The seal’s effect on him was a mystery unto itself. Upon its discovery, the mere fact of its existence made Sean restless, agitating him like an opiate bubbling through his bloodstream. And only when the first team ventured down that stairwell – when the task of opening it had finally begun – did his migraines lift like a storm cloud, leaving him to bask amidst the clearest skies of thought. No pain. No distractions. No illusory voice to toy with his temperament.
He could finally brush aside those worries that he’d brooded over in secret: the fearful possibility that some illness of the mind was responsible. Sean had already self-diagnosed the same monomaniacal tendencies as his father before him, but this was more akin to some sudden strain of madness – a cruel crumbling of his mental faculties with the end so close at hand. He’d feared that he had contracted a virus from within the cavern, some primordial parasite that had seeded itself inside his skull. The horrible thought even occurred to him that it had been within his psyche all along – a disease he’d inherited through the Kilmartin blood. For what if his father had suffered the same? Could that explain why he’d skulked off like an old cat – to die alone if only to preserve his legacy as a man of sound and stable mind?
But now, standing again amidst the white-lit vastness of the main chamber, admiring the colossus that was his shadow, Sean felt like a giant himself as he unclipped his belt and left the harness dangling behind him like the last loose thread of the old man’s legacy.
‘You can take it back up for Ash now,’ he spoke into his radio.
‘Roger that,’ Ian replied, cheerier than Sean had ever heard him. ‘I’ll have her down to you soon as I can.’
Sean walked towards where Ash’s students had crowded around her latest discovery – another passage in an underground kingdom that was expanding by the hour. There were a few who eyed him apprehensively, doubting the kindness of his character in light of how he’d handled the incident with Ellie. But given the unprecedented heights that his humour had soared to, Sean decided that now was as good a time as any to make his reparations.
‘Amazing work, everyone,’ he said, expressing his praise with some gentle applause.
Some smiled, but none were polite enough to speak. Instead they’d silently parted like a Red Sea of inadequacies, revealing a sizeable fissure in the wall; one certainly wide enough for a body to pass through. But Sean was content to wait for Ash, taking care not to tear off the bandages before all wounds in their communion had healed.
‘Wow,’ he added, shaking his head in mock disbelief, ‘you have been busy, haven’t you? Does anyone have any idea as to what might be in there?’
Sean respected their opinions about as much as their work ethic, and he wasn’t the least bit surprised when they upheld their pact of silence. Academia’s future truly was doomed. But there was one girl who’d stood apart from the rest, her eyes glancing between the etchings above the opening and a notepad that she was fervidly scribbling in. Sean recognised her pink jacket from the night before. If only to quell the flood of bad blood rising against him, he ambled over to her, feigning a casualness that couldn’t have come across any more staged.
‘Hello,’ he said, leaning into her line of sight.
‘Oh,’ she replied surprisedly, snapping her pad shut, ‘hi, Sean. Sorry, I was away with the fairies there.’
He stood in beside her, chuckling to himself at the reference. It was unlikely she knew how her throwaway quip so conspired with the truth.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ he said, examining the Ogham above the doorway.
It was noticeably incongruent with the writings elsewhere. The lines were cruder and less pronounced, as though this particular section had been added as an afterthought or in great haste. If only he’d had the foresight to learn how to read it for himself. This was his discovery after all, and yet that particular facet of it belonged only to Ash.
The girl nodded, holding the notebook to her chest. ‘It really is.’
‘What’s your name?’ Sean asked. ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’
‘Caitriona,’ she replied sheepishly, ‘but everyone calls me Cat.’
Owing to his social naïveté, he wasn’t sure if this was an invitation for him to cull the letters in her name or not.
‘What year are you in?’ he asked.
‘I’m doing my master’s.’
‘Ah, wonderful,’ Sean said, accidently overselling his interest. ‘Any thoughts as to what you’ll be writing your thesis on? It’s not a decision to be taken lightly.’
‘Oh, I already know,’ she replied. ‘I’m doing it on the evolution of ancient languages actually. That’s why I’ve been recording as much of this as I can. I still can’t believe it. I mean, if I’d already finished my thesis before you found this place, it would be totally obsolete.’
