Nolan reversed the oars until the vessel ceased its progress.
A moment later, a slime-covered forehead emerged from the water not ten feet away from them. It gently drifted closer to their boat.
“I’m inclined to agree,” Nolan said, and began rowing again in earnest. As Kesha looked on, another corpse head rose from the nearby water, and then another.
“Oh damn, get us out of here,” Kesha cried. Yet even as she said this, she shuddered at the knowledge that the only option was to go deeper into the caves.
Nolan cleared the floating foreheads, turned the boat around, and rowed with all his might into the darkness.
“Take my flashlight,” Nolan called to her. “Shine it ahead and be our headlights. I can’t see where I’m going.”
Kesha carefully took the Maglite from Nolan and shone the beam over his massive shoulder.
“Hang on to me,” Nolan said, feeling the girl’s unsteadiness in the boat next to him. “Physically grab me.”
Kesha put her free arm around the giant policeman’s chest.
They edged deeper and deeper into the night-dark cave.
***
“So . . . where’s everybody else?” Kesha whispered. “You said you’re with the police. Where are the other police? Police always come in groups. At least in my neighborhood . . .”
Kesha’s eyebrows knit as she thought for a moment.
“Do you even have a badge?”
Nolan smiled.
They had drifted into the darkness for several minutes, powered by Nolan’s mighty rowing. There was no indication that the horrible animated bodies had followed them. Even so, Kesha used the flashlight to regularly probe the sides of the boat, wary of a sneak attack. (The things had come from beside and below. Would they next drop from the ceiling? Kesha would not have been surprised.)
“I just saved you from a crawlspace in the wall,” Nolan said. “Do you really need me to stop rowing and fish out a badge? ’Cause I will.”
“Oh,” Kesha said. “I guess not.”
“The other police should be here very soon,” Nolan explained. “Radios and phones don’t work down here, so all anybody knew was that your school group was two hours late getting back. I’m the guy they send when they want to keep things from turning into something big. But I think this is something big. When they don’t hear back from me . . . let’s just say the cavalry should be riding in very shortly.”
“You mean you’re it?” Kesha asked, hardly able to believe her ears. “There are no other police here? It’s just . . . you?”
Nolan had received more stinging assessments in his ten years on the force, but this one still made him smile.
“There are some state troopers back at the entrance,” he told her.
“Well that’s good, at least,” Kesha said after a moment’s consideration.
Nolan continued to propel the boat forward, aiming to stay in the center of the subterranean river where he guessed the water would be deepest. Kesha shone the light in a search pattern that became regular—up in front, then down the sides. Before long, both of them detected institutional lighting up ahead.
“Finally,” Nolan said in relief.
“Maybe the other group’s up there?” Kesha wondered.
“Maybe,” said Nolan. “But maybe not. And I’m concerned we could run into more of those things when we find the group.”
“Do you know what they are?” Kesha asked. “Those things, I mean . . .”
Some deeper part of her understood that there was no answer to this question. Those things had been impossible. Living impossibilities. Dead bodies rising from out of the water. They should not have been able to move, much less ravenously attack people. And yet they had.
“Some weird stuff happens down in these caves,” Nolan returned evenly, his eyes fixed on the water ahead. “A lot of criminal activity. In the seventies, people used to pray to the devil down here. Have ceremonies. That might sound far-fetched, but you can Google it.”
“Are you saying this has something to do with religion?” Kesha asked, as if such a conclusion were exasperatingly ridiculous.
Nolan shook his head.
“Do I know exactly what that thing was that pinned you in the corner? No. But I know that when I shot it in the head, it stopped moving. So now I know that much. See what I mean?”
The way ahead of them grew brighter as they approached the lights. The underground river also grew, expanding out to about twelve feet wide. They reached the permanent lighting fixture, and found they could see yet another down the corridor beyond it. Then, after about twenty yards more, they encountered the remains of the second tour group.
