‘What are you trying to say it was? That Worm? Don’t talk daft. There’s no such thing.’ But his voice was shaking.

  ‘Of course there isn’t,’ Zesh agreed. ‘Of course there isn’t.’

  Fiona stood up and stretched. Her fears all behind her. Here in the open air, with clouds scuttling across the blue sky and gulls squawking, she was afraid of nothing again. She looked at Angie, sitting solid as rock beside her. Why had she been so afraid? Angie was as alive as she was, and she was alive too!

  ‘Stupid the way your imagination can play tricks on you,’ she said aloud without realising it. ‘Especially in the dark.’

  ‘If it was our imagination,’ Zesh said.

  Axel splashed his face with water. ‘Of course it was. There is no such thing as the Worm!’

  ‘But there is.’

  It was Angie who said it, sitting on the rocks, the foam from the waves splashing against her legs. They gaped at her.

  ‘Why do you think I came back for you, and didn’t go for a search party? I saw it. There in one of the tunnels. Waiting for you.’

  ‘Get real,’ Axel said. ‘Don’t believe you.’

  ‘But it’s true. I saw it.’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘It was horrible, horrible. It’s not just a legend. It really exists. The Worm.’

  Liam tried to laugh. He didn’t convince anyone. He looked back into the cave, into that blackness. He was remembering how scared he had been just moments ago. ‘No. It was your imagination, Angie.’ He wanted to convince himself as well as her.

  She shook her head and her lip trembled. ‘But you didn’t see it. I did.’

  Axel said. ‘And it didn’t eat you?’

  She shook her head and stared him out. ‘It was waiting, waiting there in the cave. Waiting for you.’

  ‘Aye, right,’ he said. That couldn’t be true. She must be lying, he was thinking.

  No one believed her. No one wanted to believe her. Not here in the open air, with the spray from the sea on their faces. There was no Worm. There couldn’t be.

  No one spoke for a long time. It had all been in their imagination. It had all been in Angie’s.

  Fiona shielded her eyes and looked up at the sky. ‘Right! Where’s this zonking search party!’

  ‘Well, now I’ve seen everything,’ Rick said, looking across the school cafeteria. ‘It looks as if Marks is actually smiling at Axel.’

  It didn’t surprise Zesh. Not now, not after what they had all come through – underworld.

  ‘He did thank him, publicly, from the platform of the school assembly hall,’ Zesh reminded his friend. In fact, the teacher had thanked them all. Without them, he would certainly have died.

  ‘Yeah, another miracle.’ Rick laughed. ‘And who would have thought that me not being picked for that trip would be a blessing in disguise?’

  ‘Yeah, you did all right. You got to go to Paris instead.’

  Rick got to Paris! Zesh hadn’t known till he came back that someone had had to cancel and Rick had got their place.

  ‘No. I don’t mean just that, but look what happened to you! Trapped under there, with that lot. Your worst nightmare.’

  Zesh said nothing. There was a lot they hadn’t told about what had happened. An unspoken oath between them to keep so much to themselves. No one knew Axel had taken his inhaler. No one knew Axel had been trapped in stone, and panicked. No one knew that Axel and Liam had gone on by themselves. No one knew that Zesh had been willing to leave the teacher behind.

  Their secrets.

  Their story had only been a minor item in a local paper, on the regional news. A helicopter had been sent out, and cave rescue had been alerted. Somewhere, inside the caves, another search party had been looking for them. But not for long enough for them to become a national sensation.

  Yet, they could all have sworn they had been trapped for days on end.

  Axel brushed past him just then. ‘Hi, Zesh, seen Liam?’

  Zesh stretched his neck and spotted Liam chatting at the cafeteria door. ‘Over there, Axel. How’s things?’

  ‘Great, Zesh. See ya!’

  Zesh watched him bound across to Liam and put a friendly arm on his shoulder. They laughed together at some joke. Why had he never noticed how much taller than Axel Liam was? It was clear the two boys were friends. Not the way they had been before, but real friends.

  And Zesh and Axel? They would never be friends, but they’d never be enemies again.

  Rick was watching them too. ‘I suppose it stands to reason. Trapped down there, together. Having to rely on each other. I suppose it changes things.’

  ‘You talk such a load of baloney, Rick!’ It was Fiona coming behind them. ‘What do
you think we were doing down there … bonding?’ She gave Zesh a dunt that sent him hurtling against a wall. ‘Did he tell you he owes his life to me! Did he tell you that!’

  She let out one of her belly laughs. She really did not laugh like a girl at all!

  ‘Thanks to me she’s stopped smoking,’ Zesh said smugly.

  ‘I know, but it’s a drastic way to stop. Now, I’m tryin’ to get my mother off them as well.’

  Zesh studied her for a moment. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking, Fiona …’

  ‘Well, there’s a first time for everything.’ Fiona had to get that in.

  ‘I could teach you to speak good English. I could make a lady out of you.’

  Fiona laughed for ages. ‘What, you mean … you Professor Higgins, me Eliza Dolittle? I don’t think.’

  Zesh fell back in a mock swoon. ‘You have read Pygmalion?’

  ‘Pig … what? It’s My Fair Lady, thicko! Do you know nothing? It was on the telly last week.’

  And when he roared with laughter at that, she knew that Zesh would always get on her wick!

  And the Worm?

  No one would ever believe such an outrageous story. And they all decided, without having to discuss it, that none of them had really seen it anyway.

  It was a legend. A story told in the dark, to make you afraid. The dark can play strange tricks on your imagination. Make you see things that aren’t really there.

  And when your imagination takes over anything can happen.

  They didn’t want to be laughed at.

  The only one of them who talked about it was Angie. And no one believed her. She was mocked and made a fool of. They discovered she had a history of telling tall tales, of making up stories.

  She had seen the Worm? That was like saying she had seen the Loch Ness Monster. Unbelievable.

  And Angie was gone now, moved once again, to another school, another story.

  ‘I still say she was dead,’ Liam would say. Nothing would ever convince him otherwise.

  And though they never talked of it, sometimes Zesh would catch a look from one of them when they passed each other in the corridor. A look that seemed to say …

  ‘It was only our imagination … a legend … wasn’t it?’

  I am an old man now. If I write my story, who would believe me? And do I believe it now myself? It is only an old legend. A story told around the camp fires on a dark night.