Tunnels 03, Freefall Read Free Page B

unctuous liquid. It was a Styx lantern. He didn't know if it had been his or had belonged to one of the others, but that didn't matter right now. He held up the lantern to assess his surroundings, his confidence building to the point where he decided to get to his feet.
    He found he was on a grayish surface -- it wasn't smooth by any means but striated and pitted, with a texture somewhat akin to elephant hide. His light revealed that there were other things stuck in it, varying from small pebbles to substantial chunks of rock. They had evidently hit the material with some force and penetrated it, just as he had.
    He lifted the lantern higher and saw that the ground stretched away on all sides in a gently undulating plateau. Treading carefully so as not to lose his footing, Chester went back to his hole to inspect it more closely. He couldn't believe what he was seeing, and chuckled in amazement. He was looking at a perfect outline of himself, sunk deep into the surface of the material. It brought to mind the Saturday morning cartoon with the unfortunate coyote, which always seemed to end up falling from great heights and leaving a coyote-shaped impression when it hit the canyon floor. And her was a real-life Chester-shaped version! The cartoon didn't seem to be quite so funny any more.
    Muttering with disbelief, he jumped back into the hole to retrieve his rucksack, which took quite some doing. Once he'd freed it, he hoisted it onto his back and scrambled from the hole. Then he bent to lift up the rope. "Left or right?" he asked himself, looking at the opposite ends of the rope, which disappeared into the darkness. Picking a direction at random and steeling himself for what he might find, he began to follow the rope, heaving it out of the rubbery surface as he went.
    He'd gone about ten meters when the rope suddenly came away in his hands, and he tumbled back into a sitting position. Grateful that the subterranean rubberized mat had absorbed his fall, he got to his feet again and examined the end of the rope. It was frayed as if it had been cut. Despite this, he was able to follow the line it had left, and soon came to a deep impression in the ground. He sidestepped around the shape playing his light into it.
    It certainly looked as if someone had been there; the outline wasn't as perfect as his, as if whoever had made it had landed on their side. "Will! Elliott!" he called out again. There was still no reply, but Bartleby suddenly reappeared, fixing Chester with his big unwinking eyes. "What is it? What do you want?" Chester growled impatiently at him. The cat slowly turned to face the opposite direction and, with his body low to the ground, began to creep forward. "You want me to come with you -- is that it?" Chester asked as he realized that Bartleby was behaving precisely as if he was stalking something.
    He followed the cat until they reached a vertical surface -- a wall of the grey rubbery material down which water ran in rivulets. "Where now?" he demanded, beginning to think that the cat might be taking him on a wild goose chase. Chester was reluctant to wander too far and get himself lost, but he knew sooner or later he might have to bite the bullet and explore the whole area.
    His skeletal tail sticking out behind him, Bartleby was pointing his snout at what appeared to be a gap in the wall. Water was splattering down over the opening in a continuous shower. "Inside there?" Chester asked as he tried to shine the Styx lantern through the water. In answer Bartleby stepped through the sheet of water, and Chester followed.
    He found he was in some sort of cave. Bartleby wasn't the only one inside it. Someone else appeared to be sitting there, huddled over and surrounded by discarded sheets of paper.
    "Will!" Chester gasped, almost unable to talk, he was so relieved that his friend had made it through.
    Will raised his head, relaxing his fingers which had been tightly clenched around a luminescent orb, and allowing the