Chapter 4 – Chap 4

I slam my back up against the walls of the Hole, pressing my feet up against the side as I fall. It slows my descent, but not by enough to come to a stop.
We tumble into a heap amongst the trash, Four and Seven and I.
Five and Six stare at us incredulously, Five marches into the narrow shaft of gray light from above and shouts up to the top:
“What the FUCK!? TWO! TWO WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!”

My girlfriend is hyperventilating. “No, no no” she mutters, standing and striding over to the dim, circular beam of light, pushing Five aside and calling up to the top as well: “TWO! TWO! PLEASE! WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?”

I go to her, but she shoves me away and starts to sob. I run a hand over my head.

Five spins and looks at me, clenching his fists; “what the hell is this? Three? What has he done? Guys, what the fuck is going on? Someone just explain to me, please”.

I suck some dank cave air in through my teeth, looking behind him down the rocky passage. No sign of the creature, but I don’t know if it was able to make it all the way through the narrow tunnel.

“CAVEBOY is real”. I say flatly. “He’s real as fuck and One is dead. It killed him”.

“WHAT”. Six steps forwards, shaking, looking from me to Four. “You’re kidding right? Guys?”

But she can see the truth plain across our haunted faces. My girlfriend wipes her face and tries to bring her sobbing under control.

“I saw it. We both did. Guys, CAVEBOY is not a joke”, I say. “It’s real. He’s real. He’s a monster of some kind and he… he killed One. He tore out his throat”. My voice catches on the last word and I am unable to speak on. I’m still processing. Seven begins to whimper. Five crouches by the ground and starts rooting through the backpack.

“And Two?”

“I don’t know. He said something about his father. About how he needs us. And then he… he let the ladder down on purpose”.

“Okay ENOUGH”.

Seven wipes her nose and stands straight, shoulders squared, shaking, tears running down her face, staring right at me. She juts forward and I stumble back.
“This isn’t FUNNY. This is SICK. James, just what do you think you’re-”

Both Four and I cry out at the mention of my name; Four physically tries to put her hand over Seven’s mouth but she pushes her off.

“What the fuck!?”

“Listen to me Seven”, she says, “please, please listen. This all real. We don’t know what’s going on but this isn’t a prank, I SWEAR to you. I swear on my life. We have to obey the rules. We have to follow the rules or we have no hope, I’m sure of it”.

I remember, then.

“The earrings”. I say. “Six, you need to take off your earrings, right fucking now. Take them off and throw them away”.

Shakily, she does so. We’re all walking a tightrope here; I think everybody’s in shock. No-one quite knows what to do or how to react.

“I’m going back for Jeremy”. Seven says quietly.

That’s his name, number One. Jeremy.

“Seven for FUCK’S sake-” but she is already walking off down the tunnel. Calmly, eerily. She hasn’t even got her flashlight switched on. Four brings hers up and onto her back as we call after her, but the light lands on something else beyond.

He’s there.

CAVEBOY.

Stood stock still, just like before. Staring with those void-black eyes, jaw hanging, neck cracking as, like a robot, his head tilts suddenly to the side, looking down at Seven before him.

And we all see him. Every one of us. And he is no less horrific. More so, really, given the dark stains across his face and torso.

A sudden flash of silver to my right gives me to cause to look across and down to Five, crouched by the group’s backpack, a metal flare gripped in his hands.

The flare! But, fuck, there’s only one, we only have the one!

“Wait, Five!” I say, desperately, “there’s just the ONE! We could-” but there’s no use finishing my sentence. The thought that had occurred to me then, all of a sudden, was to shoot the flare up through the Hole. A rescue flare- hope that somebody sees and comes in search of us.
That’s presumably why he has it in his hand.
But there is really only one thing to do with the flare now; needs must when the devil drives.
And Five does not hesitate. He points the metal at the atrocity in the tunnel and slams it, firing it off. A bright red burst explodes from the end and whizzes through the air towards CAVEBOY’s chest. It punches into him and he staggers back, and we are forced to shield our eyes as, like a firework, it explodes more violently into a blaze of orange and red.

I sprint forwards, still shielding my eyes, ignoring the twisted howls and screeches and grab Seven by the scruff of her collar, dragging her back to the group, and away we run down an opposite tunnel, one as of yet unexplored.We’re sprinting, panicked, flashlight beams jumping all over, bumping and crashing into each other as CAVEBOY screams behind, the orange-red glow fading as we round corner after corner through the caves.

“The bag”, Five mutters bitterly through grunts, “I forgot the bag-”

“Forget it man, it’s fucking gone. It’s okay. We’ll be okay”, I say back to him as we run, with Six at the head leading the way, through passage after passage. She’s doing the opposite to what One did, she’s not choosing the paths that go down, she’s opting for the ones that seem to keep us relatively level.

But soon there is no choice.

And so, back down we go.

We begin to tire, and stumbling round a corner I pull the group together and whisper for everyone to turn off their flashlights. They do so, and we huddle together, waiting, tensed and braced, listening intently for noises and sounds that would indicate CAVEBOY’s approach.

We listen, but we hear nothing. Nothing but our ragged breathing in the dark of the caves.

Our eyes begin to adjust to the low level of light provided by the glowing blue fungus, and the faces of my friends start to appear and form in the darkness, illuminated ever so subtly. We wait a little longer, and when it becomes clear that we are not being followed, we slump to a sit, resting our tired legs.

Seven starts to cry again, her attempts to stifle her sobs admirable, but poor. “One…” she whimpers, and I put a hand out to my right and squeeze her shoulder.

“We can process this once we’re out. When we’re safe. For now guys we just gotta get the fuck out of here”.

