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

Fuzz touched Sasha’s arm. “What do you mean, sometimes the dark was there? It’s Dark Cave. Of course, the dark was there. It’s there all the time.”

“Not this dark,” Sash said, taking another draw.

Fuzz waited. So did Adam.

“There was this special darkness, see. It was there no matter what. You could walk into that dark with the brightest torch, my Nan said, and it’d still be dark. All that’ll happen is, your light’ll be quenched. That’s how she put it: quenched. Like thirst.”

Adam scowled, shuffling his foot through withered leaves. The earth beneath it was a deep, rich black. He stopped.

“You couldn’t put it out, that dark. People just went into it and there was nothing to light their way. They went in and either they came back or they didn’t. No one knows what happened to the ones who didn’t.”

Adam thought again of the names he’d glimpsed on the walls. He let out an exasperated sound. There were so many: too many. If that many people had disappeared around here, someone would know. They’d have stopped it. More likely the cave had been the haunt of people like him. They’d written their own names there, and no one had come to wipe them away. Why would they? The cave was nothing special. It went so far and no further; like everything else in life, a disappointment. He realised the others were looking at him and scowled.

“I felt it,” said Fuzz.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. You felt her panicking. And you turned chickenshit.” Adam turned away. “It’s about time you grew up, Fuzz.” And then he thought: It’s not them. It’s me. Only, I couldn’t feel it because they were there . He didn’t know why he thought it. It didn’t even seem quite right, not really. He only knew that the taste of the place had stayed with him, like an echo but with a feeling instead of sound.

Sash pushed herself up. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m off. You coming, Fuzz?”

It happened quickly. Fuzz nodded and the two of them headed away, threading between the trees. Adam opened his mouth to call after them, some insult, or a question maybe: like, where they were going. Like, what they thought they were doing, just the two of them. Then he closed it again. It didn’t do to care, didn’t do to let people fuck you over. If they wanted to be alone, let them. He wasn’t going to make them think he gave a shit. Besides, he had better things to do. The other two could wait.

Daylight was fading when Adam found himself standing outside the cave once more, but he knew it didn’t matter; it would be dark inside anyway. It was different, being in the woods on his own. He didn’t know if he missed the others. He liked the clean air, the way the trees waved at him and the cave mouth opened as though to swallow him. He wasn’t sure he minded the idea of disappearing into it. He thought of the way his mother had been that morning. She’d been passed out on the sofa, an empty bottle at her side. This time it was gin, not wine. Ordinarily Adam would have been upset, but it gave him the chance to take a couple of tenners from her purse.

Adam had been shopping. Now, he pulled the first item from his bag: a large torch. The weight of it was comforting and he smacked it into his palm a few times. He opened the slot, inserted the batteries he’d bought. Now it was even heavier. He flicked it on and off a few times, watched the beam disappear into the dregs of daylight. He looked towards the cave. There was nothing to wait for. He turned his back on the trees and started walking.

This time, it was easier. The torch highlighted each irregularity in the ground, filling each dip with ink-black wells. They looked almost like footprints and Adam grimaced as he placed his feet into them. When he shone the light on the walls, he saw that there was writing on them. He made out occasional letters; more names, maybe. Then he found an almost complete date: 1971, years ago. The paint was cracked, crumbling away. Adam wondered what the date had meant, why it was important enough for someone to write it here. Someone’s birthday perhaps, or the day a couple met: sealed with a loving kiss. Sash and Fuzz, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Adam scowled.

He stood there, listening to the sound of water dripping onto rock. There was no other noise: no traffic, no voices, no teacher droning a list of facts he was supposed to remember. This time, when he went on, Adam smiled. He reached the chamber and shone his torch around it. The space was indeed roughly circular, and about twice his height. There was writing here too, and in places it was fresher. There were more names and more dates, just like Sash had said. Adam frowned. Why only names? Dates that had once meant something to somebody, and now meant nothing that he could tell?

There was darkness in the centre of the cave. Adam looked into it. He couldn’t make out the wall beyond that part. It must be too far off for his torch to reach, or perhaps there was another tunnel after all. He started to walk round the outside of the cave, tracing the wall with his fingertips. Soon he stood at the opposite side. There was no other tunnel; the wall was solid. Adam looked down at the floor and saw deep wrinkles in it, grooves leading towards the centre of the cave. They went into the dark and were lost to view. Adam shone the light along one of them. He still couldn’t see where it led. He shone it up at the ceiling. Bright lines flashed down, water dripping in the torchlight. He frowned, tried to watch them all the way to the floor. He could not.

Adam didn’t like the dark. He found his heart was thudding, a solid, heavy sound that reminded him he was alive, he was flesh and skin and bone, and could be taken apart quite easily. Could be sliced and bitten and ended.

He realised he couldn’t see the way out now. There should be a faint glow coming from the entrance, but it wasn’t there. Adam shone the torch straight ahead, into the dark. The beam was swallowed up. He heard his own breath, too loud. It sounded like some animal: a bear perhaps, or a wolf. He blinked. It made no difference to what he could see and what he couldn’t.

He shuffled quickly on around the cave wall, and realised he could see the tunnel after all. It was as though something had been blocking his sight. As he went on a few more steps, the whole, roughly circular shape of it came into view.

Adam closed his eyes. He was letting Sasha’s stories get to him. Of course, he hadn’t been able to see the tunnel: the torchlight had spoiled his night vision. If he’d just turned it off, let his eyes adjust, he would have seen it all the time.

Now he stood by the way out and turned back towards the centre of the cave. The darkness was there. There was something wrong with it. Adam frowned. There was one way to prove this was stupid, that Sasha was wrong, and that was to go in. He would go into the dark and banish the thought of the way she’d looked at him when she walked away with Fuzz.

Sash with her smooth, pale tits. Her laugh. Her grin.

Adam still didn’t move. He didn’t like the dark. It looked too solid somehow, especially when he looked at it dead on. Like a roughly circular patch of — something . And there was something else; a feeling of watchfulness, of waiting. Of presence.

Adam shook his head. It was like standing in an old house and telling yourself not to think of ghosts. The moment you did, every shadow was brought to life, every room given breath. It wasn’t that anything was there, not really. “Nothing outside your mind,” he said out loud, and wished he hadn’t. He let out another sound; a hiss of irritation, at himself and this whole stupid place, the way the three of them had parted. It was this place’s fault. He had done everything right, put on the skin he’d needed, the bravado and the toughness that got him through. It was the cave that had fucked everything up.