Your Worst Nightmare (11 page)

“Roast Tim,” Bobby joked. “It's what's for dinner!”

Nobody laughed, and Bobby seemed to regret his words the instant he said them. “Sorry, Timbo,” he said at once. “Not funny.”

“I didn't know if I could get out,” Tim said. “With my ankle and stuff. The fireballs were rolling after me, and the tunnel was filling up with smoke. It was hard to breathe, hard to see. But I noticed this crack in the cave wall and squeezed through it. And here I am.”

“Fireballs?” Bobby asked doubtfully. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure,” Tim replied. “Why?”

Bobby shrugged. “I don't know,” he said. “But if there were a ton of blazing fireballs right over there, don't you think we'd be able to feel the heat? Or at least smell the smoke?”

Kristi didn't say anything, but she thought that Bobby made a good point.

“Well, how do you explain
this
?” Tim asked as he thrust his hand toward Bobby.

“Explain what?” Bobby asked.

“This burn on my palm,” Tim told him. “I got it from one of the—oh!”

“What?” the others asked at the same time.

“It's . . . it's gone,” Tim replied, staring at his hand in amazement.

An awkward silence fell over the group until Kristi turned to Olivia. “What was in your part of the maze?” she asked.

“Well, it wasn't fireballs,” Olivia began. “It was . . . don't laugh . . . it was moths. Giant ones. They attacked me. . . . You know, ‘moth' isn't quite the right word. Maybe they were trog—troglo—”

“Troglobites?” Tim helped her out.

“Yeah,” Olivia said.

“But that's not possible,” Bobby spoke up. “Mrs. Hallett didn't think that moths could become troglobites, remember?”

“I don't care what she said,” Olivia said stubbornly. “She doesn't know everything. I mean, these . . .
creatures
were not normal. They were huge, and all white, and some were blind, but some had these freaky, bloody eyes. I honestly didn't think I'd make it out of that tunnel.”

Kristi reached out for Olivia's hand and gave it a fast squeeze. “Mine was filled with clowns.” And that was all she had to say for Olivia to understand.

“Well, I don't know,” Bobby said. “Maybe it wasn't.”

“What are you talking about?” Kristi asked. “Of course it was.”

“I went back and looked all through the tunnel,” Bobby explained. “There weren't any clowns. And no jail cells, either.”

A flash of anger surged through Kristi. “So I guess I just made it up then,” she said. “Like I made up the key I took off the wall.”

“I didn't say that,” Bobby said quietly. “But . . . where is that key, Kristi?”

“It's right—” she started to say. Then Kristi stopped.
Where
was
it? Hadn't it been in her hand this whole time? Surely she would've remembered if she had dropped it along the way.

But the key was gone.

“So what was in your tunnel, Big Man?” Tim asked sarcastically.

“Nothing,” Bobby said simply. “It was just a tunnel. Like all the others we walked through.”

“Well, isn't that nice for you,” Tim said, rolling his eyes. “The rest of us were scared half to death—”

“Is that what scares you more than anything?” Bobby asked. “Fire?”

Tim looked away. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“And you're afraid of moths, huh?” Bobby said to Olivia.

She nodded without speaking.

“So—and I'm totally not saying that you're making it up—maybe being alone in the maze was just really scary, and your imaginations ran away with you,” Bobby said. “I mean, these caves
are
really freaky. And I was just talking all about Ravensburg Caverns' scary history—”

“Don't give yourself too much credit,” Tim interrupted him. “I know what I saw.”

“Me too,” Olivia added.

“And so did I,” Kristi said.

“It could even be that the air is bad down here,” Bobby pointed out. “Like, not enough oxygen. That can cause hallucinations, I think?”

“And you're, what, immune?” Olivia said.

“I don't know—maybe the air was fine in my tunnel,” Bobby said. “But I do know one thing: We have to get out of here.”

“Well, I am
not
going back through that maze,” Olivia said firmly. “No way.”

“I think the best thing to do is retrace our steps back to the Crystal Lake,” Bobby said. “There aren't any lights here. It might be a dead end . . . or worse.”

“Forget it,” Kristi replied, shaking her head. “I'm not going through any of those tunnels again either.”

Bobby sighed with frustration. “We can all go through mine,” he pointed out. “I promise there's nothing to be scared of. There was literally
nothing
there.”

“You're sure about that?” asked Tim.

“Positive,” Bobby replied.

“Okay,” Kristi said decidedly. “Let's do it.”

As she pulled herself up, Tim and Olivia did the
same. They followed Bobby back to his tunnel, keeping one hand on the cave wall to guide their steps.

“It's just through here,” Bobby replied, glancing at them over his shoulder. “There's really nothing to worry ab—”

C-r-r-r-r-r-a-a-a-a-ck.

Then a deafening smash.

Before Kristi understood what the noises meant, she was coated in a layer of fine, powdery dust. She brushed it off her face, wondering numbly,
What is this?

“Get back!” Bobby yelled, pushing Kristi and Tim and Olivia. “Get back!”

There was something in the air—smoke? No, it was clouds of dust that were illuminated by the thin light that streamed through the cracked ceiling. Suddenly the chamber was bright enough for Kristi to see the shower of pebbles that cascaded down from the ceiling, bright enough for her to see the massive rock that was now stuck in their way.

“Rockslide,” Tim said, breathing heavily. “The ceiling caved in.”

“I can't say for sure . . . but I think my tunnel is totally blocked,” Bobby said. “We'll have to find another
way out.” He turned to Kristi. “I think we should try yours. I mean, I already went in it. There was nothing there.”

“No,” she pleaded.

“You'll be safe. You'll be with all of us,” Olivia told her. “You can even keep your eyes closed the whole time—I'll guide you through it.”

