Running Scared

by Gloria Skurzynski

  They hurried on in silence, following the path as it narrowed, twisting back and forth as it pierced deep into the cave’s belly. Minutes crawled by, how many Jack wasn’t sure, and yet there was still no sign of Sam. They were going far—too far—although logic told Jack they had to be closing in on Sam. Jack’s footsteps were muffled by the soft earth as he kicked up small clouds of cave dust that drifted and then settled back onto the sculpted stone. They rounded another bend and saw more ghostly figures, gray and lifeless, stalagmite arms outstretched as if to grab them as they walked by. Glancing behind, he could no longer make out the soft glow of the group’s lanterns. There was nothing but inky blackness to his side, in front, everywhere he could see. How far had they gone? It was so hard to judge distance when there was nothing but darkness surrounding them. His heart sank as he realized they’d gone dangerously far inside the cave. What if Sam had veered off onto a side trail? What if he was hurt? How could they find someone if the person didn’t want to be found? No, they would have to go back. Consuela had probably been treated and taken away by now, and the group might even be looking for them. It was time to quit trying.

  Stopping next to a pillar that looked like a tall, frosted cake, he set his lantern down. “Ashley, we’ve gone as far as we can. We have to stop—” he began.

  “No, wait! I think I’ve found something!” Ashley cried, grabbing the lantern. “Is that a footprint in the dirt next to the path?”

  Impatient, Jack answered, “Lots of people go through this tunnel, so there are probably lots of footprints. We’ve got to give it up and get some help. Sam’s gone.”

  “But this one’s off the path, and it’s smeared a little bit like someone might have been running, and then they sort of slipped. And look—it’s going toward that narrow corridor. Do you think he would have been scared enough to go off the trail?”

  “Right now, I think he could do anything.” Jack knelt to get a closer look at the footprint, taking the lantern and lowering it almost to the ground. The print might have been from Sam’s sneaker; it looked about the right size, with a pattern like tire treads etched in powdery silt. “If this is his, then he must have turned that way,” Jack said, pointing to an even narrower corridor that forked to the left. “Sam!” he yelled. “Sammy, are you in there? Where are you? It’s me and Ashley. You’ve got to come out, right now.”

  When there was no answer, Ashley shook her head. “What do you expect? If he’s running away, he’s not going to tell us where he is. I say we go after him.”

  As the older brother, Jack felt he should be the one to make the decisions, not Ashley. He was 13, Ashley only 11. So OK, decide, he told himself. Turn back, find the rangers, and ask for help? Or keep looking for Sam on their own—after all, as Ashley had said, Sam couldn’t be very far ahead of them. But which direction? Should they take a chance and go into that turnoff, hoping the footprint was Sammy’s and that was the way he went? Or figure it was someone else’s footprint and stay on the marked path a little longer?

  As Jack hesitated, Ashley cried, “Jack! Down there in that turnoff—I see a light! It’s gotta be Sam’s lantern. Maybe we can get him and go back before anyone knows he’s been missing. Come on, let’s go!” When Jack didn’t move quickly enough to suit her, she said impatiently, “If you aren’t coming, at least give me the lantern so I can see where I’m going.”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he grumbled. “I hope you know what you’re talking about, because I don’t see any light.”

  Ashley’s braids whipped behind her as she turned toward the corridor. “Follow me!” she commanded. “You’re blind as a bat.”

  “Bats aren’t blind,” he reminded her. “Dr. Rhodes said so.”

  The turnoff led to a much narrower tunnel, with no marked path. The more steps they took, the rougher the ground became. Then Jack saw what Ashley was talking about—a small light in the distance. Oddly, it looked green, rather than gold like the flame in Jack’s lantern. Since he’d never been in a cave, he didn’t know whether atmospheric differences—or whatever—might make a flame change color. The green light wasn’t moving, so Sam must have stopped running. Probably he was sitting down waiting for them to find him.

  Sharp, uneven rock jutted up from the narrow path, at times slowing Jack and Ashley to a snail’s pace. Once, Jack missed a step and felt the bite of rock against his forearm, cold and sharp. Steadying himself, he realized with relief he hadn’t broken any of the irreplaceable formations. Vowing to be even more careful, he cautiously made his way forward, one foot placed gingerly in front of the other as if he were walking a tightrope. The light ahead guided him, staring at him like a single, shimmering, green eye.

