The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23 (Mammoth Books)

by Jones, Stephen

  Tom was simply frustrated that Lucas hadn’t bothered to remove the flashlight from the bag. He watched his cousin peer both ways along the dim path like a child showing how much care he took about crossing a road, and then head along the stretch that vanished into darkness. The sight of Lucas swaggering off as though he didn’t care whether he was followed did away with any qualms Tom might have over scaring him more than he would like. He tramped after Lucas through the woods that looked as if the dark had formed itself into a cage, and almost collided with him as the blurred jerky light swerved off the path to flutter across the trees to the left. “What’s pulling something along?” Lucas seemed to feel entitled to be told.

  “It’s got a rope,” Tom said, but didn’t want to scare Lucas too much too soon. “No, it’s only water.”

  He’d located it in the dried-up channel out of sight below the slope beyond the trees. It must be a lingering trickle of rain, which had stopped before dark, unless it was an animal or bird among the fallen leaves. “Make your mind up,” Lucas complained and swung the light back to the path.

  The noise ceased as Tom tramped after him. Perhaps it had gone underground through the abandoned irrigation channel. Without warning – certainly with none from Lucas – the flashlight beam sprang off the ragged stony path and flew into the treetops. “Is it laughing at us?” Lucas said.

  Tom gave the harsh shrill sound somewhere ahead time to make itself heard. “What do you think?”

  “Of course it’s not,” Lucas said as if his cousin needed to be put right. “Birds can’t laugh.”

  Once more Tom suspected Lucas wasn’t quite as odd as he liked everyone to think, although that was odd in itself. When the darkness creaked again he said “That’s not a bird, it’s a tree.”

  Lucas might have been challenging someone by striding up the path to jab the beam at the treetops. As he disappeared over a ridge the creaking of the solitary branch fell silent. Though he’d taken the light with him, Tom wasn’t about to be driven to chase it. He hadn’t quite reached the top of the path when he said “No wonder aunt and uncle say you can’t make any friends.”

  He hadn’t necessarily intended his cousin to hear, but Lucas retorted “I’ve got one.”

  Tom was tempted to suggest that Lucas should have brought this unlikely person instead of him. His cousin was taking the light away as though to punish Tom for his remark. Having left the path, he halted under an outstretched branch. “You can see where they did it,” he said.

  The flashlight beam plunged into the earth – into a circular shaft that led down to the middle of the irrigation tunnel. At some point the entrance had been boarded over, but now the rotten wood was strewn among the trees. Tom peered into the opening, from which a rusty ladder descended into utter darkness. “You can’t see if you don’t take the bag off.”

  As darkness raced up the ladder, chasing the light out of the shaft, Lucas said “What do you think is laughing now?”

  “Maybe you should go down and find out.”

  Another hollow liquid giggle rose out of the unlit depths, and Tom thought of convincing his cousin it wasn’t water they were hearing. Lucas crumpled the bag in his hand and sent the light down the shaft again. The beam just reached the foot of the ladder, below which Tom seemed to glimpse a dim sinuous movement before Lucas snatched the beam out of the shaft and aimed it at the branch overhead. “He hung himself on that, didn’t he, and then she threw herself down there.”

  He sounded little more than distantly interested, which wasn’t enough for Tom. “Aren’t you going down, then? I thought you wanted a Halloween adventure.”

  The glowing leafless branch went out as Lucas swung the light back to the path. “All right,” he said and made for the opposite side of the ridge.

  Did he really need absolute precision or just demand it? As Tom trudged after him he heard a rustling somewhere near the open shaft. “I thought you never left litter,” he called. “How about that bag?”

  “It’s here,” Lucas said and tugged it half out of his trouser pocket before stuffing it back in.

  When Tom glanced behind him the Frugall floodlights glared in his eyes, and he couldn’t locate what he’d heard – perhaps leaves stirring in a wind, although he hadn’t felt one. Of course there must be wildlife in the woods, even if he’d yet to see any. He followed Lucas down the increasingly steep path and saw the flashlight beam snag on the curve of a stone arch protruding from the earth beside the track. It was the end of the tunnel, which had once helped irrigate the fields beyond the ridge. Now the fields were overgrown and the tunnel was barricaded, or rather it had been until somebody tore the boards down. As Lucas poked the flashlight beam into the entrance he said “Where’s the bell?”

