The North Caves

Orlaith stood ahead of us, staring up at the jet-black storm clouds in the distance.

‘No,’ she whispered.

The North Caves loomed before us. They were hundreds of feet high for miles in either direction, a vertical white wall of raw gouges and crumbling scars that cut through the valley like it had simply fallen from the sky long ago.

There was no tornado in sight.

I looked to the sky above the Caves. The storm clouds lay far in the distance, throwing the shadow of the mountain onto us and casting us into darkness. Orlaith shook her head.

‘It … it can’t have done,’ she begged. ‘It’s not possible. It … it can’t have …’

I didn’t dare to look at the others. Instead, I kept my eyes fixed on the back of Orlaith’s head as she lifted the stormtrap to her face, the certainty of what had happened slowly rising up inside me.

‘I … I thought the traps would be this side,’ said Orlaith. ‘I never thought that …’

She turned to face us, her shoulders swamped in the enormous jacket that hung down over her arms, and I finally saw the look in her eyes. I turned to the others, and sure enough, in every face I saw the same expression, the look of disbelief slowly stained by the terrible understanding of what had happened.

The tornado should have been right in front of us. But it wasn’t. We had misread the map. The stormtraps lay on the other side of the North Caves. There was no way we could possibly get to them now.

‘You’re … you’re joking, aren’t you?’

Callum stepped forwards, his eyes wide and confused.

‘I mean, it doesn’t matter if the tornado’s over there,’ he said. ‘We can – we can still get to it, right?’

We looked at the enormous cliff wall ahead. It looked hopeless. I stared at the dead earth around me. Where we stood was supposed to be the heartland of all the bears in the valleys. But it was hard to imagine anything could live out here, in a place like this. The whole landscape was white as death. There was not a plant, not a tree, not a blade of grass in sight.

And there it was again – the question that had been on my mind all last night, and all this morning. Something that had been buried deep down inside me, since the first day my parents told me about the bears.

I looked to the darkness of the Caves. It was time to find out the answer for myself.

I marched straight up to a hole that lay in the cliff face ahead of us. The others jumped back in shock.

‘Owen, careful!’ Ceri shouted.

I ignored her, and stood before the cave entrance. It gaped like a jagged open mouth before me, groaning with the weight of the wind drawn through it, roaring as if in pain or hunger, swallowing everything into the darkness. I turned to the others.

‘We can still make it,’ I said, ‘if we go through the mountain. And out the other side. Right now, while we still have time.’

The others stood, rooted to the spot.

‘Owen,’ said Ceri, ‘we can’t go in there …’

‘Why not?’ I said suddenly, cutting her off. ‘We’ve done everything else they told us we couldn’t do, haven’t we? Why not this?’

The wind howled out of the Caves behind me. I breathed it in, filling my lungs with the power of it.

‘They keep us frightened,’ I said. ‘They tell us we can’t do anything. And we’ve listened to them.’ I pointed a finger behind them. ‘Well, you saw those people in Skirting – they didn’t look frightened to me. They were getting on with their lives.’ I held out my hands angrily. ‘Why can’t we be like that? What’s the alternative – be like Miss Pewlish? Or like our parents? Frightened until we die?’

The others looked at me, their faces unreadable.

‘Not me,’ I said. ‘Not any more. I’m sick of being afraid.’ I turned to face the cave entrance. ‘I’m going to find out what everyone’s so frightened of.’

The mouth of the cave roared in front of me, fluttering the baggy suit at my shoulders, sucking me in. I stepped forwards.

‘He … he’s insane!’ came Callum’s voice from behind me. ‘We can’t let him go in there! The bears’ll come for us once they’re done with him! We have to …’

Callum trailed off. I suddenly felt a warm hand take mine, wrapping entirely around it. I looked up. Pete stood alongside me. Next to him was Ceri. Orlaith appeared beside them, her hair whipping to a frenzy in the breeze.

‘You’re not going in there on your own,’ she said.

We smiled, and together we walked towards the mouth of the Caves. There was not a single shaft of sunlight beyond its jagged mouth. It sucked in the valley air hungrily, moaning and moaning, a low and constant warning.

‘You idiots!’ came Callum’s voice. ‘Don’t go in there! You – you’ll die!’

We stepped inside the Caves. The cold and the damp closed around us, and the sunlight went out as if it had never been there at all.

And suddenly I felt another hand grab mine in the dark, furtive and desperate. I didn’t startle. I knew exactly who it was.

‘Please,’ came Callum’s voice at my ear. ‘Don’t leave me out there.’

