“You’re as skinny as me,” Cindy said.
“But I have big bones,” Sally said.
“Shut up!” Adam snapped, dropping to his knees beside the shrinking hole. He tried pulling the closing edges apart with his hands. Contrary to what he had thought, the material had not turned molten. The rock was still hard as, well, rock. But it wasn’t behaving like ordinary rock. It was like the tree that had tried to eat him his first day in Spooksville. It seemed to be alive. Adam pulled his hands back inside, afraid they would be crushed. He shouted out to Watch, who was peering in at them.
“Go find a stick!” Adam yelled. “Maybe we can prop it open!”
“Gotcha,” Watch said and disappeared. He came back a few seconds later; by then the entrance was a foot wide. He had a short stubby stick and a couple of medium-size rocks. He tried using the stick as a brace, but the closing edges snapped it in two as if it were a twig. The girls screamed.
“Put in the rocks!” Adam cried desperately. “We can’t let it seal us inside!”
“I don’t know what’s causing this!” Watch said, straining to fit the rocks in the shrinking gap. “Bill never said anything about the cave entrance closing.”
“Bill is dead!” Sally yelled. “Just stop it from closing!”
Watch managed to get one rock in place. But the closing of the cave seemed unstoppable. For one second the stone balanced tensely between the sides of the opening. Then a crack appeared in the center of the rock, and suddenly it burst into dust. Adam had to wipe the debris from his eyes. He could hardly see as Watch shouted at him.
“I don’t know how to stop it!” Watch said.
“Do you know why it started?” Adam shouted back.
Watch was barely visible. “No!”
“Go for help!” Adam cried just before his friend vanished.
“Where?”
“Go—” Adam began. But he was too late.
He was talking to a smooth black wall.
The cave entrance was closed.
They were trapped inside. In the dark.
4
They had two flashlights, so it wasn’t completely dark. The white beams reflected up over their grim features. But inside, where they really lived, all light had been extinguished. The cave had locked them in. And they had no reason to believe it would ever let them go. They sat in silence for several minutes by the vanished entrance, hardly peeking at one another. Finally Adam stirred. He was the boy, he told himself. He was responsible for keeping them from despairing.
“There might be another way out,” he said.
“There isn’t,” Sally mumbled, staring at the ground.
“You don’t know that for sure,” Adam said. “We have to look.”
“I don’t want to look,” Sally said. She gestured over her shoulder. “We might get eaten.”
“Well, we can’t sit here and do nothing.” Adam was also staring at the ground. “Maybe we can dig our way out.”
Sally felt the hard floor. “We’d need dynamite. Did you bring any?”
Adam felt the solid rock as well. It would take heavy equipment to drill through it. “No,” he said quietly. “I forgot to bring any.”
“I don’t understand how this could have happened,” Cindy whispered, her face pale.
“This is Spooksville,” Sally said. “There’s no understanding anything that happens here. The best you can do is not look for trouble.” She added in a louder voice, “Like some of us wanted to do.”
“You were the one who—” Cindy began.
“Let’s not fight,” Adam interrupted. “We don’t have time.” He tapped the side of his flashlight. “There isn’t much energy in our batteries. If we don’t find a way out before the lights give out, we’ll never get out of here.”
Sally sat up and stared hard at both of them. “I would like to hold one of the flashlights please.”
“You can’t have mine,” Cindy said quickly.
“We’ll stay together,” Adam said. “It doesn’t matter who carries the lights.”
“Fine,” Sally said. “Give me your light then.”
“No,” Adam said.
“Why not?” Sally asked. “I can hold it as well as you can. Give it to me.”
“Why do you want it?” Cindy snapped.
“Because I’m afraid of the dark, bright brain,” Sally said. “Every kid who grew up in this town is. What do you need a light for? To fix your makeup?”
Adam held out his light. “Here. Take mine then, but turn it off. We’ll use one light at a time to save batteries.”