By sheer chance, Sean had found the only bright spark on a dig full of damp wicks. Caitriona spoke with an enthusiasm that reminded him of his younger self, when he’d bring some new find to his father’s attention, speaking faster than he could write the words across his mind. Her eyes were the most golden brown he’d ever seen, brandishing every colour of autumn’s making. And the warmth to her sallow skin made those around her appear almost sickly in comparison.
‘You have your work cut out for you here,’ Sean remarked, lifting his gaze to highlight the enormity of her undertaking. ‘Have you had much luck with it so far?’
‘Do you want me to translate it for you?’
‘If you can,’ he replied, concealing his doubts in the girl’s ability. ‘I know it took Ash long enough to wrap her head around it.’
‘Really?’ Caitriona asked. ‘I thought she would have translated all of this on the spot for you.’
‘We’re not all specialists in ancient languages like you now, are we?’ he said with a smirk. ‘So come on, enlighten me, what does it say above our latest doorway here?’
‘Do not open,’ she replied.
‘Excuse me?’
‘That’s what it says,’ Caitriona said, peeling open her notepad and holding it up for Sean to examine. ‘Do not open, see! It’s about as accurate a translation as I can put into English. The Ogham that I’ve studied is nearly identical to it, with a few differences, of course. But once you understand the alphabet, it’s not that difficult really.’
‘Do not open,’ Sean repeated, his curiosity enchanted all the more by the prospect of entering somewhere forbidden.
‘There’s more too,’ she said excitedly, ‘it also says do not listen. Though it might be do not listen to them. And then, if you look there,’ she added, pointing ahead to a series of lines so lightly etched that they’d all but faded to nothing, ‘that’s the end of that section.’
‘And what does it say?’
The girl glanced down at her translation before looking Sean directly in the eye. ‘Not human.’
‘Really?’ he said as he leaned down for a closer look at her notebook.
It was chock-full of transcriptions with barely a line left empty. He reached over and leafed back a few pages, and there were more.
‘Did you translate all of—’
‘Thanks, Ian,’ Ash’s voice sounded over the radio. ‘I’ll let you know if we need anything.’
Sean looked over to see the woman pacing towards him. She’d discarded her coat for a black gilet and long-sleeved sweater. Her hair was pinned back tight and the sight of her – illumed in that heavenly white light – stole whatever thought was on his mind.
‘Okay,’ she said, smiling broadly as she stared past Sean to the gap in the wall, ‘looks like we found ourselves yet another astonishing discovery.’
Sean laughed. ‘Are we calling them all that now?’
‘Hey,’ she said, raising her hands defensively, ‘I’m just repeating what the press are saying. And I wouldn’t be surprised if a whole convoy of them arrived here tomorrow. The word’s finally gotten out that we’re changing history down here. Come on,’ she added with a wink that Sean would have followed to his grave, ‘let’s see what we got.’
Those many eyes that had ogled Sean like an uninvited guest now gleamed with affection as Ash strode between them. And he knew that had his father been alive, the man’s charming ways would have been met with similar adoration. She leaned into the crevice, guiding her torch around its bowels, assessing the risk as Sean discreetly took in the shapeliness of her legs.
‘It looks relatively stable from here,’ she said, holding a hand over her nose as she glanced back at him. ‘That smell isn’t what I was expecting. But I reckon we can go a little deeper.’
‘Right behind you,’ he replied, twisting on his torchlight.
Ash crept inside, manoeuvring her body around the juts protruding out like broken bones neath a stony skin. The passage was tight; cut just wide enough to accommodate a single body, and a slender one at that. It was highly possible – despite their colourful presumptions – that it was in fact no more than a crack in the wall. But, trailing his light behind Ash’s legs, the floor seemed relatively flat, its stones smoothed down by the past flood of ancient feet. There was nothing else to see – only a darkness that billowed around his torch like a black fog.
‘It opens out, I think,’ Ash whispered back, the echo of her voice scattering around him.
The air had grown more and more feculent with each step he’d taken, but the promise of more space to breathe came as a relief regardless. After five more metres or so they shuffled into a small circular cavern where three more tunnels branched off ahead of them, deeper and somehow even darker than the one they’d just squeezed through.
‘Shit,’ Sean said, holding a hand over his mouth and nose, ‘this complicates things.’
He was well acquainted with Ash’s methodology by now. She’d want to examine all three passages before anyone explored an inch further, delaying the excavation by hours if not days. But the foul taste down there did wonders to curb Sean’s disappointment. He was secretly glad to be given any excuse to return to the airiness of the main chamber.
