The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

ALISON LITTLEWOOD About the Dark

DARK CAVE DIDN’T sound the most promising place to hang out, but it was the driest place Adam could think of away from the town centre. Adam didn’t want to be in the town centre, mainly because his latest school had an “attendance optimiser”, otherwise known as a truant officer. The truant officer knew what Adam looked like, partly because of the number of times he’d hauled him back to classes, and partly because of the way Adam had tried to deck him the last time he’d tried.

He’d nearly been expelled for that one, and it was only because they decided to blame his mother that expulsion had been commuted to a three day suspension; a punishment that seemed to more than fit the crime, although not in the way they’d intended. Adam grinned at the thought, then grimaced. Blaming his mother was what everyone did. No one seemed to expect anything from his dad, least of all Adam himself.

He turned now to see Sasha flick wet hair out of her face, rubbing at her black-rimmed eyes. Adam decided not to tell her she’d smudged her make-up. No doubt she’d find out later, on her own. He exchanged looks with Fuzz, so named for his shaved head rather than any liking for the police. Fuzz nodded back. He didn’t tell Sash about the smudge on her cheek, either.

There was a wall of rain behind Sash, the muted grey-green of trees beyond that. She already had a cigarette clamped between her lips and she flicked her lighter, emitting a brief flame that fizzled before it could begin.

“Get under, shit-fer,” Adam said. Shit-fer brains: his favourite mode of address. Adam stood just beneath the cave mouth, not quite far enough that the dangling ferns couldn’t drip down the back of his neck. Fuzz edged onto the rock behind him, feet slipping, sending loose pebbles down to clip Adam’s feet. Adam stared at them.

“Soz,” said Fuzz.

Adam didn’t say anything. Sometimes he didn’t have to, and that was best. That was when he knew it had worked; the face he put on, the tough words, the fists. No one messed with him anymore. Now he skived off classes because it made him look hard. That wasn’t why he’d done it at his last school.

Sash started giggling, trying to get the cig to light. She couldn’t. Adam rolled his eyes, snatched it away, felt damp paper under his fingers and flicked it, one-handed, out into the rain. He ignored Sash’s squeal of protest. Instead he turned and looked into the cave mouth, the way its misshapen walls faded into the dark.

“You going in?” He looked at Fuzz. He didn’t look at Fuzz because he wanted Fuzz to lead the way: he didn’t want Fuzz to lead anything. That was Adam’s job. He said it as a challenge.

“Course.”

Adam didn’t ask Sash. He knew she’d follow. He knew that because of the way he’d told her, once, to take off her top; the way, after a moment’s hesitation, she had.

Sash had full tits, for a skinny lass. Adam remembered them now, thought of how they would feel under his hands in the rain, the way her top would stick to them. He felt a flush of warmth beneath the cool air that rose from the cave. There was a smell, too; dank stone, mingling with the scent of rain. He wrinkled his nose. “Come on,” he said, and stepped forward. He flicked on his own lighter as he went.

It was more difficult than Adam had expected. The lighter emitted a circular glow, highlighting each finger in glowing blood red, but not illuminating much else. It was hot and he kept switching hands, pulling a face he knew no one could see. He felt the irregular rock through his shoes. He heard the others following, their footsteps seeming more sure than his own. That wouldn’t do. He couldn’t show weakness; something he’d learned the hard way. Weakness painted a target on your back.

Now he was the one who punched and spat and made boasts and smoked, the one who led. He had assumed his new role when he started his new school. It had been like slipping on a new skin, but sometimes he could still feel it moving over his old one, loose and ill-fitting.

He switched hands again, jumped as Sash behind him flicked her own lighter. It lit the wall at Adam’s side and he saw old lettering there, as though this place had been better used, once; the remnants of old names, old lives. Now they were little more than fragments; he couldn’t make out the words. He wondered who had been here, whether they smoked or drank or fucked in the dark. He grinned as he stepped forward and, not watching his feet, slipped. He almost went down.