“I’ll turn my light off first,” Cindy said, catching Sally’s eye. She nodded at her nemesis. “Because you’re scared.”
Sally nodded. “You’d better be scared, too.”
Far below them, but maybe not so far away, they heard a faint noise again. Only this time it definitely sounded like a growl. The preying noise of some huge hungry creature. It echoed in their ears for ages before fading into a silence thicker than the blood that seemed to have turned to molasses in their hearts. Finally Adam swallowed and nodded in the direction of the sound.
“We have to go down that way,” he said. “It’s the only way out.”
They started down, on their hands and knees this time. They were terrified of slipping. If they did, they might drop the flashlights. The bulbs might break, and then they wouldn’t know what was in front of them, or what was coming at them from behind.
They reached the spot where they had turned back before, and it took a lot of courage to cross that line. Once over it they truly knew they couldn’t go back. They moved as a single unit, practically holding on to each other.
“I wonder what Watch is doing,” Cindy mumbled.
“He’s walking home,” Sally said. “Trying to figure out what to tell our parents.”
“He could be going for help,” Cindy said. “We could be rescued. Adam, maybe we should stay near the entrance.”
Sally shook her head. “The authorities don’t look for or rescue people in Spooksville. There are too many disappearances. They consider it a waste of time. Plus we lost half our police force in the last year.”
“What happened to them?” Cindy asked.
Sally shrugged. “No one knows.”
“Watch might be going to someone else for help,” Adam said.
“Who would he ask?” Sally demanded, squeezing her light tight.
“Bum for one,” Adam said. Then he added, “He might even go see Ann Templeton.”
Sally sneered. “I’d rather face the creature down here than hope that evil witch would rescue us.”
The creature might have heard Sally because it growled again. It definitely sounded hungry, maybe even excited. Perhaps it was coming their way, hoping to greet and eat them. The three of them stared at one another and Sally barely shook her head. She was taking back what she had just said, but it might have been too late for that.
5
Adam knew his friend Watch well. Watch did indeed go for help, and Bum was at the top of his list. Watch had a pretty good idea where Bum would be. It was Friday evening, and everyone knew it was Bum’s custom to go to the only theater in town and try to sneak in to catch one of the new releases. But since the owner of the theater knew of Bum’s habit, too, Bum was rarely successful at getting inside. Watch caught up with Bum just as he was being thrown out on the sidewalk.
“What’s playing tonight?” Watch asked, helping his old friend up. Bum was dressed in his usual dirty gray coat and smelled as if he hadn’t taken a bath in two weeks. But his bright green eyes had lost none of their humor. He laughed as he got to his feet.
“A horror film, as usual,” Bum said. “It’s a remake of It: The Terror from Beyond. The original was awful, so I don’t mind missing the sequel.” He paused and squinted at him. “How are you, Watch? You look worried.”
Watch nodded. “I am. I took my friends up to the Haunted Cave and the entrance closed up on them. They’re trapped insi
de.”
Bum was amazed. “Why did you take them there?”
“Cindy Makey, the new girl in town, wanted to go.”
“The one with the ghost for a granny?”
“Yeah, her. We saved her brother, but I don’t know how we’re going to save her now. Adam and Sally are with Cindy.” Watch paused. It was never good to pressure Bum because he could clam up and tell you nothing. But Watch felt in a big hurry, which was unusual for him. “Do you know how to get the entrance to open up again?”
“Sure. You wait. It opens up again, eventually.”
“How long does it take?”
Bum scratched his thinning hair. “Years.”
“But they’ll be dead by then.”
“That is a problem.” Bum leaned closer and spoke quietly. “Did you warn them about the Hyeets?”
“What’s that?”
“The Bigfoots that live in the cave. They’re a nasty lot. You know what happened to Bill Bailey. The blasted creatures ate him alive. Ruined his final photo shoot.”
