A World Below

by Wesley King

  “Gather your men,” he said to Captain Salez. “Bring everyone to the Hall.”

  * * *

  “They were young,” Santiago said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Only children.”

  The town had assembled in the Great Hall—a room built by the very first Midnight King and his people. A monstrous white mushroom stalk stood in each corner like four pillars of bone, lashed together with vines to create walls that matched the bristly crown worn by every Midnight King. A raised throne had been carved from the rock to overlook the room. There was no ceiling. By tradition the Great Hall always stood open to the darkness, broken only by the blazing fire that stood in the center of the room for light. It had burned there constantly since the days of the first King—representing the never-dwindling power of the Law.

  It burned still, untouched by the shaking, but it seemed low and dim to Carlos.

  The townspeople began to talk among themselves. It was unusual to speak in front of the King without his consent, but Carlos couldn’t blame them. This was a nightmare come to life. He could still remember his father’s stories, passed down from one King to the next since the days of Juarez—four generations of unquestioned rulers. It was said the white men burned and dug and pillaged the surface until nothing was left but smoke and ash and bones. None could escape them. They were like haga beetles . . . voracious and deadly.

  We must always be on guard for them, his father had warned, lit then by the flickering fire, as Carlos was now. A long scar ran from his right temple to his lip—white and puckered as if it had been drawn on with ground yew paste. His hair was always short and coarse, like black fur, and sometimes it crept down his neck. “One day they may arrive to bring death.”

  They had finally come, as his father had warned. And Carlos was alone.

  Help me, Father. Show me the way to protect our people.

  “Did you see anything else?” Carlos asked. “Does anyone else know of them?”

  Santiago shook his head. “No . . . it was only me.”

  “Good,” Carlos said. “No Worms?”

  “None that I could see,” Santiago replied. “The demons were on the eastern shore of the lake.”

  Captain Salez stepped forward. “With your permission, my King, I will take a small group of soldiers and put them to the spear. We cannot allow these surface creatures to find our village.”

  Carlos looked at him, and he could see the fear in his captain’s usually stoic face. His father had always said that they couldn’t allow the surface people to find the Midnight Realm. They would consume it as they did everything else, and the Mother and her people would die.

  But these were children. . . .

  He turned back to Santiago. “They have not seen our people yet,” he said. “Correct?”

  “No,” Santiago murmured.

  “Good,” Carlos said, rising to his feet. A hundred people bowed immediately. “They may stay well clear of Medianoche. But they must also be watched, so that they do not disturb the Mother nor come in contact with the Worms. These are my lands. I will go watch them myself.”

  “My King, it is not safe—” Captain Salez said immediately.

  “I will be fine,” Carlos replied firmly. “They will not see me. And the fewer of us who go, the better—I can move in shadow. It is good that I should see this ancient enemy for myself. Pull the sentries from our borders. I don’t want anyone at risk. Bring them all back to the village.”

  Captain Salez frowned. “But . . . our borders will be exposed. The Worms . . .”

  “Will know nothing of the surface humans,” Carlos said. “I am sure they have their own troubles from the quake to deal with. I want no one outside of this city but me and the intruders.”

  He knew he was pushing the limits of his authority. Some soldiers looked incredulous.

  “And if they get past you?” Captain Salez asked.

  “Then something has gone wrong,” Carlos said, “and I will have failed. If they get to Medianoche, do not allow the demons to come anywhere near the village. Kill them on sight.”

  Two Hours After

  * * *

  ERIC SLOWLY MADE HIS WAY down a pronounced dip in the tunnel, staying low and using his hands to guide his descent. If he fell and broke something down here, he would be in deep trouble.

  He had been walking for a couple of hours now, and nothing had changed: It was all barren limestone, sometimes veined or speckled with crystal or gypsum, and it continually veered left or right or opened into forks. The downward slopes were particularly troubling, since he knew these caves had been formed by water wearing away the limestone for millions of years, and water only went one way . . . down. He would need to find another tunnel very soon.

  He was almost to the bottom of the slope when his sneaker slipped off a protruding rock. He lost his balance and slammed hard onto his tailbone, sliding down the last ten feet or so. He came to a stop and groaned, rubbing his sore back and shifting his weight onto his side to take the pressure off. It was already throbbing.

  “And I always wanted to go spelunking,” he muttered.

  Eric crawled over to the nearest wall and propped himself up, taking a deep swig of his water bottle. Absently, he checked his cell phone for service. Nothing. Not even a flicker.

  Had his mother made it out before the quake hit? What if she was hurt? What if she was dying? The thought made Eric’s stomach turn. It was even worse given the way they’d parted. What if he never saw his mother again and the last thing he ever did was ignore her? He wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

  They’d had to stick together the last few years, ever since his dad had left. She was his best and only friend sometimes . . . his whole life, really. She worked a lot, but she had always been there to take care of him, even when she had to skip dating or nights with friends. That thought lingered for a minute, and Eric stared up at the stalactites, thinking. It had been years since his dad left, and she was just now thinking about going on her first date. It didn’t seem fair. Maybe she was better off without him. Eric felt bile creep up the back of his throat, and he shook his head. No. Now wasn’t the time to think about that.

