Underground

The first couple of chapters of a horror novel about a cursed object that is found by a group of archaeologists. Originally written for my advanced fiction module.

Underground

Chapter 1

It was the kind of smell that clung to your nostrils long after the source had vanished. A cloying odour that reeked of rot and decay; of flesh that was long since dead. Abigail Tanner's nose wrinkled as she inhaled the foul aroma, a hand instantly covering her mouth as she fought the reflex to vomit. The wet, clay walls served as a barrier against any fresh air; keeping the stench in like the seal on a Tupperware.

“George!” she called over her shoulder, pointing her torch in the direction of the entrance. The yellow beam did little, only casting a strip of light for a meter before fading into blackness. “George!” she tried again, when she received no answer. “Bet he's gone to the lunch tent. Bloody man, always thinking with his stomach. Don't worry about me … I'll be just fine stuck down here in the dark cave … nothing ever goes wrong in dark caves.” She grumbled to herself as she proceeded to make her way further into the depths, holding her breath and running her free hand along the wall for guidance. A thick layer of glutinous sludge coated her fingers and stained the fabric of her gloves, it oozed its way onto her skin in thick globules.

“Ugh.” She groaned, wiping the slime into the fabric of her shorts.

“Professor?” George's shout echoed its way around the cave, the walls' viscous coating wobbling and dripping onto the floor with the reverberation.

“I'm down here. You're gonna want to hold your nose.”

Abi rolled her eyes as his heavy, booted footsteps began the journey towards her, George had never been light on his feet. It was the reason he was solely put on cave excavations.

“Christ it reeks down here.”

“That's why I told you to hold your nose George. I'd tell you that you get used to it the further you go but, well, I'd be lying.” Using the toe of her boot she flipped over a white pebble that shone in her torch light.

“Good job I already had lunch, that stink'd put my appetite right off.” George said jovially, stopping as he reached her side. He winced as she directed her torch beam at him. “Jesus, Abi, you trying to blind me?”

“I knew it!” she hissed at him indignation “I knew that's where you were! How many times do I have to tell you George? Think with your brain, not your stomach!” The scolding was only half sincere, the corner of her mouth twitching up into a grin at having to give him the same lecture for what seemed like the hundredth time. “You've got yoghurt on your cheek” She pointed to the blotch of food that stood out starkly against his sun reddened skin.

As they made their way down the corridor, the smell worsened. A fetid cloud enveloped them as they reached the final wall. Puddles of slime lapped over their boots and dripped into their hair from high above. Abi felt the burning rise of bile as it travelled up her throat and doubled over, feeling the muscles in her belly cramp painfully.

“You ok Abs?” George asked, placing a hand on her heaving shoulder in an offer of support.

“It's just a little … ugh … we need to get going.” Abi straightened up and rubbed the exposed flesh of her forearm across her face. She swallowed heavily, pushing the bitter saliva back down her throat.

“You sure?”

She replied with a curt nod, and angled the yellow beam of her torchlight towards the back wall. A knot stuck out of the otherwise smooth surface, a glint of ivory showing from beneath its viscid glaze.

“What is that?” She murmured more to herself than her companion and moved a little closer to the protrusion. “Looks like bone.” This comment was directed to George as he too leaned closer, eager for a better look. Digging around in his pocket, George quickly produced a small orange handled trowel. Delicately he scraped away a section of the mucus revealing a larger expanse of the off white material.

The thing was blunt edged and curved, most of it remaining buried within the wall.

“It's definitely bone. I don't know if its human or animal though.”

Abi pursed her lips and ran a gloved finger across the protuberance, even through the material she could feel the rough texture, her nail snagging on the tiny indentations.

“Get the excavation team down here. We need that out. It might actually make this dig worth the University's expense.” Her voice held a note of relief. She grabbed the tray of pottery on her way out, eager to reach the fresh summer air.

“Not one bone has been found in the area though, why would there be one now?” George asked as he jogged to keep up with her superior pace. Abi raised an eyebrow at him as she peeled off her gloves, abandoning them on the sun faded seat of her deck chair.