  Pausing, he cupped his free hand to his mouth. “Sam,” he called as loudly as he could, “we’re here! You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  Silence. After a moment, Jack thought he heard a single drip hit water, although he couldn’t see anything but the eerie formations.

  “Come on, Sammy, say something!” Ashley demanded. “Are you afraid about Consuela? She’s going to be fine.

  Pick up your lantern and walk toward us.” Another pause. “Just do it, Sammy—we’ve got to get back!”

  Jack had always imagined that a cave would echo, but Ashley’s words seemed to get sucked into the blackness. The light ahead didn’t move the slightest bit.

  “I guess he’s going to make us go all the way up there to get him,” Ashley sighed. “What a pain he’s turned out to be.”

  It took another five minutes before Jack realized what they’d been walking toward. At first, his eyes couldn’t process the fact that the light wasn’t on the ground, but suspended almost four feet in the air, a small, round circle that didn’t flicker or move like his own candle did. Then, when he finally got within ten feet, he understood. The light they’d been chasing hadn’t been a lantern at all but rather a flat glass reflector fastened on top of a metal pole. The green glow was nothing more than a reflection of their own lantern light, a fool’s gold that had drawn them far into the corridor. They’d been wasting their time; worst of all, Sam was nowhere to be found.

  “Great, just great,” Jack muttered. “We’ve been chasing air.”

  Ashley seemed bewildered as she stared at the reflector. “Sorry. I really thought it was Sam. What is this thing?”

  “I guess it’s a marker of some kind. I don’t know what it’s for, but it sure has messed us up. We’ve been gone 15, maybe 20 minutes already. You realize that the rangers are probably already looking for us. This whole thing is getting to be big trouble.”

  “I said I was sorry! What else do you want me to do?”

  “So you agree that we’ve got to go back and get help now?”

  Scowling, Ashley gave a terse nod. It wasn’t really her fault, Jack knew. He’d gone along with her plan. But he could feel panic starting to spread through his insides, the same as when he gulped a glass of cold water on a hot day. Time was ticking by, and with each second Sammy could be getting more lost while he and Ashley could be getting into more and more trouble. What were the first instructions drilled into him every time he went camping? Stay with the group. Don’t leave the trail. But here he was, wandering in a cave, away from any adult or ranger. Well, he’d be the leader now. It was time to give it up and get help.

  Holding his lantern high, Jack began retracing his steps. The layer of cave dust was lighter here, which made the popcorn formations appear whiter, like real popped kernels glittering with crystals. He shuddered when he saw a half-mummified body of a bat next to the trail, and wondered how many of the creatures were in these small side passages. They don’t swarm until night, he reminded himself. Just keep going. Don’t think about them. Think about Sam. It was possible Sam had already returned to the tour group, and everyone was sitting at the part of Left Hand Tunnel known as The Beach, just waiting for them to show up. And Consuela—what about her? Had the medics taken her away by now? Had—

  “Jack,
you’re going the wrong way. That’s not the way we came.”

  “What?” Jack stopped and held the lantern to Ashley’s face. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest as if she were cold, and she was shaking her head.

  “See how this tunnel splits? You’re going to the left. We came from the right.”

  Peering into the darkness, Jack realized the trail divided like an artery. How had he missed it? But his sister was wrong—this was the path they’d walked. He was almost sure of it.

  “Ashley, this is the right one. Look, when I turn around, I can see the reflector perfectly.”

  “But watch me. I’m walking down this path.” She disappeared into the second trail. “And when I turn around,” she said, her voice distant and muffled, “I can still see the reflector, too.”

  Jack blinked. Mentally, he tried to retrace the trail, but all of the formations had begun to look the same. Melted columns and stalactites marched alongside the trail, row after row of lifeless gray rock. Wasn’t that large pear-shaped formation the exact one he’d seen earlier? Yes, now he was sure of it—he remembered thinking how round the bottom of the stone had swelled. He’d seen that formation before, which meant he was going the right way, and this time, he would listen to his own gut. Ashley would have to follow him, for once.