‘Wait here,’ Ash said. ‘I’ll go and draft some recruits.’
The woman was already backtracking to where the silhouettes of a few curious heads were peering through the fissure. Sean was beginning to regret volunteering for this particular survey, but it was too late to weasel out now, especially with all the crew watching. Their opinions of him were derisive enough without adding cowardice to his card.
‘I need two teams of two people,’ he heard Ash say. ‘It’s going to be tight down there and it’s going to be dark, so anyone with an aversion to cramped spaces should stay back here. Now isn’t the time to take any stupid risks.’
The air was fat and putrid, and so vile that Sean could taste it clawing down his throat. His torch – powerful as it was – couldn’t disturb the depths of any of the three tunnels. But it was then, as he drew its light idly across the walls, that he noticed the deep gashes in their stone. He ran his fingers over them, offering those ancient scars a tender touch after centuries of neglect.
‘And aside from your torch, you’re to bring a pen and notebook or something.’ Ash was still administering orders outside. ‘I need you to map out the route you take, okay? This is important. Radios aren’t going to work down there and I need you to be able to find your way back out again.’
The markings might have been the work of a bear. They were native to Ireland up until two and a half thousand years ago, and they’d certainly felt at home in the Burren; discovered bones were proof of that. But a beast of such size couldn’t have possibly infiltrated the main chamber, and it certainly hadn’t squeezed through that narrow passageway to reach where Sean stood now.
‘And for the love of God,’ Ash was heard to say, raising her voice, ‘be careful down there. Don’t take a step without making sure that it’s safe first. We haven’t come this far to lose any of you now, though that being said it’d be an easy way to get us on the six o’clock news.’
A flurry of laughter echoed down the corridor like a cloud of bats. Ash was full of surprises that day. It’d been easier for her to stand rigidly by her better judgement during those early days of discovery, when their cavern was no more than a hollow under their feet and the true extent of its historical significance had yet to shatter all expectations.
She was slinking her way back towards him, tailed by the four students so lucky as to create a memory that they’d regale the world with for the rest of their lives.
‘We have three tunnels,’ Ash said to them, still issuing her last instructions. ‘Sean and I are going down the centre, which means you can decide amongst yourselves who wants left and who wants right.’
Sean took a step back as they funnelled into the open space, body to body, cramped in too close for comfort.
‘What is that?’ one of them asked, expelling a groan.
Sean couldn’t help but chuckle. ‘Oh, Ash didn’t tell you? Free drinks for anyone who finds out what that smell is and puts a stop to it.’
Nervous giggling rang around the stone before rippling down the three stony throats waiting to consume them. A restless curiosity lured Sean’s gaze back to those long cuts in the wall. There was no point in drawing anyone’s attention to them just yet, not until their courage – however counterfeit it may have been – had been put to good use. If their gritted teeth and wide eyes were any indication, the abysmal dark of their respective passages now presented a threat they’d underestimated amidst the camaraderie of the main chamber.
‘Do you want to lead the way?’ Ash asked, but she must have read the answer in Sean’s expression – there was no chance in hell that he was taking point on this one.
‘Ladies first,’ Sean replied, gallantly guiding her ahead of him.
She looked to the two teams flanking them on either side. ‘Best of luck down there. And remember, take it slow. We honestly have no idea what we’re walking into. And if any of you start feeling a bit, you know, uncomfortable, then I want you to get out immediately.’
Sean fastened his fingers around the torch, trying to visualise how deep the tunnel could possibly go, but his imagination proved just as blind.
‘Are you ready for this?’ Ash said to him.
He nodded but couldn’t find the words to lie to her.
Sean stayed his light on her back, keeping his toes inches from her heels as they padded down a soft decline beyond the breach. The low ceiling was suffocating to tread beneath, its grooves lapping up their torchlight in rolls of shadow, making that most cadaverous of spaces feel all too alive. More scratches caught his eye. But he was too absorbed in the action of each breath to consider mentioning them. And besides, if he’d seen them, then Ash must have too.
