Where She Fell

by Kaitlin Ward

  Tears sting my eyes and I bite down on my lip until it splits to stop myself from crying out, because my arms feel ready to break free from their sockets. It hurts, it hurts, but Grayson needs my help and I can’t give up now.

  I feel like an ant holding on to an earthworm, being yanked from the ground by a bird. Grayson’s screams have reduced to whimpers, his breaths shuddery and pained. And then, without warning, he shouts, “I’m free! You can stop.”

  Eleanor instantly lets go of my legs. I don’t let go of Grayson’s hands.

  “You sure?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” He grimaces. “My hips are just about through that narrowest part. I think I can pull myself the rest of the way now.”

  I back off, and he does manage, dragging himself out like a beached merman. His shirt is bloodied and torn. He winces with every movement, and I feel awful.

  “Grayson, I’m so sorry,” I say as Alice emerges from the tunnel in his wake. “I had no idea this would—”

  “You shouldn’t be apologizing.” He waves it away, and winces again. “You got me through, just like you promised. I—thank you.”

  I smile at him. “You’re welcome.”

  After we’ve finished tending to his wounds the best we can, Grayson catches my chin between his fingers. It steals my breath and I’m suddenly keenly aware of the fact that we were kissing in the not-so-distant past. “You’re bleeding, too,” he says.

  “Oh. Yeah.” I dab at my lip with a finger. “I just—it hurt, that’s all, but I was trying to be strong. I shouldn’t have bitten down so hard.”

  “You should have said it hurt too much.”

  “I’m okay. I’m fine. We needed to get you out, and we couldn’t exactly stop in the middle of the process.”

  His eyes narrow. “Yes, we could.”

  I roll my shoulders. Very sore. But I’ll live. “Well, it’s over. I’m fine, you’re going to be fine, we all made it. Everything’s good.”

  It’s lies, and he knows it. That’s the second time he’s been injured by a narrow passage, and we’ve got days ahead of us, if not longer. We could be in very serious trouble here, much as I don’t want to admit it. Or think about it.

  I’ve been pushing it away. The fear that we might not make it. That Colleen was right and this is not leading us anywhere except our graves. But now it envelops me, clinging to the thick cavern air. I can’t escape it.

  I may not be able to escape at all.

  “It’s getting warmer,” I say. This has been bugging me for a while. The air feels different but I couldn’t place why. Now, though, I’m confident that it’s temperature.

  “That’s kind of expected, though, right?” says Alice. She’s doing much better after a good long rest we took, and it’s a huge relief.

  I shrug. “I mean, yeah. It should be much worse, though.”

  And it could get much worse, but I’m not gonna say that to Alice.

  “Better warm than cold, right?” says Eleanor.

  I smile at her. “Since we don’t have unlimited clothing at our disposal, I’d say so, yeah.”

  Grayson, in the front of the group, stops abruptly. He holds up a fist, the signal we decided upon to mean be silent, and my heart whirs like an overworked engine.

  In the dim-lit silence, my hearing sharpens. Catches a squelching noise somewhere ahead. I slip out my knife, watching the others do the same, and then Grayson moves a tiny shift, and I see … it.

  The creature is translucent white, like a grub. I can easily trace its nervous system and its digestive tract down the length of its body, dark strips that end near a cluster of reproductive organs at its rear. It has a single eye in the center of its forehead, and from time to time it pulls a clear membrane over the eye and back up. The eye is pale and cloudy, and it’s unclear whether it is functional or for decoration. Down here, sight isn’t the most necessary of senses.

  Its mouth is a horror show. Teeth like knives, about an inch wide at their base, and tapering into sharp points after roughly four inches of length. And there are too many. The teeth are crammed together in a circular shape, jutting out in front of peeled-back lips that clearly cannot contain this mouth.

  But it has no limbs, no other weapons.

  None of us has moved, and neither has it. Grayson pulls out an arrow, and slowly, carefully notches it into his bow. He aims for that gaping mouth, and when he fires, the arrow shoots true, lodging itself in the thing’s throat.

