"Let me," Natalie said and slipped past him.
Did she think she was the most competent of them, or was she simply eager to get the visit finished? At the end of the outer passage, where the walls looked even more oppressively black, she turned away from the chapel. The muffled daylight reached through the windows of the empty cells to impart some dimness to the corridor, but fell short of the steps leading downwards at the end. Natalie hesitated on the topmost step, though only to activate the flashlight on her phone. When Doug switched his on as well Ray said "I'll leave mine off for now. Better keep one in reserve."
He hadn't meant to sound nervous of the dark, but perhaps he was alone in thinking that he did. The flashlight beams found the close black walls and low sloping roof, and began to prance on them as Natalie led the way downwards. Doug's light was more wayward than hers, and he kept reaching for handholds. So did Ray, who was trying to ignore an impression that even when the beams converged the light stayed unhelpfully dim. To some extent he was glad when the steps came to an end, since the beams grew a little steadier, although this meant they showed how the corridor sloped as if the builders had been eager or at any rate compelled to reach a deeper darkness. "There's nothing to see along here, is there?" Doug said.
"There is," Ray said, "if you remember."
Neither of his children seemed to want to. As they preceded him down the corridor their lights blundered into the cells, awakening restless shadows. Were there any occupants to rouse, or had they fled into the depths? How many had last time, apart from the one he'd glimpsed? Doug's beam found the largest cell, where shadows swarmed away from scattered fragments of wood that might originally have belonged to furniture, and Natalie's light was hastening past the cells opposite when Ray said "That's what you should remember."
He had to point before both lights swerved into the cell where words had been scraped on the wall. "You thought that meant they fed him," he told Doug, "but Pris said it said they feed for him, and then you decided it could be both."
"But if you also recall," Natalie said, "we came to the conclusion it was religious."
"Did you, Doug?" When his son didn't answer at once Ray said "I think you were just trying to reassure William, weren't you, Natalie? Did you really think it would be God they'd be feeding down here?"
As he finished speaking he wondered whether by persuading Doug and Natalie he might make the dark more vital—lend it life. Did he actually need to show them whatever might be hiding in the farthest dark? Couldn't he pretend they'd convinced him there was nothing to see? He suspected that wouldn't satisfy them, but he mustn't let them go ahead without him. He no longer knew what he hoped to achieve by indicating the next cell. "That bothered you, Doug, if you recall,"
The lights groped through the uneven entrance to settle on the back wall—on the bunches of more or less vertical lines strung together by slashes that weren't quite horizontal. To Ray they looked very much like marks of desperation even before they started to twitch like insects, borrowing movement from the unsteady lights. "Bothered me how?" Doug said.
"You thought it looked as if whoever lived in there felt they were serving a sentence."
"We can't know that, can we? It was just something I said."
"But it does look like that, doesn't it, Natalie? Only then we have to wonder why a monk would feel that way."
"As Doug says, we'll never know. We've already talked about it once. It isn't what we've come to see."
Was Ray making them nervous? Perhaps they were simply unhappy with his insistence; he doubted they were feeling as he'd begun to feel—that his behaviour was an invitation to the dark or whatever it concealed. He could easily have fancied that his words and theirs were being overheard. Natalie was right to imply that he was delaying the exploration, because his unacknowledged dread was growing as they advanced into the dark. He had to swallow more than once to make his parched voice work. "Then let's see why we've come," he said.
He was unnerved to think this could be taken as an invitation too. As he trailed his children down the sloping corridor he peered uneasily into each cell and had to restrain himself from asking for the lights to linger. All too soon everybody was by the lowest cell, from which he'd previously seen an occupant dart forth. The dark shape that lurched up from the crude stone bench inside the cell was just the shadow of the entrance—no more than a final distraction. They'd reached the steps that led down into the deepest dark. "I'll go first," Natalie said. "You two watch your step."
"I ought to lead," Ray told her as protectiveness overcame his dread.