“Kristi,” Tim said urgently. “We've really gotta get out of here. What if there's another rock slide? What if the whole ceiling collapses?”

“Okay! Okay!” Kristi said.

The four friends ran over to the crevice that led to Kristi's tunnel. She took a deep breath as she tried to psych herself up.
You can run,
Kristi promised herself.
You can run the whole way. You'll be out in a few minutes, and this whole nightmare will be over.

But it didn't work out that way. This time, when the earsplitting
C-r-r-r-r-r-a-a-a-a-ck
came, Kristi and her friends knew exactly what it was. They jumped out of the way just as a wall of boulders fell from the ceiling.

Kristi leaned against the wall to steady herself.
Six more inches,
she thought sickly.
If I'd been standing six inches farther, I'd be buried alive right now.

“The tunnels aren't an option,” Olivia said. “We've got to find another way out!”

“We will,” Bobby assured her. “I know we will.”

It was light enough in the chamber now that Kristi could see across it to the other side. And in the very center, she noticed a dark, shadowy hole.

“What's that?” she asked, pointing with a trembling finger. “Wait, forget it, I don't want to know.”

“We have to check it out,” Tim said in a strained voice. “It's not like we have a choice.”

They crept toward the edge. There were no guardrails here, just a crumbling stone ledge that led to a pit of the deepest darkness that Kristi had ever seen before.

“How . . . how deep do you think it goes?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” Tim replied. “I wish we had a flashlight.”

“Does anyone have a coin?” Olivia asked suddenly. “We could drop it over the side to see if we can hear it hit the bottom.”

No one answered her.

“You do, right, Tim?” Kristi spoke up. “From the diner this morning?”

“Oh, yeah. Right,” Tim said. He fished a nickel out of
his pocket; it glinted in the silvery light streaming through the cracked ceiling. “So . . . do I just, like, drop it?”

“I think so,” Kristi said. “Everybody, be really quiet so we can hear it land.”

In seconds, they heard the
ping.
Kristi and Tim exchanged a glance.

“That actually didn't sound too far away,” Tim said. “I think we could jump and try to find a way out from there.”

“Are you crazy?” Bobby asked from the back of the group. “That sounded pretty far to me. This is a suicide mission. You can't just jump into a pitch-black hole. There's got to be another way out of here.”

Kristi was about to argue when Olivia let out a shriek next to her.

“What is that?” Olivia cried.

Kristi leaned over the ledge and saw a pair of red, glowing orbs staring back at her. They flashed, blinked, disappeared, and reappeared—and then another pair appeared, and another—

Whatever had been sleeping in the pit was now awake.

“It's the clowns,” Kristi whispered hoarsely. “Their eyes glowed like that.”

“No, it's the moths!” Olivia argued.

“Are you both nuts?” Tim asked. “Look at the sparks! Those are fireballs!”

“What sparks?” Kristi snapped.

They might have kept arguing about it, but Kristi suddenly realized something. “Guys! I think—I think Bobby was right,” she exclaimed. “This maze is everything we fear. None of it is real. How could it be? All of it somehow perfectly tailored to our deepest, most secret fears?”

When no one spoke, Kristi pressed on. “We have to jump,” she said. “We have to face the—the scariest thing and
jump
. It really is the only way out.”

“I don't know—” Bobby began. “What if—”

There was an ominous rumble in the rocks overhead.

“We have to get out of here!” Olivia shrieked, her voice high and almost hysterical.

“I can't!” Bobby exclaimed. “I'm not jumping into some dark pit! We can't even see what's down there!”

“But we
can
see what's up here,” Tim told him. “A bunch of massive rocks that are about to collapse on top of us.”

“He's right, Bobby,” Kristi said. “We can't stay. We'll be buried alive.”

“I can't jump!” Bobby replied, shaking his head wildly as he backed away from the pit. “I can't do it!”

“You can, Bobby, I know you can,” Kristi said. “Here—hold my hand. We'll all hold hands and jump together, all of us at the same time. And whatever—whatever happens, we won't be alone.”

She reached for Olivia's hand, then Bobby's. His hand in hers was clammy and damp, but Kristi didn't even care. Kristi squeezed Bobby and Olivia's hands. She wanted to reassure them. She wanted to reassure herself.

When Tim was holding Olivia's other hand, Kristi said, “Ready? One . . . two . . . three . . . Jump.”

Kristi held her breath and stepped off the ledge, into the endless dark, where the blinking red eyes stared . . . and waited.

In the instant she fell, Kristi felt something even worse than the swooping somersault in the pit of her stomach: Bobby's fingers, ripped from her grasp.

“Bobby!” Kristi screamed, reaching for him as she plunged through the darkness. “Bobby!”

Then: impact. She was on solid ground. It wasn't that far of a fall, after all. And there were no clowns, no moths, and no fireballs waiting for them at the bottom.

Olivia was sprawled on the cave floor next to her, crying softly. “We made it,” she said, over and over again. “We made it.”

“Bobby!” Kristi yelled again as she scrambled to her feet. “Bobby,
where are you
?”

Bobby's face, as pale and white as the moon, peeked over the ledge. “I'm—I'm here. I can hardly hear you, but I'm here,” he called down to her. “Up here. I couldn't do it, Kristi. I couldn't jump.”

“Don't worry, Bobby,” Kristi called back, louder this time. “It's not so far. Just take a deep breath and do it.”

“You don't understand,” Bobby said. “I
can't
.”

A groan of pain escaped from Tim as he touched his ankle.

Kristi knelt next to Tim and put her hand on his shoulder. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

His face was pulled tight from the pain, but Tim managed to nod a little. “I think—my ankle—it might be fully broken now,” he said through clenched teeth. “But that's all. Everything else is fine. It's only my ankle.”