One day late because of midterms. Oops. Also, penultimate chapter! This has been a lot of fun, and I'm honestly kinda disappointed we're getting to the end.
Chapter warnings: animal cruelty and death of an animal, a mention of cannibalism.
The one door and the gaping hole in the wall lead to the same tunnel, it turns out. Which makes sense spatially, but Erin feels like it shouldn't. This tunnel has twists and turns, so more often than not the light from Orla's headlamp is just bouncing off a rock. It's actually reassuring not to see an endless tunnel.
"Where do you think we are?" Clare asks. "Are we still near the church, d'you think?"
"Probably," Erin says. "I mean, they can't have dug much of a tunnel, and it's not like there's a secret tunnel system running through all of Derry or something."
"Well, there is the sewer system," Clare points out, and Erin nods like she thought of that.
"There's a light up there," Orla says.
"What is it?" Erin demands, standing on her toes to try and get a look over Orla's shoulder. "Murder cultist clowns?"
"Nay, it's a wee light close to the ground. Looks sort of red."
"That sounds bad," Clare says. Erin gives up and pushes her way past Orla.
"Oh, god, it's a rat!"
"Nay, that's no rat," Orla whispers, right in Erin's ear.
It looks like a rat, the size of her foot and brown with glowing red eyes. Erin's pretty sure they're not supposed to have glowing red eyes, but she doesn't really look at rats much.
"That's a chipmunk," Orla says, in a tone of voice usually reserved for saying "that's a rotting corpse".
"Is that a kind of rat?" Clare asks.
"Nay, it's a fierce violent creature!" Orla says. She sounds more genuinely scared than she's ever been. Orla likes to watch gory horror films because she thinks they're funny.
"It just looks like a squirrel with some stripes," Erin says. Now that Orla's staring straight at it, there's slightly more light on it.
"It's invasive. And probably rabid, too, look at the eyes."
"Are you serious?" Erin demands. All she gets in response is Orla's terrified panting, and Clare starting to match her. Fuck, Clare's too easy to peer pressure. If Orla panics, she'll panic, and then Erin'll probably panic too.
Erin backs up a step and takes aim, then kicks the chipmunk with all her might. It splatters against the wall, leaving a smear of green slime instead of blood.
"Rabid alien chipmunk thing dealt with. Happy?"
"Aye," Orla says, back to cheerful.
"Great. Let's keep going." Erin starts off down the passageway.
"Um, Erin?" Clare says. "I think you found a secret door."
Erin turns to look at her, then follows her pointing finger to an opening in the wall, right next to the dead chipmunk. There's an uneasy blue light coming out of it that gives Erin the creeps, but a lot of things down here are starting to give Erin the creeps.
"It could be a trap –" Erin starts. Orla's halfway through the doorway already, leaving Erin and Clare in almost total darkness.
Well, Erin isn't going to let her cousin go in there alone and die, and she certainly isn't going to stay out here without the light.
…
Eventually, Michelle's bone-deep terror starts to fade into the background, the way the fear of bombs and partisans and blockades does. The floor is damp and putrid water is making its way through her uniform skirt, because the cultists couldn't bother to do some fucking rainproofing, could they. Her ma'll be upset, because Monday is laundry day and she doesn't have the time to be doing laundry all week, and she won't care that it's all really James' fault because she'll think Michelle's just making excuses.
"Fucking murder cultists," Michelle grumbles. Still no response. It's so dark her eyes are making up blue spots just to break up the blackness. Michelle kicks the wall halfheartedly, just to make sure it's still there. It is, and kicking it does sort of make her feel better, so she does it again.
She needs to get out of here. Once the thought forms it's the only thing her brain can hold onto. She needs to stand up and find the doors and leave, fuck James and fuck Erin and fuck all the rest of them for leaving her here, alone in the dark, but she can't be thinking about that now because the fear isn't far away at all.
Michelle pushes herself to her feet, swearing as her feet slip on the slick floor. The way back's left, or maybe right, she can't remember, but if she stands here she's going to panic again, she can feel it, so left it is. Holding her breathing steady and her footsteps careful.
When her hand hits a surface that creaks and moves, Michelle lets out a sob she's been holding in for a while. She found the door, she's out, there's even faint bluish light coming through. She made it out alive.
Then Michelle sees what's behind the door.
"No, no, fuck no, let me out –" she tries to go back, away from the floating corpses that all seem to be looking at her, but her feet slip out from under her and the floor suddenly seems much steeper than it was.
Michelle rolls to a halt about a metre from a little girl's face with dead staring eyes, and hears the door shut behind her with a thud. Both her knees are skinned and she's dripping greenish mud. Christ, if she ever makes it out of here alive she'll have to burn her uniform.
"That's a lot of dead wains," someone says cheerfully, and for a second Michelle thinks she's hearing things. She scrambles to her feet and looks around wildly for anyone alive and not floating.
The girls, her girls, are on the other side of the cavern, and Michelle approaches them slowly, not quite believing her own eyes.