Watch was concerned. “I didn’t know they were called Hyeets, but I did warn the others about them.”
Bum shrugged and looked down the block in the direction of the diner. “It doesn’t matter if you warned them or not. The Hyeets will get them. Your friends are as good as dead. No sense worrying about them. Hey, how would you like to buy me dinner?”
Watch thought for a moment. “If I do, will you tell me everything you know about the Haunted Cave? And the Hyeets?”
“Deal.” Bum grinned and slapped Watch on the back. “And if you get me dessert, I just might remember another way to get into the cave. You have money on you?”
Watch nodded and checked his watch set on West Coast time. The walk back to find Bum had been long and hard in the dark so his friends had been trapped for over an hour now. He wondered if he had put fresh batteries in the flashlights. Maybe he’d used old ones. He just hoped Bum could help in some way. At the moment Watch couldn’t think of any other leads to pursue.
“I have money,” Watch said almost to himself as they walked in the direction of the diner.
6
The floor had leveled out. They no longer had to move forward on their hands and knees. The tunnel had also widened out so they weren’t bumping into one another. These things were positive. Unfortunately the temperature had increased another ten degrees. They were sweating heavily and feeling terribly thirsty. Also, the flashlight Sally was carrying was beginning to dim. She shook it as they walked, trying to brighten the beam. They had been in the cave for two hours.
“This thing isn’t going to last,” Sally said.
Adam, walking on Sally’s right, nodded. Cindy was on her left. “Let’s just hope the second one has stronger batteries,” he answered.
“It doesn’t matter if it does if we don’t know where we’re going,” Cindy said.
“You’re a cheery character,” Sally muttered.
“The queen of despair speaks,” Cindy shot back.
“I would be at home watching TV and stuffing my face if you hadn’t been so adamant about seeing this cave,” Sally said.
“Just think of all the extra calories you’re burning,” Cindy replied.
“Would you two stop!” Adam said.
“Why should we stop?” Sally asked. “We’re not low on oxygen. We might as well yell at each other in a desperate attempt to ward off the creeping horror that threatens to engulf our very souls.”
“Well, if it makes you feel better,” Adam said. But then his eyes took in a disturbing image. He stopped and pointed fifty feet up ahead. “What’s that sticking out of the wall?” he asked, knowing the answer.
That was the arm of a skeleton. They approached it cautiously, with the light bobbing from Sally’s trembling hand all the while. It was the last thing any of them wanted to find. The idea of being trapped inside the cave and eventually turning into skeletons was never far from their thoughts.
Yet this corpse didn’t appear to have been trapped in the cave, like them. How could he have gotten in the wall? Adam spoke the question out loud. Sally, of course, had her theories.
“One of the ape creatures got him,” she said. “Chewed him down to the bone, and stuffed him in there. It’s obvious. It’s probably what’s going to happen to us.”
“I don’t know,” Adam said. He nodded to Sally. “Give me the light.”
“No,” Sally said.
“I just want to look up ahead,” Adam said.
“No,” Sally said, hugging the flashlight close to her body.
“You can borrow Cindy’s light until I come back,” Adam said.
“She can’t have mine,” Cindy said quickly.
Adam frowned. “Then may I borrow your light?”
“Of course.” Cindy handed it over. “What are you searching for?”
“Give me a minute and you’ll see,” Adam replied, flipping on the light. The glare from the second flashlight reminded them just how dim the first one was. Sally wanted to switch, but Adam wasn’t in a negotiating mood. After telling the others to wait where they were, he moved carefully forward. Sally called after him.
“If something grabs you,” she said, “scream real loud so we’ll know to run the other way.”
“Thanks,” he muttered.
Two minutes and two hundred feet later, Adam found what he was looking for. It was a second skeleton, hanging partway out of the wall. Only this skeleton had portions of a rotting wooden box around him. Adam hurried back and collected the others, and then he showed them what he’d found. The girls were puzzled, and not too happy to see what they thought was a second victim of the ape creatures. But Adam shook his head.
