“JOHN Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt . . .” sang Alex in a loud, way-out-of-tune voice.
They’d been walking a long time. Silence had become too boring. Everyone was sweating and stir-crazy. So Alex had begun to sing. She’d said it was a song she learned in camp. It was about the twelfth tune she’d sung.
It made Max very glad he had never gone to camp.
But he wasn’t really listening to her. His ears were picking up something else.
The pulsing had not stopped.
It had begun, very faintly, in the last chamber. At first he thought it was the talismans. Then, when it didn’t stop, he’d figured it was the sound of creaky old gears from the sliding track. He’d first heard the pulsing when Kristin used the hidden lever to move the T-handle. Maybe, he thought, the mechanism lost its stopping ability and it needed oiling.
But that was then. They had been traveling in this passageway for a long time. Max had no clue how long—maybe three hours, maybe thirty minutes. It was so hard to tell. The temperature had climbed steadily, and everyone was exhausted and achy from the steady descent. Max’s eyes stung from the coal dust running down from his forehead in rivers of sweat. And through all of that, the sound had just gotten louder.
The trouble was, it was too hard to notice over Alex’s performance. “Guys?” Max called out. “Do you hear that noise?”
“His name is myyyy name toooo—” Alex cut herself off in midverse. “Excuse me, it’s called singing,” she snapped. “And I won Best Vocalist of the Summer in Gosling Cabin—”
“I’m not talking about your singing,” Max said. “I mean the thumping noise. Listen. It’s not normal.”
Alex fell silent for the first time in way too long. Her heavy footsteps grew light. Kristin leaned forward, her eyes narrowed, as if that would help her hearing. “I hear it too,” she said. “Sounds like a dance club.”
Stopping in her tracks, Alex let out a cackle. “Maybe that’s where the creature with the huge footprints was going. The Dinosaur Disco.”
“With its famous Mastodon Mosh Pit,” Kristin added.
“And a paw-cranked Jurassic Jukebox.”
As the two broke into laughter, Max shook his head. “Are you doing that because you’re scared?” Max said.
Both Kristin and Alex looked at him blankly.
“Laughing at jokes that aren’t funny is a sign that you’re really scared. That is a fact I learned from my mom. I used to do it a lot. And now when it happens I just shhhhh.” Max put his finger to his mouth.
In the quiet, the thumping echoed again.
Alex and Max crept forward in the tunnel. The sound was getting louder. As they followed a sharp bend to the left, Max could see a rectangle of greenish light at the end of the corridor.
And a shadow passing across it.
He stiffened. “Did you see that?”
“Y—” Kristin said, choking on the word.
Alex fingered her talisman. “This thing isn’t making me feel brave anymore.”
“What should we do?” Kristin asked.
Thump thump thump thump . . .
The sound was distracting Max. It was different now. A little slower. And he could hear other sounds too, high-pitched, like distant instruments and voices. The fear of the animal was short-circuiting with the absolute weirdness of the pulse. The two things canceled each other out, and all Max wanted to do was rush into the light.
“That’s music,” he said, rushing forward.
Kristin held him back. “That’s impossible.”
“Don’t . . . make . . . any . . . sound,” Alex whispered. Creeping forward, she held tight to her talisman with one hand and trained the flashlight straight ahead with the other.
As the green rectangle grew larger, Max could hear the distinct plinking of a piano. The wail of a saxophone. He stopped short. “‘Born to Run,’” he said.
“We’ve come too far for that,” Kristin whispered.
“No, that’s the name of the song,” Max said. “Bruce Springsteen. He’s my dad’s favorite. Listens to him all the time. He says this was the only music that calmed me down when I was a colicky baby. But I don’t feel calm now.”
They quickened their pace. The rectangle of light was coming from a big hole in the tunnel wall to the right.
Ahead of them the tunnel kept descending, but they weren’t interested in that right now. Max, Alex, and Kristin flattened their backs to the wall as they neared the sound. The chords of the song were clear now. As they edged toward the green-lit opening, Alex peered inside. Max wanted to see too, so he dropped to his knees and crawled around her.
“Aaaaaah!” Alex screamed.
“What?” Max said.
“Sssshhhh!” Kristin shushed.
“Why did you do that? I thought you were that animal!” Alex whispered.
But Max didn’t reply. He was staring into a room about ten feet high and ten feet across. The walls glowed with green moss, and against one of them was a lopsided table made of stones. On top of the table was a small metallic object barely visible in the dim light.
“Is that . . . a cell phone?” Kristin asked.
Max stood. As he walked into the room, he looked right and left. It was empty. It was also too small for anyone to hide in, human or animal.
The song ended, and another one began. It was some Europop dance tune Max had never heard before. He was close enough to see the phone now. Its screen was off, so he lifted it up and pressed the On button. The light was so bright, he had to turn away for a moment.
When he turned back, the screen showed a keypad, with an image underneath. It was a selfie of a smiling blonde girl about Alex’s age with duck lips and dark sunglasses in front of a pool.
Max’s hand was shaking so hard he nearly dropped the phone, but Alex cupped her hands under his.
“Is that—?” Kristin asked.
Alex nodded. “Bitsy.”