by P. J. Night
Tim remembered what Mrs. Hallett had said: Touch nothing, take nothing from the caves. And he knew, in his heart, that the ruby didn’t belong to him. Maybe it didn’t belong to anyone, but it definitely didn’t belong to him. So after one last look of longing, Tim turned away and pushed himself up. He took a tentative step on his twisted ankle. It hurt, but not too bad. Tim limped a little as he walked a few yards. So far, so good.
Then Tim noticed another ruby, just a few inches in front of him. And a couple feet beyond it lay another one. He walked as fast as he could, somehow minding the pain in his ankle less when he realized that the floor was littered with rubies for as far as he could see.
He frowned as he tried to remember the history of the Ravensburg Caverns. Had any part of it been excavated as a mine? Too bad Bobby’s not here, Tim thought. I could ask him. Mrs. Hallett had said something about early settlers searching for gold—but nothing that Tim could remember about rubies. Then again, that makes sense, he rationalized. If there was a real ruby mine in here, they wouldn’t want to tell people. Otherwise everybody who came in here would be trying to find a ruby to take home. Maybe that’s why this path had been guarded off. They didn’t want anyone accidentally coming across a fortune of rubies. Tim remembered, suddenly, the lousy geodes in the gift shop—and the locked case of glittering red stones. His heart started pounding a little faster. That was it. That made perfect sense. There had to be a ruby mine deep within the caverns—and it looked like Tim had stumbled right into it. Literally.
There were so many rubies scattered on the ground around him, rubies in all shades of the sunrise—deep crimson and scarlet, rusty orange, fiery pomegranate. All sizes, too; some were as small as a pencil eraser. Others were as big as his fist.
Why shouldn’t he take one?
Just one, Tim promised himself. Not even one of the big ones. Just a medium-size one. For Mom.
Tim knelt down and plucked one of the rubies off the floor. It was the size of a large gumball, it was perfectly round, and it was gorgeous. He smiled at the ruby and saw his own reflection smiling back at him.
Something strange happened then: His reflection in the ruby started to blur. It was almost like his smile was melting. Before Tim could look closer there was something suddenly wrong with his hand—a searing pain that was so intense that Tim couldn’t cry out. It burned in the palm of his hand and in his gut, a pain so horrible that Tim couldn’t even breathe. His instincts kicked in then and he dropped the ruby, just as flames burst from it.
The burning ruby rolled a few feet away and lay on the cave floor, spitting sparks and crackling angrily. Tim had to pry his fingers apart to look at his throbbing palm. There were black char marks still smoking in his tender flesh, but they were streaky and uneven. It almost looked like a laughing skull emblazoned in Tim’s palm.
Tim blew on his burned palm, but it didn’t do any good. He wished that he could plunge his hand into the Crystal Lake. It didn’t matter what kind of troglobites swam through its murky waters; all Tim could think of was getting relief for his seared hand.
Flames were still leaping from the ruby—if that’s even what it was—and a single black plume of smoke curled up toward the cavern roof. Through the blistering pain in his palm and the throbbing ache of his ankle, Tim had a distant thought that he should probably try to stomp on the ruby. He shouldn’t leave it smoldering in the caverns. But Tim knew that he could never find the courage to do that. He hated fire, all fire, even campfires and flickering candles on birthday cakes. It hadn’t always been that way; Tim could still remember a time before, when he’d go camping with his dad and they’d roast hot dogs or marshmallows under the moon. But since that night—that brutal, heartbreaking night—Tim couldn’t stand the stuff.
It was Christmas Eve. Tim was five years old. He tossed and turned in his bed, even long after Jamie was snoring peacefully on the top bunk. Tim wanted to stay awake all night—he was sure he could do it. He was determined to hear reindeer on the roof and Santa’s footsteps in the living room. Of course he fell asleep though. He woke up suddenly, hours later, his heart already racing, wondering what presents were waiting under the tree. But something was wrong. Something was wrong in the air; it was heavy, too thick, too hard to breathe. The door creaked open and a big man crashed into the room. But there was no velvety red suit, no chiming silver bells. The big, shapeless man in his mask and his black jacket and his helmet swooped toward the bed, pulling Jamie out of the top bunk. Tim tried to scream, but smoke filled his throat and he choked, and by the time he could breathe again, Jamie was gone.
Then another big, shapeless man was in the room, hovering over Tim’s bed, yanking him from the tangle of blankets and sheets. Tim was still holding on to Pup, the stuffed dog he’d slept with since he was a little baby. Tim clung to Pup as the man ran through the too-hot, too-bright house, where flames licked up the walls. It was happening so fast. The Christmas tree, the presents, the stockings—the worst bonfire Tim could ever imagine.
He never really understood how it happened—perhaps it was the shock or the fear or the jostling, uneven run—but just outside the living room, Pup fell from his arms.
“No!” Tim screamed. “No! No! No! No!” He had to go back for Pup. He tried to wrench himself free, but the big, shapeless man was too strong, and too determined to get Tim outside. Maybe he didn’t hear Tim, or maybe he didn’t understand him, or maybe he just didn’t care. There was nothing that Tim could do but watch as the red-hot flames raced across the floor to Pup, devouring his brown-and-white fur, melting his brown marble eyes. Poor Pup.
