Running Scared (6 page)

Another five minutes crawled by, and they came to another split in the trail, or maybe it was the same one. How many times might they have doubled back to the same fork in the dark without even recognizing it? Bewildered, Jack had no clue which way to go. He hoped Ashley would.

Apparently she didn't. “Oh-h man,” Ashley wailed. “Do you know which direction we should take?”

Jack put his arm around his sister's thin shoulders in reply. “It's not time to panic yet,” he told her.

“Why not?” Her voice was shrill.

“Because there can't be that many trails back here. Because even if we do get lost, the rangers will come looking. We'll be fine—”

When Jack heard the sound, the words he'd been speaking died in his throat. Somewhere in the blackness swelled a strange, eerie noise, guttural and low. Ashley stared at him, wide-eyed, her lips parted.

“Jack—”

“Shush,” he whispered. “There it is again.”

It was hard to tell how close the sound might be, but Jack guessed it couldn't be too much more than 50 feet away. It wailed, high, then low, like a cat in the dead of night. Images of Goatsuckers crowded into his head. A shadow to his left seemed to move on its own—Jack's insides turned to ice.

He could feel his sister's arm encircle him, her fingers tightening around his waist. Then another cry rose up like a specter's shriek.

It was definitely time to panic.

J
ack and Ashley clung to one another in terror, as the lantern light cast their own shadows into huge shapes on the cave walls. For what seemed like an hour but was probably little more than minutes, the terrifying sound wafted through the darkness, now loud, now soft. Jack's first impulse was to run away from it, as fast as he could, as far as he could. Then, slowly, fear began to loosen its hold on his brain, enough that he recognized that the cries were coming from a human. From a very young human.

Sam!

The cries were so eerie!—nothing like the wails an ordinary child would make. They sounded strangled, alternating between low guttural rasps and then high, muted shrieks. It was as if Sam had never learned to just let loose and cry out his pain, as if he'd always had to hide his fear—or else be punished for showing it. What kind of hurts did he have from his past life? Jack had never heard a sound like that coming from any human being. The sound made his skin crawl.

“It's Sam!” Jack told Ashley. “Don't call out to him or he might stop. We need to follow his crying so we know where to go.”

“Are you sure it's him?”

“Who else would it be?” he asked, impatient.

Ashley didn't answer, but Jack knew what she was thinking. Trolls. Blood-sucking bats. Cave ghosts haunting the bizarre formations. But this sound was all too human, and they couldn't let their imaginations take them off into the netherworld. The two of them had to get a grip on reality.

All around them they heard the drip of water falling from the cave ceiling into small puddles, mostly invisible except when the lantern light skimmed the surface with golden brushstrokes. His own shallow breathing and the shuffle of his shoes filled his ears, but above it all, he heard those heart-wrenching sobs of a little lost boy. Once, Jack picked a finger tunnel that dead-ended, and another time Ashley made a wrong turn that took them away from the eerie wailing. At last they reached him, alone, sitting in complete darkness, his arms around his legs and his round head bowed. The knees of his jeans were covered with a soft layer of cave dust. His hands looked grimy, even in the half-light.

“Sammy, we're here,” Jack called softly. “It's me, Jack.”

“And me, too. Ashley.”

Sam raised his head to stare at them with the most desolate expression Jack had ever seen. “I a-b-b-bout d-d-died,” he sobbed. Pressing the tips of his fingers into his eyes, he dropped his chin onto his chest and let out another sob.

“No you didn't about die; you just got lost.” Jack knelt beside Sam and awkwardly patted his back, his hand making
rat-ta-tat-tat
sounds on the fake-leather jacket that covered Sam's thin shoulder blades. “No worries. We're going to take you back. The tour rangers are probably already looking for us by now. That's bad, because we'll get in big trouble for leaving the trail—but good, because we'll just follow them out of here.” The words sounded far more confident than Jack really felt. “Hey, where's your lantern?”

“There,” Sammy answered, pointing to a spot a few feet away.

Picking up their own lantern and holding it above her head, Ashley peered into the darkness. “Where?"” she asked. “I don't see it.”

“In the h-h-hole.”

“What hole?” She took a few steps down the trail, swinging the light from side to side. “Oh my gosh! Look!” she shrieked. “Jack, come here!” In an instant Jack was on his feet and next to his sister. Close enough behind her that one misstep could have spelled tragedy, Jack saw a drop-off, a black pit that yawned so deeply there was no way to see the bottom.

