“This is insane,” Crawford complained, and he was right. Meacham couldn’t imagine the madness that would have such a thing built.
“This is wrong,” Hudson moaned, and Meacham knew he was seeing a spiritual cancer. He was right, too.
She tried to keep her face away from the wall, but the space was too tight. Rough brick had turned slime-smooth. It smeared its kisses on her cheek. The stench of old mould and bad growth dug into her nostrils. Her eyes watered. They stung with grit and sweat, but it didn’t matter that she was blind, because Crawford couldn’t aim the flashlight anywhere but up as he scrabbled against the wall himself. There was nothing to see, but plenty to touch and smell as she was digested by the stone intestine. She closed her eyes, trying to squeeze out the dark.
Her right foot dangled over nothing. She gasped, tried to stop herself, but her balance was already gone. She went over, caught in the vertigo of the first moment of a plunge from a cliff. Her heart stammered, and then her foot landed heavily on the ground. She stumbled, windmilling, caught her balance and opened her eyes. The staircase had dropped them into a large, low-ceilinged space. There was no more brickwork. The walls were pure stone but had an odd, chipped look to them. Flashlight beams played over the black mouths of three tunnels.
“Did you know this was here?” Sturghill asked Gray.
He shook his head. Meacham thought there was still a hint of the manic in his eyes, but he seemed more cautious now. At least he wasn’t joking.
Pertwee’s face glowed. “We’ve found it,” she whispered, rapt.
“‘It’?” Meacham asked.
“Saint Rose lived on these grounds, but long before the Hall was built. No one has ever known where. There is no record of an earlier structure, and the Gray family has refused any request for a thorough archaeological search of the grounds.” She shot an accusing glance at Gray. He shrugged. “But here. She must have lived here. I mean, listen.” She held up a hand, and they were all quiet for a moment. The silence was vast. “This would be the perfect place for meditation.”
Or for going quietly out of your mind, Meacham thought. “You think she died here?” she asked.
“Perhaps.” Pertwee seemed excited by the idea. Meacham hadn’t proposed it as a good thing.
Crawford was examining the cave walls. “This is an odd formation.”
“I don’t think it’s a natural cave,” Corderman said. “I think it’s a mine.”
They all looked at him. Meacham saw the other faces as startled as her own, Pertwee’s most of all. She tried to think of another instance where Corderman had spoken with authority, couldn’t come up with one.
“What makes you say that?” Crawford asked.
“The walls. These are tunnels that were chipped out of the ground. The floor’s the same.”
Meacham looked down. He was right. The floor was level in a way that was unlikely to be naturally occurring, but it had the same pockmarked texture. She could imagine centuries of pickaxes carving out the surface.
“How do you know this?” Sturghill asked.
Corderman blushed. “I do a lot of role-playing games at the Chislehurst Caves. This place looks the same.”
“Let me guess. You play an elf.”
Corderman’s blush, even in the sallow illumination of the flashlights, noticeably turned a deep crimson. “I’m a half-orc,” he muttered.
“He’s right,” Hudson said, and for a lunatic moment, Meacham thought he was approving of Corderman’s choice of fantasy race. “I’ve visited the Caves. This looks exactly the same.”
“I’ve been there too,” Crawford said. “I should have noticed the resemblance.”
Gray approached Corderman. “Tell me about them,” he said, softly.
“They’ve been used for all sorts of things,” Corderman said, perking up. “They were a bomb shelter during the war, they —”
Gray cut him off. “No, no,” he said. “Who made them? How old are they?”
“Oh. They’re really old. The Druids and Saxons worked them. The Romans, too. They were flint and chalk mines. But people lived in them, too. Some sections became places of worship.”
“Where there were sacrifices,” Hudson added, pointedly. “Human ones.”
“Yes, there were,” Corderman admitted.
“There’s no evidence for that,” Crawford objected. “The earliest historical records only date back to 1250.”
“There’s no proof they aren’t older than that,” Corderman replied, offended. “There’s no proof there weren’t sacrifices.” He didn’t want his playground demythologized.
