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190 lines
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<title>1</title>
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<h1>29</h1>
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<p>The sound of the thrashing in the trees died as soon as we crossed the threshold of the hole in the rock and again I experienced the inside-out sensation of déjà -vu when we walked into the dark.</p>
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<p>One inside, there was light of a sort, as if the very stone was giving off a dim, sickly luminescence.</p>
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<p>Ahead of us the cavern widened and went straight for some distance and curved left in a steep descent. I could make out the knotted twists of ancient lava. Cu-Saeng's entrance was a natural fumarole, a volcanic chimney where magma had one flowed, leaving a snake-twist of tunnels. I've been in places like that before, in Hawaii and Iceland, but there was no eerie light in those tunnels.</p>
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<p>Paddy was dead quiet and I kept her close by me. We made little sound, except for the tapping of my stick and the scuffle of our feet as we almost tip-toed along.</p>
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<p>We held our breaths, waiting for something, something dreadful, to leap from one of the vertical clefts in the walls. We rounded the bend, and the tunnel entrance disappeared from view behind us.</p>
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<p>Up ahead, in the phosphorescent dimness, the cave narrowed in and the pathway became steeper so I had to rely on my stick for balance. The rocks glistened with slime or water. I couldn't quite tell, but the strange light made it look diseased.</p>
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<p>
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'Sssh...' Colin whispered, holding his hand up for silence. Paddy tensed against me and we both stopped.</p>
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<p>We strained, listening. At first I heard nothing. Then came a soft chittering sound, like a half-heard whisper in the distance, like the sound of insects crawling on a hard surface. It rose to a murmur, then faded and then I felt a vibration in the rock itself as if it flexed slightly.</p>
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<p>I had a sudden panicky dread that the walls were going to buckle and close together, to crush the life out of us, but the tremor slowly died away.</p>
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<p>We walked on downward and the tunnel widened out, arching high overhead. The tapping of both my stick and Colin's spear echoed aloft to fade out.</p>
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<p>A peal of hoarse laughter scared the daylights out of me. It came roaring down the tunnel, amplified by the narrow space.</p>
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<p>It was the kind of laugh you imagine in a mental hospital, deranged and guttural and somehow
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<em>mindless.</em> It did not sound human. Nor like anything on this earth.</p>
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<p>Paddy gave a little moan of pure fear as the laughter rose in pitch and trailed off in an obscene giggle. My knees were trembling again and I hoped Paddy didn't sense it. Colin stood stock still, and if the maniacal laughter had scared him, he didn't show it. In the sick light, his face looked as green as mine felt, but his eyes were black and his mouth was twisted down at the corners.</p>
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<p>We kept on going and the cavern widened out until we were in a spacious amphitheatre deep under Ardmhor. Colin stopped me again and gestured with his spear.</p>
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<p>We could make out a mass in the middle of the open space, a dark shape on the ground, right in the centre. I pushed Paddy behind me, keeping a grip on her shoulder, while with the other I raised my blackthorn stick. Colin was by my side, with the stone spearhead pointing forward.</p>
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<p>It was a boat. Sitting in the middle of the cavern, set square on the rock.</p>
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<p>We inched forward some more, and as my eyes grew more accustomed to the faint light, I could make it out in more detail and my stomach made one of those sickening loops when I took it in.</p>
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<p>There were men in the boat. Or what had been men, for they were now rotted corpses, with gaping jaws and protruding bones through peeling flesh. They sat on the thwarts of the lifeboat as they would have done on the night of the storm. But their eye sockets were black pits and the bones which showed through the mouldering flesh were tinged with green.</p>
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<p>
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'It's the Cassandra lifeboat,' I whispered.</p>
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<p>
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'What's that?'</p>
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<p>'The boat that went missing. We couldn't find it. No wonder.'</p>
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<p>
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'They're all dead,' Colin said, still whispering.</p>
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<p>'Can we get past it without Paddy seeing?'</p>
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<p>He shrugged and pointed past the beached lifeboat and its grotesque crew. Clumps of seaweed and kelp dripped over the gunwales, beyond it, the cavern narrowed to a cleft. It seemed that was the way we had to go.</p>
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<p>At the far side, only a few yards from the cleft, Colin stiffened and shivers ran up my spine again. There was a faint noise from over by the boat. Another slithering sound came and a movement I caught in peripheral vision, followed by a soft plopping sound.</p>
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<p>Something moved on the boat. A hank of kelp slithered from where it had caught on the rowlock and slumped to the ground. I almost groaned in relief. It was only seaweed.</p>
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<p>Then I froze.</p>
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<p>For one of the dead crew slowly turned his skeletal profile and creaked his head round. Black, empty sockets faced towards us. The holes flickered a reflection of the green light, then faded to a pallid white.</p>
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<p>I had seen eyes like that before. Under the bridge of Strowan's Well all those years ago.</p>
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<p>Below them, the jaw hinged upwards, like a slow motion trap, until it grinned at me.</p>
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<p>Colin caught the look on my face and darted a glance towards the lifeboat. Another skeletal head turned in our direction. A third started moving. A fourth. And a long, bony hand raised off the gunwale. One of the dead crew started to haul himself over the side.</p>
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<p>My heart seemed to have crawled into my throat, blocking off my breath.</p>
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<p>We were still yards away from the fissure, and suddenly I wanted to be out of this place. I dragged Paddy towards the cleft, unable to take my eyes from the nightmare scene as the mouldering corpses clambered out and on to the dripping weed fronds.</p>
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<p>They came like jerky puppets, but their now-pallid sockets were fixed on us. I realised we had to reach the cleft before they did, or we'd be trapped here among the dead men.</p>
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<p>Paddy was whimpering. I pushed her ahead of me, but Colin grabbed my shoulder.</p>
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<p>