Three capsized boats floated aimlessly in the widened canal, as did about thirty bodies. Most were face-down, but a few corpses rested on their backs. Those in the latter category displayed the grim, empty faces of the dead, troubling to behold. Many of the bodies bore wounds to the head. More than one had a skull that had been completely bashed in, and the contents apparently removed. It was startling to be able to see inside the floating heads. (It was startling enough for Nolan, who had not known these people personally. He wondered what it was like for the girl.)
The only sound was the splash of Nolan’s oars in the water as he navigated between the bodies.
“Normally, I would tell you to look away,” Nolan said. “But please don’t, okay? Your eyes are too valuable right now. I need you to look for anything that moves. Any sign of those things. You’ve got to help me keep us safe.”
“Okay,” Kesha replied. Her voice was strained as she took in the decimation of her classmates.
“Do you see anybody who looks alive?” Nolan asked.
Kesha shook her head no.
“We need to check underneath those boats,” Nolan said.
“What?” Kesha shot back. “No! Why?”
“People could be hiding under them. Hiding from these things and breathing the air inside. I can’t risk leaving behind someone who’s still alive.”
Terrified, Kesha looked on as Nolan steered them toward the nearest overturned boat. As Kesha swiveled her neck all around, looking for any movement in the water, Nolan leaned over the side and flipped the boat.
Underneath was nothing.
Kesha felt herself exhale.
“Okay,” said Nolan. “One down.”
He eyed the next overturned boat, and steered through the floating human offal until they floated next to it.
This time, Nolan used an oar to lift it. Again, nothing.
“One to go,” he said.
Nolan rowed until they were adjacent to the final boat.
“It’s on your side,” he said to Kesha. “Do you want to do it?”
Kesha reached over and pushed up the lip of the rowboat using the Maglite. Nolan watched, his hand on his weapon.
The boat overturned to reveal a screaming girl underneath. Except she made no noise at all. It was one of Kesha’s classmates, clad in a red dress with a floral print. Her eyes bulged like a frog’s, and her mouth was open as if in perpetual shriek. But there was no sound. After a moment, it was clear that there was also no breathing. The girl was frozen that way, in death, perhaps exactly as she had died.
“My God,” Kesha said. “How can she even be like that? How can she even be like that?!”
Nolan had seen bodies do strange things.
“Let’s let her be,” he said. Kesha nodded and lowered the boat until it covered the girl once more.
With several powerful strokes, Nolan propelled them down the river, once more leaving the floating dead behind.
***
“There’s one more group . . . but they’re going to all have been killed too, right?” Kesha said. “So why are we even doing this? We shouldn’t be going after dead people. We should be finding a way out!”
“Not necessarily,” Nolan replied.
“But . . .” Kesha began to object.
“You’d be surprised what can happen in a crisis situation,�
�� Nolan said. “Even if they were attacked, some could still be alive. They might also just be lost, or trapped. Or hiding, like you were. They could be confused as to why they haven’t heard from the other groups, and just waiting to be rescued. They might not even know about what’s happening.”
“They might all be dead,” Kesha said.
“You weren’t dead,” Nolan pointed out.
Kesha had no answer for this.
After some time, they did arrive at another scene of carnage and confusion.
At first glance, it looked just like the others. The water ahead was littered with torn fabric. Dead bodies bobbed up and down. Bags and backpacks floated beside them.
“See? I damn told you so,” Kesha said.
Yet there was one crucial difference. It took them both a moment to notice it.
Instead of three overturned boats, only two were upended. The third had remained upright, and apparently been piloted onto a ledge at the edge of the water, directly underneath a fixed light. Also underneath the light was what looked like an emergency station fixed to the cave wall, with a life preserver, a telephone, and a first aid kit. The phone had been torn out of its socket, and the first aid kit had had its contents strewn everywhere.
“Shine the light there,” said Nolan, gesturing to the back of the ledge.
Kesha lifted the Maglite and explored a shadowy area covered by a pair of dripping stalactites. Past these shadows, the cave wall formed a large hole that went deeper into darkness. Nolan rowed closer.