  Tom thought the slow dull metallic notes came from a car radio in the distance, but said “Is it in the tunnel?”

  Lucas stooped under the arch, which wasn’t quite as tall as either of the boys. “Listen,” he said. “That’s where.”

  Tom heard a last reverberation as he stepped off the path. Surely it was just his cousin’s gaze that made him wonder if the noise had indeed come from the tunnel, unless someone was playing a Halloween joke. Suppose the girls had followed them from the cinema and were sending the sound down from the ridge? In his hopelessly limited experience this didn’t seem the kind of thing girls did, especially while keeping quiet as well. The thought of them revived his discontent, and he said “Better go and see.”

  Lucas advanced into the tunnel at once. His silhouette blotted out most of the way ahead, the stone floor scattered with sodden leaves, the walls and curved roof glistening with moss, a few weeds drooping out of cracks. The low passage was barely wider than his elbows as he held them at his sides – so narrow that the flashlight bumped against one wall with a soft moist thud as he turned to point the beam at Tom. “What are you doing?”

  “Get that out of my face, can you?” As the light sank into the cramped space between them Tom said “I’m coming too.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  Tom backed out, almost scraping his scalp on the arch. “Now you’ve got what you want as usual. Just you remember you did.”

  “It won’t be scary if we both go in.” This might have been an effort to placate his cousin – as much of one as Lucas was likely to make – but Tom suspected it was just a stubborn statement of fact. “I’m not scared yet,” Lucas complained. “It’s Halloween.”

  “Want me to make sure?”

  “I know it is.” Before Tom could explain, if simply out of frustration, Lucas said “You’ve got nothing to do.”

  He sounded intolerably like a teacher rebuking an idle pupil. As Tom vowed to prove him wrong in ways his cousin wouldn’t care for, Lucas ducked out of the tunnel and thrust the flashlight at him. “You can hold this while I’m in there.”

  Tom sent the beam along the tunnel. It fell short of the ladder, which was a couple of hundred yards in. Once Lucas returned to the tunnel the light wouldn’t even reach past him. Tom was waiting to watch his reaction to this when Lucas said “I don’t mean here.”

  He might have been criticising Tom’s ability to understand, a notion that was close to more than Tom could take. “Where?” he demanded without at all wanting to know.

  “Go up and shine it down the hole, then I can see where halfway is. Shout when you get to the hole.”

  “And you answer.” In case this wasn’t plain enough Tom added “So I can hear.”

  “Course I will.”

  Tom could have done without the haughtiness. He made off with the flashlight, swinging it from side to side of the deserted woods. As he reached the top of the path the lights above the distant retail park glared in his eyes, and he had a momentary impression that a rounded object was protruding just above the shaft at the midpoint of the tunnel. He squeezed his eyes shut, widening them as he stepped onto the ridge. Perhaps he’d seen an exposed root beyond the shaft, but he couldn’t see it now. He marched to the open
ing and sent the beam down to the tunnel, where he seemed to glimpse movement – a dim shape like a scrawny limb or an even thinner item retreating at speed into the dark. It must have been a shadow cast by the ladder. “Come on,” he called. “I’m here.”

  “I’m coming.”

  Tom was disconcerted to hear his cousin’s shout resound along the tunnel while it also came from beyond the ridge. Despite straining his eyes he couldn’t judge how far the flashlight beam reached; the glare from the retail park was still hindering his vision. He dodged around the shaft to turn his back on the problem, and saw that the beam of the cheap flashlight fell short of illuminating the tunnel itself. “Can you see the light?” he called.

  “I see something.”

  Tom found this wilfully vague. “What?” he yelled.

  “Must be you.”

  This was vaguer still, particularly for Lucas. Was he trying to unnerve his cousin? Tom peered into the shaft, waiting for Lucas to dart into view in a feeble attempt to alarm him. Or did Lucas mean to worry him by staying out of sight? Tom vowed not to call out again, but he was on the edge of yielding to the compulsion when an ill-defined figure appeared at the bottom of the shaft. He didn’t really need it to turn its dim face upwards to show it was Lucas. “What am I doing now?” Tom grudged having to ask.

