AU: For many years, tourists from all over the world have come to Illinois to visit the infamous 'Doom Tunnel,' where legend has it on a long ago Halloween night a man went insane and killed himself. On the same night in 1978, Laurie and her friends decide to go check it out for themselves. On the way, they hear a report on the radio that an unnamed patient has escaped Smith's Grove mental hospital. Laurie can't dismiss her fear that she knows who it is, but her friends shrug it off. Once they are all deep underground however with 3 other group members and their tour guide, things quickly spiral into a nightmare when a man is found dead and their safety lines are severed. There's a killer with them in 'Doom Tunnel' and he's waiting, watching. Laurie just hopes her earlier thoughts about the identity of the escaped patient are indeed wrong, that this is a Halloween prank, or they are all dead. Not only that but she has a lot more to lose than just her life if it is in fact him and he captures her in the caves this Halloween night.

It's too dark, it's too dark! Her mind screams this in a terrifying mantra, as if her terror has found its own voice. She stands there, the severed rope still linked to her harness and not daring to turn on her headlamp. What if he sees her? She could very well be next! Yet… Yet she loves the evil, twisted son of a bitch! How did I even let myself get into this? But she knows asking that question won't help her right now, she has no answer to give. Because the simple truth is, she doesn't know. She wasn't even stupid enough to try and kid herself it wasn't him. The cut ropes, so much blood… no it was him, of this she was certain. Eight of them had entered alive, how many would leave dead? I HAVE TO GET OUT, I HAVE TO GET OUT! But this mantra doesn't help any more than the first one did. She gives herself a mental shake. She doesn't have time to be terrified right now she can melt into a ball later, once she's back in the light, above and on safe ground. Against him? That won't happen! She sets off down the pitch black tunnel ahead of her, the cut rope trailing behind her. One thing was for sure, she would quite probably carry her secret literally to her grave. She'd considered telling Annie and Paul several times but had chickened out at the last moment. The huge caves are totally silent as she starts moving, still too afraid to turn on her headlamp.

"Laurie!" A terrified voice squeaks from her left. She turns and there is Annie moving just as slowly as she, her headlamp also turned off.

"Who is it?" Annie breathes; her voice high with fear. "Who's doing this to us?"

She doesn't answer, what can she say? If she tells the truth now it will only make things worse. Worse? She scoffs. Things can't get much worse than this Strode if you tried! There's a cave with at least one person I know of dead in it and the killer's watching, waiting… The man you can't stop thinking, dreaming of… She takes a breath. "Annie," she grabs her friends hand. "We have to keep moving, do you hear me? We have to!"

"They've severed our ropes," Annie says, tears in her eyes now. "How the fuck will 'keep moving' help us if we can't even find our way to the fucking exit?"

"I bought a map in the gift shop," she pulls it out of her jacket's pocket. "Come on!"

"But you don't even know where we are," Annie argues. She feels her temper flare.

"Better trying than staying still and dying," she snaps. "Move, Annie! Our lives depend on it!"

Although if it is him then I've got a lot more to lose than just my life, she thinks. Fuck! Why did this have to happen to me? He'll kill me as soon as look at me! Why, why! Why was I drawn to him like I was? He'll save me until last a cat with a fucking mouse! The evil fucker will find it hilarious! He's got just the sense of humour to do that! Not to mention I never told him how I… She snaps herself out of her thoughts. She can't go there, she can't. They are the last thing she should be thinking about, she has to get her and Annie out of here. That was the one and only priority in her life right at this moment. She can and will think about the rest once she… they were safely out and he… yes he was caught. Yeah because you want him to be caught, goaded her mind. Do you fuck! You want him to be the one to catch you…

"Shut the fuck up!" She says out loud and Annie's eyes widen. "What?"

"Nothing," she says instantly. Shit. She had to stop thinking! "Just move!"

A minute or so later, they enter a passage which seems to be even darker than the previous one. That's when Annie lets out a high pitch scream. Laurie silently snarls at her friend. You fucking idiot! Thanks for telling him our location! Stupid, stupid! It's then she looks, risking briefly turning on her headlamp and that's when she sees what'd made Annie scream in the first place. It was Duncan, lying face down in a pool of his own blood, his throat slit from ear to ear. His rope just like theirs had been severed, not that it mattered for him anymore. Her suspicions only grew stronger. It was him, it had to be. It was Halloween night and Duncan's throat was slit. That was him, it couldn't be anyone else. She thinks of the legend the now deceased man told them only minutes ago and shivers. The evil killer has a twisted sense of humour, that would amuse him greatly. Had he heard Duncan telling them the story? She shivers again. Except you love said killer.