“In there?” he asked Sam. “You dropped your lantern down there?”

“I didn't m-m-mean to. I f-f-fell.”

Jack pictured it in his mind: Sam running away across this rough cave floor, barely able to see in the wavering light of a single candle, then tripping. The lantern would have flown out of his hand into that chasm that seemed to have no end. What if not only the lantern but also Sammy had fallen into that pit! Maybe he really would have died. Jack shuddered, and not just from the 56-degree coolness of the cave.

“It's all right, Sam,” Ashley told him, her voice soothing him the way Olivia would have done. “You're OK. That's what's important. Stand up and hold my hand. It's time to get out of here.”

“J-J-Jack's hand,” Sam insisted.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Jack's hand. This time, I'll lead the way. I think I can remember which way we came.

We should have been dropping breadcrumbs or something so we could find our way out.”

“I th-th-thought you c-c-couldn't leave things in a c-c-cave.”

“I know. I was joking, Sam, about something in the tale of Hansel and Gretel. But even without crumbs I can do this. I think I know exactly where we are.” She smiled a half-smile, but Jack wasn't fooled at all. How could she know anything after all the wrong turns they'd made? Were other chasms waiting to catch them, to trap them as they stumbled through the darkness? How lost could they get in this maze of tunnels? The truth was, neither one of them knew which path would lead them out, and that meant they could be walking deeper into the bowels of the cave instead of toward the main path. He could already feel his stomach rumble, a reminder that he should have eaten more for lunch, especially since there was nothing back here to chew on but dust. Dust and the few cave crickets he might be lucky enough to catch. Don't be stupid, he chided himself. They'd be out of Left Hand Tunnel and into the cafeteria in a matter of minutes. An hour, tops. Let Ashley lead the way. She couldn't do any worse than he had.

They trudged silently, Ashley's lantern bobbing with each step and Sam's sweaty hand firmly grasping Jack's. Sam was one step behind, following Jack as though he were a dog and Jack's arm the leash. The hand-holding made Jack feel slightly off balance, so after a while he tried to pry Sam free, but Sam clung even tighter until his nails bit into Jack's skin like tiny teeth.

“Hey, not so tight, Bud,” Jack told him. “Wait a second, Ashley.”

His sister stopped and turned.

“You can walk alone, can't you?” Jack asked Sam.

Sam shook his head. “I d-d-don't want to f-f-f-” He took a breath, and tried again, his face twisting as he struggled to get out the word. “F-f-f-f-”

“Fall?”

Sam nodded.

“Follow right where I walk, and you'll be fine. Just don't run. That's how you lost your lantern.”

“Why did you take off and run like that in the first place, Sam?” Ashley asked. “Is it because we didn't believe you about Consuela?”

Shrugging, Sam looked at the floor. He scuffed his sneaker into the soft earth until he made a small, moonlike crater.

“Because listen, whatever is wrong with Consuela, I don't think it's drugs.”

More silence. Jack heard Ashley's soft breathing and heard another drip hit an invisible puddle. Sam stubbornly pressed his lips together, refusing to answer even when Ashley continued to press him. It was pointless, Jack decided. Whatever Sam had seen, they'd have to unravel it later. Right now, they needed to find the main trail and get back to the surface. He wanted to feel the burning sun on his face and breathe the clean desert air. The cool, damp air of the cave was beginning to feel suffocating.

“Come on, we'll talk about all that when we're out of here. It's been an hour since we left the trail. We need to get back before people start to freak.” Ten minutes farther, they hit a fork in the trail. “Which way, Ashley?”

Ashley pointed with her free hand. “That way, I think.”

They turned a corner where the pale rock looked porous, with shallow cavities that pocked the cave walls like bone, and for a moment Jack felt as though he were inside a skull. He didn't remember seeing this part of the cave before. How far back did the other passages go? Mentally he tried to picture the map he'd seen of Left Hand Tunnel, which was filled with small offshoots that looked like roots on a tree. One offshoot connected to another. It might be possible, he realized, to wander in this labyrinth for days! He was just about to say something when Ashley touched his back and told him, “Up ahead! It's the green reflector. See, I told you we were going the right way.

You know, I really was getting a little bit worried, but now that I see the reflector I think we're going to be all right. I know exactly where we are!”

