Underworld (21 page)

‘Look, Fiona!' Angie was pointing to another sign, a number on the rocks. 9 scraped in stone. ‘This way.'

Was that the gushing of water she could hear behind her, above her, around her? ‘Are you sure, Angie?'

Angie hurried ahead. ‘I'm sure.'

* * *

I look desperately for my signs. The numbers I scratched so hurriedly as I stumbled behind the Captain. The Captain! I try not to think of his fate. I will go mad if I do. I am almost mad already. It is behind me, like a rush of water, like the tide.

At last, my sign. 8. I run on.

* * *

Liam had a bad feeling about all this. To him, Angie didn't seem real. How could she have survived on her own, found her way out, and come back to them? And why would she do it? She could have organised a rescue party to come for them. Better able to find them, to help them than she was. No. Something wasn't right about all this. And now, they seemed in even more danger than they'd ever been.

She turned and looked right at him, almost as if she could read his thoughts. ‘We have to hurry,' she said.

There was a sudden sigh through the caves. A sigh that seemed to be moving closer. Angie heard it too and caught her breath. She urged them on faster. ‘Look, we're almost there!' Her light shone on another number.
7
. Written as if by a foreign hand.

‘Come on! Let's go!'

It was coming behind them, that long sigh, as if
something giant and dark, filling the cave, was coming after them.

* * *

I dare not look behind me, though I can almost feel its putrid breath against my back. It must not get me. My screams are mixed with the sound of it, the almost silent sound of it oozing behind me.

I am almost there. 6.

* * *

They all began to run, hauling the teacher between them, hardly daring to glance behind them.

Whatever was behind them was coming ever closer, oozing through the chambers, filling them with terror.

They screamed. They yelled. They ran. And still it came behind them.

* * *

If I stumble once it will catch me and it must not catch me. I turn my head. I must see how close it is …

Ah! It is too close, and its mouth is beginning to slowly open again … for me.

* * *

The light. At last, Fiona saw the light. She had thought she would never see it again – and there it was, just a pinpoint in the darkness, but it was light.

It gave her the strength to run faster, to try to forget whatever horror was there behind them.

She risked a glance at Zesh. His mouth was open wide as if he was gasping for breath. He looked at her too and she knew from his eyes that he had seen the light too.

He hadn't the breath to speak, so she spoke for him, calling out to the rest. ‘Daylight! Look!'

It looked as if Axel grew in height. Fiona could feel his power as he lifted Mr Marks higher, practically taking all his weight. Liam, skinny little Liam, was hauling him with the rest, as they saw the light coming closer.

Fiona prayed. Her mind a jumble of thoughts all coming together at once. What if it's not daylight! What if Angie really is a ghost, and we're dead too and don't know it, and she's come back for us, to lead us into the light! She'd seen that in a film once. That's what they do, dead people, they head for the light.

And behind them, was a devil from Hell trying to keep them here?

Nightmare thoughts, running round her head, and no time to work them out. Just keep going. No matter what was ahead, it had to be better than what was behind them.

* * *

It's getting closer, Axel was thinking. Whatever's behind us is getting closer and I am frightened. I don't want to know what it is, I don't dare look behind me. Why wasn't he dropping the teacher? He could run faster without him, yet something was stopping him, he didn't know what.

He saw the light too, felt a cool breath against his face. Was that the touch of Death?

Stop thinking like that!

Run!

Liam was afraid to look back. He felt the cold breath too, making the hairs on his neck stand on end. And the stench of something too. Something long dead.

Get out of here! he was screaming inside. Get out of here before it catches us!

* * *

Get out of here! I am screaming inside. Get out of here before it catches me!

The cave opened like a mouth, spitting them out one by one. They threw themselves screaming with joy and relief against the rocks of the Doon.

Zesh was the first to look back into that black cave. Did he see something? Something disappointed, oozing back into the darkness, winding itself down tunnels and chasms and chambers to its lair?

‘It's nothing. It was our imagination,' Liam said to him, following his eyes, knowing what he was thinking.

Zesh grabbed for his inhaler and sucked into it before he said a word. ‘Something was after us. I was sure of it.'

Axel was breathless. ‘What are you trying to say it was? That Worm? Don't talk daft. There's no such thing.' But his voice was shaking.

‘Of course there isn't,' Zesh agreed. ‘Of course there isn't.'

Fiona stood up and stretched. Her fears all behind her. Here in the open air, with clouds scuttling across the blue sky and gulls squawking, she was afraid of nothing again. She looked at Angie, sitting solid as rock beside her. Why had she been so afraid? Angie was as alive as she was, and she was alive too!

‘Stupid the way your imagination can play tricks on you,' she said aloud without realising it. ‘Especially in the dark.'

‘If it
was
our imagination,' Zesh said.

Axel splashed his face with water. ‘Of course it was. There is no such thing as the Worm!'

‘But there is.'

It was Angie who said it, sitting on the rocks, the foam from the waves splashing against her legs. They gaped at her.

‘Why do you think I came back for you, and didn't go for a search party? I saw it. There in one of the tunnels. Waiting for you.'

‘Get real,' Axel said. ‘Don't believe you.'

‘But it's true. I saw it.' She covered her face with her hands. ‘It was horrible, horrible. It's not just a legend. It really exists. The Worm.'

Liam tried to laugh. He didn't convince anyone. He
looked back into the cave, into that blackness. He was remembering how scared he had been just moments ago. ‘No. It was your imagination, Angie.' He wanted to convince himself as well as her.