I squeezed his hand, and together the Tornado Chasers made their way into the darkness.

It was a different world inside. The wind blasted against us one moment and sucked us in the next, a freezing tide that carried with it the scent of deepest, oldest stone. The rocks were clammy underfoot, and the sides jagged, the ceiling wet and dripping. We crept on, step by step, our ears pricked and heartbeats thumping. Soon we felt the sides fall away entirely, and we were walled only in darkness.

There was a sudden click beside me, and a red light flashed on. Orlaith held the stormtrap high above her. The light blinked on and off, casting the Caves around us in a dull red glow. We were standing in the centre of a great cavern, the roof clustered with ancient stalactites, the walls knotted with twisting white ropes of water. Along the walls lay dozens of stone passageways, tunnelling sideways and downwards and all different directions into the mountain. There was no way of knowing which one was right.

‘Everyone, listen,’ came Orlaith’s voice beside me. ‘Listen to the wind. Wherever it’s coming from, that’s the way out.’

We clenched hands, and listened. The wind bellowed all around us like it came from every direction. It echoed and thrummed on the walls as it was sucked through the cavern, a single reverberating low note. We listened past our own breathing, fast and frightened. We listened past the hammering of our heartbeats in our chests, in our necks, everywhere. The red blinked on and off, on and off.

And then, I heard it.

‘That one,’ I cried. ‘It’s coming from that one! There!’

I pointed down a tunnel on the far wall. The inside trembled and echoed like the throat of a great monster, and at the very end we could see it now – a trickle of light from outside. I grabbed the other’s hands and ran forwards.

‘Let’s get out of here, quick!’ I said. ‘Before …’

I whipped my head round.

‘What was that?’

A movement. A scuff on rock. I squeezed the hands either side of me. They squeezed back – they had heard it too. We stood, heads held high, eyes open, ears searching. The Caves held still. Water trickled down ancient rocks. The wind howled.

Ceri thrust out a hand. ‘From down there! That tunnel! It …’

She trailed off, and the skin of her palm immediately turned ice-cold in my grip. I looked down the tunnel, and my stomach heaved.

It was the tunnel we had just come from.

Something was coming after us.

‘It’s … it’s the bears!’ cried Callum, shaking from head to foot. ‘They’ve found us!’

I didn’t even think – I took their hands and charged blindly across the cavern, towards the tunnel of faint light that lay on the other side.

‘Down here!’ I cried. ‘Quick!’

We flung ourselves into the tunnel and wound away from the darkness, running against the wind, the stormtrap flashing the tunnel red and black around us. Our feet stumbled and snagged on the slimy floor, and our fingers scrabbled feebly against the wet and jagged rocks.

‘It’s behind us!’ cried Ceri. ‘Owen, I can hear it, it’s catching up …’

And then all of a sudden there it was – the shaft of light, ahead of us, spilling around the end of the tunnel. The way out.

‘Keep going!’ I cried. ‘It’s right here, the exit’s right …’

I charged around the corner and stopped. The tunnel ended right there, dead. There was nothing but a stone wall.

I looked up, and my blood ran cold. Far above us, a hundred feet at least, lay a hole in the ceiling. The wind roared and howled down the stone tower that led to it, the single note it struck now even more hollow and helpless than before. It was the only way out. And there was no way we could ever reach it.

Orlaith flew out of the darkness behind me, and then Callum, the look on his face one of pure, open fear. He scrambled at the rock walls hopelessly.

‘Oh God no, please!’ he begged. ‘Please, not the bears, please!’

Pete charged out after him, his eyes wide and full of terror, Ceri slung over his shoulder.

‘It’s right behind us!’ she screamed.

The sound was close – closer than any of us could have guessed. We threw ourselves to the stone wall and pressed up against it. There was nothing we could do now – nowhere left to run. It was right behind us. We looked at each other.

‘Don’t be afraid of it!’ I cried.

I took their hands, and gripped them tight.

‘Don’t let it know you’re frightened!’

The tunnel ahead was still. The wind whined above us, growing and dying. We waited in silence, our hands clenched. And then, from the darkness ahead, came a single voice.

‘That’s enough now, children.’

A light flashed on – a torch, held below the face of a man. For a moment, it was impossible to see who it was. All we saw were the black orbs of his glasses, and the pale head that floated alone in the air like a ghost. And then he stepped forwards, and the black suit became clear, and the man emerged fully into the light.

The Warden switched off the torch, and looked at us.

‘Time to go home,’ he said.