“I think you’re just so thirsty you’re hallucinating,” Sally said.
Adam was afraid she might be right, for once. “Are you sure you don’t hear it, Cindy?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, Adam,” Cindy said. “I don’t hear a thing. Plus I just can’t see going down. Let’s go to the left.”
“To the center,” Sally insisted.
They were waiting for him to make the final decision. At the moment Adam wished they had another leader. If he made the wrong choice, the chances were he would kill them all. Going against his gut feeling, he nodded toward the middle cave.
“We’ll continue this way,” he said. “See what happens.”
At first there was no change in scenery. The cave continued straight and level. Another hour of thirsty walking went by. They began to lean on one another for support. Adam was still carrying several of the boards from the coffin, and they kept getting heavier and heavier. He was tempted to put them down, but Cindy’s flashlight had begun to dim slightly. He tried not to think what it would be like to be trapped, wandering around in the dark. Why, they could come to the edge of a cliff and just walk off it, without realizing it until they were falling.
The middle cave was not without its bad smells, either.
The odor hit them before they saw it.
They found their first dead bat.
They hadn’t seen any living ones, of course, but this dead one filled them with dark fear. Adam borrowed the light from Cindy to examine it closer. Other bats had not killed this bat. It was clear that a large creature had torn it open in one swift jerk. There was blood all around it, and the blood, although not fresh, was not dry either.
The bat had sharp tiny teeth.
He wondered if it was a bloodsucker.
“How long ago did it die?” Sally asked, for once standing close to Cindy. Adam sat back from the disgusting remains and frowned.
“Maybe a day,” he said.
“It doesn’t look like it committed suicide,” Sally said.
“No,” Adam said, climbing to his feet and handing the flashlight back to Cindy. “I think one of the ape creatures got it.” He paused. “Do you still want to go this way, Sally?”
She seemed to be exhausted. Her dark hair clung to the sides of her face like streaks of dirt. Her lips were dry and cracked. Adam’s own knee was bleeding slightly from the brush with the troll’s spear. But he hadn’t told the girls about the wound. It was the last of his worries. Sally shook her head.
“I don’t have the energy left to walk back the way we came,” she said.
“Do you have the energy to fight what killed the bat?” Cindy asked. She added softly, “We should have gone to the left.”
“We shouldn’t have come into the cave at all,” Sally snapped. “This wasn’t my brilliant idea.” Yet she didn’t have the strength to continue arguing. She hung her head wearily, looking at the bat once more. “You decide, Adam. I can’t.”
He shook his head. “We’ve already decided. We can only go forward.”
Forward quickly got more gruesome. Spider webs appeared. Not the annoying little things they saw around their yards or garages from time to time. These were massive webs. They spanned the width of the cave. To keep going, Adam had to remove his shirt to swipe at them. And sometimes the spiders would come running out and snap at them with tiny black claws and greasy red eyes. They saw one spider that was as large as a small rabbit. But it ran away when Adam threw a rock at it.
The temperature increased. Thirst and exhaustion were all they knew. Adam tried to figure out what time it was but was unable to focus long enough. It felt as if they had been trapped in the cave for weeks. Briefly he wondered if Watch had talked to his parents, if his mom and dad were planning his funeral. At least they wouldn’t have to pay for a coffin, he thought. The entire cave could be his tomb.
They stumbled upon another two dead bats. Adam knelt to examine them. They didn’t smell as bad as the first one because their blood was fresher. They had been killed in exactly the same way as the first one. The girls waited anxiously for his opinion. He was afraid to give it.
“Well?” Sally said impatiently.
“I think these bats died in the last two hours,” he said.
“Did they die here?” Cindy asked.
“Looks like it,” Adam said, standing back up.
Cindy’s voice cracked as she spoke. “That means one of those creatures was just here.”
“What it really means is one of those creatures is not far from here,” Sally said.
“But we haven’t heard it in a while,” Adam said.