"Michelle?" Erin says, her eyes wide like she's seeing a ghost.
They can see her.
Michelle runs straight at them and grabs Erin by the shoulders because she's not sure if she wants to hit her or not. She's crying so hard she can barely see. Erin steadies Michelle on her feet, then hugs her, and Clare and Orla join.
"You left me," Michelle sobs. "You fucking left me."
"I know," Erin says. She sounds gutted. "We – forgot you, somehow, the cave made us forget or summat, but we're here."
"I'm sorry we left you," Clare says, right into Michelle's ear.
It's too warm in the hug, and Michelle has someone's hair in her mouth, and it's just embarrassing now, but Michelle stays in her friends' arms anyway.
"Are you all right?" Clare asks when she pulls away eventually.
"You look dreadful," Orla says, and that makes Michelle laugh, which turns into crying again, and that sets everyone else off until they're leaning on each other again, shaking with fits of sobbing laughter.
"We found you," Erin says. "That just leaves James, then we can go home." She says it matter-of-factly, like it's finishing up maths homework rather than rescuing Michelle's cousin from a psycho clown.
"I found you, actually," Michelle says.
"I think we found James, girls," Clare says, then points upward.
James is floating, even his hair sticking up, just above Orla's head. His eyes are open and staring at nothing and he looks a bit like a corpse, which Michelle is going to ignore.
"Why the hell's he floating?" Michelle asks.
"Why the hell did we forget you existed?" Erin asks. "There's something weird down here, magic or something. We just need to get out."
Orla grabs one of James' ankles and tugs on it experimentally. James drifts downward a few inches, and Michelle smacks him in the knee, the highest part of him she can reach. His eyes don't even flicker.
"Let's get him on the ground, at least," Michelle says. Her weight and Orla's drag him to about six inches above the ground, and when Erin joins in his feet tap the floor.
"Right then," Michelle says, letting go. James pops back up like a cork, Erin and Orla yelling and trying to hold onto his ankles.
"Don't let go!" Erin says, rather unnecessarily, and Michelle and Clare both take his legs and start dragging him back down. They leave him a few inches above the ground this time, everyone still holding on to him. Michelle isn't letting go again.
"Oi, wank-features." She snaps her fingers in front of his face. "English idiot." Nothing. "James?" she tries, feeling small, and even that doesn't get a response.
"Slapping people works when they've fainted," Clare says.
"Best chance I'll ever get to hit him." Michelle winds up and slaps him. His head jolts back from the blow, but he still doesn't wake up.
There's an ominous rumbling noise from the other side of the cavern, and some of the other floating kids start drifting faster.
"Fuck, what do we do? We don't have time to just stand here and wait to get murdered."
No one answers her.
"Look at that. All my delicious little meals back in one place."
"The clown's back!" Clare wails, and tries to hide behind James' body.
"They're cannibal murderer clown pedo cultists?" Erin asks.
The clown is on the other side of the cavern, twenty meters away, and walking closer. Slowly, almost leisurely. It doesn't need to hurry, Michelle realizes. They have no way out.
"That's right, Michelle," the clown says, even though Michelle's positive she didn't say that out loud. "You're trapped down here. And soon, you'll float." It indicates the children above them. "We all float down here."
"Fuck, I can't die yet, I wanted to do more." Michelle wanted to go to Glasgow and ride some Scottish boys, she wanted to go to New York and ride some American boys, and she wanted to tell James that she might complain but he's all right for an English fella.
"This morning I didn't tell my parents I loved them," Clare says with a sniffle.
"I never got to eat one of them giant pretzels with mustard," Orla says. "Only the wee pretzels with mustard, and it's not really the same."
Michelle finds James' hand. It's limp in hers, and she squeezes it.
"Fuckin' love you, you eejit," she mutters, then louder, "love you all."
"I love you girls too," Clare says. The clown takes another step closer, the sound echoing.
"Well, since we're all going to die –" the next booming footstep cuts Erin off midsentence, and she glares at the clown. It – he – seems to shrink. "Do you fucking mind? I'm trying to bond with my friends before we get murdered! Give us a minute, will ye?"
"Very well then," the clown says. "One more minute of life for all of you. Sixty seconds. You'll be begging for death by the end of it."
It feels sort of freeing, almost. Sixty seconds and then Michelle gets eaten by a psycho murder clown. A nice, neat ending.
"There's so much I haven't done," Erin says. "I can't publish my first novel down here, but I can check one thing off my bucket list."
She takes a step toward James and kisses him full on the mouth.
Setting notes:
Chipmunks are not native to Europe; Siberian chipmunks were introduced in the 1960s as pets, and some escaped and established populations. They're considered invasive because they compete with squirrels and other native rodents for food. For the past decade or so there have been some localized sightings throughout Ireland, but a viable population hasn't gotten established. It's fairly plausible that before widespread internet, the girls never saw a chipmunk and would mistake one for a rat. Chipmunks can get rabies, but it's very rare (glowing red eyes also aren't a rabies symptom).