The Haunted Cave Read online

  “I’m not leaving you to die,” Adam said patiently. “We have to go one way or the other. If this way doesn’t work out, we can come back and try your way.”

  Sally sighed again. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “You have bad feelings twenty-four hours a day,” Cindy muttered.

  “If you had grown up in this town you would understand,” Sally replied.

  7

  The space narrowed as they turned to the right, and the temperature definitely fell. In fact, it began to feel very cool. Adam took that as a good sign. He stopped feeling so thirsty. But the clock was still ticking. They couldn’t wander around forever. Their first flashlight was all but dead. To keep from bumping into one another, they had to turn on the second. Adam told Sally to save what little was left of the batteries in the first. She turned it off and put it in her back pocket.

  Ten minutes after leaving the fork, they came to a huge open area. For a second Adam was ready to celebrate. He thought they had gotten out of the cave altogether. But after setting down his sticks and searching around with the beam of Cindy’s light, he realized they weren’t home yet. It was as if a large mine shaft had been sunk into the ground, and they had stumbled into the bottom of it. Circular walls surrounded them. But his light was not strong enough to reveal what was at the top of the shaft and how high up it went.

  Adam saw that the cave did not continue on the other side.

  There was only one way in, one way out.

  “Where are we?” Cindy whispered.

  “We may be under the castle,” Adam said. “Do you think I should call out?”

  “No,” Sally said.

  “Yes,” Cindy said.

  “Do what Cindy says,” Sally whined. “You always do.”

  “That’s not fair,” Cindy snapped. “Adam’s his own person. He makes his own decisions.”

  “Shh.” Adam held up his hand. “I think I hear something.”

  What he heard was the faint clanging of metal. It seemed to be coming from directly overhead and on opposite sides of the shaft—two sources. Adam was reminded of the black knight on the other side of the Secret Path, the servant of the evil redheaded witch. The knight had creaked like an unoiled hinge as he walked. The people—or creatures—above them now did as well.

  Faint orange lights began to glow a hundred feet above them on both sides of the shaft. Clearly there were two people approaching the shaft from opposite tunnels. But the sound of their heavy armor—for that was what it sounded like to him—worried Adam. He was on the verge of telling the girls to back out of the shaft when the flames of two torches seemingly burst out from the walls of the shaft. In reality, there was a narrow stone walkway far above them that the two creatures had stepped onto.

  And they were definitely creatures, not humans.

  They were man-size trolls. Their faces were squished and ugly. They looked as if their mothers had been lizards married to pigs. They had fat flat noses and angry red eyes that smoked with anger. They wore smooth steel breastplates, and in their right hands they carried broad silver swords. With their left hands, they held up their flaming torches. They gloated when they saw what had stumbled into their pit.

  That was how Adam felt. As if they had stumbled into a trap.

  He shouted at the girls. “Run back to the cave!”

  They dashed for the opening, but before they could reach it a gate of metal bars fell down over the opening. It smashed into the dirt floor, piercing the ground with long spikes. They all three tugged on it as hard as they could, but it refused to budge. Overhead Adam saw one of the trolls set his sword and torch down and reach for a long black spear. There was a chain attached to the base. Even before the troll attacked, it was clear what he and his partner intended to do. To spear the foolish human kids and haul them up to have for dinner. The creatures wanted their meat. Alive or dead.

  The troll raised the spear over his head.

  “Duck!” Adam cried to the girls.

  The three of them hit the floor.

  The spear struck the metal gate with a loud clang.

  Sparks flew. They all cried out.

  The troll had missed. But he didn’t mind.

  He would have all the chances he needed to catch them.

  The troll pulled the spear back up by yanking on the chain attached to the base of it.

  Adam leaped up. “Spread out,” he called. “Keep moving. Make yourself a difficult target.”

  The shaft was maybe a hundred feet across. That was wide, but with two trolls standing above, Adam felt as if they were trapped in a narrow crevasse. The overhead walkway clearly circled the entire shaft. The troll with the torch helped his partner. While the one with the spear aimed, the other held the light out for him to get a clear view of his victim. Adam saw that they were aiming for him.

  The troll threw his spear once more.

  Adam jumped to the right.

  The spear went through the space between his left arm and his left side. It tore his shirt; it had missed him by inches. The trolls laughed and their slobber dripped down into the shaft. They were enjoying the sport. Adam was so scared he couldn’t move. Not even as the troll pulled the spear back up to where he was standing. The two trolls shifted position. They were going after Cindy next.

  “Keep moving!” Adam shouted again, remembering to find his own feet.

  But Cindy did the worst of all things. Staring up at the troll with the spear, terror in her eyes, she backed up against the stone wall. Standing almost still, she made a perfect target. Overhead, the troll raised his spear once more. Adam knew what was about to happen, but was too far away to stop it.

  “Cindy!” he screamed. “Duck!”

  She didn’t. The spear flew through the dark air, headed right for her heart. Adam wanted to close his eyes. He couldn’t bear to see her die.

  But then, suddenly, Cindy went flying off to one side.

  Sally had tackled her.

  The spear hit the rock wall and fell harmlessly to the ground.