Sally’s eyes shifted from side to side. “I’ve been hearing something. Faint steps that pause when we pause. And I’ve felt eyes on me. You know what it’s like when someone’s staring at you behind your back. You can feel it. Well, something is staring at us.”
“You’re imagining it,” Cindy said quickly.
Sally pointed at the dead bats. “Am I imagining that? I’m telling you the truth, I think we’ve been followed for a while.”
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Adam asked.
“What good would it do?” Sally asked.
Adam glanced up and down the tunnel, using the beam of the flashlight to pierce the darkness. Beyond the light’s range there was only darkness and spiders and probably more dead bats.
“If it is following us,” he said, “and it hasn’t attacked yet, that might mean it doesn’t want to attack.”
“That’s wishful thinking,” Sally said. She also looked around and then shivered, although she seemed ready to fall over from heat exhaustion. “But I suppose that’s the best kind of thinking we can have right now.”
Cindy wrinkled her nose at the bloody bats. “One thing’s for sure—the bat killer is not a vegetarian.”
Sally nodded grimly. “It probably doesn’t even like ice cream.”
They continued on. The air was so dry now it was hard to swallow. Another odor floated through the air. It had probably always been there, but they had just gotten used to it. Now it was too strong to ignore. They were definitely approaching some kind of active volcanic area. Tiny black cinders floated in the air before them and caught in their hair. The odor and the cinders made it harder to breathe. They were all coughing.
Then the black cloud came.
They had seen dead bats, but no live ones, and that had made Adam wonder. Soon he would wonder no more. They were taking a short rest when Adam heard a faint flapping above them. He was the first to hear it. As the sound grew louder, it took on a peculiar humming quality. For a moment he wondered if he was listening to a swarm of bees. The girls turned to him.
“What’s that?” Sally asked nervously.
Adam jumped up and shone his flashlight in the direction of the sound. Actually, it was coming from behind them, from the length of the tunnel they had just walked. At first he couldn’t see anything except the remains of the spider webs they had pushed through. But then all of a sudden the webs began to shake violently. One huge spider, hanging on to what was left of its broken home, turned to shreds in midair. Something new was pushing through the webs. Something with several thousand black wings and a million pairs of beady red eyes.
A swarm of bats was coming.
Coming right toward them.
“Run!” Adam shouted, pushing the girls in front of him.
They ran as fast as they could, but they were no match for winged creatures. The bats were on them in a minute and the horror of it was beyond imagining. They were in their hair, under their shirts, pecking at their ears and fingers. Adam felt the claws of a bat land on his closed eyes. He brushed it away but two took its place. He remembered the tiny sharp teeth of the dead bats and a second later he felt them as several bats tried to bite into his skin. He wanted to scream louder than he had ever screamed in his entire life, but he was afraid a bat would fly into his mouth.
The bats were thirsty. They wanted blood.
> What a way to die. Such a horrible death.
Yet all was not lost. Adam accidentally opened one eye and caught a faint glimpse of a strange red light fifty feet ahead. It flashed out from a narrow crack in the wall of the cave. Curiously enough, there were no bats around this light. That was enough for Adam. He grabbed the girls’ arms as they continued to wave them to keep from being eaten alive.
“I see a way out!” he shouted. “Come with me!”
He pulled the stumbling girls after him. The bats followed, of course, since they were thirsty little devils. Yet as they moved within ten feet of the smoldering orange crack in the wall, the bats veered away. Adam assumed they didn’t like the smell, or else the wicked red light disturbed them. He squeezed through the crack first, pulling the girls in behind them.
They took a second to get their bearings.
They were standing in a huge volcanic chamber.
10
Spooksville’s largest grocery store was called Fred’s Foods. Fred himself was a bagger at the store—he had been for thirty years. He owned the place but couldn’t figure out how to work the cash registers or do anything else useful. So he bagged groceries and helped people out to their cars. It was lucky for Fred that he had hired an assistant manager with half a brain, or else the place would have closed down ages ago.
