Darkness.
It seemed to Emily that darkness was all she’d ever seen. It had been two weeks now, two weeks that she’d been stranded in this cold, cramped place. A well, they told her now. Hell, it seemed to her.
She’d been out playing alone. Her mother told her not to wander, but there were butterflies, dancing on the breeze in the waxing light of the afternoon sun, so beautiful and so tempting. She’d chased them around the yard, past the hedge that marked the border of their property, past the abandoned husk of the old McVeigh house. She’d followed them until that glorious moment when they lighted as one on the brier patch in the shadow of the old, leaning barn.
She’d tried to catch one, of course, but it was just out of reach. She crept closer, and closer still, stretching toward the fluttering creature. There was a crackle of dry timber, but she ignored it–after all, she was so close! But the ground began to shake, and the world exploded around her. She tumbled downward. Her dress caught on a thorn, tearing–they told her had it not, she might never have been found. It pierced her skin, dragging red across her arm. She saw it as she fell, the arm extended upward toward the last splintered shreds of daylight, her butterfly flitting away, light as air, frightened by the momentary commotion. But then all was still, and all was dark.
She screamed and screamed, but her cries were swallowed by the earth, and no one came. She would have died down here, she knew, had she not been a resourceful girl, resourceful and lucky. There was water, just a fetid trickle along the slick rock wall, but enough to slake her desperate thirst. There was food, too, for a time. Spiders and worms and nameless, crawling things. She ate them because she had to, choking them down as they writhed and scrabbled and scratched. But the creatures of the dark are nothing if not cunning, and they soon learned to stay beyond her reach. She could hear them dancing in the darkness, mocking her.
The rabbit was a gift. It was young, and it was injured. If it weren’t, it probably would have avoided the hole. But instead it stumbled in, mewling as it fell. It broke its neck in the fall and landed square in Emily’s lap. She couldn’t bear the thought of what she had to do–not at first–but after two more days, she couldn’t bear the thought of not, and she’d eaten it, accepting her horrible gift for what it was. By the eleventh day, she’d gotten so desperate she began mewling, too, hoping to attract another. After all, she thought, her mother had left her to die down here, but perhaps the rabbit’s mother had not been so quick to give up. She couldn’t believe her luck when it worked. This one, she had to kill herself, and this time, she felt no reservation, no hesitation in her meal.
Now they had found her, and they’d lowered down a radio so that they could talk to her. They’d been searching for her all this time, they said, in the woods and along the roads and in the streams. They’d sent divers into lakes and put her picture on the news, but to no avail. They thought that she’d been taken, but she hadn’t been. She was here, always here, trapped below the ground just a few hundred yards from where her mother sat. She cried and screamed and pled, and they said they would come to get her, as she knew they would. They widened the hole, and they told her they were lowering down a man to carry her out. He would be lowered down face-first, and the shaft was too narrow for him to maneuver. There was a harness, they said, and she would have to put it on so they could bring her up. Over and over they explained it, but she didn’t listen. She knew what she had to do.
Emily watched with delight as they lowered him down. He wore a lamp on his forehead, painful in its brightness. The spiders and worms and nameless things recoiled, and she would have, too, but she knew that she must not. Instead she let out the faintest of whimpers, and the man told her gently that everything would be all right. He was large and muscular and helpless, his arms tucked uselessly behind him.
Just as well, she thought. After all this time, Emily was very, very hungry.
___
©2009 Chris F. Holm
Chris F. Holm is a writer and scientist whose work has appeared in Demolition Magazine, Spinetingler Magazine, The Back Alley Webzine, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. His short story “Seven Days of Rain” won the 2007 Spinetingler Award for Best Short Story on the Web. He’s also written two novels: DEAD HARVEST and THE ANGELS’ SHARE. You can visit his website at www.chrisfholm.com.
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Tags: Chris F. Holm
February 5th, 2009 at 11:54 am
I loved this story! Rates very high on the creep-o-meter!
February 5th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Great story! Although my initial thought was, “That poor bunny.”
February 5th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Now, that’s flat-out scary! Great work, Chris.
February 6th, 2009 at 10:41 am
OH! Didn’t see that coming!
February 6th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Thanks, all!
February 7th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Nicely done, Chris. Nice twist.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Great dark ending. Should have expected it, seeing that you’re pals with Gerard Brennan and all…