There came a light giggle behind him.

Adam straightened his back, started to turn. Such things couldn’t be allowed to go on or they only got bigger. He knew this in ways the others didn’t. As he turned, though, Sash swore and Adam heard her lighter drop, the sharp sound of plastic shattering. A moment later there came an acrid smell.

“Fucker burned me,” she said. She sounded upset.

Adam knew Sash couldn’t afford another lighter, couldn’t afford much of anything. He opened his mouth to tell her she could use his whenever she wanted, then closed it again. “Stop pissing about,” he said.

The ground beneath his feet started to slope downward. Adam lowered the light, trying to make out the way, but could see nothing. He started down anyway; realised, after a few strides, that he couldn’t hear the others. He turned and saw two dark shapes against the glow from the entrance, their faces outlined by the light of his flame. “What’s up?” he said.

“I’m not going down there,” said Sash. She sounded close to panic. “I don’t like this, Ad. It’s opening out; how we gonna find our way? We could get lost.”

Fuzz didn’t say anything. He didn’t follow Adam, either.

“There are stories,” Sash said, “about Dark Cave.”

Adam snorted. “Stories are for kids.” He took another few steps as if to demonstrate, but when he glanced around he saw that Sash was right. The cave had broadened out; he could no longer see the walls. He looked back at Sash and Fuzz. They hadn’t moved. They were still dark shapes, but their faces had gone. For a while he didn’t say anything, and neither did they. It struck him that they might not speak, that it might not even be Sash and Fuzz standing there. His mates had turned tail and fled into the sunlight, leaving only these shadows behind.

Then Sash did speak, and Adam took a breath. “I don’t want to,” she said. “Why don’t we go and have a cig, instead? I could try and find my lighter.”

“Just a bit further,” Adam said. “Then we’ll sit down and you can tell us all about Dark Cave.” He paused, deepened his voice. “Tell us ze ghost stories, mwa ha ha. ”

Sash didn’t laugh, but she did get moving. Adam turned and went on. Their footsteps echoed around him, a confusion of sound, but he knew that Fuzz would be following too. Sometimes Adam thought that kid was sweet on Sasha. Then he remembered the way Fuzz had been when Sash took off her top: the way he’d kept his eyes on Adam all the time, not saying a word. Fuzz had never even looked at Sash, at all.

“Here,” Adam said, bending low and scanning the floor. A low outcrop of rocks glowed almost yellow in the flame; he sat down on the nearest. The others sat too. Fuzz made a “tch” sound and pulled something from his pocket. Another light sprung to life in the boy’s hands, and Adam cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. It was Fuzz’s mobile phone. After a few seconds the light winked out and Fuzz pressed a button to light it up again. Adam wasn’t sure he liked it. It made the dark draw back a little, but the bluish glow made everything cold.

Fuzz crossed one boot over the other. “Nice ere, innit,” he said.

Adam cleared his throat. “So, Sash,” he said. “Tell us about the ghosts.”

She turned her head. Her face looked pale. “Aren’t no ghosts in Dark Cave.”

“But you said. ”

“I didn’t say there were ghosts. I said there were stories.” She wrapped her arms around her skinny body.

“Same difference.”

Sash glanced over her shoulder, into the dark. Adam looked too, but there was nothing there. There was nothing around them at all; it was like they were floating. He shivered. It’s not me, he thought, it’s them, and he didn’t know why: only that the words were in his mind, playing over like an echo.

It’s not me. It’s them.

“So what are the stories, Sash?” Fuzz’s voice was gentle.

“They’re about old stuff. My Nan told me. About when people used to come here, and what they used to do.”

Adam wanted to snort, but he did not.

“What stories, Sash?” Fuzz prompted.

“They’re about what’s in here.” Sash glanced around again.

“So tell us.”

But Sash didn’t. She got to her feet, so abruptly she knocked Fuzz’s phone out of his hands. There was a splay of light and a gritting sound, and then the dark ate it.

