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Chris looks up on the night he goes back to the mountain, sees in the moon shadow the lid of a well. A sliver of light remains, light from a distant world, and he remembers something Josh said. Before they stopped talking.
“Feels like I’m standing at the bottom of a well, you know?”
He’d folded up on a chair while Josh sat on the bed and stared at his hands.
“I see you all up there. And someone…starts to close it up. Nobody does a fucking thing. And I see you up there (with Ashley). But you don’t see me.”
After that, he’d slumped over and went silent. Chris opened his mouth to say something. Josh intercepted him. Told him to get up and get out.
He got up. And he got out. The curtains closed when he turned to Josh’s window.
No use dwelling on what he had or hadn’t done, should have or shouldn’t have done, but now—
“I see you, Josh,” Chris says. “And I’m coming.”
He looks over his shoulder to the layers and layers of mountains, tips glistening like the ridges of a spine slick with moonlight and lodged in a body made of rock. Pulling the collar of his coat closer round his neck, he keeps moving.
*
The mine smells like rot. Rotting meat, rotting earth. It settles in his nose with the relentlessness of formaldehyde and loops a nauseating circuit in his brain. Covering his face doesn’t help. It makes his breath warmer; the scent intensifies. Sweet as syrup, too much syrup. Sour with decay, clouded water. His throat drops as he dams his mouth with a knuckle to his lips.
The flashlight he brought produces a small cone of light that shimmers only a few feet ahead of him, illuminating thick motes of dust that melt into the dark as soon as he spots them. There’s probably still a tab open on his phone with a search on ‘lumens.’ He remembers resigning himself to using this piece of shit.
Skin bristling, he directs the flashlight side-to-side, catching on rock, splintered wood, standing water. Shadows flit back and forth with his unsteady hand, slipping towards him and then retreating like an inky tide. He shies away from their edges. Continues deeper into the coil of tunnels.
He tries to laugh at himself when he trips over the rough path for the third time. His thoughts stray for only a second before he hears a noise.
It mirrors the drag of his feet, disturbing loose rocks and silt. It echoes against the walls at an even pace, accompanied by uneven breathing. Heavy, through teeth.
It doesn’t sound like one of them.
So he tries, at a low whisper: “Josh?”
The noise stops.
He tries again.
Waits.
And then, soft, fitted below the stagnant air: “Chris?”
He almost drops his light. His heart begins to vibrate, carrying the sensation into his bones. It goes down, down to his legs, and he runs. Flashlight bobbing, the tunnel wavers in and out of his view, stark against the bulb before it disappears into a mass of black. His ankle stings, his lungs tingle. He ends up in a small chamber.
He stops, inspecting his surroundings as he bends over and rests a hand on his knee. For a moment, only his breath fills the space. Another tunnel lies before him, winding deeper into the mines. Water makes the walls glossy, each pock and crater filled with a droplet. A thousand eyes on him, flickering as he moves the flashlight. A thousand eyes. And an extra pair. Larger.
Floating in the tunnel.
He adjusts his glasses. Condensation must have gotten on them.
The large pair of eyes remains.
He squints. Narrows his vision.
The large pair of eyes remains.
Now, he brings the light forward.
First mistake.
An impact strikes his shoulder and he yelps and falls backwards into a wall. A menacing throb blooms in the centre of his clavicle. The rocks behind him scrape at his neck and push into the base of his skull. Warmth there. Blood, probably. He winces and hisses as he rubs a hand to his head, trying to ward off the ache. With his other hand he reaches for the fallen flashlight and shines it to his fingers, sticky and wet now as he moves them away from his nape. Yeah. Blood.
“Chris?”
“Fuck—!”
His shoulder slams back into the wall and he lets out a whimper. Nowhere to go. But nothing follows. Hand shaking, he points the flashlight ahead of him.
Legs.
Not legs like theirs.
He moves the light up by degrees.
Torn overalls, filthy with dirt and muddy water and blood. A jolt passes through him.
He finishes the rest of the motion with his head as he looks up.
“Josh? Is that…what’s—”
A large pair of eyes stare down at him.
His breath clings to the back of his tongue. He shrinks into the folds of his coat.
Oh shit. Oh fuck.
With Josh’s face encased in shadow, he can’t see much. He relies on the weak outer ring of illumination from the flashlight. It feathers along a jawline, the underside of a chin. As his eyes accommodate the darkness, he sees the shine of teeth. Thin, sharp, angled strangely in a mouth much too wide and daubed with blood. Blood over exposed muscle and pinched skin.