Watch and Bum found Ms. Ann Templeton in the produce department, knocking lightly on watermelons. She wore an expensive white pantsuit, shiny black shoes, and exquisite diamond earrings. Her long black hair was curly; it reached almost to her waist. Her face, as she glanced over at them and smiled, was as beautiful as always, and as pale. She was either an angel from heaven, or a ghost from a much lower place. Her dark eyes shone with wicked amusement. She couldn’t have been more than thirty years old.
“Watch and Bum,” she said in her soft yet powerful voice. “Have you come to help carry my groceries to my car? I could use some help this fine evening. I think poor old Fred has already left for the day.”
Bum bowed slightly. “I wouldn’t mind helping you with your food, ma’am, if you could spare me a loaf of bread or two.”
“I will give you a can of tuna,” Ms. Templeton said. She studied him and frowned at his appearance. “I think you could use some fish. Your skin looks terrible.”
“It’s the sleeping outdoors every night that does it,” Bum said.
“There are worse places to sleep, I suppose.” She returned to knocking on watermelons. “Looking for your friends, Watch?”
Watch almost jumped out of his socks. “Yeah. How did you know they were missing?”
“Nothing happens in Spooksville that I don’t know about. Isn’t that true, Bum?”
“Yeah, ma’am. No one puts anything past you.”
Ms. Templeton continued. “Your friends somehow managed to sneak into my basement, Watch. I should say it was one of my lower basements, not the best way to enter my castle, if you’re a human being. I am sorry to say that they were not given the most hospitable welcome.”
“What happened?” Watch asked, worried.
“A couple of my boys tried to have them for dinner.” Ms. Templeton smiled. “It is so hard to find good help these days. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”
Watch gulped. “Are they dead?”
Ms. Templeton chuckled. “Heavens no. Thanks to Adam, they escaped. I’m sure they’re still wandering around down there somewhere, unless the bats or Hyeets have eaten them.”
Watch took a step forward. “Can you help me rescue them?” He added, “I’ll help carry your groceries out to your car for the next two months.”
Ms. Templeton threw her head back and laughed. “If I help you that will spoil all the fun. Watch, you wouldn’t want that. It wouldn’t be fair to them.”
“But you said it yourself, they might die.”
Ms. Templeton shrugged. “Lots of people die in this town. I can’t be responsible for all of them.” She picked up a plump watermelon. “Now this one looks ripe.”
“But I thought you liked Adam,” Watch protested.
“What made you think that?” Ms. Templeton asked.
“I don’t know,” Watch said. “He likes you.”
She glanced over. “Really?”
Watch nodded. “Yeah. He thinks you’re real pretty. It drives Sally crazy.”
Ms. Templeton was amused. “It’s fun to see Sally lose her temper. She reminds me of myself when I was young.” She paused. “Do you know what I used to do when I was your age, Watch? Just for fun?”
Bum shook his head. “I remember.”
“I’m sure you do,” she said. “And I’m sure you’re glad I never did it to you. In those days, Watch, I was fond of hiking in the caves with several of the kids at school. I would dare them to join me, usually boys who made fun of my family. Then when we were a mile or two underground, I would make all their flashlights fail. It would scare them so bad they would start crying and screaming for help. Just like little babies.”
“Would you help them?” Watch asked.
Ms. Templeton set the watermelon in her cart. “Sometimes, but not often. I think a lot of those kids are still down there, in the bellies of the Hyeets.” She laughed when she saw Watch’s confused expression. “All right, since Adam thinks I’m so pretty, I will give you a couple of hints that might help you rescue them.”
Watch looked around for pen and paper. “Do I need to take notes?”
“No, just listen,” Ms. Templeton said. “The entrance to the cave closed up on Adam and his friends, right?”
“Right,” Watch said. “For no reason.”
