Keeping Holiday (5 page)

The little man, usually so goodnatured, had become quite serious. “I don’t like to scare you,” he said gently, “but you really mustn’t go in there. Many people have, but far fewer have come out.” And he shook his head sadly.

“Why?” Dylan asked. “
Why
don’t they come out?”

“They get in there and they get stuck,” Mr. Smith replied. “They’re not able to get back out again.”

“If it’s that dangerous, why do all the signs point in and say that’s the way to go?” Dylan asked. “There aren’t any warning signs.”

The man looked into Dylan’s face and muttered, “Poor, innocent child.” Then, to Dylan, “It’s never occurred to you that someone might be playing a trick on you?”

“That would be a pretty nasty trick!” Clare protested. “Deliberately trying to get someone to do something dangerous!”

Mr. Smith turned and looked her full in the face. He nodded. “Exactly my point,” he said. Then he added, “I have to go now. But please, take my advice. Don’t go in there.” He raised his hand briefly, in a sad gesture of farewell, as if afraid he might not see them again. Then he turned and walked back along the path leading out of the park.

Dylan watched him go, then said to Clare, “You’re right. That man
is
strange.”

“More than just strange,” Clare said, with a shiver. “He gives me the creeps.”

“Oh, I don’t think he means any harm,” Dylan said. “He’s just odd.”

“What was all that scary stuff about going through the door?” Clare insisted.

“Maybe he really believes all that,” Dylan answered. He peered through the doorway once more. “It’s true that you can’t see how far it goes.”

“Maybe we
shouldn’t
go in,” Clare said.

“It must be okay,” Dylan assured her. “These are official signs, and they point this way. Plus look at how well they maintain the path. Come on; we’ll be fine. If we don’t like it, we can always turn around and come back out.”

Together, the cousins stepped over the threshold and through the door in the rock. Dylan expected the dampness and the mustiness. What took him by surprise was the immediate sense of having entered some place foreign. The familiar world of sunshine, trees, and singing birds was only one step behind him—he even glanced over his shoulder to make sure that was still the case—yet it seemed ages since he had been out there. Still, there at their feet, the broad, well-maintained path led on. Dylan began to walk, and Clare followed.

“I wonder how many visitors actually make it to Holiday if this is how they have to get there!” Clare’s cheerful words sounded out-of-place in the silence.

Dylan knew she was trying to keep up her courage, and answered her in the same light tone. “I don’t think our friend Strange Man will try it,” he said. But his comment, too, seemed inappropriate, as if someone had made a joke, right out loud, in the middle of a funeral. Both children fell silent and made no further attempt at conversation. On they walked until the doorway was just a small glimmer of light behind them. The pathway actually grew broader the farther they walked. It appeared very well traveled. Eventually, smaller trails began to branch off, but since they were small and unpaved, it was impossible to mistake them for the main road.

The first moan Dylan heard came so softly that, once it died away, he convinced himself that he had never heard it. The next moan was also quiet, so quiet that he thought Clare had just sighed. The third moan, though still quiet, was definitely a moan, and it caused Dylan to say, “Clare? What’s wrong?”

“Me?” Clare whispered back. “I thought you were making that noise.”

Then it came again, a long, drawn-out shuddering groan. Now that it was louder, Dylan could tell that it came from off to the right somewhere. It must be far away, he thought, and he found that comforting.

“It’s not an animal, is it?” Clare whispered.

“I’m sure it’s a person,” Dylan answered.

“I think I’d feel better if it were an animal,” Clare said. The noise came again, still louder, sounding like a wolf ’s howl in the dead of night, yet decidedly human. Then another wail came and another, each fuller of grief and despair than the last. Whatever was making that noise had experienced something sadder than the saddest story Dylan had ever heard. The deathly stillness after each wail only made the next one more terrible.

“Listen!” Clare whispered sharply. “There’s a new one.” Dylan listened. Sure enough, a new voice had begun to moan off in the distance on the other side. As if in answer, more cries, and then more, started up until mournful wailing surrounded them. “This is very creepy!” Clare muttered.

