Read Online Lost at Running Brook Trail by Sheryl A. Keen - Free Book Online Page B

would see any danger before the danger could get to them. The orange and blue flame on the lighter danced up, the darkness melted a little and their eyes adjusted somewhat to the dim light. Miriam slipped the Storm into one of her army-green cargo pants pockets and turned on the iPod for added light.
    “ Oh crap!” Miriam jumped.
    “What is it?”
    “I thought I saw something move.” Miriam held the iPod higher and moved it around to get a better look.
    “It’s just our shadows on the walls. It’s hard for our eyes to adjust to what’s real and what’s not.”
    “Great, I’m jumping from my own self.”
    The first things they saw were icicle-like cones that jutted out of the ceiling. They complemented the strange, twisted rock formations that surrounded them.
    The calm was broken by a steady drip of water that sounded like coffee seeping through a filter into a full pot.
    “Hear that?” Miriam asked.
    “Yes, it sounds like water dripping somewhere in the distance.”
    “I think that’s how these stalactites over our heads started,” Elaine said, “the dripping water.”
    “They’re going to freak Susan out, the stalactites and the dripping. It’s the perfect storm.” Miriam looked at the rock icicles and wondered how long they took to form.
    “It doesn’t take much for that to happen with her.” Elaine allowed the flame to go out for a second, which left only the small light of the iPod.
    “What happened?”
    “The flame was a little too close to my thumb.”
    Elaine turned the lighter on again and tried to take a closer stock of their surroundings. As they got closer to the walls, their eyes barely made out more faded carvings and pictures. In a few more years, maybe all of them would be destroyed by water. It was only a matter of time. There were more moose, people dancing, teepees and an oversized picture of a deer that seemed to take up the entire area. A dancing human figure, its hands resembling claws, had a head that sprouted the sensory appendages that insects might have.
    “Eww,” Miriam said, “gross. Protruding icicles and strange insect humans. She’s really going to lose it.”
    The antennae were not just the normal ones seen on insects. There was something abstract and confusing about their arrangements, because they were twisted into a whirlwind of disorder. It was like a ball of yarn that had unraveled but had not come back together in the same way.
    “We’re either going to tell her what’s in here before she comes in so she’s prepared, or we’re going to have to try and hide everything from her .” Elaine moved deeper into the cave and looked to see where it ended. “Frankly, I think we should just tell her; it’s no good for her to be in the dark about things, and we’ll never be able to steer her away from everything.”
    “I don’t know,” Miriam said. “She freaked out about things she saw on the outside. What’s she going to do when we tell her about the stuff on the inside? I don’t know which is better. If she sees, she freaks; if she imagines, she freaks.”
    “That’s why we should just tell her. It’s better for her to get hysterical about something real than something imagined. Or we could just leave her to discover things on her own. It’s totally scary being in a place like this, just the four of us, but Susan is either in total despair about something or she doesn’t want to take action. We could stay outside all night without finding a place to sleep, and that would be all right with her. It’s true that something could be in here, but there are a lot more things out there.”
    It wasn’t a very large cave. They had walked in under the arch in only a slight crouch, which had led them to believe it was roomier on the inside. It was about three midsized rooms put together. The wall at the back wasn’t fully closed in. Small gaps in the wall seemed to lead to narrow openings.
    “Where do you suppose those lead to?” Miriam asked.
    “Maybe