Chapter 30 - The Girl in Green

As I got closer, the dim light became stronger, but it wasn’t the strong light of an exit to the outside world. The tunnel opened on a huge cavern, where a dim pool of blue green illuminated the space from below. The surface of the water rippled, half circles moving outward from the water near where Madison had fallen.

Even though I knew I needed to find Madison, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the beauty of the place. The glowing water spread an unearthly light around surrounding stalagmites. Bioluminescence. The word came to my mind. Some plant or animal in the water glowed.

Madison groaned. I looked straight down over the edge of the tunnel. Madison lay twenty feet below, one leg twisted at a bad angle. It was broken, but she was alive.

She groaned again, louder this time.

“Shhhhh.” The hiss of my voice echoed unnervingly across the expanse of cavern. I reflexively looked back toward the tunnel. Nothing.

The ground sloped away from the mouth of the tunnel. It might be possible for me to climb down. Hard to tell from above, in the dim glow, how steep the climb really was. Maybe I could use the knife as an anchor in the rock. I wished for rope, though I wasn’t sure where I would tie it anyway.

Madison moaned in pain. I tried to make eye contact with her in the dim blue glow, tried to shake my head to get her to stop making noise, but she either couldn’t or wouldn’t look at me.

I shoved the knife into the holster and pulled the heavy flashlight out of my belt. I tightened the beam and swept the light across the cave wall on the other side of the underground pool. Across the lake at the other side of a stony beach was a tunnel that looked big enough to crawl through. A stronger breeze came through the cavern, a hint of fresh air from somewhere. If I could make it down to Madison, I could pull her across the lake, and hopefully we could make it out of here. The tunnel on the other side was dark, but I assumed we’d feel the breeze from outside if it was a way out.

She was hurt. Maybe badly. I couldn’t tell by looking at her if it was just her leg, or if there was more.

Maybe I could straighten her leg, splint it with her police flashlight. Hopefully whatever made the water glow wasn’t dangerous or toxic.

And what about the monster?

What if it could swim?

I couldn’t just leave Madison here. I had to get her out.

But the climb. It was steep and I wasn’t great at climbing.

I had to try.

I took a swig of water from my pack, shouldered my backpack, and clasped the front straps and tightened them down so the backpack wouldn’t come loose during the climb.

A climb, a swim, a short crawl, and we’d be free. The tunnel on the other side of the water just had to lead somewhere.

I shined the light down the rocks, looking for the best path down, but then sound from the tunnel behind me froze my blood.

“Madison, wait!”

My own voice echoed back to me.

The monster.

It had heard us.

“Madison, wait!” echoed again through the tunnels, much closer this time.

Madison looked up, her eyes widening in terror. She shook her head and I knew instantly what she was trying to say.

Don’t leave me here to die.

I had no choice.

When the tunnel turned, the main branch of the tunnel went straight into complete darkness. I’d come from the darkness, and I shuddered at the thought of going back, but it was the only way to hide. I dove for the dark side tunnel before the thing moving through could reach me. I pulled the blade of the knife out, and it hit the wall of the cave with a metallic snick.

The thing stopped moving. I heard it stop, knowing that it was listening for me. It waited. I went completely still, gripping the knife loosely so it wouldn’t be knocked from my hand at the first blow.

I could do this.

One stab and run.

Maybe I could cut it deep enough to make it retreat from both of us.

“Madison, wait!” The voice came so close it startled me.

I was hidden in the dark of the side tunnel, but as it turned the corner, I saw the outline of a shape in the dim light coming from the pool. The green hospital gown stretched across a large lumpy body, long hair, legs covered with dirt or blood or matted hair.

It approached the mouth of the tunnel where I hid. It stopped at the mouth of my tunnel and sniffed. I watched as that strange body coalesced into human form. The girl in green stood before the mouth of the tunnel, still sniffing.

So close that I could have plunged my knife into it.

“Madison, wait!” it said, and the nearness of the sound, my own voice coming back at me, shocked me. Her mouth didn’t move. Something in the center of its chest vibrated and hummed. If I stabbed straight at that, maybe I would disable its ability to mimic.

I held the knife, ready to stab.

All I had to do was lunge straight at the heart of the beast. I had it. I had the knife inches from its voice box.

I could change things for everyone at the school. Keep it from luring other students forever.

I couldn’t move.

I held the knife in front of me, knowing that if the thing lunged, I would turn and run. I would drop the knife.

I wasn’t a hero. I wasn’t anything.

From below, Madison groaned.

The thing snapped its head in her direction.

“Madison, wait!” it said again.

“Jess?” Madison called weakly. “Where are you?”

The thing turned and whipped through the tunnel, not human-formed anymore, more of a winding green blur of predatory motion. I ran after with my knife, hoping to stab it in the back as it ran toward Madison, hoping to make up for my cowardice, but it was too quick. I arrived at the mouth of the cave in time to see it half slither, half crawl down the rocks, faster than even the most experienced climber. It lived in the caves, knew them up and down. It charted a path that I could now see was well trod. The lake, the glowing beauty and the soft outside breeze, was a trap. I should have known.

Madison screamed, a blood-curdling death-is-coming yell that I knew would echo in my brain for years to come whether the monster mimicked it or not.

Her eyes locked on mine in terror, a moment before the thing was on her, claws tearing into her. The thing opened an impossibly large mouth and bit into Madison’s midsection. Madison’s screams stopped abruptly.

And then, the monster looked up at me, blood dripping from its mouth, a grotesque too-wide smile on its face.

“Madison, wait!” it hummed.

Was it just my imagination, or was there a new note of mockery in that voice that wasn’t a voice?

I didn’t wait to find out.

I turned and ran back down the tunnels, flashlight on now, avoiding the tunnels marked with an X.

All the stories I’d told myself about being a wild child, a fighter, a monster with a knife—these were all lies.

I was nothing.

I ran and ran, until I couldn’t catch my breath anymore. And then I took a path into a tunnel I hadn’t been in before, one that led to three different paths, one of which was little more than a cubby on the side of the wall, a place to tuck in and hide.

I was alone. Completely alone. Madison was dead and I’d done nothing to stop the monster from killing her. The smile the thing had given me let me know that it was coming for me next. The only thing that had saved me in the moment was that it was too busy eating Madison to play with me.

The mountain had chosen. The monster would come for me, and it would find me. It was only a matter of time.