She shook her head. “There was a reason. The Haunted Cave is sensitive. It does what you tell it. Someone must have accidentally told the cave to close.”
“No,” Watch disagreed. “No one said anything about—”
But then he stopped, remembering the words Cindy had shouted at Sally. Even though he had been standing outside the cave, he had heard them loud and clear.
Yeah, but you’ve got a poison tongue. I wish for just once you would shut up. That you would close your mouth, shut it tight . . .
Watch continued. “Cindy did say something about shutting tight. She was talking about Sally’s mouth, but the cave did start to close right then.”
“That’s it,” Ms. Templeton said. “The cave thought you wanted it to close up. So it did.”
“Then all we have to do is return to the entrance and command it to open?” Watch asked.
“That works some of the time,” she said thoughtfully. “But a tribe of Native Americans lived here long before Europeans came, and the cave is more receptive to their language. They were called the Reeksvars. They named the Hyeets and many other strange creatures in this area. Their word for open was Bela. Their word for close was Nela. It’s always good to know how to close whatever you happen to open. If you shout Bela to the cave, it will open right away.” She paused. “But your friends are nowhere near that entrance by the reservoir. They’ve been walking all night. If you go there, you won’t find them.”
Watch felt frustrated. “Is there another way into the cave?”
Ms. Templeton mocked him. “You can always try my lower basement. But I can’t guarantee you’ll make it past my boys. Adam and his friends got them all riled up. I’m going to have to buy them a dozen boxes of Ritz crackers just to calm them down.”
“They like crackers?” Watch asked, confused about exactly who or what her boys were.
“Yes,” she said. “Very much, with snails and spiders. But to return to your question, there are several entrances to the cave. You just have to know how to find them.” She leaned over and spoke softly in his ear. “I will give you one more hint, Watch. The wells in this town run deep. The waters run cold. It is hot where your friends now walk, but soon they will be able to soothe their thirst. If they’re lucky.”
Watch brightened. “Then they are alive.”
Ms. Templeton stood back up and nodded.
“They’re alive for now. But the night is far from over. The Hyeets hunt at night. If they run into one, there’s no telling what will happen.”
“But I don’t understand your hint,” Watch said. “I still don’t know how to get to them.”
She patted him on the head. “That’s your problem.” She handed Bum a can of tuna. “Good night, Bum. Good night, Watch. You can help me with my groceries next time. I will remember your promise. And you remember me, whenever you are eager for strange dreams or exciting adventures.”
“Have a fine evening, ma’am,” Bum said, holding on to the can of tuna as if it were a rose from a girlfriend. He grabbed Watch by the arm as Ms. Templeton disappeared around another aisle. “I heard what she said to you. You don’t want to push her. Her moods are quick to change. She might put a curse on you. She told us more than I thought she would.”
“Do you know how we can reach Adam and the others?” Watch asked.
Bum nodded. “Based on what she said, I have an idea.”
11
The chamber was as wide and high as a high-school auditorium. There was not one but a half-dozen pools of glowing lava spread about the stone room. Steam rose from the glowing liquid rock, gathering near the ceiling of the chamber, forming a shimmering cloud of sparks and fumes. Every few seconds a miniature geyser would spurt up from one of the molten pools and splash the surrounding black rock. The place was as hot as an oven. They were able to see clearly without their flashlight, but the sober red glow had a strange effect on them. It was as if they had died and gone to an evil place. Sally said it for all of them when she spoke next.
“I hope there are no devils in here,” she said.
“I don’t believe in devils,” Cindy said quickly.
“I would think you would believe in everything after tonight,” Sally said, wiping at a bloody scratch on her face. “I’m just happy we got away from those bats. I think they were vampires.”
“Spooksville would have no other kind,” Adam agreed, also wiping at his face and arms. He had a dozen small scratches, but none were serious. The bats had been the hardest on Cindy. She had several big bites in her left ear. Adam had to admire her. The bites were bleeding but she wasn’t complaining.