Return of the Ancients

Chapter 4 Weird Things for Company

Excruciating pain, dizziness and nausea. Light, then swirling colours, then darkness. Arn fell with a thump into mud and shards of something hard.

He blinked. There was nothing in front of his eyes. He sat up and pushed the heels of his hands into them and rubbed hard. He opened them again — there wasn’t the faintest ray or particle of light. His head hurt, reminding him of the time he had spent too long at the beach and got too much sun on the back of his neck.

It was like he was still locked back in the storeroom. Or have I gone blind? he thought dismally. He held out a hand, and waved it around — nothing.

He sniffed. There was a rank dampness, and something else unpleasant. He held his breath and strained to hear — there was faint dripping coming from somewhere far away. Arn stood and reached out again. He took a few steps, groping in the darkness like a blind man, and then his hand touched a wall. It was slick with slime.

He flicked his fingers. ‘Yecch.’

Arn stepped sideways and his head banged into something metallic, showering him with flakes of what he assumed was rust. He swore loudly, and after the echo died away, he heard something in the distance — a movement, like a shuffling or dragging.

‘Hello?’ No response. The noise stopped. ‘Hello, anybody there?’

It started again; this time it was closer. There came a soft murmur.

Arn remembered the cigarette lighter in his pocket, and pulled it free, frantically spinning the strike wheel. A split second of spark showed he was in a long tunnel. Plenty of debris, but he could navigate it.

The soft murmur came again, followed by a sound like a child giggling.

‘Who…?’

He was breathing hard through his mouth, and felt his heart thumping in his chest. The shuffling was closer, and he spun the lighter’s wheel again.

He shrieked, and fell back. There had been a ghastly face, all milky eyes and chisel-shaped teeth looming before him. The body looked slimy and colourless, but thankfully it had shrunk from the spark.

He had fallen into a puddle of slimy water, and he frantically spun the flint wheel again and again, trying to keep up a continuous flashing of sparks. There was a scuttling and splashing from further away in the darkness, but thankfully there were no more things being illuminated in front of him.

‘Must have been a wild dog.’ Arn spoke this thought aloud, simply to take comfort from hearing his own voice. It didn’t work. He sounded scared and his voice was about several octaves higher than normal.

Once more he spun the small wheel, another spark of light and this time a small red glow flashed back at him from the ground ahead. He scrambled forward, and felt around in the dark muck. His hand closed on a cylindar about three inches long, smooth, and strangely warm. He flicked the lighter again, and in the split second flash he saw the red glass-like rod.

‘What the hell?’ It was Fermilab’s diamond. ‘How did you get here? What’s going on?’ From some reason, Arn thought he’d be in real trouble now. He shoved the finger-length stone in his pocket, and wiped his hands on his shirt.

His constant flicking finally encouraged the last squeeze of gas to erupt in a tiny flame, and the bright light made him squint. In the seconds of light he had, he saw that the tunnel went on for miles, but he also saw that the small tongue of flame was bending — a breeze.

‘Thank you God,’ he whispered. ‘If air is coming in, then I’m damn well going out.’ Arn scrambled to his feet.

His thumb ached and he bet he had a blister forming, but he kept flicking the wheel. He moved as quickly through the damp tunnels as the debris would allow. He only slowed to glance over his shoulder when he heard a strange shuffling coming from behind him. It was impossible to see in the inky blackness, but he increased his speed, knowing that if the flint wore out on the lighter, he may never find a way out… and he had a feeling that the thing didn’t need light to see him.

Arn had been changing hands to share the load on his thumbs, but after what felt like hours of trudging through the thick darkness, the wheel spun without sparking. No matter what he did, it refused to do anything more than spin uselessly. The little orange lighter had given up.

Orange?

He’d forgotten… it was orange. He didn’t know how long he had been travelling underground, but he now also noticed that he could make out the dim shapes of the debris covering the floor. Light, he marvelled. He dropped the lighter and started to run, leaping over fallen rocks, decayed steel girders, and in one instance what he thought looked like a weird rib cage.

He eventually came to a shaft of blue light falling from the ceiling across a tumble of boulders blocking the tunnel.

He pulled in long ragged breaths, feeling the fatigue of the run and the heavy mental drain of wandering through pitch darkness with nothing but sparks of light, and some weird things for company.

The hole in the collapsed ceiling led to a shaft going straight upwards. No sky was visible, so the shaft must have twisted on its way to the surface. But there was definitely natural light coming from somewhere further up.

He didn’t give it a second thought and pulled himself up into the hole. It was narrow — that was good; it allowed him to brace himself between the walls, and slowly inch himself higher. His muscles protested, and his back was scratched a thousand times over by the sharp walls, and felt sticky with blood.

He had to pause several times to work out how to traverse some difficult sections, and he wished he had have spent a little more time on the gym rope, or the rock-climbing wall at school. It didn’t matter; he was going to get out, even if it meant his back was shredded.

What felt like hours later, he pulled himself up and out into the light. He rolled onto his back and sucked in a deep breath, wincing from the pain and waiting for his breathing to calm. He sniffed and frowned. The air smelled different, strange.

He opened his eyes and just as quickly had to shut them. They streamed with tears from the glare. After hours in the gloom, it would take a while for him to adjust to bright light again.

Sitting up, he cupped his hands around his eyes and squinted between his fingers, breathing slowly and allowing his vision to come back into focus.

What…?