Cave Crawlers

by Alex Laybourne

  Justin replaced the helmet on his head and watched in horror as the spiders flooded over Zeke’s massive frame. They obscured him from view with their numbers, tearing at his flesh until the man’s blood seeped through their ranks.

  An arm shot out of the pile, a hand largely stripped of flesh, and what remained hung loosely from the appendage like melted cheese hanging from a slice of pizza. The fingers stretched, reaching for the brothers in a silent cry for help.

  “We can’t help him.” Declan was there once more, his hand on his brother’s shoulders. “We need to move. The big ones are still here.”

  The words went some way toward shocking Justin back into life, and he allowed Declan to pull him along. They hurried into the darkness, unaware of what lay in wait for them, but certain that what they were leaving behind was a certain death.

  “This way.” Declan pulled his brother on one arm, and Justin altered his course. They moved as fast as they could, knowing that running was not a genuine option.

  They could hear creatures continue to scurry behind them, but neither wanted to look for confirmation.

  Justin felt something to his right, a rush of air, followed by a strange clicking sound. He dropped without thinking, grabbing at Declan in the process, both men hitting the ground hard. Before Declan could voice his surprise, they head the heavy thud of a third body landing close by.

  A glance to their left, both helmet lights picked up on the thrashing form of a large cave spider. The creature was on its back, its legs wiggling frantically, as it tried to right itself. The stinger that had been so lethal when skewering the millipede flapped loose with each thrashing movement, while the creature’s large, serrated front pincers slashed at the air, ready to fight off anything that came close to it while vulnerable.

  “There, look,” Declan said, as the light of the torch picked up on another large fissure in the rock.

  “How do you know …?” Justin started, but stopped, interrupting his own question. “Never mind, I get it.”

  They charged towards the gap, scrambling over the uneven ground, plunging themselves into the tight crevice in the cave wall. A few seconds after they made it, the heavy impact of the cave spiders charging against the rock made them both yell.

  “Keep going,” Declan called, as he felt the serrated teeth rip a jagged tear through the shoulder of his jacket.

  They were just out of reach, but the clacking sound of the excited bugs told him that they were not going to go away anytime soon. They needed to push on.

  “It’s too tight, there’s no way we can make it,” Justin growled as he twisted his head to the side and kept inching his way deeper.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Declan answered, relieved to feel nothing but the gentle push of air as he moved beyond the range of the swiping, serrated mandibles.

  “I can’t breathe, it’s too tight,” Justin groaned, using the tips of his toes to drive himself deeper. The rock was dripping into his flesh and could feel the warm trickle of blood from the multiple lacerations the rough surface had carved into his back.

  Justin stopped and closed his eyes. His chest was growing tight, not just from the pressure of the wall, but on the inside. He couldn’t breathe and his skin itched. The multiple trickles of blood felt like the scurrying feet of bugs, crawling over his flesh. He began to feel light-headed, the power leaving his legs. Had it not been for the wall holding him snug, he would have fallen.

  “Justin, you need to move,” Declan whispered, keeping his voice low to not draw more attention from creatures, which appeared to have lost some interest in their hidden prey.

  “I … I can’t,” Justin stammered. “They’re all over me, Dec, I can feel them. Get them off me, Dec. Get them off.”

  “There’s nothing, Justin, you need to move,” Declan snapped back, as Justin began to panic.

  His body thrashed against the rocks. He began to shriek, his screams triggering memories in Declan that he had long since learned to keep buried. Memories of his brother being locked away in the shed, his mother standing guard until his cries gave way to the faint that would always claim him.

  “There’s nothing. Just breathe, Justin, breathe,” Declan said, trying to calm his brother whose breaths were coming faster and faster.

  Declan knew what would come next. He couldn’t let his brother pass out. He could barely breathe with the pressure of the rocks against his muscular chest. If they got trapped there, they would die.

  “Justin, listen to me. Listen.” Declan didn’t want to raise his voice, but knew he needed to take a stern approach. “Listen, goddammit. We’re trapped, and you need to move. You have to keep going, Justin.”

  Justin’s body fell still, while a gargled breath escaped his lungs. His body slumped, falling into the clinging embrace of the cave.

  “Justin,” Declan called, raising his voice after receiving no response. “Justin, wake up.”

  The echo of his voice drew the attention of the cave spiders, who returned to the crevice, probing the gap with long-reaching, inquisitive pincers.

  “Justin, come on, wake up.” Declan’s own mind was racing, trying to battle back against the encroaching waves of panic that were lapping at the shores of his mind.

  Declan inched his way through the gap, and grabbed his brother and shook him as best he could given his limited room to work. He seized Justin’s arm, and shook until he sprang back into consciousness with a jolt.

  “Declan!” Justin’s cry was laced with hysteria. He felt Declan’s hand on his arm and freaked, thrashing and lashing out.

  “Hey, hey, it’s me, it’s me.” Declan brought his voice back down, and he was once again comforting his baby brother.

  “Declan?” Justin spoke, his voice confused.

  “It’s me, brother. You need to get it under control. We can’t stay here.” Declan knew they couldn’t waste time.

