His body landed on something soft, cushioning his fall. It had a warmth to it. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, he was able to make out the outline of a body, lying in the middle of the stream on the ground. The warmth from the chest flowed into his shirt, warming his own frozen skin. He placed his hand atop the body, running it through the thickly flowing blood that covered the chest, the fingertips snagging on the large tatter of flesh that stood out from the wound right in the center. Jagged fragments of bone had torn through the skin from the enormous hole in the sternum, Scott’s probing fingers sinking several inches into the chest cavity of the quickly draining corpse.
Scrambling to his feet, he stumbled forward, catching himself on his hands before finally regaining his balance. He turned, staring down at the corpse of Brian James, the face contorted into the remnants of the last attempt to cry out, only to be silenced by whatever had ripped the enormous chunk free from his ribs.
Wrenching his gaze from the body, Scott stared deep into the heart of the darkness that pulsed down the long tunnel, trying desperately to peel back the shadows to unveil whoever it was that slunk further away from him. There wasn’t a sound, save for the water trickling slowly beneath the thin surface of ice along the floor. He turned to stare out of the tunnel and into the night, to debate one last time whether to run back out into the dim light, or to press on into the tunnel.
Movement caught his attention in front of the hole leading out into the night. The body that lay formerly motionless on the floor was slowly rising into the air, the arms rising out to the sides. The head rested on the shoulder to the right before falling forward, hanging limply against the chest. The flowing blood that raced from the chest of the body spilled past the pants, running over the toes of the shoes and dripping onto the cracked ice set askew atop the water. A groaning sound bellowed from the belly of the body as it hung in midair. The hands hung, palms upward, at the end of the arms, bouncing as the body finally stopped, hanging motionless against the night.
“Help me,” a meek voice sputtered through a mouthful of blood, the crimson fluid flowing over the lower lip and splattering to the floor.
Scott watched in horror, his feet frozen where they stood. Brian shuddered, his whole body convulsing. His eyes rolled back into his head as the unseen hands that held him in the air tore at him from either side. With one swift motion, the body was ripped in two, the insides falling with a sloppy thud to the floor as the shell was tossed to either side, landing in a heap against the base of the walls to either side.
Whirling, Scott raced deeper into the tunnel, his eyes fixed intently on the thickening darkness, his legs churning with a will of their own. He could feel that hot breath of the apparition on the back of his neck as he reached deep down, grasping to find another level to propel him from whatever it was that skulked through the tunnel behind him.
His footsteps echoed through the confines of the shrinking tunnel as his feet hammered on the thin ice, splashing into the frigid water below. He was drenched in the freezing fluid; his slippers soaked through and through, his pants saturated up the leg past the knee. But there was no time to think about that, no time to allow the sensation to cripple his mind. He focused solely on the sound of his heavy exhalations as he urged himself on. His chest, burning from the lack of oxygen, ached immensely, his arms and legs numbed as the muscles pumped over and over, propelling him further into the darkness.
His squinting eyes were useless. There wasn’t even enough light to see his hand right in front of his face, let alone the twenty feet of tunnel in front of him at a full sprint. The smell of the tunnel was getting thicker, the stagnation of mud and whatever lived beneath the still water overwhelming his senses.
In his mind, he tried to figure out how far he had run, and in what direction, but he didn’t have the slightest clue. He was just beginning to wonder if the tunnel stretched out forever when he slammed face-first into an earthen wall, his loosely-closed fists crumpling into his wrists. His legs drove out from beneath him as he became weightless. There was a loud splash, droplets of the freezing water splattering his face. His back landed squarely on the ground, bolts of pain shooting out into his body from his tailbone.
Scrambling back to his feet, he nearly cried out in pain, every inch of his flesh screaming for reprieve, but he was able to stifle it, not knowing how close the creature might be to him. Running his hands along the wall, he found a metal framed hole, the hinges bare from where the grate had been ripped of. Measuring the width with his arm, he took a step back. It was barely tall enough for him to crawl through.