  It flails, letting out a guttural hiss. Chomps its teeth down, breaking off the end of the arrow. It’s dying, but it’s not dead, and it intends to take at least one of us with it.

  I move my knife, but Eleanor is faster. She lodges her weapon deep into its general throat area, just as it lunges for her, raking its sharp teeth over her shoulder. She howls, slumps to the floor.

  The rest of us close in on the creature. I stab it in the side, and when my fist touches its sticky flesh, it burns.

  A low curse word from Grayson, beside me, tells me I’m not the only one who’s discovered this. But we stab and stab and stab anyway, until the creature is dead and oozing on the floor.

  I ignore the throbbing, burning pain in my fist and hurry to Eleanor’s side. She’s gasping and clutching her neck.

  That’s when I realize, with horror, that its teeth didn’t just sink into her shoulder.

  “Let’s patch you up.” I try to keep my voice calm, but I’m not. I’m not. When she takes her hand away, I don’t know what I’ll see and she’s suddenly so pale.

  She opens her mouth and a sound like drowning comes out.

  No.

  “You’re going to be fine,” I tell her, sweeping hair out of her eyes. “We can’t do this without you, so you’re going to be—”

  She shakes her head, almost imperceptibly, and squeezes her eyes shut, pained.

  Alice is at my shoulder. “I’ve got the bandages and stuff,” she says breathlessly. “What …”

  She trails off because, like me, she’s noticed the way Eleanor clutches at her neck, the way that blood seeps through her fingers, and the way her breaths rattle through her throat.

  “Let’s get this bleeding stopped,” I say desperately. And then, to Eleanor, “We love you. We’re going to fix you.”

  Alice nods.

  Eleanor mouths something, but I can’t make out the word. I lean closer and in the undertones of her rattling breath, I hear, “Dying.”

  “No,” I say placatingly, ignoring the chill that washes over my whole body. “You’re okay. You’re going to be fine.”

  Her eyelids flutter, and her hand slips away from the wound on her neck. The unfixable, awful wound. Blood glugs thickly out the side of her neck, pooling behind her head. She’s been unsavable since the moment those teeth sank into her flesh.

  And now she’s gone.

  “No,” I whisper. A numbness spreads through my body. I’m too shocked to cry; instead, I panic. Press my hand over the wound even though it stops nothing, even though there’s already too much blood on the floor and not enough inside of her. “You can’t—you have to, you wanted to go home. You’re supposed to make it home.”

  Now I’m weeping. My face is coated in tears, and when I go to wipe them away, they’re replaced with a hot smear of blood.

  I clench a fist into her shirt. “Come back,” I order.

  A hand presses against my shoulder blades, and I snap to awareness. “You have to let go,” Grayson says gently, and I don’t know if he means physically or emotionally.

  I pull my hand away, bury my face in my knees, and sob so hard, it feels like all my organs might float away. Grayson wraps both arms around me, holding tight. I clutch at him and absorb what comfort I can, which isn’t much.

  Eleanor and I were supposed to make it. Together. She’s the best person I’ve ever known. So wonderful and funny and sweet. She pushed me, not in the way that Sherri used to push me, but in a way that got me outside my comfort zone and made me okay with it. She had family,
friends. They would have been so excited to see her again, and now—

  Now, I wonder, what if none of us make it? What if Colleen was right and this was a suicidal idea and we should have just resigned ourselves to life in this cavern, stayed here forever?

  No. No. Eleanor would not have wanted me thinking like this. I have to pull it together. We have to keep going.

  “We shouldn’t have left.”

  Those words have been sloshing around in the back of my skull, but now I’m hearing them aloud. From Alice’s mouth. I look at her through tear-blurred eyes. Her mouth and brow are pinched.

  “We had to,” Grayson says.

  “We didn’t, though.” Her voice rises. “Eliza and I got this dangerous idea in our heads, and it was the worst idea. Eleanor would be alive right now if we hadn’t left that cavern.”

  Each word is a kick to the ribs. The last sentence cracks them, and I can’t breathe.

  That’s when I do something foolish: I grab my glowite, and I flee.