How long had it been, Sean wondered, since last this silence had been disturbed? He tried to block out the reality of where they were, but all he could picture was a sideways view of the Burren, like a diagram in one of those geography textbooks he’d had as a child, showing the layers of earth sliced open like a piece of cake, with him trapped in the very base of it. He couldn’t think of a worse death in that moment: quenched out of existence under an avalanche of stone. Another Kilmartin lost without a body to bury by his mother’s side.
‘Looks like we got something,’ Ash said, startling Sean back to the moment.
‘What is it?’ he whispered up to her.
She stopped in front of him. Sean watched as her torchlight panned the wall to their right. There he saw the chiselled frame of another doorway. She looked back to him, her lips quivering in a smile as she stepped inside.
Dusty particles misted around their torches as both beams felt around the room’s four walls. Its size was not dissimilar to the tent, and the ceiling was high enough for Sean to finally straighten his shoulders. Cubbyholes had been cut into the long wall facing them. And in the centre there was a table, rectangular in its design and assembled from shards likely cracked from the walls enclosing it. Everything was stone. Its architects hadn’t wasted a single rock. There were stools too – as artfully constructed as the table – and a great urn that must have held a fire bold enough to spill gold across every shadow. Unbelievable as it was eerie, this dismally dark space was once a room. It had housed people and a purpose for being. There had been warmth here, and light, and somehow – within the uncharted depths of the Burren – there’d been life.
‘Sean,’ Ash whispered, her light trembling as it illumed the far corner, ‘look.’
He crept over to her side and there laid his eyes on the bones. Unstirred by a breath of air since that doorway was sealed, their form and shape remained mostly intact, though who they were had long been forgotten. It was so sadly symbolic of mankind’s own mortality. Time did more than kill. It had the power to erase people out of existence entirely. The happiness, the sorrow – the highs and lows of a life seen through to its end – all of it had been reduced to this: a pile of dust and bone heaped into the darkest corner. Sean’s torchlight caught the oval shard of a skull with a black hole for a socket; it was startling to imagine what its eye had once seen, a world so divorced from the present and yet somehow just as cruel. Around it were strewn the broken, fleshless bodies of what must have been half a dozen people, though given their decay there was no way of truly telling without the magic of modern science.
‘There’s copper plating too,’ Ash said, ‘and weapons. Do you seen them?’
He did, with the aid of knowing what to search for. They were browned and decrepit as old earthenware but remained distinguishable amongst the pile – sharp edges and flat lines: the work of a smith whose name and life had, like the others, been worn out of history by time’s cold tide.
‘Why would they all be in the corner?’ Sean asked. ‘It’s not a tomb. It looks more like a communal space, like a dining room.’
He heard Ash’s parched throat swallow in the silence. ‘It looks as if they were trapped.’
‘Trapped?’ he repeated, so loudly that the word rolled out the door. ‘Trapped by what?’
Her torchlight scanned around them for an answer, flashing across more of those same scratches that had criss-crossed the length of the passageway. Sean grabbed Ash’s arm and held it steady.
‘Look,’ he whispered sharply, ‘they’re all over the walls. What do you think could have caused them?’
Ash edged closer, her foot crunching over what must have been more bone. She touched a fingertip to one of the many gouges, always in multiples of four or five, like the handiwork of some ferocious beast.
‘It must be from whatever tools they used to create this place,’ she replied. ‘Or maybe it’s a design. This could be art for all we know, Sean.’
‘But look at it,’ he said, his voice ricocheting against the walls, ‘and tell me that doesn’t look like it was done by the claws of a bear or something.’
Ash tilted her head, considering the notion. ‘I reckon it’s still a tool. The Milesians might have attached something onto their fingers for digging into the stone. All I know is that no bear did this. Think about it, Sean, there aren’t nails in the world strong enough to leave cuts this deep.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
He heard her giggle as she nudged into him. ‘Don’t worry, even if some undiscovered species of super bear is responsible, it’s long dead by now. Come on, let’s keep moving. It can’t be good for us inhaling too much of this air.’
Ash resumed her course deeper into the tunnel. Again, Sean kept close as he could without breathing down her neck. He’d have happily turned around there and then, but he knew that she would have gone on without him. And the mere thought of being alone down there was unbearable.
‘What do you think this place is?’ he asked, if only to hear her voice.
‘If I had to guess,’ Ash replied, turning her head slightly to talk back to him, ‘I’d say it was a stronghold – somewhere to hide out and be safe – but I’ve never seen anything like it. The sheer amount of time and manpower it would have taken to build is incomprehensible.’