But when they reached the metal stake, Jack quickly realized that they were back at the forks in the path, either of which could be the right one. Or both could be wrong. Now what? Ashley stood, her mouth slightly agape. Arm extended, she held the lantern to each opening, the light bouncing off the strange formations until it disappeared into the blackness beyond. Nothing ahead of them seemed right. She looked to Jack, her eyes asking for help, but Jack could only shake his head in reply. With a sinking feeling, he faced the truth he hadn't wanted to let himself comprehend. They were lost.

“J-J-Jack,” Sam asked softly, “are we g-g-going to d-d-die?”

“No, we are not going to die. Don't panic. The first thing we need to do is to get some kind of plan.” He rubbed his forehead, as if the friction might get some ideas sparking inside his brain. “Ashley, put the lantern in the center so I can see. Sam, let go of my hand and sit down. I've got to think.”

The three of them dropped to the coolness of the floor. Rough stone pushed into his back as Jack leaned against the cave wall. Ashley and Sam pulled their legs beneath them and looked to him expectantly, as though any moment now he'd have the answer. Except he didn't have a clue what to do next. They were lost in a cave with no food, no water, no map, and only one half-melted candle for light among the three of them. By now, park rangers must have mounted a search party, fanning out a team into the cave to find them and bring them home. But where were their rescuers? Since Jack had first checked his watch, another hour had passed, plenty of time to pull a team together to search for three lost kids. One thought nagged him, though: If the rangers were looking for them, why couldn't Jack hear anything except an occasional drip of water? The cave itself seemed silent as a tomb.

What had he learned in scouting? When you're lost, you stay put and wait for help to come to you. But that was when you're lost in the wilderness, right? Did they ever say anything about caves? It didn't matter—the principle was the same. If the three of them kept going farther, that might only make it worse.

“I have an idea,” Ashley announced. “The trail splits into three and there are three of us. I think each one of us should take a trail, since one of them has to be right. Whoever gets out to the main trail first could find the rangers and tell them where we are, and then—”

“No!” Jack said emphatically. “We're not splitting up.”

He watched Ashley stiffen. “Just listen to me!”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“I th-th-think we should do what J-J-Jack s-says,” Sam broke in.

“Oh, big surprise there,” Ashley snapped. “You always do everything he says. What is it, a guy thing? Why can't you ever listen to me?”

Sam looked at her, wide eyed.

“Since you believe everything Jack says, maybe you should have asked him about running off the way you did. He would have told you not to do it. Then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.”

“Hey, don't be going after Sam,” Jack warned her. “That's not going to help anything. Besides, Ashley, you're the one who said you knew which trail to take. You've made mistakes, too. You're the one who was so sure that you knew the way out—”

“So now it's my fault?” Ashley exclaimed, her eyes blazing in the half-light. “You're blaming me? You're the one who wanted to find Sam without the rangers' knowing—”

“That's because I didn't want him—any of us—to get in trouble.”

“Well, we're all in trouble now.”

“Quit being such a drama queen. OK, so maybe we're lost now, but the rangers are going to find us. We'll get in trouble for making them put together a search, but we'll be all right.”

“What if they're not looking?”

The question caught Jack by surprise. It took a moment for the idea to register.

“What if no one has figured out that we're gone?” Ashley said, snapping her braids behind her back. “Have you even thought of that? I have. Consuela's the only one in Left Hand Tunnel who knew for sure we were taking the cave tour, and she passed out. Maybe she's still unconscious. An unconscious person can't talk. An unconscious person can't ask about us, or tell about us, or anything!”

Jack began to feel sick. “So what's your point?”

“My point is we can't wait. We each need to take a trail and try to find the main path and get help. We've got to get out of here!”

Sam put his hands over his ears. Shutting his eyes, he began to rock back and forth.

“Stop it, Ashley. You're scaring Sam!”

“I'm
scared.”

Jack could tell she was. Sometimes, when she was truly frightened, his sister would grab her sides and hold herself tight, as if she could almost turn herself inside out. She was doing that now, clutching her sides so that Jack could see the jut of her knuckles gleaming white in the candlelight. The worst thing any of them could do now was to lose control. The second worst thing would be to turn on each other.

“Look, I know you think we should each take a tunnel, but it won't work. We can't split up.”

“Why?”

“Because we only have one lantern. You can't walk without light. Someone could fall into one of those holes. We can't risk it.”

Ashley was silent for a moment. She seemed to sag a little, her head falling forward as if it were suddenly too heavy for her neck. “Then what do you think we should do?” Her words were directed at the cave floor.