  “I can’t. It’s too tight. I can’t move,” Justin cried.

  “You have to try. Can’t you feel that, the air? It’s moving towards us, so there has to be a way out. You need to try, Justin.”

  “Okay, okay,” Justin said, sounding less than confident, but it was a start, and Declan took it.

  Slowly, inch by suffocating inch, the brothers moved deeper through the cave, their bodies crushed by the rocks, to the point where their breaths were little more than feeble gasps, taken so frequently to combat their shallow nature that they sweated from the exertion.

  The sweat that streamed from them worked to their advantage, slicking the rocks and acting as a lubricant, offering them a modicum of assistance, until finally, like children being born into a new world, they were spat from the wall and fell to the floor, exhausted and unable to support themselves any longer.

  On the floor, their overheated bodies spread flat, absorbing as much of the coolness from the ground as possible. They lay still, hyperventilating, hovering between consciousness and the soothing embrace of black nothing.

  Declan still clutched his helmet in one hand, but he lacked the energy to turn it over and shed some light on their situation. His body ached and all he wanted was to lie still and let it be over. The trip through the cave had been downhill, taking them even deeper, and by that measure, even further away from escape.

  “Justin, are you alive?” Declan asked, his voice weak and scratchy.

  “I have no idea, man,” Justin answered, pushing himself up to his knees.

  He remained there for a few moments, teetering on the edge, trying to decide if he was going to vomit, collapse, or just stand up. After giving it considerable thought, Justin pushed himself to his feet, shaking his arms to try and dilute the lactic acid build up that was making them feel as if they were on fire.

  Behind him, he heard Declan do the same. A few moments later, the glow of the helmet torch lit up the darkness, although the glass was cracked, and the light it gave seemed to be weaker than it had been earlier.

  “We need to find a new light source,” Decl
an said, holding the dying helmet in his hands.

  “Maybe we will find a secret cache of torches,” Justin said, trying to sound funny, but only succeeding to sound sarcastic and flippant. “Sorry.”

  “We need to keep moving,” Declan said, ignoring both the comment and the apology.

  The cavern was smaller than the previous ones, but the ground was wet. Dripping stalactites descended like fangs. Twisted rock formations dribbled water as if salivating at the prospect of the flesh that was trapped within its deep-buried borders.

  The damp smell was heavy in the air, the taste of mildew coated the tongue with each deep breath. The ground was slippery in places, especially in the areas around the descending stalactite monstrosities, where the water pooled and eventually ran away, following the natural slope of the cave.

  As they moved into the center of the chamber, they were able to look around and see the far side wall. Three tunnels sprang from the walls, each one large enough for a man to stand. None of them looked like a natural formation, their shape too uniform, and their spacing too even.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Declan asked as they moved closer.

  “They look man-made,” Justin said, staring at them with a sort of fascination.

  “Yep.”

  “That means there has to be a way out,” Justin said. Neither brother looked at one another; their words were spoken with a casual air, their overloaded minds not registering the full scope of what such a discovery could mean.

  They moved across all three tunnels, trying to decide which one to take. As they stood, Justin spun around, looking back into the darkness. He felt as though he was being watched. He couldn’t see a thing, the darkness of the cave was absolute, but the feeling made his skin crawl. They had to get out soon; otherwise, he was going to go crazy.

  “Do you see that?” Declan took hold of his brother’s arm, turning him back toward the caves.

  “See what?”

  “That. Look above the tunnels.” Declan pointed, and Justin followed the beam of light from the helmet.

  Across the top of each tunnel entrance, carved into the rock wall was some form of script. While they resembled English in some way, there were illegible and formed no recognizable words. Yet, there could be no mistake what they were.

  “Labels,” Justin said. “They are labels, probably giving the tunnels a name or a purpose.” A shiver ran through his body, shrinking his flesh until it felt as if it would tear open at the seams. The hairs all over his body stood erect as the shudder passed, leaving him feeling violated and balanced even more precariously on the knife edge of sanity.

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Declan said, thinking back to the campfire story they had been told.

  “You don’t think this has anything to do with that town legend, do you?” Justin asked as if reading his brother’s mind.

  “I have no fucking idea, but this is some weird shit. We need to get out of here.” For the first time since they fell, Justin heard the depth of fear in Declan’s voice.

  “I’m with you, but which tunnel do we take?” Justin stared at the black hole before them, the light of the helmet torch somehow failing to penetrate the thickness of the void.

  “Well, put your hand up.” Declan did the same and waited for Justin to follow. “You feel that?”

  “Wind?” Justin said, confused.

  “Two of them have a draught, and one, this one, seems to slope upwards, at the very start at least.” Declan laid out all the things he had found and waited for Justin to catch up.

  “Then let’s take this one,” Justin said as if the decision was a simple as which T-shirt to wear.

  Declan nodded, the action indicated by the movement of the light beam.

  Behind them, something moved in the darkness of the cavern. The clacking of feet and tumble of loose stone and rock got them moving down the tunnel double-time, their hearts thundering once again.