Then Tim was outside under the cold, starry sky, outside with Mom and Dad and Jess and Jamie, all of them wrapped in stiff blankets, a plastic oxygen mask strapped to Jamie’s little face. So lucky, everyone kept murmuring to them. So lucky that they all made it out alive. They held tight to one another as they watched their whole house burn down. Everything was gone. Mom couldn’t stop crying, and neither could Tim.
Since then, life had never been the same. And that’s why Tim already knew that he would never be able to stomp out the burning ruby’s flames. What he had to do was get out of the tunnel, get back to the group.
Then came a series of sharp pops that sounded like fireworks, and Tim thought, at first, that the rocky walls around him were cracking, about to crumble. It wasn’t those rocks though. It was the rubies. They had all burst into flames: the big ones, the little ones, the in-between ones. All of them burning. And then, to Tim’s horror, they started rolling, all on their own. All of them rolling toward him.
A wave of heat poured over Tim, rising from the floor in iridescent shimmers. Suddenly Tim understood exactly what was happening. Hadn’t he always known? Hadn’t he always, in some dark and unpleasant corner of his heart, expected this? The fire had come for him once before, and he had cheated it. Now it was back.
No, Tim thought wildly. No, no, no, no, no.
There was no big, shapeless man to save him this time. Tim would have to save himself. And he would—he would escape. It didn’t matter how much pain he felt in his ankle; it didn’t matter how hard it was to breathe; it didn’t matter that the fear alone made it hard for Tim to remember what to do. That one driving impulse—escape, escape, escape—was enough to push him forward. He started to run. If there was one thing Tim did really, really well, it was run, even in circumstances like these. Sweat poured down his forehead, streaming into his eyes. He leaped over rocks as the fireballs pursued him. They seemed—Tim knew this didn’t make a bit of sense—but they seemed to be aiming at him, as if they were trying to punish Tim for daring to run, for wanting to escape. Then the little fireballs rolled together into larger ones, feeding off one another’s flames until a solid wall of fire pursued Tim.
Still he believed that he could make it. Still he believed in himself.
Until the tunnel started to narrow.
At first Tim thought it was his imagination, but all too soon he realized that the tunnel
was closing in on him: First it was five feet wide, then four feet wide, then three feet, then two. Then his shoulders were brushing against the sharp, rocky sides and Tim finally had to face the truth: If the tunnel continued to narrow like this, it would eventually become a dead end.
And the fire would win once and for all.
CHAPTER 9
As she walked Kristi was struck by how, well, boring the maze was: one long, twisty tunnel, the same unchanging beige rocks surrounding her for as far as her eyes could see. Which wasn’t very far, to be honest. The electric lights were strung farther apart here, making them seem even weaker than the ones along the tour. The only sound Kristi could hear was the echo of her own footsteps; every so often she would stop and listen, straining her ears in an attempt to hear the others. To hear anyone, anything. But the rock walls were thick and the silence was overwhelming. Kristi knew that she could scream and not a soul would hear her.
She started walking a little faster. She was ready to be out of this maze and out of these caverns; she couldn’t wait to be back on the school bus with Olivia. So far, the ride out to the Ravensburg Caverns had been the best part of the field trip. It would feel so good to be back in her own house; to sleep in her own bed.
Kristi started wondering if the others were out of their tunnels yet. She wished there was some way to know. She hoped that they would wait for her—she could imagine it now, finally emerging from her tunnel to see Bobby and Tim and Olivia standing around, looking bored. Olivia would grin at her and say, “Hey, you,” like she always did, and Kristi would say—
“Hey!”
Kristi jumped. Who said that?
“Hey, you! In the red sweater!”
It definitely wasn’t Olivia.
“Hey!”
The voice—whoever it belonged to—was coming from around the bend directly ahead.
“I see you over there!”
For a split second Kristi thought she should turn around and run—but to where? Besides, the person—whoever he was—had already seen her. He knew where she was. He could follow her if he wanted to.
“Please! I need help!”
There was something so desperate in the voice that Kristi found herself drawn to it. Her heart was pounding and her throat felt tight and swollen from fear, but Kristi knew that if someone was in trouble in the caves, she would help them. How could she do anything else?
“Wh—what’s wrong?” she asked in a quavering voice.
“Come closer. I won’t hurt you. I need your help.”
Kristi pressed herself against the wall and crept toward the bend. She took a deep breath as she turned the corner and found another long, beige corridor made of stone. This one was not like the others though: Every five feet there was a square hole about three feet wide. And every hole was covered by thick iron bars.
“You came. Thank you,” the person behind the first set of bars rasped. “I’m trapped and I can’t get out.”
“What happened?” asked Kristi.
“I was exploring the maze, just like you, but this door closed behind me and locked. I’ve screamed and screamed, but nobody has come to help. I don’t think anyone knows I’m down here.”
Kristi squinted at the iron bars, but it was so dark and shadowy that she couldn’t see the person behind them. “I’ll go right now,” she promised. “I’ll run as fast as I can and tell them that you’re trapped down here.”