  “Holding the light.”

  “I’m saying,” Tom said more bitterly still, “what do you want me to do?”

  “Stay there till I say,” Lucas told him and stooped into the other section of the tunnel.

  Tom tried to listen to his receding footsteps but soon could hear nothing at all – or rather, just the sound he’d previously ascribed to plastic. Perhaps the bag in his cousin’s pocket was brushing against the wall, except that Tom seemed to hear the noise behind him. Had Lucas sneaked out of the far end of the tunnel to creep up and pounce on him? Surely his shadow would give him away, and when Tom swung around, only the trees were silhouetted against the glare from the retail park. He’d kept the flashlight beam trained down the shaft on the basis that he might have misjudged Lucas, but how long would he have to wait to hear from him? He had a sudden furious idea that, having left the tunnel, Lucas was on his way home. “Where are you now?” he shouted.

  “Here,” Lucas declared, appearing at the foot of the shaft.

  So he’d been playing a different trick – staying out of sight until Tom grew nervous. “Finished with the light?” Tom only just bothered to ask.

  “Go and meet me at the end,” Lucas said before ducking into the dark.

  Tom felt juvenile for using the flashlight to search among the trees around him – he wasn’t the one who was meant to be scared – and switched it off as he hurried down the path. He was waiting at the mouth of the tunnel by the time his cousin emerged. Lucas looked dully untroubled, unless the darkness was obscuring his expression, and Tom wished he’d hidden long enough to make his cousin nervous. “What’s it like?” he tried asking.

  “Like I wasn’t alone.”

  “You weren’t.”

  “That’s scary.”

  Tom thought he’d been more than sufficiently clear. He was feeling heavy with resentment when Lucas said “Now it’s your turn.”

  As Tom switched on the flashlight, darkness shrank into the tunnel. “You can’t do that,” Lucas protested. “I’m supposed to go on top with it so you’ll be in the dark.”

  Was he planning some trick of the kind Tom had spared him? When Tom hesitated while the unsteady shadows of weeds fingered the moss on the walls of the tunnel, Lucas said “I have to say what we do with it. It’s mine.”

  Tom was so disgusted that he almost dropped the flashlight because of his haste to be rid of it. “I’ll have to shout,” Lucas told him. “You won’t see.”

  He hadn’t extinguished the light, which scrambled up the path ahead of him, leaving Tom to wonder if Lucas was uneasy after all. Suppose that distracted him from keeping the beam down the shaft? Once his cousin vanished over the ridge Tom peered along the tunnel, but it might as well have been stuffed with earth. He hadn’t distinguished even a hint of light when Lucas called “It’s waiting.”

  His voice was in more than one place again – somewhere down the tunnel and on the ridge as well. It occurred to Tom that he should have extracted a promise, and he cupped his hands around his mouth to yell “Say you’ll wait there for me.”

  “That’s what I’m doing.”

  Tom could have fancied he was hearing another voice imitate Lucas. “Say you will,” he insisted, “as long as I want the light.”

  “I will as long as you want the light.”

  This had to be precise enough, and surely Lucas was incapable of acting other than he’d said he would. Wasn’t his saying it in more than one voice like a double promise? Tom had no reason to hesitate, even if he wished Dianne were with him to be scared and then comforted. He wouldn’t be comforting Lucas, and he ducked into the tunnel.

  The darkness fastened on his eyes at once. They felt coated with it, a substance like the blackest paint. It hindered his feet too, as if they had to wade through it, shuffling forward an inch at a time, which was all he felt able to risk. He extended his arms in front of him to avoid touching the slimy walls, though he could have imagined his fingertips were about to bump into the dark. Of course there was nothing solid in front of him. Lucas hadn’t switched off the flashlight and sneaked down the ladder to stand in the blackness until Tom’s outstretched fingers found him. Just the same, the thought made Tom bring his hands back and lower his arms. “Are you really up there?” he shouted.

  “You’ll see.”

