Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year – Volume One

"Okay," I say. "Let's stop. Everybody sit down. No-one go anywhere. Not even to pee."

We sit. I can just see the rocks and the glimmer of the lake. Now we're so close to leaving it behind for good, I feel a pang of loss. Like it's home we're leaving.

This is the furthest we can go and hope to turn back. But of course we can't. The radiation…

After a while, I switch on the Geiger counter. It ticks and it crackles, but it's not too loud. Not yet. I switch it off again.

One of the girls, one of the older ones-Laura, Laura Rodgers-is crying quietly. I can find nothing to say to her.

Time passes. I switch on the counter again. It screeches in the narrow like a wounded bat. I switch it off. My eyes meet Jean's.

I force myself to stand. "Alright, everybody," I say. "Let's go."

The tunnel is endless.

Yard after yard. It stretches on forever.

A torch gives out. Dead batteries fall to the floor. New ones are pushed into place.

They will not last forever.

We keep walking.

Laura Rodgers keeps crying.

Finally we reach a fork. Left or right? I pick the left. We've gone right enough times now, and look where it's got us.

We've stopped twice. The first time, I waited till the Geiger counter screamed at me to move. The second time, I didn't even switch it on.

I just keep walking, leading the children on. Like a Pied Piper, going into the magic mountain. Hushabye. No trees sprouting candy canes here. My stomach growls. I don't think about it. Something scurries, small, somewhere. I can't see it. A rat.

Food. No. Don't go looking. You'll get lost and you'll never find your way back. Back to what?

I keep walking. And walking. And walking.

Laura Rodgers keeps on crying. It gets harsh, worse. I should tell her to stop, but I can't seem to. All I can do is put one foot in front of the other.

Her breath starts hitching. It's building. To a scream.

Stop her. Calm her down.

But even as I think it, she shrieks.

Yelps, cries of alarm, a struggle, blows.

"No! No!" She screeches, and breaks out of the line and blunders back down the narrow. She's not a big girl, only about fifteen and hardly tall for her age, but she knocks Jean aside like a puppet when she tries to hold Laura back. She runs off, still screaming.

"Laura!" I shout. "

Laura!"

But she's gone. Running back down the narrow towards the cavern. Except of course it won't be there. Still screaming, all the way.

The shrieks and sobs die, echoing into silence. And Laura's gone. We wait for a last screech, the sound of her meeting some final doom, but it doesn't come. She just recedes. Disappears. Is gone. Swallowed up.

The kids are crying. The three little ones, back at the far end with Jean, are almost in hysterics. She holds them tight.

"Everybody stay still!" I shout. I flash the torch, do a quick head count. Everybody here. Except one. Laura Rodgers. The first of us to go.

Me. Jean. And seven kids now.

"Everyone grab on to the person in front of you," I say hoarsely.

And we move on.

We stop again for a rest. I switch on the Geiger counter, remembering this time. A faint crackling murmur. Safe. For now.

We're all tired. And hopeless.

But this has to end somewhere. Doesn't it? There has to be a place where the narrows end.

Yeah. Maybe a blank wall.

An hour-?-later, I switch the counter back on. It's louder. Much louder. Too loud.

"Come on," I say, and stand.

We walk, and walk, and walk.

New narrows everywhere now. Gaping in the walls, beckoning us down them, like sellers in a bazaar.

Come this way. No, this way. No, that. That. The other.

"Shut up!"

"What? Paul?"

God I've spoken aloud. Cracking up. "Nothing," I say. "Sorry."

We keep going. "Rest stop," I gasp. We sit. I do a head count and-

"Jean?"

"What?"

"Someone's missing."

One of the boys. Danny Harper. "Where's Danny?" I say. "Where did he go?"

No-one seems to know.

"Who was behind him?"

A hand goes up. Lisa Fowler. "Where did he go?"

"I don't know, sir. I didn't see. I was just holding on to him. Whoever was in front of me."

"Did you let go? Even for a moment?"

"I… I don't know, sir." But her eyes are downcast.

I glare at Jean. "Didn't you see anything?"

"We're all tired, Paul," she snaps. "Can barely focus on whoever's in front of us. Don't start-"

"For Christ's sake! We've lost another one!"

The shout fades to silence. Pale faces stare at me, angry and frightened.

I can say nothing to them. He must have slipped down one of the narrows. Saw something, or thought he did. Heard something, or thought he did. And now he's gone.

Let's go.

Further on up, the narrow begins to twist and turn. Like we're riding a snake that's realised we're there and is trying to shake us off.

It bends cruelly, sharply, pinching almost too narrow to climb through at all.

And for one boy, it is.

Toby Thwaites. His panicked scream explodes like a bomb. "

Mr Forrester!"

I stumble to a halt. Turn back.

"I'm stuck! I'm stuck!"

Toby, halfway down the line, is wedged solid. Stuck behind him, Jean and the three little ones. Leaving me with the two girls, Lisa Fowler and Jane Routledge.

Jean and I stare at each other, past Toby's shoulder.

We try everything we can to move him, but it's no go.

"Don't leave me," sobs Toby. He's fifteen years old. "Don't leave me."

"We won't, Toby," I promise him. "We won't."

But we all know it's a lie.

So we wait, and eventually he falls asleep.

"What do we do?" whispers Jean.

"Have to try and go around," I say dully. "Meet up again. We can't stay."

No. We have to keep going. Have to try and find a way out. Even though we know now we never will.

Jean reaches through and clasps my hand.

"Good luck," I say. We know we'll never see each other again.

And we don't.

I watch Jean and the kids go back down the narrow, back the way they came, into the dark, and gone.

"Come on," I say to the girls.

The narrow straightens out again soon enough after that. It's done what it set out to do. We all hope we'll be out of earshot before Toby wakes up and starts screaming at us to come back.

We aren't.

Further down, the voices start.

First one is Laura Rodgers. "Mr Forrester? Mr Forrester?" Crying, desperately. "Please.

Please."

We keep walking.

"Help! Help! Hello?

Hello?" I know that voice. It's Jeff Tomlinson.

"Can anyone hear us?" A stripped, hysterical scream: I think it's Mike Rawlins.

"Paul? Paul? Are you there?" It's Jean. I shout her name. She shouts mine. But she only gets further away.

Until she's gone.

The last set of batteries for the last of the torches. I'm stumbling, shuffling. So are Jane and Lisa. We press close, link hands; I lead them on. My left hand holds Lisa's right; her left holds Jane's.

"Listen." It's Jane. Her voice is a croak. "Can you hear it?"

"Hear what?" asks Lisa.

"Water. Listen."

Yes. It's there. Trickling. I realise how swollen my mouth and tongue are. How dry.

"Keep going," I manage.

The trickling seems to get louder and louder.

"Keep g-"

There's suddenly less weight on my left hand. I turn. Lisa stares back at me, then looks round to stare down an empty narrow. A few yards behind us, the sound of water echoes from a hole in the wall.

We go to it. A narrow, extending for maybe five yards, then branching off into three new ones.

"Jane? Jane!"

But there's no reply.