“So how? How are we going to do that?” Six asks me, the lenses of her glasses reflecting the dim glow of the mushrooms.

“Alright”, I say, trying desperately to keep my voice calm, “Six, you got any signal?”

She shakes her head.

“Alright how about this then, we keep going. This place is massive, it’s entirely possible there’s another way in and out… we search for one, and if we can’t find anything then… then we come back the way we came, head back to the Hole, hope that CAVEBOY’s disappeared and try to climb up”.

“Climb up?” Five replies, “are you insane bro? There’s no way, there’s no fucking way”.

I lick my teeth. “It’s not a great plan. I appreciate that-”

“And how are we going to find our way back?” Six asks, “the LEDs were in the backpack, and we didn’t have all that many to begin with”.

I pause, but my girlfriend speaks up to my left. Her face barely visible in the glow. “The mushrooms. We’ll use the mushrooms. Pull a whole bunch out of the wall and put them into piles”.

Movement catches my eye. Five is shaking his head. “They’re not bright enough, it won’t work”.

“It WILL work” she retorts, “if we have enough of them in each pile, we’ll be able to see. It won’t be as obvious as the LEDs but we’ll see them for sure, if we’re looking”.

Five runs his hand over his jaw again, thinking, but Four stands up before he can respond. She tugs a couple of handfuls of the fungus out of the wall and forms them into a pile in the middle of our little circle. We become a little clearer, a little brighter. Five nods.

“Okay, okay I’m in. Let’s do this”.

Six murmurs her agreement, but Seven remains silent.

“Seven?” I say, softly.

“I don’t like this”. She whispers. “I want to go home. I want to go the hell home”.

“It’s okay, we’ll be okay”, Six tells her, and as a group, we stand, and we make a choice on a tunnel. Walking in a careful and cautious procession, our flashlights off.
Our eyes are adjusting. And we do not want to draw any more attention than is necessary.

We try to make what we believe to be logical choices whenever we’re faced with multiple tunnels. We pull mushrooms from the wall, and create little glowing piles, and press on.
Seven has started to cry again, softly. I reach out in front of me and squeeze her shoulder in the darkness. She thanks me quietly, squeezing my hand back in return. Four is beyond her, with Five currently leading the procession.

We walk for some time.

The white outline of a sketch catches my eye through the gloom; small and crude, like the first face, but this one looks like a man sat cross-legged, facing the opposite way. It’s at the edge of a tunnel we aren’t following, so I decide, perhaps unwisely, not to bring it up.
I wonder if any of the other members of the group saw it too.

I turn to look behind me, to count, make sure we’re all still together. There’s Seven, and Six at the back.

Wait, Seven? What’s Seven doing behind me? I could have sworn she was…

…in front.

I swear suddenly and swivel round, grabbing the shoulders of the girl in front of me and turning her to face me. She shrieks and the whole procession jumps, distressed.

“What the fuck?” She says to me, staring into my eyes. It’s Four. It’s my girlfriend.

“Have you- have you been in front of me the whole time?” I ask, my voice uneven.

“Yes, I have, why- what’s the matter?”

“Were you crying earlier?”

“Was I crying?”

“Yes, crying. Were you crying?”

She furrows her eyebrows. The pale blue light reflects in her deep brown eyes.“No, babe. I wasn’t crying”.

A chill shivers through me and I swear again, running a hand over my face, feeling pinpricks of sweat form over my skin despite the clammy cold.

“This place… this terrible place”, I mutter, pushing past to the front of the group, leading us on. “I’m losing it. I’m really starting to lose it”.

One of the tunnels seems to be ever so slightly brighter than the others. Could be my mind playing tricks on me, but it’s worth a shot. We head towards it and the glow does get a little stronger, no doubt about it.
But as we approach, it becomes clear that the source of the glow is a pile of mushrooms. Exactly like the ones we’ve been leaving as markers.

…In fact, it is one of our markers. It has to be.

“Oh shit”, I mutter as the others gather round. “We’ve just come round in a circle”.

“Three…” Five whispers, urgently. He knocks my shoulder and points up to the wall of rock near the ceiling.
There’s something new.At least, it’s got to be new. I didn’t see it the last time we were here, and neither did anyone else.

It’s a drawing of us.

The five of us.

Sat in a circle, like we were when we came up with the plan. Two guys, three girls, surrounding a little chalk pile of the strange fungus.

“Oh.. oh no” Six murmurs, as the panic once again starts to rise.

A groan warbles through the darkness of the caves around us. A faint wail that echoes across the walls.

Seven starts to babble, almost incoherently. “No, no, no, no”, I can make out, through gibberish. “I’m done. I’m done I’m done I’m done” and I turn and see her scrabbling at her belt, then there is a click and suddenly the chamber is flooded with light.

“No!” Someone yells, but it is too late, we’re all momentarily blinded as Seven swings round the beam of her flashlight, talking to herself in a rising tone, darting away from us to stop us from grabbing it off of her.

“Turn it off!” My girlfriend hisses, “please Seven just turn it off! And be QUIET!”

Seven stops. She falls silent. But she does not turn off the flashlight.

She stands stock still, staring, and with gritted teeth I turn and allow my gaze to follow the beam of the light.

It lands on a drawing against the far wall.

It looks new.

It’s a drawing of Seven.Her arms outstretched, her eyes closed. And it’s her, alright. The sketch is definitely her.

She lifts the flashlight, and the beam rises up towards the ceiling.

And there, up high, it reveals a tunnel, carved into the rock.

And at the tunnel’s mouth, is CAVEBOY. Watching silently from above.
Smiling.