“and that means nothing.” she admonished, swiping an unopened water bottle from a cool bag. She savoured the liquid as it ran down her throat, fighting away the sticky July humidity that had engulfed her as she and George emerged from the chill darkness of the cave. “We could have stumbled upon a burial site … or just found some poor bugger that just happened to be in the wrong place.” They were only a few days into their scheduled dig, there was not enough artefacts to begin any semblance of speculation.

“I'm going to clean and date these.” She indicated the shallow tray that held the chunks of pottery she had found at the cave's entrance, “If the excavation team find anything, you know where to find me.” Hastily she grabbed her things from her chair along with the tray and made her way through the collection of students; her destination being the large white tent that served at their on site lab.

Abi sighed and sat down heavily on her stool, the sweltering heat was almost too much to bear beneath the thick canvas. Her fingers itched to run across the surface of every piece she had discovered that morning, to memorise every little bump and nodule. The delicate pottery shards had been cleaned of their clay coating and now looked up at her; a fraction of the beauty they once held. Swabs and test tubes were lined up on the desk beside her, all covered in the odd coating, ready to be sent back to the university to be tested. It had been around four hours since she had left the cave and her clothes and skin still held the vile smell.

“Well, somebody needs a shower.” Toby joked as he pushed his way into the tent, a large glass tank held in his arms. Toby was her assistant and had been by her side since he finished his degree three years prior; a young man of 25, with wavy blond hair and blue eyes. Abi often joked with him that he'd gotten himself into the wrong profession, staring at bits of old pottery and bone was no way to waste such an attractive face.

“I have no idea what you're referring to.” she laughed, sniffing her clothes dramatically.

“Of course you don't.” Toby carefully placed the tank on top of a table and crouched by it's side eyes glued to the large chunk of dirt inside. “Your flying monkeys sent this in.”

Abi joined him beside the container, intently studying the contents. “It's a bone, we found it right at the back of the cave, just sticking out of the wall. I think it's a jaw, see look at the shape.” she ran a finger along the glass, pointing out the curved contour. “Hopefully excavation are digging through to see if they can find more. If we're lucky we could have found a burial site. That could finance digs for the next two years.”

She stood up and peeled off her white coat and gloves, slinging them across a stool

“Could you put that through cleaning for me? I'm going to have a shower then I'll be back to give you a hand.”

“Hm, bored of looking through little bits of china are you? Desperate for something more exciting?” Toby pulled on a set of gloves and reached into the tank, lifting the earth covered bone from its confinement. He received no answer from Abi, and turned his head just in time to watch the tent flaps close behind her.

“Well then, I suppose its just you and me.” he carefully carried his cargo to the large sink and began washing the dirt away with the a small, soft bristled brush. As the clods of mud and clay fell away, the ivory tone of age old bone made its appearance, but it was not alone; thin stands of a pinkish material clung tightly to the textured surface. Toby raised and eyebrow in surprise as he leaned closer to the bone, in order to get a better look. Strands of sinue and muscle were commonly found on corpses that had been in the ground for short periods of time, but the indentation on the bone alone claimed that it been in the ground for longer, a lot younger.

“Jesus” He breathed to himself, scarcely able to believe his eyes.

Finishing the clean, he placed the bone back into it's tank, filling it to the brim with formaldehyde.

Abigail was knelt beside one of her first year students in the courtyard when Toby caught up with her.

“What's up with you? Did the jaw bite you?” She asked when she took in his flustered appearance and reddened cheeks.

“It's got muscle on it.” His voice was a little shaky and he twisted his hands in the tail of his white coat. “The bone, it's got strands of muscle on it.”

Abi raised her eyebrows at him and opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off his voice insisting fervently. “I'm serious.”

“But if that bone dates the same as the pottery, it's more than a century old.”

“I know.”

“But that's not possible.”

“I know that too.”

Unable to disregard her curiosity, Abi followed Toby back into the lab tent. The bone sat in its chemical bath, exactly where Toby has left it moments before, but the bumpy exterior was clean. There were no slivers of flesh anywhere in sight. Abi raised her eyebrows at Toby as they knelt beside it once again.

“It's clean.” Her words were monotone and matter of fact.

“I … uh ...” Toby started, but closed his mouth quickly. He let his head fall forward onto the edge of the desk with a loud thunk. The movement caused the formaldehyde to slop around noisily above them. “I thought I saw it.”