  Not far, just until I’m a bit farther down the tunnel, past the corpse of the insect larva, and out of sight of the others. I still can’t really breathe and I can hear the two of them arguing.

  This is my fault.

  It’s all my fault.

  Eleanor trusted me, she trusted me, and I was not smart enough or strong enough to get her through this to safety. I have to be strong enough now, but how can I do that without her?

  I think about what Eleanor said, how she told me I’m brave, but she’s wrong. I’m not brave. I’m impulsive. Something I never thought was true, but see all too clearly now.

  I haven’t learned a single freaking thing from all the times I’ve messed up. All the things I’ve agreed to that were foolish. Now I’m the Sherri, and it cost the life of someone who deserves to be here much more than I do.

  Footsteps echo from farther down the tunnel, and I feel a new emotion: fear. I wield my glowite and my knife, but it’s only Grayson. He plucks both weapons from my grip, sets them against the wall, and then hugs me tight, kissing my hair.

  “Alice is just upset. Upset and feeling guilty, same as you, though neither of you are remotely to blame.”

  “I’ve never …” I pause to wipe roughly at my cheeks. They’re swollen and puffy from the crying, and also from whatever venom is on that larva’s skin, rubbed from my hand to my face and making me itchy and achy. “I’ve never lost anyone close to me before. I mean, my gramp, but he was eighty-six and died peacefully in his sleep. No one young, or no one—what if this is my fault? It feels like my fault, Grayson.”

  He cups my face in both hands, frowning at me. “If it’s your fault, then it’s mine, too, and Alice’s. We’re in this together. We decided to do this together. You can’t take the blame, you don’t deserve to. It’s too heavy a burden, and it’s not fair or right. We all knew this was dangerous. Eleanor included.”

  I bury my face in his chest and say nothing.

  After a few minutes, he says quietly, “My dad died when I was eleven. Car accident, and he’d been drinking. I was with him.”

  I look up at him, horrified.

  “He blew past a yield sign without even looking. A car was coming, and smashed full-on into the side of our truck. My dad was killed pretty much instantly. The woman driving the other car almost didn’t make it. They had to amputate her arm, and she had a traumatic brain injury. I had some broken bones, but they all healed.” His eyes flick away from mine, to the wall behind me. “I—for a really long time, I blamed myself for what happened to my dad, and to that woman. I knew he was in no condition to drive. My parents were divorced and it was because my dad couldn’t—well, he could be pretty rough. My mom had given me a secret cell phone to call her if I ever felt unsafe. I should have used it then; I knew I should have. But I didn’t and he died and that other woman’s life is completely destroyed, and I thought that was my fault.”

  “But you were eleven,” I protest. “He was a grown man who decided to drive drunk.”

  He nods. “Exactly. I understand that now. We’re all responsible for the decisions we make. We knew, we all knew that this was a dangerous plan. But don’t forget, there was a danger to staying behind, too. The bioluminescents, and the way Colleen acted when you said you were leaving … That cavern, it’s an illusion of safety. We haven’t been safe since the moment we set foot in this place. Eleanor knew that and I’m—” He stops, swallows hard. His voice is scratchier when he continues. “I’m going to miss her so much, but she would not have wanted you to blame yourself for this. She would have wanted you to stay strong and lead us out of here.”

  I rise onto my toes and kiss him. Gently at first, and then more desperately. “You need to stay with me,” I tell him. “You have to make it out of here with me. I can’t lose you and Eleanor both, I just can’t.”

  He kisses me back, fiercely. “Same to you.”

  I start to cry again then, and I can’t stop. I lose all the strength in my body, collapse to the floor.

  Grayson doesn’t say anything. He just sits beside me and holds my hand.

  When we return to Alice, little has changed. All three of us remain heartbroken. Eleanor remains a still, lifeless form on the ground. The only real difference is that the pool of blood on the floor has grown, forming a dark halo around Eleanor’s head. I feel sick.

  “What … happens next?” Grayson asks.

  Alice stands, slowly. “Well, we have to go on. We don’t have any other choice.”

  “But what do we do …” Grayson swallows hard. “… with Eleanor?”