“So?” Pertwee asked. “That doesn’t mean there were here. This is a place of peace,” she insisted, and in the stridency of her claim, Meacham heard how brittle and desperate her faith had become. She looked at Pertwee’s face, as grimed by sweat and wall muck as hers. She nodded to herself. Coming down here bothered you as much as it did me. You won’t admit it, especially not to yourself, but you’re on the edge, girlfriend. The old certainties just aren’t cutting it anymore. I sympathize. Believe me, I do.
“Let’s see what there is to see,” Gray said. He wasn’t being flip, but there was excitement in his tone. He was alive to the adventure, even as he took it seriously. Meacham glanced at Hudson, saw him staring at his friend in despair. He wants the adventure to end, she thought, while he can still pray.
“Which way?” Sturghill asked, while Crawford shone his light first down one tunnel, then the other.
“Be quiet for a minute,” Gray said. He walked to each of the tunnels and listened. “This one,” he said, standing at the left-hand entrance. “Seems most interesting.”
Once they were all in the passageway, Meacham picked up on what had drawn Gray. There was a faint, cold breath blowing down the tunnel, and she could hear the distant drip of water. After the birth canal constriction of the staircase, the tunnel was spacious. There was room to walk three abreast here.
But the corridor was still a stone snake. Its coils were slow, gradual curves. The snake’s movements were imperceptible. Meacham felt them, though. The same constriction attack as had happened in the staircase was going on here. It was slower, longer, bigger. The snake had all the time in the world as they ventured deeper down its length. Only its breath gave it away, that cold puff of breeze on Meacham’s cheek. It wasn’t constant; it came and went. It had a rhythm. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Meacham held her gait steady. She prevented her teeth from chattering. She thought, How much of the spook show you’re conjuring do you really believe? Because she didn’t know, she didn’t answer, and she didn’t scold herself. She was in new territory. For the first time in her life, she was faced with the prospect of actually believing in something. She was frightened.
The sound of dripping water grew louder. Each fall was a plunk amplified in an echo chamber. The tunnel dipped gradually, then opened out into a large cavern. Straight ahead was a body of water. It was a tangible darkness. When Gray shone his light over the water, the beam faded before it touched the other wall. No way to tell how big the room was and if the water was a pond or a lake. From somewhere beyond the lake came the drip of the water. Gray aimed his beam up. The cavern ceiling was very high, barely visible. Meacham had been too caught up in the nightmare spiral of the staircase to notice how far they had come down, but she thought the roof of this cave must be close to the surface.
“They can’t have mined this,” Meacham said.
“No,” Gray agreed. “Looks natural.”
Plunk went the water. A long pause, during which Meacham imagined the next drop falling from the great height, plunging through the lightless void. Plunk.
“So peaceful,” Pertwee breathed. “Listen.”
Meacham heard nothing but the toll of emptiness, the monotonous counting off of the centuries drop by endless, tedious, meaningless drop. The water wasn’t peaceful. It was dead. She thought about drowning Pertwee and her optimism once and for all.
Crawford sho
ne his light around and found an exit to the right of where they had come in. This tunnel too was angling downward. The slope was gradual, but it was still a slope. Meacham looked at it, wondered how far down into the snake she was willing to go. Gray had no qualms. He charged ahead. She read his face as he brushed past her. She saw the tension in the set of his jaw and the pinch of his brow. He was scared too, she realized. He wasn’t blithely tripping off to adventure. But there was a desperate eagerness as well. He looked like a man frantic to know the worst and get it done. He’s dragging you down with him, she thought. She could ask for one of the flashlights and head back with whoever else also wanted out. She could do that. She could show that leadership. Instead, she followed Gray. You want to know, too, said the voice of prosecution. Yes, she agreed. I want to know.