  When his sister reappeared, he tried to sound more confident than he felt. “Ashley, I remember this trail.

  If we think it’s wrong, we can turn back and go your way. OK?”

  She hesitated, until Jack reminded her that he was the one with the light. Then, lantern high, he turned resolutely down the path he’d decided on.

  As they walked, Jack wavered between absolute certainty and absolute doubt. A stalagmite that stretched up like a witch’s finger was one he’d seen before; yes, he convinced himself, he was going the right way. But then he saw a group of rocks that looked like turtles crawling one over the other, and he wondered if Ashley had been right, after all, because he sure didn’t remember anything that looked like that. Twice more there were splits in the path, and each time Jack tried to stay on the main trail, studying the ground for footprints that weren’t there. He could make out smudges, but were they from their feet or from others who’d been there long ago? In this windless tunnel, footsteps could last for years, couldn’t they? Ashley had grown quiet, which made Jack even more nervous. He almost wished she’d insist that they go back. One thing was sure, they should be hitting the main trail any minute. Any minute now…any….

  He tried to mark their progress by the time that had passed, but because he hadn’t checked his watch when they’d started, he wasn’t sure how long it had been.

  His instincts told him the trail should be right up ahead. The passageway narrowed so that he had to turn sideways, his right arm outstretched. No, he hadn’t had to do that before. This was all wrong! Good grief! Where were they?

  Ashley, for once, didn’t say “I told you so.” Instead, she flattened herself as much as she could against the rock and motioned for Jack to step around her and go first.

  “We haven’t lost that much time,” she told him. “We’ll get back to that one fork, and then we’ll get back to the main trail. It’s no big deal.”

  Sometimes it seemed as if his sister could read his thoughts. He just nodded and moved to the front, the lantern swaying in his hand.

  The first thing he realized was that he could no longer see the reflector. It had disappeared from view, which meant that they’d definitely gone the wrong way. Jack rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand and tried not to panic. They’d stay on the trail and retrace their steps. Simple.

  Another five minutes crawled by, and they came to another split in the trail, or maybe it was the same one. How many times might they have doubled back to the same fork in the dark without even recognizing it? Bewildered, Jack had no clue which way to go. He hoped Ashley would.

  Apparently she didn’t. “Oh-h man,” Ashley wailed. “Do you know which direction we should take?”

  Jack put his arm around his sister’s thin shoulders in reply. “It’s not time to panic yet,” he told her.

  “Why not?” Her voice was shrill.

  “Because there can’t be that many trails back here. Because even if we do get lost, the rangers will come looking. We’ll be fine—”

  When Jack heard the sound, the words he’d been speaking died in his throat. Somewhere in the blackness swelled a strange, eerie noise, guttural and low. Ashley stared at him, wide-eyed, her lips parted.

  “Jack—”

  “Shush,” he whispered. “There it is again.”

  It was hard to tell how close the sound might be, but Jack guessed it couldn’t be too much more than 50 feet away. It wailed, high, then low, like a cat in the dead of night. Images of Goatsuckers crowded into his head. A shadow to his left seemed to move on its own—Jack’s insides turned to ice.

  He could feel his sister’s arm encircle him, her fingers tightening around his waist. Then another cry rose up like a specter’s shriek.

  It was definitely time to panic.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jack and Ashley clung to one another in terror, as the lantern light cast their own shadows into huge shapes on the cave walls. For what seemed like an hour but was probably little more than minutes, the terrifying sound wafted through the darkness, now loud, now soft. Jack’s first impulse was to run away from it, as fast as he could, as far as he could. Then, slowly, fear began to loosen its hold on his brain, enough that he recognized that the cries were coming from a human. From a very young human.

  Sam!

  The cries were so eerie!—nothing like the wails an ordinary child would make. They sounded strangled, alternating between low guttural rasps and then high, muted shrieks. It was as if Sam had never learned to just let loose and cry out his pain, as if he’d always had to hide his fear—or else be punished for showing it. What kind of hurts did he have from his past life? Jack had never heard a sound like that coming from any human being. The sound made his skin crawl.

  “It’s Sam!” Jack told Ashley. “Don’t call out to him or he might stop. We need to follow his crying so we know where to go.”