"Fuck," Annie squeaks, sounding dangerously close to a breakdown. "Fuck, I can't…"

"Annie!" She grabs her friends shoulders roughly and shakes her. "We can't go to pieces now! We do that and he's got us before he's even reached us! We have to concentrate on getting the fuck out of here, then we can panic and morn! Ok?"

"He's?" Annie demanded. "You know who's down here with us?"

Fuck! She hadn't meant to say that. "Not for certain, she acknowledges with a sigh. "It… it's a long story. Listen as soon as we're out of here I'll tell you everything, I promise."

"You're the one with the fucking map Laurie," Annie snaps. "You think you know it all and who's killing us off one by one? Then by all means get us out!"

She feels sick, but these words only make her mind clearer. They have to get out of this hole from hell if they want to survive Halloween night. You knew who he was when you met him, you made the choice, you let your feelings go too far. Again she wants to scream at the voice in her mind, which is stating things she absolutely does not want to hear. Not ever, not with him… She grasps Annie's hand, their now defective ropes trailing behind them like snakes. Or guts, she thinks and shivers. She has no time to feel sympathy or grief for a man she only met an hour ago however, they have to fight for their own survival. Right now they're lost down here within Doom Tunnel and they are not alone. A deadly killer waits, watches, stalks his pray. She doesn't think it'll make any difference when he sees her, even if she blurts it out to him before he kills her. That's if he gives her the time. Turning on her headlamp then pulling off her jacket, she uses the latter to cover the light, leaving just enough for them to see a few metres in front of them. Anymore would… would be too dangerous. Everything they had was designed to enable them to be found. The microphones, lights, whistles. Nothing was designed for them to stay hidden. But then, none of them had expected to need to hide, let alone do so to stay alive. There was a killer in these dark tunnels with them and survival meant finding the exit as quickly as possible. Regardless of her traitorous thoughts even given everything that'd gone before, right now he was a masked, silent killer with his lethal knife, waiting, watching, lusting blood.

Their blood.

Her blood?

…

October 30th, 1977. One year earlier.

Duncan Shaw whistled away happily to himself as he started packing his equipment into his work van before driving it back to base. It'd been another good day for Triple T, the company he worked for. The 3 Ts were emblazoned across the side of the van in blood red letters as well as beside the electronic passenger doors. 'TOWNSEND TERROR TOURS.'

Thomas Townsend was one rich son of a bitch, and Duncan at least was surprised he hadn't put 4 T's for both names. That said the letters were so big another might not have fitted. The guy was arrogant, like most rich people in Duncan's opinion, but he must give Townsend his due, the bastard had earned it. He owned the tourist permits to attractions such as haunted houses, forests where famous murders had allegedly happened and of course, the so-called 'Doom Tunnel.' His tours were to places all over America, but 'Doom Tunnel' seemed to be the most popular. Hardly surprising, Duncan reasoned. Darkness, deep underground, and the screams…

Ah yes, the screams. Those of the whaling widower. A smile split Duncan's face as he remembered telling a group the story just today. "They think what I'm about to tell you happened in the 18th century," he'd started, in his most scary and foreboding tone. "But no one knows for sure. A husband and wife came down here for some… private time together. They thought they were experienced cavers and had maps, and obviously rubbish lights back then, and believed that was enough. Once they were down there, they… did what they were there to do and then for some unadvised reason known only to them, decided to separate and go exploring. The one unwritten rule of caving. Do not separate. But obviously, no one was around to tell them this, so off they go. Hours later, they were still trying to find one another, calling each other's names repeatedly. But the acoustics worked against them. The echo was so bad, their voices just bounced off the walls and there was no way the other would hear them. Eventually, the husband went insane, probably because he believed he'd failed to protect his wife. He tried to find her until he was crawling due to weakness, until the despair became too much for him."

"What did he do?" asked an excited boy standing beside his father. The caves were supposed to have a 13-year-old age restriction, but then Townsend had waved it, stating if a child was there with an adult, it wasn't their decision. He just wanted more money, Duncan knew. But it wasn't his place to judge. Children under that age had to be supervised by an adult and could not enter on their own.

