Secrets in the Dark (33 page)

Doug asked us to tell him
who was
there, like he was Mr. Gordon
taking role in class. When we’d all said here, he gave a sigh of
relief. “We all made it. Now let’s get out.”

I could see a faint glow a
long distance ahead. As we drew nearer to the end, there was
enough light to see the roof, making it safe to
stand up and hurry toward the opening.

The exit was screened by
thickly leafed vegetation. Doug peeked out, and then pushed the
heavy vines aside. He held them out of the way as he moved
cautiously out of the cave. One by one we followed, blinking in the
sudden light. We’d emerged onto a narrow dirt trail. For a moment,
I just stood there — after the cold cave, the sun felt amazing on
my skin.

“
I wish I knew what
happened to the rest of our animals.” I jumped as something rubbed
against my ankle, and let out a gusty laugh as I looked down at
Shadow. I saw Rusty, staring at Doug, his tongue lolling out with a
doggy grin on his face.

There was a whir of wings
and the owl and bat flew out of the cave, circling around us. Faith
turned around in a slow circle, then sighed in relief as the fox
sat at the edge of the path.

Okay, so I forgot and made
a wish. My bad. At least this one turned out okay.

Doug reached up and gave
each of us a high five. Brady pulled the dog-eared map from his
pocket, looking for the Rejects. He grinned widely. “They’re still
in the main cave.”

“
How do we get back from
here?” Faith asked, her hands deep in her pockets. “There’s no
road.”

“
According to the map,
this trail leads back to the road.”

“
We should go,” Faith
said. “We don’t want to run into the others.”

“
We have to get to the
cave early enough to explore that upper space again next time,”
Brady said. “Who knows what we missed in the dark.”

“
I just wish we knew
whether there was anything in there worth looking for,” I said. I
didn’t want to go back in if we didn’t have to.

“
Oh man, is that cool!”
Brady exclaimed. He pointed to the map.

A new chamber appeared on
the map. It could be reached through the third passage we hadn’t
explored yet. A small blue ‘X’ had appeared in that room, while a
second blue ‘X’ was in the upper passage we’d just left.

“
Do you think those spots
mean there’s treasure in there?” Olivia was nearly dancing in
excitement.

“
No way. Indiana Jones
said ‘X’ never, ever marks the spot,” I said, looking at the new
marks on the map in disbelief.

“
Yes, way! You wished
again,” Olivia said. “Those marks show where there’s something
worth looking for.”

Faith cleared her throat
anxiously. “What if the Rejects find it?”

“
We’ll know soon,” Brady
told her, watching the map.

“
How?” Olivia challenged
him.

“
We’ll know they found
something if either blue ‘X’ starts moving.” Brady was getting as
good as Doug at getting that ‘duh’ sound in his voice. It made Doug
laugh out loud.

Olivia blushed and crossed
her arms over her chest, glaring at both of them.

I sighed in relief when the
Rejects headed into the main cave, while neither blue ‘X’
moved.

Chapter 35

Is Bigfoot
Magic?

The dirt path was on the
side of the mountain, in an area covered with brush and short
stunted trees. Below us, the trees grew taller, blocking the view
of the valley. On one side, the trail headed further up over the
mountain
.
The
other headed down, the way we wanted to go.

The path was narrow and
overgrown, more like a deer trail than one used by people. We
stumbled our way down the hillside, emerging at the bottom near a
large lake. The lake glowed, light sparkling off the moving water
like reflections off a diamond. The edges were a bright turquoise,
deepening to cobalt blue at the center.

Two small islands, one
mostly rock, the other covered by trees were visible on the lake.
The one with trees had a small cabin at the center.

“
I think we should check
out the lake after we finish the cave.” Doug’s gaze roved over the
shining water. I wasn’t surprised. Doug loved water – oceans,
lakes, rivers, swimming pools, lawn sprinklers. It didn’t matter as
long as it was wet.

“
I’m glad we don’t have to
go into the woods,” I said. “They look creepy. See, there’s black
smoke rising over there. I wonder what’s making it.”

Everyone turned to look
where I was pointing. Faith let out a short surprised scream as
something monstrously large, covered with iridescent scales or
feathers showed briefly above the tree line. I felt my eyes widen
and my heart began to gallop. “What was that!” I asked,
alarmed.

And how many things were
still in here with us?

“
Maybe that’s why it’s a
perilous forest,” Brady whispered.

“
I have
no
idea what it is, and
I’m not going in there to find out!” Faith exclaimed.

Doug let out a startled
laugh. He didn’t look alarmed, he looked excited. “It might have
been a dragon. I’d like to check it out.”

I rolled my eyes. Doug and
his dragons! “So, I wonder if this path counts as a road or if we
should worry about getting lost.”

An eerie howl came from the
left, much closer to us than ever before. “What is that,” Brady
choked out, his eyes so wide they looked like they might pop out of
his head.

Oh yeah, he wasn’t here
last time.

The howl came again —
louder — longer — rising and falling like something out of a
werewolf movie. “We better head down to the road. Just in case.”
Faith wrapped her arms around her stomach, and looked uneasily to
our left.

“
You’re righ—” Doug was
cut off by another howl. This one was
definitely closer. And it came from our right.

Note to self — This is way
too much like last time!

As if the last howl
was
an invitation, an answering howl tore
through the air to the left. This one sounded right next to us.
Just how many things were out there?

“
Um...how far away do you
think those things are?” I asked nervously.