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'They'll still be behind us,' he said. 'We have to stop them now.'</p>
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<p>I didn't want to hang about, but Colin was right. Wherever we had to go, we didn't want out footsteps dogged by something out of Dawn of the Dead. I was so scared I couldn't swallow, but Colin still burned with the fury of his lost years. He stood at the entrance to the cleft then leapt forward, screaming, towards the shambling crew. I saw the spear come up and swing in a fast arc. It smashed into soft dead flesh and wet bone. There was a splintering sound and at first I thought the shaft had snapped.</p>
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<p>But it wasn't the spear. I saw two of the obscene corpses topple to the stone, smashed through their spines. An arm flew off and hit the far wall with a sticky thud. Colin's shoulders flexed and he swung again. Another thud and a skull bounced away.</p>
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<p>Two of the dead men circled round to come for him from the back. I forced Paddy hard up against the wall and told her not to move.</p>
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<p>Then I let out my own war cry. I don't know why. Maybe all the fear and shock that had been bottled up inside just exploded out, but I remember jumping forward, cursing, and lashing out with the knobbly head of the walking stick.</p>
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<p>Something crunched and one of the things crumpled at my feet. Long fingers reached at me. I grabbed it with my free hand, too mad with fear and fury to feel disgust. I jerked and the hand ripped away from the arm.</p>
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<p>Then Colin and I were back to back, lunging and jabbing, spear and club smashing into bones and dead flesh. Gobbets flicked into the air with every contact and we lunged and struck with all our strength until there was nothing left to hit.</p>
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<p>Then I just ran out of steam and we stood together, among those broken corpses, panting for breath.</p>
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<p>Then Colin really scared me rigid.</p>
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<p>'Where is she?' He was still gasping. 'The wee girl. Paddy. Where is she?'</p>
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<p>I whirled, almost slipping into the charnel heap at our feet, to where I'd pushed Paddy against the cleft wall.</p>
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<p>She wasn't there.</p>
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<p>Summer, 1991.</p>
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<p>Colin was almost dragging Barbara behind us we ran along the farm track, spurred on my the hue and cry behind us. There was no time to think. We reached the shelter of the trees where gloom descended within yards.</p>
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<p>Things flew at us in the shadow, insects or moths, that we batted away from our faces and then we were at the base of the rock.</p>
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<p>The black cave loomed in front of us, a cave we'd never seen before.</p>
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<p>We walked right in.</p>
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<p>I felt a slow vibration underfoot, like the slow beat of a vast heart. Dim light threw wavering shadows. Colin bent to get under the low overhang, then stood up. There was only one way to go.</p>
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<p>We kept close to each other until we came to the wide cavern that arched over our heads in inky darkness.</p>
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<p>Colin's breath hitched, as if he was about to speak, when a movement beside the wall caught my eye. I turned and strained into the gloom.</p>
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<p>'What is it?' he asked.</p>
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<p>'I thought I saw something.'</p>
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<p>We stared into the corner, then Barbara spoke. 'Over there. I see something.'</p>
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<p>We turned and saw a slow movement. Then across to the right, another motion.</p>
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<p>Barbara shrank back against the wall.</p>
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<p>'What is it?' Colin hissed.</p>
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<p>There was a soft, slithery sound right next to him and we both jerked back as a long, worm-like thing poked out from the scattered stones.</p>
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<p>Colin let out a muted cry of disgust and stepped back. His foot landed on another of the white crawling things and it burst wetly.</p>
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<p>Beside me, another one oozed out. It looked like a big maggot and I felt a shudder. Of all the things that gave me the creeps, it was maggots. I'd seen them before, growing bloated as they fed on a decomposing sheep on the moor.</p>
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<p>These things were grown to giant size. I felt my gorge rise as one of them nuzzled at my shoe. I kicked out, but it clung on with two curved pincers and I stamped on it with my other foot. It squelched and ruptured, dripping its insides out in a splurge.</p>
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<p>Behind me, Barbara squealed. Colin hit something off her leg. Then we were both jumping up and down, stamping hard for all we were worth, doing what must have looked like a manic war-dance.</p>
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<p>We smashed and pulped everything that moved, and all the time I felt I had to vomit in total revulsion. Even though we were killing them by the dozen, there was something about them that brought the most primitive, gut wrenching sense of loathing.</p>
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<p>Between us we must have stamped dozens of them flat, until they stopped crawling out from underground. Around us, the squashed bodies sent up a reek of corruption that stung our eyes.</p>
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<p>
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'That's it,' Colin panted. 'They're gone. We beat 'em.'</p>
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<p>I turned and vomited lustily.</p>
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<p>When I finished, Colin pulled me upright. 'Come on, let's get going.'</p>
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<p>He pulled me away towards the big fissure.</p>
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<p>
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'Where's Barbara?'</p>
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<p>'She was just here...' I said, pointing at the basalt wall.</p>
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<p>'Well, where is she <em>now</em>?'</p>
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<p>I scanned all round. I thought Barbara might be cowering behind one of the big fallen rocks.</p>
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<p>We searched all the shadows and called her name, but there was no reply.</p>
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<p>While we'd been fighting and killing those crawling things, she'd disappeared.</p>
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<p>'We have to find her,' Colin said. He bawled her name at the top of his voice. It echoed away through the tunnels and fissures. I called out too, but no reply came back. She was gone.</p>
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<p>'Which way?' I began to say.</p>
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<p>Then Barbara screamed, a high and terrible scream that sent shivers all through me.</p>
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<p>Her scream reverberated from the stone walls, filling the cave with her terror.</p>
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