Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

He hadn’t necessarily intended his cousin to hear, but Lucas retorted “I’ve got one.”

Tom was tempted to suggest that Lucas should have brought this unlikely person instead of him. His cousin was taking the light away as though to punish Tom for his remark. Having left the path, he halted under an outstretched branch. “You can see where they did it,” he said.

The flashlight beam plunged into the earth — into a circular shaft that led down to the middle of the irrigation tunnel. At some point the entrance had been boarded over, but now the rotten wood was strewn among the trees. Tom peered into the opening, from which a rusty ladder descended into utter darkness. “You can’t see if you don’t take the bag off.”

As darkness raced up the ladder, chasing the light out of the shaft, Lucas said “What do you think is laughing now?”

“Maybe you should go down and find out.”

Another hollow liquid giggle rose out of the unlit depths, and Tom thought of convincing his cousin it wasn’t water they were hearing. Lucas crumpled the bag in his hand and sent the light down the shaft again. The beam just reached the foot of the ladder, below which Tom seemed to glimpse a dim sinuous movement before Lucas snatched the beam out of the shaft and aimed it at the branch overhead. “He hung himself on that, didn’t he, and then she threw herself down there.”

He sounded little more than distantly interested, which wasn’t enough for Tom. “Aren’t you going down, then? I thought you wanted a Halloween adventure.”

The glowing leafless branch went out as Lucas swung the light back to the path. “All right,” he said and made for the opposite side of the ridge.

Did he really need absolute precision or just demand it? As Tom trudged after him he heard a rustling somewhere near the open shaft. “I thought you never left litter,” he called. “How about that bag?”

“It’s here,” Lucas said and tugged it half out of his trouser pocket before stuffing it back in.

When Tom glanced behind him the Frugall floodlights glared in his eyes, and he couldn’t locate what he’d heard — perhaps leaves stirring in a wind, although he hadn’t felt one. Of course there must be wildlife in the woods, even if he’d yet to see any. He followed Lucas down the increasingly steep path and saw the flashlight beam snag on the curve of a stone arch protruding from the earth beside the track. It was the end of the tunnel, which had once helped irrigate the fields beyond the ridge. Now the fields were overgrown and the tunnel was barricaded, or rather it had been until somebody tore the boards down. As Lucas poked the flashlight beam into the entrance he said “Where’s the bell?”

Tom thought the slow dull metallic notes came from a car radio in the distance, but said “Is it in the tunnel?”

Lucas stooped under the arch, which wasn’t quite as tall as either of the boys. “Listen,” he said. “That’s where.”

Tom heard a last reverberation as he stepped off the path. Surely it was just his cousin’s gaze that made him wonder if the noise had indeed come from the tunnel, unless someone was playing a Halloween joke. Suppose the girls had followed them from the cinema and were sending the sound down from the ridge? In his hopelessly limited experience this didn’t seem the kind of thing girls did, especially while keeping quiet as well. The thought of them revived his discontent, and he said “Better go and see.”

Lucas advanced into the tunnel at once. His silhouette blotted out most of the way ahead, the stone floor scattered with sodden leaves, the walls and curved roof glistening with moss, a few weeds drooping out of cracks. The low passage was barely wider than his elbows as he held them at his sides — so narrow that the flashlight bumped against one wall with a soft moist thud as he turned to point the beam at Tom. “What are you doing?”

“Get that out of my face, can you?” As the light sank into the cramped space between them Tom said “I’m coming too.”

“I don’t want you to.”

Tom backed out, almost scraping his scalp on the arch. “Now you’ve got what you want as usual. Just you remember you did.”

“It won’t be scary if we both go in.” This might have been an effort to placate his cousin — as much of one as Lucas was likely to make — but Tom suspected it was just a stubborn statement of fact. “I’m not scared yet,” Lucas complained. “It’s Halloween.”

“Want me to make sure?”

“I know it is.” Before Tom could explain, if simply out of frustration, Lucas said “You’ve got nothing to do.”

He sounded intolerably like a teacher rebuking an idle pupil. As Tom vowed to prove him wrong in ways his cousin wouldn’t care for, Lucas ducked out of the tunnel and thrust the flashlight at him. “You can hold this while I’m in there.”

Tom sent the beam along the tunnel. It fell short of the ladder, which was a couple of hundred yards in. Once Lucas returned to the tunnel the light wouldn’t even reach past him. Tom was waiting to watch his reaction to this when Lucas said “I don’t mean here.”

He might have been criticising Tom’s ability to understand, a notion that was close to more than Tom could take. “Where?” he demanded without at all wanting to know.

“Go up and shine it down the hole, then I can see where halfway is. Shout when you get to the hole.”

“And you answer.” In case this wasn’t plain enough Tom added “So I can hear.”

“Course I will.”

Tom could have done without the haughtiness. He made off with the flashlight, swinging it from side to side of the deserted woods. As he reached the top of the path the lights above the distant retail park glared in his eyes, and he had a momentary impression that a rounded object was protruding just above the shaft at the midpoint of the tunnel. He squeezed his eyes shut, widening them as he stepped onto the ridge. Perhaps he’d seen an exposed root beyond the shaft, but he couldn’t see it now. He marched to the opening and sent the beam down to the tunnel, where he seemed to glimpse movement — a dim shape like a scrawny limb or an even thinner item retreating at speed into the dark. It must have been a shadow cast by the ladder. “Come on,” he called. “I’m here.”

“I’m coming.”

Tom was disconcerted to hear his cousin’s shout resound along the tunnel while it also came from beyond the ridge. Despite straining his eyes he couldn’t judge how far the flashlight beam reached; the glare from the retail park was still hindering his vision. He dodged around the shaft to turn his back on the problem, and saw that the beam of the cheap flashlight fell short of illuminating the tunnel itself. “Can you see the light?” he called.

“I see something.”

Tom found this wilfully vague. “What?” he yelled.

“Must be you.”

This was vaguer still, particularly for Lucas. Was he trying to unnerve his cousin? Tom peered into the shaft, waiting for Lucas to dart into view in a feeble attempt to alarm him. Or did Lucas mean to worry him by staying out of sight? Tom vowed not to call out again, but he was on the edge of yielding to the compulsion when an ill-defined figure appeared at the bottom of the shaft. He didn’t really need it to turn its dim face upwards to show it was Lucas. “What am I doing now?” Tom grudged having to ask.

“Holding the light.”

“I’m saying,” Tom said more bitterly still, “what do you want me to do?”

“Stay there till I say,” Lucas told him and stooped into the other section of the tunnel.

Tom tried to listen to his receding footsteps but soon could hear nothing at all — or rather, just the sound he’d previously ascribed to plastic. Perhaps the bag in his cousin’s pocket was brushing against the wall, except that Tom seemed to hear the noise behind him. Had Lucas sneaked out of the far end of the tunnel to creep up and pounce on him? Surely his shadow would give him away, and when Tom swung around, only the trees were silhouetted against the glare from the retail park. He’d kept the flashlight beam trained down the shaft on the basis that he might have misjudged Lucas, but how long would he have to wait to hear from him? He had a sudden furious idea that, having left the tunnel, Lucas was on his way home. “Where are you now?” he shouted.