"I'm the fittest one just now." Before he could protest again, Natalie stepped down. "And I want to get this over with," she said.
Doug followed her at once, and Ray felt pathetically inadequate for calling after her "You watch where you're going as well."
He stayed two steps behind Doug so as not to crowd him, which left Ray surrounded by darkness. Natalie and Doug kept their flashlight beams on the increasingly uneven steps, an action that appeared to jerk the roof lower still. Could the batteries be failing? Surely that wouldn't enfeeble the lights, but even before the beams reached the bend in the narrow passage they didn't seem to extend as far as they should. As he clambered around the bend Ray clung to rough handholds on the wall. Ahead of his children the steps led down into a blackness that the beams seemed unable to relieve. The passage shut their footfalls in and amplified them while dulling them, and Ray felt as if the clutter of sound was obscuring some other noise. "Did you hear that?" he blurted.
Natalie halted, and as Doug stumbled to a standstill the flashlight beams came more or less to rest. "It's just water, dad," Doug said. "Pris and I told you last time there are caves down here."
"I don't mean that. Wasn't there something else?" It seemed too little to put into any more words—the noise that he was almost sure he'd heard somewhere ahead, sounding more solid than water. "Keep listening," he said and at once was nervous for his children. "Take care where you're walking, though."
He'd begun to hope this might be all the danger they were in, though a careless step down here would be perilous enough. As the flashlight beams wobbled downwards they appeared to be miming precariousness, while the dark that they left untouched might have been playing a secretive game, pretending coyly to retreat ahead of them and then welling up to await the intruders. Was that the only movement down below? Ray was growing surer by the moment that the crowd of footfalls and their echoes were hindering everyone from hearing another sound, more substantial than water and yet not quite sufficiently solid, an impression he was by no means eager to understand. Did he and his children really have to see what was stirring in the dark? Why couldn't just hearing convince them? He was close to praying, however desperately, that it would. "Stop and listen," he pleaded. "You must be able to hear. That's never only water."
Doug twisted impatiently round. "Look, dad, if—" Ray threw out his hands to steady him as Doug made a grab at the wall, but they were both too late. Doug had lost his footing and missed the handhold as well. He collided with Natalie, who cried out and stumbled down the steps so fast she looked utterly helpless. As Doug managed to regain his balance she clutched at both walls to halt herself, and her phone flew out of her hand. It skittered down the steps as if it might never come to rest, and by the time it did the illuminated screen was no bigger than a fingernail. The phone had lodged on the edge of a step, from which the microscopic flashlight beam reached down into the dark. Ray took a breath to replace his dismayed gasp. "Are you all right?" he called.
"I'm not sure." Natalie let go of the walls, only to seize hold at once. "No, I'm not," she said.
"What have you done to yourself?"
"I think it's what someone else did." As Ray told himself that at least she'd retained her spirit she said "It's my ankle."
"How bad?"
"I don't think it's broken." She shifted her weight on the step and sucked in such a hiss of air that it made Ray's teeth ache.
"I'm afraid it's sprained," she said.
"For heaven's sake don't go any further."
"I wasn't about to. I'm going to have to come back up." Ray watched her turn with painful carefulness. She was being wary of her ankle, not of the darkness at her back. All at once he was afraid of seeing a shape dart or lurch or flounder into the distant flashlight beam, to pursue her up the steps faster than she could scramble. The sight of her efforts was distressing enough, even when Doug extended a hand, which she grabbed before supporting herself on his arm while she inched past him. "Thanks," she said not entirely unlike a rebuke.
"You stay with dad while I get your phone."
As Natalie grimaced at having put too much weight on her ankle Ray saw Doug start downwards and immediately stumble, almost slithering down a step. "Doug, you've already fallen once," he protested. "Let me."
Doug's flashlight beam swung around as he did, and the darkness rose up behind him. "I don't think that's such a good idea, dad."
"We can leave it if we have to," Natalie said. "It's only a phone."