  His cousin’s voice was somewhere ahead and above the tunnel. Otherwise the exchange didn’t reassure Tom as much as he would have hoped if he’d needed reassurance. It wasn’t simply that his shout had been boxed in by the walls and the roof that forced his head down; his voice had seemed muffled by some obstacle in front of him. Was he about to see it? There appeared to be a hint of pallor in the blackness, if that wasn’t just an effect of straining his eyes or of hoping to locate the flashlight beam. When he edged forward the impression didn’t shift, and he kept his gaze fixed on the promise of light until his foot nudged an object on the floor of the tunnel.

  He heard it stir and then subside. He had no room to sidle around it, and he didn’t care to turn his back. By resting his foot on it and trampling on it he deduced that it was a mass of twigs and dead leaves. He trod hard on it on his way past, and worked out that the material must have fallen down the shaft, which was just visible ahead by the light that nearly reached down to the tunnel roof. He could scarcely believe how long he’d taken to walk halfway; it felt as if the darkness had weighed down the passing of time. A few waterlogged leaves slithered underfoot as he reached the shaft and was able to raise his head. “See me?” he called.

  Lucas was an indefinite silhouette against the night sky beyond the flashlight, which almost blinded Tom even though the beam on the wall opposite the ladder was so dim. “You were a long time,” Lucas protested.

  An acoustic quirk made versions of his voice mutter in both sections of the tunnel. Before Tom could reply, less irately than the complaint deserved, Lucas said “When you’ve been through the rest you have to come back this way.”

  That he had needn’t mean Tom should. Lucas wasn’t frightened yet, which was among the reasons why Tom intended to leave the tunnel by the far end so as to tiptoe up behind him. He shut his eyes to ready them for the darkness as far as he could. He hadn’t opened them when Lucas enraged him by calling “Are you scared to go in?”

  Tom lowered his head as if he meant to butt the dark and advanced into the tunnel. He wouldn’t have believed the blackness could grow thicker, but now it didn’t just smother his eyes – it filled them to the limit. He’d taken a very few steps, which felt shackled by his wariness, when his foot collided with another heap of leaves. He heard twigs if not small branches snap as he trod several times on the yielding heap, which
must be almost as long as he was tall. Once he was past it the floor seemed clear, but how far did he have to shuffle to catch his first glimpse of the night outside? It couldn’t be so dark out there that it was indistinguishable from the underground passage. He was stretching his eyes wide, which only served to let more of the darkness into them, when his foot struck a hindrance more solid than leaves – an object that his groping fingers found to be as high and wide as the tunnel. The entrance was boarded up.

  So Lucas hadn’t just been setting out the rules of the game. Perhaps he’d believed he was making it plain that Tom couldn’t leave the tunnel at this end. Tom thumped the boards with his fists and tried a few kicks as well, but the barrier didn’t give. When he turned away at last he had to touch the cold fur of the wall with his knuckles to be certain he was facing down the tunnel. He shuffled forward as if he were being dragged by his bent head, and his blacked-out eyes were straining to find the light when his toe poked the mass of leaves and wood on the floor. If he was so close to the shaft, why couldn’t he make out even a hint of the flashlight beam? “What are you playing at?” he shouted.

  There was no response of any kind. Perhaps Lucas had decided to alarm him. He dealt the supine heap a kick, but it held more or less together. He tramped on it a number of times while edging forward. It was behind him, though not far, when something moved under his feet – a large worm, he thought, or a snake. As he stumbled clear of it he heard scattered leaves rustle with its movement, and recognised the sound he’d attributed to plastic on his way to the tunnel. He needn’t think about it further – he only wanted to reach the light. That still wasn’t visible, and he wasn’t eager to shout into the dark again, surely just because Lucas might think he was scared. He had no idea how many timid paces he’d taken before he was able to lift his head.

  For a moment this felt like nothing but relief, and then he saw that the top of the shaft was deserted. “Lucas,” he yelled. “Lucas.” He was trying just to feel furious, but the repetition unnerved him – it seemed too close to doing his best to ensure that only his cousin would respond. He was about to call once more when Lucas appeared above him, at least fifty feet away, and sent the flashlight beam down the highest rungs of the ladder. Tom would have shouted at him except for being assailed by a sudden unwelcome thought. He knew why he’d seemed to take too long to return to the shaft: because the supine mass on which he’d trodden was further from it than before. While he’d been trying to find his way out, it had crawled after him in the dark.