From: jpg@bnr.co.uk (Jonathan P. Gibbons)
Newsgroups: alt.prose
Subject: new age travellers
Date: 26 Aug 92 14:13:59 GMT
Distribution: alt
Organization: BNR Europe Ltd, London Rd, Harlow, Essex, CM19 9NA, U.K.


"Do we want him too?  We have the girl," the rest was whispered and
he missed it.  Robert cursed these wretched caves, but silently.  To
tell them where he was could mean the end for him.  Obviously they
had got Jane and were going to do something to her.  He hoped it wouldn't be
rape or worse, maybe a game?  He tried to fool himself but knew that he didn't
really care.

They had come down early in the morning to see the cave paintings.  Just
tourists doing the rounds and now he was lost in a cave that went on forever.
Faint light gave vague form to the walls, it came from no where.  He
knew.  He had searched for the source.  All the while moving slowly,
carefully and above all silently; avoiding the whispering that had somehow 
taken Jane while she was at his side only minutes ago.  He was scared, he knew
he was a coward and he knew Jane meant nothing more than a casual romance.
Especially now, trapped underground and afraid.  It was not up to him
to look after her.  They hadn't slept together so he felt he owed her nothing.
Even if they had he wouldn't have felt differently.  Oh God just let
me out,  keep the whisperers away, give them Jane.  He felt his foot
touch a loose stone, felt it topple and heard it rattle and clatter
away into the gloom.  God obviously wasn't listening.

The voices stopped, leaving the echoes of the stones short journey as
proof of his luck.  He stood still, waiting to see what they would do, when
unbelievably he heard faint music.  He couldn't place the tune but he thought
he recognised it. Repetitive and unnerving, a high pitched tune out of
an old ghost ridden music hall.

Scary, the whole damn place. Keep carm, keep walking away.  A silent litany 
to keep him safe, over and over : Keep carm, keep walking away.  Maybe they 
couldn't place the sound from that treacherous stone.  That damn music was 
getting louder. He put his hands over his ears.  No difference.  It wasn't 
loud enough to ignore hands now tightly pressed.  Yet it continued, a
weird tune weaving around him.

"Found him!," a voice, loud and shrill right by his ear.  Robert
froze.  Not that he wanted to.  He wanted to scream and rant and run
fast in the gloom.  The fear wasn't rooting him.  The music was.  A
rhythm deep within him.  Twinned with him, more a part of him than
muscle and bone.

"One each," stated another voice.  Dimly he saw a female outline
approach.  Jane he guessed.  Her bloody idea to see the paintings in
the first place.  He couldn't see anyone else.  No other outlines in
the gloom that could be talking and whispering together.

"Fine ready to go then," he felt his mouth move to form the words.
It wasn't his voice but he felt the sound leaving his throat, carried through
bone to ears tired by the whining music.

"We could torment these two a bit first," it was a question asked one
to the other.  "No, I suppose not," the voice answered itself. "Best be gone.
Lets go to Revtar, haven't been there in ages and they are almost as good as
these for travelling"

"Hmm, Revtar," the other higher voice responded.  "Yes, agreed!"  The
music stopped and the dim light vanished all together.  Silence and darkness
in the depths of the earth.  Robert wanted to laugh at such cliches.
Or better yet scream.

He had started to think they were alone, no sounds for a minute or two.  Maybe
I'll die like this, he thought.  Trapped in a body that won't obey me,
buried in a cave.  Then Janes form started to glow, lit from within.  He saw 
her face contorted in agony but heard no sound.  Her skin turned translucent,
the light shone brighter. He saw her heart beating in the cage of her ribs.  
Pulsing the light whiter and brighter until it burst out of her.  Like a sheet
of paper her skin peeled back revealing emptiness.  The light consumed her.

Then he felt it, a fire starting in his belly, arms pressing on his neck and
suddenly, impossibly inside him, pushing his wind pipe to one side.
His body convulsed and the fire grew, spreading into his chest,
pooling at his groin.  He saw the walls again, by his own light, no sign of
Jane.  It was his turn.

Jonathan
(c)1992

PS comments etc welcome
--
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  With fearsome eyes and fiery breath the dragon burnt the girl to death
                    -- from "Too Late Saint George"
Newsgroups: alt.prose