He lets out a watery choke, clapping his hand to his face.
Sorry, Josh, sorry for not coming sooner, sorry for leaving you alone, sorry for leaving you at the bottom of a well.
Flick of his wrist, and the flashlight skitters across the ground away from them.
Josh follows the sound, a gritty snarl rumbling from his chest.
Chris clambers to his feet, using his fingertips to push off the wall. He takes his phone from his pocket, watches as Josh’s head twitches. The flashlight stands harsh against his hunched body.
He waits until Josh leaves.
He does, eventually, scratching at his neck and lumbering away.
Chris turns around and lets his phone do the rest. It should last for a good while if he uses the screen rather than the torch app. He sees the page he still has open on ‘lumens.’ He trembles and he bites down hard onto his lip.
He has to move. So he moves.
One step, and he finds himself shouting again as a heavy weight hurls itself against his back and pins him to the rocky earth. Instinct wins over; he starts to struggle.
Second mistake.
A pallid hand grips his shoulder—the one that had taken a hit before—and flips him onto his back. He hisses in pain, eyes shut. He regrets opening them.
His phone, discarded about a foot away, gives off enough of a glow for him to work with.
Josh’s face hovers into view above him like a corpse surfacing from a pool of murky water. His pupils, despite their milky quality, focus on his own. The air rasps between his teeth, and a viscous mix of saliva and blood trickles over the edge of his mouth.
A few globules splash onto Chris’ coat.
Chris licks his lips, says, “Josh…”
He seems attentive.
Exhale. “Josh, I’m sorry.”
His head twitches, leans to one side.
“I…I tried to go back. Y-You knew I would, didn’t you?”
Josh does nothing, content with observing.
“But I was too late. I’m—I’m really…”
A sob bubbles out of him and he can’t help but release it, chest shuddering and a wavering heat opening a pit inside of him. Tears spool into the spiral of his ear. He grits his teeth, blinking through a cloud of wetness, fighting against and falling to each hitch of his breath. Against the walls of the mine his voice reverberates, returning to him warped beyond recognition.
The knobby hand on him shifts.
He sniffs, still shaking as he gazes up at Josh. “Sorry, that was…that was e-embarrassing, huh? Don’t tell anybody.”
Chris attempts to smile, but his lip quavers. He freezes as Josh’s mouth begins to articulate, teeth undulating in the gums. What follows is dry and low.
“Chris…I’m…”
A pause. Cottony silence.
“I’m starving.”
“Josh, no, please—!”
A strangled cry pierces the air and a long strand of muscle and torn skin fills the spaces between Josh’s teeth as he pulls back.
Chris gags soundlessly as his eyes widen. One of his hands jerks outward and clamps around Josh’s arm. With the other, he touches his fingers to the side of his neck. His skin crawls when he finds more than blood there, flowing free and warm. Rent tissue, jagged edge of his opened skin. And then he peers up at Josh, blinking past new tears and now searing pain.
He sees—he sees something there. Some sort of light. A glimmer in those eyes. He sees something.
“Josh,” he says, strengthening his hold. His voice breaks when he repeats himself.
Josh looks to him, to the hand on his arm. He chews on the skin hanging from his lips. Bares his teeth and growls, the reddened inside of his mouth gleaming.
No.
There was nothing.
He faintly registers Josh’s teeth ripping his sweater and plunging into the soft flesh beneath, taking in mouthfuls of viscera, tearing through the membranous linings holding them in place. Then he screams. He screams loud and holds Josh’s arm tight before faltering. Fingers jittering, he fists Josh’s collar and tugs on it. With resolve, with desperation, with resignation. Finally, with nothing at all. Josh ignores him and continues to work past the sheets of muscle to get to the tender meat sitting deep. His technique is crude, punctuated by the sound of flesh slipping wetly over his tongue as he throws his head back, of organs squelching in his grip.
A spasm flutters through him and he chokes on his own blood, sending spittle over Josh’s face. Looking down, he moans as he sees his fissured gut with misshapen pieces of himself strewn across the ground. Sees Josh watching him, hands pressed to his mouth as he pushes chunks inside.
Nothing, nothing at all in those mottled eyes.
They’re dark.
Dark as the lid of a well.