“Sash.”

She didn’t answer.

Fuzz got up, feeling about for his phone.

“Wait,” said Adam. It came out louder than he’d intended and he expected to hear his own voice coming back from the walls — wait — wait — wait — but there was nothing. He didn’t know which was worse, hearing an echo or not hearing it. “I’ll make a bit of light.”

He stood, reached for his bag, rummaged through the contents. He pulled out some exercise books, flicked to the back of one, steadied it with the fist holding his lighter and ripped out the blank pages. He crumpled them, placed them where he’d been sitting. He could feel the dark at his back, and he didn’t like it. He’d felt better when he was inside the circle. He bent and put the flame to the paper. It flared, and he saw what lay around them.

Their shadows rose and danced on the walls. The cavern was roughly circular. There were no other tunnels that he could see. There was more writing on the walls, though: names, dates. Adam glanced at the fire and saw the last ball of paper catch. It flared but the blackness flooded back anyway, as though the dark had grown, was reclaiming its territory. Then the fire went out.

“I’m getting out of here,” said Sash. She took a couple of steps into the dark then stopped. Adam almost — not quite — reached out to pull her back.

“Wait,” said Fuzz. His voice was oddly high, and it struck Adam that fear was catching, that it had leapt from one of them to the next just as the flame had spread from paper to paper. Fuzz pressed a switch and the cold blue light was back again: he had found his phone. He went after Sash and became a black shape.

Adam’s own lighter flickered and went out.

He didn’t curse, didn’t say anything at all. He was in the dark and he could feel its cold fingers on his skin, touching his clothes, his face, his eyes. He didn’t want to move; all he wanted was for it to stop. His hands shook around the lighter. Then the flame sprang up and the shadows shrank from him.

He could no longer see Sash and Fuzz. Adam kept his eyes on the flame he held, feeling the darkness massing at his back as he started after them.

“The stories are about the dark,” said Sash. She held a cigarette to her lips and it shook in her hands. She was sitting on the low, twisted branch of a tree. Adam looked away, down at the woodland floor. It was covered in fallen leaves; another year dying.

“My Nan says they used to think the dark lived in the cave. So they’d send people in, you know — to test them. To see if they could handle it. Sometimes they came out and sometimes they didn’t. The ones who didn’t, who got fed to the dark, they had their names written on the walls, see? And then the dark would go away for another year, like they were sacrifices or something. It kept it away, right?” She paused. “I thought it was stupid. But—”

Fuzz touched Sasha’s arm. “What do you mean, sometimes the dark was there? It’s Dark Cave. Of course, the dark was there. It’s there all the time.”

“Not this dark,” Sash said, taking another draw.

Fuzz waited. So did Adam.

“There was this special darkness, see. It was there no matter what. You could walk into that dark with the brightest torch, my Nan said, and it’d still be dark. All that’ll happen is, your light’ll be quenched. That’s how she put it: quenched. Like thirst.”

Adam scowled, shuffling his foot through withered leaves. The earth beneath it was a deep, rich black. He stopped.

“You couldn’t put it out, that dark. People just went into it and there was nothing to light their way. They went in and either they came back or they didn’t. No one knows what happened to the ones who didn’t.”

Adam thought again of the names he’d glimpsed on the walls. He let out an exasperated sound. There were so many: too many. If that many people had disappeared around here, someone would know. They’d have stopped it. More likely the cave had been the haunt of people like him. They’d written their own names there, and no one had come to wipe them away. Why would they? The cave was nothing special. It went so far and no further; like everything else in life, a disappointment. He realised the others were looking at him and scowled.

“I felt it,” said Fuzz.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. You felt her panicking. And you turned chickenshit.” Adam turned away. “It’s about time you grew up, Fuzz.” And then he thought: It’s not them. It’s me. Only, I couldn’t feel it because they were there. He didn’t know why he thought it. It didn’t even seem quite right, not really. He only knew that the taste of the place had stayed with him, like an echo but with a feeling instead of sound.

