stop.
“Hold up,” he said, tilting his head.
Jack held his breath and listened, cursing to himself. Nothing good ever happened when Ben did that.
Ben stood motionless, his flashlight shining weakly into the darkness ahead. Jack’s flashlight began to tremble in his hand after several moments, and he had to remind himself to breathe again. He couldn’t hear a thing except the echoes of water dripping onto the mud from somewhere above them.
“What is it?”
Ben’s voice was barely a whisper. “We’re not alone.”
Then Jack heard it too. A scraping sound, like something being dragged across the mud and gravel of the cave floor. But he couldn’t tell if it was in front of them or behind. The echoes seemed to come from all around them.
Jack spun around, shining his light behind them. Shadows skittered off the rocks and boulders strewn about the cavern floor, jerking and darting around the perimeter of his vision. Jack’s heart raced as he and Ben stood back-to-back, sweeping the flashlight beams across the cave. They illuminated the immediate area but seemed to get swallowed entirely in the inky blackness beyond.
Then came another sound. Both terrifyingly familiar and yet eerily new. It was a clicking, like the spiders had made, though this sound was deeper in timbre, slower and more deliberate. Like someone tapping gently on a hollow log in a continuous though uneven rhythm. And the scraping also grew louder.
Jack swept the light around, meeting the beam from Ben’s flashlight. It fell momentarily on a large rock formation directly ahead of them. An odd-shaped boulder…
That moved.
Jack couldn’t tell exactly what it was, nor could he determine its size or shape. Only that it was big. Very big.
Ben clutched Jack’s arm and pulled him off toward the right as the cavern was filled with a shriek like knives scraping across a chalkboard. They ran at an angle away from the sound and the movement, toward the side of the cavern. Ben scrambled across the uneven cave floor, darting and weaving between rocks and holes.
Jack followed close behind, now hearing more sounds behind them—the familiar clicking of the spiders. It sounded like a whole torrent of them. Had whatever made the shriek alerted the others to the presence of fresh prey? Terror rose in Jack, gripping his chest. His breath came like a steam locomotive chugging uphill. He could see only flashes of Ben’s back in front of him as his light jostled in his hand.
“Over here.” Ben’s voice emerged from the tumult. Jack lost sight of him and swept his light across the cave.
“Where are you?”
A light flashed in Jack’s eyes. Ben was standing several yards away to the left, waving his light. Jack hurried across the cave, stumbling over rocks. He jammed his toe against a boulder and sprawled headlong into the mud. His light tumbled from his grasp.
Out of the darkness, Jack felt something hard pounce onto his back. A shrill hissing sound growled in his ear. He cried out, rolling to the side to shake it loose. Sharp talons dug into his shoulders.
He fumbled with the clip of the backpack and shook his shoulders free of it. He scrambled to his feet, leaving the pack behind, and scooped up his light again. Without thinking, he spun back to see one of the cave spiders, a good-size one, tearing into the bag like it was dinner. It shook the sack almost like a dog shaking a rag. Suddenly it stopped and reared on its haunches, lifting its front legs up. Jack recognized that pose from the first spider they had seen. The one that had attacked Rudy. The creature’s hideous, gaping maw was overshadowed by a pair of clawlike fangs that clicked together with jerky, rapid movements.
Jack knew the pose most likely indicated that the creature was ready to strike, but he was frozen where he stood. The spider’s palps rapped together like castanets.
Jack blinked as another, larger shadow passed in front of him. Ben dashed into view and punted the spider off into the darkness. He turned and glared at Jack.
Jack shook himself to his senses. The barrage of shrieks and clicking grew steadily louder, and he could see a wave of shadows moving across the cave floor.
Ben ran out of sight again as Jack scrambled to his feet and searched the ground around him. “My pack!”
Ben’s voice came from the darkness behind him. “Forget your pack, you idiot! Just get out of there!”
But everything Jack valued was inside that pack. His camera and the appendage specimen… No one would ever believe he’d been here without them. He’d never be able to prove anything. He lingered a moment longer, scanning the ground until Ben’s voice jolted him from his search and Jack took off after him.
In moments they came to the edge of the cavern and what looked like a dead end. Ben pointed to another opening about six or eight feet up, just large enough to squeeze through. A thin stream of water was trickling out of it.
Ben climbed the wall and scrambled into the opening. Jack struggled up a couple feet but couldn’t find any grip on the wet surface until Ben reached a hand down and pulled him up.
They wasted no time climbing the tunnel, ascending at a relatively steep angle. Water poured past them, and Jack could barely manage to keep up. The only question he had now was, could the cave spiders climb as well?
Ben and Jack continued to claw their way up until Jack’s knees and elbows were scraped raw and throbbing. But he knew he couldn’t slow down. Within a few moments they emerged onto a cramped, level area where Jack had to stop and catch his breath.
Ben shone his light back down the tunnel and shook his head. “What were you thinking? Why didn’t you run?”
Jack closed his eyes. “I don’t know. I… I had to get a better look at it. To see what we’re up against.”
“Not sure if you know this, but we’re running for our lives here. It’s not like we have the luxury to sit around and study them.”
“Look, any details we can learn could help us survive.”
“Not if you get yourself killed learning it.”
Jack sat up. “Well, now I’m pretty sure they’re blind. That one didn’t react at all to my light. So that means they most likely make that clicking sound for echolocation. Like a bat.”
“Great, they’re blind,” Ben grunted. “They still don’t seem to have any trouble locating us.”
Jack figured it was valuable information nonetheless, despite the danger he’d put himself in. Even though, had Ben not stepped in, Jack would’ve likely ended up like Rudy.
Jack rubbed his eyes. “But anyway… thanks for saving me… again.”
“Yeah.” Ben pointed up the passage. “We need to keep moving.”
They crawled along on hands and knees, but the passage became increasingly narrow and soon they had to proceed on their bellies. Before long, Jack could hear the water flowing louder. And it sounded like more than just a minor trickle.
Finally the passage widened, and they found themselves in a small, mud-filled chamber. A steady stream of water poured down through an opening above their heads.
Jack’s lungs burned as he sucked in gasps of air. “I… could use another break….”
Ben paused and shone his light back down the passage. Jack rolled over to peer into the tunnel as well. Amid the shadows and rocks, he spotted a flurry of legs scurrying up the passage toward them.
“They’re coming up the tunnel!”
“C’mon.” Ben grabbed his arm. “I’ll boost you up.”
He interlocked his fingers, and Jack stepped into his grasp and scrambled through the opening overhead. Fighting to get a handhold amid the water and mud, he clawed his way into a low, wide space above them. Water streamed down through numerous fissures, some of it pouring into the opening he’d just climbed through, but the majority of the flow washed off down a secondary passage into complete darkness.
Jack heard Ben’s frantic voice from the chamber below.
“Pull me up!”
Jack reached down and caught Ben’s hands. He was tugging Ben up through the opening when suddenly Ben let out a terrified shriek. Jack felt him slipping back down the hole.