“But all that noise is far away,” Dylan replied, trying to calm his own nerves along with hers. “And look, you can still see the doorway back there. And the path is still well kept along here, so people must go this way. Plus look how light it still is.” Dylan had been struck by this before. There was still light. It was not a natural light, like sunlight, and it was not very bright, but it was adequate to see by. Dylan could see no source for the light, but there it was and it was a tremendous help.

The cousins walked on, neither of them wanting to make it worse by saying so, but both of them hoping they had not much farther to go. Dylan had been so distracted by the dreadful noises that he had failed to notice the odor that had been steadily growing as they progressed deeper in under the rock. Now this odor had become so strong that it finally forced him to notice. Just as he did, Clare whispered loudly, “Ugh! What is that awful smell?” A memory flashed into Dylan’s mind, the memory of coming upon a dead rabbit in the field near his house. The rabbit had evidently died several days earlier and it had smelled terrible, with an odor very similar to what was all around them now.

“I can’t take much more of this,” Clare said, out loud, but quietly. Dylan heard a tremor in her voice. For a brief moment, he felt a surge of revulsion for this evil-sounding, evil-smelling place. He had to resist the impulse to turn and run back the way he had come. Unexpectedly, a different memory arose from who-knows-where,
replacing the memory of the dead rabbit and offering a stark contrast to the current surroundings.

“Clare, Holiday is just as wonderful as this is awful—more wonderful,” Dylan said urgently. He spoke quietly, but he no longer whispered. Clare would not have been able to hear a whisper over the distant moans that were coming in constant, loud waves. “It smells awful in here, but I remember the smells from Holiday. I’ve never smelled anything like them—not just smells, the
feeling
. And this moaning is horrible, but I remember the music I heard from Holiday. It wasn’t just music—it was like people I wanted to be with forever calling me to come join them. I’m sure it’s worth all this to get there. Once we’re there, we’ll forget about all this. I know we will.”

Just then, all the moaning and all the wailing stopped. A dead silence that could almost be felt filled the tunnel. And then one long, piercing, terrified shriek rang out. Was the screamer a male or a female? Was it a child or an adult? Dylan could only have said that, again, it was a human. Surely, it was a human who had come face-to-face with the greatest of all horrors.

“That’s it!” Clare whispered fiercely. “I don’t think I can take this.”

And before Dylan could reply, Clare turned on her heel, and took two quick steps back the way they had come. Dylan saw her hesitate, then step to the right, then to the left. She seemed to be looking for something she could not see. Then Clare stopped altogether and came slowly back to where Dylan stood. She was crying.

“What is it?” Dylan asked.

“The opening is gone,” Clare replied in a lifeless monotone of despair.

“No, it’s not. I can see it back there,” Dylan answered, and he turned to face the entrance into the tunnel, way back in the distance. As he turned to face it, though, the entrance disappeared. In its place was an unbroken rock wall. Not only that, but the path they had taken disappeared as well. Since the way had become so wide, Dylan could not even tell where in the distant wall the opening had been. “How can that be?” Dylan said to himself. He turned back around, facing away from where the opening had been, and looked over his shoulder. When he looked over his shoulder like this, the hole in the rock was there, leading out into daylight. Dylan quickly turned to face the opening and, just as quickly, it disappeared once more.

“That must be what the man meant,” Clare said in a shaky whisper. “We’re not going to be able to get out.”

The wailing recommenced. It began quietly, but quickly grew to full strength once more. It sounded even more desolate than before.

Dylan tried to resist the rising tide of panic he felt inside. “Well, maybe we can’t get out that way, but we’re not supposed to go that way,” he said, sounding much more certain than he felt. “Look up here.” He pointed ahead. “See how the path goes down into that—chamber, or whatever you call it. I’ll bet that’s the way out.”

