Read Online Relics by Shaun Hutson - Free Book Online

snarls from the two dogs.
    ‘You’re a bastard,’ she grunted.
    ‘Get out,’ he rasped.
    The dogs continued to bark.

 
     
     
     
Fifteen
     
    ‘What is it?’ Cooper wondered aloud.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Perry confessed, ‘but I spotted it the day we first found the skeletons.’
    Kim approached the slab of stone and touched it cautiously.
    ‘Perhaps it leads into another tunnel,’ she suggested. ‘Like the others.’
    Most of the children’s skeletons had been moved away from the slab of rock, and the three archaeologists stood within a few feet of this latest puzzle.
    ‘We’ve got to move it,’ Cooper said. ‘At least it looks much lighter than the circular circular stones at the tunnel entrances.’
    As he spoke, the lights in the roof of the tunnel flickered momentarily, dimming until the narrow passage was bathed in sickly yellow, and then glowed brightly once more. Kim stepped back as the two men moved forward to get a good grip on the stone. At a signal from Cooper they wedged their hands behind the rock and simply tipped it forward, surprised at the ease with which it was dislodged. Slivers broke off from the edges as it hit the floor of the tunnel.
    Kim picked up one of the gas lamps lying close by and held it above her head, advancing into the yawning blackness behind the slab.
    She stiffened, her body quivering almost imperceptibly as if a high voltage charge were being pumped through it. She sucked in a breath but it seemed to stick in her throat, and for terrifying seconds she found that she couldn’t breathe. The skin on her face and hands puckered into goose-pimples and a numbing chill enveloped her. A small gasp escaped her as she actually felt her hair rising, standing up like a cat’s hackles. She swayed uncertainly for a moment as the feeling seemed to spread through her whole body, through her very soul, and Kim clenched her teeth together, convinced that she was going to faint. On the verge of panic, she screwed up her eyes until white stars danced before her. Her throat felt constricted, as though some invisible hand were gradually tightening around it. Her head seemed to be swelling, expanding to enormous proportions until it seemed it must burst.
    And somewhere, perhaps in her imagination, she thought, she heard a sound. A noise which froze her blood as it throbbed in her ears.
    A distant wail of inhuman agony which rose swiftly in pitch and volume until it was transformed into something resembling malevolent laughter.
    Kim felt her legs weaken and she was suddenly aware of strong arms supporting her.
    The lamp fell from her grip and shattered.
    Voices rushed in at her from the gloom.
    ‘. . . Kim, can you hear me? . . .’
    ‘. . . What happened to her? . . .’
    ‘. . . Fainted . . .
    Everything swam before her, as if she were looking through a heat haze. Gradually, objects and faces took on a familiar clarity once more.
    ‘Kim, are you all right?’ Cooper asked, feeling the deathlike cold which seemed to have penetrated her flesh.
    ‘I must have fainted,’ she said. ‘Blacked out for a second . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
    They sat her on the ground for a moment and she rubbed a hand over the back of her neck in an effort to massage away the dull ache which had settled there. After a moment or two it began to disappear.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what happened.’ She smiled weakly, almost embarrassed at the little episode. Then, more sombrely, she asked, ‘Did you hear that noise?’
    ‘What noise?’ asked Perry.
    She opened her mouth to speak, to try to describe the keening wail, but then thought better of it. She must have imagined it, or perhaps it had been the sudden outrushing of the air inside the . . .
    Inside the what?
    What was this place anyway?
    As she regained her senses, she, like her two companions, gazed around at their latest discovery.
    ‘What the hell is this?’ murmured Perry, playing his torch beam through the gloom.
    They