  Eric checked his phone again, scowling when he saw there were no bars.

  He was at eighty-five percent battery life. The flashlight app was hard on the battery, but he had no choice. Without the light, he would be fumbling blindly and might tumble into a chasm. As for food, he had a raisin granola bar, a can of a tuna, and a water bottle. He had a strange fondness for tuna and usually just ate it plain right out of the can with a fork. It wasn’t much food, though . . . a definite concern.

  If he was down here for more than a day or two, he would need to find food. Water was seemingly plentiful, though he was worried about bacteria and would have preferred to boil it, if he had a choice. But it was nutrients that he really needed, and cave animals had evolved for thousands of years to find solutions to that problem. He had a few days to figure it out, at most.

  Eric climbed to his feet again and kept walking. His clothes were still soaked, and he was freezing. It was better to keep moving. He was hoping to find a volcanic vent with a little heat so he could dry his clothes. He pictured himself slipping into a luxurious, steaming hot spring.

  Keep dreaming, he thought, stepping around another protruding stalagmite.

  As he walked, he thought about his father. His dad had been a hunter and outdoorsman, and as much as Eric didn’t want to admit it, that had led to his appetite for survival stories. He had always wanted to impress his dad when he was younger, and since he didn’t play sports, it seemed like the best way. But all the reading and research had kind of backfired on him.

  He remembered one night when he was seven. It was winter—he could still remember the frost on the windows. His dad rarely came home right after work, and it used to cause a lot of fights between him and Eric’s mom. Eric tried to ignore them, mostly, but that night he hadn’t been able to sleep, and so he had cracked his
door open and huddled against the frame, listening.

  “Where were you?” his mother yelled. It was well past midnight. She always fell asleep on the couch until his dad got home. Even at that age, Eric knew it wasn’t normal. The parents on TV slept in the same bedroom. And they didn’t scream at each other all the time either.

  “Out with the guys,” his dad said gruffly.

  “You’re always out with the guys. Your son asks about you, you know.”

  “I doubt it. Kid’s too busy with his books. You’re babying that kid. Messing him up.”

  Eric had stiffened. They didn’t usually talk about him.

  Her voice lowered just a little. “There is nothing wrong with him. He is extremely smart.”

  “Whatever you need to tell yourself. The kid’s a loner. No sports. No friends. Nothing.”

  “He just likes to be alone!” she said.

  His dad laughed. “No one likes to be alone. He’s weird, Sandra. You know it.”

  Eric slipped back from the door into the shadows. Weird. That’s what the kids at school called him too. His mom said they were jealous. But what about his dad?

  “Keep your voice down,” she said sharply.

  “I will. I’m going to bed.”

  Eric heard his mom try to grab him. “You can’t just brush me off.”

  “Watch me.”

  As his dad marched upstairs, Eric snuck back to his bed and stared at the ceiling in the dark. It was the first time he believed it, that he was different and odd and maybe even a freak like Derek said last month when Eric was sitting alone in the schoolyard reading Robinson Crusoe.

  It was a belief that never really went away.

  Eric looked up and saw that the tunnel opened about twenty yards ahead, right at the edge of his light. The rock here was a rich brown, colored with layers of black shale and translucent white veins that sparkled like spiderwebs in the morning. He noticed there was also a sheen of dampness in some areas and touched it. Cold, clear water was seeping down the walls. Eric sincerely hoped he wasn’t walking under a subterranean river like the one he had just escaped. He stepped around a crack in the ground and emerged from the tunnel into a chamber.

  “What . . . ?” he murmured.

  There were stars above him. They shone like candles, white and tinged with blue, and they covered the ceiling in a rich tapestry. It was as if he was standing in a quiet country field.

  He shined his cellphone light up and something else caught his eye, shimmering in the glare.

  There were strands of silk, long and clear and dangling down toward him like fishing lines. There were hundreds of them, though the chamber was so tall that they were still ten yards above him. He realized what he was seeing. Glowworms. They had learned about them a few weeks ago. The strange, fleshy creatures sat up on the ceiling, suspended in little hammocks of their own viscous saliva, which they also used to create the long strands. Bugs would fly into them, get caught, and then be slowly consumed by the translucent worms. They even created the lights to attract their prey.

  Eric walked beneath them, shining his light over the strands of dangling, deadly saliva.

  He was relieved. It meant there was life down here—though he hoped he would never have to eat bugs. He crossed the chamber until he found another small opening in the limestone. He was about to leave again when he had a thought: He might be the first person to ever be here in all the history of mankind. If he made it out again, explorers would want to follow him.

  Eric snapped a picture of the chamber with his phone, and then swung his backpack off.

  He had a notepad in there and some pens, and he sat down, put his cell phone on the paper for light, and began to draw a map. For one, it meant he was charting the caves and might get to name them—that’s how it used to work in the old days, anyway. But more importantly, if he mapped out the caves as he went, he might be able to stop himself from walking in circles.

  Eric began to draw. He started with the explored portions and then added to it. The map wasn’t pretty, but it showed the general idea.

