Trivia: I would say that if I had to chose a song for this chapter, it would be "Runaway" by Linkin Park.
Wow, I actully had to make myself stop writing for frear this chapter would be too long. I hope you like it.
"Carly?" Nell's voice was high-pitched as she looked to her friend. "Why are you so happy about dead bodies?"
"What dead bodies?" Carly asked with a giggle as she got closer and closer to the edge of the underground river.
"Carly? Carly!" Nell screamed as Carly almost fell into the river, Nell managing to grab her shirt. "Carly, there are dead bodies down there!" Looking into the pit, Nell let out a gasp of disgust. She could barely tell that the decaying objects down there were bodies, they looked to have been there for so long.
"All I see are lights." And as Nell looked at Carly's eyes, glazed over and dazed, she knew something was very wrong.
"Carly, let's get out of here, okay?" Nell said nervously.
"No." Carly murmured, reaching out a hand to touch nothing. She smoothed her hands over nothing, like she was petting a puppy. Nell wondered if she should go take Carly to the hospital. She was sure that Carly had hit her head a little too hard in that fall.
"Carly, please, let's go!" Nell pleaded desperately.
"No, please stay." The voice came out of nowhere and Nell and Carly whirled around to see Carly's granddad, his expression agitated, his hands nervously twisting an old butcher knife.
"Granddad?" Carly's voice came out in a whisper, but Nell was relieved to see her eyes had lost their dreamy look and now were filled with panic.
"This is too early." He said, shaking his head. "Carly, what are you doing in here?"
"What are you doing with that knife?" Carly asked frantically. "Granddad, what's going on?"
"Answer me first! What are you doing down here?" He demanded.
Carly simply stared at him, then turned and broke into a full run, dragging Nell behind her.
"Carly! Get back here!" Carly could still hear his frantic cries as she ran into a tunnel, not stopping for anything. The tunnel was so big she didn't even have to crouch down to move through it. She could see the tunnel perfectly and when she looked up, she saw that torches lined the very highest points of the walls. She could heard footsteps behind her and knew that her granddad had followed them.
"We're going to die, we're going to die." Nell whimpered as she ran. Suddenly, they came to a crossroads. They had emerged in another, smaller cavern, this time with no underground lake but with tunnels reaching out in every direction.
"Carly, he's coming!" Nell squeaked as they both heard Granddad's wheezes and soft swearing.
"This way!" Carly grabbed Nell's hand and tore through a tunnel at random. After running for a few minutes, they began to stop.
"That…was…the…worst." Nell managed to get out, holding her side. When she finally managed to get her breath back, she turned to Carly.
"Why is your granddad going all psycho on us? Wait- Insanity doesn't run in your family, right?" She asked Carly, who just gave her an irritated look. "What- I had to check!"
"Do you think he knew which way we went?" Carly asked, when a loud thumping sound interrupted her.
"That would be a yes."
The two sprinted off, until they finally they ran into a rock wall. "Ok, this time we're really going to die." Nell said.
Carly felt pure fear grip her, but suddenly, an unknown force seemed to grip her head and turn it upward. There, she saw a staircase, carved out of the stone in the wall a few feet above the ground. The stairs lead to a trapdoor in the roof of the tunnel. She pushed Nell towards it, and they shared a wordless glance. Nell crouched down and Carly managed to get up on her and get to the stairs. She reached down and grabbed Nell's hands, trying to pull her up. Carly managed to get her a few feet off of the ground, but didn't have the strength to pull her up to the stairs. Suddenly, she saw her granddad in the distance, sprinting towards them.
"Carly… You have to drop me." Carly looked down into Nell's terrified face.
"No way!" She pulled harder, but she still didn't have the strength. She was too tired from running, and her granddad was getting closer.
"Carly, if you don't leave he's going to get both of us!" Nell said, eyes urgent.