Ray wondered if they were concerned just about his safety on the steps. Might they sense more about the depths than they cared to admit to themselves? At least he was no longer hearing any sounds down there, and was able to think that the light from Natalie's phone might have driven away any lurkers. "You don't want to lose your photographs, do you?" he said.
"I'd rather lose them than you."
"No need for either," Ray said, gripping her shoulders as he eased himself past her. "Let's take everything home that we can."
As he sidled past Doug his son took him by the arm. Ray couldn't help hoping he meant to accompany him after all until he realised Doug was only steadying him. Doug sent his flashlight beam downwards while Ray switched on his own. "Take your time," Natalie urged him.
"That's right, there's no hurry," Doug said. "Well be here."
They were doing their best to look after him but only aggravating his nervousness. He didn't need to be reminded how wary he should be. He would have liked to use both hands for steadying himself, but he couldn't risk losing hold of his phone. Its light wobbled around him as he kept groping at the wall, setting one foot and then the other on every step he had to descend. All he could hear were his effortful breaths and the thudding of his pulse, which felt as if it were expanding in his guts. Was there anything else he should hear? The dark beyond the supine beam of Natalie's flashlight looked lifeless enough, but he could easily have thought it was collaborating with the light to entice him into the depths. He took the last few steps down to it more slowly than ever, and not just to make certain of his balance. As he stooped to retrieve the phone he sent his own beam as far into the dark as it would reach.
The beam lit up the foot of the steps, though dimly. They ended at a passage that bent left into the dark. Ray was straightening up with a mobile in each hand, bruising his shoulder against the wall as his balance almost deserted him, when he heard a sound along the passage—a surreptitious shifting. "Are you okay, dad?" Doug shouted.
"I'm all right. I'll be fine." He would have said so just to quieten Doug, who had prevented him from identifying the sound. As he turned off Natalie's flashlight and stowed the phone in a pocket of his shorts he heard the noise again. It was the lapping of water, which he guessed was at the near end of the cave by the secluded beach, but wasn't there more to the sound? Ray might have fancied something large and sluggish was wallowing in the water. He grasped a protruding chunk of wall in order to look up at Natalie and Doug. They and Doug's light were so tiny that he was reminded of using a telescope the wrong way round, but he mustn't let that daunt him. "I won't be long," he called. "I'm just going down to see."
"Dad," Doug protested. "What's the point if we don't as well?"
"If there's anything to show you I'll take a photograph," Ray said and immediately thought that some things mightn't show up on camera. If it hadn't managed to focus on Sandra and the teenagers, how much more trouble might it have down here? He mustn't use that as an excuse not to look. He ought to see, and he made himself descend the steps as fast as planting both feet on each of them would let him.
As he reached the entrance to the passage the black walls gleamed at him, so that he could have imagined that the dark was celebrating his arrival. He gripped his wrist with his other hand to stabilise the flashlight beam, which didn't prevent the walls from appearing to quiver. One hand was as shaky as the other, and together they were twice as bad. Now he felt as if the passage was magnifying his nervousness and shutting him in with it, and he let go of his wrist as he ventured to the bend.
Beyond it the passage straightened, and water glinted at the far end. Ray glimpsed ripples and heard them lapping at rock, and the other noise again—activity that wasn't quite so fluid. Were the acoustics of the place transforming the sound of the sea? As he urged himself towards it he passed several alcoves too shallow to be called caves, a large one opposite several not much broader than he was. The flashlight beam strayed into them, producing the impression that the wall of the largest had grown pallid and unstable, a notion Ray wasn't anxious to linger over. He hurried to the end of the passage and shone the beam across the water.
He had indeed reached the cave he'd visited last week. He could see the narrower stretch that he'd followed back to the sea, and was even able to identify the rocks that had snagged Ditton's corpse. He didn't rest the light on them any longer than it took him to be sure, but swept the beam around the cave. It was deserted, and the ripples that were subsiding on the water had obviously come in from the sea, the furthest traces of waves. He felt relieved by the lack of any presence and yet unsettlingly disappointed, as if he'd been robbed of a belief on which he'd depended more than he knew. He was giving the cave a final sweep of the beam when Doug called "Dad, are you all right?"