Branches suddenly cracked
and shattered down the hill on the left. I could see something
moving through the trees — the leaves shook violently in a long
path up the side of the mountain. Heading towards us. It was
probably close enough to throw a rock at.

I wrapped my arms around my
chest, shivering, feeling like my blood had frozen. What could be
doing that? No way could one of the Rejects do that. Whatever it
was, it was really big…or really strong…or both.

Faith and Olivia stepped
next to me as
the sounds — twigs being
crushed and branches snapped off — grew closer. The look of
amazement on Brady’s face would normally have made me laugh. But
there was nothing funny about it now.

Then to our right, loud,
splintering noises of trees being ripped apart made us jerk around.
Something was moving just out of sight.

Faith grabbed my arm
tightly, and I could feel her hand shaking. Her teeth were digging
into her lip so hard I half expected to see blood. Doug and Brady
moved next to us and we stood frozen, listening.

I kept my voice quiet, but
couldn’t stop it from shaking as hard as
Faith’s hand. “Whatever they are, they’re down there — the
way we need to go. Wha-what’re we gonna do?”

Olivia’s voice was just
above a whisper. “It’s like last time. We have to stay on the path
in case it’s safer.” Her hands were clasped tightly together. I
wondered if they were shaking.

We all made sure to keep
both feet on the narrow path. Maybe it would be better to go over
the mountain. I thought about asking Brady where the path would
take us, but the splintering, crunching noises were suddenly
replaced by a low, angry growl. My heart began to pound, and I felt
dizzy. Probably because I’d stopped breathing. I gulped in a quick
breath — passing out right now didn’t sound too smart.

When the growling stopped,
all I could hear was
my own ragged
breathing.

Why did that feel
worse?

Faith gave a muffled
shriek as the growling began again, louder still. Along with the
deep animal noises came more crashing sounds from the trees below.
We clung together as
the growling and
crunching grew louder. Closer.

The sounds intensified —
rising in volume and pitch until nothing could be heard except an
insane ferocious shrieking. The sound roared up over the hillside.
Thunderous and deafening.

I clapped my hands over my
ears. My eardrums felt ready to burst. I tried to yell to Faith and
Olivia, but couldn’t hear my own voice over the unbelievable
noise.

Then it stopped. In a
single instant. The sudden silence felt…threatening.

I’d thought it couldn’t get
any worse, until I heard a new sound…far more quiet, but even more
frightening. Coming from the path above us — from somewhere behind
several large boulders, came the hair-raising sound of loud
breathing.

No, not
breathing.

Sniffing.

Snuffling.

As if something out there
was…
smelling
us.

It wouldn’t be safe to
leave the path. We couldn’t go up the path over the mountain. Going
down into the woods seemed incredibly stupid. But where else could
we go? “Should we try going down?”

The snuffling sound came
again, along with the sound of something scraping against the
rocks. Like cloth. Or fur.

“
I’m willing,” Brady said.
He had the map out of his pocket again and was peering at it
intently. “We can’t go back through the cave. The Rejects are still
in there.”

“
Down it is. But stick
together,” Doug said, like he was giving us an order.

For once, I didn’t bite off
his head for being bossy.

We made our way down the
path towards the trees. My stomach was in knots as I kept waiting
for the howling to start again, right next to us. The slightest
sound nearly made me jump out of my skin. It’s hard to feel that
nervous, minute after minute after minute.

Finally, when we’d gone
quite a distance without anything happening, I began to think we’d
be okay.

I let out a sigh of relief
when I saw the road ahead. Being on the path really was better than
being in the woods. At least you could see the road from here. And
when we were on the road, we’d be safe.

That was when something
crashed past us, across the path. It was moving so fast, I barely
got a glimpse, just something huge covered in dark matted hair. It
was hunched over like a wolf or a bear. But it wasn’t shaped like
any animal I’d ever seen. Besides, nothing normal could move that
fast.

Could Bigfoot live
here?

Whatever it was, it knocked
Brady down as it crossed the path. Obviously being on the path
wasn’t as safe as being on the road. The thing looked like it aimed
right for Brady. The force of it spun Brady in a circle before he
hit the ground, his breath knocked out of him in a loud
whoosh.

Even before Brady hit the
ground, the thing disappeared on the other side of the path into
the woods.

Doug grabbed Brady’s hand
and pulled him to his feet. He was gasping for air, but when Doug
asked him if he needed to wait, he shook his head. We hurried the
remaining few feet and collapsed onto the road.

“
What was that thing?”
Olivia asked.

Brady shuddered. “Something
really big and really hairy.”

“
I figured out that much,”
she told him.

“
It smelled really bad,”
Brady told her, then groaned and rubber his shoulder where the
thing had knocked into him.

“
So we can’t find any
people, but we’ve found a big-hairy-smelly-thing running around in
here. And it may not be able to get on the road, but it can cross
the path.” I sounded slightly hysterical, even to my ears. I took a
deep breath and continued more quietly, “Are you okay,
Brady?”

“
Yeah, I’m okay.” He
looked up the road, in the direction of the cave. “We should check
where the Rejects are.”

It took him a moment to
fish the map out of his back pocket. He checked it quickly and
pointed to the red dots representing Ray and the others as they
moved out of the cave. The two blue ‘X’ marks, representing
whatever treasure might still exist in the cave, stayed
still.

“
Uh-oh,” said Faith
suddenly. She pointed to where the red dots were moving away from
the cave. They were heading straight toward us. “We need to get out
of here!”

Halfway back to the tree,
Olivia stopped and growled in the back of her throat. “My backpack!
How am I gonna explain why it’s missing?”