Devil's Rock (3 page)

g

Chapter 3

The torch, lying on the stone ledge, caught the side of the skull in its beam, accentuating the dark hollows of the eye sockets. As he watched, something moved in one of the sockets and Zaki opened his mouth as the scream leapt into the back of his throat. A black, glistening beetle dropped from the socket and scuttled into the darkness.

Zaki tore his gaze away from the skull’s unblinking stare and forced himself to take in the rest of the skeleton. It wasn’t very big. This was a child!

Clammy, chilling fear flooded through him. Someone had killed a child. His age, maybe younger . . . or the child had died here. Abduction. Murder. He was always hearing those words in the local news. On the radio, on television.

Get out! He had to get out! He made a lurching dash for the place where the passage should begin, but in the moment of panic all sense of direction had been erased and he yelled with sudden pain as he collided with unyielding rock.

He sat up in the sand, his back against the cave wall, nursing his left shoulder, which had taken the full force of his fall. ‘It’s just a skeleton,’ he told himself. ‘Bones can’t hurt. Probably been there for centuries.’ This could be an ancient burial chamber. He’d read about those. The body carried here from somewhere else. Perhaps the child of an important family. This explanation made Zaki feel better. The thought that whatever had happened here had happened a long time ago made the darkness seem less threatening. Slowly, he got to his feet and crossed the chamber to stand by the stone platform. The pain in his left shoulder was intense, but he found he could reduce it by putting his hand in his fleece pocket so that his fleece, and not his shoulder, took the weight of his arm.

Gingerly, he leant forward and picked up the torch, taking care not to touch the bones, and then he forced himself to examine the skeleton. The ribs and pelvic bones poked out through the threadbare remains of a simple dress.

The dress suggested a girl, but didn’t boys wear tunics in the really old days? The fabric looked fairly modern so he supposed it couldn’t be all that old. Who was she? If it was a she. But . . . was there an arm missing? Zaki took a step back and swung the torch beam on to the floor. There were the missing bones; three large bones and the little bones of the fingers and wrist scattered and pressed into the sand where he had, unknowingly, stepped on them. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered – but what was he saying? She was dead! Still, it seemed wrong to have trodden on the bones – sacrilegious, a desecration, and now he was somehow involved, he had changed something, disturbed her rest.

The body must have lain with one arm hanging over the edge of the platform. Not a formal burial, then. Whoever it was most likely died here.

Among the little bones in the sand, Zaki noticed there was something else; a narrow metal band, a bracelet perhaps. He knelt down next to it. It felt wrong to disturb her remains but it might give a clue to who she was. He glanced up at the skeleton, seeking permission. The skull, lying on its side, stared out across the chamber as, perhaps, the dying child had stared, hoping for rescue, or waiting for death.

‘It’s just so I know who you are,’ Zaki said. Pain stabbed through his left shoulder as he eased his hand out of his pocket to hold the torch, then he picked the little metal band out of the sand and twisted it around in the torchlight. The metal was green with corrosion. The inner surface was flat and the outer surface slightly curved with a pattern of inscriptions running all the way round it. Some sort of writing, maybe. He tried it on and found it just fitted over his own hand and hung, loosely, on his wrist.

‘I’m not stealing it, but I think I should show it to somebody. I’ll bring it back.’

Zaki closed his eyes as a throbbing ache spread down his arm from his injured shoulder. Had he broken something when he hit the cave wall? His stomach tightened and he thought for a moment that he would be sick. He sank slowly on to the sand. Was the light from the torch getting dimmer? Perhaps he should turn it off and save the batteries.

He felt giddy, almost as if something was taking him over.

Now the darkness seemed comforting.

He switched off the torch and let the darkness enfold him. It was soft and dense.

He lay back on the sand and breathed the darkness in and out. It brushed his face. It poured into his ears. It made no difference whether his eyes were open or shut. He was safe. Cradled. He heard his own voice say ‘Mum, I’ve hurt my shoulder,’ and he thought a hand stroked his hair.

Someone, something would take care of him.

There was light now.

Somebody coming?

Bright light – but where? His eyes were shut. Was it inside his head? Getting brighter.

And voices talking, talking, talking, talking! A man’s voice then a child’s, then a man’s, talking, talking, shouting, screaming! Voices shouting! Voices screaming! Talking, shouting, screaming – all at once – all together.

‘Who’s there?’ Zaki called.

Smoke – he could smell smoke. The air grew thick with it, making him cough. Perhaps the light came from a fire. No – not a fire – inside him. The light was inside him.

And faces – lots of faces – crowding – drums beating – eyes full of fear. Who are you? Now just one face – a monstrous face – eyes of fire – teeth stained with blood! Who are you? Why are you staring? What have I done?

I didn’t hurt you.

I didn’t hurt you!

I’m the one that’s hurt.

Can’t you see? I’m the one that’s hurt!

Help me!

Help me!!

Gone.

Hiding – can’t see them any more – but I know they’re there.

Climbed into my head – they all climbed into my head – it’s all inside me – everything.

Zaki lay on the sand. The light that had been so bright shrank and shrank and shrank until it was a tiny, glinting speck in the vast, empty darkness. He clung to the vanishing gleam. Focused on it. If he lost it, there would be nothing.

The speck flickered and was gone.

All was black. All was still.

Zaki waited. What now?

In the stillness Zaki became conscious of a familiar sound. Water. Lapping water. The sound of water nearby.

Water! The tide! Water in the mouth of the cave!

How long had he been in here? Can’t have been that long? The tide hadn’t even turned when he came in. Should have been hours before the water reached the cave.

Zaki rolled on to his right side, then slowly on to his knees. In the disorientating darkness he had the strange sensation that he was now upside down. His head swam and he had to lower it on to the ground between his knees.