"No!" Carly said, but even as she said these words, she felt Nell's hands slipping. She squeezed tighter, pulled, and Nell unexpectedly flew up to join her.
"How did you do that?" Nell asked.
"Me? That was you!"
"No, it wasn't. I felt myself slipping, and then you just pulled me up!" But both girls were distracted by Granddad running up to the stairs.
"Don't worry." Carly reassured Nell. "He'll never make it up here." But even as they watched, Granddad reached for a huge rock by the wall, and began to push it over to the stairs.
Nell looked on in disbelief. "How the heck did we not think of that?" She ran up the stairs with Carly. Then, she turned at the last moment, paused, and then ran back down and pushed her foot on Granddad's head just as he was climbing onto the stairs. He toppled back, hitting his back on the rock, and fell to the ground, motionless.
Nell stood there motionless, too. She was perplexed and slightly scared. She had never hurt another human being before. Even though he was probably trying to kill her and Carly, she looked at him with remorse.
They both pushed open the trapdoor to find themselves under a bed. They looked around, nervous by this sudden change of environment. But they squirmed out from under the bed. It was almost morning and they could see two people in bed, thankfully still asleep. The girls crept towards the door, slipping out. They managed to get out of the house easily, and once out, ran for their lives.
"What do we do now?" Nell asked, huffing.
"We've got to go home. My home, I mean." Carly corrected. "Let's go back to Granddad's house."
"What? Are you nuts?!"
"Nell, you knocked him out pretty good, and we need a ride. I hope you took driving lessons."
"Carly, I'm 14!" Still, she obediently followed Carly back towards the house. As Carly slowed to a walk through the town, the early morning risers of Yakima began to turn and look at her. They didn't remove their eyes from her face, and just stood there, staring without emotion.
"Keep walking." Carly whispered to Nell. But just as they were a few blocks from Carly's house, she broke into a run.
Without a word, the watchers ran after them. Carly swerved into an ally, dragging Nell with her.
"Carly, what are you doing? This isn't like one of those cartoons were everyone just runs right past-" She was cut off by Carly running right back out, and into the streets.
Nell's eyes widened as she realized that Carly was sacrificing herself so that Nell could get help for the both of them. She was on her own.
Carly ran along the streets of Yakima as hard as she could, but was slowing down. She really should have taken Nell's advice and just gone to sleep last night. As she ran towards her house, she stumbled, and something flew out of her sweater pocket. She realized that it was her cell phone, and grabbed it before running off again.
Trembling, she pushed the speed dial for Sam's phone, and it began to ring.
Sam looked at her cell phone as she woke up. Carly. Huh, it took her long enough to call. For a second, she looked at the caller I.D., then sighed and flipped open her phone.
"Yeah?"
"SAM! HELP!" Yikes, Carly sounded very…not like Carly.
"Carly, what's wrong?"
"Sam, Yakima's crazy. Granddad has a knife, and a secret trap door, and I'm running from the whole town."
Sam sighed. How did she get the whole town mad at her? Even Sam had never accomplished that feat. And what the heck was the junk about a knife and trapdoor? But this might actually be important. "Okay, what wrong?" She said in her most bored voice.
"I…I can't explain right now." 'Then why did you call?' Sam mentally asked her. "But you have to come up to Yakima. You, Freddie, Spencer, I need you guys!"
"Carly, it's 5:30 in the morning, you better have a good reason for calling, let alone trying to make me come to Yakima!"
"Sam this isn't a joke ple…" Carly's voice was suddenly gone and Sam heard sounds of static before the cell phone became silent.
"Carly? Carly!" She hung up, looked at the clock and sighed. Whoopee. A field trip to Yakima. But she should probably go just in case there really was trouble. Not that Carly was her friend anymore, but just in case.
Just in case.
Author's Note: In recent news, I have a bleated Christmas present for you guys. That's right, it's a bright, shinny new……….story! I'm working on the trailer. If you like this story, then you'll love my new story.
WhiteIce