Sean grunted to clear his throat. ‘But why not build a stronghold above ground? This seems like a lot of work for such a shitty way of living. Like, why would anyone opt to stay inside the Burren when there were open fields and woodlands that they could have colonised instead?’
‘I guess it depends on who they were hiding from,’ Ash said.
The questions were in full bloom now, and Sean knew that however many years he’d left, they would all be dedicated to making sense of this one.
‘Hold up,’ Ash whispered, skidding her feet to a standstill. ‘We’ve got another door up ahead.’
If the woman’s torchlight was any guide, this one was on the opposite side to the last.
‘Let’s see what we got,’ she said as her body was immersed in the darkness.
This room was smaller and – judging by those first pans of light – bereft of any contents. Its walls held the same carven shelves as the one before it and more stone debris was strewn across its floor.
‘It’s empty,’ Sean whispered, guiding his torch across the ceiling, searching for anything he might have missed.
‘Sleeping quarters, maybe?’ Ash suggested. ‘Or it could have been a storage room. Look here.’ She drew his attention to a pit in the stone shelf. ‘It’s been scorched black. This is where they would have kept a fire alive for light.’
Sean disbelieved that anyone could have survived like this – relying exclusively on firelight to find their way.
‘Let’s go,’ Ash said, passing back into the tunnel. ‘There’s nothing to see here.’
Before following her out, Sean flitted his light around the room one last time. As he’d come to expect, its walls carried the same scratches as elsewhere. If an animal were responsible, then it had travelled that passage as they were doing now, visiting every chamber along the way. By the time he’d peered around the door, Ash’s torchlight could be seen flickering from within another room up ahead, on the right side this time. Before he could reach her, the woman stepped back out, shaking her head in disappointment.
‘It’s just like the last one,’ she said. ‘Four walls and nothing else. I think I was right earlier; these rooms were probably where they’d slept. Maybe one room per family or, who knows.’
Sean poked his light further up the tunnel. ‘How far do you think it goes?’
‘Impossible to tell,’ Ash replied, ‘but we should get some air soon. This passage system looks like it’s all living quarters. Hopefully the other teams have gone as deep as we have. There has to be more down here. How about we do a quick scout up ahead before we leave.’
‘Okay, if you want,’ Sean replied, even though she’d just casually dashed his hopes of leaving in that very second.
‘I’ll take the left side and you take the right,’ she said, turning to walk away.
‘Wait, what?’ he snapped. ‘You want us to split up?’
‘We’re not splitting up. We’re walking down the same chute, but if there is anything else worth finding, we’ll find it a whole lot faster if we take a side each. Like I said, we can’t stay down here much longer.’
Sean would have been well within his rights to put his foot down and call it a day.
‘Let’s go so,’ he said reluctantly, ‘but stay close together.’
Ash now moved at a pace more resembling a light jog. Breaths were short and loud, and the effect of their torches flashing about them further heightened that sense of celerity. Sean was running in the exact opposite direction of where he’d wanted to go, but still he trusted Ash’s judgement.
‘Here’s one,’ she shouted back to him as she ducked into an opening on the left. ‘You keep going and I’ll catch up to you.’
‘Okay,’ he replied, staggering onward, facing the darkness alone for the first time.
It deceived his eyes into imagining that there was someone – or something – forever just out of his light’s reach, running ahead of him, mimicking Sean’s steps so perfectly as to blend within their echo. It was all in his mind, of course. But such fears grew so wild and swiftly that even the sharpest blade of rationality couldn’t prune them back. The walls went on and on until eventually he saw another door incoming on his right side. Sean stopped beside it, gasping and choking on air that now felt too dense to swallow. He looked back and saw Ash’s torchlight behind him.
‘Right, my turn,’ he croaked as he crept inside.
He flashed his light across the walls, eager not to tarry long in case Ash should get too far ahead of him. They were the same as those they’d already examined, chiselled with such phenomenal precision that it almost resembled a modern room with its long line of recessed shelves. But lowering his beam to the floor revealed that which tripped Sean back a step. One whole side of the chamber was scattered with the withered remnants of more weapons – spears and shields by the looks of it, all propped around the crumbled bones of those who’d wielded them in their final moments. But it was the skeleton in the room’s centre that caused the torch to almost slip through his fingers. It hadn’t decayed to the same degree as the others and was splayed across the floor with a spear impaled through the face of its skull. And yet that wasn’t the most chilling aspect of it. Its limbs were impossibly long; both arms and legs had bones twice the length of the tallest man. Anatomically, it was neither human nor any creature that Sean knew to exist. He drew his torchlight to the thing’s hands, and there he saw the frightful length of its fingers and the claws protruding from each one.