His voice was disconcertingly remote. "I'm fine," Ray shouted so loud that his lungs ached. The shout roused echoes in the caves, and as the echoes faded he saw the ripples grow still. He was watching the last of them disappear when he remembered what he'd heard and seen last week in the cave—the shrill giggling that he'd ascribed to the ripples, and the whitish movement that had receded into the dark. As he realised he was standing just where that activity had been, he heard the restless sluggish sound again. It was behind him.
He could hear it more clearly now—more than he liked. It put him in mind of an enormous bag full of some soft material, slithering across rock. As he twisted to face it the light flailed at the walls, so that he wasn't immediately sure what he was seeing in the passage. Even if there was no movement other than the trembling of the light, this didn't reassure him much, since the sound had unquestionably originated somewhere along the passage. Just as dismaying in another way, Doug was calling out to him. "What did you say, dad?"
"I'm coming now," Ray cried, so afraid for his children that it almost overcame his more immediate dread. Suppose Doug stumbled down to find him, what might happen then? He limped at all his speed towards the bend, struggling to prepare himself for whatever might be there, but he wasn't even close to it when he began to grasp how much he'd overlooked or misperceived. The largest of the chambers off the passage wasn't just an alcove after all. He'd perceived it as shallow only because it was full of a swollen bulk, which wasn't pale just from the flashlight beam. The mass was at least as wide as the entrance to the cave it filled—a dozen limping strides wide. Ray had no time to examine it more closely or even to wonder what species of underground growth it might be. Telling himself that it was restless only with the movement of the flashlight beam occupied his mind just now—indeed, strove to be his solitary thought. He very much wished that he hadn't explored quite so far. He wasn't even at the midpoint of the cave that he was growing more than anxious to pass when the pale bulk thrust its face and arms towards him.
The face was a man's, or had been. Now it resembled a bloated mask, almost engulfed in a mass of flesh so pallid it might never have been touched
by the sun. The nose resembled a colourless tuber, and the thick broad lips were just as white. It was impossible to judge what expression the face bore, not just since the lips appeared to have swelled together in an immobile straight line but because the eyes had atrophied, puckering so deep that they'd sucked the lids inwards. All the same, as Ray shrank back from the sight, having staggered to a paralysed halt in the corridor, he had a sense that the face was aged by more than centuries—by some awful knowledge around which it had closed to keep it from the world. Then the eyes opened in the depths of the whitish sockets, and the arms stretched out to cut off his escape.
All he could see in the tiny glinting eyes was hunger so voracious it was mindless. At once Ray knew what had befallen Ditton, who must have strayed into the lair, from which his drained remains had been flung into the water. For a moment Ray imagined he would be able to dodge Skiá's clutches, since even though the arms were at least twice the breadth of his own, they were dwarfed by the mass from which they protruded several yards apart. But they were on either side of him, and before he could move, the gigantic pallid body squeezed forward to extend the arms across the passage, trapping him.
As the face surged towards him, a tongue like a great white slug poked the lips apart, revealing a solitary fang. The moist white eyes were so enlivened by thirst that they were creeping forwards in the sockets. Loathing indistinguishable from panic overwhelmed Ray's thoughts, so that he was scarcely aware of backing away until he found himself in an alcove nowhere near as deep as a cell. The vast body was still emerging from the cave, not so much like flesh as a vast sack of fluid. The face crept into the alcove, together with a distended portion of the bulk in which it was embedded, and Ray shrank against the rock, which felt implacably chill. The greedy eyes bulged forth from their sockets while the fanged mouth gaped as wide as a fist, and Ray heard Doug and Natalie calling out to him.
Thirteen Days By Sunset Beach Page 25