“Keep shining the light,” he said. “Don’t stop.”
Nolan felt for his gun.
They floated closer, and the shadowy area became more discernibly a passageway.
Nolan docked next to the other boat, jumped out into the knee-deep water, and pulled their metal vessel up onto the ledge. There was a loud grating as the hull scraped on the sheer rock below. Nolan nodded to Kesha. She exited the boat after a couple of awkward stumbles and joined him.
“Can I have the flashlight, please?” Nolan said.
“Yeah,” Kesha said. “What’s going on?”
“I think there’s a tunnel there,” Nolan said, inspecting the area with his bright beam. “I think some of your schoolmates might have gone down it. We need to check it out.”
Kesha’s eyes widened a little.
“You want to go explore that hole?”
“Could be a way out,” Nolan said, extending his free arm to steady Kesha as she slipped again on the slick rock. “I think it’s our best option right now. I have no idea how far we are from the dock, but it could be miles. And if we don’t help these people now, we might not get another chance for hours.”
Kesha scanned the water where so many of her classmates floated. It was a good number, but was it twenty-five? When she tried to do a quick count, she thought it seemed more like fifteen. Twenty at the most.
Kesha looked over at Nolan, who held the flashlight in one hand and his gun in the other. He examined the ripped-out telephone and first-aid equipment, seeming to discover nothing of value. Then he turned his attention back to the tunnel.
“Yes . . .” Nolan said, almost to himself. “I think one of the boats landed safely after the attack happened. The kids got out, and this is where they went. We have to go after them.”
Nolan began walking into the dark, unlit passageway. Kesha reluctantly followed.
“Look here,” Nolan said after just a few paces. He bent and picked something up, shone the flashlight on it. It was a woman’s sandal.
“We don’t need to call in a detective to figure this out,” Nolan said, tossing the shoe to Kesha.
She caught it. Kesha tried to remember if anybody she knew wore this style and brand.
“C’mon,” Nolan urged. “I can smell fresh air! This must take us topside.”
Kesha took another look back at the bodies in the water, then disappeared into the passageway after the hulking policeman.
It got really small, really fast.
Nolan had to duck, and then bend his knees, and then angle himself forward like a hunchback. Even with these efforts, the ceiling managed to smack against his head every few steps. Kesha, who was shorter, had an easier time.
Nolan had no compass and was completely disoriented. Where would this tunnel take them? They might end up back at the parking lot, or more likely come out in the middle of nowhere. There was no way to know, at least not at the moment.
After five minutes of plodding, Nolan saw a prone figure on the tunnel floor ahead. He froze in his tracks and fixed the flashlight beam upon it. Kesha poked her head around Nolan’s armpit and together they took a look.
A girl lay crumpled on the cavern floor. She wore a yellow sweatshirt stained red with blood. Her long blonde hair was sopping wet. She was mottled all over with a wet black ooze that made Nolan think of the sludge that had held together the skeleton pinning Kesha.
“That’s Martha McCranner,” Kesha said. “Her dad owns a chain of supermarkets.”
They stepped closer.
“Martha?” Kesha tried. “Martha?”
There was no response. Nolan could only see one side of the girl’s face, but she did not appear to be alive. Nolan awkwardly dropped to one knee—steadying himself in the tight space against the cavern wall—and placed his hand on the girl’s throat. Nothing. No pulse and no breath. For a final acid test, he lifted her eyelid and ran his fingernail over her unseeing eyeball. Kesha winced and looked away. The girl on the floor did not respond.
“She’s gone,” Nolan said. “Were you two friends?”
“Not really,” said Kesha. “She was one of the popular girls.”
“Oh yeah?” Nolan said cheerily, rising to his feet and hitting his head once more on the roof of the passage.
“Yeah,” Kesha said. “She was in the cliques with those fancy girls. The rich ones, I mean. But all the girls at my school are rich girls compared to me.”