Sash pushed herself up. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m off. You coming, Fuzz?”

It happened quickly. Fuzz nodded and the two of them headed away, threading between the trees. Adam opened his mouth to call after them, some insult, or a question maybe: like, where they were going. Like, what they thought they were doing, just the two of them. Then he closed it again. It didn’t do to care, didn’t do to let people fuck you over. If they wanted to be alone, let them. He wasn’t going to make them think he gave a shit. Besides, he had better things to do. The other two could wait.

Daylight was fading when Adam found himself standing outside the cave once more, but he knew it didn’t matter; it would be dark inside anyway. It was different, being in the woods on his own. He didn’t know if he missed the others. He liked the clean air, the way the trees waved at him and the cave mouth opened as though to swallow him. He wasn’t sure he minded the idea of disappearing into it. He thought of the way his mother had been that morning. She’d been passed out on the sofa, an empty bottle at her side. This time it was gin, not wine. Ordinarily Adam would have been upset, but it gave him the chance to take a couple of tenners from her purse.

Adam had been shopping. Now, he pulled the first item from his bag: a large torch. The weight of it was comforting and he smacked it into his palm a few times. He opened the slot, inserted the batteries he’d bought. Now it was even heavier. He flicked it on and off a few times, watched the beam disappear into the dregs of daylight. He looked towards the cave. There was nothing to wait for. He turned his back on the trees and started walking.

This time, it was easier. The torch highlighted each irregularity in the ground, filling each dip with ink-black wells. They looked almost like footprints and Adam grimaced as he placed his feet into them. When he shone the light on the walls, he saw that there was writing on them. He made out occasional letters; more names, maybe. Then he found an almost complete date: 1971, years ago. The paint was cracked, crumbling away. Adam wondered what the date had meant, why it was important enough for someone to write it here. Someone’s birthday perhaps, or the day a couple met: sealed with a loving kiss. Sash and Fuzz, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Adam scowled.

He stood there, listening to the sound of water dripping onto rock. There was no other noise: no traffic, no voices, no teacher droning a list of facts he was supposed to remember. This time, when he went on, Adam smiled. He reached the chamber and shone his torch around it. The space was indeed roughly circular, and about twice his height. There was writing here too, and in places it was fresher. There were more names and more dates, just like Sash had said. Adam frowned. Why only names? Dates that had once meant something to somebody, and now meant nothing that he could tell?

There was darkness in the centre of the cave. Adam looked into it. He couldn’t make out the wall beyond that part. It must be too far off for his torch to reach, or perhaps there was another tunnel after all. He started to walk round the outside of the cave, tracing the wall with his fingertips. Soon he stood at the opposite side. There was no other tunnel; the wall was solid. Adam looked down at the floor and saw deep wrinkles in it, grooves leading towards the centre of the cave. They went into the dark and were lost to view. Adam shone the light along one of them. He still couldn’t see where it led. He shone it up at the ceiling. Bright lines flashed down, water dripping in the torchlight. He frowned, tried to watch them all the way to the floor. He could not.

Adam didn’t like the dark. He found his heart was thudding, a solid, heavy sound that reminded him he was alive, he was flesh and skin and bone, and could be taken apart quite easily. Could be sliced and bitten and ended.

He realised he couldn’t see the way out now. There should be a faint glow coming from the entrance, but it wasn’t there. Adam shone the torch straight ahead, into the dark. The beam was swallowed up. He heard his own breath, too loud. It sounded like some animal: a bear perhaps, or a wolf. He blinked. It made no difference to what he could see and what he couldn’t.

He shuffled quickly on around the cave wall, and realised he could see the tunnel after all. It was as though something had been blocking his sight. As he went on a few more steps, the whole, roughly circular shape of it came into view.

Adam closed his eyes. He was letting Sasha’s stories get to him. Of course, he hadn’t been able to see the tunnel: the torchlight had spoiled his night vision. If he’d just turned it off, let his eyes adjust, he would have seen it all the time.