  “We’ll have to just … make this a good resting place for her.” My mouth trembles. No part of me wants to leave her here, but we can’t drag her around, either. It’d be undignified.

  Alice helps me wrap Eleanor’s neck in gauze and otherwise clean up her body as best we can. Grayson keeps watch for insects or anything else that might want to kill us. The three of us take a moment to stand over Eleanor and say goodbye in our own silent ways. My mind feels numb. The ache of loss is so deep there’s a physical pain in my chest.

  But we have to go on, because if we don’t, if we stop and give up, then everything we’ve done would have been in vain and Eleanor would have died for nothing.

  The passages ahead are narrow and steep. And, because it’s just our luck, before long we find ourselves in a spot where the only exit is a low-ceilinged tunnel. We’re going to have to crawl on our bellies. Again.

  “Oh great.” Grayson folds his arms.

  The tunnel makes me feel like I’m going to have a panic attack, so I throw myself into it first. That way, if something goes wrong, I won’t be surrounded on two sides with other people.

  Of course, if the thing that goes wrong is that the tunnel ends, I’ll be trapped between rock and a person, but that doesn’t occur to me until I’m already edging along, barely breathing.

  You are not going to die, Eliza. You are not going to die.

  I scream it over and over in my mind because if I don’t, I can’t keep going. My muscles ache with the effort and my brain is begging me to give up and rest for a while.

  The tunnel seems never-ending. And the farther I get, the smaller it feels, even though there’s actually, thankfully, plenty of space. I only hope Grayson isn’t struggling to fit.

  Finally, I emerge onto a thin ledge. I’d put my glowite into my backpack before starting to crawl, and now I can’t see a thing. The next person out is Alice, and she brings light.

  I really … really wish she hadn’t.

  The ledge is about ten feet up from the floor of a wide cavern. Below us, smaller versions of the exact grub that killed Eleanor squirm on the floor. Cocoons are woven across the walls.

  “Eliza.” Alice’s voice is sheer terror.

  “I know.” I edge back, pressing myself as close to the wall as possible. There are two tunnels branching off the room, but to get to either, we have to get past these … monsters. I can’t see any markings, either. Not
from up here.

  Grayson squeezes out of the tunnel and sucks in a breath.

  “If we had something to distract them with,” he whispers, “just long enough that we could get past …”

  “What, though?” Alice asks.

  “I don’t know. Food?”

  “Um.” I think of something. Something terrible. Something that makes me want to rip out my own brain to remove the thought. Something that might be our only option. “Eleanor might … be of help here.”

  “That’s … I don’t know, Eliza.” Alice grimaces. The grubs below continue clicking their horrid jaws, oozing around in their filthy nest.

  “It’s awful, I know it is.” I fold my arms tight. My fingertips tingle with anxiety. “But I think she would want to help us.”

  “I’ll go back and get her,” Grayson says quietly. “That tunnel wasn’t so tight. I could figure out how to pull her through it.”

  “You don’t—”

  “Just stay here, and stay quiet. I’ll be back soon, and if you hear me yell, then just … I don’t know, run, I guess.”

  He leaves with a squeeze of my hand, and then Alice and I wait in an agonized silence for him to return.

  “Do you wish it was me who died?” Alice whispers, when the silence grows too heavy. “Instead of Eleanor?”

  “I would never wish that. Why would I wish that?”

  Alice shrugs, looks away. “I’m older. We’re not as close. I just … I don’t know. Feel like it should have been me.”

  “It shouldn’t have been any of us.” I frown. “And you’re not that much older.”

  She nods, gives me a weak, apologetic smile. “Sorry. Just being insecure, I guess.”

  “I know a thing or two about insecurity.” I edge slightly closer and reach for her hand, squeeze it tight. She brushes a tear from her cheek. Comforting others, usually it’s my wheelhouse. It’s the thing I do that doesn’t make me feel socially awkward or anxious. But right now, I don’t know what to say. This isn’t like commiserating with Meg because her mom’s being a jerk again. Or because she probably didn’t do well on that math test or the boy she’s maybe starting to like flirted with some other girl. Meg has always been easy, because all she wanted was the attention and the comfort. I could do that no problem.