  Of course, the central problem with his map was that he didn’t know any directions. His map could be completely backward. If he had a compass, he could make something a little more accurate, but unfortunately, he didn’t. Something to think about for later, he decided.

  Eric stared at the question mark on his map for a bit, thinking about the class. Were they okay? Were they still being dragged along in that river somewhere, or had they managed to climb out? He didn’t want to think about the possibility of a waterfall plummeting down into the blackness. Mr. Baker had said there were underground waterfalls in some cave systems.

  But if they were fine, they would be trying to get back to the explored sections . . . it was the only reasonable path. He wondered if they had even noticed he wasn’t there. Probably not.

  Eric packed up his notebook and stood up again, smiling at the mock stars twinkling electric blue overhead. Despite everything, the chamber was beautiful.

  Eric turned and started up the new tunnel, which, thankfully, seemed to slope upward. He kept note in his head of the number of steps and therefore the relative distance. If he was going to start mapping the caves, he might as well be as accurate as possible. As he walked, he examined the type of rock on the walls, always keeping an eye out for white spots. White meant chalk, chalk meant flint, and flint meant at least the possibility of a fire, if he could ever find something to burn. He had just stopped to inspect one misshapen boulder when he heard something.

  Eric froze. It was soft and almost imperceptible, but in the heavy silence of the caves, he could still make out exactly what it was—the slow, methodical padding of footsteps in the dark.

  Two and a Half Hours Later

  * * *

  SILVIA WAS STARTING TO WONDER if they had made the right decision. They had been walking for hours, and the bottoms of her feet were growing sore from the constant pounding on rock. The tunnel had continued to run slightly to the right and upward, as they had hoped, so they had skipped any other openings on the way and kept moving. But Silvia knew the unpleasant truth: It was all guesswork. No one had any idea where they were going.

  Silvia glanced back to see how everyone else was faring. Ashley was right behind her, shuffling along with her eyes on the ground, and following her were the twins, Mary and Marta, walking shoulder-to-shoulder in their matching red ball caps that were pulled almost to their eyebrows. They occasionally exchanged whispers, but Silvia could never quite catch what they said. It was probably for the best.

  Derek, Leonard, and Tom were behind them, and all three were debating the exact depth of their location based on the time of the fall and their relative speed in the river. Even Silvia had to admit that their conversations were amusing.

  “Bro, you’re not accounting for the actual velocity,” Leonard said, shaking his head.

  “Uh, actually I did,” Derek replied smugly. “Did you even listen to my equation, dude?”

  “Yeah, and it’s wrong. That current was moving easily ten miles an hour. Now add that to our initial fall of five seconds—”

  “Five seconds?” Derek said incredulously. “That’s like falling the length of the entire rink, man. That’s crazy.”

  Leonard threw his hands up in the air, exasperated. “That’s what we did. Did you even feel that impact? What do you know about the length of the rink anyway, you’re the goalie!”

  Derek sounded hurt. “Hey, man, I still skate around the rink during warm-ups! Why do you got to bring that into this? You know I don’t like you demeaning my position, bro.”

  “Yeah, not cool, Leonard,” Tom agreed. “And it was a two-second fall.”

  Silvia bit back a laugh.

  Jordan and Greg were next, and Jordan spent most of the walk loudly complaining that they should have stayed by the lake. The quieter students were in the rear—Joanne, Naj, Brian, and Shannon. Once in a while one of them would manage a joke or a sarcastic comment and
get a half-hearted laugh from the others, but mostly they walked in grim silence. It felt like a funeral procession.

  Silvia shivered at the thought.

  “I wish we went to Albuquerque,” Ashley said for the tenth time.

  Silvia glanced at her. “I wish I was at home on the couch with my cat. Eating ice cream.”

  “Yeah,” Ashley agreed. “Jackson is probably waiting by the door for me for a belly rub.”

  “Well, we’d better get back soon then,” Silvia said, and Ashley managed a wan smile.

  It was better than nothing.

  “Think we’ll actually get out of here?” Ashley asked quietly.

  “Of course we will,” Silvia said. “And we’ll find Eric and Mr. Baker on the way, too.”

  “Maybe,” she replied, sounding dubious. “At least we have you, GI Jane.”

  Silvia frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “You saved Greg’s life, Sil.”

  “I took a course. It was nothing.”

  Ashley shook her head. “It wasn’t nothing. Why don’t you go ask Greg? It was, like, the bravest thing I have ever seen. I just didn’t know you were like that.”

  Silvia flushed. “I’m not brave, trust me.”

  “That’s not what—”

  “Just leave it, okay?”

  Ashley looked a little hurt. “Yeah . . . fine.”

  Silvia kept walking. She wondered if Ashley would still say that if she saw Silvia when she was alone in the bathroom, crying and struggling to catch her breath.

  Silvia wasn’t brave. She had just gotten lucky, and now she was stuck as the leader.

  She noticed that the tunnel walls seemed damp now, as if covered in a shimmering morning dew. That was odd enough, but she soon noticed something far more unexpected: Sporadic patches of moss and lichen were popping up, clearly feeding off the dampness.