Reid leaps back with a shout of horror, exposing the thing and hears the kids stir, voices crying out in fear. But he doesn’t have time to comfort them or even explain. The creature snarls as Reid falls away and he has one instant to take it in, the horrible stare, shining and intelligent, the flat face all teeth and gaping mouth, before the thing is screaming a high-pitched shriek, dodging for the dark.
His instincts won’t let it go, can’t. Reid goes after it with a rock he finds suddenly gripped tight in his hand. His upper body follows it into the black, weapon seeking it out, near blind as his eyes are forced to adjust to the change of light. The thing doesn’t go far, making Reid’s job easier. It simply leaves the glow of the bulb’s reach and reattaches itself to its dinner, latching onto the dead kid’s neck.
The pack of kids is slow to react, their fear deadened by their sense of safety but they are up and moving, stumbling over each other, surging toward the exit and Reid where he hovers in absolute horror.
Those sounds start up again as the thing continues to feed.
Reid’s stomach heaves with understanding, the very idea of food now the last thing he can tolerate. Kids stumble past him as he hurtles forward, swinging wildly with the rock in his fist. The creature dies with a yelp and a keening sigh.
The kids are yelling themselves, falling over Reid, over each other, tumbling into the lighted hallway in a surging tide of fear.
“Reid!”
He turns his head to look at Milo just as something clamps onto the side of his hand, the pain so intense he screams and drops the rock. He pulls back, the round ball of eating machine clinging to him, its terrible teeth locked in his flesh. Reid can feel its powerful jaw grinding back and forth. As soon as his hand is in the light, however, the creature lets go and bounces away, almost comical as it rolls off into the dark. Reid lurches at it, a new rock in his hand, and strikes at it just as it reenters the cave. Another snarl of animal anger, another piercing death rattle.
Reid manages to pull himself together long enough to haul the dead boy into the tunnel while the last of the stampede of kids pours out of the darkness, some with balls of fluff falling from them, the creatures squealing their way back to the black.
Reid tires to retrieve one of the animals from the dark but only comes up with a handful of dust. Same as the hunter Leila killed, glittering faintly in the low light. The kids don’t ask questions or hesitate, their instincts too tuned to being threatened.
They run. Reid curses, letting the powder drift from his fingers and goes after them. He hates leaving the dead boy behind but has no choice, knowing his own body will be abandoned if he is unlucky enough to die here.
Reid’s mind goes over the attack even as the kids slow and he gains ground on them. He’s sure these horrible creatures won’t come into the light. When he catches the pack at last, the lot of them panting and shaking, some of the kids crying all over again, Reid does a quick head count. Marcus is still there, damn him. Leila, Milo. Cole and Alex and little Megan. But three kids aren’t, including the one Reid pulled out of the cave.
Eighteen of them left. And now they know they aren’t alone down here after all.
“What the hell were those things?” Milo is trembling violently, face ashen, dark eyes huge and darting. “Were they eating that kid?”
No one says anything. No one can. Not while a call echoes through the tunnels to answer him.
When the sound finally fades, that all changes.
“Oh my God,” Megan’s panic shows up on her little face, so vivid she almost looks like a horrified cartoon character, “the hunters!”
“How did they get in?” “What are we going to do?” “We’re going to die!” Sobbing, wailing, cursing, crying. They crumble like a thin house of cards, collapsing in terror as their worst nightmare is made real. They are trapped underground with the hunters and there is no way out.
It would be so easy to fall apart. To just run on and not look back, to stop thinking and start reacting like he had in the forest that first night. But something inside him has hardened since then, the part that won’t believe there’s no answer, no way out. Because of it, Reid doesn’t allow himself to freeze up or fall into despair. His need to survive is so strong it’s like he’s possessed by it. He feels it surge through him, the ghost of a super power, shaking him loose of the fear embedded by the cry of the hunters.