“Don’t you see?” he said. “This guy—if it was a guy—was buried in a coffin. The other corpse probably was as well, but his box just wore out over time.”
Sally understood. “You’re saying we’re under the cemetery?”
“Exactly,” Adam said.
“You act like that’s good news,” Sally said. “I mean, I can think of a lot better places to be.”
“It’s good that we know where we are,” Adam explained.
“Why?” Sally asked.
“Maybe now we can plan which way to go,” Adam said.
Sally gestured straight ahead of them. “It’s only going one way, Adam. Straight to the monsters’ kitchen.”
“We’ll see.” Adam flicked off his flashlight. He was shocked at how dark it was with only the first one on. They could hardly see one another. Yet the gloom gave him an idea. He reached out and yanked a board from the coffin out of the wall. The skeleton’s skull bobbed up and down but the corpse didn’t complain.
“What are you doing?” Sally asked. “That’s the only home that guy’s got, you know.”
Adam continued to tug on the boards. “I want to take as many of these with us as we can. We have to prepare for both our lights running out. We might be able to use the wood as torches.”
“That’s a great idea,” Cindy said, moving to help Adam.
“How are we going to light these torches?” Sally asked. “You’re no Boy Scout, and Cindy and I are certainly not Girl Scouts. I couldn’t kindle a spark into a campfire if you gave me a gallon of gasoline.”
“Let’s worry about that when we need to,” Adam said.
Sally sighed, although she did begin to pull boards from the coffin. “This is great,” she said. “When the ape creature goes to eat us, we can offer to build him a small house if he’ll spare our lives.”
Soon each of them had a small bundle of wood to carry. They started forward once more. They hadn’t heard the creature growling in a while, and didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one. In a way, Adam preferred it when the monster was making noise. At least then they knew where it was. There could be nothing worse than its sneaking up on them.
Five minutes after leaving the second skeleton, they came to a fork in the tunnel. They could go left or right. It was a
difficult decision to make because both ways were dark and dangerous. Adam tried sniffing the air in each cave, searching for changes in temperature as well as foul odors. The cave on the right seemed to be cooler, but the one on the left was fresher smelling. He told the others what he had found. Of course the two girls immediately disagreed on which way to go.
“I want to go to the right,” Cindy said. “We don’t want to run into a lava pit.”
“I think we should go to the left,” Sally said. “The bad smell may be from things the ape creatures didn’t completely eat.”
“The right way doesn’t actually smell bad,” Cindy said, sniffing. “Its air is just stale.”
“Dead things smell stale,” Sally said.
“If we have just left the cemetery behind,” Adam said, trying to get his directions straight, “then if we go right we should be right under the witch’s castle.”
“Then that settles it.” Sally gasped. “We don’t want to go anywhere near that place.”
“But the castle has been there for ages,” Adam said. “It might have a secret passage that leads down to this cave. We could use it to get out.”
“And end up where?” Sally complained. “In the witch’s living room. She’ll roast us in her fire place.”
“You’re thinking of the witch who looked like her on the other side of the Secret Path,” Adam said. “Ann Templeton doesn’t seem all that bad.”
Sally shook her head. “I can’t believe you. Ann Templeton smiled at you and told you you had beautiful eyes and you want to disregard all the evil things she’s done to the kids in this town.”
“I think you’ve made up half those things,” Adam said.
“Maybe I have,” Sally said. “But if the other half is true, you still don’t want to get near her.”
“I want to try my luck with the castle,” Cindy said firmly. “I’m tired and thirsty. I don’t know how much longer I can keep going like this.”
“I’m not going that way,” Sally said just as firmly.
“You have to,” Adam said. “Your light is about to run out.”
Sally sounded hurt. “You would leave me here alone in the dark to die? Just because Cindy wants to go right and I want to go left? Adam, I thought you were my friend.”