On Granny's Pond

The tunnel branched and they had to choose.  They should have consulted their note again, but they didn’t.  After some discussion Marty decided he would walk a little way down one branch while the girls waited at the fork.   He started down the branched tunnel and as soon as he was inside he could tell this was different.  The walls were not reflecting his light back and he couldn’t see anything outside the flashlights direct beam.  The tunnel made a sharp bend to the left and Marty stumbled over something on the floor.  When he shined his light down he saw a damp mound that looked like a stack of saucers.  When he shined his light up he saw a pointed rock piece coming down from the ceiling.  As he scanned his light around he saw more of the rock formations.  There were rock curtains and cones and icicles and terraces.  Stalagmites and Stalactites.   He decided this was not the way to go and he headed back.  But--which way was back?  The Stalagmites and Stalactites were everywhere.  He was in another cave, not a tunnel, and the rock formations coming down from the ceiling and up from the floor hid all of the walls.  Marty couldn’t see the way back. He knew he hadn’t walked very far so if he shouted Megan and Sally should be able to hear him and shout back.  He could follow the sound of their voices. 

“Hellooo,” he yelled.  “Salleee.  Megaaan.  Beeeth.  I can’t find my way ouuut.” And he heard back:  “Hellooo-eee-ou-uut.”  An echo.

And then he heard another sound.  A low groaning sound changing to a long drawn-out wail.  The hair on top of Marty’s head stood up stiff.  He felt a chill go down his back and he was frozen in his steps.   It sounded like a---a---a Banshee.  Marty had never heard one, but he knew a banshee was a female ghost.  He thought they lived, well maybe “lived” wasn’t the right word, in Ireland.  And he thought he remembered that when people heard a banshee, someone was going to die.  And since he was the only one here, did it mean he was going to die?  But he wasn’t in Ireland. Or was he?  All these thoughts raced through Marty’s mind.

Then he heard the wail again.  Piercing and long and surrounding him with icy darkness.  His mind went back to the note.  It had said something about not going where the bad things are but he was pretty sure that’s where he was.  He was pretty sure the bad things were right here.

The keening wail came again and Marty started to run.  He mind knew he shouldn’t run, but he couldn’t stop his feet.  In his headlong dash to anywhere he smashed into one of the stalagmites and the pain of slamming into the rock helped clear his panic.  He stopped.  He had to think a minute.  He had to get back to the other tunnel.  He didn't know which way to go but sitting here wasn’t going to get him out and neither was panic.  He had to get up and move.

Marty turned the beam of his flashlight in front of him as he began to walk slowly forward.  He heard the wail again but it wasn’t so loud this time.  Maybe not so close, he thought.  Marty stopped often and shinned his light around, hoping to find a clue to the way out.  As he was looking about, he felt the rubble under his feet shift and then disappear.   Suddenly Marty was falling, straight down, bumping and bouncing off the sides of the passage.

Almost before he knew what was happening he felt something hooked into his sleeves and across his shoulders and even pulling in his hair and he could hear wings flapping.

“You’ll have to help us,” a voice whispered near his ear.  “You can, you know.