A plan. They need to have a plan. They had one. Maybe it can still work but they have to be smarter, not take anything for granted anymore. The fact they did at all amazes Reid. That any of them had the ability after everything they’ve gone through.
Time to act. Reid turns and seizes Alex by the shoulders and shakes him, his adrenaline fed resolve making the boy shrink a little.
“Where’s the chalk?”
Alex’s sobs slow and still, eyes locked on Reid’s, either feeding from or calmed by Reid’s sense of purpose. When the boy realizes what Reid asked him, his expression crumples again. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I left it back there.” And then he sobs, deep and anguished, giving in to the moment, letting it tear his small body apart.
Reid lets him go and shouts to be heard over the din. “Listen to me! Everyone, shut the hell up and listen!”
They do finally, turning to him as they had in the past, as though nothing matters to them now, not what he said or what they did. They shudder and weep but they are paying attention and that’s all he needs.
“Those little creatures,” he shudders himself at the memory of those teeth, the gaping mouth full of red, the dead boy’s eyes, “won’t come into the light.”
“How do we know that?” Marcus has snot on his upper lip. He wipes it away, rubbing his hand on his jeans. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” Reid says as they groan in agreement with Marcus. “I saw. They retreated from the light. And we haven’t seen them in the tunnels, only in the cave where there weren’t any bulbs. So if we stay out of the dark, we’re safe from them.”
“What about hiding from the hunters?” Milo’s turn to doubt. Reid shuts that down, too.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve run from them before. This is no different.”
“It is,” Marcus says. “You’ve trapped us down here with them. In tunnels. With no way out. We’re screwed and it’s all your fault.”
Leila eases forward, comes to Reid’s side. She doesn’t say a word, just tears at the hem of her t-shirt and wraps the strip around his hand. He looks down, notices the blood dripping from the ends of his fingers. He forgot the bite, only now remembering he is in pain. Despite the hurt her help causes him, he is grateful but keeps his focus on the terrified pack.
“We have to run,” he says. “But we need to have a plan and stick together. Alex,” he turns on the shaking boy, “keep your eyes open for another piece of chalk.”
“The hunters will find the marks,” Marcus says. “Use them to follow us. That’s a terrible idea.”
“You’d rather get lost down here?” Reid challenges him back.
“We already are,” Marcus says. “I’d rather not give the hunters a trail of breadcrumbs to follow.”
“Like all this arguing is doing?” Leila looks up from finishing with Reid’s hand and everyone suddenly falls silent, guilty. Including Reid. She squeezes his arm and leaves him, returning to the others.
“There’s only two options, here,” Reid says. “We run or we make a stand. Anyone ready to do that?”
No one is, obviously. Reid is about to go on when Cole raises his hand, tentative and slow.
“We could collapse the ceiling again.”
Groans meet that suggestion and Reid agrees with them.
“No more screwing around with the structure of this place,” he says. “It’s just not worth the risk.”
Cole nods but frowns at the same time, like he wants to argue. Reid can’t have that, shuddering at the thought of losing someone else in a cave in. His mind flickers over Drew’s death and replaces the boy with Milo. Alex. Cole. Finally, Leila, blood running from her chest, gushing from between her lips over her pale cheek and into her blonde hair. Reid shakes his head at that last image, unable to make it go away.
“We have no way of knowing where we are,” Reid tells the boy, doing his best to get his message through without letting the kids around him know how much he fears even the suggestion of a collapse. “What if taking out this tunnel cuts us off from the exit? And how do we control which way it falls? If we can make it fall at all?”
“If there is an exit,” Marcus says. “I still don’t believe you’re right.”
“Then tell me how the damned hunters got in, genius.” Reid’s at the end of his patience and that comes out far sharper than he intended. But it does the trick and shuts Marcus up.
“So we’re not in a position to stand against them,” Reid says. “That leaves running.”
They are still afraid but the sobbing has stopped and Reid takes that as a victory. As a group they turn and jog down the tunnel while the cry of the hunters drifts around them.
***