Leaning over, he clutched his back and grabbed a handful of pebbles from the ground. One at a time, he turned just slightly, throwing them away from himself to try to determine if there was another way out. One by one, he tossed them, as they ricocheted off of the cavern wall, coming back at him with nearly the same velocity with which he originally tossed them. Slowly he moved to about ninety degrees and launched one. The immediate crackle as it slammed into a wall right in front of him wasn’t there: a long pause followed before the pebble skipped off the ice, bouncing for several feet before settling.
He placed his right hand on the wall, following it as it appeared to go straight along the same direction he had just fired the rock, running parallel with the river outside. Grabbing one more pebble, he launched it into the darkness, just to double check, as he knew that there was no room for error.
The rock whistled past his ear, soaring into the darkness. He waited anxiously for the sound of the pebble bouncing along the frozen ground, but there was nothing. He waited a moment longer before tossing his last pebble down the invisible hallway. But there wasn’t a sound from this one either.
Scott just stood there for a moment, wondering what the hell they had landed on that would make absolutely no sound. Suddenly, the answer became quite obvious.
The first rock buzzed through the damp air, skipping off of his cheek before clipping his ear and bouncing off into the darkness. The second tagged him right in the back of the head as he had already whirled, his hands fumbling along the wall in search of the tunnel carved within.
Grasping the lip of the hole, he boosted himself up, ducking his head beneath the metal rim. The floor was damp with a thin layer of ice formed over the dirt. His back scraped along the roof of the tunnel, bruising his spine, but not tearing through his shirt. Scrambling as fast as he could, he could feel the dirt pressing beneath his fingernails, building painfully.
His heaving breath echoed all around him, closing in from the slowly lowering ceiling. The pants were the first thing to tear, followed by the skin of his knees; the thin lines of blood smearing across the kneecap.
There was a sharp pain in his right hand, followed quickly by another in his left and he recoiled in pain. He dabbed at his palms with his fingertips. He could feel the wounds, but there was nothing sticking out of the flesh. It had felt like glass piercing the thick skin on his palms. Carefully, he ran his fingers along the ground, trying to find what had cut him so that he could just move it and hurry on his way. There was a rattling sound as his right hand knocked a small stack of whatever littered the floor together. He ran his fingers over the surface, noting the curves and the… fur?
He tapped down the object, feeling the long, hairy tail coming from the back end of the creature. They were rat carcasses.
Running his arm across the floor, he could hear the bones clattering against one another and slamming into the wall, their deteriorated forms falling apart. The floor was positively littered with them. The brittle, aged bones had more than likely snapped beneath his weight, the jagged tips forcing their way into his palms. Using his forearm like a brush, he shoved the skeletons, the tattered flesh and fur hanging from random connections, to either side.
A thin line of darkness appeared in the pitch black ahead of him, a beacon of light coming through the small tunnel. It grew lighter and lighter as he forced himself on, his hand finally grabbing for the floor, but finding nothing but air. He toppled forward out of the tunnel. His hands landed first before his head slammed into the dirt floor, the rest of his body rolling over his neck, his back slamming squarely onto the ground.
Wincing in pain, he forced his eyes open, staring around the dark room. Thin rays of light passed through the seals around the boarded windows. It wasn’t much, but he was able to make out enough of the outlines of objects to figure out what they were. A tall, cylindrical object loomed over him, long pipes issuing straight up and into the ceiling. It was a hot water heater; making the taller, rectangular one a furnace.
Rolling onto all fours, he pushed himself to his feet, the dust and dirt from the floor sealing the wounds on his palms and bare knees. Limping, he followed the dull outline of what appeared to be stairs straight ahead, his footsteps echoing off the rotting wooden planks as he slowly ascended, the shredded flesh on his right palm wrapped tightly around the banister, tugging him upward. Shouldering the door at the top of the stairs, it fell back, swinging with a squeak into the adjacent room.