“No!” the voice shouted. “No, you can’t leave! You don’t understand what it’s like to be trapped down here!”
Kristi swallowed hard. “But—I’m going to get help! I promise I’ll be right back!”
“No!” he howled.
“What do you want me to do?”
A pale, trembling hand reached through the bars, pointing at the far wall of the tunnel. Kristi glanced behind her to see what the hand was pointing at. Under an exposed lightbulb hung a single key on a large ring. It looked very, very old, with flakes of orange rust peeling off its blade.
“The key is right over there,” the man wheedled. “Right over there on the wall. Be a good girl and get it for me. I can’t spend another minute in this cave!”
Kristi swallowed hard. Every molecule of her body warned her not to get the key.
“I’ll go—I’ll get help,” Kristi repeated. Her mouth was very dry.
“Don’t leave!” the man shouted. “Just throw me the key! That’s all you have to do!”
But Kristi couldn’t do it. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and walked closer to the bars. “I give you my word.”
Kristi looked inside the bars to make eye contact with the owner of the voice, to let him know that he could trust her, but just as she got close enough to smell the acrid old metal of the bars, he emerged from the shadows and pressed his face against the iron bars. “I just need the key,” the man breathed. “Bring it to me.”
But Kristi only drew in a sharp breath, horrified because in that terrible and unexpected moment she realized that it wasn’t just a man trapped within the cell.
It was a clown.
And everything was so wrong about him, wrong in every way. The tattered ruffles around his thick neck. The dingy white pancake makeup pierced by unkempt stubble. The garish smears of red around his mouth. The cracked blue diamonds around his eyes. But the makeup wasn’t even the worst of it. It was his eyes: tiny evil eyes, wild and unfocused and unfathomably dark.
“What are you doing?” he yelled. Kristi opened her mouth, but no sound came out. “Bring me the key!” the clown howled in outrage.
Kristi backed up in fear, further into the tunnel.
“Just bring him the key,” another person hissed.
Who is that? Kristi wondered in horror.
“Why should that dirty old key just hang there?” the new person continued. “Just bring it to him. Or to me.”
“Do it,” a third person chimed in. “Do it now.”
Kristi stared down the tunnel, wishing that she was wrong, wishing that it was all a dream. But it was real, too real, terribly real: every few feet a new cell had been carved into the thick rock, and every cell imprisoned a clown. They pushed their faces right against the bars. The smeary makeup made their faces grotesque, but what disturbed Kristi the most was their eyes, angry and evil. It must’ve been a trick of the light, the way the bulbs flickered off and on, because Kristi knew that there was no way for human eyes to glitter like that.
Kristi was all too familiar with what came next: A wave of icy terror that paralyzed her. She couldn’t move a muscle.
What are they doing here? Kristi thought wildly. Then she remembered something that Bobby had said earlier—that circus—what did he call it? Circus Atrocitas? The fatal accident. The performers imprisoned in the caverns . . . and never seen again.
“Bring us the key,” the clowns snarled. “Bring it!”
You. Are. Safe, Kristi thought, trying to overcome the fear that had seized her muscles. They’re all behind bars. They can’t hurt you. They can’t do anything to you.
“Bring us the key!” all the clowns screamed at the same time. The first one started rattling the bars of his cell. “Bring it to us!”
Then, to Kristi’s horror, the rusty bar crumbled to powder in the first clown’s hand.
The clown stared at his hand in wonderment, as if he couldn’t believe his luck. A chilling smile spread across his face. “Rattle the bars, boys!” he yelled. “Rattle the bars and free yourselves!”
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang.
The sound was deafening, all those bars banging and the jubilant shouts whenever one disintegrated.
“Wait till I get out of here,” one of the clowns shouted. “Just wait!”
“Maybe she’d like to be locked in one of them cells,” another yelled. “We’ll take the key and leave you here to rot, girl. How’d you like that?”
Kristi was still frozen as she watched those bars come down, one by one by one. Soon, she knew, the first clown would be free.
He would charge out of his cell, snatch the key, and free the others, too. And she would still be standing here, frozen in terror.
No I won’t, Kristi vowed.
And she started to run. First she darted over to the key and grabbed it. This way if one of the clowns did get free, he couldn’t just unlock all the other cells. They’d have to rattle themselves free, and that would take a bit longer, or at least Kristi hoped it would. Then she turned back and began to run down the tunnel.
In all her life, Kristi had never run so fast as she did past the jail cells of jeering clowns, through the narrow tunnel, away from those awful faces and rattling bars. Even when her muscles seized up with cramps; even when her chest burned and her lungs swelled and her heart felt like it was about to burst, Kristi kept running. Even when she started to stumble and had to pick herself up again and force herself to move forward, Kristi kept running.
And when she heard footsteps pounding behind her, Kristi ran even faster.
They were coming.
Coming for her.
More footsteps, running; more shouts and threats. Kristi tried to figure out how many clowns there were and how many had gotten free. But deep within her terror she still held on to the key and a ray of hope. She was young and strong and fast. She could escape from the clowns, escape from this maze, escape from this underground nightmare.