“But even within that,” Nolan said with a smile. “You’re saying she was with the richest and most popular . . . of the rich and popular girls?”
Kesha nodded.
“Yeah,” Kesha said. “But the big three are named Sara and Tara and Madison. Madison’s the queen bee. She’s the governor’s daughter. The one they all cluster around.”
“So . . . this girl on the ground was friends with Madison Burleson?” Nolan said. His tone indicated that this information might be important.
“Yeah,” Kesha said, wondering why the police officer had suddenly perked up.
“And they were in the same boat together?”
“I mean . . . probably?” Kesha said with a shrug.
Nolan shone the flashlight back down the tunnel.
“Let’s keep going,” he said.
They left Martha McCranner there on the ground.
***
The passageway got even narrower. Despite being fairly fit, Nolan often had to suck in his gut and turn sideways just to squeeze through. In one of these tight spots, Nolan noticed fresh blood smeared on the rocks next to them.
“Other people were here,” Nolan said, pointing the stains out to Kesha. “This is just a couple of hours old.”
“I wonder how many survivors there are,” she said as Nolan probed the bloody smear with his finger. “And if they have a flashlight.”
“Hmm,” said Nolan pensively. “I don’t know. I’d hate to do this in the dark.”
“The smell is even stronger now,” Kesha said. “I can smell the outside, I mean.”
Nolan nodded. He could smell it too.
“Yes, I think we’re getting close.”
Nolan guessed that they were, in fact, very close to the surface. What he did not know was what kind of openings there might be, and if he would be able to fit his six-foot-nine frame through them. Or even if Kesha would fit.
They continued into the cavernous dark. Soon there was no longer any doubt. Nolan felt warm wind on his face and could smell fresh leaves as though he we
re in the middle of a forest. A few paces after that, and they saw daylight up ahead. The sun had not yet set.
“Omigod, we’re actually going to make it,” Kesha said quietly. “I thought I was going to die down here. I was so absolutely sure.”
Nolan only nodded.
The pair crept on through the narrow cavern until they saw the opening in full. Nolan checked his watch. He had been below less than two hours.
The exit to the cave was not a clear hole in a sheer rock face, but rather a dim opening set back into the side of a hill. The mouth of the cave was overgrown with weeds and bushes. Rusted beer cans, broken bottles, and cigarette butts littered the area. The pair picked their way through this detritus with little difficulty and gratefully stepped out into the dying sunlight.
In front of them was a small clearing. Thick rows of trees edged it on all sides. Nolan had no idea where he was.
To one side of the clearing were two figures, one hunched over the other. Nolan squinted, trying to understand what he was seeing. Then Kesha screamed.
At this, the hunching figure jerked upwards and Nolan got a good look. It was a middle-aged man, rail-thin like a meth addict. He wore blue jeans and an ancient black T-shirt with HENRY LEE SUMMER emblazoned across the front. His face was white as a sheet. Blood and gore dripped from his masticating maw. Even in the dying light, Nolan could see that this man was not alive in any conventional sense.
In a trice, Nolan’s weapon was out. With his other hand, he brought the flashlight up and shone it in the man’s face. He quickly wished he hadn’t. The man’s eyes were milky white and his lips had gone black with rot. Translucent maggots shimmered all across the surface of his skin like a wriggling force field.
Nolan dipped his flashlight beam down to the body on the ground. It was obviously dead. Most of the head had been torn away. Eaten. It was hard to determine back from front.
“Another one,” Kesha whispered.
“Yeah,” Nolan said reluctantly. “It sure is.”
Both Nolan and Kesha had hoped that the horrors of this day might somehow be confined to the caverns. In this zombie’s rotting countenance, both their hopes were dashed.
The emaciated figure rose to its feet and took one shambling step toward Nolan. It walked unsteadily, like someone very drunk or very sick or possibly both. Its eyes, likely unseeing, rolled crazily in their sockets. Yet somehow the thing knew where to go. It hobbled closer, and closer still.
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