49Never underestimate how uncomfortable it is to have to sleep on a plane for eight hours next to a man who snores like an elephant when all you want to do is watch Spotlight.
Sorry Randomguest 815, I don't actually live in Massachusetts, I was just holidaying there. It was pretty great, except for the sunburn.
Thus, that very next morning, Ryan and Bailey exacted their bet. If the pit story was real, Ryan paid Bailey £15. If it wasn't, Bailey paid Ryan. Jody was neutral on the matter.
However, before they could go through with it, they had to endure Mike demonstrating how to gut a fish.
"How are we gonna get out?" Jody hissed to the boys.
"Tell Mike we need to pee in the woods," Bailey muttered.
"At the same time?" Ryan whispered. "That'll look odd, and they'll get suspicious if we stay out too long."
"We'll just sneak away then," Jody sighed. "We can be fast."
When at long last, Mike allowed the kids to attempt gutting fish themselves, Ryan, Bailey and Jody used the moving crowd as a cover for their escape. Fifteen minutes later, they were trekking through the woods in search of the alleged pit.
"We might've gone too far," Jody observed, glancing at the thick woods behind them.
"Yeah, there's no pit here," Ryan said. "Let's get back, or they'll get suspicious."
Bailey pressed further on, determined not to lose £15 to his rival. "Nah, I'm not giving up just yet."
"Mike said that there was police tape around the pit," Jody recalled. "That shouldn't be too hard to find."
"Except we haven't found it," Ryan replied. "Guys, are we seriously going to search every square metre of these woods in search of this pit?"
Jody and Bailey paused and glanced at him, then at each other, before Bailey simply said, "Yep," and continued on.
Ryan rolled his eyes, but followed him reluctantly anyway. He wouldn't admit it, but these cold, isolated woods were giving him the creeps.
When yet another fifteen minutes had passed, even Jody was starting to get fed up.
"I'm bored," she moaned. "It's not worth it Bailey, let's go back."
"Just hand over the 15 quid and call it a day!" Ryan agreed, slumping hard against a young tree and sliding down the trunk in exasperation.
The bark moved down with him.
He turned and looked at the tree, standing up. To his surprise, the bark he had taken off the tree simply slid back onto it on its own.
Okay, now he was really getting creeped.
"Erm, guys," Ryan called, trying to stop his voice from betraying his fear, "I think you should see ..."
He trailed off as he turned his head to look at them, only to see that they both had looks of dread on their faces. Looking around, he saw the police tape materialising around them, in a circle roughly 10 metres in diameter.
Before any one of them could say anything, the ground under them dissolved from existence.
The first thing that Bailey was aware of when he woke up was that it was dark.
The second was that his left hand hurt. A lot.
"What's goin' on?" he mumbled out loud to no one in particular, blinking to help his eyes adjust.
It was then he realised that he was lying on the ground. He tried picking himself up, but a sharp pain shot through his left hand and arm, causing him to let out a cry of, "Ow!"
Gritting his teeth, he tried again using mostly his other hand, but realised that he had a weight on top of him.
Bailey rubbed his eyes, and realised that he was in an almost pitch black chamber, and with a twist of his head, he saw that it was Ryan lying on top of him, unconscious.
Bailey shifted himself out from under Ryan slowly, trying to make sure that the younger boy didn't get hurt.
"Bailey, Ryan, can you hear me?" said Jody's voice suddenly.
Bailey glanced around and saw a dark shape squirming around a few feet away. It was Jody.
"I'm okay, mostly," Bailey answered. "I think I've busted my hand though."
Jody crawled closer, getting out her phone and shining the torch at Bailey, seeing Ryan slumped by him. Bailey rubbed his injured wrist absently.
"Let me see that," Jody offered, moving closer with her phone torch and shining it on his wrist. Even on Bailey's dark skin, the bruising and inflammation was visible.
"You probably sprained it in the fall," Jody said. "Wait - the fall!"
Bailey looked up - there was a small chink of light, the size of a postcard, above them. How far had they fallen?
"HEY, IS THERE ANYONE UP THERE?!" Jody yelled as loud as she could, hoping that she would be heard by anyone who'd decided to go exploring. "WE'RE STUCK DOWN IN THE PIT!"
There was nothing by means of response - apart from waking Ryan up.
"Shut up," he mumbled.
"Ryan!" Jody ran over to him and shook him by the shoulders. "Wake up, and start yelling! They need to hear us!"
"Good luck with that," Ryan muttered, still not fully awake. "The hole is closing up!"
"Don't be stu-" Bailey was cut off when he looked up and saw the patch of light darkening away before his eyes, shrouding them all in darkness, the only light being provided by Jody's torch.
Their eyes stayed fixed on the spot above them where the light used to be, before Bailey turned to Ryan and said, "Looks like you owe me 15 quid."