  Adam pumped his fist. “Yeah! Way to go Sally!”

  Sally and Cindy jumped back up in an instant.

  “You save me next time,” Sally muttered, keeping her eyes on the trolls.

  “Deal,” Cindy said, gasping.

  Adam ran over to them. “I have an idea,” he said quietly. “But to make it work we have to gather back by the metal gate.”

  “They’ll get one of us for sure if we do that,” Sally protested.

  “They’ll get us all if we don’t do something drastic,” Adam said. “Trust me on this.”

  They hurried to the entrance. Already the troll had his spear back in hand. He laughed when he saw them standing so close together, standing so still. He drew back his arm.

  “Jump to the side just as he lets go,” Adam whispered, standing between the two girls.

  “Which way are you jumping?” Sally asked on his right.

  “You’ll see,” Adam said, reaching behind him and grabbing two bars of the metal gate.

  The troll let his spear go.

  It flew toward Adam.

  Adam had known the troll would aim for him, since he was in the middle. He also thought the troll would aim low, figuring the stupid human boy would try ducking again. For that reason, Adam pulled himself up on the bars just as the spear flew toward him. He almost didn’t pull himself up in time. The blade on the spear scratched his left leg as it stabbed past, drawing blood beside his knee. But Adam didn’t mind because the spear landed exactly where he wanted it to. On the other side of the gate. As the troll growled and started to pull the spear back up, Adam jumped down and grabbed the spear.

  Now Adam knew he was no match—strength-wise—for a troll. If he had a tug-of-war with the creature for the spear, he’d lose. Adam had something more clever up his sleeve. Before the troll could react, Adam pulled the tip of the spear out of the dirt, passed it and the chain it was attached to around one of the metal bars, and jammed it ba
ck into the ground.

  Overhead the troll yanked hard.

  But the spear stayed where Adam had jammed it.

  The girls jumped to Adam’s side and patted him on the back.

  “Absolutely brilliant,” Sally said.

  “You’re hero material,” Cindy agreed.

  “Let’s not celebrate yet,” Adam said quietly. “We can’t push this gate up by ourselves, but maybe we can get the trolls to lift it for us. We have to get them real mad so they’re not thinking. I just want them anxious to get their spear back.”

  “How do you get a troll mad?” Cindy asked.

  “Just watch me,” Sally said, turning to face their tormentors. She spoke in a loud, mocking voice. For once Adam was glad to hear it. “Oh, Mr. Trolls! It doesn’t look like you’ll be having dinner tonight. That’s too bad. I feel real sorry for you guys. I know it must be a drag having to work down here in this dark dungeon. You’re always on the night shift. I bet you guys never get out and see the sun. I can tell that just by looking at you. I mean, really, you guys are ugly. You’re disgustingly gross. You look like frogs that swallowed too many hormones. Lizards that sucked up too much slime. I bet you guys can’t even get a date with a girl troll. That hair sticking out of your noses is disgusting. You both need to see a barber. And didn’t your mothers teach you any manners when you were baby trolls? You’re not supposed to slobber over your food until you’ve killed it and drawn it out of the pit. It’s lousy etiquette, plain and simple. A goblin would never behave that way.”

  Sally’s antics had the desired effect. Even though they didn’t understand exactly what she said, the trolls were instantly furious. They growled bitterly and their slobber dripped all over the place. They circled the overhead walkway until they were standing directly above the metal gate. Of course that was exactly what Adam was hoping for. Because as the trolls yanked hard on the chain, the chain slowly began to lift the gate upward. A crack appeared beneath the barrier, then a foot of space—two feet. That was enough for Adam.

  “Get under it!” he shouted. Letting the girls go first, Adam grabbed several of the boards from the coffin and slid under the gate just behind Cindy. Above him he could hear the trolls screaming in anger. They released their hold on the chain, and the gate clanged down once more. But by then Adam and his friends were free, racing away at high speed and gasping with relief.

  “I told you we should go to the left,” Sally said, panting.

  “You can say I told you so as many times as you want,” Cindy said.

  “As long as the other way doesn’t turn out to be worse,” Adam agreed.

  8

  Watch had fed Bum a turkey dinner complete with mashed potatoes, gravy, and stuffing and still he hadn’t learned anything that could help free his friends from the Haunted Cave. Bum was simply too interested in his food to be worried about such trivial matters as three trapped kids. The way Bum shoveled down his white meat and buttered biscuits, Watch suspected he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in a week.

  “Would you like anything else?” Watch asked, growing impatient. He hadn’t ordered food for himself, only a glass of milk, which tasted flat and chalky, like something out of Mr. Spiney’s refrigerator. Mr. Spiney, the town librarian, always added calcium to the milk he made everyone drink so that it would make one’s bones stronger. Mr. Spiney had a thing about strong bones, although he had lousy posture himself.

  Bum nodded with a mouthful of food. “I’ll have apple pie and ice cream as soon as I finish with this.” He paused to look at Watch. “Are you sure you’re not hungry?”

  Watch lowered his head. “I’m not feeling hungry at all.”