She didn’t want to know the worst as badly as Gray. She was that much warier of it, so she didn’t follow too closely. Pertwee was right on his heels, as desperate to believe in the best of all possible worlds and determined to see proof that she was right. She dragged Corderman in her wake. Hudson followed a few steps behind. Meacham noted that his attention never wavered from Gray. Crawford hung back with her. She squeezed his shoulder. “Sure you want to know?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “But I do need to.”
She nodded. “That’s our curse,” she said.
The sound of the water drops followed them down the tunnel. Somehow, the volume grew. The plunk, plunk, plunk turned into tick-tock torture, countdown and build-up. Each drop was a reminder of the lake, that huge, black, tangible nothing. The hollow echo rang in Meacham’s head like a hammer on a steel drum. The overflow was coming.
Crawford began, “Do you think —” But there was one more plunk, and its echo was a cracking rumble, and as Meacham turned to face Crawford, he disappeared.
Meacham threw herself backward, away from the collapsing floor. Dust billowed in the second before Crawford’s light went out and the hungry dark took her. “James!” she yelled. Then she was yelling for the others to come back, calling to them for their help and for their light.
He fell. There was a second of floating plunge. It couldn’t have been longer, but his mind sped up to turn it into an infinity of dreadful anticipation. The landing didn’t disappoint. Rock smashed him. He fell on stone, bounced on a corner that was sharp and punctured something important, fell on more stone, and stone fell on him. Underneath the roar he heard crack, and he heard snap, and he knew those sounds came from him. The pain was blocked by shock and didn’t kick in right away. He was lying on his back and his back was bent farther than it should have been. His right leg was twisted beneath his body. He knew if he tried to move it, he would regret doing so. His head was stuffed with the darkness. It pressed in through his ears and eyes. It cut him off from the world. He tried to call, and the darkness came in through his mouth, too. He hacked dust but couldn’t hear himself cough. He moaned. Gradually, the darkness in his ears faded, and he could hear the sound of his pain. He began to think about Hell. Then he heard another sound. It was Meacham, calling his name. “Yes!” he cried. “Yes!” The word was a spasm, an ecstasy of relief.
“Are you all right?”
Of course she would ask that. He would, too, if positions were reversed. But his reality was so at odds with her question that he started to laugh, even though that wracked pain down his spine. “No,” he said, laughing now to hold off the despair. “I’m bloody well not all right.”
“Anything broken?”
“My leg. My spine, too, I think.”
He heard Meacham call for help. After a moment, she yelled down, “Hang on. They’re coming back.”
To do what? he wondered. No one had brought any rope. Still, it was a comfort to hear the sound of many voices. Then he saw a pinprick of light above him. It moved around uncertainly, winking in and out like a firefly. Was that a flashlight? Had he fallen that far?
“We can’t see you,” Meacham said. “Can you move around at all?”
He tried. His left arm wasn’t screaming, and when he asked it to move, it did as it was told. “A bit,” he answered. He picked up a rock, bashed it against another. He kept up the beat, and the firefly steadied.
“Jesus,” said a male voice. Corderman’s? He wasn’t sure.
“What’s that beside him?” That was Pertwee.
The firefly shifted. Gray called, “James, can you see what that is on your right?”
Crawford turned his head. He was surprised the distant flashlight was providing any illumination for him down here at all, but the darkness had receded slightly. A deep grey moved through the air, and he could make out some shapes. He saw the thing with the corner that had crippled him. It was a rectangular block of stone. Its lines were regular. It was a black shadow, void of detail. It shouted its name. “It’s a tomb,” he said softly.
“What?” Gray asked.
“A tomb!” he shouted. He wanted gone. “Get me out of here!”
He heard arguing, then Meacham spoke again. “The tunnel keeps going down,” she said. “We’re going to follow it and see if it leads to you.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We’ll head back to the Hall for rope.”
“Bugger that! Call an ambulance!”
“No one has a phone.”
“So go back. Do it now.”
“All right.”
“Wait! Don’t leave me alone.”
More discussion. It became heated. Then Pertwee said, “Do you realize what you’ve found?”
“Found? I bloody well broke my back on it, you idiot!” Not in the mood for her bullshit. Just not in the mood. He wanted out.
