The Devil Came Down the Mountain by Christopher Bond

Author:Christopher Bond [Bond, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Horrorsmith Publishing
Published: 2024-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

“Trey?”

The voice carried to them as if from across an enormously large space, some ancient ballroom built for gods, the word floating like a bubble and popping against their ears.

Josh’s voice.

“Trey? Mandy? Is that you?” From the middle tunnel. The marked tunnel.

Trey squeezed Mandy’s hand, his paralysis broken. “Go,” he hissed into her ear, half pushing her through the opening toward the sound of Josh’s voice. He stumbled behind her, not daring to look backward, seeing what was back there in his head anyway. Feeling it more but seeing too.

He handed her the flashlight as they ran. The beam bounced along the walls and the floor, the light flickering like a thousand lightning bugs caught in a jar, the frantic rhythms mimicking the wild beating of his heart.

A new sound from behind them: voices, low and guttural.

Trey and Mandy ran faster. The walls were a gray blur, the floor just a dull pressure under their shoes. The tunnel turned, and Trey’s leg slammed into a jutting rock along the wall. He pitched forward, crying out as he fell. Pain like cannon fire exploded from his knee. His hands pistoned out, and he caught himself just before his head could slam into the dirt.

Mandy was there in a flash, hands under each of his armpits, pulling him up, hauling him to safety. His foot kicked something, and he heard glass breaking. Mandy shined the light on the floor of the tunnel, and there, next to Trey’s foot, were the smashed remnants of an old oil lantern, the metal frame pocked with holes and nearly rusted through.

“Are you oka—”

“I’m fine,” Trey said, lying. Waves of pain rolled out from his throbbing knee. He stole a glance at the busted lamp. “Just go. Please.”

Trey ran nearly sideways in a stooped, lurching gait. The path wound deeper into the mountain. Every step sent needles of pain down to his feet and up into his groin. The knee had taken a good shot, worse than any he’d ever had on the football field in high school. His head swam.

Left, then right, the tunnel zigzagged at odd angles, as if the person who dug it out had been drunk, as if they hadn’t had any idea where they were going. Trey knew the feeling. He felt like a seasick sailor on an angry ocean, pitching back and forth, the slight slope of the floor making his legs wobble, his footsteps unsteady. Trey didn’t dare call out to Josh and Amber, not yet. Whatever was following them was still too close. The thing was too close, and Trey felt that if he talked, even a single word aloud, it might bring it closer still.

All through the tight, weaving turns and the down, down, always sloping down of the shaft, he imagined he could hear those rasping exhalations ricocheting off of the rocky walls. It wasn’t until they’d finally stopped, sagging against the archway of the tunnel, that he recognized the breathing as his own.

“I think…I think we lost it,” he panted.

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