"He slit his throat," Duncan answered the child's question. "He was sure he'd never find her again and couldn't live with himself."

Of course, there were the usual shocked gasps from members of the group. The father glanced anxiously at his son. That's why there's an age limit idiot, Duncan thought. It's not just to be awkward. "So it's rumoured," he continued. "That every Halloween night, he screams his wife's name, still desperate to find her even in death."

"What happened to her?" asked a young woman.

"No one knows," Duncan said mysteriously. "Maybe she escaped, got out, maybe she's still down here too. But no one has ever found her remains if she is still here."

The rest of the tour had been unremarkable. Of course, the group followed him around the rest of the cave system, it cost a lot of money to enter after all, but the tunnel was the part they'd really wanted to see. Like many groups before them, they'd lost interest after the 'Doom Tunnel' part of the tour was over. Duncan knew this would happen; his tourists were so predictable. Anything with blood and gore they were all over it, as soon as it was over they ceased to care.

"Hey Duncan!" Duncan turned around and saw Patrick, another of the TTT instructors. He'd obviously just led a group out of the caves too.

"What's up Patrick?" Duncan grinned at his colleague.

"Same old shit," Patrick said. "So predictable, aren't they? I'm sure they wouldn't be so fascinated if it'd been their lady down underground, eh?" He winked.

"Shh Patrick," Duncan put a theatrical hand to his mouth. "It's a secret."

Patrick laughed out loud and headed towards his own vehicle. He glanced at the triple T with utter contempt. "Triple T," he sneered. "Stands for Townsend, total twat, or simply the total twat."

Now it was Duncan's turn to laugh. Over the years the 3 Ts had inspired less than flattering nicknames for their billionaire boss.

"Got to say the bastard earns his cash," Patrick admitted grudgingly. "People queue for hours for this shit."

"Agreed," Duncan said. "I just had to wait for half an hour while those idiots went through the gift shop buying everything in there."

Patrick grinned. "Think of the pay cheque Dunk. We get a bonus for everything they buy while on one of our tours."

"Yeah true," this made Duncan smile. "Damn. Now you say that I wish they'd taken longer."

Duncan found himself remembering when a boy, must've been no older than 6 despite the age limit, his father was adamant on taking him down, had brought up the best suggestions he'd heard for the three T's he had seen on the van. 'Tunnel took them.' Or 'Terror took them.' He was so impressed he let the boy have a free gift from the shop. Hell it wasn't like Townsend couldn't afford it. The child had taken a t-shirt and then begged Duncan for a photograph of the two of them beside the 'Doom Tunnel' sign. In spite of himself, the pride and awe on the boy's face had brought a tear to his eye and he was normally considered a cold man. He'd slung his arm around the boy's shoulders as his father had snapped the picture on a camera he'd brought with him, but hadn't taken down into the caves.

"Hey!" Patrick nudged him. "Earth to Dunk?"

"Sorry," Duncan grinned. "I was just remembering the time I let that kid have a free T-shirt and he wanted a picture of him and I."

"Oh yeah," Patrick smiled. "He was cute I can't lie. Shame he didn't come up with one for you, he would've said 'Duncan de dense dick!'"

"Ha!" Duncan mock glared at his colleague. "Or 'Patrick pompous prick!'"

"How long did it take you to spell pompous?" Patrick elbowed him. "Have you been working on that for years?" Duncan gave him the finger.

Patrick looked around just as a group of their colleagues in uniforms came out of the caves. "About fucking time," he playfully admonished. "The last lot of tourists left twenty minutes ago."

"Sorry Pat," one of the men said with a grin. "We actually… got lost."

"You're shitting me?" Patrick and Duncan said together, unable to help laughing.

"Fuck off," another of the men griped. "Would be nice if you'd give us a fucking map!"

"You've been doing this for years!" Duncan laughed at him. "You're the last person who should need a map, you're older than all of us put together! Hell, I'm surprised you're not in fact the husband after all!" Everyone laughed as the men jumped into Patrick's van to be driven back to base. "Get ready for tomorrow guys," Duncan called after them. "It's going to be a blast, and we're going to be fucking busy!" With a flash of his lights in acknowledgement, Patrick sped off and within seconds, was gone.