When he felt a little steadier, he groped around in the sand for his torch. There it was; a familiar, reassuring shape. His thumb found the switch and clicked it on. The narrow beam sprang out across the cave’s sandy floor. To his immense relief the battery wasn’t flat. Zaki swept the light around the chamber, over the rock platform and the white bones, across the walls, until he found the entrance to the passage. No sign of water, but he could clearly hear little waves washing against stones, the sound amplified and sharpened by the rocky tunnel. He crouched, listening, like a tiny fly caught in a giant’s ear.

Go! Move! Get out! The same fear that told his mind he must act kept his crouching body frozen in panic. An age seemed to pass before the messages from his desperate brain reached his cramped muscles. Slowly he straightened. Pain from his shoulder shot down his arm. His heavy legs clumsily obeyed the command to walk and he stumbled into the passage and down the rough-hewn steps.

At the second set of steps he stopped. The torchlight flashed back at him off the surface of a dark sheet of moving water. Trapped! The sea had entered the tunnel and flooded the first section. How had this happened?

Only then did Zaki think to look at his watch. Ten fifteen! He’d been in the cave for over four hours. How? How? He must have been unconscious – fallen asleep – but, four hours?

How far would the water rise? He was pretty certain that it never reached the main chamber. At worst he could wait until the tide went down again: six, maybe seven hours; a long time, but there was plenty of air. Then he thought of his father. His father would be mad with worry. Would have no idea where he was. What would he be doing now? What would he say when he found out what he had done? And Michael? What would Michael think? They’d be searching for him for sure.

Should he shout? Try to let them know that he was OK?

‘Dad!’

‘Dad!’ I’m in here!’

‘I’m in here!’

‘I’m in a cave!’

His voice rang back off the cave walls. They’d never hear him through the water and rocks.

Would his father have called the coastguard on the radio? No. He couldn’t. No VHF reception in the estuary.

How could he have been so stupid?!

Now shame pushed fear aside.

He needed to think. Calm down. Get a grip.

Zaki turned off the torch to save the batteries, put it in his pocket and sat on the top step, his right hand cupped over his aching left shoulder. With the torch off, he could see that the water was not dark but glowed a greeny-blue. Sunlight outside was reflecting off the sandy bottom and filtering through the water into the cave. For a moment he was mesmerised by the flickering turquoise light that played across the cave walls.

‘It’s not that deep,’ he told himself. ‘I could dive down and swim out.’

But how much of the tunnel was flooded? How far were these first steps from the entrance? He couldn’t remember. It was as though days, rather than hours, had passed since he stepped into the cave.

‘The longer I sit here, the deeper the water will get.’

Zaki forced himself to his feet and started down the steps into the water. It was cold and, as it crept up his bare legs, he began to shiver, but he kept going. Soon the water was up to his chest. A few more steps and he would be swimming. He pushed off from the bottom and floated out into the luminous water. He swam with a lopsided breaststroke, unable to do more than paddle with his left arm. The further he went the smaller the distance between the water and the cave ceiling became until, treading water, there was just room to keep his nose and mouth above the surface in the narrow air-gap. Rising panic and the chill of the water constricted his chest, reducing every intake of breath to a short gasp. His fleece was heavy and waterlogged, dragging him down – he should have taken it off. Go back? He saw again his father’s anxious face. Dive. He had to dive. Three breaths, then go. Stay down as long as possible. Just hope it’s not too far.

Zaki fought to fill his lungs with air. It was as though his body, knowing the risk was too great, was refusing to cooperate. With the third breath, he plunged down, kicked up with his legs and struck out along the flooded tunnel. He was swimming towards the sunlight. Keep going – he just had to keep going. Now his lungs, that had refused air when it was available, were desperate for breath. The drag of his clothing, like a malicious hand, held him back, trying to drown him. The weakness in his left arm made it hard to keep from floating up against the cave roof and soon the coordinated strokes, arms and legs together, with which he began gave way to shorter, desperate kicking. He couldn’t do it. He could see the sunlight but he couldn’t get to it. His head struck the roof, his fleece snagged on the rough surface of the rock. This was it. A sob bubbled out of him and choking salt filled his nose and mouth.

He knew he was drowning – then hands took hold of his clothing and tugged him clear of the snagging ceiling. As he rolled over in the water, a flash of white arm passed his face and he was gripped firmly beneath the shoulders. The arm that held him was thin but strong and pulled him against the owner’s body. Swiftly, he was propelled through the water – out and up – and suddenly he was gasping and coughing in the clean, fresh air and the dazzle of sunlight.

I’m alive! I’m alive!
It was all he could think between retching coughs.

‘The rock – get hold of the rock,’ a girl’s voice commanded.

Blinded by the sunlight, Zaki groped with his hands as his rescuer pushed him on to the top of the now submerged boulder by the cave-mouth.

Zaki clung to the boulder. He squeezed shut his eyes to try to clear his vision; when he opened them, the girl’s face was inches from his own. Her hair was cropped short, the roughly cut curls sticking up in spikes around her head. Her mouth was set in a firm, no-nonsense line and the look in her grey, widely spaced eyes was not sympathetic.

‘What did you find? Did you touch anything?’

Then her eyes fell on the bracelet on Zaki’s wrist.

‘Give me the bracelet. It’s not yours.’

When Zaki failed to move, she seized his arm and twisted the bracelet over his hand then thrust it on to her own arm.

‘Don’t tell anyone what you have seen. Do you understand?’

Zaki stared at her in bewilderment.

‘Do you understand? You mustn’t tell.’

Zaki managed to nod.

‘No one. You understand?’

‘All right, I understand.’

‘No. That’s not good enough. You have to promise. Promise. Promise me you won’t tell.’