Ash hurried past the doorway. He wished he’d collared her to share his find, but he was still assembling his own thoughts on what lay in front of him. Its skull had cracked open from the impact, leaving no clue as to its species. And then the most wondrous epiphany alighted his mind, like a ray of sunshine searing through the darkness. How could he – of all people – have failed to see it. These were the skeletal remains of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Incredible as it may have been, this was the only explanation that made sense. The chamber was suddenly alive with his own giddy laughter – chanting around him in a room full of echoes – and he gripped his torch like a trophy. He’d discovered more than just their writings. This was the body of an actual god.
Sean dashed back to the tunnel, looking to where Ash had skittered off to. But there was neither sight nor sound of her. She must have entered another chamber that she’d found, and yet he couldn’t detect the faintest trace of light up ahead. The tiniest spark surely would have burned like a bonfire in such darkness.
‘Ash!’ he called out, listening as the word travelled down the corridor.
Sean took a cautious step forward. How far could she have possibly gone? He stopped. There was something there. In the darkness, there was light. He wiped the clamminess from his eyes and squinted down toward it, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. There were two of them – like crystals reflecting his light – but they were just beyond the torch’s reach.
‘Ash,’ he whispered, ‘is that you?’
No reply disturbed the stillness.
And then, all of a sudden, the realisation knocked the last ounce of air out of his lungs and froze Sean to the spot, leaving the torch quivering in his hand, too terrified to let that darkness fall between him and the eyes now watching him.
It wasn’t Ash.
It wasn’t even human.
In a panic, he spun on his heel to flee but cracked his shoulder off the wall, the shock of which sent the torch fumbling from his hand. It hit the ground hard by his feet and its light was lost. A short scream escaped his lips as the darkness devoured him. He collapsed to his knees and swiped both hands around the floor, suffering through the spine-chilling scramble of feet behind him and the scrape of their claws etching fresh notches in the stone. No nightmare could compare to the horror that seized him in that moment.
His fingers finally felt the torch. He hammered it with the base of his fist until it flickered back to life. The relief hit him like a drug. Life or death – light or dark; there was nothing in between. He shone it back down the corridor. But where those eyes had haunted its darkness, there was only an unnerving emptiness and the hollow boom of his every breath. That was until he hearkened a scream in the distance; it sounded miles from where Sean knelt trembling. It was one of the students. And then there was a second voice, sharing in the same terror, crying the same torturous lament. Whatever had taken Ash must have tracked down the others – all now doomed to die amidst the dark of their discovery.
There was nothing else Sean could do but run for the sake of saving his own life. The screams had been silenced. There was still another team out there, somewhere, but it was only a matter of time before those eyes fell upon them too. His throat was too dry to catch a breath as he threw his legs back through the passage. He was choking. He was dying. He had to stop. But he couldn’t. He had lost track of how many doors he’d passed. Two? Three? How far had Ash taken him before he’d lost her?
Sean suddenly tripped into the cavern where the three tunnels converged. He’d hoped to see someone awaiting him at the fissure’s end, but there was no one. He had never felt so alone nor so abandoned in all his life as he awaited some ghastly hand to drag him back into the abyss. But step by agonising step he crept his way closer to the end, until his body crashed like a shipwreck into the open.
The lights blinded his eyes as he groped across the floor, falling twice before finding his feet. Through a teary film of sweat and dirt, he glimpsed someone running to his aid. Other bodies were shifting in his periphery too – the next group who’d been awaiting their turn at the seal. Sean faltered toward them, gasping as one who’d just broken above a wild, unruly ocean within an inch of his life.
‘Who has a radio?’ he shouted between laboured breaths, his hand outstretched. ‘Someone give me a fucking radio now!’
He glanced back to the rift in the wall as he snatched one away from them – where the fearful musings of his mind imagined those spectral eyes watching him from the darkness. All that rubble cast about the floor was of no use anymore. The opening had been meticulously sealed to keep that fucking thing detained, and Ash’s team had hacked it into mismatched morsels that could never be rebuilt.
