Crow Stone - Jenni Mills

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a hole would appear mysteriously in someone’s garden, or a pet dog would vanish and people would say they heard subterranean barks and yelps, but those were the only reminders that the underground world of my imagination existed.

      I believed in it, even if I couldn’t see it, and I wasn’t afraid of starving terriers or schoolboys’ ghosts. Then, I was never afraid of anything underground. Caves fascinated me; in one, I was sure, I might one day find the First Englishman.

      I got to my feet and took a blind step into the real darkness, fingers brushing the rough-hewn tunnel wall to keep me straight. I won’t go far, I told myself. Just a few steps. Just far enough. Then I’ll find somewhere to curl up against the wall and wait until sunlight fingers between the strands of ivy. I walked forward, testing each step on the uneven floor with my toes.

      I turned round to look back. I couldn’t see the entrance.

      In my panic my fingers lost contact with the tunnel wall, and I snagged my foot on a rock. I stumbled forward, lost my balance, and ended up on hands and knees. When I managed to get to my feet again, the tunnel wall had vanished too.

      I could hear my breathing in my ears, tight and harsh. The sound of it had changed, and the sound of the silence around me was different too. It seemed hollow, vast, empty. I knew I must be in some large space; perhaps a huge cavern the quarrymen had cut out of the rock.

      I reached out with my hand, groping empty air. I could see nothing, feel nothing. The darkness was smothering. It wrapped itself more tightly round me the more I struggled. I told myself the wall of the tunnel had been only inches away when I fell. I just had to go back a pace or two, and I would be able to reach out and touch it. I turned, took one tentative step, terrified I would stumble again. Then I took another, my hands waving uncertainly in front of me, blind-man’s buff. Still nothing. And nothing. And nothing. And nothing again. Then I understood I could no longer be sure which way I was facing.

      Oh God oh God oh God. There was nothing to tell me which way I had come or which way to go, and the darkness wound so tightly round me it was crushing the air out of my body. Please, God, let me find a way back. A safe way.

      But that was Crow Stone, when I was another person.

      Please, God, help me to find a way back out now.

      The sea urchin floats above me, set for ever in its chalky ocean. It couldn’t be more indifferent.

       Chapter Three

      I can still see the sea urchin so I know I’m not dead. It sits in a circle of light that’s ominously yellow. My head-torch battery must be failing.

      That’s not a pleasant thought. Even if I’m not dead I might as well be, once the torch goes. It’s just about possible to be ironic while I can still see, but in the darkness I suspect I’m going to cry. I don’t want to do that if I can help it. I don’t want to die feeling sorry for myself, though I suppose it’s the one time you’re justified in feeling that way.

       I don’t want to die

      How long have I been here? It’s so quiet. Not even the creak of settling rock.

      ‘Martin!’

      Pathetic. Hardly a bat-squeak. Throat too dry, tongue too big for my mouth. The air’s full of dust–but at least there’s still air. For the moment.

      ‘Maar-tin!’

      My ears feel wrong. They’re ringing, maybe something to do with the air pressure. I can hardly hear myself.

      ‘Maaar-tin!’

      Don’t want to bring the rest of the roof down, shouting. Come on, Martin, answer, you bugger.

      Fuck.

      Dust and chalk fragments on my upper body, one hand’s free and I can feel that, even reach up to touch my face, but from the pelvis down I’m pinned. My legs seem to be under a lot of rubble. I can feel them, though, and I think I’m wiggling my toes–I think–so the weight hasn’t broken my back. I suppose I should count myself lucky.

      On second thoughts, lucky isn’t quite the word.

      It reminds me of the games we used to play as children: which would you rather? Be crushed to death by an enormous weight? Slowly suffocated? Starve? Die screaming voicelessly, tormented by thirst?

      None of the above, thank you. I think I will just have that little cry, after all.

      But I’m not crying. I’m shaking.

       Jesus

      Stop it. I’m shaking hard enough to bring the rest of the ceiling down over my face.

      My body won’t pay any attention to what I tell it. It goes on shaking. Big, shuddering tremors start in my legs, travel up to my shoulders and into my head. Is this what soldiers get the night before battle: a mad uncontrollable jerking dance of fear?

      Judging by the silence, Martin’s in more trouble than I am. He must be under the main fall. Between me and the way out.

      ‘MAAAR-TIN!’

      Got to stop this shaking.

      Breathe.

      Think about anything other than dying.

      Chalk is fossil heaven. Even the dust is a universe, composed almost entirely of tiny shells, minute cartwheels and rings and florets, the remains of plankton, which can only be seen under the electron microscope. Coccoliths, the smallest fossils on earth.

      Easier, now.

      Unlike angels, they actually know how many coccoliths you can get on to a single pinhead–upwards of a hundred.

      I suppose my lungs are full of the bloody things.

      How long does it take to die underground?

      The human body can survive weeks or months without food, but only days without water. Days like this–I’ll never stand it. My tongue’s like sandpaper. No, it’s already died in my mouth and is slowly setting, like cement.

      ‘Mmmm-MAA—’

      Everything tightens, my lungs shut down. I can’t breathe.

      I’m starting to shake again and that isn’t a good sign.

      And now the bloody torch is flickering and–blink–it’s going to go and–blink–it’s back no it’s not blink it’s gone it’s dark I’m stuck here in the bloody dark I’d rather die just get it over with

      The Camera Man watching with his single bloodshot eye his long pale fingers reaching for me the darkness

       HOLY Mary Mother of

      It’s back. Thank God. The light’s on again. Shaking so much I hit my head on the ceiling and the damn thing came back on.

      Breathe, Kit, take it slow and steady. I have to get myself under control, make the most of the light while it’s still on, start trying to dig myself out instead of lying here like I’m already fossilized.

      Which would you rather? Suffocate, or bleed to death, wearing your fingertips down to raw stumps as you feebly try to claw your way out?

      There’s something scrabbling around my feet.

      Or be eaten from the toes up by rats? Slowly gnawed and nibbled, inch by bone-crunching inch?

      Ha-bloody-ha.

      A waft of fresh but sweat-scented air reaches my nose.

      ‘Martin, you fucker, you took your time.’

      Above ground, the air has never smelt so good, even though it’s laced with rotting rabbit.

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