“That must be the tomb of Saint Rose,” Pertwee carried on. “You could hardly be in a more sacred place.”
“Shut up!” Crawford yelled. His back and lungs screamed, but he shouted anyway. “Shut up shut up shut up! I don’t give a fuck! Just do something!”
Scuffling. Raised voices. A barked order. Then Meacham again. “Patrick, Kristine, Anna, and I are going to try to find our way to you. Richard and Edgar are heading back up to call an ambulance. Okay?”
Pertwee was coming down. Of course she was. Thrilled to see the tomb of her heroine, he thought, his mood savage. Never mind the broken body beside it. Then fear swamped the anger. There would be no one at the hole, he realized. He would be alone while they searched for him. “Can’t anyone stay at the hole?” he asked.
“There are only two flashlights,” Meacham said with soft regret.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. He didn’t want to lose a second of what little light was allotted him. “Okay,” he called, bracing himself. “Hurry,” he added. “Hurry,” he whispered.
The firefly disappeared.
The tunnel’s slope was slow but steady. They were descending. The way began to curve. Enough of a turn, Meacham thought, and they would be heading toward the cavern where Crawford had fallen. That would be some luck. And then what? What could they do for him? We can keep him company. He sounds scared. So am I.
Words between Sturghill and Pertwee drew her attention. Sturghill must have been on the attack, because Pertwee was responding with outraged hurt. “I am not!” she was saying. “I’m as worried about him as you are.”
“Couldn’t wait to see your precious grave, though,” Sturghill said.
“That has nothing to do with it. I want to help.”
“Yeah, and you could hear how welcome your help is.”
“Easy, you two,” Meacham said.
Pertwee ignored her. “I just wanted to reassure him there’s nothing to be afraid of. Why can’t any of you see that?”
Because I can see plenty of things to fear, Meacham thought. Christ, I’m scared.
The snake twisted, taking them deep into the dark.
The light hadn’t gone. Crawford could still see. That was no comfort. Light when there should be none was worse than total darkness. It was the light Meacham had de
scribed: grey and dead, pulsing with rot. It was brightest near the tomb. Unwilling, but lacking choice, Crawford turned his head to look at the stone slab. He thought he saw a droplet of light gather at one corner and hang for a moment. He thought he saw that. Thought. Thought, thought, thought. Remember who you are, he told himself. Remember your work. Remember what you know. Especially about susceptibility in suggestive environments. They don’t get much more suggestive than this, and subjects don’t come much more susceptible than you are right now. After all, you didn’t see that drop of light fall to the ground, did you? No, he hadn’t.
The mental pep talk was a poor whistle in the dark, off-key and faltering. He wasn’t imagining the light. He could see by it. And he could see it move. He could see the pulsing begin to acquire direction. Volition. No, he thought, I am not seeing that. I’m hallucinating. But more drops of light gathered at the lip of the tomb. He watched closely. They didn’t fall down. They fell up. He watched them plummet toward the invisible roof of the cavern, and then he heard the familiar plunk of the water drops that had followed him from the underground lake. Implications and terrors gathered. He tried not to moan. He watched as another drop formed, noticed how the grey was turning black in the moment before the light took flight, and thought about that lake again, and how the surface had been so completely still. Of course it was still, he thought with rising hysteria, it was being fed from below.
The next thought was even worse. They had not touched the lake. They had only looked at its depth of physical darkness. They did not know if what they had been seeing was water.
It isn’t water. He watched more droplets of light form, grey, turning black, and their rhythm beginning to build. Oh Christ, I know what it is. The irony would have made him laugh, if only he weren’t so close to screaming. Ectoplasm. It wasn’t the shimmering silver ooze of Victorian spirit photography. It was the fake phenomenon’s dark cousin. Above him, an entire lake of ectoplasm had gathered and was waiting in its black contemplation. And here was the source. The drops gathered, flew up, building with the slow patience of cave formations. How long had the lake been gathering? What strength did it have coiled?
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