‘Sean,’ someone said close by, ‘what happened? Where are the others?’
If they knew the dire truth of their situation, each of them would be battling to escape back to the surface. But Ian’s winch was too slow to save them all. Sean dabbed his eyes clean and saw that lone harness dangling beneath the shaft – their only way out, and it would be his before it was anybody else’s.
‘They’re still down there,’ he replied, refilling his lungs, choosing his words carefully, aligning them to the lie that could save his life. ‘I had to get out. It’s the… claustrophobia. The walls, they were closing in on me.’
His panic was palpable; the sweat, the tears, the terror – why would they have any cause to question its source?
‘Can I get you anything?’ a boy asked him. ‘Do you want some water?’
‘No,’ Sean replied, pushing him away as he staggered through them. ‘I just need some air.’
‘That’s the only radio we have,’ someone said behind him.
He dragged himself away, his fingers fumbling with the walkie-talkie, adjusting its volume so as to keep his next conversation a secret.
‘Ian, come in,’ he said, radio pressed to his lips. ‘You need to get me out of here. Ian, come in, do you read me?’
Sean was pawing around the harness – trying to puzzle out its buckles and straps – when he noticed the bloody cuts across his hands from when he’d fallen. Pressing a finger to his head stained its tip with more of the same.
‘What’s going on?’ the techie replied. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m strapping myself in now,’ Sean replied, the panic bubbling up his throat.
‘Okay, give me a moment. What did you find down there?’
‘Just bring up the fucking chain,’ he snapped back.
Sean looked to those he was abandoning to their deaths. He picked out Caitriona watching him sadly, as though she were somehow privy to the selfish machinations he’d already set in motion. She was cradling her precious notepad to her chest when he beckoned her toward him.
‘You knew about this place,’ Sean said, seizing her by the sleeve when she stepped within his reach. ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’
He needed someone to blame. He alone couldn’t be held responsible for this.
‘You said Aisling was translating it for you,’ she replied.
‘She didn’t see the warnings above the door! She was only translating the writings on the wall. I told you this!’
‘But it’s all over the walls!’ she said.
Sean snatched the notepad away from her and flipped through its pages, his eyes darting over the girl’s sloppy handwriting, too frazzled to sift any sense from its words.
‘What does it all mean?’ he asked her. ‘What is this place?’
‘It’s a prison, Sean,’ she replied, fidgeting with her fingers.
‘That’s impossible,’ he shouted, waving the notebook in front of her as though he were castigating an animal. ‘People lived down here. This was a community.’
‘She must never be released. It’s written on the walls, Sean. We will watch. We will guard. We will do what must be done.’
Just when he thought he’d tipped the balance in his favour, the questions suddenly transcended the answers.
‘I don’t understand,’ he stammered, looking to Caitriona like a lost child. ‘Who is she?’
‘It doesn’t say her name, but I think she was trapped down there.’ She glanced back to the stairwell. ‘Do not open. Do not listen. Do not make a sound. That’s what’s written on the walls around the seal. Leave this place and never return. She must never be—’
‘No,’ Sean growled at her, ‘you’re wrong.’
Catriona flinched back from his outburst. ‘Why would they go to the trouble of writing it if it weren’t true? I think that’s why they buried this place, so that she would never be found.’
‘Why didn’t you fucking tell me this sooner?’
Where was the secret history that Ash had spoon-fed him in the tent? What possible reason would she have for lying about it all? Unless she was a fraud. With no knowledge of the language himself, he’d no means to question the woman’s translation.
No, he refused to believe it. There had to be some mistake.
‘Taking you up now, Sean,’ Ian’s voice called over the radio.
He gazed into Caitriona’s honey-hued eyes for what he knew would be the last time.
‘I’ll give this back to you on the surface,’ he said, holding her notepad close.
The girl cast a forlorn glance toward the fissure, and then to her friends – those idly ambling around the chamber, sharing jokes and making plans, taking what little time they’d left for granted.
‘What did you find down there?’ Caitriona asked, her voice delicate as splintering glass.
The harness began to rise, lifting Sean’s feet from the floor. ‘I’m sorry,’ was all he said.
But he truly meant it.