"I think that's the least of our worries right now," Jody commented. "How the hell did this pit open up out of nowhere?"
Ryan said, "When I slid down that tree, the bark moved down the trunk with me, and then slid back on by itself."
"So you triggered it?!" Bailey realised. "Great, so this is all your fault."
Ryan blinked, sitting up properly. "My fault?! Who's brilliant idea was it to go looking for this pit in the first place?!"
"Guys!" Jody interrupted. "Blaming each other won't get us out of this pit."
Ryan rolled his eyes. "Pass me your phone," he said to Jody.
Jody handed it to him, Ryan stood up and shone it upwards.
The walls of the pit were nothing but steep, dirty rock - no means to be found of climbing out. The spot where they had apparently fallen from was closed over, with what looked like a slab of straight up dirt in its place.
"Shit," Ryan muttered.
Jody blinked. "Wait - give it back!"
Ryan did. Jody shone the torch around and saw a long dark tunnel just a few feet away from them.
"Let's go," Bailey decided.
"No!" Ryan protested. "You don't know what could be down there!"
"Still, I'm not staying still here," Jody retorted. "There might be a way out! It's either that or we all die down here!"
Ryan sighed. "Fine, just don't say I didn't warn you."
The three children set off tentatively down the tunnel, all three of them constantly on guard. The ground crunched under their feet as they tread.
"Stop," Bailey said suddenly. He was looking intently at the ground. Jody and Ryan followed his gaze.
Beneath their feet, partially buried by the earth and stones, was some wood. It was old, splintery and rotting in places, but they found it was attached in rows to two parallel cast iron tracks.
"It's a train track," Ryan observed, his brown eyes wide.
"Why would there be a railway tunnel down here?" Jody asked.
"An underground train could use these tracks," Bailey theorised. "Maybe they still do."
"Not likely." Ryan shook his head. "See how old the track is? All rotten and broken? No, trains haven't run on these tracks for a long, long time."
"Wait," Jody realised. "What did Mike say about the people who came here again?"
Ryan frowned, trying to recall Mike's words that night at the campfire. "I think he said ... that some people who come here never return, but others have lost limbs, some have been utterly physically and mentally disabled, and some have gotten PTSD ..." Ryan trailed off, his eyes widening as it dawned on him exactly what they had gotten themselves into.
"Oh God," Ryan let out, his chest tightening.
"Ryan, you okay?" Jody asked, noticing the boy's sudden pallor.
Damn it Ryan! Ryan screamed in his head. Now they're gonna know!
The knowledge of this did nothing to help Ryan's current state of panic. He couldn't breathe, his chest hurt, his face was sweating, he felt hot and cold at the same time, his whole body was shaking violently and overall, he didn't have a shadow of a doubt in his mind that holy crap I'm gonna die we're all gonna die oh God I'm actually gonna die down here-
"Ryan!" His train of thought was interrupted by Jody's voice, but he couldn't grasp onto her, and instead found himself groping blindly for the tunnel wall, trying to stop his legs from giving out.
"Come on Ryan!" Jody urged, trying to support him by holding his arm, though she couldn't help being slightly taken aback herself by what was happening. Out of all people, she thought, Ryan would be the least likely to have a panic attack. "Just focus on the sound of my voice, and breathe."
It was an agonisingly long 15 minutes they spent stationary in the tunnel, as Ryan did his level best to get a grip on himself again. But finally the panic attack passed, and Ryan was left slumped and panting against the cavernous wall, the perspiration on his face glinting in the torch light.
"What's wrong?" Jody raised an eyebrow, peering at Ryan.
Ryan couldn't respond for a while, he was catching his breath.
"Well it's obvious isn't it?!" sneered Bailey. "He's just had a panic attack, you nitwit!"
"I know that," Jody growled, "only, why did he have it?"
Ryan's head just sagged until his chin rested on his chest, his breathing still ragged.
"I'd rather not talk about it," he whispered, his voice almost imperceptible.
He felt like a mess. Not only did he have a panic attack in front of Bailey and Jody, but the two halves of himself were at war with each other.
His rational mind said that the panic attack was not his fault and therefore he shouldn't be ashamed of having it, but the more prevalent portion of his being - the one that valued pride and image above most other things - was still beating himself over about this display of weakness. Pathetic ... you can't keep your damn emotions under control, because you didn't have your meds just once!
Stop it! Shouted his rational mind. If you miss a dose of a benzo, the panic attacks come back stronger! Everyone on benzos knows that!
"I won't judge, I promise," Jody persisted. Ryan couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye.
"Come on, just leave that," Bailey urged. "We've got bigger worries."
Jody seemed reluctant to leave the issue of Ryan's panic attack alone, but she eventually complied when Ryan gestured that he was okay with them moving forward.
He pulled himself off the floor and they trekked on through the railway tunnel.