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

He switched hands again, jumped as Sash behind him flicked her own lighter. It lit the wall at Adam’s side and he saw old lettering there, as though this place had been better used, once; the remnants of old names, old lives. Now they were little more than fragments; he couldn’t make out the words. He wondered who had been here, whether they smoked or drank or fucked in the dark. He grinned as he stepped forward and, not watching his feet, slipped. He almost went down.

There came a light giggle behind him.

Adam straightened his back, started to turn. Such things couldn’t be allowed to go on or they only got bigger. He knew this in ways the others didn’t. As he turned, though, Sash swore and Adam heard her lighter drop, the sharp sound of plastic shattering. A moment later there came an acrid smell.

“Fucker burned me,” she said. She sounded upset.

Adam knew Sash couldn’t afford another lighter, couldn’t afford much of anything. He opened his mouth to tell her she could use his whenever she wanted, then closed it again. “Stop pissing about,” he said.

The ground beneath his feet started to slope downward. Adam lowered the light, trying to make out the way, but could see nothing. He started down anyway; realised, after a few strides, that he couldn’t hear the others. He turned and saw two dark shapes against the glow from the entrance, their faces outlined by the light of his flame. “What’s up?” he said.

“I’m not going down there,” said Sash. She sounded close to panic. “I don’t like this, Ad. It’s opening out; how we gonna find our way? We could get lost.”

Fuzz didn’t say anything. He didn’t follow Adam, either.

“There are stories,” Sash said, “about Dark Cave.”

Adam snorted. “Stories are for kids.” He took another few steps as if to demonstrate, but when he glanced around he saw that Sash was right. The cave had broadened out; he could no longer see the walls. He looked back at Sash and Fuzz. They hadn’t moved. They were still dark shapes, but their faces had gone. For a while he didn’t say anything, and neither did they. It struck him that they might not speak, that it might not even be Sash and Fuzz standing there. His mates had turned tail and fled into the sunlight, leaving only these shadows behind.

Then Sash did speak, and Adam took a breath. “I don’t want to,” she said. “Why don’t we go and have a cig, instead? I could try and find my lighter.”

“Just a bit further,” Adam said. “Then we’ll sit down and you can tell us all about Dark Cave.” He paused, deepened his voice. “Tell us ze ghost stories, mwa ha ha. ”

Sash didn’t laugh, but she did get moving. Adam turned and went on. Their footsteps echoed around him, a confusion of sound, but he knew that Fuzz would be following too. Sometimes Adam thought that kid was sweet on Sasha. Then he remembered the way Fuzz had been when Sash took off her top: the way he’d kept his eyes on Adam all the time, not saying a word. Fuzz had never even looked at Sash, at all.

“Here,” Adam said, bending low and scanning the floor. A low outcrop of rocks glowed almost yellow in the flame; he sat down on the nearest. The others sat too. Fuzz made a “tch” sound and pulled something from his pocket. Another light sprung to life in the boy’s hands, and Adam cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. It was Fuzz’s mobile phone. After a few seconds the light winked out and Fuzz pressed a button to light it up again. Adam wasn’t sure he liked it. It made the dark draw back a little, but the bluish glow made everything cold.

Fuzz crossed one boot over the other. “Nice ere, innit,” he said.

Adam cleared his throat. “So, Sash,” he said. “Tell us about the ghosts.”

She turned her head. Her face looked pale. “Aren’t no ghosts in Dark Cave.”

“But you said. ”

“I didn’t say there were ghosts. I said there were stories.” She wrapped her arms around her skinny body.

“Same difference.”

Sash glanced over her shoulder, into the dark. Adam looked too, but there was nothing there. There was nothing around them at all; it was like they were floating. He shivered. It’s not me , he thought, it’s them , and he didn’t know why: only that the words were in his mind, playing over like an echo.

It’s not me. It’s them .

“So what are the stories, Sash?” Fuzz’s voice was gentle.

“They’re about old stuff. My Nan told me. About when people used to come here, and what they used to do.”

Adam wanted to snort, but he did not.

“What stories, Sash?” Fuzz prompted.

“They’re about what’s in here.” Sash glanced around again.

“So tell us.”

But Sash didn’t. She got to her feet, so abruptly she knocked Fuzz’s phone out of his hands. There was a splay of light and a gritting sound, and then the dark ate it.

“ Sash .”

She didn’t answer.

Fuzz got up, feeling about for his phone.

“Wait,” said Adam. It came out louder than he’d intended and he expected to hear his own voice coming back from the walls — wait — wait — wait — but there was nothing. He didn’t know which was worse, hearing an echo or not hearing it. “I’ll make a bit of light.”

He stood, reached for his bag, rummaged through the contents. He pulled out some exercise books, flicked to the back of one, steadied it with the fist holding his lighter and ripped out the blank pages. He crumpled them, placed them where he’d been sitting. He could feel the dark at his back, and he didn’t like it. He’d felt better when he was inside the circle. He bent and put the flame to the paper. It flared, and he saw what lay around them.

Their shadows rose and danced on the walls. The cavern was roughly circular. There were no other tunnels that he could see. There was more writing on the walls, though: names, dates. Adam glanced at the fire and saw the last ball of paper catch. It flared but the blackness flooded back anyway, as though the dark had grown, was reclaiming its territory. Then the fire went out.

“I’m getting out of here,” said Sash. She took a couple of steps into the dark then stopped. Adam almost — not quite — reached out to pull her back.

“Wait,” said Fuzz. His voice was oddly high, and it struck Adam that fear was catching, that it had leapt from one of them to the next just as the flame had spread from paper to paper. Fuzz pressed a switch and the cold blue light was back again: he had found his phone. He went after Sash and became a black shape.

Adam’s own lighter flickered and went out.

He didn’t curse, didn’t say anything at all. He was in the dark and he could feel its cold fingers on his skin, touching his clothes, his face, his eyes. He didn’t want to move; all he wanted was for it to stop. His hands shook around the lighter. Then the flame sprang up and the shadows shrank from him.

He could no longer see Sash and Fuzz. Adam kept his eyes on the flame he held, feeling the darkness massing at his back as he started after them.

“The stories are about the dark,” said Sash. She held a cigarette to her lips and it shook in her hands. She was sitting on the low, twisted branch of a tree. Adam looked away, down at the woodland floor. It was covered in fallen leaves; another year dying.

“My Nan says they used to think the dark lived in the cave. So they’d send people in, you know — to test them. To see if they could handle it. Sometimes they came out and sometimes they didn’t. The ones who didn’t, who got fed to the dark, they had their names written on the walls, see? And then the dark would go away for another year, like they were sacrifices or something. It kept it away, right?” She paused. “I thought it was stupid. But—”