Stephen (ed.) - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18

He lifted his hand toward it, looked at the sweat stain it left in the shape of a hand on the table and lowered it again.

“Mabel?” he called in a raspy, whispery voice. The sound of fanning had stopped and when George Meadows made the extreme effort to turn his head he saw that his wife’s house dress looked as if it was melting, with her in it, into the sofa. Her right hand, unmoving, still gripped her magazine and her eyes held a fixed, glazed look. Her chest barely moved up and down.

“Oh, Lord . . .” he breathed, closing his eyes, getting the last word in though she hadn’t said anything. “Gettin’ hotter still . . .”

Three twelve-year-old boys stood in front of a cave opening buttressed with rotting timbers. With them was Monk’s rusting Radio Flyer, bursting like a Conestoga wagon with their supplies: the battery radio, two new-batteried flashlights (one of them worked); three boxes of cereal; six comic books, no doubles; a large thermos of hot ice tea; four cans of warm cream soda; a length of clothesline pilfered from Lem’s mother’s backyard; a mousetrap, over which they had bantered incessantly (“What if we meet up with rats?” Lem debated; “Why not a gorilla?” Shep shot back; in the end Shep got tired of the argument and threw it on the pile), a B-B gun, a kitchen knife with a broken handle, a crucifix, a Bible. The last two had been added by Shep, because, he said, “We’re heading down there ,” and would listen to no argument.

They headed in.

It was dim, and, compared to outside, almost cool in the cave. But as they moved farther in it got even dimmer and hot and stuffy. Their bodies were covered with sweat, but they didn’t notice. There was a twist to the left, and then a climb that disappointed them, and then a suddenly drop which brought them real darkness and a halt.

Lem, who was pulling the wagon, rummaged through the pile and pulled out the bad flashlight, and then the good one, which he handed to Shep.

Shep switched it on and played the light over their faces.

“You look scared,” he said.

“Can we stop here for the night?” Lem asked.

Shep consulted his watch with the light beam. “It’s two in the afternoon!”

Behind them, they saw how steeply the floor had dropped; there was a circle of light leading out that looked hot and far away.

“I’m hungry,” Monk said.

“Later,” Shep answered, and turned the flashlight beam ahead of them.

There was darkness, and a steep descent, and Monk and Lem followed as the beam pointed down into it.

After twenty minutes that seemed like a day, the black wagon handle slipped out of Lem’s sweaty hand and the wagon clattered past him.

“Look out!” he called, and Monk and Shep jumped aside as the wagon roared down the steep incline ahead of them.

They heard it rattle off into the bowels of the earth, then they heard nothing.

“Why did you tell us to get out of the way?” Shep asked angrily. “We could have stopped it!”

“We’ll catch up to it,” Monk shot back.

“Sorry . . .” Lem said.

“No matter. Monk’s right.” The flashlight beam pointed ahead, and down they went.

Two real hours went by. Lem was thirsty, and Monk wanted to stop, but Shep kept going. If anything it was hotter than above now, and Lem finally panted timidly, “You think we’re almost . . . there?”

“You mean Hell ?” Shep replied, and then added, “If we are, we don’t have the crucifix anymore to protect us. It’s in the wagon.”

Monk snorted, and Shep spun angrily toward him with the flashlight, which at that exact moment went out.

“ Ohhh ,” Lem mewled.

“Be quiet,” Shep ordered, “it’s just stuck.” They heard him shaking the flashlight in the dark, but the beam didn’t come on.

“Maybe the cover’s loose—”

There was the rattle of loosened metal, a twang , and they heard flashlight parts hitting the floor of the cave.

“Uh oh,” Monk said.

“Help me find them—” Shep ordered, but now there was a note of desperation in his voice.

“I hear rats!” Lem cried, and they all went silent.

Something was skittering in the dark ahead of them.

“Get down and help me find the parts!” Shep said, and for a few minutes there was only the sound of frightened breathing and the pat and slide of hands on the floor of the cave.

“I’ve got the lens!” Shep cried suddenly.

“And here’s the reflector!” Monk added.

“What if there are rats on the floor !” Lem said, but Shep ignored him.

“All we need is the cover, and one of the batteries. The other one is still in the body.”

“I’ve got the battery!” Monk exulted a moment later.

“I can’t find the cover!” Shep said desperately.

“I’m telling you there are rats!” Lem whimpered.

“I can’t find the cover either!” Monk.

There was fumbling in the dark, heavy breathing.

A bolt of light blinded them, went out, blinded them.

“I don’t need the cover – I’ll hold it on,” Shep said.

He pointed the flashlight, clutched together by the pressure of his hand, at his friends, Monk on the cave floor, still probing, Lem with his back against the wall, eyes closed.

The beam shot to the floor, moved crazily this way and that, then froze on a round red piece of plastic.

“The cover!” Monk yelled, and pounced on it.

“Give it to me!” Shep said.

There was more fumbling, darkness, then bright light again.

They stood huffing and puffing at their exertion.

Their breaths quieted.

The scrabbling sound was still ahead of them.

“ Rats! ” Lem cried, and then let out a wail.

The flashlight beam swung down and ahead of them, and caught the crashed remains of the red wagon on its side, a chewed-open box of cereal, and the long fat grey-brown length of a rat as it put its whiskered, sniffing nose into the mouse trap.

There was a loud snap! which made the light beam shiver, and then, in the darkness behind Shep, he heard Lem laugh nervously and say, “See?”

They stopped two hours later for the night. By Shep’s watch it was ten o’clock. The flashlight had gone out again, and this time it was the batteries but Shep took the batteries from the other unworking one. They were tired and hungry, thirsty and hot. The wagon was serviceable but now made a loud squeak with each turn of the front wheels. The handle had been bent, but Lem forced it back into shape. They’d found everything but one can of pop, which Monk promptly stepped on when they set out. He smelled like cream soda, and his friends didn’t let him forget it.

“We’ll need the batteries for tomorrow,” Shep said solemnly. He had found a flat wide place to stop, a kind of hitch in the slope. Ahead of them was only darkness.

It was hot and close and sticky, and they felt a vague heat drifting up at them from below.

“What happens when the batteries run out?” Lem asked.

“We’ll have to conserve them,” Shep said.

“But what happens—?”

“Be quiet,” Shep said, at the same moment Monk snapped, “Shut up, Lem.”

They ate in darkness, and drank warm soda and un-iced tea, and listened, but there was nothing to hear. No rats, no nearby roasting fires, no dripping water, no sound of any kind. Just the silent sound of heat getting hotter.

“I hope we’re close,” Lem said. “I want to go home.”

“Home to what?” Shep answered. “If we don’t find something down here . . .”

The rest went unsaid.

They sat in a circle, and moved closer, the flashlight in the midst of them like a doused campfire.

Shep laughed and said, “We never finished talking about Angle Bernstein, did we?”