  The tunnel was a close fit but seemed uniform in its size. They were able to walk upright, for the most part, only having to duck down at certain points where it looked as if the tunnel had partially collapsed. The longest they had to crawl was twenty meters or so. The ground beneath them was littered with debris, crushed rock, and smaller stones.

  “What happened here?” Justin asked, his curiosity growing and providing a welcome distraction to the unyielding reality of their situation.

  “I guess it was a collapse of some sort. Hey, check this out,” Declan said.

  They were on their feet again, and as Declan stretched his back, the torchlight picked up on something on the wall. It was a painting, much like the one he had seen before the bridge collapsed. It was clearly an image of three figures surrounding another. The fourth was on its knees, painted in red, unlike the others, whose fading outlines were black. They stood above a pit, or on a ledge. It was hard to tell. Beneath them were three large figures, which looked to be crude examples of women, with swollen bellies and breasts that overflowed their bodies. They were crowded together and looked to be staring up at the other men, as if in expectation, or want.

  “What the heck?” Justin asked as he shuddered once again.

  “This is some weird shit. You realize that we could be the very first people to see this. Outsiders, I mean.” Declan spoke with a voice filled with wonder, intrigue winning out over fear.

  “Wonderful,” Justin replied, not even bothering to hide the barbed tone in his voice.

  “Think about it. If that story was actually true, this could be the remains of the breakaway camp. We could be about to make the discovery of a lifetime.” Declan clapped his younger brother on the shoulder. “It’s amazing.”

  “Amazing?” Justin gasped in disbelief. “What the fuck is amazing about all of this?” He flung his arms out wide, both hands reaching opposite sides of the tunnel. “We’re trapped, God knows how far underground, being chased by killer bugs that look like they belong in Chernobyl. What is amazing about this?’

  Justin was panting by the time he finished his rant, and Declan waited a few moments before responding, giving his brother time to settle.

  “Life’s an adventure. One thing I learned I prison is that everything is an adventure if you approach it with the right mindset.” Declan sounded like a preacher talking to his flock.

  Justin gave a disbelieving grunt and turned away from his brother. “That’s bullshit.”

  “You’ve never done time, so you wouldn’t know,” Declan snapped back.

  “And what is that supposed to mean?” Justin felt his anger boiling over.

  “Nothing, I just mean … well, look at you. You turned into a success story. You had it impossible when you were young, but after that, you had a good life. I guess you don’t want for much, seeing how you live. That’s great, and I’m happy for you, but you don’t know what life is really like.” Declan was calm, his words spoken with the passion of a speaker, up on stage, giving his message to the adoring crowd.

  “So, you are blaming me for having a good life, is that what this is all about?” Justin snapped, his frustration boiling over with anger as old wounds split open once again, bubbling a black poison into his brain, convincing him that his brother held some deep-seated grudge against him.

  Declan took a step back, shocked by the turn of the conversation.

  “No, of course not. We’ve been through this. You need to let that go,” Declan said.

  “Let it go? I ruined your life, you spent your life in prison, branded as a murderer.” Justin slapped his hand against the wet wall as he spoke, his rage building.

  “I am a murderer. Whatever happened, whatever way you look at it, I am that. I killed Dad, and I would kill him again if it came to it, because it was what needed to be done. I made that choice, I knew what would happen. I don’t blame you. I’m just trying to tell you that I learned a lot on the inside, and one is to take every day for what it is; a gift. I saw men die in prison. I saw people get people to the point where
they spent the rest of their lives hooked up to machines. Life is fragile, and sure, we are trapped down here, but there is always going to be a way out. I choose to believe that.” Justin shrank away from his brother as Declan built up a head of steam, his words not angry, but firm.

  “So, what, you are happy you are trapped down here? Is that it?” Justin didn’t know what to say. His head ached, his body felt alien to him, and he felt exhausted on levels he did not even know were possible.

  “In a way, yes. I’m here, alive, and having an adventure with my baby brother. If you would have asked me a decade ago if you and I would ever be out on an adventure together, I would have laughed. We’re in a tight spot, for sure, but this, these markings. They are a piece of history nobody knows about.” Declan directed the light back towards the drawings, leaving Justin to ponder his words.

  “I just want to get out of here. I’ve had enough adventure for one lifetime.” Justin understood where Declan was coming from, but he could not bring himself to admit that they were anything other than fucked.

  Just as the silence between them become comfortable, losing the awkward quality that Justin had planted and seen bloom, a shriek rang out from ahead of them, shattering everything.

  The cry was long and punctuated by short periods of quiet and a dull hammering. It continued for a short while before the ensuing silence rolled over them like a mist out at sea. It enveloped them and only added to the mystery of what they had heard and the terror that they felt.

  They moved forward, creeping slowly, not wanting to make a sound, they continued through the tunnel, eventually coming to the decimated corpse of what looked to be a large spider. The creature was easily the size of a Labrador, its legs broken and hanging disjointedly from its body. The large abdomen was split open, spilling pus-colored organs on a sea of black mulch, which leaked from the body with a consistency of cottage cheese.

  The creature’s legs were curled inwards, but occasionally one would straighten as if lashing out in the final throes of death.