  Bum nodded. “You’re worried about your friends, I understand. Maybe I was a little hasty when I said to forget about trying to rescue them.” He picked up his glass of water. Even though he was Spooksville’s town bum, he never actually drank alcohol. He took a sip of his water and continued. “Maybe there’s another way into the cave.”

  “You mentioned that earlier,” Watch said, sitting up straight. “Do you know another way?”

  Bum burped and picked at his potatoes. “No.”

  Watch fell back in his seat. “Oh.”

  “But because I don’t know of one doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” Bum paused. “Ann Templeton might know another way in.”

  “The town witch?”

  “Yeah. She’s a clever gal.”

  Watch removed his thick glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. They often steamed up. “Did she really put a curse on you so you went from being town mayor to town bum?”

  Bum chuckled. “If she did curse me, I was happy for it. Being a bum is much more fun than being mayor. You never have to attend any meetings. I used to hate all those meetings. People would sit around a table and talk about things none of them had the slightest interest in. It made me want to set city hall on fire.”

  “I thought you did set city hall on fire.”

  Bum scratched his chin. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. That was the night the fire chiefs wife was having her baby. City hall was always so ugly. I think the ash did more for it than a fresh coat of paint would have.”

  Watch put his glasses back on. Without them, he was legally blind. He hadn’t been able to see well since his family had broken up and spread to all parts of the country. But that wasn’t something he talked about with others. Even Sally did not know what he had gone through growing up in Spooksville. Watch had not had an easy childhood.

  “Did you ever annoy Ann Templeton?” Watch asked. “If we’re going to ask her for a favor, I’d like to know ahead of time.”

  Bum ran his hand through his stringy hair. “Well, I once proposed to the city council that we pave over the local cemetery and build a rec center on top of it. Since the cemetery is practically in her backyard, that might have made her mad. She did send me a skull in the mail the day after I made the proposal. I used it as a paperweight for a month or two, until I was replaced.”

  “Why did you want to put a rec center on top of a cemetery?” Watch asked.

  Bum burst out laughing and slapped his knee. “I thought we could have wonderful Halloween parties with all those dead people beneath us!”

  Watch had to smile. “The place does have a nice view. But back to talking to Ann Templeton. Do you know where she is right now?”

  Bum glanced at one of Watch’s watches. The service at the diner was awful. It had taken forever to get Bum’s food. Over three hours had passed since Watch last saw his friends. It was close to eleven.

  “At twelve she’ll go to the grocery store,” Bum said. “She always buys her food on Friday at midnight. She doesn’t trust any of her servants to do the shopping. She doesn’t have many human ones anyway. The store stays open just for her in fact. They’re afraid to close until she’s done with her business. Once they did shut early on a Friday, and the next day the meat cutter was found frozen to death in the meat locker.”

  “Did he have a meat hook through his brain?” Watch asked.

  “No. He had choked to death on an ice-cream bar. Whether it was her fault, I don’t know. But they always treat her real nice at the market.”

  “Earlier you called the ape creatures in the cave Hyeets,” Watch said. “Where does that name come from?”

  “That’s what the Native Americans who used to live around here called the creatures,” Bum explained. “They really are the Bigfoots the TV programs sometimes do special reports on. They’re the missing link—the bridge between humans and apes. You have to respect them. They get more press than most of our local politicians.”

  “Are they intelligent?” Watch asked.

  Bum was thoughtful. “I don’t know. They’re always hungry, that’s for sure. But since they live underground where there’s not much food, they can’t be too smart.”

  Watch hesitated. “Do they really eat people?”

  Bum nodded seriously and returned to his food. “Yeah, they like kids the best. Those they can’
t get enough of.”

  9

  Adam and his friends were two hours on the left-hand tunnel before they came to another fork. This time there were three choices. The cave on the right curved down. The middle tunnel continued on a level plane, and the one on the left curved up. They all had different opinions about which way to go.

  “I want to go to the left,” Cindy said. “The more we go up the more chance we have of reaching the surface.”

  Sally stepped into Cindy’s tunnel. She sniffed the air and frowned. “It stinks in here.”

  Adam had to agree. “It does smell like there’s a dead animal down that way. I think we should go to the right. I know it slants down, but there is fresh air blowing out of it. It could open to the outside.”

  “No way,” Sally said. “We can’t go down and we can’t go in the direction of dead animals. I say we take the middle route, and you should do what I say because look what happened last time when we listened to Cindy.”

  “Last time I wanted to go to the right as well,” Adam reminded her.

  “Only because she whispered the word in your ear,” Sally said.

  “I would resent that except you just saved my life,” Cindy replied.

  “And don’t you forget it, sister,” Sally said.

  Adam was undecided. They had been using their second flashlight a long time. The batteries seemed to be holding out pretty well, but they wouldn’t last forever. They were all very tired, very thirsty. Each time they paused to rest, they took longer to get up. Adam worried that soon they wouldn’t be able to get up at all.

  It wasn’t just the cool air that made him want to take the downward path. Far away, ever so faintly, he thought he heard the rushing of water. He believed if there was an underground stream, it might eventually lead to the outside. All they would have to do was follow it. Plus they could take care of their thirst. Unfortunately, when he asked the others to listen for the sound of water, they couldn’t hear a thing.