Now he stood by the way out and turned back towards the centre of the cave. The darkness was there. There was something wrong with it. Adam frowned. There was one way to prove this was stupid, that Sasha was wrong, and that was to go in. He would go into the dark and banish the thought of the way she’d looked at him when she walked away with Fuzz.

Sash with her smooth, pale tits. Her laugh. Her grin.

Adam still didn’t move. He didn’t like the dark. It looked too solid somehow, especially when he looked at it dead on. Like a roughly circular patch of — something. And there was something else; a feeling of watchfulness, of waiting. Of presence.

Adam shook his head. It was like standing in an old house and telling yourself not to think of ghosts. The moment you did, every shadow was brought to life, every room given breath. It wasn’t that anything was there, not really. “Nothing outside your mind,” he said out loud, and wished he hadn’t. He let out another sound; a hiss of irritation, at himself and this whole stupid place, the way the three of them had parted. It was this place’s fault. He had done everything right, put on the skin he’d needed, the bravado and the toughness that got him through. It was the cave that had fucked everything up.

“I’ll show you,” he said, and this time it seemed all right to say it out loud.

Adam shone the torchlight down at the floor. It found one of those deep grooves, and he placed his feet on either side of it. He took one step forward, and another. It was easy once he’d started. One after the next. The light moved forward and the dark retreated. When Adam looked into it, though, it seemed to swirl in front of his eyes. Coalescing. Massing. He took another step and the light went out.

Adam caught his breath, started back the way he’d come. He couldn’t stop himself. He didn’t think about where he was putting his feet, slipped into that groove in the floor, caught himself from falling. He had to get away; had to put some space between him and the dark before he could turn his back on it. When he’d gone far enough he turned and ran, not stopping to take out his lighter. Adam didn’t stop running until he was out of the cave mouth and into the trees, turning again so that the cave was no longer behind him. He leaned against a tree trunk, panting, hands on his knees. He let his breath come quick and fast. Then he started to laugh.

The torch was still in his hand and he shook it. The batteries rattled in their compartment. Duff batteries: of course they were. That was all there was to it, just his sodding luck. He laughed again. He turned the torch over in his hands, flicked the switch. His eyes shut involuntarily as bright light flooded his face.

“Hey: Fuzz, Sash.” They stood by the tree, a sorry thing that had been shorn of its lower branches. The tree stood in the centre of the school yard and its branches had been cut off to stop kids from swinging on them.

Sash scraped her foot across the concrete, staring at it fixedly. It was Fuzz who said, “All right?”

“I’m going back to the cave.” Adam said the words casually then wished he hadn’t. He should have made it a boast, one they’d have to rise to. Now Sash looked away, staring at the school as though she longed to be inside.

“Tonight. I’ve got a torch. You coming? It’ll be a laugh.” Adam stuck his hands in his pockets, straightened his back.

After a moment, Fuzz shook his head. “Sash is coming to ours,” he said. He made a movement, a jerk of his arm as though he’d been going to reach for her.

“You’re scared,” Adam tried. “Chickenshit.”

“All right,” said Fuzz. He wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “We’re chickenshit. Come on, Sash. We need to get to French.”

She nodded. Then she met Adam’s eye. “I’m not going back,” she said.

Adam looked at her for a moment. He remembered the way she’d taken off her top. The way he’d thought it meant something: the way he’d looked at her and Fuzz hadn’t. Now he realised that maybe it did.

But Fuzz was already moving. He took Sash’s arm, kept hold of it as he led her away. As he led. Fuzz.

Adam scowled after them. If they chose not to be a part of this, fair enough. It was something special he had found, that he had led them to. If they turned their back on it. he spat. Their loss.

It’s not them. It’s me.

He turned and started walking towards the road. If the others weren’t coming, there was no need for him to wait. No need to wait, at all.