  “Are you sure it’s him?”

  “Who else would it be?” he asked, impatient.

  Ashley didn’t answer, but Jack knew what she was thinking. Trolls. Blood-sucking bats. Cave ghosts haunting the bizarre formations. But this sound was all too human, and they couldn’t let their imaginations take them off into the netherworld. The two of them had to get a grip on reality.

  All around them they heard the drip of water falling from the cave ceiling into small puddles, mostly invisible except when the lantern light skimmed the surface with golden brushstrokes. His own shallow breathing and the shuffle of his shoes filled his ears, but above it all, he heard those heart-wrenching sobs of a little lost boy. Once, Jack picked a finger tunnel that dead-ended, and another time Ashley made a wrong turn that took them away from the eerie wailing. At last they reached him, alone, sitting in complete darkness, his arms around his legs and his round head bowed. The knees of his jeans were covered with a soft layer of cave dust. His hands looked grimy, even in the half-light.

  “Sammy, we’re here,” Jack called softly. “It’s me, Jack.”

  “And me, too. Ashley.”

  Sam raised his head to stare at them with the most desolate expression Jack had ever seen. “I a-b-b-bout d-d-died,” he sobbed. Pressing the tips of his fingers into his eyes, he dropped his chin onto his chest and let out another sob.

  “No you didn’t about die; you just got lost.” Jack knelt beside Sam and awkwardly patted his back, his hand making rat-ta-tat-tat sounds on the fake-leather jacket that covered Sam’s thin shoulder blades. “No worries. We’re going to take you back. The tour rangers are probably already looking for us by now. That’s bad, because we’ll get in big trouble for leaving the trail—but good, because we’ll just follow them out of here.” The words sounded far more c
onfident than Jack really felt. “Hey, where’s your lantern?”

  “There,” Sammy answered, pointing to a spot a few feet away.

  Picking up their own lantern and holding it above her head, Ashley peered into the darkness. “Where?"” she asked. “I don’t see it.”

  “In the h-h-hole.”

  “What hole?” She took a few steps down the trail, swinging the light from side to side. “Oh my gosh! Look!” she shrieked. “Jack, come here!” In an instant Jack was on his feet and next to his sister. Close enough behind her that one misstep could have spelled tragedy, Jack saw a drop-off, a black pit that yawned so deeply there was no way to see the bottom.

  “In there?” he asked Sam. “You dropped your lantern down there?”

  “I didn’t m-m-mean to. I f-f-fell.”

  Jack pictured it in his mind: Sam running away across this rough cave floor, barely able to see in the wavering light of a single candle, then tripping. The lantern would have flown out of his hand into that chasm that seemed to have no end. What if not only the lantern but also Sammy had fallen into that pit! Maybe he really would have died. Jack shuddered, and not just from the 56-degree coolness of the cave.

  “It’s all right, Sam,” Ashley told him, her voice soothing him the way Olivia would have done. “You’re OK. That’s what’s important. Stand up and hold my hand. It’s time to get out of here.”

  “J-J-Jack’s hand,” Sam insisted.

  “Fine,” she sighed. “Jack’s hand. This time, I’ll lead the way. I think I can remember which way we came.

  We should have been dropping breadcrumbs or something so we could find our way out.”

  “I th-th-thought you c-c-couldn’t leave things in a c-c-cave.”

  “I know. I was joking, Sam, about something in the tale of Hansel and Gretel. But even without crumbs I can do this. I think I know exactly where we are.” She smiled a half-smile, but Jack wasn’t fooled at all. How could she know anything after all the wrong turns they’d made? Were other chasms waiting to catch them, to trap them as they stumbled through the darkness? How lost could they get in this maze of tunnels? The truth was, neither one of them knew which path would lead them out, and that meant they could be walking deeper into the bowels of the cave instead of toward the main path. He could already feel his stomach rumble, a reminder that he should have eaten more for lunch, especially since there was nothing back here to chew on but dust. Dust and the few cave crickets he might be lucky enough to catch. Don’t be stupid, he chided himself. They’d be out of Left Hand Tunnel and into the cafeteria in a matter of minutes. An hour, tops. Let Ashley lead the way. She couldn’t do any worse than he had.