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

“I’ll show you,” he said, and this time it seemed all right to say it out loud.

Adam shone the torchlight down at the floor. It found one of those deep grooves, and he placed his feet on either side of it. He took one step forward, and another. It was easy once he’d started. One after the next. The light moved forward and the dark retreated. When Adam looked into it, though, it seemed to swirl in front of his eyes. Coalescing. Massing. He took another step and the light went out.

Adam caught his breath, started back the way he’d come. He couldn’t stop himself. He didn’t think about where he was putting his feet, slipped into that groove in the floor, caught himself from falling. He had to get away; had to put some space between him and the dark before he could turn his back on it. When he’d gone far enough he turned and ran, not stopping to take out his lighter. Adam didn’t stop running until he was out of the cave mouth and into the trees, turning again so that the cave was no longer behind him. He leaned against a tree trunk, panting, hands on his knees. He let his breath come quick and fast. Then he started to laugh.

The torch was still in his hand and he shook it. The batteries rattled in their compartment. Duff batteries: of course they were. That was all there was to it, just his sodding luck. He laughed again. He turned the torch over in his hands, flicked the switch. His eyes shut involuntarily as bright light flooded his face.

“Hey: Fuzz, Sash.” They stood by the tree, a sorry thing that had been shorn of its lower branches. The tree stood in the centre of the school yard and its branches had been cut off to stop kids from swinging on them.

Sash scraped her foot across the concrete, staring at it fixedly. It was Fuzz who said, “All right?”

“I’m going back to the cave.” Adam said the words casually then wished he hadn’t. He should have made it a boast, one they’d have to rise to. Now Sash looked away, staring at the school as though she longed to be inside.

“Tonight. I’ve got a torch. You coming? It’ll be a laugh.” Adam stuck his hands in his pockets, straightened his back.

After a moment, Fuzz shook his head. “Sash is coming to ours,” he said. He made a movement, a jerk of his arm as though he’d been going to reach for her.

“You’re scared,” Adam tried. “Chickenshit.”

“All right,” said Fuzz. He wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “We’re chickenshit. Come on, Sash. We need to get to French.”

She nodded. Then she met Adam’s eye. “I’m not going back,” she said.

Adam looked at her for a moment. He remembered the way she’d taken off her top. The way he’d thought it meant something: the way he’d looked at her and Fuzz hadn’t. Now he realised that maybe it did.

But Fuzz was already moving. He took Sash’s arm, kept hold of it as he led her away. As he led. Fuzz .

Adam scowled after them. If they chose not to be a part of this, fair enough. It was something special he had found, that he had led them to. If they turned their back on it. he spat. Their loss.

It’s not them. It’s me .

He turned and started walking towards the road. If the others weren’t coming, there was no need for him to wait. No need to wait, at all.

The mouth of the cave looked smaller than Adam remembered. It didn’t look scary, or forbidding, or welcoming. It didn’t look like anything special. It just looked like what it was, an unexciting cave in an unexciting wood, clinging to the edge of an unexciting town. Adam thought of the first time they’d come here, the three of them laughing, hurrying into the cave so that Sash could light her cigarette. No, not laughing.

He shook his head. The others had no part in this. The dark was for him, and him alone. He was supposed to go inside. He knew the cave had drawn him back: he just didn’t know why.

He got the torch from his bag and it lit when he flicked the switch. He started walking.

The next time Adam looked about, he was in the chamber. He blinked. He didn’t remember the tunnel, didn’t remember if the footing had been damp or dry, whether he had slipped. It was nothing; just a blank. Like the space he saw in front of him.

The dark was there. Adam looked into it, and it seemed to him that the dark looked back. Adam listened. He felt he should be able to hear something, but there was only a faint silvering on the edge of hearing; something that could have been the blood in his veins or the wind outside or the sound the dark made.

Adam put down the torch and his bag, rummaged through what was inside. More exercise books, one with the blank pages missing. He couldn’t remember which went with which subject, which classroom, which teacher. It didn’t matter. This time he tore all the pages out, crumpled some so that they would catch. He got his cigarette lighter and set it to the paper, used another book to bat the flame towards the middle of the cave.

It fluttered to the ground and went out. It hadn’t gone far enough. Adam knew this because he could still see a faint glow where the paper smouldered.

This time he went closer before he flung the fire into the dark. Again, it went out. This time the change was so sudden Adam blinked. One moment the paper was there; the next it was not. It had fallen further in this time. There was nothing left to see, not a single smouldering page. The dark had taken it.

What was it Sash had said? They’d send people in. Sometimes they came out, and sometimes they didn’t .

Adam stood there. He thought about his mother, waiting back home. No, not waiting. Drinking. His mother’s mouth to the bottle as though she was sucking in life. His father at the television, taking in its babble with greedy eyes.

Sometimes they didn’t .

Adam’s heart beat faster. It was a small, captured thing between his ribs. He wondered what would happen to it if he went into the dark; whether it would end up somewhere new, or if it would burst. He took a step forward, hadn’t known he was going to. And he realised he could see something in the dark, after all: something that was only for him. It was waiting. Adam didn’t close his eyes. As he walked into the dark, he knew it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference.

Adam stepped towards the edge of the cavern. The torch had gone out, but he could see everything. It was all so bright, now. He swept up the torch and his bag then let them fall again. He didn’t need them any longer. He smiled. The dark had filled him. There were no longer any questions, any worries. He was full, entirely full; no room left for different skins, different faces. That was behind him now. The dark had swallowed him, making him whole. Making Adam truly himself.

He looked around and saw the names written on the walls. He could see them clearly, even the ones where no ink remained. Adam smiled: almost laughed. The words he had heard on his first visit echoed through him. He had been right after all: it’s not me. It’s them .

He had expected to find his name written here, but it was not. These were not the names of the chosen, the initiated, the others like him. These were the names of the reluctant, of all those who had looked into the dark and turned away, denied its name. They were the ones who disappeared: the unwilling. The ones who had to be forced, to be made to see. Like Sasha and Fuzz. So that they were made a part of it; part of the dark. The ones who needed to be led.

Adam leaned into the wall, running his hands over its roughness. He could sense that he was close. He searched until he found the right place. There was a sharp jut of rock and he cut his palm against it, wiped the blood onto his fingers. He glanced towards the centre of the cave. He knew it was different now; the dark wasn’t there anymore, not really. Adam wasn’t worried. He carried it inside him, and when he needed it, it would be there. He turned back to the wall, could see every dip and wrinkle in the rock. He stared at it, eyes wide and bulging. And he smiled as he smeared the blood across it; the pact-blood that acknowledged what he was going to do. Acknowledged it and let it in as he wrote their names.