Clare had grabbed Dylan’s hand. “I don’t like it,” she said. “We can’t see where it goes. And look how narrow it is. We’d have to go one at a time. I don’t want to go without you.”

“Look, Clare,” Dylan said, “you can stand right here by where it starts to go down, and I’ll go first. I’ll see what’s there and come back and tell you.”

“I don’t want to wait here by myself,” Clare insisted. “And what if whoever screamed is down there?”

Dylan did not want to think about that. “I’ll only go down a few steps,” Dylan promised. “Then I’ll come right back. It will just take a minute.”

Clare, frightened as she was, could still see that there was no other choice. Reluctantly, she let go of Dylan’s hand, and he started down. The path quickly turned into something more like a series of uneven steps. The descent was not difficult, but it wound slightly, something like a spiral staircase. After twelve steps, Dylan still could not see what lay around the next corner or how far down the steps led. He did not want to turn back without knowing more, but, aware of Clare waiting, frightened, above him, he turned back to tell her it looked easy and she should come right behind him.

The problem was that, when he turned around, the twelve steps he had already descended were nowhere to be seen. Dylan felt that he’d been tricked. “Why didn’t I think of that?” he thought to himself. Just as the doorway into the tunnel had disappeared when they had turned back toward it, so the stairs had now disappeared for Dylan. When he tried to go back up them, they were gone. He found himself standing at the top of a series of steps (instead of at the twelfth one down), a solid wall behind him and a low ceiling above. There was no way back to Clare.

Dylan felt more alone than he had ever felt in his life. “Clare!” he called as loudly as he could. “Clare! Can you hear me?” The stone absorbed his voice so that even to him it sounded muffled and faint. He heard no answer from Clare. As he listened, he realized that he no longer heard any moans or wails either. He stood surrounded by silence as deep as that of the tomb. And it was growing dark on the steps.

Dylan did not know what else to do, except to keep moving down. So down he went. Perhaps this really was the way out. If he could get out the other end of the tunnel, surely he could find a way to go back in from the front and find Clare. Or perhaps, when he did not come back up, Clare would come down looking for him. Maybe she was following him right now and he just could not see her. Hoping so, Dylan went on down the steps. Down, down, down he went. Twice, Dylan turned around to see if the steps he had just come down were still there. They were not.

At last, Dylan reached the bottom. All the way down, there had been light on the steps so Dylan could see to walk. But as he stepped on to the stone floor at the bottom of the steps, the light went out completely. Darkness swallowed everything. Dylan reached immediately behind him, to touch the last steps he had just descended. As he had feared, he could feel no steps, only a solid rock wall. He put his arms in front of him and took a few cautious steps—only a few, because he came to another solid rock wall. Dylan felt along the wall to the right. It went a few feet, then turned, and Dylan felt more rock. It took Dylan only a few seconds to fully understand his situation. He was deep under the ground, in a pitch-dark chamber of rock just big enough to lie down in, completely cut off from everyone and everything. There was no way out.

The Forest of Life

H
orror—the stark realization that the unimaginable has happened to
you
. Despair—the dark, blackcertainty that there is no room for hope.

Horror and despair—Dylan knew nothing else. These two things were his whole world.
How long had
he been here?
he wondered dully. Forever, it seemed. His parents, the vacations in Holiday, Clare, whom he had last seen in the half-lit cave—those were all things from a past so far distant that it must have been someone else’s life and not Dylan’s. His own existence had become very simple. It held room for nothing but terror and despair.

At first, Dylan had tried to keep hope alive. His parents knew he had headed for Holiday, and they would come looking for him. They would see all the signs that pointed the way for first-time visitors, and they would know which way he had gone. But then Dylan remembered all the wails and moans he and Clare had heard. Those were surely the voices of people like him, lost in this black tomb, who had never been found. Dylan began to imagine his parents coming after him, wanting him back. He imagined them taking the same deceptive path he had followed. He saw them, too, being led down to their own little dark chamber, only to find, as he had, that the path led
in
, but no path led out.