The mouth of the cave looked smaller than Adam remembered. It didn’t look scary, or forbidding, or welcoming. It didn’t look like anything special. It just looked like what it was, an unexciting cave in an unexciting wood, clinging to the edge of an unexciting town. Adam thought of the first time they’d come here, the three of them laughing, hurrying into the cave so that Sash could light her cigarette. No, not laughing.

He shook his head. The others had no part in this. The dark was for him, and him alone. He was supposed to go inside. He knew the cave had drawn him back: he just didn’t know why.

He got the torch from his bag and it lit when he flicked the switch. He started walking.

The next time Adam looked about, he was in the chamber. He blinked. He didn’t remember the tunnel, didn’t remember if the footing had been damp or dry, whether he had slipped. It was nothing; just a blank. Like the space he saw in front of him.

The dark was there. Adam looked into it, and it seemed to him that the dark looked back. Adam listened. He felt he should be able to hear something, but there was only a faint silvering on the edge of hearing; something that could have been the blood in his veins or the wind outside or the sound the dark made.

Adam put down the torch and his bag, rummaged through what was inside. More exercise books, one with the blank pages missing. He couldn’t remember which went with which subject, which classroom, which teacher. It didn’t matter. This time he tore all the pages out, crumpled some so that they would catch. He got his cigarette lighter and set it to the paper, used another book to bat the flame towards the middle of the cave.

It fluttered to the ground and went out. It hadn’t gone far enough. Adam knew this because he could still see a faint glow where the paper smouldered.

This time he went closer before he flung the fire into the dark. Again, it went out. This time the change was so sudden Adam blinked. One moment the paper was there; the next it was not. It had fallen further in this time. There was nothing left to see, not a single smouldering page. The dark had taken it.

What was it Sash had said? They’d send people in. Sometimes they came out, and sometimes they didn’t.

Adam stood there. He thought about his mother, waiting back home. No, not waiting. Drinking. His mother’s mouth to the bottle as though she was sucking in life. His father at the television, taking in its babble with greedy eyes.

Sometimes they didn’t.

Adam’s heart beat faster. It was a small, captured thing between his ribs. He wondered what would happen to it if he went into the dark; whether it would end up somewhere new, or if it would burst. He took a step forward, hadn’t known he was going to. And he realised he could see something in the dark, after all: something that was only for him. It was waiting. Adam didn’t close his eyes. As he walked into the dark, he knew it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference.

Adam stepped towards the edge of the cavern. The torch had gone out, but he could see everything. It was all so bright, now. He swept up the torch and his bag then let them fall again. He didn’t need them any longer. He smiled. The dark had filled him. There were no longer any questions, any worries. He was full, entirely full; no room left for different skins, different faces. That was behind him now. The dark had swallowed him, making him whole. Making Adam truly himself.

He looked around and saw the names written on the walls. He could see them clearly, even the ones where no ink remained. Adam smiled: almost laughed. The words he had heard on his first visit echoed through him. He had been right after all: it’s not me. It’s them.

He had expected to find his name written here, but it was not. These were not the names of the chosen, the initiated, the others like him. These were the names of the reluctant, of all those who had looked into the dark and turned away, denied its name. They were the ones who disappeared: the unwilling. The ones who had to be forced, to be made to see. Like Sasha and Fuzz. So that they were made a part of it; part of the dark. The ones who needed to be led.

Adam leaned into the wall, running his hands over its roughness. He could sense that he was close. He searched until he found the right place. There was a sharp jut of rock and he cut his palm against it, wiped the blood onto his fingers. He glanced towards the centre of the cave. He knew it was different now; the dark wasn’t there anymore, not really. Adam wasn’t worried. He carried it inside him, and when he needed it, it would be there. He turned back to the wall, could see every dip and wrinkle in the rock. He stared at it, eyes wide and bulging. And he smiled as he smeared the blood across it; the pact-blood that acknowledged what he was going to do. Acknowledged it and let it in as he wrote their names.