She shook her head and her lip trembled. ‘But you didn't see it. I did.'

Axel said. ‘And it didn't eat you?'

She shook her head and stared him out. ‘It was waiting, waiting there in the cave. Waiting for you.'

‘Aye, right,' he said. That couldn't be true. She must be lying, he was thinking.

No one believed her. No one wanted to believe her. Not here in the open air, with the spray from the sea on their faces. There was no Worm. There couldn't be.

No one spoke for a long time. It had all been in their imagination. It had all been in Angie's.

Fiona shielded her eyes and looked up at the sky. ‘Right! Where's this zonking search party!'

‘Well, now I've seen everything,' Rick said, looking across the school cafeteria. ‘It looks as if Marks is actually smiling at Axel.'

It didn't surprise Zesh. Not now, not after what they had all come through – underworld.

‘He did thank him, publicly, from the platform of the school assembly hall,' Zesh reminded his friend. In fact, the teacher had thanked them all. Without them, he would certainly have died.

‘Yeah, another miracle.' Rick laughed. ‘And who would have thought that me not being picked for that trip would be a blessing in disguise?'

‘Yeah, you did all right. You got to go to Paris instead.'

Rick got to Paris! Zesh hadn't known till he came back that someone had had to cancel and Rick had got their place.

‘No. I don't mean just that, but look what happened to you! Trapped under there, with that lot. Your worst nightmare.'

Zesh said nothing. There was a lot they hadn't told about what had happened. An unspoken oath between them to keep so much to themselves. No one knew Axel had taken his inhaler. No one knew Axel had been trapped in stone, and panicked. No one knew that Axel and Liam had gone on by themselves. No one knew that Zesh had been willing to leave the teacher behind.

Their secrets.

Their story had only been a minor item in a local paper, on the regional news. A helicopter had been sent out, and cave rescue had been alerted. Somewhere, inside the caves, another search party had been looking for them. But not for long enough for them to become a national sensation.

Yet, they could all have sworn they had been trapped for days on end.

Axel brushed past him just then. ‘Hi, Zesh, seen Liam?'

Zesh stretched his neck and spotted Liam chatting at the cafeteria door. ‘Over there, Axel. How's things?'

‘Great, Zesh. See ya!'

Zesh watched him bound across to Liam and put a friendly arm on his shoulder. They laughed together at some joke. Why had he never noticed how much taller than Axel Liam was? It was clear the two boys were friends. Not the way they had been before, but real friends.

And Zesh and Axel? They would never be friends, but they'd never be enemies again.

Rick was watching them too. ‘I suppose it stands to reason. Trapped down there, together. Having to rely on each other. I suppose it changes things.'

‘You talk such a load of baloney, Rick!' It was Fiona coming behind them. ‘What do you think we were doing down there … bonding?' She gave Zesh a dunt that sent him hurtling against a wall. ‘Did he tell you he owes his life to me! Did he tell you that!'

She let out one of her belly laughs. She really did not laugh like a girl at all!

‘Thanks to me she's stopped smoking,' Zesh said smugly.

‘I know, but it's a drastic way to stop. Now, I'm tryin' to get my mother off them as well.'

Zesh studied her for a moment. ‘You know, I've been thinking, Fiona …'

‘Well, there's a first time for everything.' Fiona had to get that in.

‘I could teach you to speak good English. I could make a lady out of you.'

Fiona laughed for ages. ‘What, you mean … you Professor Higgins, me Eliza Dolittle? I don't think.'

Zesh fell back in a mock swoon. ‘You have read
Pygmalion
?'

‘Pig … what? It's
My Fair Lady
, thicko! Do you know nothing? It was on the telly last week.'

And when he roared with laughter at that, she knew
that Zesh would always get on her wick!

And the Worm?

No one would ever believe such an outrageous story. And they all decided, without having to discuss it, that none of them had really seen it anyway.

It was a legend. A story told in the dark, to make you afraid. The dark can play strange tricks on your imagination. Make you see things that aren't really there.

And when your imagination takes over anything can happen.

They didn't want to be laughed at.

The only one of them who talked about it was Angie. And no one believed her. She was mocked and made a fool of. They discovered she had a history of telling tall tales, of making up stories.

She had seen the Worm? That was like saying she had seen the Loch Ness Monster. Unbelievable.

And Angie was gone now, moved once again, to another school, another story.

‘I still say she was dead,' Liam would say. Nothing would ever convince him otherwise.

And though they never talked of it, sometimes Zesh would catch a look from one of them when they passed
each other in the corridor. A look that seemed to say …

‘It
was
only our imagination … a legend … wasn't it?'

I am an old man now. If I write my story, who would believe me? And do I believe it now myself? It is only an old legend. A story told around the camp fires on a dark night.

So long ago.

Yet, I will never forget the terrified eyes of my Captain as the mouth of the Worm closed on him.

Loved Underworld?

Then turn the page to find out about Cathy MacPhail and her inspiration for this gripping story

I'm a sucker for a scary mystery story, the kind where a group of friends go off for an idyllic holiday somewhere remote, perhaps by a lake, and although when they arrive the sun is shining on the water and the birds are singing in the trees, as soon as darkness falls they start hearing strange noises in the woods. Then one of them goes missing. It occurred to me that framing a story around a school trip would be a great way to apply a similar idea to the type of books I write. My first thought was to have the pupils shipwrecked on an island. Then I realised that storyline had been done before – brilliantly! Yet I wanted my characters to be completely cut off from the outside world. So where could they go?