“Maybe it's the heat.” She said sympathetically, squeezing his shoulder. “Have you been drinking enough water?”

He opened his eyes and gave her a long look. They had worked together for long enough now that she should know not to ask such a silly question. It was the look a teen would afford his mother after an interrogation.

“Of course.”

Abi sighed her stomach squeezing painfully as she watched the mix of emotions swirling on her friend's face. “You look a little pale, maybe you have a touch of heat exhaustion.” She smoothed a hand gently over his back soothingly. “Why don't we go back to the hotel? I was nearly done here anyway.”

Toby let a frustrated groan leave his throat as he got up started packing away the day's equipment in silence, listening to Abi as she announced the end of the day to the remaining students.

Chapter 2

In dribs and drabs the students of Abigail Tanner made their way back to their hotel, leaving the dig site carefully covered and bound up. The summer storm had become harsh, pushing it's way through the day's heat to puddle in the excavation pits and soak the archaeologists through.

George had packed up his work station and was about to join his friends when he caught the glass tank out the corner of his eye. The lid was askew and the air reeked with the bitter aroma of formaldehyde, although after his afternoon in the cave the smell barely registered. His eyes were drawn to the jaw bone they had found earlier in the day. He had overheard the conversation Abi had had with Toby, and now his own curiosity started to gnaw away at his insides. Crouching down beside the tank, he studied the artefact. His eyes grew wide in surprise and his eyebrows nearly reached his hairline when he too observed the thin strands of pink, fleshy material gripping onto the surface of the bone.

“What?” He murmured to himself. The temptation to feel the odd tissue for himself was overwhelming. Quickly and quietly he removed the tank's lid completely and drained the formaldehyde into an empty bucket that was lying near by.

Trying hard to suppress his clumsy nature, he reached into the tank and lifted the bone up to his eye level, turning it back and forth in the artificial light. Beads of the liquid chemical covered the bone's rough exterior and rolled its way off of the silky strips of muscle.

“Holy s**t.” He cursed and swallowed heavily.

A loud clap of thunder rumbled outside the lab tent. George jumped in surprise and dropped the bone. It landed on the ground with a wet splatter. A long stream of obscenities left his mouth as he scrambled to pick up the precious artefact. In his haste George managed to catch his little finger on one of the remaining canines. The ancient tooth easily sliced through both the latex of his glove and the skin of his little finger, leaving a drop of blood trickling down the digit and onto the offending tooth. He swore painfully and quickly placed the jaw back into it's glass prison. He sloshed the chemical back in and slammed on the lid before hunting around for the first aid kit.

Abi herself sat on the bed in her room, papers and graphs scattered around her. Her eyes had begun to ache and her fingers were now stained a bright yellow from a now discarded highlighter. The night had grown late and the storm still raged violently outside the window, rattling the old glass panes in their fixtures. She rubbed her aching eyes and sipped at her mug of coffee that had gone cold a long time ago. Uncurling her legs from the mattress her joints popped audibly, the bones protesting against the long awaited movement. She caught her reflection in the bedside mirror and laughed. She looked like she was a student again, her body clad in oversized snoopy pyjamas and her long chestnut hair pulled up into a messy ponytail. Even her eyes held the same deep purple bags that she had earned from staying up every night with her nose in a text book, her body running on a steady stream of coffee and strawberry pop tarts.

The shrill ringing of her mobile phone cut through her reminiscing, and she leapt towards it. The bright light of the screen pained her eyes as she struggled to read the text message from George.

'Got some data for you. Will bring it up to you in 10.'

Dropping the phone onto her bed, Abi scrubbed her hands across her face and attempted to make herself more presentable, even if it was only George.

The knock at her door made her jump and laughing at her own reaction she opened the door. The sight before her made her gasp. George's skin was waxy and pale, the hue of gone off milk and his lips were chapped and flaking. His normally large body looked so small as his back and shoulders creased with the effort of holding himself up.

“George, what's the matter? Do I need to call you a doctor?” She asked, her voice full of worry. She placed a hand on the exposed flesh of his forearm, but quickly drew it back as if his skin had caused her harm. “George, you're freezing.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but no words escaped his throat, only a croaking gurgle.